The Church

I have an issue with the modern day church. How's that for an opening line. Grab there attention, tick them off and make them mad. We'll if this blog makes you upset then I'm sorry. It isn't my intentions. I am just speaking from experience and observations and truth. Sometimes we need to re-evaluate what we call normal behaviour and measure it against God's word, written and heard, to see if it adds up. The church, doesn't add up.

Too many times I've run into people who love God, believe, but are disenfranchised with church. 

In our last blog we discussed the role men and women play in the marriage and how Ephesians 5 describes the relationship with the church and Christ, is like the relationship a man and woman should have. Yet the church has become infected with worldly ways of thinking and understanding. 

If the man is supposed to be the head of the household, his primary source of power and understanding comes from Christ. He pulls his authority from above to be able to have the skills to be a good husband and father. Without his connection to Christ he would fail miserably. Then, as we've discussed before, the woman submits to his authority and relies on his ability to lead her, love her, cherish her and to guide her in all the things he's been given from above. 

However, if we look at those roles superimposed over the Christ-church relationship, we find Christ is the husband and the church is the bride. In this picture then, the church must be the one to submit and take guidance from Christ. He sacrificed himself for her, gave her the gift of the Holy Spirit to be with us as a rich man would give his wife an attendant. He's there to attend to her and guide her into what she is supposed to be.

If we can imagine ourselves, the church, being like the book of Esther. Here's a lovely girl, picked from hundreds of other women to be queen. What were her qualifications, she had none. Her qualifications were she was a woman in the kings land, that's it. We are in the King's land and his servant, the Holy Spirit, is sent out to look for anyone who is qualified for the King's request. Esther/we were chosen to be taken into the King's court to be trained up to meet the King. The women were given beauty treatments and perfume for a full year before they met the King. We are given, in a way, beauty treatments as well.

 Our hearts are filled with the world when we submit to Christ and are saved by His grace. It takes the Spirit time to clean our hearts and make us presentable to the King. So the day came and Esther was to go before the King and she asked her attendant, the Holy Spirit, what item should I pick that would please the King. You see, from the time she walked into the King's court she did what the head attendant wanted. She sought out His favor from the time she arrived. We as the church and as a type of  Esther, from the moment we are brought into the King's court and are set aside, should be seeking out what the Spirit in us wants. We should be listening for instructions and submitting to His authority. We are strangers in His court and we must learn what He likes and dislikes. We are there to be proven and given beauty treatments. 

What do the beauty treatments represent in our story. Take a person that has, for their entire life, lived how they've wanted to live. Then place that person in an institution where they are told what to do, when to do it and how to act 24/7/365. It's the military. You have ordinary citizens signing up for the military for several reasons but it's not a pleasant experience for those who struggle to obey commands and do as their told. 

The Holy Spirit is like your drill sergeant. He's there to whip you into shape but in a nicer way. You're response to the Spirits commands directly effect how He responds to you. For those who listen, seek His guidance and submit to His authority with a hunger and thirst will be treated differently than someone who doesn't listen, refuses to change and goes about their day on their own. As Esther sought out the favor of the King's servant, we are to seek out the favor of the Holy Spirit. We must love the harshness of His training and His teaching, His beauty treatments. He is after all here to clean us up and get us ready to be presented to the King.

So we, as the church, have one singular job and that is of submission and learning how to please Christ our King. However, as we discussed in the last post, the women now think they're the man and want nothing to do with submitting in our society today and that attitude has bled over into church culture. The church, to be clear, is individual people who have been called to accept the gift of grace through Christ. It's not a building, a service or an organization. It's the people. 

The major fault of the church is the amount of denominations it has. The word denominations, is actually used to set apart money, to separate them into their values. The church however, should have never split into the 33,000 current denominations it has. It should be under one leadership, The Holy Spirit, and under one King, Jesus Christ. Yet we have some churches out there that don't even believe that The Holy Spirit is involved with our lives. 

My point is this, we have too many people out their running around seeking leadership positions, seeking money, seeking a luxurious way of life, seeking recognition, seeking glory and seeking everything but what the Spirit is saying. Esther chose to listen and follow and pick what the King would like. The rest of the women were to busy competing with each other and trying to out do each other. They picked items they thought would please the King or that pleased them. 

To put it bluntly, our churches throughout this country have turned into a huge drama filled reality TV show. 

It should not be in politics, money, media, or in competition with the world. It should be seeking only what God says in our hearts and nothing else. When we seek God and He fills us with Himself, we shine like a city on the hill.  The world around us, could then see the light and be drawn to it. We cannot proclaim the gospel until the gospel is in us. We cannot love the world until we love God, obey Him and seek Him diligently. It says, they will know my people because they will love each other. Can you say you love every church member out their? If not, then we have some beauty treatments to endure still.

To God be the Glory Always!