Thoughts that have come from various quotes taken from the book, "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim Based Society" by John H. Hovis. Click here to link directly to the audio file.
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"That’s why I think God hates religion. It has the ability to make us doubt who we are in His eyes."
As quoted from the book "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim-Based Society" by John H. Hovis Page 76.
There are so many people who have been turned off by religion in the world today. Why do you think that is? I believe that, for the most part, those who have been turned off by religion have been overcome with feelings that our services have brought to them. Feelings that seem to be saying that they just don't measure up. The world is so good at making that point abundantly clear in our eyes. Nobody needs one more place working to drive that point home in our lives.
The church was an invention of God. It was a place we could gather to experience the glory, the magistry and the awe of a God who wants to relate to us in a personal and real way. The church was to be a place where relationship with God would be fostered. A place where the intimacy of love could be promoted in relationship building ways.
Take a look at today's reading as it relates to the "job" of the church.
Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave his life for it. He did this to dedicate the church to God by his word, after making it clean by washing it in water, in order to present the church to himself in all its beauty—pure and faultless, without spot or wrinkle or any other imperfection. Ephesians 5:25-27 (GNT)
This important verse in the Bible often gets missed due to where it is placed. As you can see from the beginning of our reading today, it starts with direction to husbands on how they are to love their wives. It is in the discussion on how wives are to love their husbands that so much controversy has occurred, thereby making it so easy to overlook the power of relationship these verses are trying to get across to us.
From these verses, I can't help but to see the call God is making to the church. Do you see that call in our reading today? If you are anything like me, you might naturally gravitate to the action words in our reading and equate those words to the call on our churches. Our reading today is filled with action. Words like dedicate, make, wash, and present all speak to me of important work we have to do in order to be prepared for what God has for us, the church, in the future.
Sadly, I think focusing solely on the action words is exactly what makes church become an unsafe place for many of us in the world today. When we focus only on dedication, washing clean, making pure and presentation we get off in the weeds in ways that makes us look more like the world than it does what God intended for the church to actually be.
Look, I'm in no way saying that action isn't to be part of our lives. Change without action is simply not possible. What I'm saying is that change isn't to be the focus of the church. Change is God's responsibility as we come into relationship with Him. The church isn't an agent of change. It is to be the bride of Christ! That speaks of relationship fostered from a place of acceptance and love that brings the power of change in a way that no religion can ever match.
You see, I think we have taken the action part of today's reading and made that too much of our objective. Religion can get so distracted with trying to make us all come to a place where we are presentable to God. I firmly believe that in doing life together, we will learn how to be more of what God sees us to be through Christ. I just as firmly believe that when we make change the focal point of our mission in the church, we miss the mark in such profound and easily rejected ways.
I came across this quote as I prepared this presentation. It sums up what God is looking for in the bride He calls the church to be. It says...
"You don’t marry someone you can live with – you marry the person who you cannot live without."
Religion is preoccupied with making us a person God can live with. We busy our church services with tips and techniques to help us get the badness out and the goodness in. This is all done with the good intentions of being presentable to God Himself.
God isn't waiting on us to get our lives together so He can relate to us. He can't live without us! Isn't that simply amazing.
I don't know that much about you, but I do know a lot about me. I don't feel adequate enough or competent enough or good enough... I don't see myself as being able to live up to being someone who anyone could not live without. It is when I live on the side of the equation that says that I need to do more to be what I think I need to be in order to be lovable that victim thinking really takes hold in my life. It is when I can rest in the fact that, though Christ, I am completely lovable that the power of victor living starts to work in my life.
There is one action in today's Bible reading that really has to be the foundation from which every church is built. That action is LOVE!
Love is an action that, when given in ways that foster relationships, makes change happen. Love has the power to make us even more presentable, even when being presentable isn't the an issue. I'm so glad God sees the church as something He can't live without. That means He can't live without me! The same goes for you.
Religion has to be about relationship first and foremost or it misses the mark altogether. The bridegroom, Christ, loves us in a way that makes it impossible for Him to live without us. Isn't it time we start living and loving in that way as well?
Wake up Church - that's you and me! Wake up to the fact that we were put here to live in power. That power is spelled L O V E. Let today be filled with endless possibilities of victor living. Start to see the victor in everyone around you as God sees the victor in you. It isn't about what you do to earn that victor status. It is about how you are seen that makes you irresistible to this God that loves you. Let that love be what drives you to do all you do today.
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