The Pastor opened up with us saying the first thing that comes to mind when you think of church. He asked to describe it in one word. Some uttered “worship”, “God” and “building”. “Building” was what the Pastor was looking for. When church came to my mind, I instantly thought, “boredom”, “organization” and “tradition”.  But it actually wasn’t a right or wrong answer. From there we started to dissect the word church, going into the Greek terminology of Church which is Ekklesia. When we literally breakdown the word “Church” it means A building used for public Christian worship or A particular Christian organization, typically one with its own clergy, buildings, and distinctive doctrines: “the Church of England”. Now when we broke down the Ek of Ekklesia, the Ek meant Come to…and in Matthew 16:18 when Christ told Peter “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”

A lot of us, speaking for myself in general, were lost. Not understanding at the beginning the overall picture and message the Pastor was exposing us to. Then he continued to breakdown the word Ek, Stating that we are the church! We’re so locked in into the traditional since and knowledge of how we came up into church. It’s like paid programming, we’re taught what to wear, how to sing, what to sing and how to act. Praise God this day, do this that day, when we should be living Christ like and as the church every single day. Some of the very reason people don’t come church is based on seeing how we “live” and “walk” as Christians. If we only give 40 and 50% of our attention and time to the Lord, there’s no way a non believer will give 1% because we’re basically making a mockery of Church. We are the church.

We spent all night in the new testaments, mainly Luke, Matthew, 2 Corinthians, etc. In these certain books of the bible, Jesus is heavily in these parts, preaching and teaching. We stayed on the fact about us representing everything else other the church. And remember, when we say church, he wasn’t referring to the building or organization. We are still talking about us as individuals are the church, so it’s time to start representing it. We often don’t really pay attention to us living as halfway Christians, but we represent proudly everything that has nothing to do with God. We are guilty of that, especially I. We also often wonder, whenever we pray to God about things we are dealing with, why our prayers go unanswered. They go unanswered because we have to go through Christ in order to get to God. We skip over Christ and the rules thinking God is going to answer every prayer when in text, Jesus states that we must go through him first in order to get to the kingdom of heaven. We must go through him first to get to God. Again, we are the church and if we live as if we are the church we wouldn’t be at God’s front porch 24/7, 365 crying and whining about the misery and ciaos we created.

The questions still linger in our minds, why am I sad, hurt, bitter, broke, brokenhearted? Why! It’s simple because we forget that these situations we encounter, we are the very reason we are in the situations. And it’s a life learning lesson deal, sad but simple because as Christians, it’s not like we are ignorant to the facts because it’s right in front of us. When we come to the altar to get baptized, we are making a declaration that the person we walk in church as, you will no longer be after accepting Jesus. In 2 Corinthians 5: 17-18, it reads, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:” It’s like getting put on a hood or gangs, once you get courted on, you have to represent day in and day out. That’s the same way it has to be when we accept Jesus as our lord and savior. We represent everything worldly harder than we do the kingdom of God and that’s where we fumble. We got the game twisted! And Christ is no fool, so we place ourselves in these terrible situations then run to God to deliver us.

We cannot forget, in Mark 16: 17-18, Jesus says “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” That scripture alone shows proof that we all are more then capable of being spiritual mutants, why because we are the church. Scripture didn’t say, some people will have these powers or a certain percent will have this power but all those who believe. All those who believe and ride with me will have these powers. We sit back, watch and hate when others get blessed and wonder why we don’t. We’re not getting blessed because we faking the funk with Christ and he isn’t a fool. The individuals getting blessed are living as the church, and we out living worldly and getting turnt up. Then we scratch our heads and are bothered when others talk about us. If we was living as the church and focused on the kingdom, nothing anyone would say would even matter, because our head is to the kingdom. The non believers would call it arrogant but it’s not, we don’t have time to even be in a non believers news feed or instagram unless it’s promoting the party of Heaven or church. Christ doesn’t ask for much but it seems his requirements are a tab bit too much to fulfill. We have to do better!

In Luke 9: 26, Jesus says “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.” That’s the problem with a lot of Baptist members, they are afraid and ashamed to really walk the walk of a Christian and that’s why other religions pay neither attention nor respect to us. We have to stop hiding our Pastors and tart backing them up. Our loyalty as members and followers of the lord is terrible. We have no loyalty! Members criticize their Pastors instead of back them up and ride for them. The same way we ride for the Lakers or Raiders or Steelers or your girlfriend, boyfriend, favorite musical artist, we need to back our Pastor and Christ up the same way. We should be ready to knock someone’s head off for disrespecting out lord and savior. And be ready to debate and defend ourselves not physically but mentally. We lose debates about Christianity because we don’t study and read the text, but we’ll tell you everything about the new apps on an iphone or what who shot John was saying on facebook today. In order to reach the kingdom, we must be the church!

FINANCIAL BUDGETING SEMINAR

REVEREND DR. MICHAEL J. FISHER, PASTOR

Are you between the ages of 13 to 20?

Would you like tips on how to manage your money?

And how to obtain and keep a good credit score?

Then This IS the seminar for YOU!!!!

Attend this FREE seminar to get everything you need to start, keep, and maintain your finances!

When: March 2^nd 2013

Where: Greater Zion Church Family (The Youth Center)

2408 N. Wilmington Ave.

Compton, CALIFORNIA 90220

Time: 11am-1pm (Lunch will be provided)

For more information RSVP: 2408YM@gmail.com

2408 n. Wilmington ave

Compton, California, 90220

Reverend Dr. Michael J. Fisher, Pastor

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