Wednesday, July 27, 2011

What is Going on with the Body of Christ?


But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:15-16

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17

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My dear friend, you must understand that every sin damages the entire body; when a member of the body of Christ does something that is not honorable, it affects all of us. There has been what I call an epidemic of misconduct in the church that ranges from sexual immorality, molestation, boat load of divorces, to drunkenness and even drug abuse. Let us be honest, Christian have a tendency to sweep things under the rug. It is easier to hide thing as opposed to dealing with them. Certainly not the example of Christ. He came to bring darkness to light. There comes a time when we have to be serious about the cause of holiness. God is Holy and he wants the body of Christ to be like Him. We cannot and should no longer accept being human as an excuse for dwelling in sin. Christ's death forever change our sinful nature. It is your responsibility and mine to strive for holiness, and to look like our Father. We should not live our lives like others from various reality shows. We must keep certain standards. We should not be afraid to stand for core values. It makes me so angry when the voice of immorality and is louder the holiness! We are in the world but we are not of this world.

I suppose Matthew 5:13-14 express it best: “You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house." God does not tolerate the destruction of His house (holy temple). Many years ago when Paul was addressing the Corinthians he points out that sexual immorality and drunkenness as being damaging to the body. In fact, we know that every form of sin hurts the body of Christ, the temple of God. This day and age, we seem to be too tolerant of the destruction of the Church and we don't hold our leaders accountable for their behaviors. We rationalize it and claim that they aren't hurting anyone but themselves but as we recently found out, no sin is ever private. Jesus died openly and publicly for our sins.

The church has taken a beating this past year alone with issues of sexual immorality. The church gets victimized when leaders neglect fall into the lifestyle of the secular world. The prophet Malachi faced similar problem. When the leaders no longer learned and speak of the word of God, they failed to reprimand, inspire and encourage the people of God. They twisted the Law of God to serve their own ends and purposes. They do so to keep to increase membership. Holiness is not a popular topic in many congregations. Leaders are more interested in expanding and getting wealthy than the dispensation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. many of them have been married multiple times with many lovers and homosexuality is rampant in the Christian community. Malachi tells us that marrying unbelieving women, divorcing the wife of one's youth, and the worship of other gods (sex, money and position) is an act of treachery against the whole body.
Each time that the church chooses not to call its members to repentance, the body is wounded. Who’s really standing up for the Lord? It is your responsibility and mine to do so. Let us stand together for holiness and righteousness. Let’s go back to the business of soul seeking and not membership growing and getting rich. Let us together make the choice to build up our church as instructed by our lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Praise the lord!