This past week I had coffee with a pastor friend and we were discussing the church. He said one of the problems is that though people talk about the kingdom they tend to see their church as the kingdom rather than the kingdom expressing itself through the church. I concur. The church is an aspect of the kingdom; it is not the kingdom. That being said, Jesus did say He would build His church (Matthew 16:18). Thus, the question we need to answer is what the church should look like.
At the simplest level the church is meant to be His dwelling place, the place where Jesus expresses Himself through His body. In one of his encounters with Yahweh this is what Yahweh said to Moses.
8 And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. Exodus 25:8 (NKJV)
This is His desire, to express Himself among us, or in the case of the church, in and through us. After all Paul tells us that individually and corporately, we are His dwelling place, referring specifically to the Holy of Holies in the temple, the place where Yahweh sat enthroned between the cherubim (1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19). In both references Paul is exhorting his readers, and by extension us, to live holy upright lives because we carry His presence.
That being the case, I think we should seek to see more of His manifest presence when we gather and then take what we receive out to those around us. I have never been in a revival atmosphere. I have read about it in church history; I have listened to a couple of old sermons by Duncan Campbell, the preaching voice of the Hebrides revival. In listening His presence is tangible and gripping. This stirs in me a desire for more, for a corporate experience and expression. I have had powerful encounters alone with Jesus and I have been in gatherings where His presence has been very tangible but nothing that rises to the level of what I have researched regarding revival. I think we as His body need that.
That being said, I don’t believe, as some do, that we can create revival. I believe it is like the birthing of a baby. The baby beginning to move down the birth canal brings on labour, it is not the labour that brings on the baby. He initiates, we respond. Yet, in looking at church history it has usually been in times of great darkness that revival is birthed, and culturally we are certainly there. In the West we live in a moral quagmire and we are in desperate need of His presence among us.
Given that we cannot manufacture revival what can we do. Of course, scripture has the answer. Here is one of my favourite verses in Proverbs (I have a few!)
1 The preparations of the heart belong to man, But the answer of the tongue is from the LORD. Proverbs 16:1 (NKJV)
Many translations have the word ‘plan’ or ‘plans’ instead of preparations but while the Hebrew word carries that meaning it primarily means to arrange or set up. I was involved in planning a few large events and conferences in my career in and the focus was on preparation. We prepared the agenda, the room and everything else. There was a plan but the focus was on proper preparation for when the people arrived. To that end, while I do not believe we can create revival, we seem to be in a cultural state that requires it and I believe we can prepare our hearts to make room for Jesus, to give Him freedom to express His Lordship in our gatherings. There is a worship song titled Make Room that I believe expresses what we can do, we can prepare our hearts, surrender our plans and make room for Him to move. Let’s do that!
Song link below.
NOTE – I have written a weekly post for over 12 years now. I am going on vacation and actually taking a break from writing my blog, and a few other things. The next one will be Saturday June 6. I am frankly somewhat weary at present. I suspect a large part of that comes from having two major surgeries in the past 14 months coupled with a busy schedule and me not being very good at actually taking breaks, so I am going to do that and seek His face on our trip.