As I was praying, I saw a large church building with its parking lot filled with cars. Coming from the building I could hear the sound of a church service in progress. Everything appeared like a typical busy Sunday morning. Then I saw a large hand reach down from above and lift off the roof of the building — tilting it back as if it were hinged. While holding the roof open, another hand reached down with a small light-purple strip of paper and dipped the paper into the building. As the hand pulled the strip out of the building, you could see that the color of the strip had changed from purple to red.

I then heard the voice of the Lord saying, “I have given My Church the litmus test, and I have found them to be too acidic. I am going to buffer them by My Spirit, and make their pH more basic.”

Litmus paper is used in chemistry for testing a solution to determine if it is an acid or a base. Its purple color turns blue in basic solutions and red in acidic solutions. The Lord is saying that His inspection of the Church's behavior in our day reveals it to be too “acidic” to this world. Acids must be handled with care because they are very corrosive — irritating and burning the skin, eyes, and lungs. Our religious, “holier-than-thou,” Christian subculture which is long on talk and short on walk, does not draw the world to the Lord. It is merely obnoxious, annoying, and alienates an unbelieving world.

Adjusting Our pH
The strength of an acid is measured on the pH scale — the lower the number the more acidic the solution. As I was praying about what the Lord had showed me, He told me there are three pH factors for the Church: personal Holiness, practiced Humility, and passionate Hunger. These basic virtues that Christians must possess are currently found only in small measure in the Church.

We must be a holy people if we are to have God dwell within us as His temple. Our God is a holy God, and He has commanded us to “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). Every place the Lord dwells the Bible tells us is a holy place. We are not to lecture the world about their need to be holy, but to make certain that holiness is a personal character trait we have.

In the third century, St. Cyprian writing to his friend Donatus showed us how this is to look. “If I climbed some great mountain and looked out … you know very well what I would see; bandits on the high road, pirates on the seas, in the amphitheaters men murdered to please the applauding crowds … Yet in the midst of it, I have found a quiet and holy people … They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are Chrisitians!” This should be the overcoming testimony of God working in our lives — He has made us a quiet and holy people. Both quiet …not demanding, not boastful, not obnoxious; and holy …set apart, decent, honest, and pure.

We need not only to be holy, but to be humble. Humility must be more than an ideal we embrace or a doctrine we espouse. It must be a character we practice in our daily lives. The world has had enough of proud and arrogant Christians. When prideful self-confidence begins to speak about God, Jesus is not present. Repeatedly the Scriptures tell us that God resists the proud but draws near to the humble, and that He esteems and guides the humble. When our hearts are clothed in garments of humility — knowing it is God and not ourselves that makes a difference — the world will notice the difference and begin to see the Lord in our lives.

Almost nothing draws the hearts of people like those who have a deep passion. Too often we have been passionate about our assembly or a particular program or cause when what we truly need is the basic passion of hungering for God. Without God we are nothing and have nothing to offer this world. With Him, however, we have more than enough to satisfy even the deepest longings of the most desperate.

Currently all three of these basic factors are in short supply in the Church, and this has made us little more than an irritant to much of the world. But the Holy Spirit is coming as a buffer to change our “pH” by buffeting our character. A buffer is used to adjust the pH of a solution making an acid less acidic. Let us repent of our acidic nature that offends and alienates the world and not only allow but implore the Holy Spirit to bring us back to the basic characteristics of personal holiness, practiced humility, and passionate hunger.

Lord forgive us for condemning this world while have so much of its character in our hearts. Forgive us of our pride and lack of desire for more of You. We ask that you would richly dwell with us, guide us, and bring such a zeal for You that this desperate world will not be able to help notice that there is something attractively different in our lives — Your presence!