BEING TIED TO A CHURCH (BUILDING)
Greetings in the name of Jesus:
For some reason most every Christian has a preconceived idea of church being a place to goal to worship God. In fact from the very beginning we have always built sanctuaries and monuments to God in some way to show our adoration for him. The problem with that is not in the effort that we make to recognize God, but it is in the way that we begin to think about these sanctuaries and the parts they play in our lives.
In Hebrews 9:1-10 the writer begins to explain more about these places of worship within our human process of thinking, and how they are tied to the old covenant of a Tabernacle that men has set up as God's abiding place on earth. Hebrews tells us in a kind of tour it takes us through in the tabernacle room by room. Each of these spaces began to get more intensely holy than the one before until there was a curtain and room called the most holy place where the Ark of the covenant sat. It was here that the Jews placed the most important artifacts they had in relationship to God. Only the high priests were able to make contact with these things out of the deep sense of respect, fear, and the covenant they had made through Abraham with God, but even then the high priests only entered the inner room once a year and never without a blood offering for himself for the sins of the people they committed in ignorance. In this old covenant between man and God the Holy Spirit were showing that the way into the most holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as at first tabernacle was still standing.
My point here is that for a lot of Christians we still worship God in that same way by placing him in our own kind of tabernacle. We come there once a week to worship and praise God in a box that we have created to contain him. It's almost as though like little children once a week we take God out and play with him for an hour in our minds and hearts, and then at the end of the Sunday worship we place them back in the box and go our merry way feeling as though we have completed once again a weekly duty to visit God. The new covenant that God has with us through Jesus Christ is a very personal commitment that is made from God to us through the power of the Holy Spirit, and then back from us to him in the way of our own personal sacrifice of life. It is that relationship between us and God that also carries with it a blood sacrifice. It is an ongoing daily sacrifice that we make in the way we conduct our lives, and relate to others. This becomes a transformation for us, and it is the only way for us to be changed from the inside out so that we can begin to see the truth about what God's new covenant is really all about. It is not about the blood that we shed of animals and things that are all around us to use the sacrifices; and it is not about obeying a letter of the law that keeps us clean in the eyes of other men. It is really all about the blood of Christ, and about the one time perfect sacrifice that God is made on our part. It is all about our response to that kind of love in our hearts intent because God did not shed the blood of his creation, but he entered the most holy of places ones for all by his own blood God reached out and of attained eternal redemption for us through our faith in Christ Jesus. It was his blood of Christ through the power of God's Holy Spirit that became a perfect and unblemished sacrifice to God. All that we could offer God our acts that lead to death, but this single sacrifice of Jesus Christ has opened the doors for a new relationship with God through the power of his Holy Spirit. This is the reason that our relationship with Jesus Christ is so important to us because it is we as believers and followers of Christ who are called to receive God's promise of an eternal inheritance. In the strangest of ways God loved us so much, and he considered us so important to him that he was willing to shed his own blood so that we might be able to be with him for all eternity. This new covenant from God to us changes the status of what God considers to be the church from an earthly building or man-made sanctuary to a beating heart that is able to give a daily and a moment to moment sacrifice of love back to God.
We have become the church, and instead of the building we are tied to a relationship with a perfect love between God and us. There is so much more to be said about this kind of relationship from the standpoint of a covenant made between God and us. We are also the inheritors of life eternal in the presence of a living and loving God. There isn't anything about our relationship with God that could have happened without a perfect blood sacrifice being made. It is my prayer that each one of us would begin to understand how important our part is in being tied to the church, because the church is one another. We are called to unity through a bond of love and obedience to the power of God's Holy Spirit to become one with God, and one with each other as we worship Christ through the transformation of our minds and hearts. I pray that we can let that sink in to our minds and the very fiber of our souls. May you richly bless God through your life in him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
For some reason most every Christian has a preconceived idea of church being a place to goal to worship God. In fact from the very beginning we have always built sanctuaries and monuments to God in some way to show our adoration for him. The problem with that is not in the effort that we make to recognize God, but it is in the way that we begin to think about these sanctuaries and the parts they play in our lives.
In Hebrews 9:1-10 the writer begins to explain more about these places of worship within our human process of thinking, and how they are tied to the old covenant of a Tabernacle that men has set up as God's abiding place on earth. Hebrews tells us in a kind of tour it takes us through in the tabernacle room by room. Each of these spaces began to get more intensely holy than the one before until there was a curtain and room called the most holy place where the Ark of the covenant sat. It was here that the Jews placed the most important artifacts they had in relationship to God. Only the high priests were able to make contact with these things out of the deep sense of respect, fear, and the covenant they had made through Abraham with God, but even then the high priests only entered the inner room once a year and never without a blood offering for himself for the sins of the people they committed in ignorance. In this old covenant between man and God the Holy Spirit were showing that the way into the most holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as at first tabernacle was still standing.
My point here is that for a lot of Christians we still worship God in that same way by placing him in our own kind of tabernacle. We come there once a week to worship and praise God in a box that we have created to contain him. It's almost as though like little children once a week we take God out and play with him for an hour in our minds and hearts, and then at the end of the Sunday worship we place them back in the box and go our merry way feeling as though we have completed once again a weekly duty to visit God. The new covenant that God has with us through Jesus Christ is a very personal commitment that is made from God to us through the power of the Holy Spirit, and then back from us to him in the way of our own personal sacrifice of life. It is that relationship between us and God that also carries with it a blood sacrifice. It is an ongoing daily sacrifice that we make in the way we conduct our lives, and relate to others. This becomes a transformation for us, and it is the only way for us to be changed from the inside out so that we can begin to see the truth about what God's new covenant is really all about. It is not about the blood that we shed of animals and things that are all around us to use the sacrifices; and it is not about obeying a letter of the law that keeps us clean in the eyes of other men. It is really all about the blood of Christ, and about the one time perfect sacrifice that God is made on our part. It is all about our response to that kind of love in our hearts intent because God did not shed the blood of his creation, but he entered the most holy of places ones for all by his own blood God reached out and of attained eternal redemption for us through our faith in Christ Jesus. It was his blood of Christ through the power of God's Holy Spirit that became a perfect and unblemished sacrifice to God. All that we could offer God our acts that lead to death, but this single sacrifice of Jesus Christ has opened the doors for a new relationship with God through the power of his Holy Spirit. This is the reason that our relationship with Jesus Christ is so important to us because it is we as believers and followers of Christ who are called to receive God's promise of an eternal inheritance. In the strangest of ways God loved us so much, and he considered us so important to him that he was willing to shed his own blood so that we might be able to be with him for all eternity. This new covenant from God to us changes the status of what God considers to be the church from an earthly building or man-made sanctuary to a beating heart that is able to give a daily and a moment to moment sacrifice of love back to God.
We have become the church, and instead of the building we are tied to a relationship with a perfect love between God and us. There is so much more to be said about this kind of relationship from the standpoint of a covenant made between God and us. We are also the inheritors of life eternal in the presence of a living and loving God. There isn't anything about our relationship with God that could have happened without a perfect blood sacrifice being made. It is my prayer that each one of us would begin to understand how important our part is in being tied to the church, because the church is one another. We are called to unity through a bond of love and obedience to the power of God's Holy Spirit to become one with God, and one with each other as we worship Christ through the transformation of our minds and hearts. I pray that we can let that sink in to our minds and the very fiber of our souls. May you richly bless God through your life in him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
Comments
Post a Comment