The Church is Not a Building
The buildings may be closed but the church is alive
I’ve been reading various articles about how God is growing the church. By church of course I mean the body of Christ, the people. Pastors and church communities are becoming more innovative about how they are spreading the Good News of Jesus. The unsaved are becoming more curious as posts about God’s goodness are becoming more available.
Churches around the world are seeing growth in the numbers of salvation. God can and does use the circumstances around us for his glory. Why is all this chaos happening around the world? God knows why. That ought to be enough information to sit back, pray and ask how God can use you in the church, in your community while we wait on Him.
We sometimes may measure God’s goodness on how happy we are. We may occasionally focus on what we want and whether or not we are getting it. Therefore, sometimes people will say, “Where is God?”, when we don’t have things happen when we want. God is and always has been in control. Part of his plan may be to grow the church and bring the unsaved and Christian to their knees during this time of uncertainty in the world. If it is, it’s working. It’s also bringing the church closer together.
At no time does God want you to fear, to waiver or to take on the burdens around you. He does not want you to live moment by moment based on the news and information that is engineered to instill fear in us. That much we can be certain of. We can’t and shouldn’t try to figure out what God is doing. By now we should be settled into the trust and obey part of our life. We should continue to be waiting on our Lord. It’s that simple.
Keep being faithful, keep loving, and keep serving. When we do, we serve as a church. We testify God’s sovereignty to others by our actions and inactions. Isn’t God worthy of that from us? We know He is. It’s not always easy. We know that too. In the end, whenever that happens and whatever that looks like, it will be worth it. There are many in the world who have endured, who are enduring and who will probably endure much more than we ever will. My hope for us all is to persevere, keep being faithful, keep loving, and keep serving. It’s going to be okay.
Finally, I love unity. I love that Jesus left us with a command to love one another. The church is a lot more universal than our church body. As true Christians around the world, we share the same God. We have the same hope. We are offered the same peace.
What follows here, you may have already read. I posted it on my Facebook page.
What would happen if you asked dozens of Christians who may have never met to sing together at various times, apart? What if a song was written with a message that contained a biblical blessing? A blessing such as, “May God bless you and keep you.” A heart’s desire for God’s goodness on you. There is a link below to a song that I’d ask you to watch and listen to.
What is it about the joy that God brings to the life of these Christians that they can sing in solitude in their own homes and express the same joy, apart? To watch this and hear them you’d think they were all in the same place at the same time with the same message. Look at their faces while they sing. Despite their possible differences in culture and perspective on Christianity, they have the same desire to connect with the same God.
Like many people, they too are stuck in their homes. They are going through the same difficulties as their community around them. There is a difference though. The joy and peace that they have despite what is going on in the world comes from the same Holy Spirit within them.
Here is a note to the various readers of this page. You may not understand who God is, what He is doing, or what He is not doing. You may not want to understand. I don’t know you and I hope that you know if you don’t have peace in your life, you can. If you have ever wondered what peace and joy look like from the perspective of a Christian, here is an example in the video below. Take a few minutes and just listen and notice the countenance of the singers who are either few in number or alone. They are recording their part of this collective song. They sing from their hearts in the unity of Christ. The song is not for the singers, it is a message for you. This song is offered as a blessing given by God through Moses translated in a song.
Numbers 6:24-26
24 “The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26 the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”
In the peace of our Lord,
Michael