Skip to main content

Revelation of the beauty and the glory of the Church.

       As the old year was finishing and new one was starting me and my wife set our goal for this year: To give ourselves to the reading of the Word of God, grow in the knowledge of Him and teach the Word out of that place of revelation. We both felt led to start with the book of Ephesians and we set apart the first month and a half of this year to read and meditate on one chapter each day. In addition to that during our personal time with God we were not just reading the Word but praying the Word and we would come together afterwards and we would sing every single verse allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to us even in those moments. Our small experiment was/is live changing. Our hearts has been transformed and changed, the way we view the church has changed and this blog post is just short expression of the revelation of the beauty and the glory of the church of Jesus Christ.
       I love my wife's introduction to this book as a book of God's emotions for His church, book in which God shows to us how He sees and feels about His church. This is very important because one of the greatest needs today for each one of us is to see and have a deeper appreciation of the mystery and holiness of the church.
       In Matthew 16:18 Jesus is giving us insight into what is His purpose and commitment and that is building His church. When the Lord appeared to Saul, He said; Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me? (Acts 9:4) Paul didn’t had revelation of the church so he was confused and asked who are you, what are you meaning? So Lord replayed: I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. With other words Jesus was saying; if you are persecuting my church you are persecuting me. Jesus didn’t asked Paul why is he persecuting His church but why is he persecuting Him. When someone touches the body, the church, he is touching God himself. Jesus identifies Himself with His church. The church is expression of Jesus Christ here on the earth. In that moment Paul’s revelation and view of the church changed so he gave some amazing views of the church in his writings. And it is very important for us to have the same revelation that Paul had and get God’s view on the church because Jesus gave his life for this topic, the church, the body of Christ.

       Ephesians 1:22-23 The Church is the the fulness of Jesus Christ... The revelation of Jesus Christ continues to unfold to the world through the church, the church is the fulness of Jesus' expression of Jesus, expression of who He is, of His heart, His character, expression of all the fulness of Jesus.
       Ephesians 2:21-22 The Church is a Holy Temple, we all are joined and built together into a dwelling place where God lives through His Spirit. God in all of His splendor and majesty has decided to make His dwelling among brothers and sisters who are joined and build together.
       Ephesians 3:10 Through the Church the manifold wisdom of God is being made known. God displays His wisdom through His church and this wisdom or mystery Paul explains that it was God bringing all man into one new man through the blood and redeeming power of Jesus Christ. The Church is testimony of God's glory, power and name before the powers in this world. This wisdom is to be manifested through all of us in every area of life.
       Ephesians 3:14-19 Out of that place of revelation of the love of Jesus Christ the church is filled to the measure of the fulness of God. This fulness of life and power comes as we gain understanding of the love of Christ together with all saints. 
       Ephesians 3:20-21 The Church is the glory of God through Jesus Christ.
       Ephesians 4:1-13 The Church is one body and we are all called to walk in unity towards one another. The work of the Holy Spirit is build up the Church so that we all reach unity in faith and knowledge of the Son so that we all will become mature in Christ.
       Ephesians 4:15-16 The Church is the body and Jesus Christ is the head. We can not have a healthy and growing Church without loving the whole body of Christ. The church is called to love the church.

       Every time we love the church we express our love for Jesus Christ. Every time we look towards the church with laughter and disrespect we bring shame to Jesus Christ. We want to see the church as Jesus sees His church. We want to know how God feels about His church, what He thinks, what are His emotions towards the church....we want to have revelation of all of these things so that out of that place of revelation we can align our feelings, views, emotions and attitudes with God’s so that we will follow His example and do what He did, laying down our life for the church, building each other up... This was the dream of God to bring forth in unity the church to display Christ in all wisdom...You are visible expression of the invisible God, you are the wisdom, you are the glory of the Father, you are His bride, His temple...and this was His desire before the beginning of time to have visible expression of Himself through His people. Christ has joined Himself to us, His church, His body, expression of all that He is. God has washed us with His blood, He has sanctified us and He wants to use us to glorify His name through us. He is not ashamed of His family. Do we see the church in the city and in the country the way He sees it?

       And if all of this wasn't enough Paul gives His last insight into how God sees His church.
Ephesians 5:25-28 The Church is the bride of Christ, holy, washed through His word, presented before Jesus as glorious, radiant church without stain, wrinkle or blemish but holy and blameless.
This is why Jesus came, this was His ministry, this is why he bled, why He died, why He rose, why He is interceding, why He is coming...He is longing for His bride, He did everything else and there is one more thing left, to present her before himself....

In 1Timothy 3:15 the church is the pillar and foundation of the truth....
In Revelation 2:1 Jesus is portrait as the One who walks among the seven lamp stands (the churches)...

       Do we see the church the way God sees it? Do we walk in love towards the Church? God takes His church seriously and His warning is given to us in 1Corintians 3:16-17 where Paul says that we are the temple of God and His spirit lives in us and then continues by saying that everyone who destroys (speaks badly, gossips, put down, condemn, blame or put shame and so on...) God's temple, God will destroy that person because God's temple is holy and we are that temple. 

       May God give us grace, wisdom and revelation to see and know the truth about His church so that we will follow His example and love the Church as He loves it.







  
      

   

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Passion & Compassion of God the Son

Passion:     Jesus lived for the pleasure of the Father. He lived to please the Father in everything He did. He said that He came to do the will of the one who sent Him and out of love for the Father, Jesus does what the Father has commanded Him. Delighting in the embrace of the Father was all that He longed for. The Bible tells us that early in the morning and late at night He would be alone with the Father. The heart of Jesus was passionately in-loved with the Father and He was abiding in the Father's love. Jesus revealed His passion for the Father at age 12 saying that He had to be in His father's house Luke 2:49.      In John 17 Jesus reveals his passion when He prays for the disciples: Father I desire for them to be with me and see my glory...that you have given me because you loved me.... The passion of Jesus is the glory of God the Father, His presence, being with Him, beholding Him face to face....this was the ultimate passion of Jesus! ...

Jesus Christ, The Faithful Witness

In Revelation 1:2 John says that he is a witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ. In the verse 9b he repeats the same thing by saying that he was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. In between in verse 5 John describes Jesus as Faithful Witness. In Revelation 19:13 says about Jesus that His name is Word of God. John 12:49-50 "For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say." John 5:19 Jesus gave them this answer: "Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. John is seeing and describing Jesus as the faithful witness. Faithful witness to the Word of God, for He, Himself is called the Word of God, Jesus is a faithful witness...

Double Standard

Double standard is something that I've been thinking about for a while now and in this blog post I would like to address this issue as best as I can while still trying to fully understand it and get rid of it from my own heart. Let's start with two definition of what double standard is: "A double standard is the application of different sets of principles for similar situations" "A set of standards that applies differently and usually more harshly to one group of people or circumstances than to another"        The definitions are very clear and self explanatory but let's give few examples from our everyday life to get better picture: 1. When someone says that Russia has occupied and annexed Crimea without admitting and saying that EU, NATO and USA have done the exact same thing with Serbia and pronouncing Kosovo as independent state is DOUBLE STANDARD. Same goes other way around. 2. When EU demands from Macedonia to recognize the ri...