October 30, 2014
Life Center
Many churches have an area
known as a fellowship hall, or an activity center. Recently I drove passed a
church with signs and arrows pointing to two separate buildings; one to the Sanctuary
and the other to the Life Center. The
connotation that a building is a life center would no doubt give the Apostle John
heartburn. John’s gospel made it clear to Jews and Gentiles alike that life is
in Jesus. “In him was life, and that life was the light of men” (John
1:4 NIV).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----Good for you! Meeting for worship and activities is important. Each believer has aspects of life he does well that are different from what others do well. Each knows things others don’t. We need times together so this stuff can flow from one to another, so we can influence, inspire, and teach one another.
-----But that doesn’t make either the “separate” building nor the sanctuary the place where life goes on. There should be no center about it. Indeed, neither nor both together, nor any other number of buildings or other such gaudiness can be His temple, “…you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” (Eph 2:19b-22)
-----We weak and limited creatures hardly think in more than trickles, and our other five senses retrieve mere samples of information from not much farther than we can throw a good sized stone. The rest of the world and universe go unknown, or at best is imagined either from someone else’s description or by a few remembered aspects of where ever we’ve been. And even the person who thinks he’s been everywhere and met everyone speaks of it only metaphorically. There’s not enough time in a lifetime to go everywhere. And if he met one person per hour twenty four hours per day every day from the moment of his birth until the moment of his death at one-hundred he would yet only meet one-hundredth of a percent of all the people alive today. Yet we have this perception that we are not His temple unless we are together?
-----Don’t get me wrong. There is great importance in gathering. But gathering does not make the temple. Nor does just calling ourselves “Christian”. Our five senses trick our minds into perceiving reality as the sights and sounds and sensations of things around us expressing all their shapes and makeup. And though that is a lot, it isn‘t enough to be what things really are. It dwarf’s in comparison to all of the deeds and actions done of everyone in the Lord and all their thoughts and feelings combined to boot. Sprinkled amongst these are forgivings and givings and agreements and compassions and considerations and all of the other good things done to all men by His people, things which He feels also (Mat 25:40.) Nor does He feel merely our deeds. He also experiences every thought, feeling, attitude, down to the subtlest inklings of our mental being. All of the kindness and gentleness and goodness and patience and perseverance flush up His temple with every one of our desires and prayers for righteousness. All of what is right happening inside every last one of His chosen from the beginning of time till its end, and everything right they have done, and what all of it together means in His mind is His temple. So it is on the streets and in the alleys and living rooms and market places and even on the football fields, PC fascists forbid! His temple is everywhere there’s abiding in truth. It is all His life center. There’s only some fellowship in a room of His temple in any one or other of our buildings. His Holy Spirit within each one of us is that one’s stitch of life center woven into the tapestry with the rest.
-----So, go all about your business constructing more temple for Him with your every good deed, desire, attitude, thought, feeling, and inkling.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Post a Comment