Have you ever wondered why people in church are more hard hearted than people in the world? Think about it for a minute. When you were an unbeliever, you did not believe in Jesus, you were hurt and angry, but you were not hard hearted toward God. Most unbelievers are not anti-God they just don’t know who He is, but when they hear the truth about Him they melt in His presence. How else did we get saved? But then in church you have people who are divided over theologies of men, colors of carpets, and in the days of Jesus whether or not you could heal on the Sabbath. If you really think about this, it is crazy how hard-hearted believers are.

Mark 3 speaks about Jesus in the synagogue and this is what it says, “Then looking around at everyone, Jesus was moved with indignation and grieved by the hardness of their hearts and said to the man, “Now stretch out your hand!” As he stretched out his hand, it was instantly healed! After this happened, the Pharisees left abruptly and began to plot together with the friends and supporters of Herod Antipas on how they would kill Jesus.” Stop for just a minute, the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the synagogue, sought to kill Jesus because He healed a man in the synagogue on the Sabbath. We find that absurd but we can’t forgive someone in the pew next to us, let alone be friends with the people in the church across the street because they speak in tongues.

Friends, if Jesus showed up in our church today, we would see how religious we really are. Paul said, if you have not love you are nothing and I am concerned we are closer to nothing than we are to someone and it is a stench in the nostrils of God. We need a revival, not of the unbelievers, but of people who have said a prayer, but still don’t know how to love their neighbor, their spouse, their children, their friends, their family. We need a revival in the church because we need to learn to love God and love people. Let it not be said of us, that we are more like the Pharisees than the sinners and tax collectors who loved dining with Jesus.