Monday, March 21, 2022

BEING THE CHURCH-----NOT DOING CHURCH

 



Psalm 8:6-9
You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands. You have put all things under his feet. All sheep and oxen--
Even the beasts of the field. The birds of the air, and the fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the sea.
O Lord, our Lord...How excellent is Your name in all the earth.


The passage from Psalms kind of jumped out at me this morning.
According to the best as I understand it, we have been given dominion over the work of God's hands.....
Does this mean the physical world that we see?
Yes...
Does it mean the Kingdom work that is going on around us?
Being the people of God, interacting and moving according to His plans....?

I think maybe it does.

In Matthew 4:4, we are called to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God....In other words, there is spiritual nourishment that sustains our lives when we not only hear, but do the Words of Christ.

Exercise in the Kingdom would include taking what we hear God say, and then being responsible for seeing it carried out.
Feeding the hungry....
Praying for those we are directed to pray for.

Visiting the ones who are in jail or prison.
Healing the sick....
Raising the dead....
And finally, according to Matthew 11:5, preaching (proclaiming / declaring) the incredibly good news that there is freedom from the bondage of this world in Jesus.


God did not give us dominion so we could be a passive church.
God did not tell us to feast and live on His word, so we could occupy a seat at church.
He did not call us to be a spectator watching others do the kingdom work.

You need to understand the place I'm coming from, when I say these things.
I do not believe in simply being active for activities sake.
What I am saying is that we all, if we truly believe and are followers of Jesus, have been given dominion and authority, backed with His POWER, to infect....effect...and affect our corner of the Kingdom.

Kind of a Matthew 25 mandate to do the works of Jesus.

We have a call not to be religious so others will see Jesus....
We have a call to be His body, or corporate gathering of people each trying to hear what they should do.

It is a life of taking risks....
It is being at the grocery store and seeing that women in a wheel chair and suddenly you have this faint thought, "I need to go pray for her". But you pass it off because that just isn't you. Well, what if it were God? What if that was your assignment for the day? 
You think to yourself, "I wouldn't know what to pray!"
If you ask God, He just might tell you.
Maybe she needs an encouraging word from you.
Maybe, just maybe, God wants to heal her....you never know with God what is going to happen.

What's the worse that could happen?
You go over and let her know that God has put her on your heart and you'd like to pray for her. If that doesn't scream the "LOVE OF GOD", then nothing does. It is the mystery of God's Kingdom...the not knowing in advance but willing to take a risk. Stepping out there to speak truth and love.
I have seen people do that and stop potential suicides.
Simply because they thought they heard God say, "Go and pray for that person". The person they were suppose to pray for was contemplating suicide because they thought that no one cared and they had nothing to live for.

This isn't some kind of made up example to get you to believe in what I'm writing. I have witnessed such by a man who had an encounter that he had no way of knowing that God speaking through him would stop a suicide. The man was simply following through on what God had told him to do, which was go over and talk to this man who had caught his attention.
That is what we were created for.
That is what we have been called to do.

Walk in the authority and power of God.
Think on these things...
And watch for appointments today that God may set up for you.

God on you...
mb

No comments:

THE REALITY OF THE NAME OF GOD

Listening to Keith Green this morning as he sings "How Majestic Is Your Name". I had to  ask myself, "Do I truly unerstnd the...