Christian Church in U.S.A. is not thriving. It’s dying, and for many churches the life they continue to live is not worth living. If a group of people who are called to carry a cross for the salvation of their communities like Jesus did have settled for inactivity and living for this age not the age to come, they are wasting their time and the grace given them.

Let me explain: Christianity’s root system of the biblical story leading to Christ crucified is still in tact, but the current modern manifestations of what the branches look like above does not parallel the root system below the way a tree should. One does not need to look far to find Churches bearing the name, and claiming the aim of Christ who capitulate and compromise, or who build buildings to make their own names great, who try to maintain relevance, while many leave the shallow faith of their childhood, and the older grow proud and belligerent or indolent and fruitless. In order for the Church in the U.S.A. to thrive again it must go through the same gate through which Jesus passed: the Cross. Christianity without the cross isn’t Christianity at all, and the Cross applied to every financial, cultural, social, spiritual, physical, traditional, and national aspect of the church ensures its life as “The unseen growth that is caused by God.” No other growth can sustain the church, because a church cannot merely be a community club: she is a supernatural organism powered by prayer, if any activity of man can power such a thing.

The Church needs a renewed vision of what Christian is: a life lived by the Cross. A Cross for self-denial, a cross for luxury, a cross for security, a cross for family, a cross for wealth, a cross for power, a cross for injustice, a cross for justice, a cross for service, a cross for celebration, a cross for every precious thing in our lives, a cross for every relationship. Jesus did not love only love people on the cross, he loved people by carrying his cross. Not counting his self-denial as his own, but committing it to the righteous judiciousness of His Father. Not counting his own life something worthy to be saved, but rather, as a precious gift worth giving so that someone else could be saved, and this brought glory to the Father, as “the perfect representation of His nature.” As God’s image, out not we do the same?

This is both a message of doom and joyous hope. Because while every institution of man–even the ones originated with God but have been kept beyond their use to Him–will be overturned, overturned, overturned, the Church who is Christ’s body will merely be changing clothes. The Robes of Righteousness of the saints must remain white, washed regularly in the blood of the Lamb who leads the way to life through his own sacrificial death. If the robes will not be cleansed, they must be changed to what God intends. Again here prayer is the answer, confession of sin which stupefies the body with sin-selfish sleep and repentance–the changing of the inner being and outer doing by the renewing of the mind.

The Kingdom of Christ is a Rock made without hands and therefore no chisel in a man’s hand can harm it; only that which is added onto it by man’s hands will slide off this ever-growing mountain of Daniel’s Vision which shall fill the whole earth! So pick your side: will you carry your ross with Jesus in prayer, and repentance laying down all of your life, thereby saving it, or will you seek to save your life by staying with man’s kingdom and lose it all? For those who leave anything un-crucified in their life, this is a message of doom, for those who surrender all their life to the cross, this a message of hope.