In your personal opinion, what is the hardest thing about being a Christian?
What do you struggle with the most pertaining to your faith?
Is there a particular temptation that causes you to stumble constantly?
Do you have a hard time remaining encouraged and excited when you don’t consistently feel the hand of God at work in your life?
Do you become lethargic and depressed when you’ve been trying to witness and teach, but the people around you just aren’t accepting or receiving the scriptures?
Matthew 5:13-16
- 13 – Salt is for flavoring and preserving.
- 14-15 – We are not to shy away and hide as those who still possess a spirit of uncleanness.
- 16 – If the Spirit of God truly be in you, then the actions of your daily life ought to bring honor and glory to God. Not just your testimony that He saved you, but it should be apparent that the God of the universe lives with you and in you.
-You are the church.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 – “19What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
Although we should respect this building as a place of worship, a place where countless sinners have been saved, a place of learning about God and His Word, a place of communion and fellowship, this building is not THE CHURCH.
You are the church.
For the Spirit to properly manifest, reveal itself within our lives, we must adopt a particular mindset.
Don’t get it twisted, I love being here. In these walls surrounded by brothers and sisters in Christ, breaking the bread of life without the distractions of this world to impede or hinder thus saith the Word of God, but even in the face of the chaos and obstacles of this world the same mindset that you put on when you step through those doors on Sunday morning should be the same mindset you have while shopping in the Walmart at 6:30 PM on a Friday.
You are the church; we are the church.
1 Corinthians 12:12-20 – “12For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. 13For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. 14For the body is not one member, but many. 15If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? 16And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? 17If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? 18But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. 19And if they were all one member, where were the body? 20But now are they many members, yet but one body.”
By one Spirit baptized into one body, made to drink into one Spirit.
- 27 goes on to say, “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.”
Whether you’re in this building or outside in the world, you are a member of the body of Christ, not to be confused with a member of New Friendship Baptist, you are as tightly joined to the body of Christ as a body part with its own particular functions.
People today act like they’ve been amputated as soon as they walk out them church doors, and they get reattached every Sunday and Wednesday, and boy do they need it.
“Pastor, I couldn’t wait to get back in here, the world has been having its way with me.”
“Pastor, I know I really need to be back in church, I feel it.”
I’m all for a Sunday and Wednesday fill up and we are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, but if you want every service to be a shouting, praising, hallelujah service, then every other day of the week you must be living in the salvation you’ve been so graciously and mercifully been given.
Understanding that you didn’t leave God behind when you left the church house, but that He is with you always.
John 10:28-30 – “28And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. 30I and my Father are one.”
And no structure made by man on earth has the capacity to contain God.
Acts 17:23-25 – “23For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. 24God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; 25Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;”
Isaiah 66:1 – “Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?”
He washes us in His blood and creates in us a habitation for the Spirit.
Wherever you go, He goes.
Wherever you are, He is.
You want the Spirit of God to manifest in your life, start by living your life as the church.
-Adopting the mindset.
You can babysit it on the weekends like a deadbeat dad of this world.
You can foster it every so often to get some effects from it.
Or you can fully adopt it because you have a true love and desire for intimacy with God.
1 Thessalonians 5:17 – “Pray without ceasing.”
Luke 21:36 – “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.”
The mindset in question is a godly consciousness.
You can pray standing, sitting, kneeling, or prone.
You can pray in bed, on the couch, in your car or on your phone.
You can have formal prayers, such as prayers of supplication and petition.
You can have intimate prayers, alone in your prayer closet, just you and God.
But prayer in itself is a continual conversation every second of everyday with God.
This mindset of prayer, this godly consciousness, changes our perspective and views.
Not only to be adorned within these walls, but especially adorned at all times.
What did Jesus say right before He instructed to “pray always”?
Luke 21:34-35 – “34And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. 35For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.”
Surfeiting – translated from the Greek word for hangover “kraipale”. A headache or seizure of pain from drunkenness.
-The google definition has surfeiting as this, “cause (someone) to desire no more of something as a result of having consumed or done it to excess.”
Pray always that you not become overcharged, overstimulated, burdened down by the extreme excess of this world, and you are always aware of the presence of God, not just while you’re here at church.
John 4:19-24 – “19The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. 20Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. 21Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. 23But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 24God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
No matter where you are, no matter what you’re doing, your perspective should be that of a godly consciousness, seeing everything through a biblical lens.
Encouraging fellow believers.
Spreading the Gospel of Christ.
Reproving and admonishing the evils of this world.
Having constant conversation with God.