Equally amazing is God’s desire to love a people that He calls His own. Not only does God want us to work for Him, but He wants us to work with Him. He calls on us daily to be part of His team. He allows us, daily, to decide to work for His Kingdom, or resist His will. He never, at any time, makes us do His will. And somehow, God always gets the job done. Who else can even attempt to claim that they can pull this off? And this begs the greater question: How do I fit in to all of this? And why the Church?
While a wandering and rebellious generation claims that “no one can make me do anything” or “I can worship God at home - I don’t need to join an institutional church,” God disagrees. God loves us individually and as His body. He knows us individually and intimately as His special creation and He sees us collectively as the Body of Christ, the Bride of the Son He loves, the fellowship of the saints. In short, we need each other because the Church is the means by which God transforms the world. Therefore, God compels us to look beyond the “me-church” and lovingly asks us to become Christ’s Church. It’s true that God has a personal, specific plan for our lives, but unless we understand God’s group mission for the church, we will find ourselves wandering and lost trying to find our purpose and significance.
There is an overlying mission that God has given us. And do we seriously believe that God will say on that Day, “Well done, good and faithful servant because you finally got your own way. You resisted my commands and sought personal gain. You helped to transform my House from a living temple into a ritual, cold, dead shadow of what it was meant to be. With you I am well-pleased.” The terminology God uses is key: “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Part of submitting to God being Master is acknowledging that He really does have things under control. Yes, everything. But our perception of how much God really does control is invariably linked to our acceptance or rejection of God’s control of us. It’s important to remember that God allows us to decided if He’s really our Master or not. We can choose His mastery over us, or choose chaos and disorder. We can choose His order and peace, or we can choose tragedy. How amazing He is.
What, then, are God’s plans for you? For our church? Have you asked Him lately? Or, more importantly, have you invited Him to take control lately? Or are we still trying to be in control and masters of our own lives? Is the Church God’s first love, or my own agent for agenda? Who is god, who is master, me or Him? Would you join me in this prayer?:
“Father, I love You and want to serve You –the way You want me to serve You. Please help me to believe that You really do have everything under control and help me to submit to that reality. I invite You, Father, to have full control of my life, so that Your will might be done through me and through all of us at Kouts Christian Church. You are the Master, I am not. Glorify Your Name in me. Make Your will clear to me. Help me to offer myself daily as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to You, because I yearn to hear You say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Thank you for adopting me into Your family and calling me Your very own. Help me to love the way You do. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”
“How great is the love that the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
1 John 3:1
Love in Jesus,
George