IN GOOD COMPANY WITH CHRIST AND HIS LIFE
27/11/24 08:19
Having spent much of my church life in ministry of a variety of kinds I know that ministry can be of some value or little at all in a fullness of life sense. While it is true that our life in Christ is life together one needs to learn that one’s church belonging may not be a relationship with God. Relating to God is more subtle and less contrived than that. The Spirit of Christ is with us and in us all the time and where we are – and in intimacy when we personally agree with Christ that He has included us in His Life.
Many years ago, when I was much younger, I with friends walked across the top of horseshoe fall at Mt Field in Tasmania. As we went we sang ‘I love you Lord..’ As enjoyable as this was, we need not feel compelled to insert church elements into nature walks. The reason being that Christ is there anyway, and nature is bearing witness to Him and He to us in nature. Christ is incarnated in our being and we can live all of life as a form of worship.
I was having lunch with a non-believer in a cafe once and she assured me that she would never belong to a church. As a churchgoer, I was somewhat taken aback, as church-life was what I thought of as Godliness. It can be and expression of it, but it can also mask a ‘no relationship with Christ at all’ state of being. ‘Churching’ can be the most subtle of idols.
HOLLOW RELIGION
One of the disappointing things about some churching, is that people in them can be more interested in sustaining the institution of the church than they are in Jesus. Not a few think a relationship with church is godliness – but this is because they have a relationship with religion instead of a relationship with Christ. Unperceptive Christians think their ‘churching’ is godliness. But Jesus said, unless we are born again, we cannot see the Kingdom of God. Authentic re-birth is our transition from oneness with religion to oneness with Christ. ‘Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” John 3,3 NIV. Baptism is the sign of our dying to religion and rising to Christ our life. The Lord’s Table is the reminder of atonement/incarnation – the grounding of ourselves in the life of Jesus.
ONENESS WITH CHRIST
‘Born again’ is not dropping a few sins in exchange for a couple of good deeds. Born again is our dying to religion in exchange for Christ our life. The Source of Godliness/best humanity is not an institution or abstractions, like the law, moralism or Christian religious lore. Christ come in our flesh is Godliness realised in the Everyday.
A CURIOSITY
I find it curious that fully secular people, lapsed Christians and confirmed Christians can think that ‘going to church’ is a sign of Godliness. Often when a non-Christian friend finds that we are a practicing Christians they may say, ‘ I must get along to church someday.’ Or when they endure a crisis in their lives they find a church somewhere in the city and sit in a pew – as though God was not with them in their Everyday lives on the footy field or in the lab. A real life in God is not in externalities. It’s Christ come in our flesh, in our inner man/woman.
As a Christian we may have been lulled into thinking that our Christianity is a set of beliefs and a couple of behaviours, when what it really is a state of being. It’s our living in real oneness with Christ who promised to be with us and in us. When we know and understand that Christ is our life and not contained in religiosity, we begin to live life as an adventure and become agents of Christ, rather than dead folks talking. A lived oneness with Christ frees us from the bonds of religiosity to make us truly spontaneously alive as expressions of real life, instead of set of promoters of religious motions. There’s nothing complex about this. It’s just a matter of saying ‘yes’ to Jesus’ ‘Come unto Me.’ He is our true rest and source of our being truly alive.
A SUBSTITUTE?
The bottom line is that life comes from Jesus and not from the paraphernalia. I do not intend to discourage people from going to church. But church must never be a subtle idol or a substitute for a real relationship with Jesus, Father and Holy Spirit. In communion with the Trinity, we are free to be, to become our better selves. We gain the ability to love others and be people of grace and truth. There are more varieties of being the church than sitting in rows and doing three hymns and a prayer.
We were sitting around the table once talking about our lives in the Lord and Beth said, ‘To me this is church.’ Real church is not an institution. It’s you and others in fellowship with Jesus Himself. It’s our life together with God. ‘Where two or three are gathered in His name there is Jesus in the midst of them’.
Many years ago, when I was much younger, I with friends walked across the top of horseshoe fall at Mt Field in Tasmania. As we went we sang ‘I love you Lord..’ As enjoyable as this was, we need not feel compelled to insert church elements into nature walks. The reason being that Christ is there anyway, and nature is bearing witness to Him and He to us in nature. Christ is incarnated in our being and we can live all of life as a form of worship.
I was having lunch with a non-believer in a cafe once and she assured me that she would never belong to a church. As a churchgoer, I was somewhat taken aback, as church-life was what I thought of as Godliness. It can be and expression of it, but it can also mask a ‘no relationship with Christ at all’ state of being. ‘Churching’ can be the most subtle of idols.
HOLLOW RELIGION
One of the disappointing things about some churching, is that people in them can be more interested in sustaining the institution of the church than they are in Jesus. Not a few think a relationship with church is godliness – but this is because they have a relationship with religion instead of a relationship with Christ. Unperceptive Christians think their ‘churching’ is godliness. But Jesus said, unless we are born again, we cannot see the Kingdom of God. Authentic re-birth is our transition from oneness with religion to oneness with Christ. ‘Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” John 3,3 NIV. Baptism is the sign of our dying to religion and rising to Christ our life. The Lord’s Table is the reminder of atonement/incarnation – the grounding of ourselves in the life of Jesus.
ONENESS WITH CHRIST
‘Born again’ is not dropping a few sins in exchange for a couple of good deeds. Born again is our dying to religion in exchange for Christ our life. The Source of Godliness/best humanity is not an institution or abstractions, like the law, moralism or Christian religious lore. Christ come in our flesh is Godliness realised in the Everyday.
A CURIOSITY
I find it curious that fully secular people, lapsed Christians and confirmed Christians can think that ‘going to church’ is a sign of Godliness. Often when a non-Christian friend finds that we are a practicing Christians they may say, ‘ I must get along to church someday.’ Or when they endure a crisis in their lives they find a church somewhere in the city and sit in a pew – as though God was not with them in their Everyday lives on the footy field or in the lab. A real life in God is not in externalities. It’s Christ come in our flesh, in our inner man/woman.
As a Christian we may have been lulled into thinking that our Christianity is a set of beliefs and a couple of behaviours, when what it really is a state of being. It’s our living in real oneness with Christ who promised to be with us and in us. When we know and understand that Christ is our life and not contained in religiosity, we begin to live life as an adventure and become agents of Christ, rather than dead folks talking. A lived oneness with Christ frees us from the bonds of religiosity to make us truly spontaneously alive as expressions of real life, instead of set of promoters of religious motions. There’s nothing complex about this. It’s just a matter of saying ‘yes’ to Jesus’ ‘Come unto Me.’ He is our true rest and source of our being truly alive.
A SUBSTITUTE?
The bottom line is that life comes from Jesus and not from the paraphernalia. I do not intend to discourage people from going to church. But church must never be a subtle idol or a substitute for a real relationship with Jesus, Father and Holy Spirit. In communion with the Trinity, we are free to be, to become our better selves. We gain the ability to love others and be people of grace and truth. There are more varieties of being the church than sitting in rows and doing three hymns and a prayer.
We were sitting around the table once talking about our lives in the Lord and Beth said, ‘To me this is church.’ Real church is not an institution. It’s you and others in fellowship with Jesus Himself. It’s our life together with God. ‘Where two or three are gathered in His name there is Jesus in the midst of them’.
