Keeping the main thing the main thing
An article from Together magazine by James Aladiran
Just as lockdown in the UK started in March of 2020, my wife and I felt the Lord stir our hearts to livestream prayer and worship from our living room every night. We had never done anything like this before and had no idea how long we’d be doing it for. Well, it ended up lasting ninety consecutive nights! During that time the Lord not only used us to encourage many believers from around the world, we also sensed him stirring our hearts to go deeper in consecration and devotion to him, in preparation for days of his glory and the enemy’s deep darkness coming over the nations of the earth.
The following quote from A.W. Tozer captures well the condition of the Church pre-pandemic: ‘The forces of religion are making dramatic gains and the churches are more prosperous than at any time within the past several hundred years. But the alarming thing is that our gains are mostly external and our losses wholly internal; and since it is the quality of our religion that is affected by internal conditions, it may be that our supposed gains are but losses spread over a wider field.’
The pandemic gave us an opportunity to re-evaluate why we did what we did. The Lord was wanting to refine internal conditions and lead us to a place of making the main thing the main thing. Having been in full-time ministry for over fifteen years, I realise that it’s so easy to fall in love with the work of God and not the God of the work. Pre-pandemic, as a church we may have been gaining externally but we were losing internally in depth of consecration and devotion to the Lord. Many of us probably got so easily intoxicated by our own ‘successes’. A shaking was needed to wake us up!
As the pandemic hit, many churches and ministries, including Christian bookshops, struggled financially; some closed down, church congregations halved in size, leaders were traumatised and some still haven’t fully recovered. Could it be that our supposed external gains were being shaken in order to reveal the true state of internal conditions?
Now we are on the other side of the pandemic, the danger is for us try to get things back to how they were before the pandemic externally while refusing to change our ways internally. What the Lord is truly after in this season is a deepening of our consecration and our devotion to him at a heart level, in preparation for what’s coming. I’m not trying to be a prophet of doom, but there are darker days ahead as well as days of great glory. Scripture speaks about this in Isaiah 60; the glory of the Lord arises as darkness increases simultaneously.
Some are trying to return to a semblance of what was, while ignoring what God is doing in this season. He is wanting the Church to keep the main thing the main thing: love the Lord and love people, know him and make him known. The Lord is wanting the Church to step into a greater place of spiritual authority to effect real change of our nation. However, that would not be possible without a rediscovery of intimacy with the Lord, because authority in the public place is often a secondary consequence of intimacy with the Lord in the secret place. Just as a bride is meant to be equally yoked in love with her bridegroom, the Lord is wanting us to be exclusively his. The problem is many of us are wanting the benefits of a covenant relationship while living in compromise. The pandemic exposed the shallow nature of our relationship with the Lord; it exposed our true state as a Church. It’s so easy to hide behind all our great programmes, conferences and events. The pandemic provided us an opportunity to return to our first love; loving the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.
Post-pandemic, it seems to me that the Church is still needing to go deeper in our consecration and devotion to the Lord. In fact it would appear as though many of us are returning to the same distractions that took us away from keeping Jesus at the centre. It may be helpful to take some time to reflect in prayer before the Lord, asking him to expose any areas of your heart where you’ve drifted away from keeping him at the centre. Ask the Lord to help you by his Spirit to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. What I find really encouraging about living this out is that the Lord promises to add ‘other things’ to us when we make him our priority.
A couple of books of I have found very challenging and re-envisioning at this time are:- Rees Howells Intercessor and Why Revival Tarries
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James Aladiran, founder of Prayer Storm and author of Life On Fire, is an instrumental figure in the UK for catalysing the Church into a lifestyle of prayer, purity and power. Along with his wife, Rebecca, director of Prayer Storm Music, James and the team have been mobilising strategic prayer in the UK and abroad for over 12 years. His heart is to see spiritual awakening across the body of Christ, and see a generation of believers sold out for Jesus, committed to prayer, and radical in their pursuit of holiness.
Together Magazine
Together is the Christian resources magazine for the UK, with stories of what God is doing across the church today, book reviews and publishing industry news. Subscribe now at www.togethermagazine.org.