I am sitting in my recliner in the family room still in awe of what God continues to do at Covenant Church, my church home. As I sit here I am prompted by the Spirit to write this blog post. Immediately, I grab my laptop and here I am. It has been a bit since my last post to transformingtemples.com. If you’re here please like and share my website. I appreciate it. My heart is overflowing with the love of Christ, and what better way to express it than by sharing the love?

We’re living in a time when God is speaking to His church. He is telling us to step up and be the light and salt to the world He has called us to be. Stop playing church and be the people He created us to be. Live the life of Christ. Put Him into action. The book of Revelation, chapters 2 and 3 speaks about the downfall of various churches. The loveless congregation, the lukewarm church, the compromising church, the corrupt church, the dead church, and the faithful church. The loveless church stands out to me. Without love, we’re at risk of failure as the churches listed above. Though the loveless church labored, was patient, and called out false teachers, they left their first love. God blesses the church with Pastors whom He calls. He knows their work. The rebuke from Jesus was their decay in holy love and zeal. It is the very core of the church body. The same is true today. The church has become ineffective for some of the same reasons. Imagine what the world would look like if the church lived out the love of Jesus Christ to the world. It would impact the world in a good way. 

The key ingredient is love. Jesus said the world would know us by our love for one another. It is not about you. It is not about your gifts, not about your praise. It is about loving one another as Jesus, loves us. It is unconditional love, regardless of culture economics, status, or position. We embrace all mankind with His passion. We are required to worship in spirit and truth. What a blessing it is to see this lived out throughout the church. I see it.

I was prompted to write this blog because I have been blessed with such a congregation.  It is a beautiful picture of God when the body is surrendered, allowing Him to transform our hearts and use them for His purposes. To have a retired Pastor and current Pastor preaching, teaching, and walking according to God’s truth and precepts is spiritual encouragement. What it says to me, is “I want to live like that for God.” Paul wrote in Philippians it is okay to be sincere imitators of Jesus. We have genuine Shepherds who love the sheep. They have a tender human touch to know their sheep as they pour out the love of Jesus. Authenticity is the key to putting His love into action. This love filters out to the body. It becomes infectious. The sheep readily receive it because it is genuine. Yes, I guess it may sound like I am boasting about my church, but I am presenting a picture of what it looks like. Praise, worship, and exercising your spiritual gifts are all good, but they mean nothing without a genuine love for your brothers and sisters. Paul said the greatest gift is love, 1 Corinthians 13:13; and John says,” If a man says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” 1 John 4:20. If these things are not alive and active within the body, they may become loveless, dead, corrupt, compromising, lukewarm church chastened by the LORD. So, let our light shine, do God’s will, love like he taught us, and surrender our temples.

A good Shepherd is a gift from God. They help promote and encourage spiritual growth. The Holy Spirit’s anointing is over the place, not just in worship service, but in genuine fellowship and care for one another. People are growing in oneness with the Father and with each other. This is church, good people. This is my church, an environment where people are loved and encouraged, and their needs are met. The Sheperd dispensing light to all. When you have a Sheperd leader who is mindful of their first love and affections of Christ Jesus and diligently preserves this as a constant exercise the church is blessed. The Sheperd’s life points us to be like-minded. Our fellowship lives out these verses: “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, ⁶ to knowledge self-control, to self-control ^[a]perseverance, to perseverance godliness, ⁷ to godliness brotherly kindness, and brotherly kindness love. ⁸ For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”. 2 Peter 1:5-8. This is the character and quality of the life of a healthy church. I am humbled to be in this fellowship with believers called Covenant Church. I have grown to spiritual maturity, even though I am 67, soon to be 68, I continue to be fed and growing. “O taste and see that the LORD is good. ” Amen!

Again, this is not an advertisement for my church. This is all about sharing the true and living church presented to me by our fellowship and leadership mimicking the church God anointed. When all is said and done we want to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  Matthew 25:23 I wanted to express my joy and gratitude to the people God has chosen to move us toward His vision and purpose.

I see a vision of a church of all people and cultures striving to fulfill the first two commandments, “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” I am blessed to be in a church that follows Jesus in these statutes and precepts. The gift is this, “love one another as I have loved you.”

What about you? Are you in fellowship with God with a body of people seeking, and living God’s truth? Will you be so closely identified with Jesus that His life and His sweetness will be continually poured out through you?

Sybil Clanton