Church

The church is, by all accounts, the place we meet to fellowship with like minds for the glory of God. People come to lay their burdens down and rest their cares in the support of the faithful and faithfully we support and shelter and pray for one another. Speaking in King James English, in the most noble showing of graciousness and kindness, we are sorrowful for others’ hurts and we confess our sorrow for the wrong things people may have perceived that we’ve done. We fill our Sundays with the passion of Christ for one another and prepare ourselves to be beacons for the world. We’ve saved our best for today; to give to God in public outcry; our love, our hurts, our hearts. It’s our time we set aside to be with God, to think like God, to obey God, to commune with Him. The end of a weary week in which we licked our wounds and begged for mercy and gritted our teeth as we tried, again, to raise our level of righteousness above our level of shame and embarrassment. We dodged the lunging stabs of evil knives and we are actively conspiring to be grateful for it.

And in our euphoric state of relief, we may have skipped over God’s challenges for us and religiously designed our own repetitious weekly survival ritual.

We are His church! The mystery of His spiritual fulfillment’s to be orchestrated by His faithful followers and poured out on the lost and the unfortunate, at all costs. His church was never meant to be just church, at church. It’s not just about escaping the lion’s fangs or the rusted teeth of the unstoppable bulldozer. It’s God’s pep rally; crescendo to a week of sacrifice in which we would have laid it all down if he’d asked us to. We’d have confessed our hearts in public testimony and suffered the abuse of rejection; the ridicule of public exposure, the threat of harm, the mockery of the unmerciful; shot from a cannon at close range into the tenderness of our greatest weaknesses. We’d have given our last crumb to someone in need and prayed for more to give only to have them turn against us and curse our efforts. We’d have suffered the betrayal of those whose closeness would have opened mortal character wounds. We’d have failed miserably at meeting deadlines and accomplishing goals and refocused only to fail again. We’d have gotten laid off or downsized or simply got fired for being faithful and righteous and loving. We’d have lost friends and loved ones to vicious senseless slaughter, lies and jealousy. Suffered raging natural disasters and escaped with a fraction of our lives; deeply wounded, abandoned and forever changed. There may have been no fairness, kindness nor loyalty afforded us in our recent memories and yet we would have fully spent our daily capital and faithfully waited each day to be renewed; holding back nothing for the Sunday finale.
For we know that our suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character; and character, hope.

So, with heads held high, we would have prayed without ceasing!
Understanding that we have been bought with a price!
We’d have put on the whole armor of God and felt the assurance that we could do all things!
We would have been comforted in the knowledge that He would never leave us nor forsake us!
We would have continued to walk by faith and not by sight into the next week!
Knowing that we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation!
Proclaiming that if God is for us, who can be against us? For we are salt and light!
And though we came to Him weary and heavy laden, we came to celebrate the victory!
We’d step out of yesterday boldly confessing Jesus before men and eager to celebrate Him!

The church God loves begins on Sunday, continues through the week and never ends.
Our church building is the place we go the say “Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again!

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:23-25 (NKJV)