Who's Church is it Anyway?

"By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

John 13:35

WOW! There a lot of exciting things going on lately! God is moving in a mighty way-I can feel it, we are on the brink of extraordinary-if we will sit back and watch Him work. This Sunday, our church who has been without a pastor for 9 months I think, is having a candidate come and preach. Afterwards, the congregation will vote on whether or not to make him our new pastor. Talk about pressure, poor guy! A few Sunday's back our interim pastor said that should we vote this man to be our new Shepherd-it will be a declaration of war!

Kind of takes the excitement out of it doesn't it? But...if you think about it-we'll be strapping on our armour and fighting the evils of darkness (which don't want our church to move forward or to get out of the many issues we have) and fighting together-united, under one banner- Christ's banner and under His Almighty protection. All that we have been going through has led us up to this moment, to this choice-will we choose to disregard our differences and fight together, me as the arm, you as the feet, another as the ear, all joined as one body? Lets face it-if we don't, our church will cease to exist, which is exactly what satan wants to happen.

I believe that satan has infiltrated our churches. We start to believe we are right and our Christian brothers and sisters are wrong, but apart from a few main issues, does it really matter? Does it really matter if we remodel the bathrooms in the sanctuary? Does it really matter if the drum player in the worship service wears shorts to church? Does it really matter if we sing contemporary songs and traditional songs-as long as we are all worshiping the King of Kings and bringing Him glory? So many details, that it's easy to get hung up on what I think-what you think and we lose sight of what God thinks. After all- this isn't my church, or your church, it's supposed to be His church. I pray that if this man is "The Guy" that we will follow his leadership and that God will anoint him and guide him as our new Shepherd.

One day I will get to heaven and I know that every word I have ever spoken will be displayed and judged. It doesn't matter if I was frustrated or angry or what the circumstances were, what matters is my heart. What condition was my heart in when I spoke such things? I pray that I will never cause dissent in my congregation, that I will never lead where He has not told me to go and that I can guard my tongue and hold my opinions back no matter how passionate I may feel about a petty issue. This is His church-not mine, I am apart of the body of His church...are you?
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I have to add a side note. This morning when I sat down to write, I had no idea what I was going to write about. I sat, with an open page and a longing to say what He wanted me to say and what you see above is what came out. After I wrote the above post, I sat down and read one of my very short devotion's called, Breaking Free Day by Day by Beth Moore. This is what was written under today's date:

"For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and no one is like Me." Isaiah 46:9

"We make life so much more complicated when we think life is "all about us." The rest of the world never cooperates. No one else got the memo. When we see ourselves as the center of the universe, we live in constant frustration because the rest of creation refuses to revolve around us.
Life vastly simplifies, and satisfaction greatly amplifies, when we begin to realize our awesome roles. God is God. From our perspective, it's all about Him. He is the center of the universe. We seek to please Him. He seeks to perfect us-and life works. Not without pain, but definitely with purpose."
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It's me again-isn't that neat how He does that? I love when He aligns many different areas in my life in one direction. What an awesome God we serve!