The world has had enough of powerless Christianity. When will the church have enough of powerless Christianity?

Those who misrepresent Christ by watering down His Gospel of power to a Gospel of words do a huge disservice to the world. When Christian teachers water down His Kingdom message from a message of power to a message of only words so that people’s hopes do not get dashed they have already accomplished what they tried to avoid. They dash the hopes of the people whose only hope is the miracle power of God.

The apostle Paul said, “For the Kingdom of God does not consist in [only] words, but of power” [1 Corinthians 4:20].

Paul said this as well, “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void” [1 Corinthians 1:17]. The Living Bible says this – “so that the message of the Cross would not be diluted.” Diluted means watered down, compromised, weaker and of reduced value. That is what powerless Christianity is doing to the Cross and to the One who made it famous.

Paul had a lot to say about powerless Christianity. Read these quotes –

1 Corinthians 2:1-4 ~ “And when I came to you brethren, I DID NOT [emphasis mine] come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God . . . . . and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in DEMONSTRATION OF THE SPIRIT AND POWER” [emphasis mine].

His reasoning for this?

Verse 5 ~ ” So that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, BUT ON THE POWER OF GOD” [emphasis mine].

Romans 15:18-19 ~ “For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished THROUGH me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed, in the POWER of signs and wonders, in the POWER of the Spirit; so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum I have FULLY PREACHED the gospel of Christ” [ALL CAPS emphasis mine].

Preaching that does not include demonstrations of power with signs and wonders is not biblical Christian preaching. It may be Western biblical preaching but it is not what Christ commissioned His preachers to do. In fact it is not what Jesus modeled [see John 3:2; John 10:37; Acts 1:1; Acts 10:38]

Paul said that His message was congruent with his experiences with Christ. In other words, his core value was that he would not preach something he had not personally experienced. We could also say he would not deny his experiences with God in his preaching.

Now that is genuine biblical Christian preaching. This seeker sensitive preaching and so called seeker sensitive Christianity is not biblical in nature. At the least it is carnal in nature and it may even be demonically inspired. Seeker sensitive preaching and services are geared toward appeasing people. Christ has not called His followers, and most especially His messengers, to dilute His message in order to appease people. When did Christianity become a people pleasing movement?

A person with experiences with Christ is not at the mercy of those who want to argue about not having experiences with Christ. For goodness sake, being born again is called the born again experience. Is that all there is? I say not!

We owe the world a God power encounter. We cannot afford to dilute God’s message. Our enemy is proceeding full steam ahead and the Church is dilly dallying around with not wanting to offend people. WHAT ABOUT OFFENDING GOD?

Christ did not die a horrible death, suffer unbelievable shame and humiliation, hang on a cross naked so that people might not get offended. One of His names is the rock of offense [Isaiah 8:14; Romans 9:33; 1 Peter 2:8].

To coin a phrase used by the NFL Monday night studio crew – “C’MON MAN!” Who are we kidding, not the devil?

I don’t know about you but I am done with powerless Christianity. The world has had enough! When will the church?

For HIS Glory!

Dr. Kevin M. Drury
A Hisstorymaker