The Perfecting Church

God gave Jesus as a ransom for our adoption and He provided the resources to move us from our self-willed, self-contrived ways, into His finished and preordained works for our lives. All that’s required for our personal transformation and the fulfillment of God’s intentions lays waiting. We were ordained to live in God’s plentiful provision of mercy, grace, peace and faith. Today, we take a glimpse into what it looks like to live in His abundant provision, through a heart that seeks, craves and accesses the sufficiency God our Father has made available in Christ.

The entire human condition has been so turned against God that our passions, cravings, and mindset are stuck in absolute rebellion against Him. The depravity of our heart rebellion is so pervasive that even our desire for God is a result of His grace at work. Only the enormity of God's grace and kindness towards us can bring about such an altered state of existence that we can be transformed from people headed for God’s wrath, to His beloved, participating in bringing about His will, plans and activity in the earth. He has provided for us and His provision is plenty.

Nothing is more frustrating and destructive than trying to deal with life's issues on our own, blinded by stress, hurt and pain. No matter how hard we try to do things better, apart from God we are incapable of changing our hearts. He alone is the one able to take us from being set in our destructive, self-willed ways to the abundant and fulfilling lives He made us for and that we desperately crave. It all starts with the heart.

Upon creation, it was God’s plan that our identity be found in Him. However, since Eve instigated the fall when she “took” matters into her own hands, mankind’s identity is no longer shaped by God, but conceived in sin which produces the complications in our lives. A continuation of the series “Matters of the Heart,” part two of “A Mother’s Heart: It’s Complicated,” highlights the importance of the daily ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives to restore mankind and the vital role of woman in the restoration of the family.

“It’s Complicated” is a term that’s gained popularity in recent years through the advent of social media. One of the 11 options offered to describe one’s "Relationship Status" on Facebook, the term can denote ambiguity or dissatisfaction within a relationship. While we annually praise our mothers as virtuous women at least once a year quoting Proverbs 31:28 “Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her,” in reality, maternal relationships can be “complicated.” As a continuation of the series “Matters of the Heart,” this Mother’s Day message examines the influence of the “mother of all living,” highlighting the vital role of woman in the plan of God and the tools to restore healthy relationships with the mothers in our lives.

Our hearts have been and will continue to be shaped by something. The lives we live day-in-and-day-out are largely the result of the way our hearts -- our intellect, reasoning, desires, emotions and passions -- have been shaped throughout the course of life. Prior to Christ that shaping came largely through our families, our surroundings and our experiences. But in Christ it is God's will that we continue to offer Him our hearts allowing them to be shaped by Him. God's intent is for His entire family to have a Christ-formed heart.

God says our heart is the most significant part of our being. It is the combination of our spirit and soul; it is where our intellect, reasoning, desires, passions and emotions can be found. He says the most significant thing that this part of our being can do -- is to glorify Him. If God were simply a man such a request would be nothing more than vain. But since God is the creator of all things such a request is love. To glorify God in our heart -- our intellect, reasoning, desires, passions, and emotions -- is to think, feel and ultimately act in ways that reflect God's supremacy, not only in us but in all of creation. Glorifying God in our hearts is to trust Him to shape and define our experiences and actions because He alone is God.

The heart is the most significant part of our being. It is the part of us that no one else sees, while producing everything that is seen. Simply put our heart is the essence of who we are. It is the seat of our intellect, reasoning, desires, emotions and passions. Who we are at the heart level matters more to God than anything else. He doesn't major on our outward appearance like man does. He looks on our heart knowing it is the wellspring from which our lives come gushing out. He knows our quality of life both hear and forevermore is entirely a matter of the heart.

Racism, discrimination, oppression of people groups--here, and around the world-- were all addressed by Jesus' cross. Through Jesus, our Heavenly Father was not simply restoring His eternal relationship with His earthly family. He was also tearing down the dividing walls separating us and delivering us from our deeply rooted cultural sins. Through His death and resurrection Jesus not only restored us to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit but He also restored us to one another by dismantling the hatred present among us. Those who have been made alive in Christ have become a part of one new man -- a church without walls.

God has always used unlikely things to build His Kingdom. His commitment to creating beauty out of what is undesirable and unlikely is His signature throughout creation. The Roman cross was the epitome of His preference for taking that which is unlikely and using it for unthinkable good. Using the unlikely humbles the human heart and serves as a continual reminder that it's God's role to reveal solutions and call us to the paths He wants us to take. He is in control -- regardless of our peaks and valleys, regardless of mistakes we've made, regardless of how we're seen by others -- God loves the unlikely.

We all have ideas of what it will be like when God's Kingdom comes into the world at the end of this age. It was no different for those who followed Jesus over 2,000 years ago. They had long awaited and imagined --Palm Sunday -- the entrance of the Messiah King and His Kingdom -- the fulfillment of Zechariah's prophecy. The inauguration of the Messiah and His Kingdom, was not just as the King of Israel but the King of all the Kings of the earth. But what did it really mean then for His Kingdom to Come? What does it mean for us and the world now? What will it mean for mankind at the end of this age?

Common ground is the place of shared interest. It's a place of shared human experience or need that brings diverse people together. Common ground is something we can agree about in the midst of great difference. God uses common ground as a starting point for deeper connection when we're willing to lay down our fears, insecurities and differences, to follow Him into the hearts and lives of one another. Reconciliation among diverse people often begins on common ground.

The belief that distinctly makes us Christian is our belief in the Trinity. The belief that the God revealed in both the Old and New Testament is one God who eternally exists as three distinct persons is distinctly Christian. No other faith believes in the Trinity -- not the Jew, Muslim, or any other...they all stumble and disagree with this pivotal truth. An understanding of the Trinity is critical to knowing who the God of the Bible is, how He wants us to relate to Him and how He has created us to relate to one another. We were made in His image and after His likeness. We were made to live as He does -- in Divine Community.

Our world, our nation, and our communities are changing rapidly around us. More than ever before this nation is becoming a mosaic of different ethnicities. America is now the most ethnically diverse nation in the world with an extraordinary variety of colors, classes, and national origins. God has literally brought the world to our doorsteps. God has an end in mind for His Church -- the bride of Christ and the stage has been set. Jesus didn't give His life for something undefined and obscure. He gave Himself for a clear and defined end our heavenly Father had in mind. Some think Jesus' bride -- the Church is white, others believe she is black or tan, while still others believe she is colorless. But the face of the Church that Jesus gave His life for is multi-ethnic and multi-cultural. His bride comes from every nation and every tongue. Our generation and the one to follow, if the Lord tarries, has a unique opportunity to surrender our comfort, prejudices, hatred, anger and preferences to be a prat of God getting what He wants.

Glocal Team 2015 Briefing