"Preaching to The Choir"

For the most part, I am preaching to the proverbial choir. It’s not that I don’t want those outside of the choir to hear what I have to say it’s because, quite frankly, they don’t have ears to hear. I’m not trying to persuade them, convince them or convict them because it rarely works. For the most part they scoff, become defensive or conveniently ignore what’s being said. In most cases they will simply dig their heels in deeper and harden their hearts further. They are either clueless, ambivalent or hostile to what the watchmen on the wall are saying. Either that or they are too heavily invested in their church, their circle of friends or their ministry to change. That’s why I don’t preach to the church masses anymore. They just don’t get it, can’t get it and won’t get it.

I write to those who can hear. I write to encourage them, comfort them, exhort them and reaffirm them in what they also have been hearing from the Spirit of God. I write to those who have come out of all the man-made nonsense that has saturated the church and no longer buy into the party-line. I write to those who have faced the same rejection, scorn and judgement of fellow believers because of the stand they have taken and the changes they are making. I write to those who have struggled for a long time to reach the spiritual conclusions that we now embrace - And I am writing to those who feel alone, abandoned and ostracized because of those hard-won conclusions.

Unlike Elijah, I know that I am not alone and that there are many scattered throughout the earth who feel the same way. Like me they have also weathered many seasons of nagging questions, uncertainties and what they have come to see as persistent discrepancies between what they are now hearing and seeing from what they had bought into and accepted in the past. It is to this company of believers that I write. It is this remnant that will hear.

The message I speak is a message that has seldom been embraced or respected. That message is not appealing, convenient or easy on the flesh. It speaks of radical change, repentance, correction, exhortation, sacrifice, devotion and judgment. It challenges the status-quo, man-made traditions, popular opinions and sacred cows so revered by the contemporary church. Our present world has unlimited tolerance for just about everything except when it comes to God calling His people to accountability, authenticity and change. It is a message that calls God’s people to separate themselves from the religious nonsense that surrounds them and the seductive spirit of compromise. It is a message the choir gets. It is a message that has been repeated by for quite a while and those that don’t get it by now probably never will.