Work in Progress

For my Church History class one of our assignments is a reading project where we’ve to read 850 pages of… you guessed it… church history. Amazingly, we’re allowed to read biographies and so true to my passions I grabbed a couple of biographies from the library which I’m working my way through. I have to say, yesterday didn’t feel like schoolwork! I arrived at the library at 9am and stayed there reading until I finished the book… The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evengelicalism by Harry S. Stout.

George Whitefield’s biography is on the unusual side for the biographies I’ve been reading of the Great Men of faith. It didn’t contain the usual elements that I have come to anticipate in the lives of these great men. In place of a fervent prayer life and passion for the Word of God, I read about a man who preached multiple times a day everyday for most of his life. The key to his success, aside from God moving in him, was in his Dramatic sermons in which his style was compared to the leading stage actors of his day.

However, in place of a deep relationship with the Lord was an egocentric drive for success, and a joy in exploiting any disagreements in the form of persecution.

I would be extremely blessed to have as great an impact on the lives of people for the sake of Christ, but O how I long that after my death people would remember me by a profound relationship with God and not for the skills I use or the ministries I work in. There is no question that this man was used by God to touch the lives of many and to heavily influence how Christianity would operate in the Western World.

I long to finish up life, like Whitefield, still going strong. He would not allow health or circumstances to waylay him from what he was called to do… He gave his life entirely to God… He even preached and exhorted from his death bed after another routine day of sharing God’s message with the world. Father, how much my heart yearns to live out my calling with such persistence.

One quote in particularly sent my mind racing. In it he comments on the stagnant state of the church:

I am persuaded the generality of preachers talk of an unknown and unfelt Christ. The reason why congregations have been so dead is because they have dead men preaching to them… How can dead men beget living children? (p131)

The church in Scotland is in a bad way! By God’s grace, he is sending people to our country, and raising up people within our country who are modeling the glory of Christ to the people of my nation, but I can’t help but draw a connection between Whitefield’s words and the state of Scottish Christianity.

I have spoken with Scottish pastor’s who question the authority of the Bible and the existence of God. I have seen ministers who preach as if Jesus is a faint memory of someone they maybe knew once. I have met with and heard stories of church leaders who are spiritually stagnant, in decline, and evidently not walking with Christ. It is little wonder that the church is in such a state. We are moved by people’s emotions. We strive for love. We desire answers and the church has been led by people who have allowed it to be perceived as irrelevant, loveless and lifeless.

I praise God for the Christian Leaders in Scotland who do love God. They are the ones who make it a priority to spend time in the Word outside of writing their sermon. They are they ones who spend time in prayer over and above the daily requests of their vocation. They are the ones who are discontent with the immorality in Scotland and willing to make sacrifices to help that to change. I praise God that He is drawing missionaries to revive my country, and raising up passionate Scots to live in obedience.

I am called by God, to serve God. My calling gives me hope for the people of Scotland… that God is still working in our country, and that He will continue to rescue people from the lies the Evil One has enslaved them too. Don’t be fooled!

Are you ready for the work He’s calling you to?