The Lords day has always been a favorite of mine. Even if, at least for a few times in my life, that might have been just because I considered it a command that mama rest on that day.
That might have sounded something like, "Any further requests should be made known to your dad. I am now off duty taking a nap."
But that's neither here nor there really because the point is yesterday I found myself in complete awe and appreciation of REAL worship, REAL church. And what I saw was so much more than a Sunday.
That's what makes the Lord's day so special, when the church disassembles after the Sabbath and and tears down the four walls taking the heart of the Gospel into real life Monday.
And as the church stood and sang, "Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me..." I stood in holy awe of the crazy amount of amazing grace surrounding me, surrounding all of us sitting there in the beautiful country church pews.
Amazing grace has saved us all.
One family after another stood alongside each other, blended together by God's grace in a sin infested world which leaves plenty of room for the church to open arms and adopt others into the family of God. More than any Sunday I've noticed in a while, the families yesterday looked like a big colorful quilt stitched together with so many fabrics, many of them undoubtedly stained with life, with sin, in need of the red blood of a Savior to wash them clean.
When you put flesh and bones on the Spirit living inside of us and walk out the commands to (Luke 14:33) forsake all and follow Me....you see things that look like Jesus living and walking among us. You see foster mama's wiping little noses, young men helping the elderly and sweet church mothers speaking to the one that no one has ever seen walk through those doors before. Because we carry His Spirit inside of us, that's what we're called to do.
We're food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, a father to the fatherless and more.
If we fail to do that? We're not much more than a social gathering of people singing songs and exchanging pleasantries. But if we do, we are living out His purpose and not our own...because He has saved us and called us to a holy life-not because of anything we have done but because of His own purpose and grace 2 Timothy 1:9.
It all struck a chord with me yesterday because we sit on the eve of what could be the literal jumping in the pool for our family.
We're called to reach out, we're ready and we're waiting for that open door.
That's so much easier to do when you're surrounded by the incredible faith of others who are living the example in front of you.
So when the preacher read from Matthew chapter twenty five about doing for the least of these my heart beat a little faster with the anticipation of leaving Sunday and living it out the rest of the week, the rest of our lives.
I can't do only religion anymore-I have to have relationship because the God I serve is REAL. He lives inside of us, He walks among us and we are here to be His representatives.
I can't wait to live out the rest of this week and see what He has right around the corner.
It's going make standing in those aisles, worshipping this wondrous God I serve all the more amazing next Sunday.
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