How Much Pumpkin Pie Did You Eat

How many of you had pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving?  How many pieces did you have?  How big were the pieces? When you cut up the pie, how pieces did you cut it up into? 6? 8? 12? 168? ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY EIGHT?  You can't cut them that small and why would I want to?  Let's pretend we could and did. Let's eat just one.  We're on a diet. Shucks, they're small, let’s splurge and have two pieces!  Are you satisfied now?

Why have I chosen to cut my pie into 168 pieces.  What is the significance of 168?  168 represents the hours in a week.  Each piece represents one hour of your week.  That is the hour, or two; if you splurged, that you spent in church last Sunday.  It represents the time your kids spent in Sunday school last week.  It represents the time that 20% of Americans spend in church, meaning 80% don’t spend one hour in church.  Before I go on, I want to make clear that spending time in church does not make you a Christian.  I am sure that there are going to many “church goers” in hell.  Why do I say this?  Because Jesus said:

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'

A 2012 Gallup poll found that 77% of Americans identify as Christians; but only 20% regularly attend church. 

Why do I bring this up?  Well, for one thing, I hear many Christians decry Obama, yet we are the reason he was elected, according to Franklin Graham.  In a 2012 CNN interview, Tom Brody asked Franklin, “What do you say to folks who are wondering what just happened, and it looks like they feel a semi hit them?”  Graham responded that based on statistics, the majority of Christians did not vote.  

Further, a Pew poll showed that even when they did vote, 42% of the Protestants, 50% of the Catholics and 69% of the Jewish voters, voted for Obama.  About half of Judeo-Christian voters supported a man who supported late term abortion, the most extreme form of abortion, killing babies that could live on their own outside the womb.  All abortion is murder!  Late term abortion is the worst kind!

How have we gotten to this point?  We, the Body of Christ, are to blame!  I am not even talking to the 77% who identify as Christians or the 20% that go to church every Sunday, I am talking about “true Christians”.  The vast majority of the children in the Body of Christ go to school where God is not just denied but blasphemed.  Our kids are taught that evolution is fact!  Global warming is fact!  Homosexuality is normal!  Homosexuality is inherited!  Fetus’ are just globs of tissue, like a wart!  They can not pray!  The Bible is made fun of!  God is mocked!  AND WE ARE SURPRISED!  Are we idiots?  Paul told the Galatians: 

God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth , that shall he also reap .

We are reaping what we sowed.  The teachers have much more time with our kids than the church does.  They have more credibility.  The church, today, has become irrelevant.  We spend more money on brick and mortar than people.  Our children see the hypocrisy in us.  We say we believe in God; but don’t act like it.  We play church.  We say that the Word of God is powerful and sharper than a two edged sword; but we ignore it.  The typical sermon today has less than five minutes of scripture reading in it.  We value men’s word over God’s Word.  God promised;

My word that comes from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please, and will prosper in what I send it to do.

We wear WWJD (what would Jesus do) bracelets, but ignore His commands.  We ignore the sick and broken hearted and cater to wealthy.  We drink our expressos and cappuccinos, and deny a bottle of water those caught in the web of alcoholism and drug addiction.  We are like the the priest and Levite who passed by the beaten traveler.  We sit in air conditioned pews with large screen high definition sight and sound, while the poor are pushed aside to the cramped seedy building that is on the other side of the tracks and fed with food left over from the store.  We spend 60 seconds in prayer on Sunday morning and ignore the prayer needs of the sick.  We  spend more time on announcements and taking the offering than we do in prayer for the sick!  Do our kids see us pray in faith over the sick?  Do they see us lay hands on the sick?  How many people don’t even want to touch those stuck in the oppression of the demons of alcohol and drug addiction.  When is the last time our kids saw us wrap out arm around one of these broken ones?  When is the last time our kids saw us pray with one of these broken ones?  When have we rejoiced over one of these broken ones who has come back to the fold?  Jesus touched the poor, the sick, the lame, the blind, the demon possessed.  He embraced the noisy children.  They saw Him lay hands on the sick.  The children saw the same from the disciples, the seventy and the deacons (Stephen) for those of you who think that these gifts were restricted to the twelve.  He did not send out an email prayer list and He would not if He were walking among us today.

Our children having become what we have and are "modeling" in our churches.