Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
8/4/2021
Storms Approaching – Are you really a Christian?
The intensity of the storm isn’t always visible at its birth. In December 2004, sailors didn’t say or didn’t pay attention to the small waves on the surface of the water. 1-foot swells were barely perceptible in the enormous Indian Ocean but as they reached the shallow coastlines the sea unleashed 50-foot waves killing about 200,000 people. It was estimated that it was the equivalent of 23,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs. What started as a 1-foot wave grew to become one of the deadliest natural disasters in history
I believe followers of Jesus in America are on the cusp of something horrible too. You can see the early warning signs all around. The lights of those cities disappeared into the night. The once vibrant lit cities were gone. That could be a perfect metaphor for what is happening in the Christian church today. Is the light of Jesus that we are to shine before people growing dark?
There’s another kind of storm cutting us off from our power source?
Are we paying attention?
We are not as big as we think.
A quick Google search will reveal some surprising statistics about Christians in America. For example, one website says that 246 million people, 79.5% of the population in the US are Christians. Is it true or a bogus number? If nearly 80% of the population were Christian, wouldn’t we see the effects of that in our culture?
Wow, are eight out of 10 people in your school, office, or community Bible-believing church-going followers of Jesus? That certainly isn’t the case where I live.
In the book “ The Great Evangelical Recession, John S. Dickerson points out that the vast majority of those claiming to be Christians rarely attend any church, nor do they trust in Christ alone for their salvation, nor do they value God‘s word as the only rule for faith and practice.
Many people who claim to be Christian, don’t value the Bible as God’s word. They maintain there are multiple ways to receive salvation and Jesus is just one of those.
To get an accurate count of Bible-believing Christians in America he looked at four studies by four different researchers who had four different motivations and used four different methodologies to calculate the number. Their unanimous conclusion was that the actual number of evangelical Christians is shockingly between 7 to 8.9% of the US population, not 40%, and certainly not 70%. That’s right, only 7 to 8.9% of America.
The truth is that the number of real believers in Jesus is in a massive decline and that the decline is happening much more rapidly than we had thought. While many boasts of America being a Christian nation, this research says it’s fewer than 1 out of 10. And it gets worse. He predicts that within 30 years the number of evangelical Christians will drop to one in every 25 Americans. These numbers are a clear warning that the lights are going out.
God said he would spare Sodom and Gomorrah if they could find just 10 people who feared God. The influences of society are radical and have already become violent to those who profess their faith in Jesus. It has become easier to remain silent in the face of, " in your face" verbal attacks about what they call our judgmental attitudes and unwillingness to accept WHATEVER someone else believes while they attempt to change the cultural landscape.
I would like to dig into this storm that is taking America’s Christian light. Faith Talk doesn’t get it! "God is in Control", "God is Good All the Time" "God is on the throne" Icing but no cake. This will not go away. You cannot hide in your little world because the wave will pull you out to sea if you are not leaning on His everlasting arms. If you are not trusting solely in the power of the Holy Spirit. We cannot do this without Him.
Would you stop and pray for one hour this week with us and for your family that you would be that light. A bright light shining on Jesus himself in your family’s life and the lives of those around you.
Would you also pray for my 95-year-old Mom, Adele, who took another dive in her oxygen level down to 70%. (normal is 85 to 100). We don’t know why these breathing crashes are happening. (She is very weak) Please pray that we can discover this and bring her back to the brilliant health of her heart and soul in proclaiming Jesus as the only way to everyone she meets.
Graves Into Gardens (Lyrics) – Elevation Worship ft. Brandon Lake
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTvv-9zosPs
Excerpts are taken from Jim Cymbala’s book Strong through the Storm
