Learning about being… church?
Thinking about Church and what it means to truly be the body of Christ. Mark 12 says the two greatest commandments are love the Lord your God with everything you have and love your neighbor as yourself. Philippians 1:5 says that we are in partnership in the Gospel. This word koinenia is a participation, communion and relational action (thanks Pastor Manny). 1st Corinthians 3:9 calls us coworkers— that we have synergy for God‘s purpose. If the church is the bride of Christ then his way to the world is through the church. We must all work together, and to work together we must have relationship.
Although I haven’t had any long-term careers in my adult life the two I have had have both had one thing in common. We had synergy. We were collaborators for the same purpose. Because the people that I had the honor to work with were all passionate and had integrity about the work we were doing; we were like a family. We all have the same purpose, the same goals, when we are at work we were in it for that reason, for our students or our refugee clients… and this made for a beautiful working environment that everyone could be proud of. Sure, we had disagreements or things fell through the cracks but all in all it was a smooth operation and we progressed forward in who we were reaching. It got me to thinking, why isn’t the church like this?
Why don’t we see ourselves with one purpose and one love and know that we are all there to work together. Why do we see as more of a service for ourselves? Either just to get us through the week or to check off a box that’s called our commitment to God. Is it religiosity? Selfishness? Or worse, an inability to see and know God? Is it that our root purpose, the priority of the kingdom of God (Luke 12:31) isn’t even there? Or maybe we think it is, we are going through the steps of what we are told, but because we aren’t cultivating it, leaning into the Spirit, and learning from those who are seasoned veterans of the faith we are only fooling ourselves into some twisted cultural understanding of reliance on God that’s really more reliance on ourself? And if we rely on self are we truly trusting God and can we ever fulfill our purpose? These are my questions to my fellow believers and to myself. Answer the call! Submit yourselves to his kingdom and his work. Plant yourselves in a Bible teaching and believing church, loving God and others as yourselves, see what He does!! I have much to learn, and I’m excited that I’m finally positioned to learn it. And I can’t wait to see what God does.
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