The Church Triumphant! part 2 of a series.
Bear in mind as you read my thoughts put into a blog that I am a student…a student of the Word of God. Ever since I was a boy and received my first Holman Bible, the King James Version at eight years of age, and it was Christmas, I have had a love for the Bible. Have I always paid strict attention to all of its precepts and all of its commandments? The answer of course is NO! A thousand TIMES NO! But I still love it and I still love to show people what I have learned from its pages. Now we are talking about the church. In the last entry on the blog, I spoke of her relevancy in the world today ; I say her because the church is referred to as being the Bride of Christ. The Bible talks about the Bride and the marriage supper of the Lamb extensively in the book of the Revelation, but we will not go there today.
The church of the living God. He is the LIVING God!! And He is the Head of the church. The other day I was given a copy of the Pentecostal Evangel which is published by and for the Assemblies of God in the USA. In it was an article written by one Everett Stenhouse entitled “It’s all about Him!” And the writer made this statement in regards to our inviting those who are not saved, “Great care must be taken in our attempts to bring people out of the world into the church that we don’t drag the world into the church.” He goes on further with this train of thought…”our invitation to the world must be more than coffee and tea and cookies. It is an invitation to the Word of Life.” There is a goodly amount of wisdom in his words, however at the same time we must remember that Jesus said “whosoever will, let him come and drink of the water of life freely.” We have to accept people the way they are and then lead them to Christ and discipleship. As has been well said, you first have to catch the fish before you can clean it.
And this is where a strong body ministry is required…too many times we have seen folks come in, get saved , on fire for God but alas ! we were not prepared to disciple them and pretty soon trials, temptation or some test comes…the fire goes out and they are never seen again. The church must prepare itself for babies…EVEN CRYING ONES. Remember you don’t put grade one students in with high schoolers.
I was surfing the net last evening trying to find the words to the song that follows and I came across a website that at first gave me a chuckle…it said “welcome to the universal church of the apathetic agnostic” I thought to myself, “this is a joke”. I did not investigate it further needless to say, after all it really sounds pathetic. But what is really pathetic is a church full of apathetic Christians.
We have the tools…all the tools we need are found in Him and in His Word. And in the words of that old song…”let the church be the church, Let the people rejoice,
For we’ve settled the question, we’ve made our choice, Let the banners ring out, Let the victory swell…for the church, triumphant, is alive and well!
Oh yes here is something else I read...”and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it!!” Hallelujah!!