People of Growth

In the Old Covenant teachings, they built temples as places of honor and worship to God and He showed up there for the people. This was the plan of God for that time. In the New Covenant, because of what our Savior did for us through His crucifixion and resurrection, we became the temple of honor and worship to God. No longer were temples needed to be erected in the New Covenant because the Holy Spirit of God was given to reside in us. This is another reason the religious order of that day wanted to get Jesus out of the way so they could continue in their worn out powerless traditions and their egocentric positions.

Jesus brought a better covenant."But now has He obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises than the old. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he told the religious order of that day, that there was coming a time when He would make a new covenant with the Jewish nation which was not according to the one that He made with their for-fathers when He led them out of the life of slavery when they were in the land of Egypt., He promised a new covenant to the Jewish people. A new and better covenant because He would put His laws and promises into their mind, and would write them in their hearts: and would be to them a God, and they would once again be His people because they had strayed away and had followed after other gods of the people they had mixed and mingled with.

Now because He has promised to be in our minds and hearts, does that mean that we shouldn't go to church as believers? Of course not!! We gather as believers because He now has given us apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teacher, for the furnishing, equipping, maturing and mentoring of the believers to duplicate and propagate. So this is why we have 'churches'; so we can be mentored to go out and engage what we have learned; not to sit in a pew every week for the rest of our lives and not learn and apply what we have been given. It is not a social gathering; it is to learn and mature in what our Creator has wanted us to do; to be an example of the peace, the hope and the way of life He originally intended for mankind. Going to church is not an event nor a place to be entertained. It is a learning place to prepare us to go out in the highways and byways of our daily lives to be the hands and feet of Jesus, in gratitude for what He has done for us all; to be the example of a loving God; to bring others to Him and prepare for His the return, which He promised to do.

Jesus didn't say, 'Go to church and sit in a pew. He said to go into the world and to as many as will listen, to bid them to come to Him, both them bad and the good because everyone needs answers in their lives, hope about things that seem hopeless, peace of mind and a life of joy that can be attained to.

Francis of Assisi put it this way: "Preach the Gospel at all times. And if necessary, use words."

Beloved, life is not getting and having; but being and becoming. God created us as people of growth. To grow in Him so He can live through us. Bless His Holy Name.