We don’t need more of ourselves. We’ve tried that and it hasn’t accomplished anything but heartache.
We need God.
We don’t need more books about God. How many more books can be written about God that says something nobody else has said? Maybe we could just start reading “The Book of God” called the Bible to find out more about Him.
We need God.
We don’t need more self-help books. Do you think that maybe enough books have been written on how to help ourselves with our problems? There is only one book I know that will ultimately help and that is the written word of God that points us to the Living Word of God. “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32).
We need God.
We don't need more daily devotional books to be published. How many more devotional books need to be written? We don’t read the ones we have already purchased or been given to us for a Christmas or birthday present.
We need God.
We don’t need more study Bibles to be published. Why? Because we don’t use the ones we already have to study the Bible. A new one isn’t going to make any difference.
We need God.
We don’t need more bluegrass, rock, rap, disco, punk, high-church, low-church, mid-church, country & western, do-wop, be-bop, hip-hop, contemporary, blended, traditional, gospel, classical, or polka music in the church. Let's see: did cover I it all? What would happen if we announced in church one Sunday that next Sunday the worship service would have no music of any kind but the service would include prayer and preaching. Thinks anyone would show up for that?
We need God.
We don’t need more of man’s opinions. Look where that has gotten us.
We need God.
We don’t need more web sites and internet resources about God. Technology replaces the personal, intimate relationship and friendship that is supposed to occur between the believer and God.
We need God.
We don’t need more PowerPoint presentations about God. You would think that PowerPoint is the key to church growth and the Christian life. How ridiculous!
We need God.
We don’t need more money to accomplish the work of God. He owns the “cattle upon a thousand hills” [Psalm 50:10]. For those who actually give, it is too easy to give money. God doesn’t need our money. He wants our hearts but we don’t want to give Him that. Why? It would be too difficult and too painful and cost us too much to give Him our hearts. So, in order to ease the pain and the guilt, we slip a little money into the offering plate every Sunday so that the preacher and God will be satisfied for a week.
We need God.
We don’t need more Sunday School/discipleship curriculum to be developed. We’ve got enough already and we still don’t know the word of God and we have too few disciples.
We need God.
We don’t need new magazines to be published with all of the answers about how to live the Christian life. Ever notice how a lot of Christian magazines have those “smiling beautiful people” on the covers and the articles inside the magazines are going to help us through the next crisis that we go through. Just once I would like to see a magazine cover with somebody crying and writing an article discussing how they are still in the midst of a storm, haven’t yet received a solution from God, are desperately crying out for help, yet they are remaining faithful and true to God. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him’ [Job 13:15].
We need God.
We don’t need God to heal our bodies through some “miracle healer” who always says “you gotta have faith; you gotta believe; you gotta send in your money, disguised as a ‘faith seed’. We need God to heal our hearts and our broken lives. And, where does the Bible ever associate money and faith together?
We don’t need more technology to help us relate to God. Through technology, we can read the Bible online, study the Bible online, pray online, give online, go to church online and even be healed online. (Believe me, I googled “online healing”). God forbid that we should actually open a Bible and study on our own, get on our knees to pray, and then get up and actually go to church.
We need God.
We don’t need more super computers to assist us in accessing the technology that promises to help us in our relationship to God, as if more RAM, processors, and hard drive space were the answers to our relationship with God.
We need God.
We don’t need more “star power religious personalities” on blue ray discs, DVD’s, cd, or videos to teach a Bible study or preach to a congregation about God. How did we ever get to the place where some famous personality, in some format of technology, teaches our Bible studies, our Sunday School classes or preaches to a congregation instead of us doing it?
We need God.
We don’t need more sooper-dooper/Xtreme/we are going to blow your socks off/radical/power conferences with the biggest names in show business (oops, sorry: in church growth and evangelism). What if someone had a conference with godly, pure in heart, thirsting for God no-name preachers and teachers? Think anyone would show up?
We need God.
We don’t need more academic degrees to impress everyone that we have learned something about God. Academic degrees have never impressed God. The only degree He requires is the A.U.G. degree: Approved Unto God, Second Timothy 2:15).
We need God.
We don’t need more religious denominational programs to be developed for the church. We’ve got enough programs as it is. How many more programs need to be developed that make (empty) promises and guarantee success but you have to spend the money to buy the program. Programs don’t reach people. People reach people. And, by the way, Christianity has turned into “big business”. You can purchase a Jesus bobble-head, holy bottled water, and “Jesus is my homeboy” t-shirt, all in the name of the “gospel”. You can also have the word of God stamped on the shoes you wear and stamped on the insoles of your shoes so that you can “walk in the Word”. Surely, God must weep!
We need God.
We don’t need more experts about God and church growth. “An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until eventually he knows everything about nothing”.
We need God.
We don’t need more family life centers with weight rooms, exercise rooms, walking tracks, basketball courts, saunas, and whirlpools so that we can isolate ourselves from the world. Ummm………..go ye therefore?
We need God.
We don’t need to know more about what other churches are doing so that we can copy what they do. What God does in one church doesn’t necessarily mean that God will do the same thing in another church. Why did God bless that other church? Never playing favorites, God does have His intimates-those pastors and churches who decide to throw “caution to the wind” and spend time alone with God to develop an intimate and personal relationship with Him. Though God stopped creating on day six when He created the “heavens and earth”, He has never stopped being creative and He has the ability to reveal creative ways to any pastor and to any church who are intimate with Him and want to be used by God to reach their community for Him.
We need God.
We don’t need more self-sufficiency, though we still try to do it by ourselves.
We don’t need more self-centeredness, though we live our lives like it is all about us.
And we don’t need more self-righteousness, though we just can’t admit that we are not right with God.
We need God……
Or
Maybe we don’t.
