These words.
I’m so thankful for these words.
And I’m so thankful for what God is doing in the wake of physically closed buildings and church doors.
Of course, no 4 walls could ever contain the Spirit that raised the Christ from the dead.
But we do.
Our physical bodies do.
That same Spirit.
The resurrection and life is in us and works through us.
Christ in us, the Hope of Glory.
The resurrected Christ.
In Him we live and breathe and have our being.
The *same* Spirit.
And maybe closed doors and shut down smoke machines and a stay-at-home sound tech/worship team and the blood, sweat and tears that usually surround the highly Evangelical Easter service in the Western world... maybe this pause, this slowing down, is less of a tragedy and more of an invitation.
Maybe you don’t need a choir or a killer guitar solo or a talented singer with Celiney-pipes to feel close to God, goosebumps and all.
Maybe you don’t need an amazing sermon and a charismatic pastor or a smiling usher handing you a dish of juice and tiny square crackers to know His presence for yourself.
To commune with Him yourself.
I love these words from Scott the Painter so much because it drives home what God has been telling me lately, over and over and over again.
That He is as close as my attention.
That any lack of “feeling His nearness” is not a limit on His end.
It’s not a 50/50 relationship.
It’s not even 90/10, Hitch style.
No.
He went all the way.
He made the first move and the last, stone-rolling move.
100%.
“It is finished.”
The price paid, COMPLETELY.
The price paid, COMPLETELY.
The full veil torn, COMPLETELY.
Our death ransomed, COMPLETELY.
Our sin washed, COMPLETELY.
We have 100% access to the God of the ages, COMPLETELY.
To know and be known.
There is no lack on His end.
All we have left is to respond to what He has already paid for.
“...Enter His gates with Thanksgiving and His courts with praise...”
And yes, it’s more fun to lift thanksgiving and praise in a room full of voices. More fun and yes, so necessary.
We aren’t created to do it alone.
However, it would be a shame to think on this Easter... this strange, strange Easter... that we can’t know and experience God or come into His courts and know His presence, because of a closed church door. Because of isolation.
He is not socially distant from us.
He is IN us.
Closer than our skin.
He is as close as our attention.
And I’d like to propose that the invitation of the closed church door is an opportunity to have an open heaven in your H O U S E.
A resurrection celebration in your H E A R T.
An encounter with the God who delights in You in your R O O M.
A worship “service” where you sing Y O U R O W N S O L O to Him.
A chance to connect with God, even experience God, through the intimacy of your personal ATTENTION to Him, right where you are.
Yes, silence and scripture and solitude are all beautiful tools to cultivate that.
But there isn’t some crazy formula to know and experience God.
He is with you, NOW. N O W. This very moment and EVERY SINGLE MOMENT HEREAFTER.
He has done literally everything He can do to remove any barrier to knowing Him, calling on Him, being close to Him.
He is not hard to find.
“ “Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."”
John 14:19-21 ESV
What a promise.
So my prayer on this weird Easter is that we actually, truly, fully LOVE Him.
Where we literally experience resurrections in our homes.
Where dead things in our hearts - sin habits, secret addictions, bad attitudes, jealousy, pride, distracted living, gluttony, laziness, fear - are named, healed and now whole because of the miraculous God we can know and experience in our living room.
That the blood, sweat and tears poured into a beautiful and flashy Easter service or production is traded for intimately and INTENTIONALLY taking time remember the blood, sweat and tears that were spilled on a tree 2000 years ago - a sacrifice given for us to have FULL access TODAY, in spite of a closed church building or social distancing.
An intentional rememberance that can bring us close to Him, even now.
That the distractions of “what Easter dress to wear” or “I hope they play my favorite song today” or “will my invited friend like the service” are replaced with a single-minded, beautifully simple, focused attention and full heart-devotion on a God-Man who gave us a reason to hope and sing triumphantly in the face of death and loss.
That the celebration of the Easter service is extravagantly displayed in our HOMES. Beside our CHILDREN and our SPOUSES, a ministry all on its own.
Celebrating the fact that He made His resurrection and new life... an inside job - where our literal hearts can be fully free from US (Selah!) and we can trade our junk for His glory, our deadness for His resurrected life, our fear for His peace, our panic for His rest, our heavy for His light!
That the closed church door results in an open heaven’d home - where we don’t have to be His service attendee, church worker, ministry slave, worship team leader or head teaching Pastor to feel close to Him or experience Him... where we can just be His bride.
The way my Billy lives with me, his bride... in the day to day. In the familiar. In the realness of the kids and the mess and the exhaustion and the mundane and the simple.
In the always, ever-present.
We can know Him like that.
Us with God, and Him with us.
Father, Son, Holy Ghost.
In the kitchen or the living room floor.
Pressing in, all-access granted, to know and be known by Him. NOW.
Doing real work, inner heart work, painful work, beautiful work.
“Come out of hiding you’re safe here with Me...”
Messy hands, messy hearts handed over to nail-scarred hands of love.
Our dead traded for His NEW on this unconventional resurrection Sunday.
My prayer is that our social distance pulls us intimately closer to the King of Kings... the One who is perfect in righteousness... the One who rescued you because He delighted in you.
That the closed church building is the beautiful and unexpected invitation you needed to know God for yourself - in a way you may have never experienced before.
Where the world screams “STAY HOME,” and God whispers, “yeah, let’s stay home.” ❤️
He is alive.
He is victorious.
He is undefeated.
He isn’t far away.
He is as close as our attention.
No comments:
Post a Comment