The Body of Christ has been able to believe God for healing and divine health. We have heard great testimonies of how the Lord has healed incurable diseases and “fixed” physical problems that could not be “fixed”. And there is no problem there! We believe the Lord for more healings and miraculous recoveries.
The blessing of walking in divine health is tremendous, and we trust that more of the Children of the King would walk in that health… For it is by HIS stripes that we WERE healed (I Peter 2:24)
We have also learned the “secrets” of prosperity. We celebrate those who have become rich, in their financial picture, and we spend much time and money learning how to be like them.
This is where people really want to fight you! Let me make it clear, I Do Not believe that being “poor” is the way to “make heaven your home”. But, I also have a problem when I hear that people are “not close to the Lord” because they have financial difficulties. If that was the case, according to the Word of God, Paul was close to the Lord sometimes and in sin other times and he was happy either way (Philippians 4:11-13).
Understand me, I am not calling for a vow of poverty but we have left people “on the side of the road” who have a spiritual gift to impart to us and have embraced people who are in the flesh because we failed to heed the Word Of God, when He tells us to “turn away” (I Timothy 6:1-12).
But again, this is not my point.
What it boils down to is this. If we can believe the Lord for healing and deliverance, why do we not go to where the healing and deliverance are needed… the inner city. Too many of our “healing” revivals, our “fire” meetings and the other “power” meetings are held in the “burbs”, where we “powerful and anointed” Christians don’t have to be “worried”.
Aren’t we “too blessed to be stressed”? What’s there to worry about?
We have taken our homes, cash and Churches to the “burbs” and say it is because God wants us to have something better. OK! But if we want to break the “curse of poverty”, why do we not attack it where is lives, the inner cities of America.
I am not asking you to give up your stuff. I am not asking you to move from the “burbs”, because the people in suburban America need Jesus too! But HIS power and presence needs to be experienced everywhere.
For years people have said that we drive past thousands of lost people to go to church buildings with a few. We spend millions of dollars on buildings and fixtures, when thousands of dollars of literature and our time could change a city.
Jesus invested HIS greatest “treasure” in people. Then HE told us to do the same thing as He left this earth physically. I know we get tired of hearing it, but read the complete thought of the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 16:15-18; Acts 1:4-5, 7-8).
With the thousands that attend our “mega churches”, we must admit that a few hundred, well placed drug dealers, pimps, crooked preachers, etc have managed to do a better job “evangelizing” the inner city than we have.
All that we have managed to do it to move “troops” from several small locations to one big location. We call that “growth”. That’s not growth, that’s consolidation.
Please hear my heart! I’m not against you! I am pleading with you to place your prayer, strength, presence and resources, as the Lord directs you, to help win the cities back to the Lord. Jesus gave a command to HIS Church, through a parable, “Occupy till I come”. This word “occupy” is a term meaning to take and possess. It is the word that is used in a military operation that says, what used to belong to the enemy, we are taking it as our own.
One more thing, this does not give a “free pass” to the churches that are in the inner city. We allow sin to flourish all around us, as we do less and less. We have our “money swaps” (you bring money to me for my event and I’ll bring money to you for your event). Very few seem to have an event to reach the lost.
We don’t need another seminar or convention held in a luxury hotel. We need Saints of God to invest themselves in reaching the lost… before it’s to late!