Not Enough Philadelphia

Purify Your church, Lord. We need more of the heart of the church of Philadelphia in us. We are so focused on the expectation that we will be kept from the hour of testing, from the wrath of God, that we ignore the prime directive: "You are to be my witness to the whole world." Our neighbors--everyone we know and meet on a daily basis--so desperately need to know of Your love; to know that You deeply desire that they, too, escape the wrath to come, that You are not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (Sometimes, we even bicker and fight with one another about how and when You will come and deliver us. And You've told us we can't know. We quit fellowshipping with each other over such things!) To live in loving expectation of Your return is to take the message of Your sacrificial love to as many as we can--until You come. Lord, You are holding open the doors of opportunity that no man can shut, but I'm afraid we stand gaping up into the heavens as the world around us perishes. The door may as well be closed. We have hidden Your light under the basket of indifference, of apathy, toward the souls of men. Purify us, Lord. Start with me.