07/26/2019
In our old age we turn to our children to help us with those things requiring strong hands and feet, but when we have no home, and no children, where do we turn for help? We find our help where we have always found it... in the Lord Jesus, and Almighty God. Our provision is complete in God, and in Jesus, along with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
“He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the Lord!”
Psalms 113:9 ESV
We are provided a home and children through our faith in Christ, God, and by our church family, in those times when we find ourselves alone in the valley, and seemingly helpless, our faith becomes like the hills to which we look.
“I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
Psalms 121:1-2 ESV
This is a message of encouragement to those in need, but it is also a conviction to us as the church. When I was a young man I went to “church” to find God, and to sit at the feet of Jesus where I could hear his teaching... not because of the extended family it provided me (although I enjoyed my friendships there), but for selfish reasons... to secure my own salvation. I saw the elderly, the down trodden, and the needy in church, and would think to myself...”the church needs to help them!” or “Someone needs to help them.” In truth, I mouthed the word church, but never really understood that I was the church. You see, Jesus didn’t shed His blood for a building, or an institution; He did so for you, and me... the church.
“Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.”
Acts 20:28 ESV
My excuses in distancing myself were many, because I was too busy with my career, my own family, and what I thought were efforts that would save my own soul. I was too busy with the “my” in my life to really understand the “you” that Jesus spoke of in His final judgement teaching regarding the mercies. I thought He was teaching me about what I could easily do through “The Church” without realizing that He wanted this to be absolutely personal, and about the real me! In fact, I didn’t feed the hungry; I gave to the institution, which I referred to as the church. I gave it money to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to welcome strangers with a welcoming committee, to clothe the naked, and to send pastors to visit the sick, and imprisoned. I was missing the point, and the lessons in faith that I was supposed to receive through doing these things.
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.'”
Matthew 25:35-36 ESV
It was so easy to think that I had paid the church to do all of this for me... I was abdicating my responsibility. This kind of thinking allows us to remain rooted in the world; it takes the method by which the world operates and allows our faith to use it. The byproduct of this is what we see as being so prevalent in religion today... from our church buildings we hear the words God, and Jesus, but yet we see only society, and its institutions. We are building structures with the stones of the world and calling them church.
“If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.”
1 Corinthians 3:17 ESV
We take the “you”, and the “me”, in scripture, and redefine them to mean some collective entity in which we have marginal responsibility. We have made a corporation out what was once the church, and are attempting to hide in it, but God sees us there in our building, our institution, and as we just read in scripture; from there we will be judged.
So back to our original scripture (Psalm 113:9), when the woman is barren, and homeless, who will God use to provide her a home and a family? Who will make her joyous by sharing their home and their children with her? Will it be the church building, or the institution that has built a shelter somewhere to release us of this personal responsibility? Don’t get me wrong, shelters are wonderful and meet the need of a society lacking in those who really understand “you”, but even when we build them, we rarely interact personally with the people housed there... we call it love, but how do we do that from such a distance? Only a real church of flesh, blood, spirit, and arms that hold can love.
God will provide for the barren and homeless, but will He do so through you... you who are the church?
Prayer:
Father, thank you for your Son Jesus Christ who established us as His church, and will come back to claim us as His bride. Thank you Holy Father for opening our eyes to the fact that we don’t just go to church, but that we are the church. Help us Merciful Father to show the same mercy you show us, to those who you place in our path, and help us to personally be your hands, and heart to them. Teach us to listen for your voice, and to your will, help us to respond each time you call our name, and whenever you say “come!” Give us the faith to reach out to the barren, and homeless... the aged. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who never leaves us alone, and places us in homes where your children will care for us in our years, and bring us joy. Praised be your name Jesus for Your intercession, and for our brothers and sisters in you. All glory is yours Father as you construct a mansion for us, and set a table before us; calling us to dine through the grace you have poured into our cup, and the meat on which we are nourished through Jesus. We will worship you together as the church, and call unto the mountains... “Come quickly Jesus!”
“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
Ephesians 2:19-22 ESV
Rich Forbes