Acts29.org

Learning from Who Christ is and what He has done to be a Church in Love  

Ephesians 3 and Hebrews 13 

What is your church up to?  

We, as followers of Christ wo worship, fellowship, and serve in His local church must realize we are the containers of His grace, both as individuals and as a communal assembly. This means we are also the display cases of His presence, love, and principles for one another in the church as well as to others outside of the church. This comes about from our faithfulness and fruitfulness; we must do a better job at this. When we do live in and for and through Christ, something extraordinary happens. Our churches become beacons of His grace, lighthouses of collective abundance by our love and care, and we even go to people in need. People feel loved and part of something real, impacting, and effectual.

Unfortunately, we tend to miss the mark on what Christ would have us do concerning how we relate to and treat one another in His Body, His Church. And, many who come to our places of worship see little evidence of this abundance of faith and fruit in action; neither do they see us coming to them (Mark 3:1-6; 1 Cor. 15:20; 2 Cor. 5:20; Gal. 5:19-23; Heb. 10:38; James 2:12-13; 2 John 1:6; Rev 2:1-3:22). 

Being an “incarnational church” means we have a grasp on who Christ is and who we are in Him. This is the foundation of being a Christian. Who is He? What did He do for me? What is my role and purpose? How do I relate and treat my fellow believer and neighbor? These themes stand out as we celebrate Christmas, because Christmas is the celebration of what the incarnation is, that is, that Christ, being fully God Who created the universe and Who always existed, chose to come down to us, to be one of us. In so knowing, we can be doing by practicing the incarnation in the lives and places of others. Therefore, we as a church are the people of God living out the Gospel in other’s and our cultural climate just as Jesus, who dwelled and moved among us, did.

Filed under: Incarnational Church | Tagged: ability, Bible, Brotherly Love, Christmas, Church, Church in Love, communal, community, Covenant, dependent, display cases, Display Christ, fellowship, fruitfulness, functionality, incarnation, Incarnational, Incarnational Church, inspiration, serve, transformed, triumphant church, vision, worship |