I missed the big picture. I missed it by so much that I was beginning to believe that there really wasn’t a big picture. I believed that the church was just a list of rules that were there to make my life much more difficult than it was intended. How many church services have you been to that have the worship first, announcements second, followed by an hour long sermon, fellowship and a luncheon? How many of those church services were filled with people dressed in their “Sunday best” and seemed to have the wrong idea? How many of them were littered with just more of the same message of “getting what God has promised,” “living in prosperity,” and “How to make yourself whiter than snow?” This is what we know of church: the religion, not church the body of Christ.
What is a “church service?” Well, to start, I’ll tell you what it isn’t. It isn’t an oasis of religious guru love and it isn’t the only place that you can go to receive the Word of God, guidance and relationship. Its not a list of do’s and don’ts. It’s not the Sunday garb. It’s not the music. It’s not a list of events carried out consecutively in a two hour time period. It’s actually a group of Jesus-wannabe’s who’s intention is to celebrate Christ, everything that he is, and act in unity, friendship, and accountability. Jesus gave his life on the cross to start a revolution. It is the same revolution that we are supposed to be living every day. He paved the way so anyone could have relationship with the father and enter into his presence instead just a few elect perfect people. Everyone was given the same playing field that contained absolutely no limitations. Everyone could dance in his presence because of his atoning death. (Notice, atonement is another word for “Sin erased from ever having been committed.”)We have been set free from having to make ourselves perfect in his site. He made it so when we admit to being wrong, all he acknowledges is perfection.
So what is it we are waiting for? Why are we stuck in the world where it matters what we wear? That isn’t church. If it is we are obviously missing the point. What we wear has always been an issue with different churches. It originated with all the other religion that mutated Jesus’ design of the church body. When I go to church, dress shouldn’t be the first thing that comes to my mind. Lets see what Jesus has to say about it: Romans 13: 11-14 11 “Besides this, knowing the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. 12 The night is nearly over, and the daylight is near, so let us discard the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk with decency, as in the daylight: not in carousing and drunkenness; not in sexual impurity and promiscuity; not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no plans to satisfy the fleshly desires.” This sounds like the prefect dress code to me. Jesus states it in his “six woes” chapter to the Pharisees in Luke 11:37: “When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. But the Pharisee, noticing that Jesus did not first wash before the meal, was surprised. Then the Lord said to him, "Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But give what is inside the dish to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.” All I’m seeing in these scriptures is the internal is the priority and the external is just a vessel that is accounted for after the fact. Jesus doesn’t like your Armani suit any more than he likes your Levis.
Why then does it matter what our music sounds like? Worship music has gone a long way in the past 100 years, evolving from basic bar-song-converted-to-hymns-for-Sunday to major record labels producing music by Christian artists around the world. Whether it be a hymn, soft rock, reggae, country, hardcore, screamo, alternative and electric experimental music and rap, Jesus loves it the same as any music, as long as it glorifies his name. He doesn’t disagree with music because it has too much guitar or its too loud has the wrong beat or the rhythm is too old like you do. It is the heart from which the praises are sung. Psalm 150: “Praise the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, praise him with tambourine and dancing, praise him with the strings and flute, praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.” I really dislike it when someone tells ne that the sound I am making in worship is a worldly sound. That’s such a stupid thing to say. God is the inventor of every note from which a chord is built and every rudiment in every drum beat. We need to take the music from the world, laugh in Satan’s face, and give music back to its creator.
Instead of making ourselves flawless, which is entirely unachievable and pointless, he just says, “Pick up your cross, die to your self, follow me.” Its that simple. We are already blessed by the church. We are blessed by his presence, not by financial increase. Matthew 6 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[b]? "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Instead of pep talks about how God is going to bless us, we need to encourage each other in God about everything that he is and does. He already blesses. He gives and takes away. He knows our desires and he knows what we worry about. He already died for the nitpicky things we beat ourselves up for. HE JUST WANTS US TO KNOW HIM. If you know him and point your spirit towards him then your body will follow. Its not a matter of willpower. It’s a matter of letting go of your own shame end regret. Let go of your flesh.
Let me explain to you the main point of my ramblings. Jesus doesn’t care who you are or what you do. He doesn’t care what you wear or how you look, he says, “wear what I’ve given you!” He doesn’t care what kind of music you play, he says, “Play with the talent I’ve given to you!” Become undignified. Become one with the Lord. Know his heart. Align yours with his. We are the church: the body, not church: the religion.
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