Tag: bride of christ

The Bride.

Persecuted for righteousness sake?

Sometimes situations turn out unfavorably and with quickness we think that we are being persecuted. This is EASY when dealing with the church. We are prone to be skeptical and weary of the church. If you think about it, it makes since. The bride it the representation of God’s grace toward all in the world. She is where the grace of God can be discovered. Our adversary works to separate us from this life giving body. We build arguments, then write books, and even develop counter church culture, etc. etc.

BUT, if we were truthful with ourselves most of the time we claim persecution it’s not because we were righteous, but because we are at fault. And instead of looking at our actions that led up to the situation at hand we point at the church. It’s much easier to be upset at someone else than it is to be truthful with ourselves.

Lately I’ve been recognizing how much God loves His bride, no matter how much she rebels, no matter how late she stays out at night, no matter how many tattoos she gets. He is the one who laid down His life to make her pure and white. He is the one who lusts for her, who’s attraction to her doesn’t make since.

Who will be the one to step between a Holy God and His beloved. Not me.

Getting Back to the Basics

Worship had been electrifying. The room was charged with the presence of the Almighty. Everyone had a gift to bring, no one was exempt. It’s just funny we even went there, but somehow it was like we accidently ran over the right road marker that showed us we were on the right path.

The road marker was Acts 2:44 “All those who had believed were together and had all things in common.” Never had those words took on such meaning. All that each of us had, all of our resources that had value, were proverbially thrown into the center of this room for the building up of the body. Whatever we had experienced, whatever our spiritual gifts were, were not our own but were for the benefit of the body. This meeting that was spawned from prayer seemed difficult to follow to me. It was nothing like I’d ever seen or been a part of. I was asked as the leader to refrain from preparing information. Each week I fight the urge to wrangle down a word from God; sometimes I even go to Him getting a kind pat on the head and a reiteration of instruction. I see now that what we have going is good, real good.

Where had we gone wrong before? How had we drifted so heavily from this map of church? I’m not one to bash traditional models of church, but I’m assuming that what we had accomplished by having church this way, was the most traditional way possible, Acts style. I guess that Solomon was right, there is nothing new under the sun.

Moreover, why fix something that’s not broken. This model is not broken, I assure you. Wanna see it in action? Come bring your gifts to The KILN Thursdays at 6:30 at Charlotte 24-7.