Friday, March 27, 2009

Spirit & Temple

I am in such a beautiful season of life. I just feel so FULL! :) Full of the Truth God is showing me, His love and grace. For about a year now, He has just been stirring in me such a passion for the Body of Christ. For THE church - not any one local part of it - but THE church.... although I do love so much the part of the Body where He has planted me right now.

He is building in me such a desire to see unity in the Body that Jesus himself prayed for. To see us caring for each other as one Body. To see us connected as He desires us to be. I see now that this year has been preparation for what He wants to do through us (Brandon, me, Crosswinds) in our community. I feel such a stirring going on... a movement of the Spirit as Pastor Chris has said.

I have been dwelling on the Holy Spirit a lot. Back in 2007, Francis Chan did a series on the Holy Spirit and I have been re-listening to it. It is so powerful and fits in so nicely to what Pastor Chris has been feeding us with.

Romans chapters 6 - 8 are some of my favorite passages on the Spirit. Those chapters have SO much in them!! I feel that I can't even read just one sentence without being so full....but what's amazing to me is that I can read a passage one month and not get anything crazy out of it.... but then a few days or weeks later, I re-read it and the words come alive in my soul. They almost instanteously change me as I let them abide. It is beautiful!!!!!

So I could go on and on and on and on and everybody around me probably knows that. But I will just share one nugget that is so thick in my Spirit right now I feel like I could chew on it for days.

I am choosing this one because to truly BE the Body and THE church that God is making me love so much --- we have to figure out what it is. Can you "go to" church? Can you "do" church? Or are *we* the church? What is "church"? :) Funny questions probably haha...... BUT I came across this verse when studying the Spirit:

I Corinthians 3:16 Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?

*re-read that about 20 times* :) woah. There is no more temple ("church building"). When Jesus was crucified and punished for ALL the sin in the world EVER..... the curtain that was between us as every day little humans and the "Holy Place" of God was TORN. There is no more Holy Place to go to.

The curtain was TORN! God is waiting for people to believe in Jesus, accept the gospel of repentance & grace & forgiveness & love .... and run into His arms! Never to be separated again. Then, as His followers, He puts His Spirit in us! The Spirit is not a power. He's a being. He's a being that comes in to us and lives in us. A being that will guide us and change us. We don't have to GO anywhere to BE with God. We don't have to "Go to temple (church)". We ARE the Church. WE ARE the temple.

I am not saying we shouldn't gather corporately. We ARE to gather corporately to bring glory to Him...to praise His name... to encourage each other... to be fed the Word....to be refueled to go BE The Body... (although gathering corporately can take many different forms and I don't think it should be *one* day a week)... but any one place or day is not where the temple is. It's not where He is. He is in us.

We carry the temple with us everywhere. Not one day a week. Not at any one place.

The Church isn't a building (thank God for that since ours isn't done yet for our first official gathering Sunday!).....

We *are* the temple.

Much more to come!!! :)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

God is truly at work in you, friend! Be blessed!!You are a blessing! Minnow

Randi Jo :) said...

and I say the same about you! :) Thanks minnow!

Anonymous said...

Hi Randi :) I love reading how inspired and built up in God you are, that is really great!

It really is an incredible thought that God Himself comes and lives inside of us by His Spirit. That we ourselves are His temple, as you say here. What an amazing privilege and an amazing empowering!

jeleasure said...

Hi Randi Jo,
Tamela and I have each written a blog concerning 'The Body of Christ', as well.

You made mention of some of the same things we did.

I came to visit your blog a few days ago and saw that you were writing about what I have had on my mind recently. So, I did not read your blog until I finished my entry.

Good words. Honestly, I can see you have a desire for God's family. I find that interesting that you tell us. I wonder how many other people can see the spiritual you in your writing.

Dr. Russell Norman Murray said...

Unity in love and Biblical truth should always be a central aspect of Christian faith and philosophy. Randi Jo, may the Lord bless you in this! Russ;)

Randi Jo :) said...

thanks you all :) very interesting & encouraging thoughts, all of u. thanks! :)

Shelby said...

Randi Jo,

Whenever I read your writing, I imagine you as a glowing, energized, little girl jumping up-and-down in elation at just getting the BEST GIFT EVER. Your writing makes me smile. The shear joy you share brings me back to the simplicity of Christ again and again.

Then you go and throw in some thought-provoking Biblical commentary, and I understand why Jesus saw the Kingdom in youthful wisdom.

I want to publicly thank you for personally encouraging me to read Colossians. One verse touched-off an epiphany in me (Have you ever had a moment when you can almost hear the stale structures of your understanding collapsing like giant dominos in your head?) Col 1:16-18: "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth...And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church..." Whoa, dude. I know I've heard this in sermons. I've read this over-and-over, but this time it was like Jesus was rewriting my RAM, and I can't look at anyone like I used to. By him all things consist -- all things. It's as if Jesus ever decided to actually bag this whole Planet Earth thing -- we would all collapse at his absence and fall to the ground like deflated rag dolls. Forests would dry to brittle, brown sticks. Animals would stop, frozen in time. Who knows, maybe even water would stop running. Jesus is that much a part of us. These are weird, radical thoughts -- but they get me to pondering exactly how serious we, as a Church, are when we read that everything exists by him. This means that we could start seeing EVERYONE as children of God.

Randi Jo :) said...

I am honored Shelby. I love ya sister and I SO love your writing & your word pictures/visuals. So powerful!!!

It truly is amazing how much you can really chew on and dig on so many verses in the Bible!! NO matter how many times you look at it... when you chew... God can open your eyes and peal back even more layers to show you new discoveries. He is just so incredible. nothing stagnant, stale, boring about Him...... EVER!

Love ya and THANK YOU for you! :)