(Worship leader Jeff Gore & Robert at the Rociada Baptist Revival - May 2010)

     Simplicity is what ought to be. Reality is what is. Spiritual simplicity should unfold as follows. God chooses a servant and sends a vision. It is a vision in perfect accord with His ultimate vision for all servants. The chosen servant shares the vision. The vision is recognized immediately as a fresh approach to accomplish the ultimate vision. All servants enthusiastically embrace the vision and live the vision and watch in glorious wonder as God’s kingdom comes down around them. Lives change forever! Hearts soar on Spirit-wind! The Body is refreshed and renewed! God is glorified! Amen! Amen!

(Rociada Revival - May 2010 - Rociada, NM.)

"Then Delilah called, ‘Samson, the Philistines are upon you!’ Samson awoke from his sleep and thought, ‘I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.’ But he did not know that the Lord had left him." (Judges 16:20)

If God’s Spirit was not present in your church this Sunday, would you know it? If the glory of the Lord has departed from your fellowship, would you see the "Ichabod" scrawled above your sanctuary door?

Truth be known, the glory of the Lord has departed from many an American church leaving a massive vacuum in His wake. The average red, white, and blue congregation is seldom Spirit-driven or Christ-led these days. The Holy Spirit has been replaced by the spirit of hype. Hype is the best counterfeit the enemy could find to eclipse the absence of God. Our culture is already immersed in it.

We have listened to religious experts long enough. Marketing strategists have supposedly shown us a better way to enticingly spin the sweet message of Jesus, but even the purest of spun sugar yields little more than cotton candy nourishment. The lost are searching for hope and we bury them with hype. A random perusal of church websites reveal a gospel not washed in the blood so much as dipped in Red Bull. The gospel has been amped-up a notch or two because a perfect God graciously sending a perfect Son to rescue an imperfect humanity is not quite enough good news in and of itself. We may not know much about making disciples, but we sure know how to titillate them. Ichabod!

And there is no end of religious product out there to pad our sinkhole of loss. While attending a Christian writer’s conference many years ago, the head editor from a prominent religious press told me the following - "If you preach to 5000 or more people each week, you can re-write the phone book and we’ll publish your book." Good grief, Gutenberg! Is this the dominant spirit that determines what is promotable Christian reading these days? Do you imagine Jesus might also overturn the Top 20 shelf at the local Lifeway if He were still walking around with a whip and cords? Ichabod!

Or consider our own "Christianized" American idols. I recently inquired about a well-known individual to see about the possibility of having them lead worship and sing at a "Jesus test" event that was tentatively being considered earlier this year. When their agent replied, the asking price for one night was $60,000! I now have a difficult time hearing my fellow Christ-follower sing a certain song about selling out to the world. Several months ago at an evangelism conference I heard one session leader plug a fellow speaker who had expertise in a certain area of benefit to the church. And then the leader said, "But you better book him now before he becomes well-known and his asking price goes up." Asking price? Show me a "famous" Christian who commands $3000 or more for a single appearance and I’ll show you an "infamous" saint out of touch with the purposes of God. Ichabod!

Little wonder we don’t notice the effects of Ichabod! We have lived with Jesus + (plus) for so long that we’ve failed to comprehend all we need is Jesus. Period. And since the plus has been accentuated over and above the One lifted up Who will draw all men to Himself, little wonder we might wake and shake some morning to discover - Jesus hasn’t been following us after all!