Seven Sacrifices to Joy

Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power...

It’s a great day to spend more time in this thought-provoking series, The Seven Sacrifices to Joy! I still am humbly amazed, twitter-pated about how much trouble He went through to teach us about joy! Grab your coffee and let’s get back to where we left off in our last Coffee Hour!

As I concluded our coffee hour yesterday, I kept hearing a question echo in my head, and it settled in my heart, not allowing me to move on until I could answer it, and I can’t help but wonder if you’ve ever asked this or wondered this: So why do we need to go to church to experience that fellowship/communication if we have His Spirit/Helper within us?

I think the first place I go when that question is asked is to another question: why do we not want to have that fellowship with others? Iron sharpens iron … [Proverbs 27:17] oh, but for some of you that answer still does not fill the void that question creates, so let me stick with the original question: Fellowship with other believers stirs up that Holy Spirit within us. I was going to say but we need to be in fellowship with Him first, but as I thought about it, I had to confess, that it was through communication/fellowship with a couple of other people who represented Christ incredibly well, namely my therapist at the time and my adopted mom, that I actually felt I could have that fellowship with our Abba Father! Does that make any sense to you at all? Oh, how He uses all things and others!

In our Transform I class, we have a couple transformers who still question the whole God thing, the reality of Him, and it is so exciting, like incomprehensibly exciting to watch as a light goes on when they are sharing and they realize that God’s Spirit did something for them, directly related to them so it lands inside them!

How many of us have asked as well as heard someone else ask, “Why do we need to go to church to believe in God?” When we understand the true meaning of communication/fellowship, and we do our homework and research His instructions on this issue, we discover that it is His will that we fellowship/communicate within a church; that’s one of the reasons He released His Helper; to form the church!

In Hebrews 10:25 we are told let us not quit getting together as some have gotten in the habit of doing but let us keep on keeping on for the sake of encouraging one another. Now, that’s incredibly paraphrased, but that is a Holy Spirit inspired instruction!

As I researched this subject, including those who say that you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian, or to believe in God, or to grow in God, they all had a common denominator: PRIDE! Yup, there were money issues, hurt feeling issues, leadership issues, and the list goes on but what’s the air in those balloons? Pride! And what’s in the middle of pride? I, I, I, I, I!!!!!

He never meant for us to do it without the encouragement, wisdom, discernment and/or gifting of other members of the body of Christ. Yes, He is in you, but how many times do you ignore His nudge, or a conviction, or an instruction? I don’t know how you answered that, but I know I’ve got both arms and feet up in the air and I’m saying: “Teacher, teacher, my answer is ‘too many times’!” I have sought others’ counsel/guidance/fellowship in the church for many things. Why? Not because of a lack of faith, but my flesh sometimes desires to have someone in the flesh to confirm that nudge, or that instruction, that question, that issue of where do I go from here, especially when I’m completely baffled! And oh, how freeing it is when His Spirit speaks through the one you sought out in the flesh!

What about you; have you ever felt His Spirit stir within you through a member of the Body of Christ, aka, a church? We could spend so much more time on the subject/benefits of the Helper within us Who is for us, but I’m happy to say we made it to the fourth sacrifice in The Seven Sacrifices to Joy! Join me tomorrow for Faith Filled Fridays at Croley’s Corner of Chicklit Power!

In His Love,

Evinda