Where Have You Drifted?

Recently our church has been studying the holiness of God. We are praying this study will lead us to greater repentance and a passionate love for our Savior and our neighbors. Along these lines I recently read this challenging paragraph from the book Revitalize:

It is precisely because a church has drifted from holiness that it needs to be revitalized. At some point, it ceased trembling at God's holiness, and its members began seeking to fill that emptiness with the idols of Babylon. They fell into secret patterns of sin. They began having conflicts with one another, as would carnal people. Their marriages began falling apart, sometimes because of adultery. They failed to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They busied themselves with the pursuit of money and other earthly goals. They became less discerning doctrinally and less passionate for biblical truth. They stopped reaching out with the gospel and started seeking the world's applause rather than the world's repentance. They forsook their first love and embraced the illicit love of the world. Ultimately, they began to wither and die. If one could take a spiritual 'flight' through the secrets of the church members' hearts as Ezekiel did through the temple in Ezekiel 8, they would see modern versions of the abominations that provoked God to jealously. A church does not die apart from a decisive move away from holiness. And revitalization begins with repentance from unholiness and a commitment to what God says: 'You shall be holy, for I am holy' (1 Peter 1:16)        

 *Andrew M. Davis, Revitalize, 66