Go ye.

Here is a quote from Juan Carlos Ortiz as he wrote referring to the church building in the book Disciple, "it will never again be a cave where believers hide from the world. Jesus never said, 'Sinners, come to the church.' He said, 'Believers, go into the world and make disciples.' The church sits in the pews and sings, 'Come home, come home/Ye who are weary, come home.' We should sing insteand, 'Go ye, go ye/Ye who are seated, go ye.' We have it all upside down. Sinners are dead, lost, deaf, blind. Yet we put up posters for the blind to read. If we can't mobilize the Christians who are supposed tobe alive, how can we ever hope to mobilize the unsaved?"

Wow, what a powerful impression this passage left on me. Interestingly, this book was written in the 1970's so it is incredible to see how relevant these words are for today. In fact, just in the past few weeks I happened to be attending a church service when all of the sudden a wave of saddness came over me. Worship had been going on so naturally I stood there trying to focus my thoughts and attention on worshipping the Lord but I just couldn't shake that overwhelming sense of saddness. I asked the Lord, "What is this? Why am I feeling this way when all I want to do is worship you?" I received an image in my mind of people standing in the church building in the middle of a worship setting and crying out to the Lord. It might sound nice but the thing was that all of these people were as if trying to suck all of they can out of the experience of being in the presence of the Lord and saying things like, "Oh Lord, I need you, woe is me, I have so many problems, just pour Yourself out over me..." Now, I know that we all go through times of struggling and needing to just cry out the the Lord for His help, but this was different. This scenario was of the body of Christ totally not living in the full potential that the Lord has called them to. Not only that, but there was no true worship or glorifying of God in this image. It was all about them and what they needed from Him. Instead of being a body of people who were first seeking the Kingdom of God, living and walking in the grace, power and annointing of the Holy Spirit, they were so desperately caught up in their own problems...a lot like the rest of the world. They couldn't see past their own situations or what was happening in the world around them to instead set their eyes upon the Lord and worship, praise, glorify and lift up His name!

The truth is that we have not been called to stay shut up in a building once a week to try and get as much encouragement as possible to get through the week until next service. But in many ways, this is how the body of Christ is now functioning. God is crying out for the attention of His people...We have to know that we have the Holy Spirit of the Almighty God, the King of Glory living in and through us and it should be evident in our lives. He is all we need, we have everything we need in Him. Instead of acting as if we don't and then need to suck everything out of the worship experience on a Sunday morning to last us until next Sunday, can we know that EVERYDAY He and all that comes from Him is living and active in our lives? Yes, we have the Holy Spirit and now we need to GO!

Too often we leave the "going" to those who are in "ministry." We so readily assume that to go out into the world to preach the gospel or to do missionary work is just someone else's ministry while the rest of us are just called to sit in a church service every Sunday and hopefully make an impact on the lives around us during the week. Well, in reality there is just one ministry and it is the ministry of Jesus Christ which, as part of the one and only body of Christ, we are all called to. But we cannot function to the full potential of the body of Christ if our buildings have become like hide outs or are the only place we come to "experience" God. God is so much bigger than that and being the body of Christ is so much more than that. He is breaking through barriers and mindsets, He is crushing our traditions and man made structures. He's got every area of our lives in His hands, He has already given us all of Himself and He is everything that we need, He is more than enough. Even when things seem difficult He is full of kindness, peace, mercy and love. His ways are perfect and the will He has for our lives is greater than anything we could imagine. Knowing that, can we bust through the walls of our caves giving praise to the King of Glory to answer the call for the Kingdom, "Go ye, go ye"...My answer is yes, what's yours?