Partial Thinks the Sequel:

Here are some more of those things I think about but just can’t get final enough to write a book about.  You do think about things, don’t you, and ask questions like “Why?” and “Why not?”  Well, I hope so!

Counting the cost.  Jesus told a couple parables about folks who needed to figure out if they could finish before they started.  Good advice that is often overlooked today because we think someone will bail us out.  We even think God will rescue us from our ill-conceived, erroneous and presumptive actions.  When it comes to the essentials of His message, I don’t think so!  When He told the parables, he was talking about following Him and being willing to give up everything to do so.  If we are not willing to pay the price, we cannot follow.  This seems pretty simple to me, yet some want to add all sorts of contingencies to the contract.  Sorry, but that is not allowed.  He is God; they are His rules; no one can change them.  Whatever you are clinging to, turn it loose … He is worth it!

Little words can make big confusion!  The church is people — the Body of Christ. We are animated by His Spirit, and we have life.  We are a living organism, and He is the Head and gives direction to the individual members.  We are organized, yet we are not an organization.  His Church is a living thing.

How then do we go to church?  The gathering does not make us; we make it by our presence.  That is a huge difference, and in that difference is the power of grace.  Understand that difference and you are free from the fantastic idea that you can by your actions make yourself acceptable to God.  Fail to understand and you are locked into a religion and may well miss the basic meaning of the Gospel.

Meeting-centered stuff.  Where in the Bible does it say that unbelievers are to go to a meeting of believers (don’t say church) to begin a relationship with God through Jesus?  Rather, aren’t believers of every shape and age to be telling others how to have that relationship all throughout the week?  In the New Testament, the meetings were for believers to study God’s Word, pray together, and share in a covenant meal.  Usually it is easier to be what we should be when we quit trying to be what we are not.