Return to God’s plan

The emphasis in churches today seems to be on change. 

We are told, “The world has changed. The church must change too, but the message never changes.” 

Actually, when the church sets out to please the world, the message does change. For instance, the church used to teach the depravity of man. Today, it teaches the value and worth of man.

Nowhere in the Bible that I know of does it teach that the church is to pattern its programs and methods after the methods of the world. 

“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God” (1 Cor. 3:19a).

The change the church needs is a return to her first love and repentance toward God for being more desirous of pleasing the world than of pleasing Him.

Another need is to once again put emphasis on studying and teaching His Word; in other words, emphasizing Sunday school. Teaching is part of the Great Commission just as making disciples is. 

“… the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land” (Hosea 4:1). 

 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge … seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also reject thy children” (Hosea 4:6).

My prayer for the church is that she will return to the plan of God, which is making disciples through preaching and teaching them to observe all things He has commanded. 

Rosemary Looney   
Charleston