STANDING IN THE GAP FOR THE CHURCH

Forty days of focussed prayer and fasting 20 June – 29 July

FAITH FOR A CHURCH, FAITH FOR A CITY

2 Chronicles 7:14 If My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Eph:20-23 All this energy issues from Christ; God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ's body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.
'Thy Kingdom Come Thy Will be Done'

Wednesday 27 June 2007

Devotion - Day 8

The Church Is A Living and Spiritual Organism

In the context of Matthew 16:16-18, Jesus also implied that the Church is more than an organization, it is an organism. An organism is something that has structure and life, while an organization implies only structure. A machine has organization in that it is composed of an orderly arrangement of many parts, but it is not an organism because it has no life.

Peter’s confession of faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of the living God makes the Church something that has life. The Church is an organism made up of those who have had a spiritual experience and possess spiritual life. There is no evidence that anyone ever became a member of a New Testament Church until they had experienced that new birth which comes through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

In addition to the fact that the Church is a spiritual organism because it is comprised only of those individuals who have spiritual life and are indwelt by God, it is also the dwelling place of the Spirit of God in a corporate sense (I Cor. 3:16-17; Matt. 18:19-20). As the people of God are united together they form a habitation of God by the Spirit (Eph. 2:21-22).

Eph 2:19-22
Now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom every building having been fitly framed together, grows into a holy sanctuary in the Lord; in whom you also are built together for a dwelling place of God through the Spirit.

Posted by Doxa Deo Blog-Admin at 05:56

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