Reflections of Grace 59: Life Lessons with Jesus part 5 – Intimately Connected?

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If you know Jesus then you are the church too; One of the many members of the Church, the Body, of Jesus who is our Head. Somewhere along the way I lost the mentality that I was there to grow in Jesus.
I was also taught I had to be in a building to truly walk with Him. It took me too long to realize that being in a church didn’t mean I knew anything about the heart and passion of God.
Oh, I yearned for it, so I put on the face that I already had – that passion filled relationship with Jesus, and had the pious face down pat, as if I had it together. I had the Christian-ese language down pat, too. For many years I was very involved in just about everything that was happening in the church building.
I had a good heart.
I was so drawn to God and yearned to serve Him and thought that is what I was doing. But over time, more serving, and more ministries later it all became a checklist or a substitute for a deeper passion.
It became a “doing” instead of a “becoming.”
Somehow I loved becoming the church lady and mistook that title for becoming Godly.
Don’t get me wrong; service, fellowship, and giving are wonderful and a part of the calling for every believer, but serving and doing do not equal a relationship with God. They do not get us closer to the mark, and sometimes can become a wall we hide behind. And so we pretend we know what we are talking about and every Sunday we sit in a pew, staring at the backs of heads, listen to a sermon, and go home.
And wonder why that gaping hole in our hearts is still there.
So many of us are “doing” like crazy.
Not many of us are “becoming.”
My coaching business over the last few years has been full of women and men, who were dying on the inside. Service and hospitality was not cutting it for them. Hearts are broken and lives are hurting. They longed to know that Jesus really loved them—somehow they missed that part while they were busy doing. They are worn out with good works without realizing how to have a one on one with Jesus.

It is easy to pretend we have it all together. I did. Everyone thought I was so together and many wanted to be me. I dressed fashionable, and had a sweet smile on my face. My kids were impeccably dressed, and we were the ‘perfect’ family.

But inside; well that was another story.
My marriage was falling apart. I had been molested as a child and had not told a soul yet. I had not even begun my healing and was convinced I would go to the grave with my secret. So, I had to get even more busy to outrun the ugly truth.
I had no self esteem.
Soon I learned I could fill that need to be validated by being in the church clicks and there was always a need for one more worker to keep it all going.
I became addicted to ministry to fill my gaping hole of need.
Ministry took the place of a passion filled relationship with a very real Jesus. It wasn’t until I lost it all did Jesus finally break into my religiosity and reveal Himself personally in all His glory.
And when that happened? I was doing nothing in the church, I had lost it all. It was in the wilderness of my life that I met Jesus face to face…when everything else was gone.’
Only Jesus didn’t leave.
That is when I learned that I am the Church. You are the church. We are all the church body.

Getting off the merry go round of hiding behind our good works is about laying down all pretense and facades. It is about stepping outside the lines you have drawn around your spirituality and seeing what God has for you,

When we only ascribe the term ‘church’ to weekend gatherings or institutions that have organized themselves as ‘churches’ we miss out on what it means to live as Christ’s body. It will give us a false sense of security to think that by attending a meeting once a week and work ourselves to the bone; then we are participating in God’s church.
But if the church is something we are, not someplace we go, how can we leave it unless we abandon Christ himself? We can’t. We may join other believers anywhere, but it doesn’t define our personal love relationship with Jesus.

I pray that we all are renewed in a passion for Jesus no matter where we find real fellowship with other believers; a genuine concern for each other and a willingness to serve the world with God’s love, which can only come from, not service, but relationship with Jesus Christ. Out of that relationship we will be His hand extended to a lost world.