Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger have written a book called "Simple Church" that deals with the overloading of churches with programs.
I was bothered (in a good way) as I came to the end of this book. The author’s have a section entitled “change or die”. 600,000 people have heart bypasses a year in America. They are told that they MUST change their lifestyles. Their bypass is a temporary fix. Diet, smoking, drinking must quit and be replaced with exercise and reduced stress. Literally they are told, “change or die”. Studies show that 2 years after heart surgery, 90% of the heart patients do not change. Instead of making changes for life, they choose death.
In ministry I deal with many who come to God, receive the Holy Ghost (bypass?) get baptized and fail to understand that they must "change or die".
The empowering of the Holy Ghost is to help them eliminate destructive carnal drives that pull them inthe opposite direction from where God is trying to take them.
Yet even faced with losing our relationship with God, we resist change and sometimes chose death instead.
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Hey Pastor Flowers! I have not been on the website in a long time. I was surprised to see that you have added your own Blogs. I was reading through some of them and "change or die" caught my eye. I am one of the many who has received the Holy Ghost, have been baptized and have failed to change all my ways. Every time I hear your preachings I feel inspired to get back on the right path of life. At times I feel that I am dead inside because I have not followed though with the change that comes with the blessing of being born again. Thanks for you and Sister Flowers for always being there for me.
Love,
Charmaine O'Farrell
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