We concluded last week’s meditation with the question: how does God’s Spirit empower my church to grow into mature, Christlike love for God. How does He accomplish that in such a way that my church fulfills God’s first and greatest commandment: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."
We also saw that God longs for the love of His church and addresses her as ‘His bride’. In that connection we mentioned Jeremiah 2:2 and Revelation 2:4!
In his last book, the apostle John writes about the global church (which includes my local church!) and calls her the ‘Bride of the Lamb’:
“Let us be glad and rejoice and honor him [God]. For the time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb [the Messiah], and his bride has prepared herself.”(Revelation 19:7)
If my local church is meant to love our triune God – Father, Son and Spirit - in a mature, Christlike way, how does God’s Spirit carry out such a miraculous project?
I think there is no easy answer to that important question. My church is an amalgamation of Christians from different cultures, different denominations, different milieus, different upbringings and education, different ages, different walks of life, different ‘pre-Christian histories’, different theological views and convictions, etc.
Looking at my church from another angle, it comprises Christians at all stages of faith from young converts to Christlike, mature men and women. Besides, it is ‘encompassed’ by people who are interested in ‘the faith’, but have not yet made a commitment to Christ.
How does such a multifarious community ever grow into mature, Christlike love for God?
a.) I think that one of the first things a church needs is
a common ‘Spirit-given vision’ for Christlike love for God.
Again and again God’s Word [the Bible] presses home the paramount requirement for His people to have a common ‘Spirit-given vision’ for knowing His will.
In the 10th century B.C., wise king Solomon warns that “where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the Law (of God), happy is he.” (Proverbs 29:18).
The New Living Translation translates this text as follows: “When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the Law (of God) is happy.”
The author of 1 Samuel describes the traumatic situation of God’s people in the days of young Samuel: “The Word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation.”
(1 Samuel 3:1)
In the 8th century B.C. God spoke to His wayward, prosperous and complacent people by the mouth of His servant Hosea: “Hear the Word of the LORD, O people of Israel! The LORD has filed a lawsuit against you, saying: "There is no faithfulness, no kindness, no knowledge of God in your land.” (Hosea 4:1)
God then continues to stress the point of lacking knowledge of Him by saying: “My people are destroyed for lack of (God-given) knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priests for Me; because you have forgotten the Law of your God, I also will forget your children.” (Hosea 4:6)
The prophet Amos ministered alongside Hosea. God used him to warn His people for a time of complete absence of divine knowledge: “"The time is surely coming," says the Sovereign LORD, "when I will send a famine on the land-- not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the Words of the LORD. People will stagger everywhere from sea to sea, searching for the Word of the LORD, running here and going there, but they will not find it.” (Amos 8:11-12)
The evangelist Mark describes how Jesus responded when He saw the mystified crowd:
“When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.” (Mark 6:34)
Without a Spirit-given vision on a certain matter, based on the knowledge of God’s Word and shared by the whole the church, there is no Spirit-given unity on that matter, even if there are plenty of Bibles around.
And without Spirit-given unity, the church will lack the precon-
dition for divine guidance on that specific matter and ‘run wild’ as Salomon says. Then will happen wat also took place in the time of the Judges: "...the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes." (Judges 17:6)
The apostle Paul explains to the Christians in Ephesus (modern Turkey) why a shared Spirit-given vision based on the knowledge of God’s Word is of the highest importance for any local church:
“... until we come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's Son that we will be mature and full grown in the Lord, measuring up to the full stature of Christ.
Then we will no longer be like children, forever changing our minds about what we believe because someone has told us something different or because someone has cleverly lied to us and made the lie sound like the truth.
Instead, we will hold to the truth in love, becoming more and more in every way like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.
Under his [Christ’s] direction, the whole body is fitted together perfectly.
As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.” (Ephesians 4:13-16)
Does my church have a common Spirit-given vision for mature, Christlike love for God?
(to be continued)
The Bible verse KJV Proverbs 29:18 is a quote from the King James Version, NKJ 1 Samuel 3:1 is quoted from the New King James Version, NIB Mark 6:34 is a quote from the New International Version. The other texts are quoted from the New Living Translation.
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