The Manifestation of Christianity

I Cor.2:4-5 - And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of men’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

There is much, much talk today in Christian circles. It comes in volumes through books, radio, television, blogs, preaching, teaching, and many other forms of media meant to provide a platform for…talk. Yes, talk is at a low premium today both in secular genres and in Christian formats as well. The brain thinks, it then sends the communication of that thought to specific muscles and nerve endings, resulting in forced air coming from the lungs and vibrating chords in the larynx, finally escaping through the mouth and contoured by the lips, volume, and a general manipulation of the sound waves to create…you guessed it…talk. Most everyone can talk, so it is of no great consequence to hear someone talk and even in evangelical spheres almost anyone with a voice box can and does talk for God.

But as they say, talk is cheap because it usually doesn’t take anything more than wind. People talk who do not believe what they are saying and people talk about things about which they are generally ignorant of and many times are regurgitating something they have been taught by some else’s…talk. So like grabbing a baton, one person listens to another talk and emulates his words if not indeed his style. Some talkers eventually garner a following because of the creativity and stylistic components in the way they talk. Many people are saying the same things and yet some rise to popularity while others saying the same things talk to much smaller crowds of talk receivers. This is due to both tangible and intangible elements.

Now come and sit in the imaginary bleachers with me and let us watch as millions of professing Christians hop in their cars and drive to a building that usually is in debt, and they sit and listen to talk. Some preachers talk verbatim from a copied talk of someone else; some talk from a script they have created by reading or listening to another’s talk; while others have constructed a logical thought process from the Scriptures and it now comes forth as…talk. So in essence we have become followers of talk about Jesus. Read again the verses above and see that Paul did not just talk, he through Christ manifested the works of the Savior.

Some of those works were helping the poor, some were enduring suffering and persecution, some were just supernatural manifestations of God’s love. But some were dramatic and powerful manifestations of God’s power which were not meant to exalt the Apostle Paul, but were used of the Spirit to allow sinners and saints alike to experience the presence and power of the Great God they claim to know and follow. The gospel spread like wild fire across the greater Mediterranean world on the wings of the demonstration of God’s power in gracious suffering, persecution with forgiveness, and many different revelations of the miraculous power of Jehovah Shammah, the God who is here.

To be sure the gospel was preached and lives were changed and believers were birthed, but this gospel was preached not with 40 minute talks followed by a return to unaffected normalcy, this gospel captured attention by the sheer power that was demonstrated by the lives that spoke this message of the kingdom. With no man made lighting, no spectacular sound systems, no nicely coiffed men dressed in cultural splendor, and with no visual electronic screens meant to enhance their talk, these pitiful but powerful followers of the Risen Christ carried the tangible demonstration of resurrection power in the cities into which they were led. They were divine conduits of redemption by much more than just…talk.

I realize the church has over the years given the written Word of God a primal place in the proclamation of God’s gospel, but is has now atrophied into a poor excuse for the powerlessness of God’s body on the earth and basically reduced us to a series of talks. To be sure the visible sacrifice of Christian workers who have heard the Spirit’s call is more than just talk, as is the thousands of missionaries who have left everything and serve in the uttermost parts of the earth this very day. These are more than just talk. But does God require of them and does God exhibit his power through them and not the church as a whole? Do we just continue to talk and listen to talk mostly void of the supernatural manifestations that authenticate that the words are spoken in the presence and approval of Almighty God?

I am not “talking” about the contrived pony shows that perpetrate counterfeit spiritual theatrics but have no value in the eternal gospel. I do not speak of the money making schemes and the blasphemous talk that creates an atmosphere of suggestion that God is speaking, and then financially rapes the listeners to line the pockets of ravenous wolves. I do not speak of the new movements that suppose that aspects of the eastern religions will provide a newness and interest in the easily bored western Christian church. But I also am not “talking” about the redundant trail of listeners that sit in air conditioned auditoriums and listen to their favorite teacher/talker and leave with a feeling of contentment with both the fulfilling of a religious obligation as well as leaving content with just hearing the Word as they have every week with no real manifested reality, especially in light of the narratives of Acts.

Let us be frank with ourselves, we do a lot of talking with very little manifested reality of that which we say we believe. We say we believe people who die without Jesus go to hell for eternity, and yet our witness is anemic and so void of passion and urgency. We spend more on our dogs than on missions. We say we believe God answers prayer and yet the lights in the church building are not lit during the week nights for praying believers to come and petition God for His power. We say we believe God provides for His people and yet we borrow obscene amounts of money from the world’s institutions. The world looks for something that manifests a reality different than their own, but all they see from God’s church is a paltry political agenda that mirrors those who espouse no God at all.

Have we not come to the end of ourselves? Is it not time to sow in righteousness and tears and lay prostrate in prayer and repentance before our Risen Lord until He rains His power again upon His church? Why could Elijah call down fire from heaven in an open rebuke of Baal’s false prophets and all we have is…talk? When the lights go out in our house and all the power goes dead, do we not run to the electoral box to find the problem? Do we not call the power company and report an outage and expect them to come quickly and return the power to us? Don’t we have perishables that may soil with refrigeration? How can we bathe without hot water? Yes, we realize the long term implications of living with no power in the natural, but we have settled into a powerless Christianity that operates by organization, financial cooperation, and a business like structure in the church usually held together by…talk.

Where is the supernatural love of God that should be coursing through the church and flowing to a dark and needy world? Where is the grace that so extends to sinners that their attention is aroused as they suddenly realize there is hope for the vilest among us. Where are the demonstrations of the Spirit that cannot be explained by the machinations of men? And where are the lives that are so dramatically changed by God’s power that the light they give off cannot be ignored? Where is the manifested reality of the Risen Christ that we, by our talk, portend lives inside us?

Who would go and hear a man give a talk about how strong he is without him ever manifesting that strength? You might go once, even twice, but soon you would grow weary of hearing such talk without any authentic proof. The testimony of Christian martyrs have been used of God to bring many into the kingdom, and yet in today’s church most refuse to abide quietly and with grace even the slightest inconvenience or persecution. Our defense is talk and our offense is talk, rarely do we see a manifested reality of the power of Christlike silence. We can very eloquently expound the doctrines of imputed righteousness, salvation by grace, the indwelling of God’s Spirit, and many other Biblical truths that are quite at home in our systematic theologies but rarely escape to be powerfully displayed individually or corporately by Christ’s church.

Thousands of evangelical churches exist in almost every fifty mile radius in America, but why so little urgent displays of Christ’s reality? Why are there not many street corners filled with people holding signs that speak of God’s good news? Why aren’t the poor in our cities inundated by the passion of God’s people reaching their needs? Why don’t the hospitals find it necessary to limit the hundreds of believers that desire to visit and pray for the sick? Why do old people in nursing homes go without visitors who come with God’s love? Why do most churches have no active ministry to the city’s widows? Ministry to the city’s single parent homes?

Of course there is much room for teaching, and some talk is more beneficial that others. But what do we do when others talk untruth and error? Oh, we…uh…talk. Usually among ourselves as to how bad that other talk is. Special prayer meetings? Solemn assemblies? Fastings? Weepings? Oh no, just talk. Maybe a little louder or a little more caustic, but still just talk. And neither side has much of any demonstration of the Spirit with which to authenticate the truth we espouse, we are usually reduced to a “he said - he said” type of battle about which the world knows nothing. But our brother James assures us that faith talk without deeds is useless, and in fact he uses feeding the hungry as an example.

The world seems to see nothing more than talk from the church. They do not see a manifested reality of the Living Christ, one that unexplainably draws them to us and our God. These sinners hear us talk about them, but do they see us love them? They see us go to church on Sunday, but do they see us be the church in our neighborhoods when we return? Can we live a decade in the same neighborhood without much notice? And even when they come to our church gathering on Sunday, do they see the demonstrable power of the Spirit of God or do they see a well organized, well scripted mini-pageant centered around a mini-talk by a well spoken man? Where is the Lord God of Elijah?

The western church is not yet desperately hungry for a fresh revelation of what it means to be a surrendered follower of Jesus Christ. We have created our own comfortable definition of what it means to be a Christian, many times completely centered on belief talk, but without much concentration on being a revelation of Jesus Christ through acts of love, acts of power, and acts of selflessness amidst those who need to see in our lives what they hear from our lips. I fear we are captives of our own talk, and we now glory in that talk which has become centered around the doctrines, albeit true, that do not require revelatory deeds. Written talk reinforces what we already know, and a mature disciple is considered one who has learned to talk accurately about what he or she believes.

So on one corner of the street Christians meet to see an entertaining performance meant to teach some truth or principle, while on the other corner Christians meet to hear a doctrinal rehearsal about what they probably already know. And so many times the different spectrums of service structures do not challenge our lifestyles with a direct and inescapable direction from the Spirit. Any residual effects of the service dissipate before we reach the parking lot. We have heard the talk and remain basically unchanged. Sure there are personal moves of the Spirit, but can we as the church collectively profess to a consuming and unquenchable desire to see and be a part of a move of God’s Spirit that will reach those for whom Christ died with a pattern of supernatural deeds and demonstrations that cannot be dismissed as a program?

So there is much talk that goes beyond teaching, it has become a redundant outlet for the church’s compulsion to share our opinion with ourselves and call it following Christ.

Is it not time for us as the followers of Christ to do less talking and more demonstrating the person, presence, and power of Jesus the Christ?