Be the Church

GOD's Mission to have a Bride predates Creation. We know this because Luke tells us that Jesus was slain before the foundation of the world, and we know that He gave His life to redeem mankind. As we study the entirety of the Text we see GOD's Mission displayed through typology from the Garden all the way to Apocalypse, but nowhere is it more pronounced that when first spoken to Abram in Genesis 12. GOD told Abram, I'm going to bless you, but that wasn't all that He said. GOD continued, this blessing I'm giving you is so that through you all the nations of the world will be blessed.


GOD gave Abram (the father of the faithful) a blessing wrapped in responsibility.


Jesus reiterated this responsibility when He gave His Commission: go… make disciples… teach them everything I've taught you. In other words, take what I've given you and give it to someone else. GOD's Mission to Abram in the Old Testament is the same as Jesus' Commission to the 1st Century Community, and—subsequently—to us.


When we received this Treasure that we house in our jars of clay, we did not with it receive an admonition to horde the Glory. The jars of clay were porous, thus they leaked their contents. Paul's reference to clay jars was to illuminate the typology of our own Spiritual clay jars leaking the Glorious Treasure onto the hurting world in which we live.


Jesus didn't redeem us for us to simply possess salvation. He redeemed us so that we would take salvation to the world. It's past time for those who claim to name the name of Messiah to stop simply having good church and to effectively start being the Church. It's time for the culture to shift, from the minority of the congregation being the Bible study teachers, to everyone who has been Spirit-baptized to actively be discipling people on a weekly basis. It past time for us to shine Jesus to our hurting world by demonstrating His love to them by feeding them, clothing them, visiting them. It's time for the most important thing that we do as the Redeemed to stop being about our gatherings (church services), and to finally be about what gives our GOD good pleasure, new births. It's past time for our preferences to cease determining our activity (or lack thereof). It's time for us to forget about our opinions about GOD and actually start doing what He Commissioned us to do: go. It's past time for us to stop making little pentecostal duplicates of ourselves and our tired, Text-less philosophies, and to start making disciples of Jesus Messiah. It's time for us to be rather than to have.


Church is not a verb, thus it is impossible to have church (either good or bad). The Church is a proper noun, thus must be performing the action of blessing the world around us with the blessing with which we've been entrusted. What would happen in our world if, collectively, GOD's Community would being to leave the confines of the church buildings and start actively being the Church? How many lives would be radically altered for GOD if we would shine His Love rather than our religion; go to where they are rather than forcing them to always come to us (as if we can do anything for them in the first place)?


Is this call to be the Church resonating with any of you?