Reality Conflicts with Reputation

Have you ever heard the word “lightyear” and felt confused? Lightyear is quite simply the speed of light. Light travels 186,000 miles in one second. If you multiply that by a year, light travels 6 trillion miles. When someone says, “that is 30 lightyears away,” what they are saying is that it is 180 trillion miles in the distance.

You can think of it this way. If a star died five years ago, that means we would not know it died until 25 years later because of the speed of light coming back to us. It would be the afterglow that we would see, not the original source. Many talk about the church in this way. Those who have been in church for years talk about the glory days of what was and now they are living in the afterglow.

There are many churches in our city and across the nation that are now empty. What was once a place for a movement is now a monument. But it does not have to be this way. One can say that the world used to be more “biblical” or “spiritual” than they are now because today, people are more up-to-date with the ways of the world. But that is a reputation that conflicts with reality.

God’s Word is living and breathing. It is as powerful as it ever has been. The same power, proclamations, and promises God made in His Word, are the same ones you and I can stand on today.

We do not have to choose the ways of this world. We do not have to validate the belief that many people have that the church is a monument, stale, and without movement. Instead, we can oppose the reputation of now. Let your reality be the Will of God, and others will follow suit. Perhaps the glory days aren’t behind us but ahead of us!