The Most Important Things

In the last post I brought up the question of who is church for? I asked the question is church for believers or unbelievers. In this blog, I would like to re-ask that question from a different view point. Who is church for, Jesus or the world?

According to a number of scriptures in the bible (OT and NT), God refers to His people as…well HIS! In the Old Testament we find numerous occasions where God calls His chosen people back to Him. He pleads with them to repent and stop mixing themselves with the world’s religions and systems. His heart for them is unending. And His desire for them is to be holy as He is holy. This theme continues in the New Testament. Jesus comes on the scene preaching about a bride and a bridegroom. He consistently uses this type of imagery over and over again in the Gospels. He talks about the bridegroom being taken away, the bridegroom celebrating and the bridegroom returning . You cannot have a bridegroom without a bride. Who is the bride that Jesus desires to return to? The church, His people.

Who is church for? It’s for Jesus. It is the pure, spotless bride of Christ as Paul reveals in Eph. 5. She, the church, is supposed to be undefiled and without wrinkle. She is supposed to be a radiant, beautiful bride. The desire of all nations. She is supposed to be holy and pure saving herself for the bridegroom.

Problem. She is not. She is being presented to other bridegrooms. She is being prostituted out to the world system. Any time we present the church, the bride of Christ, to the world we dishonor the bridegroom. It seems in many of our churches we are more content to look good in the eyes of the world, than in the eyes of God. Every time we present our bride (which is really ourselves) to the false bridegrooms of fame, cultural relevance, compromise, tolerance, etc. we slap Jesus in the face and say, “you’re not the perfect bridegroom”.

How do we know when Jesus is pleased with His bride? I believe He shows His great pleasure in to His bride through miracles, His glorious presence and supernatural, unstoppable growth. Does that typify our modern, western-style churches? Not really, as in, no. In fact, most of our services have all but eliminated any room for the Holy Spirit to move and are now catered to other bridegrooms, namely the unsaved. Many churches now play secular music, show movies that aren’t godly and “give talks” that don’t go anywhere near Golgotha (aka the Cross). Any wonder why Jesus doesn’t want to show up?

Imagine, for a second, you are a groom on your way to your own wedding. When you get there, all the music, all the colors, all the decor that you and your bride had picked out; was changed by the bridal party in an effort to “draw more people in”. Would you stay for your own ceremony? All that investment you made into your own wedding was changed by the people you chose to help maintain your wedding celebration. That would be horrific.

Who is church for? Who are we presenting the bride to? If it’s the world, then no wonder God has decided not to come to the party. But if we are truly presenting the church to God, then we must begin to iron out the wrinkles, spot-clean the stains and sanctify ourselves. Make no mistake, Jesus is coming back. And He is coming back for a spotless, unblemished bride. Can that be said of you and your church? Could you be accused of turning the bride of Christ’s interest onto false bridegrooms?

If so, repent there’s still time. And there’s still time to prepare the Glorious Bride of Christ for the arrival of the Bridegroom! Let us trim our wicks, fill our lanterns with oil and arise a Glorious, wise virgin. Arise Church!

“Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet Him!” Mt. 25:6

In the last post, I talked about how people create doctrines. In this post, I want to discuss how to follow SOUND DOCTRINE. It’s easy to get lost into crazy new doctrines and blown about by every wind of doctrine. But those who love the truth are the ones who will never be shaken. Paul writes, in the last times perilous days will come and men will be deceived, even the elect (christians). They will love themselves and money more than God, he goes on to write that “they will forever follow new teachings”. (2 Tim. 3:1-7)

For me, I am not interested in “new teachings” or “new doctrine”. Everything I can ever want to know about God has been written for me to read in the Bible. Same for you. So, the question then becomes (I love raising and asking questions) how do I determine sound doctrine? (regardless of whether you are a theologian or not) Here’s the answer: how does the “new doctrine” effect my relationship to: God, Jesus, bible, church, my self, other christians, world and sin. Is your relationship strengthened or hindered? Allow me to elaborate.

If a new doctrine comes along and says, “hey, you don’t need to pray as much because it’s all about grace and Jesus knows your heart”. Then my response would be, bad doctrine. It directly effects my relationship to Jesus (less prayer=less of a relationship with Jesus). If it effects my relationship to Jesus, guaranteed it will effect my relationship to the other 7 things I listed above. Make sense? I thought so. Because you don’t pray as much, you will not know the will of God, you probably won’t want to go to church, you won’t love your neighbor, you will love the World and compromise. All because you were too lazy to have a relationship. That’s bad doctrine. The next time you hear “some new thing”, hold it up to that sentence above. See what filters through it.

I will end this post with a brilliant quote from Tozer, in regards to doctrine: “Haziness of doctrine is always the mark of the liberal. Moral power has always accompanied definitive beliefs. Great saints are dogmatic. What we need is a gentle dogmatism, that smiles while it stands stubborn and firm on the word of God.” (Emphasis mine)

I love it! Don’t be hazy or lazy when it comes to doctrine, stand firm on the Word!

Zechariah 4:10, “for who has despised the day of small things”. The prophet is speaking to Zerubbabel about rebuilding the temple. And it got me thinking about small things. I know many of us understand, theoretically, that character is built in the small things. For example, performing the right disciplines over and over again, will make you great at whatever your trade is. By making sound decisions in every little area of our lives, it will guide us in the big choices we face.

Alternatively, the small things we do towards the negative can have just as an important impact. At first it’s just a lie. The next thing you know you are on a plane to Argentina to have an affair. This was the case with the Governor of S. Carolina, Mark Sanford. It all started out as something small. This is only one case among millions. Somewhere along the path of life we all make a decision (or decisions) that seem small right now, but they have the potential to shape our destiny.

What small things have you done today? What small decisions have you made today? Are they going to help you achieve your dream? Will they build the Kingdom of God? Or will they end up blasted across the internet and plastered on the front page? (If they do make news, make sure they say you did something amazingly good.)

Don’t despise the day of small things. Cherish and celebrate every decision. And if you need to erase some “small things” (or big things for that matter), go to the Throne of Grace upon which Jesus Christ sits.