The Perfect Church

Sorry it has been awhile since I have posted. A couple of times I have sat down to type something and actually wrote some, but I did not feel the Holy Spirit guiding me in it so I deleted it. So hopefully this is from God and for His glory. Little update on me, I recently was asked to pray about going to Morocco this summer with IGO. After praying about this I did not feel any leading from the Lord nor any peace from Him to pursue this option. So once again, I find myself waiting on Him or maybe more appropriately, He waiting on me till I'm ready for Him to send me.

"Let the fellowship of Christ examine itself and see whether it has given any token of the love of Christ to the victims of the world's contumely and contempt, any token of that love of Christ which seeks to preserve, support and protect life. Otherwise however liturgically correct our services are, and however devout our prayer, however brave our testimony, they will profit us nothing, nay rather, they must needs testify against us that we have as a Church ceased to follow our Lord." The Cost of Discipleship

For years I grew up believing the church is rated on how big it was, how many programs it had, what type of events they held, and so on. Bonhoeffer is expositionally teaching from the sermon on the mount. He comes to how we should treat our brother and he makes this claim (stated above). The church should be rated on how we treated our brother, showing love to the people that are despised by this world, and treating kindly those that persecute us. It does not matter if we have the largest sanctuary in the city with the most high tech gadgets. It is about relationships with your brothers and with the lost. If these large crowds and gadgets get in the way of our relationships then we should get rid of them or more likely we as individuals should leave them. The body of God is about living in a community that reaches out to all types especially the oppressed and broken-hearted. When you see a church doing that then you have seen a healthy church.

Addictions

addiction- the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something

Being on the streets it is easy to identify people with addictions. Addictions to drugs, addictions to alcohol, even some addicted to sex. It is easy to condemn these actions and these people. We wonder, how can they live theirs lives in such a worthless manner? Don't they see they are ruining their lives and their friends' and family's lives? They do not deserve our love or our money. Well, one time as I was pondering these thoughts God showed me that we all have addictions, they are just not as noticeable. Some of us are addicted to self-righteousness, legalism, lust, materialism and these are just a few. We do not view these as serious because the physical consequences are not as visible. We can easily gauge the effects of being addicted to drugs and alcohol. It breaks up families and relationships, expends money and resources, and causes thievery and violence. Therefore we judge this addiction to be of a greater evil and condemn the people of it. Yet God views all these addictions as equal evil and despises them all the same. An addiction to materialism will actually improve one's physical outlook so we are not as quick to judge that. Materialism's consequences are in the mental and spiritual aspect of man and causes deep roots of darkness that may go unnoticed. And even a more obscure addiction would be one of legalism which is rampant in the church. How can we know that the people we attend church with are truly acting in love and not in a legalistic mindset. The results seem the same. Yet the causes are worlds apart. We do not condemn these people the same as the addicts and drunkards. All this really comes down to that we are all pathetic sinners and the only good in us comes from God. We all have a sinful flesh and if we do not fall to evil it is because God gave us that desire or that discipline to withstain from it.

God, I ask that you will free us from our addictions of every type. That you would put to death the self that continues to live inside of us. And we will live without judging others but have compassion upon them. God break us and allow Jesus to live through us. In Jesus Christ's name. Amen.