How to Cure the Spiritual Obesity of Today’s Spirit-Filled Church

In Acts 2, we find the disciples waiting to be baptized by the Holy Spirit. Millennia after that first outpouring of the Spirit of God upon the early church, we now find ourselves facing another outpouring of His Spirit in the modern-day church. However, there are some missing ingredients we still vitally need in order to replicate that same Acts experience. These ingredients are hunger, passion, desire and a heart to see lost souls saved.

With the visitation of the Holy Spirit, the apostle Peter—who denied Jesus but now represents the fullness of God’s anointing—preaches a powerful sermon, and the Bible records for us that on that day, 3,000 souls were added to the kingdom. Today, this same voice of the Holy Spirit seeks to prepare the church of Jesus Christ to march on as warriors. However, the church is not seizing this move of God that has been given to us. Its members and partners are more interested and inclined to focus on their personal needs rather than the urgent need of winning souls for Jesus Christ.

I have personally ministered for over 30 years of my life within Australia and internationally, and I can safely vouch that the church across the globe is in a state of apathy. Every night when I go to sleep, the Spirit of God keeps on speaking to me about how His people are not doing enough to experience the joy and everlasting love we should share in and with the everyday person on the street. The church was birthed out of excitement, as seen in the book of Acts, and yet this joy is not evident within many believers today.

Rather than focus on souls, we as Pentecostals and charismatics instead want to experience God by going from one supernatural encounter to another. What is the desired outcome of these supernatural encounters? The answer is simply more encounters. We are caught running from one church meeting, seminar or conference to another, all in an attempt to perpetuate and maintain a spiritual high.

Some time ago, the Holy Spirit visited me and spoke to me about the salvation experience of Saul on the road to Damascus. He said that when Saul gave his heart to Jesus, he experienced a supernatural, life-changing encounter with God. Ananias was then sent by Jesus to heal Saul’s eyes, after which Saul felt a powerful call of God on his life and started to walk in that God-given calling. Today, there are so many Christians sitting in church, but they are not walking or exercising the call of God on their lives.

The church needs to confront this apathy. Today’s Pentecostal Christians have often grown spiritually obese through their perpetual appetite to receive prophecies, words of knowledge and revelation for their personal lives. The “what about me” syndrome is alive and well today.

The Holy Spirit is calling all Christians to jump on a treadmill (and not get off it). The Gospels always capture Jesus on foot, walking to every town, city and dwelling place. The Father gave His Son a very special treadmill—one he could never get off until His mission was accomplished. This treadmill represents walking in selfless love, loving those around you at the expense of yourself, engaging others in His kingdom and—most of all—securing their eternal place in heaven.

The Holy Spirit has a treadmill for everyone, but unfortunately, the church is not fit. Modern believers see the treadmill as arduous and sacrificial.

We, the church, have to rise up. We need intercessors to pray for every single sector and department of the church. Over the last few years, the spirit of prayer has decreased. Because of this, the enemy has decided to infiltrate the church, to make it lose its potency and influence over the world.

We now have the chance and opportunity to regain those lost territories by taking up the challenge of getting on God’s treadmill. All-night prayer meetings, midweek prayer meetings, lunch-break prayer meetings, corporate prayer meetings and even watchmen prayer meetings are all urgently required to address and bury the apathy that is pervasive within Jesus’ church. By purposefully engaging in these various forms of intercession, we can create atmosphere changers who will defeat this current apathetic syndrome. {eoa}

Dr. Reg Morais is an Australian prophet and pastor. He is the founder of Anoint the World Ministries and the founder and senior pastor of Living Faith Community Church (LFCC) in Perth, Western Australia.

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