Love for one another is the truest praise

Posted by Alan Knox on Nov 10, 2010 in blog links, definition | 1 comment

Strider at “Tales from Middle Earth” recalls a recent opportunity to speak “On the Church.” He had the opportunity to speak to and answer questions from a small group of believers. I love that the focus of his talk was on the “true nature of the Church.” He writes:

I was invited to speak to a small church yesterday. It was a good day as we spent about 7 hours together discussing all kinds of things. I was supposed to talk about Church Planting and we did some, but much of the day was spent with their questions. They asked about everything from, ‘who are those Sons of God things that come and breed with women in Genesis 6?’ to ‘If a guy becomes a believer but he has several wives what do we do?’ It was some good discussion but the best part was definitely in talking about the true nature of the Church. They,like so many here, have been established by foreigners who built a building, registered an organization,and then declared it ‘church’. It was great to see their faces light up when they found out that the Church is actually a community of the redeemed, that their love for one another is the very truest praise for our Father, and that Jesus Kingdom is not a meeting or a meeting place but the reign of God in our lives right now. Buildings and meetings are not good or bad, they are irrelevant to the love relationship we are to have with one another. It is remarkable to me how many people there are out here who have come to plant churches but have never really thought through- much less prayed through and did biblical study on- what a church is.

There are some great statements here: “The Church is actually the community of the redeemed.” “Their love for one another is the very truest praise for our Father.” “Jesus Kingdom is not a meeting or a meeting place but the reign of God in our lives right now.”

I hope more and more people begin to understand and to live their identity as the church of God, and that our love for one another will become more and more praise to God.