Whats The Manna?

The Church:     What is it?    What is its mission?    Where is its future?

What is it?

When most of us hear the word “church” mentioned we immediately think of a building and a piece of property where we go once or several times during the week.  Many of us have the wrong idea about the church and its function.

 Jesus left His home with the Father to take on human flesh and dwell among His creation. It was all part of the Father God’s plan of salvation for the entire world. Those of us, who want Jesus, want to have a real relationship with Jesus and want God’s forgiveness become part of His gathering or church  made up of "called out ones".

You see Jesus left the Father’s house to come to earth to find or choose His “bride”. When that number is complete Jesus, the bride groom, will one day return for the church, His bride, to take us  back to His Father’s house.

We are part of a living organism or living stones being built up into a living temple of God. Individually, we all have different talents and gifts to use to build up the kingdom of God or the body of Christ. We are all to be contributing to this body made up of different members with Jesus as the head. Submitting to the head just as our own bodies respond to the chemical-electrical stimulation through our bodies vast nervous system.

This gathering, kingdom or church is to be united together to accomplish many goals one of which is found in Matthew 28:19. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you;

What is its mission?

As stated above we are to make disciples of people and teach them what Jesus commanded us to do. In my opinion, we have fumbled and dropped the ball in the area of making disciples.  So what really should we be doing? What did Jesus command us to do?

·         To first love God with all our heart, mind and soul.

·         To love our neighbors as ourselves. Have fun, celebrate life and enjoy each other's company. Laugh, cry and just be there for each other. Occupy until He returns for us.

·         We are to minister to people. This word literally means (under rower) to put our hands to the oars, pulling the boat through the water. Ministry will take up your time, money and energy it means you will get your hands dirty.

·         Have grace and mercy to others around you. Remember walking with God is a journey. Every moment we are alive and awake we need to have our eyes open for God’s divine appointments. It’s really all about making time for people and developing relationships with those same people.

·         Gathering together. We were designed by God to need other people for fellowship. You can’t be a lone ranger in God’s gathering of saints. It’s interesting to consider what Jesus meant when He said “that when two or more are gathered in His name He is in the midst of them”. He said this to support the necessity that we need each other and we were never meant to walk alone. Fellowship brings us closer to each other and to God.

·         We are not to judge each other. We are not to show personal preference to others. We are to treat everyone equally. Especially the poor, widows, orphans and the lowly. In God's kingdom we are all on equal ground.

·         We are to show other's God's love. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care! Actions speak louder than words. So don’t tell people you will pray for them, just stop  and pray for them. Read 1 Corinthians 13. Meditate on it, chew it up and apply it to your journey all the time.

·         Take time to model “The Jesus Style” in your own life.  Teach people about Jesus by the way you live at all times in this world.  

Where is its future?

Our future as the bride of Christ, the church body, sons and daughters of God has been called our “Blessed Hope”. It was really the original destination God desired for His creation from the very beginning. God desires our love, admiration and friendship. We were not made for a world where sin exists. We were not created to be selfish. We were not created to be content with living a life of self centered-ness. God has so much more planned for us to experience that we can’t even begin to imagine it. And the journey can begin now.

Our future, some believe, will be lived both in a non-terrestrial space, an extra dimensional space and partly here on earth. We don’t yet have the entire picture of what some have called “heaven”. We are also not sure if we will be on earth with Christ for His thousand year reign or what our eternal home will look like which has been described as “The New Jerusalem”. The only way earthly writers found to describe these places was with earthly language and examples which pale at best. It really is like looking into a piece of polished silver. We just have to be satisfied with the blurry image that we see. All we really have are the visions and the writings of the  apostle John, Paul and others. For we walk by faith not by sight.

So the church is not a building or piece of property but rather  it’s a gathering of “called out ones”. Called out of the world to be saved by the grace and mercy of God’s love. Sent back into the world to make disciples and teach them all about His grace and mercy. We were never meant to walk alone. Our mission field starts right at the front door of our homes with our families, our next door neighbors and all people even  to the remotest parts of the earth.

Bullet Points

• The bible is a collection of  treasured literature. Topics included are on world creation, creation of man, early world civilization history, Jewish history, prophecy, poetry, wisdom, stories, life of the Messiah and letters to the early churches. 
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• Inspired by God written by mere men, the bible is a love letter to the entire world for the redemption of eternal souls.
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• God sent Jesus into the world to become flesh and blood and live among us. He came at the perfect time in history. 
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• Jesus is God. 
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• Jesus was born by a virgin woman through the power of the Holy Spirit.
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• Jesus became flesh and blood. God dwelt among His creation. Emmanuel.
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• Jesus was without sin. He did not miss the Father's mark. Jesus fulfilled the path the Father had laid out for Him before the foundations of the world were laid.
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• Jesus was mocked, beaten, humiliated and condemned to death on a Roman cross for all of us because we needed our debt to be paid in full. For all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory.
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• Jesus was brought up as a child to follow the Torah, festivals and traditions of the Jewish religion and ultimately become the total fulfillment of God's perfect law. The perfect Lamb of God.
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• Fifty days after ascending into the earth's atmosphere,  Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to "help and come along side of us".
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• At second birth, we were all given spiritual gifts to use in building up the body of Christ and the kingdom of God.
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• We need to use our spiritual gifts to produce fruit or build up the body of Christ and the kingdom of God here on earth now and in the future that is to come.
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• We were all sealed by the Holy Spirit as a guarantee for the purchased possession until the day of redemption.
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• The "church" is not a building or piece of property. The "church" is made up of people, called out of the world to be saved by grace, sent back into the world to model the grace that has been given them.
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• Before His death, Jesus gave the world just two commandments in order to fulfill the law. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.
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• Before His death while still hanging on the cross, Jesus said "It is finished"  In the Greek literally "Paid in Full". Like when a debt instrument was literally blotted out and rendered "Paid in full".
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• All human beings born after the death of Jesus have had their debts paid for them. Although, the bible states that not all people will choose to reach out and receive God's gift of grace and mercy.
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• You cant loose what you never created or found in the first place. Abiding in Christ means that you will never loose your relationship with Him!
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• Its all about Jesus. It's all about relationships. Its all about freedom from the law. Its all about loving others first. Its a story all about love.
• To Be Continued.....

Puzzle Pieces

My wife loves to put together puzzles. During the Thanksgiving season she is already gathering the puzzle boxes down from the loft, choosing her next victim, extracting the pieces out of the box and onto the living room table. I think her love for puzzles is one of the reasons she was drawn to me and why she probably married me in the first place. I'm a human walking puzzle, incomplete with a few strategic missing pieces. Missing pieces that got lost somewhere along the way or maybe were never in the box to start. 

For what ever reason I have decided to give you all a brief testimony in a nut shell, which is an incredibly descriptive narrative for me. Lets see if we can crack the shell and look at the nut inside. What kind of person was god forming me into?  I grew up in the late nineteen sixties or early nineteen seventies. I was a completely screwed up kid for that time or any time. I preferred to be alone out hiking in the woods somewhere. I felt closer to my god that way I guess and I do mean god with a little g because I had not yet found God with a big G. The true and living God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob.

After surviving psychedelic drug use, missing out on Nirvana (the place not the band) and not being able to sit still long enough for my transcendental meditation to kick in I found myself getting more isolated. At that time in my life I probably could have been the Uni-Bomber's roommate holed up in some mountain cabin or something worse. I'll spare you all the tedious details. See, my life really was like a jig saw puzzle with a missing  God shaped piece at my core. Also, growing up and  living in the middle of the sexual revolution during the 1970's had its down side. My parents fought constantly, separated one moment, divorced the next than becoming friends again until my mom 's passing at the age of sixty-three from lung cancer.

I needed a miracle in my life and I got it through prayer, prayer works! When I was fourteen or fifteen years old I found God, spelled with a capital  G. Some of my relatives had been praying for me and their prayer s were finally heard so keep praying for all your loved ones. My early church experience looked like this: I went to Scott Memorial East, in El Cajon Ca., which later became the Mega Church Shadow Mountain. I had to capitalize mega church because it just doesn't look as cool spelled in lower case letters. Tim LaHaye was the pastor and loved to preach on missions and the book of Revelation. In fact, I was there when Dr. David Jeremiah first came to speak before he became the new pastor. Folks, I was invited to Scott Memorial and I probably would not have gone if it was not for Nick Maniscalco. Yes, we all need to be active and  invite un-churched people to church and pray that the Christians they meet there don't act too carnally. First impressions are important.

Puzzle pieces, right, lets go back to the table and find another piece. I liked to read my bible allot in the early days. I loved all the stories Jesus would tell and teach his friends. I also liked the men Jesus picked to be around Him. I think everyone of the apostles had distinct personalities that  mirrored our own. We can see ourselves in them and learn from them without suffering on our own. Most of the stories in the bible are applicable  to our own situations that we find ourselves in. So the story about the Prodigal son fits me.  I was a true Prodigal Son in every sense of the word. And you know for the next ten years of my life I walked away from God.  He ended up carrying me for the entire distance on His shoulders. Have you ever seen that picture of footprints in the sand when it starts out with two sets and then just turns into one set of footprints? The caption reads something like why did you leave me God? And Jesus says, I didn't leave you I was carrying you. That was a picture of my life.

In my late twenties while traveling in Colorado Springs, Colorado another friend invited me to go to Calvary Chapel there. I went with her  and really enjoyed entire experience including the new style of worship and sermon delivery which was like storytelling. I was immediately hooked on this new relationship we could have with God and became a Calvary Chapel man for life, or so I thought. Now, lets fast forward turning  the clock ahead twenty-four years to today. So why am I still  such a puzzle?  Why are my relationships with other human beings at such a low point ? One puzzle piece I found  to satisfy my church requirement is to go out with the Street Angels and minister to homeless people in downtown San Diego.

My education: I have been to seminary,  I have become a  licensed minister and ordained by a group of my peers. And now  I find the more I read, study and learn about the bible the more questions I have. I'm beginning to discover that there are holes in certain areas of what I thought was a "Rock Solid" belief system. Its like puzzle pieces have been lost from the box and have fallen under the table making for an incomplete picture. So now as I walk through the living room of my life and glance down at the table the puzzle remains to be finished. Where are the missing pieces?

Lets fast forward to today: As I sit here writing I'm no longer a part of this non-denominational, denomination called Calvary Chapel. However, I am still in the body of Christ and part of a larger kingdom view that Jesus attempted to teach us about. Even Pastor Chuck Smith never really wanted their fellowship to become a denomination. But now, beginning with the day of my departure I am feeling like I am breaking out of a cocoon. Trying to shed my caterpillar skin, warm my new wings in the warmth of God's Son and readying  myself for first flight!

I willingly dedicated the last twenty-four years of my life to my local Church in leading worship, preaching and teaching.the church body to love as Jesus did. I grew up spiritually through their "Home Fellowship" system which really is great way to learn about Jesus, The Way and the church or the "called out ones". So my question to all of you is this: Can Calvary Chapel be considered a cult?  I do not believe they are a cult. However, there might be some resemblance to cult  practices in their inability or inflexibility to consider other theological possibilities and view points.  In their defense the main thing Calvary Chapel  as a denomination got right was that they listened to the Holy Spirit and focused their attention and teaching on  Jesus. It really is all about Jesus. Knowing Jesus and having a relationship with  Him. Being like-minded with Him.

I use to think for somebody to go to church they had to be a  conservative, vote republican and be  politically motivated. I now however feel quite different.  For having been forgiven so much we ought not to be so judgemental and hateful of others who don't share our identical beliefs. We should be flexible and build relationships with people so that we can minister to them, not force feed our own dogma and belief systems down their throats. Jesus said that the truth would set us free. Its time for us to love people like Jesus did. To stop threatening people with hell and instead teach them about Jesus. We need to begin the  Divine process of healing through sanctification so that we are ready to love the people God sprinkles around us. I do feel as if I am  truly free now,  no bondage or entanglements, no longer producing energy for the Calvary Chapel Collective but more intent on becoming a brighter light for a larger kingdom here on earth and in heaven. So with the umbilical cord severed  I'm now breathing fresh air from outside and thinking of new ways to love others.  Oh God, Thank you so much for Jesus, the truth, the way and the life...Knowledge of Jesus really does set you free!