I want a church ...
Faustino de Jesús Zamora Vargas
SUMMARY: The Church is the creation of God and exists for everyone. It is one, holy and unblemished, with Christ as its head and Savior. However, today's Church is often fragmented and led by those with an entrepreneurial mindset rather than the mind of Christ. Despite this, the Church is still a safe house, a place of rest and healing, where we can grow and mature as Christians and practice love for one another. It is also a place of obedience, where we must take the city of Jericho and live in holiness. Ultimately, the Church is a supernatural place where God divides the waters of our anxieties, and we can arrive happily at Him.
The church lives and will live as its eternal creator. That glorious Pentecost when everyone was filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2: 4), meant that the Church was being born for everyone. The first fruits, those three thousand that were added after the first sermon of the apostle Peter, were the proof of the mystery revealed by God, which the prophets were forbidden to understand in previous centuries: the Church is one, Christ's, exists for all. He is the head of the church, its Savior (Eph. 5:23), he gave himself up for her and therefore his desire for her to be a glorious, holy and unblemished Church (Eph. 5:27).
But what kind of church did the Lord establish? Is the church that your disciples of today conceive with characteristics of institution, fragmented into denominations, with leaders of the mind of entrepreneurs or churches and leaders with the mind of Christ? How can we live the Church in a community of believers where it is so difficult for us to persevere in the apostles' doctrine, in communion with one another, in the breaking of bread and in prayers (Acts 2:42)? How can the Church live where all those who have believed are neither together nor have all things in common… and do not distribute them according to each one's need (Acts 2: 44-45)?
The church is and will always be the safe House where we can graze despite the tares, the earthly abode that Christ gave us at the price of his blood on Calvary. It is our Gilgal, the camp to which we return after the battle to rest and heal wounds, it is where Christ's warriors prepare and train for spiritual warfare against the enemy, it is where the kingdom is renewed (1 S 4:15) and we grow and mature as Christians to practice live and direct love for one another and then ... continue to love her as our Bethel, the house where God is a provident presence.
It's the Peniel, the place where he can change your name - do you remember where God changed Jacob's name to Israel? It was in Peniel! -, there your personal history dies, the ego and the vanity that floods your being and your life stops being yours to begin to belong to Christ and others. In Peniel is where the self becomes us.
It is our Jericho, the city that must be taken by order of God. Jericho is where obedience becomes the supreme law; because only obedience makes the walls of sin fall and makes us understand the price of living in holiness and finally, dear brothers in Christ, the Church of the Lord of Lords, mine, yours and everyone's, is our Jordan, the place of the supernatural, the right place where the King of the Shepherds enjoys dividing the waters of our anxieties, anguishes and evils so that we can go through it again and again without fear of getting our feet wet and arriving happily at Him.
God bless you!
But what kind of church did the Lord establish? Is the church that your disciples of today conceive with characteristics of institution, fragmented into denominations, with leaders of the mind of entrepreneurs or churches and leaders with the mind of Christ? How can we live the Church in a community of believers where it is so difficult for us to persevere in the apostles' doctrine, in communion with one another, in the breaking of bread and in prayers (Acts 2:42)? How can the Church live where all those who have believed are neither together nor have all things in common… and do not distribute them according to each one's need (Acts 2: 44-45)?
The church is and will always be the safe House where we can graze despite the tares, the earthly abode that Christ gave us at the price of his blood on Calvary. It is our Gilgal, the camp to which we return after the battle to rest and heal wounds, it is where Christ's warriors prepare and train for spiritual warfare against the enemy, it is where the kingdom is renewed (1 S 4:15) and we grow and mature as Christians to practice live and direct love for one another and then ... continue to love her as our Bethel, the house where God is a provident presence.
It's the Peniel, the place where he can change your name - do you remember where God changed Jacob's name to Israel? It was in Peniel! -, there your personal history dies, the ego and the vanity that floods your being and your life stops being yours to begin to belong to Christ and others. In Peniel is where the self becomes us.
It is our Jericho, the city that must be taken by order of God. Jericho is where obedience becomes the supreme law; because only obedience makes the walls of sin fall and makes us understand the price of living in holiness and finally, dear brothers in Christ, the Church of the Lord of Lords, mine, yours and everyone's, is our Jordan, the place of the supernatural, the right place where the King of the Shepherds enjoys dividing the waters of our anxieties, anguishes and evils so that we can go through it again and again without fear of getting our feet wet and arriving happily at Him.
God bless you!
