The Perfecting Church

We can be in relationship with the lover of our souls, the redeemer of our lives and not know what really means to be His child -- living functionally as orphans. Our response to the Father's love often falls into one of two categories.  We can rebel against His love, wanting what we can get from Him rather than actually wanting Him or we respond religiously to His love just performing in hopes He'll be indebted to give us what we want.  Sometimes, in response to the extravagant love of the covenant making Father, we just put on church clothes. 

Pride is a root which the enemy sows in our hearts to choke the fruitfulness of love in our lives. In our pride-filled American culture, we are called not to conform to this world, but to be hypervigilant to recognize and eliminate the weeds of pride from our hearts so we can bring forth fruit for the glory of the Kingdom of God.

The radically patient and kind love of God frees us from the disfiguring grip of jealousy and envy. Jealousy and envy are everywhere — the constant comparison, excessive competitiveness, passive-aggressive pettiness and celebrating the failures of the popular are the flavor of our day. And jealousy and envy make us all caricatures of ourselves, trapped in a race no one wins. Radical love is the thing that makes us free. It is not jealous. It is not envious. 

He who is holy is also long suffering. The God who’s love is patient is also the God who’s love is kind. His kindness is close to the top of the list when it comes to how God expresses His love to us. God’s kindness goes beyond the general, generic run of the mill acts of kindness. His kindness is unique, specific to our need and specific to His ability. Radical love is kind.  

Before the love of God is anything; the love of God love is patient. We’ve all received radical patience from the God who is love. When we experience and acknowledge God’s loving patience with us and extend it to others we are changed and we become change agents.  But when we receive God’s loving patience and refuse to extend it to others, we become hardened, isolated and imprisoned by our judgements.  

Jesus never intended for His radical act of love on the cross and His bodily resurrection three days later to end simply with us being born again. That was a part of His divine assignment but not the entire plan. It has always been God’s intent that His people would live drawing daily and continually from His radical love.  So many receive eternal life but never learn to live life daily drawing from His radical love.  We can not live like or love like God intended until we learn to live lives rooted in the radical love of God.  

Because life is not about what happens to us but about what and how we re-member, stories matter and this life is a battle for control of the narrative. The stories we tell set the course for our personal destiny and the legacy we leave. As we transition from the place of altars and memorials, may our hearts settle the question of who authors our story so that we may enter into the radical Love of God.

Now that we've learned what altars and memorials are, it's time to have an honest conversation about what it looks like to live it.We need to move beyond simply hearing and knowing, to living and applying the truth of what it is to remember and rehearse the way God intended.

The Passover and the last supper are undisputedly the greatest altars and memorials in all of creation. It’s with these altars and memorials, Yahweh Elohim, the covenant making God of creation, changes the identity and the destiny of a people. No altar and no memorial gives identity and destiny like the cross and communion that the Passover and its lambs foreshadow.  When we receive, remember and rehearse Jesus’ cross and communion we are changed for eternity and changed moment by moment. In Remembrance of Me.

God understands the importance and the power of our memories. Some things He does in our lives with the intent that we will not only know Him but that we never forget Him. He has literally made mankind and the unfolding of our lives in such a way that we not only know Him — but so that we Don’t Forget Him.

Altars are places in our hearts before they’re places in this world. Some of those altars — places of honor and worship — are erected to the Living God anchoring us in His love, peace and power. But there are also altars erected to lil gods, giving reverence and worship to people, places and practices that aren’t God at all. When we give lil gods the adoration and esteem that belongs to the living God, we invite chaos, disorder and destruction into our lives and this world. There are times when we will have to tear down to build up.

Altars are places where we offer up to God the things that consume us, control us and compete with His place in our lives. We also build altars as an act of worship because we realize God has kept us. Jacob is 97 years old before he builds an altar to God. In Jacob, we see the radical love of a God who presses us until we realize what He’s always known — we’ll never be home in ourselves or in Him until we build Him an altar.  

“Often in life we forget the things we should remember and remember the things we should forget.” — Unknown  It’s the stories we repeatedly tell ourselves and the experiences we continually rehearse that shape our way of seeing and being. As we step out of 2023 and over the threshold of 2024 we need to build some altars and establish some memorials to anchor us in the love of God. How we remember a thing has so much to do with how we enter a thing.  

The birth of Christ is the most radical act of Love the world has ever known. In an age of excess, empire and power — Yahweh Elohim, the covenant making God, carried out His plan of incarnation. By the womb of a virgin, He made a body for Himself, that He might offer Himself, to restore mankind to Himself.

Joy is rooted in who God is. It is not a fleeting feeling based on external circumstances. Possessions, accomplishments, even the people in our lives, may bring us intermittent feelings of joy. However, the source of all perpetual joy is Jesus.