The Lord told me recently that the church is malfunctioning. the Scripture that He spoke to me is Jeremiah 6:14, which states: “They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace, when there is no peace” (ESV) I love the modern church. especially how we have moved from religious conformance to accepting people as they are. But if I look at the word that God gave me and my own experience it’s obvious something went wrong as it always does when humans are involved. We can be grateful that we serve a merciful, patient God who continually accepts our cries of repentance. Not only does He forgive us our sins but many times revival follows heartfelt repentance. But we must remember He is not slow but patient.
God told me the church malfunctions because: 1. It does not look after my people. 2. It does not believe that I can do the things that I say I can. 3. It breaks the things that matter to me. The word malfunction means to crash, breakdown, fault, failure, defect, flaw, collapse, impairment, glitch (google) all words we do not want to ascribe to the church. I can hear some of you saying that “His grace is sufficient for us” and that is definitively true but that does not give us the license to stop growing and maturing. We are called to be “a bride without spot or wrinkle” (Eph 5:27) His grace is for the things that we cannot change and He tells us if there are things that we can change. So let’s explore what God is saying to us through His word and how we can find a way to repair what is broken. It has been a while since I released Restoring the malfunctioning church-Pt.2 but I have been pondering this last part of this word God gave me.
3. It breaks the things that matter to me.
In this state of pondering I felt convinced that the restoration that God wants to bring to the church is a restoration of love. This love has a three-fold dynamic I believe, loving God being the primary, loving yourself and loving your neighbour. In retrospect, I saw that this lines up with what I have already written on this subject.
Loving God is our first love, loving ourselves is believing in who God says we are and loving our neighbour is fellowship, which is the topic of this last instalment of this word. Just before Jesus is arrested He prays what is called the high priestly prayer in John 17. In verses 21-23 He asks God the Father to give believers, new and mature, the same intimacy that He has with the Father. Can we understand how close we as believers have to walk to foster the unity of the Spirit? This is not just a nice platitude that we put on our social media platforms so that we can look like a Christian but this is the essential crux of being a witness.
A witness is somebody who sees an event, evidence or to have knowledge from observation or experience(google). Our love for our fellow Christians is evidence that Jesus is alive! This is especially crucial in countries like South Africa, where there are racial tensions and divisions. Unfortunately, I see in the church a lack of the understanding of God’s love for people and how we are to reflect this.
As I mentioned in the previous instalment, busyness has made us lose focus of people around us. Being busy can be found everywhere in this world, it is something that many people are proud of but love, real love the agape love of God is not everywhere. Too many in the church have more unbelieving friends than believing. I know you would say to me that Jesus was a friend of sinners and that is true but if we read the Gospels we will see that he spent more time with His disciples.
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? (2 Corinthians 6:14)
This verse is commonly used to explain that a believer is not to marry an unbeliever and this is true to an extent. I believe that we have looked past the fact that this verse refers to any relationships. Loving our neighbour does not mean that we forget who we are and that we are called to a body. God has called us to purpose and His purposes are people. The single biggest threat to our identity in Christ is those who don’t have Christ. This I can say from experience in my life and for some who I have prayed for. The world is watching. Closer than what we would deem comfortable but this is the price to pay to be “a city on a hill” (Mat 5:14).
Look at the life of Jesus and notice that everywhere He went He was being watched. So too we are being watched. Will we be falsely accused at times-Yes, but we have to repent when the accusation is true. (1 Pet 4:14-16) It is this repentance that God is seeking so that He can bring revival and refreshment to our dry and thirsty lands. (Acts 3:20)
I believe that there is nothing more refreshing than spending time with fellow believers. I believe that we will need this even more as we move to the end of this age. The book of Acts gives us an example of the standard of fellowship that believers are supposed to have. Some will say “O that was only for then” but believe that material blessings are for now.
For myself I choose to believe that the Bible was given for our instruction and growth. It is not about measuring up but maturing. We can all do something every day, week or month to grow. What will you be doing to grow in fellowship? Thank you very much for reading and I greet you in the name of our blessed Saviour and King, Jesus Christ.