THE CHURCH

I Was Just Thinking About – THE CHURCH.

Throughout the decades of my life, there has never been a time when The Church was not part of it. A question that is pervasive asks, What is The Church and what characterizes it? In a devotional compiled from his book, The Set of the Sail, Dr. A. W/ Tozer shares a very concise concept of what The Church is supposed to be. At the very least, “The Church is born out of the gospel and that gospel has to do with God and mans relation to God. Christianity engages to bring God into human life, to make men right with God, to give them a heart knowledge of God, to teach them to love and obey God and ultimately to restore in them the lost image of God in full and everlasting perfection.”

As the parameter and guideline for The Church, he utilized I Corinthians 1:2, “To the church…to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ-their Lord and ours.” A thought attached is, “The Church is the people of God, the family of God. Wherever the people of God are The Church is. We are members of Christ’s body in the world. We are not confined to a church building. We are the Church wherever we are.” Also attached to this devotional is a prayer: “O Lord, may Your Church be the Church-bold and unashamed. We are Your people through whom You seek to reach those around us.”

The place where The Church begins is when a person enters into both a commitment and discipline expressed in Psalm 27:8, “You have said, Seek my face. My heart says to you, Your face, Lord, do I seek.” It will also include the words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman in John 4:23-24, “But a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such as these to worship Him. God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

Over the years, I have read about and experienced varying views about The Church - its structure and function. There is obvious disagreement about the subject of The Church manifested by the various groups in communities across this nation and world. Just as obvious is that several of them are wrong in how they determine and define The Church and its rituals. Who is more correct – The Baptists or the Roman Catholics – who dominate the world stage with “churches”? Is the Pentecostal movement more Biblical than the United Methodists, etc? Generally, the answer would be – No!

One should appreciate the approach of Peter to The Church during a dispersion period, I Peter 1:3-6. As The Church is driven from its buildings and their antiquities destroyed due to persecution, that which defines who the people of God are is stated as: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By His great mercy, He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you, who through faith are protected by God’s power for the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice.”

Prayerfully – consider these things with me.

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