Few are willing to do the hard work of actually being the church …
As an active community of believers engaged in encouraging and ministering to one another throughout their daily lives.
Most, instead, are content to surrender the “church” to those paid to do it for them …
From an elevated podium on Sunday morning.
Be exceptional!
Dare to be the church as the New Testament actually shows it …
And leave that other stuff behind.
Many “Christian” these days …
Want spectacle over obedience.
Which is why “worship” these days …
Is more about spectacle than obedience.
Because I love Christ, I open my home and my life to those abused by people who use Christ to exploit others.
Because I love Christ, I minister to those in jail and the woods who polite society won’t dirty their lives with.
Because I love Christ, I love His body rather than the man-centered institution often called the “church” these days.
Because I love Christ, I am willing to exceed my comfort zones.
How about you?
Without repentance …
Loving God is not enough.
Because without repentance …
It’s not God you love, but your own concept of Him.
Church in the New Testament is never about gathering to experience God’s presence …
But about expressing His presence – hopefully already in you – one to another to encourage and strengthen each other.
Nor is it about having a “worship service” …
But about including congregational singing of God’s praises to encourage one another so we can live daily lives of reverant obedience to Him, which is true worship.
It also is never about a monologue sermon by the one …
But about all ministering one to another to motivate each other to love and good works.
So why do Christians accept anything less …
Each Sunday morning?
Being an adult means fully bearing the cost, and the consequences, of our own choices.
Unfortunately, many parents today don’t let that happen …
Then wonder why their “grown” kids are such failures at life.
Tragically, I frequently see this as I go into our local jail …
Mostly among twenty-something white boys from middle class families.
Even more tragically, the parents and their churches often continue – out of guilt – to enable their immaturity even when they get out.
It never turns out well.
Do them a favor:
Let ’em fail!
Stop enabling them and let them begin to experience the full, unmitigated consequences of their choices …
Even if it means they go homeless and risk destitution until they begin making mature decisions and start to grow up.
Being allowed to become homeless and nearly destitute will be a great shock to them – and they may initially stumbled badly – but with time I’ve always seen it turn out to be the best thing for them.
For the first time, they learn to grow up and own their own future.
These are not theoretical musings, but how our churches over the years have helped guys from the jail who had no family but needed to grow up.
Today, they all are men of honor and purpose.
In the long run, tough love may be the best love you can give.
It takes a community …
To make a disciple.
I’ve seen more fleshly rubbish under the claim of being “in the Spirit” than I care to remember.
Simple humility and simple obedience, I find …
Are more often the real deal.
If you’re not a disciple …
You’re not a Christian.
Because without God’s rule …
There is no “Christ” in “Christian”.
Until you admit that “church” as you know it, is not how the Bible actually shows it …
You will remain stuck in your rut.
If we’re not about redemption, then what hope does anyone have?
This is my passion.
This is my cause.
But it ain’t neat and it ain’t tidy.
It’s raw and sometimes ugly.
Because if Jesus doesn’t work for the worse of us …
Then He works for none of us.
There’s nothing entertaining …
About authentic worship as the New Testament actually defines it.
Because worship in the New Testament means serving God with lives of humble obeisance and steadfast obedience.
Which is why authentic worship among many “churches” and “believers” …
Is so rare today.
So last Sunday morning:
Was it the Jesus Show (“church” on a stage) …
Or the Body of Christ (ministry one to another)?
Revivals come, revivals go …
But true repentance is forever.
When people say “worship” today …
They mean reverent singing.
When the New Testament says “worship” …
It means reverent obedience.
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the former.
It has its place, when done as the New Testament actually says …
But not as a substitute or new definition for the latter.
That was never God’s intent.
“Worship” has been reduced from its dual Biblical meanings of obeisance and obedience …
To music that makes us feel good.
Somewhere along the way, I think we lost our focus.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion …
But not to a Christ of their own perception.
He created and defines us …
And not us Him.
Jesus never told people they were saved by asking him into their heart …
But through faith to submit to his Kingdom rule by doing his Father’s will.
That’s called repenting.
Those who proclaim anything less …
Are preaching a lie.
How we measure “church” success:
Ministry by one gifted man who attracts fifty others to his “service” each Sunday morning …
That’s nice.
Ministry by one gifted man who attracts hundreds …
Now you’re talkin’!
Ministry by one gifted man who attracts thousands …
Mega success!!
How the New Testament measures church success:
Believers who gather together as a community, with each using their gifts …
For ministry one to another.
The me-centered, contrived intensity that many call “worship” these days …
Is an affront to God’s holiness.
True worship is living lives of obeisance and obedience to Him on His terms …
Rather than pursuing our own concepts of Him to feed our own insecurities.
It’s ironic how some think that elevating Christ as the Living Word …
Means discounting His written Word of Scripture.
Is Christ divided?
He’s all or nothing …
Because there is no pick-and-choose Jesus.
A “relationship” with a purely subjective Jesus, apart from His plenary authority of Scripture as His written Word …
Leads to inauthentic faith.
Likewise, “truth” from the plenary authority of Scripture without Jesus alive in us …
Also leads to an inauthentic faith.
Each extreme – born of an endless cycle of reaction to the other – chronicles two tragic trends of Church history.
Unfortunately, we still see these extremes all too evident today.
Authentic faith embraces the fulness of Christ:
Both His Person …
And what He has revealed in His written Word of Scripture.
Yet where my subjective perception of Him parts with His written self-disclosure, objective precepts and propositional truths of Scripture …
I must yield to Scripture.
There can be no maturity in Christ apart from these essentials.
Salvation isn’t about “asking Jesus into your heart”.
There’s nothing in the New Testament which says that.
Rather, it’s about repenting and submitting to His Kingdom …
On His terms, not ours.
In the final day …
It’s the only Gospel that counts.
Functional, sustainable ekklesia is impossible …
Among those who reject God’s plenary authority of Scripture as His revealed, transcendent and propositional truth.
It’s like cats trying to herd themselves.
Someone asked if I believe in women clergy.
No way, no how!
But then again, I don’t believe in men clergy either. 😉
Seriously, there is no clergy/laity divide in the New Testament.
Instead, we are ALL commanded to submit one to another as we minister to each other …
No matter the level of grace, differing function or diverse gifts we’ve been given.
