There seems to be a movement these days to separate spirituality from community. As if a personal, private encounter Christ is better than dealing with others at church. Nothing could be further from the truth. We were made to live in community, to practice the skills of forgiveness, grace and love and in the process reflect the character of Christ.
Henri Nouwen says,
“Listen to the church. I know that isn’t a popular bit of advice at a time and in a country where the church is often seen more as an obstacle in the way than as the way to Jesus. Nevertheless, I am deeply convinced that the greatest spiritual danger for our times is the separation of Jesus from the church. The church is the body of the Lord. Without Jesus there can he no church; and without the church we cannot stay united with Jesus. I’ve yet to meet anyone who has come closer to Jesus by forsaking the church.” TO listen to the church is to listen to the Lord of the church. Specifically, this entails taking part in the church’s liturgical life. Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost: these seasons and feasts teach you to know Jesus better and better and unite you more and more intimately with the divine life he offers you in the church." Can we really be spiritual separated from the Body of Christ? According to Nouwen, is it possible to know Jesus apart from the church, or the Bride of Christ? What is the primary purpose of doing church in community according to Nouwen? Read Part 1Email Subscription:
The devil and all evil don’t have to dwell solely and completely within the church as the prowling lion waiting to devour all who enter and all who worship and serve within.
All the devil and all evil have to do is continue doing what they began doing in the Garden of Eden: dwelling within and directing all the ways of the world outside the church and insidiously and surreptitiously deceiving those living within their domain, most often 167 out of 168 hours a week, because people, some that is, choose “to do church” for an hour once a week; causing, as Nouwen suggests, “…the greatest spiritual danger for our times…the separation of Jesus from the church [to occur]. The church is the body of the Lord. Without Jesus there can be no church; and without the church, we cannot stay united with Jesus. I’ve yet to meet anyone who has come closer to Jesus by forsaking the church.”
So the devil and all evil choose to assail from without and within: they attack, defeat, and control all who choose to succumb to their pervasivness from outside the church while knowing that their victims will become their messagers, their time-bombs, carrying their time-release diseases, such as hypocrisy and self-righteouness, inside the church with the expectation of destroying it.
Nouwen continues his thought by saying, “To listen to the church is to listen to the Lord of the church.” To listen to the “Lord of the church” involves choosing God above all else: “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” How egotistical we are if we believe that we can read God’s Word and understand the “Lord of the church” without listening to and learning from those pastors, priests, and rabbis, chosen and called by God to teach those “with the eyes to see and the ears to hear” about the “Lord of the church.”
The devil and all evil know that to stop the growing of “deep, deeper, and deepest roots” they must not only cut off the branches but also destroy the trunk and the roots of the tree, thus the pastors, priests, and rabbis who are today’s prophets communicating God’s messages by sharing His most holy and sacred Word through the “words of their mouths and the meditations of their hearts.”
The devil and all evil will stop at nothing and so they send their armies filled with hypocrisy and self-righteounsess as well as pride and self-centeredness, to name a few, into the church to attack, in the hopes of undermining, disheartening, discouraging, disillusioning, and dissuading, pastors, priests, and rabbis from choosing to remain and continue “teaching us to know Jesus better and better and unite us more and more intimately with the divine life He offers us in the church.”
If you have the “eyes to see and the ears to hear” the insidious nature and presence of the devil and all evil and if you are blessed, as am I, to know a pastor who, like the Energizer Bunny, endures the most viral ministry-ending attacks with the confidence of “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me” then unite with God in His army by wearing His suit of armor and St. Patrick’s Breastplate — “Christ before me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right side, Christ on my left side, and Christ within me,” to defend and maintain in existence the church and to defend and maintain the hearts and the wills of all pastors, priests, and rabbis by being prayer warriors for such pastors, priests, and rabbis surrounding them with constant and unbreachable prayer hedges.