We are the church. We are the body of Christ and while I have known this my whole life, I have realized my view of church is skewed and not what the Lord intended it to be. I have been to many churches and seen how the Lord works in each of them, but even more so I have seen the lack of the Lord. This may be the riskiest blog I’ve written (I mean I don’t write many blogs, so it’s also the only risky blog I’ve written). While on this race Abba has taught me so much, broken down many walls, and replaced them with his love. Throughout this time I have been to every kind of church you can imagine. Much of our time in India was spent building up the local churches and much of our time in Africa has been working with different churches. There is something here in most of these churches that is missing from many in America. I believe that is the Holy Spirit. Now I’m not saying that churches in the USA don’t have the Holy Spirit. I believe that you get the spirit when you have a relationship with Jesus which would mean that most people in the church have Him, But what I am saying is that there is a definite lack of Him in the church and in our daily lives. As a church we constantly refer the Holy Spirit, ya know father, son, Holy Ghost, But do we actually have a relationship with him? Are we actually choosing to be filled the spirit everyday? I know I probably sound like I’ve been going to a pentecostal church, well I have… but I’ve also been going to a baptist church, a Methodist church, and evangelical church. I have worked with almost every denomination on this race, and I have seen which churches are being lead by the spirit and which churches are doing things on their own. You can see the difference. These churches have the fruit of the Spirit. Which is Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, and self control. These are not just things we learn at church or teach at Sunday school, but these are the manifestation of the spirit living and working inside of you. The churches that were lead by the Lord’s voice through the Holy Spirit were full of Joy-they danced before the Lord without shame or embarrassment. They were full of love- welcoming everyone in with an open door policy and having more hospitality that Aunt Jemima. They were full of faithfulness-trusting the lord with literally everything they had, they shared what they had with others, when one was lacking everyone helped because they had faith that God would provide. They exhibited all these fruits and more, but because of the fruit they bore they experienced freedom. When we are living in the spirit, we experience freedom like never before. Freedom from past hurts, freedom from shame, freedom from guilt and so much more, and because of the vulnerability we have when living a free life we create fellowship. These churches had fellowship. Not where you go the church on Sunday, hear a great sermon and some prayer requests then go home and forget everything. No, this is a fellowship of family. We are the body Christ and we are all brothers and sisters in Jesus so why don’t we act like it. God calls us to live according to spirit, building each other (the church) up. We are called to live freely. We are called to live intimately with God. The God of the universe gave us HIS spirit, to live inside of US! To me that’s amazing and I never again want to take that for granted. Let’s show the fruit that the spirit produces. Let’s dance for our king without shame. Let’s sing at the top of our lungs to our God no matter what we sound like. Church, Let’s continue this race with endurance and bring others along with us. Let’s live a life filled with the Holy spirit, because once you have him, there is no going back.
2 Corinthians 3:17
“…where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
