This Is The Church

"The body is people."

THE CHURCH has become a business. In the eyes of many, it holds more economic sense than spiritual. I see people in my city everywhere I go who will never darken a church door, especially one “rich looking”. The fact the church has more money than your average small business sends them elsewhere and, ultimately, away from God. We are to blame.

Not for being successful. God is more than we will ever need to pay our bills and afford what He has asked us to do. He is why we have success. But to call ourself “prosperous” where money is concerned, prosperity starts in the soul and not the pocketbook (3 John 1:2). We are forbidden the greed of money (1 Timothy 6:10). We are, instead, to know the Father knows our needs and will provide for them (Matthew 6:32). We need never worry. We are to supply the needs of others around us. Prosperity of the soul does no good, it is not real in us, unless we love others.

To be successful in business implies something far different from God’s desire for His church body. A business sells a product to make monetary gain. A church is where God’s children gather to grow in their knowledge of Him. It is where we share our love for Him and for each other. The needs are business and the picture of the church are two different things. I heard this thought explained well by Rabbi Meir Solaveichik when he compared COVENANT to CONTRACT. He said, “In a contract two individual ‘I’s’ seek their own benefit, and in a covenant, two ‘I’s’ become a ‘we.’” We are New Covenant believers. There is no place where He ends and we begin, neither as individuals or as churches. Jesus said this when praying to the Father. He said, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us (John 17:21).” To treat the church like a business is to remove its purpose.

The body is people, not equipment nor acquisitions nor offerings. We are people joined as one with Almighty God. We hold conversation with Him, filled with His nature, guided by His example, seeing all things, every person, from His point-of-view. We see the angry, the violent, and are filled with compassion. We see the sick, those in health crises, and pour out His oil. We bind up their wounds. We see the depressed, the mentally weary, and turn their eyes toward the love of our beautiful Savior. We never let them walk out the door as lost and confused as they were when we prayed for them.

The altar is supposed to be the center of our services and not our performances.

We must know how to be Jesus toward people. Because we are so close to Him, so full of heaven, so filled with Resurrection, we never have to search for an answer. God speaks instantly. Minister Bill Johnson points out that in Matthew 17:21, when Jesus says, “This kind (meaning an unclean spirit) goeth not out but by prayer and fasting,” He neither prayed nor fasted. Jesus lived that way as a lifestyle, continually united with His Father.

This is the church.

“Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” (John 14:23)

“For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.” (Ephesians 5:23)

Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com