Even If i Walk Alone

Instructing and encouraging you to live your life as a disciple of Jesus

the church

Gifts from God

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What are you holding back from the Kingdom? I’m not speaking of something you do or have that you don’t want to give up (although those areas are certainly worth a separate discussion!). I’m talking about the things you aren’t doing, the things you could be doing but don’t. What gifts have you been given that you are keeping locked inside of yourself? What part of the body is not functioning as it should because you are choosing to not do your part?

We all have gifts, gifts that God has given to each one of us (Ephesians 4:8, 11-12). These gifts are meant to build up the body of Christ. When we aren’t using our gifts, the body cannot be fully built up. Each gift is necessary and essential (Ephesians 4:16). Some of us have talents that are meant to reach out to the lost, gifts of evangelism. This doesn’t mean you have to be a travelling preacher, it could simply mean you have been gifted to talk to your next door neighbor about Christ. Some have been gifted as prophets, people who God reveals truth to, and you are to declare that truth to a particular audience. That audience may be of one or it may be one million, the size of the audience doesn’t matter; you are simply to deliver the message. Some are called to be pastors or shepherds, people who look after and lead other believers. Still others are called to be teachers, instructing others about the good news of Jesus Christ and how to live as a kingdom believer. Finally there are those who are called to be apostles, or missionaries; these are the ones who go throughout their neighborhood, their city, their state, their country or other nations bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to any who will listen.

Each one of us can find a place within these gifts. We often make the mistake of thinking we can’t be a shepherd because we don’t have a church or we can’t be a missionary because we wear normal clothes and live in a traditional house. We need to look past the stereotypical definitions of what these words have come to mean in the Western culture. Find yourself in one of these gifts. What can you do today to use that gift? Sadly, many of us are aware of how we are gifted but we choose not to exercise the gift out of fear of ridicule, fear of criticism, or fear of giving up something we treasure. Read again the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30. I am horrified by the prospect of identifying with the one who hid his talent. I shudder at the thought of being sent away from God’s presence because I chose to not use the gift He entrusted to me.

We have a choice to make. Will we play our part in His kingdom? Will we use what He placed inside of us to do something special for God? Or will we continue to live life on cruise, surviving the day only to begin again the next day? I want to live for Jesus in every way I can. I want to die knowing I have used up everything He gave me; I want to leave nothing behind. We need each part to be working toward the common goal of bringing the kingdom of God to everyone. Don’t hold anything back, but rather give everything that is within you. Don’t die with God’s gifts buried inside you. Live your calling; be the person He created you to be.

The Alive and Devoted Church

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I write a lot about personal responsibility, focused here on this blog as our duty to follow Christ with all that we are. This is our call as followers of Jesus. If we are not personally “all in” for Jesus, we cannot expect to have any merit with those to whom we would speak. We have to model our beliefs without wavering, trusting always in Christ rather than in anything we might possess or accomplish. I would be remiss, however, if I were to stop at personal responsibility. We are called the body of Christ, meaning we are part of a connected network, a family. Jesus called this family His bride, the church.

Today we tend to think of church as a building, indeed as several building throughout our cities. This is a misrepresentation of what the Church was created to be. The Biblical church never referred to a building, but rather a body. We are supposed to amplify all the things we are called to do as individual followers of Christ, by gathering with other believers and doing those same things together. The power in a group of followers of Jesus can be breath taking. There is more power in love than any other force in the universe. This is true on an individual level, but even more pronounced when a group of people come together to love others.

Together, through love, we can feed the hungry, give shelter to the homeless, care for the widows and single moms, and look after the orphans and those from broken homes. Love is powerful. Love, amplified, is unstoppable. We are called to be the church, yet most of us associate being the church as going to a predetermined building each Sunday morning, being entertained for an hour or two, then maybe even getting involved in a couple of programs. Mission accomplished, duty fulfilled, right? Doubtful. There are a few modern “churches” that get it right. They do the things Christ commanded us to do. But by and large, the modern Western church has become a divisive collection of mini-corporations with building campaigns, catering budgets and medical insurance benefits. Much of the money collected from the church members goes to pay the overhead of the staff and electricity bills. Thankfully we squeeze small corners of the budget in so we can help out in the inner city and send some rice overseas. We manage to earmark just enough money to soothe our conscious so we can get on with bigger ideas such as building campaigns.

I cannot begin to imagine the sorrow of Christ as He looks down on all of this. Is this the reason He sacrificed His own life, so that we could build better playgrounds and more adequately cool our “sanctuaries”? God, forgive us. What have we become? How we have twisted His mission to the point that our own professed Lord would no longer recognize it. This is not the church Christ died for. We – you and me – we are the Church for which He died. Yet we ignore the commandments of Jesus and we spit on the cross where He bled for us because we can’t see past our own comfort to notice a wounded and dying world, a world that cries out to us for help. We pass by the homeless and overlook the poor. We ignore the needs of the outcast and cater to those more like ourselves. We are the Church, but where is the work of the church, where are the results? We need more than Sunday morning sermons and soon forgotten resolutions of commitment. We need true followers banding together to go out and care for this world. We need to come together and be the Church. We need to be the ones who are not afraid to stand in the face of oppression and persecution. We as the Church should be throwing our bodies over those in need, protecting them, loving them and nursing them back to health.

But we stand off to the side. We bicker over styles of worship, the length of sermons and meaningless nuances of religion. We are not called to be a people divided, but rather a people united under Christ. He is to be our Lord and Leader. So how about it Church, are you with me? Are you ready to abandon the buildings and divisions and begin to be about being the Church rather than simply attending one? The church is the bride of Christ. A bride does not merely attend her wedding but rather is fully engaged in all facets of it and fully focused on the one she loves. It’s time to stop merely being in attendance. It’s time to be the Church, fully devoted, fully alive.