BUILDING THE CHURCH

Jesus said in Matthew 16:18 that he would build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard that verse quoted to prove that the Living Waters Full Gospel Tabernacle has God’s blessing on it. The logic is that because Jesus said that and because we are the church then he is building us into what he wants us to be.
Whatever we do must have God’s blessing because we are his church so we can look forward to and expect God’s presence in our meetings.

The fact that most of what the church does is not according to his word is quietly ignored. The fact that the church is having no impact whatsoever on society is quietly ignored. The fact that the leadership structure which makes the ‘senior pastor’ the chief shepherd, thus usurping the place reserved for Jesus is quietly ignored.

What the church is in effect saying is “God we want every blessing we can get from you but we don’t want you to have a say in what we do. We have got a good organisation going here so we don’t want to upset the apple cart by introducing your way of doing things.”

A bit like being offered a job with a salary of $50,000 a year and then not doing anything that you’re told. I don’t think that you would last long if that was the case.

What most churches don’t seem to understand is that Jesus said he would build his church, not yours. The fact that some people meet together in a public building doesn’t make it a church no more than meeting in a garage makes you a car.

The church is where two or three are gathered together in his name and are prepared to do what Jesus says. You can’t do that unless you invite the Holy Spirit to have control of everything that you do.

Whether you meet in your home, your office, your school, your garden, by the riverbank (the one where Jesus keeps his money), under a bridge, in a park, if you meet together in his name you are the church.

Singing songs, taking communion or listening to a sermon does not make you a church. Doing what the Father tells you to do does make you the church. The ones who obey his voice are the ones that Satan cannot prevail against.

The ones who ignore his word and the leading of the Holy Spirit do not have any answer to Satan’s onslaught.

Be warned. Jesus turned away even those who said that they had done miracles in his name. He told them to depart from him because he never knew them. A son who has a relationship with his father, not with his church or his pastor, always knows what his father wants.