Prosperity - Laodicean Church

I have attended a Young Adult Fellowship in early Dec 09, the First Grace Church in Tai Po, Hong Kong and would like to share the bible study session. The fellowship was conducted in cantonese. However, I have managed to understand the message and would like to share with you guys. Below is the summary I have concluded during the fellowship that I have understood in the cantonese fellowship.

What is the greatest challenge facing the church today? Many suggest that it is Christian persecution. Yet persecution is not the greatest challenge. It is actually quite the opposite, persecution is the fastest way to grow a healthy and vibrant church. The greatest challenge to any church is not persecution but prosperity.

Consider most of us who are doing averagely alright and most of us christian in the Klang Valley are being blessed by God. Let us look at this way, God has bless Malaysia with a lot of churches especially in the Klang Valley area , each christian will at least have more than 1 bible in our book shelves than other nations in the world. In spite of all these blessings, we are not influencing our society.

Why is this? The answer is simple, we cannot handle prosperity. We may not be super wealthy compare to people like Tony Fernandez, AnanthanKrishnan, Mahathir, Michelle Yeoh and etc, but we are not thankful and contended with what we have right now. Currently, in our desire in achieving utmost prosperity in our lives, it comes the temptation to trust in our blessings rather than in the Blesser. We become fat, comfortable, and self-sufficient. If we have plenty, we tend to think we have need of nothing. If we think that we don’t have enough looking at the wealth around us we tend to think that what we need is what others have. Both extremes lead us to seek happiness in things and security in wealth. The result is that we fail to rely on the Lord and our ministry to the world is blunted.

In Revelation 3:14-22, Jesus Christ warns and instructs us against the lukewarm effects of trusting in material wealth rather than pursuing a vital faith relationship with Jesus Christ. The Laodicean church was a church that had lost its impact on the world because it had become occupied with the world and had left Christ standing outside the church. We must not make the same mistakes as the Laodicean church did.