There are no Jew, Greeks, ect. Part 19

God makes His church. Haggai 2:4-9, says clearly, “Yet now be strong, oh Zerrubabel, saith the LORD; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong all ye people of the land, saith the LORD, and work: for I am with you, saith the LORD of hosts. According to the word that I covenanted when ye came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you; fear ye not. For thus saith the LORD of hosts; ye once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heaven, and the earth and the sea and the dry land: and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts; the silver is mine and the gold is mine, saith the LORD of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than the former, saith the LORD of hosts, and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts.” What this means is that there is something to replace the former place of worship, the former “house”. There is something that is coming and that is His Body the church. The glory is greater because it will be as in a marriage, the two shall become one, and those that comprise the church shall be one in Christ, one intent, one voice, one Spirit, one Baptism, one Faith as it says in Ephesians. And He will shake everything that moves because of the new way of seeing an old idea, a new angle on following, no longer will I be a slave to passions that possess me. But like leading people out of Egypt He will move me and lead me and never leave me. He loves me just that much. So it is His command that I be strong and stand tall in Him and that I shall be able to be in peace in His new place. He tells me to draw my boldness from His promise that He will never let me down because He has never let His people down. And that is encouraging.

There are no Jews, no Greeks, etc...part 18

And because He doesn't want us to put Him in that box He created His children to be made up of so many different peoples, all kinds and sins. The prophet Isaiah well knew this and describe it so beautifully in Is 23:17,18 and in Is 25:6 – 8. It is not important that there are diverse beings in the body. It is important how the diversity is allowed to influence the acceptance and the spirit of God’s Word. Are their idols in the church? Surely there are and they must be torn down, from the most legalistic to the least noticeable law-abiding citizen of heaven that won’t allow a pauper in because he cannot tithe. All idols which say that all churches in order to grow must provide a way for the outsider to be more excited about coming to worship. All idols which say that one can improve on doing what God says to do in worship, and hence clutter the worship service with attitudes of “expressions of God” rather than communication and learning from the true God. I love impressionist art. It is never the same no matter where you stand. If you stand by a Matisse or a Renoir it looks like paints thrown together. Stand away and you get the big picture of what the artist was trying to say. But is this what God wants? Does He want one vision of Himself in one direction and one in another direction? Does He want us to understand His desires and interpret those one way in one time and another way in another? God does want some specific things from church, from His body. Mostly, to come before Him humbly and accepting what Christ has taught. To praise God, not through other human’s eyes but through His word, to sing to Him as He sings to us, with grace and with mercy and learning His ways of peace and joy in Him.

There are no Jews, no Greeks, etc... Part 17

No I think when God tells me I have freedom, He is also specific about how I am to treat my brethren, and how they are to treat me. Not with lying, not with secrecy (and that is totally different from privacy, because there are some things that people would like to keep private). I am not to have fleshly vanity or jealousy in my relationships, I am not to be intent to hurt. (Eph 4:25) Because after all, altogether we are His, are One body, are His children. I am flesh of his flesh, an important part of His body, much as my brethren are also (Eph 5:30) and being part of His body is like being a brick in His church building. I need the brick next to me and the brick on top of me needs me. My brethren need my help (Phil 4:3) and in Rev 21:27 those in harmony are those written in His book. I must live in peace as much as is possible and within my capabilities.

God also reminds us that His people will have to work hard, suffer many things, struggle, and struggle against themselves and temptations, (Ps 126:5,6) but God’s people can win by saying Jesus and God provide with victory by the power of the trinity. He promises provisions and salvation and a home. He has anointed us as His. (Ps 132:15-17) And our purpose is to glorify Him (Ps 138:4,5) and all things shall praise Him. (Ps 145:10-11) And no better described in Isaiah 2:2-5, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, “Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk n his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. O, house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.” We will be in peace, when we come to the LORD, and obey and walk with Him, and when we realize we are not God and allow Him to be Himself and lead us, rather than make Him into a box.

There are no Jews, no Greeks etc Part 16

The thing that irks God and against which He cautions me is when I combine His way with the way of the world. There are many forms of idol worship, some I may convince myself is not truly idol worship, but is in fact a different way of doing things. There are many things that I can be fooled into believing are not idols under the guise that it is further doing God’s will, that I am worshipping or helping someone else worship and thereby completing God’s will, that God needs these things to reach out to the twentieth century, ie a chorus, a band equipped with instruments of all kinds and noises. I will convince myself that God doesn’t really mind all these things and if it helps inspire those in worship what is the problem? While it is true there are some truly wonderful things that man can come up with, I wonder if we are getting away from allowing God to truly inspire us and allowing other humans to do the inspiring. We see what another human sees, not what God wants us to see, we are inspired by another human’s thoughts, not to see God as God is, but as the other human sees God. We have effectively defined God not by our worship and relationship with God, but with someone else’s views on Him. We have made idols in our worship. God wants His worship purified of all idols, all things that will distract others from Him from the actual sitting at His feet, instead of observing someone else. When someone says, “Look what this person or that person is doing for God” while that may in fact be true, it also sounds like braggadocio, like the focus is on the person performing and what that person is saying rather than that person being used as God’s instrument humbly and honestly. While there are truly godly people who promote godly ideals, if I am not involved, or if my involvement in worship is merely watching then I am just being vicarious, and not being an active participant, some on the sidelines waiting to get into the ball game. In God’s eyes, though, I am a player, all my brethren are players and we all need to act as such. We all have a role to play, and when we come together, only God is the teacher, only God is our inspiration, only God can through His son show us how to move, where to go, how to live. It is comparable to the sacrifice of Abraham with Isaac. Surely that was a tough decision, but Abraham did as God asked not as he thought God would want him to do, and he never second guessed God.