CHURCH STUFF, CHURCH TIMES, CHURCH PLACES AND CHURCH PEOPLE

I read a blog recently written by Alan Knox.  In this blog he made the following statement, "Today the church focuses so much on doing church stuff at church times in church places with church people...but there's so much more to following Jesus Christ."

I find this statement to be very true. Too often, we have an "us four and no more" attitude.  We want to close ourselves within the four walls of a building and do "religious things".  We tend to focus so much on doing that we actually neglect the Savior.  We even neglect one another.  We spend too much time emphasizing the need to go to church as opposed to being the church.  We get wrapped up in the religious snack instead of the Lord's Supper as a genuine meal.  People leave their morning church services unchanged and still with a hunger for God - that is, if they actually had a hunger for Him to begin with.

Again, we do all these religious things while neglecting the One it should be all about - Jesus!  What would happen if we quit doing all the things God never told us to do?  Our Christian lives are so full of these types of things.  I think sometimes we feel better if we are busy doing religious things.  But if that is the case, we are doing these things for us instead of for God.  What's wrong with this picture?

Perhaps we think it's a necessity to be busy doing religious things because that is what we have been taught over the years.  After all, that is what the typical institutional church tells us.  It's not what God tells us in His Word, but it is what man has taught.  I know of a so-called pastor who, several years ago, called a work day for the men in the church to move a fence that was around the building. They moved it out four or five feet.  They spent an entire Saturday doing this.  A short time later he called another work day to move the fence back to where it was.  Why did he do that?  He stated he wanted to keep his men busy.  How utterly ridiculous is that?  The attitude was this man was their pastor and they would do what he said.  Was God in this? 

Here's a thought, how about we focus on our relationship with Jesus?  How about we focus on our relationship with one another.  (I would encourage you to look up the "one another" Scriptures in the Bible).  How about we reach out to someone who doesn't know Jesus?  How about we reach out and touch someone who is struggling on their journey?  These things seem more in line with what we should be doing as Christians.  This should be a way of life for the Christian.

Let's be the church God desires us to be.  Let's show it by fleshing it out - by living it one day at a time.

Until next time...enjoy the journey!

Ray

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