I tweet.  I like twitter for it's simplicity.  I like that you are forced to be pithy with your comments, you have 140 characters to make your point.  If you'd like to follow me on twitter, click here

You also have the opportunity to run into some entertaining characters that say, well, some interesting things.  Today I read someones tweet that asked the question, "Where would Jesus go to church?"  Now, looking at this persons other tweets it wasn't hard to figure out what point of view he was coming from.  This is a person who dislikes organized religion in any form and specifically doesn't like that Christians gather in a specific building for services.

First, I'm not going to judge this persons spiritual condition, it's not my job.  Really, I'm going to ignore them.  However, I think the question posed, paying no regard to their opinion on the matter, is an interesting question that I do have an opinion on.

If Jesus were to come down to the earth today, walk into your, or my, town, what church would he go to?  Well, none.  He wouldn't go to the church.  He didn't come for the well, afterall, he came for the sick.  That's why he hung out with tax collectors and sinners.

The early New Testement church didn't meet in church buildings, they met in houses.  In Acts 20:7-12 it talks about Paul teaching at a house until midnight and a young man falling asleep, falling from the second floor window, dying and being raised from the dead.  I'm sure Paul would have went into a church building if they were available, but in that day and age you couldn't just decide to build a huge building, so they taught were there was availability.

In the modern age, what is the purpose of the church building?  I'm talking about what it is intended to by, not what it has largely become.

Today the building is meant to be a training ground.  It is a place to learn, to be refreshed and a place for the faithful to come together for fellowship.  However, it has become a social club in many areas and like the old farmer said, "Us four and no more." becomes the attitude in the church.

We need to treat Sunday services as a corporate celebration of the greatness of Christ, a place to rejoice in the battles of the past week and a place to prepare for the battles of the next week.  A place where brothers and sisters in Christ hone each other like iron sharpens iron.

I believe that most churches get the first point above.  However, too many have no battles to celebrate and no battles for which to be prepared.  There is more back-biting than sharpening and people trying to build their internal political power.  There are to many people trying to advance their personal little fiefdom inside of the local church instead of advancing the kingdom of God in the world.

Jesus wouldn't come to the church today, not because we are so far off the mark, but because he would be out serving the lost.  He'd be serving the lost hoping that we, the church, would join him.  We can have our church services, but we can't have that be our spiritual life.  Those services are not to be the rule of your life, they are meant to be the culmination of your life's work, spreading the good news of Jesus Christ.

We, as the church, need to remember that being the church has nothing to do with a building, a name on a sign or a person who stands up behind the pulpit and speaks.  It has everything to do with bringing the good news to the broken hearted, bringing healing to the sick, bringing prosperity to the poor, bringing food to the hungry and visiting the fatherless and the widow.  If we do all of those things, when we enter the building on a Sunday morning or Wednesday evening we can go in to be armed, to be healed and to be restored ourselves, so we can go into the world and do what God has called us to do, to be what he called us to be.

Rom 7:4-25

I think, sometimes, to be a Christian is to be schizophrenic.  As Romans 7 says:

Rom 7:15-17
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
NIV

We try so hard to do what is good, but we always go back to what is evil.  Our mind warring against our body for our souls, as I mentioned in one of my previous posts.  It’s the dichotomy of being a Christian.  We do the things we don’t want to do, but for the simple fact that we don’t want to do them it proves that the law is good.  That is just odd.  I like it, but it’s odd.

It makes you understand, though, that God doesn’t really put the importance on your actions as a Christian, but on the condition of your heart.  For instance, if you were entrapped in sin, and it is something that you want to do, it doesn’t prove anything but that your heart is evil.  However, if you are in sin, but it isn’t something that you want to do, but you stumble, it proves the law is a good thing.

The way I always tell the youth group at FFCC is this; the law was not created by God to limit your freedoms, the law was created to show you the things that will cause you pain.  In God’s attempt to keep His children safe He basically said, don’t stick anything into the light socket or don’t touch that pot of boiling water.

Ultimately, we need to continue to try to do good.  In all things we should try to abstain from the very appearance of evil.  However, when those times come and we do fall, and we will, don’t be too hard on yourself, pick yourself up, dust off your backside and continue pressing forward for the prize.  Falling isn’t failing, quitting is failing.  If you keep fighting for the prize eventually you will get it.

Our faith is not a sprint, it is a marathon.  In a sprint you have 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.  In a marathon, everyone, whether you are first or last, is a winner, as long as you cross the finish line.  It’s up to you in what condition you cross.  Do you want to be the beat up wounded warrior or the victorious king returning home, the choice is yours.  Even the king loses some battles, it’s how he responds that makes him the conquering hero.