Being the Church - For Such a Time as This

I awoke middle of last night to a deluge and thunderstorm outside! Since I was awake, I started to pray about this world that we are living in. Jesus warned us of terrors to come before He returns. He warned of everything from nations rising up against nations and the stars falling into the sea to false Messiahs (Christs) being out in force to families hating and being against each other and people's hearts FAILING them for fear. A lot of that is being seen even now. Even WITHOUT all that, this is an often frightening world we live in. Hate and immorality abound, common decency is UNCOMMON. 

What is the meaning of this for Christians? For ONE thing, I believe that it is a reminder for us to get closer to Jesus - in Word and prayer. Also a reminder that this world is NOT our home. The more I look at this world, the more I LONG for my TRUE and ETERNAL home in Heaven. Yet, we cannot simply long and wait to go home! God has PLACED us in this world FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS (Esther 4:14). It would seem that as we trust that God knows who we are better than we do, we can rely on HIM more than on ourselves (Prov. 3:5-6) for strength and courage (Josh. 1:8) and direction to make it through these difficult and CRAZY times! And we will KNOW what our part is as we draw near and PRAY! Encourage ONE ANOTHER, brothers and sisters! This is why we HAVE each other - the CHURCH - which IS the Body of Christ. It is NOT a PLACE but it is WE who know and love Jesus, who is our HEAD. He gave us each other, NOT to coerce or manipulate as some do to their shame, (because they can't TRUST Jesus to lead His OWN). This is the job of His Holy Spirit - to lead, guide, teach all truth, convict of sin as necessary [none of us is perfect] - to train and comfort. (Jn. 14:16-17, 24-26; Jn. 16: 8-15).

It  beyond  MY ability to grasp the WHYs of it, but  He chooses to use US - to partner with His SUPERNATURAL power to build each other up and draw others to Himself.  That's the REAL purpose of the church - to use the spiritual gifts He has given us in order to BUILD each other up so that we can walk OUT of the building and into the world to be LIGHT and SALT there! Because when they see Christ in US, they will MARVEL and drop hate to serve & worship He who IS TRUE LOVE!

 But as they did to the Master, some will also (as Jesus warned) hate us and have us killed, joyfully, because OUR light will show up and convict them of their DARKNESS, and that most often without a word from us.  It is not necessary.  This is why it is not our place to speak judgment on anyone. Jesus does it through His Spirit IN US.  People KNOW  that they are doing wrong.  I believe that that is WHY they march in Pride Parades!  That is WHY they are trying to DESTROY Christians who refuse to not only accomodate but bow down and do homage to the LGBT activist agenda.  It's like they are getting into the face of Jesus and boldly rejecting His way for their own,  almost DARING Him, through us, to shout them down!  But that isn't His way.  And it shouldn't be OURS, either, as His children. The hate they accuse us of belongs to them, not us, and we must not act in kind.  But we must take our cues from our Master, who when He was slapped, offered the other cheek, answered directly but without hatred or sarcasm, and gave His hands and feet to the nails.  

Some call that weakness.  Islam, Communism, Fascism,  Paganism - (you don't have to go farther than our own government to see) - they ALL see Jesus and His followers as weak.  But Jesus was anything BUT.  They think He was a Pacifist.  But would a pacifist make a whip to disrupt and send the moneychangers packing?  Would a wimp call the religious leaders of his time "Whitewashed tombs, filled with dead men's bones" and "Hypocrites!  You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are." (Mt. 23:15)  I think NOT! When He came the first time it was with the purpose of being the Lamb of God  come to save the world by humbling Himself to death on a cross, followed by a vindicating resurrection.  But He WILL come again, and THEN it will be as the ROARING LION of the tribe of Judah, to JUDGE and SENTENCE!  In the meantime, we each have our "assignment," according to the faith and gifts he has given us to work with Him.  I honestly don't believe, however, that we have even completely awakened to live out that calling on our lives, but I think the time is close at hand.  

While praying early this morning, the passage in Ezekiel 37 came to my mind:  the story about the Valley of Dry Bones.  One day when Ezekiel was praying, God took him (in the Spirit) to a valley filled with dry bones.  Then God asked him, "Son of man, can these bones live?"  To which  Ezekiel replied, "O Sovereign Lord, you alone know."  Then the Lord told Ezekiel to prophesy over the bones and piece by piece, tendons and flesh, skin and breath entered the bones and they came to life as a mighty army!   While I didn't "see" the image myself, the idea materialized as it were, and I sensed God telling me that this would be HIS church in THIS day - coming SOON!   

Many have counted the church OUT - like a boxer in a ring that appears to have been knocked out.  Our numbers have lowered in many churches, our ranks appearing weak.  But I think that we will soon watch the Sleeping Giant RISE in Jesus' Name as we once more SEEK and see MIRACLES of regenerated life, healings, and more, as Jesus promised ("I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.  He will do even GREATER things than these, because I am going to the Father." (Jn. 14:12)  and BE the people of God that we were meant to be, bringing in many people to the kingdom.  I haven't seen that  - maybe people in other countries I've heard about - but just maybe it will soon be OUR turn.  When the darkness is the darkest, the Light of TRUTH will shine like the noonday SON!  Let's all start (if we haven't already) praying BIG TIME for the world around us and for the SPIRIT to bring us a new Pentecost, complete with power and boldness - and fruit like we've never seen before!  Let us prepare ourselves to be faithful in order to RECEIVE such a TREMENDOUS "catch" as we partner with our Lord to improve our "fishing" skills (Mt. 4:19)!

IT'S ABOUT THE HEART

 IT'S ABOUT THE HEART

       Another terrible tragedy occurred yesterday.  A sick and evil man, convinced that blacks were the cause of  the trouble in our society and had to be removed, according to one statement I heard on the news, walked into a black church, sat in for an hour on a Bible Study/Prayer meeting, then took out a weapon and started shooting, killing 9 individuals in all, including the pastor. Heartbreaking. Inexcusable. And once more the President is stepping in and exploiting the tragedy of Charleston with his propagandist rhetoric about gun control. And he won't be alone. (Yet if there had been one responsible gun owner, then maybe only one would have had to die - the one evil heart  that held and used a weapon of hate.)
        But this is not about guns and gun control.  This is about hate and what lies in the heart.  Do we really think that criminals care about gun (or other) laws? Do they care that there is a law against  murder? I think not.  People disregard Temporary Restraining Orders and kill in spite of them all the time, whether by gun, knife, car or bomb. The manner of murder isn't the important thing or we would outlaw knives and cars!  We need to work on the HEART and the only one who can change the heart is JESUS CHRIST. No law can do that - We have laws against murder galore on our books. We have the Ten Commandments, which includes "You shall not murder."  A dark heart doesn't care what the best law says.
       What we have are loads of laws. Unfortunately, what we seem to have lost is the intrinsic value of human life! If all we are, as some teach now, is a bag of chemicals, then how can any of us have a problem when people are killed, whether by gun or having their heads lopped off by ISIS? If there is no intrinsic value to life, then why do we have a problem with what Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot or other dictators have done, killing millions, or what ISIS & Al Qaeda are doing today?  We seriously need to reevaluate the meaning and value of human life! That's the scary issue for me, whatever the reason, whether it's hate based on race or sexual orientation,  self-hatred resulting in cutting, bullying and suicide among our teens,  gangbangers or veterans, the convenience of aborting an unwanted (or "badly timed") baby or just to replicate a video game or steal a pair of sneakers!  In every case listed, one theme is in common:  life is cheap and meaningless.
        If we only recognized the value of our lives that God has put into us!  The worth He has imputed to us by coming to earth - God made man - to die in order to make it possible for us to be reunited and reconciled back to Himself (and then truly to our own selves) both now and eternally.  WOW!  What value!  What  intrinsic worth!  What purpose He has planned for us:  to show others the value they are to Him, the hope of reconciliation with God and man, to build  one another up rather than tearing down, to heal rather than kill. To make our communities safer rather than destroying through vandalization and looting!  To unify and reconcile rather than divide.  

       This is what we were created to do!  When we follow Him, we will be new people - a new KIND of person. ("Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come" 2 Cor. 5:17). This doesn't  mean "turning over a new leaf" in the usual sense. A bad hair day and the old returns. But when we become new people in Christ, and put our eyes on Christ (rather than our world, politics, the media, anything we hear from those around us, or even on our own circumstances),  tuning our ears to listen to our Shepherd & Lover of our Souls, Jesus Christ, then we receive a new SPIRIT – GOD’S Spirit living inside of us. We think and discern differently  because we have the mind of Christ instead as we come to know HIS will and His heart. And that will be the only means by which this nation or world will truly change and senseless violence like this and so many other instances we've seen, will end. It won't end completely until Jesus comes back and destroys all evil, but in the meantime, it is happening in one person at a time who calls on His name and follows in His steps. 
       The "system" of this world will always "major in the minors":  focus on the externals like controlling the weapons that darkened and misguided individuals use to spread their pain, hopelessness and evil, but it will never fix the problems. Creating new laws won't fix the problems.  Shutting up or destroying those we disagree with won't fix the problems. ONLY going to the source - exchanging our broken, terrified, hopeless, hard, and rebellious hearts once and for all - for the open, loving, giving, pure and compassionate heart of God and accepting His outstretched and nail-pierced hands, sacrificed for us - will begin to bring healing to this sad and self-destructive world!  This also gives Christians more of a motivation to BE the people of God that He has called us to be:  His voice, His cry to reconciliation, His arms and feet, going where He calls.  Is there a higher calling than that?  I think NOT.  Let’s do it, then – with His Spirit guiding us,  let’s BE the Church of God, marching out like an ARMY of  GOD for GOOD!