God loves it when I am in unity with my brethren. (Ps 133:1-3) He will provide me a way that I can be right in my fellowship. According to Acts 8:1-3 I can be sincerely wrong in my fellowship with other people. It is not until I am in Christ, and have accepted no other name but His that I can be in unity with others in Christ. Do I suffer for to the point of dying for my brethren (1 Thes 2:14-15) and if so what is my motive (1 Cor 13:1-5)? Am I willing to put my love on the line for God’s people even if I do not know them, or worse if I do know them and know that they themselves wouldn’t do it for me? What I should always remember is that Christ and God don’t care what other people do or don’t do, when it comes to what I should do. What really matters is my obedience to God. What does God expect of me? The only way I know that is through examining and studying and committing to my heart His Word. Only then can I accept that Christ is the leader of the church.
Where is Christ? In Ps 48:1-4, God has his city and it is the one location that all will go to praise His Name. That means me, that means the person sitting next to me. That means the people in the church down the road. If Christ is the leader of the church, and Christ is God, then all attributes of His church must come from God, as the Son comes from God. And He will be in that city. In Ps 84:1-10, in God’s strength is my strength. I rest within Him, much as in Hebrews 4. God and Jesus are my Sabbath Rest. If Christ is God, and the Church belongs to Christ, then my ministry and the ministry of those who claim Christ, is to stay within Him, to stay within the Sabbath Rest. That is what makes us different. Not service, not friendliness, but the fact that we know that God is present and that we serve because He served and serves and He wants us in His Rest. If I forget that God is in control and that Jesus’ Word is true, then I have taken myself out of His rest and I am subject to His judgment. Why? Because when I take myself out of His Rest, I am trying to do things on my own, I am being God and He will topple me like the tower of Babel. Lest I forget Ps 87:1-7, that all good things around me are sent from heaven above. (If that sounds like a song out of Godspell, it is.) I, and others that claim Christ, praise Him on His mountain, which He calls Zion. (Ps 102:13-21) On that mountain, all those He calls saints will live and be in peace. And He shall reign always. He wants us to live with Him in Zion. (Ps 132:13-16), and He wants us to enjoy His world in abundance. Does that mean heaven? Actually Zion was a mountain near the original temple of Solomon, along with Mount of Olives and some others. But the Zion that David speaks of is in the future, further than that. He is speaking of a Zion like Isaiah, where all will be welcome and can come to His mountain in His Name and worship in Him. In other words, the church. Heaven, too, but then again the way Christ set up the Church is Heaven on Earth. That is how God wants us to be in His Son’s Church, as though we were in Heaven, praising God and in His Sabbath Rest. And we should never look back toward Eden. We are going to Zion’s completion. (Ps 134:1-3) and our attitude should be one of thanksgiving. (Ps 136:1-6) because our relationship with God, when we are in Him and obeying Him and our attitude is love for Him and for one another, is no longer that of slaves but of children. (John 1:16)
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