This morning I was driving to work, and suddenly a Bible verse came to my mind. It’s not the kind of verse that normally comes to my mind like “I can do all things through Christ”, etc.. but this verse got stuck in my head and I’ve been thinking of it ever since. I decided that since I have to get the newsletter out today, that I might as well share this verse with you and my thoughts onit this morning. The verse is this:
“Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it” (Matthew 16:18)
Again, not the kind of verse that just usually pops into my head. There are a couple of things I’d
like to share with you from my meditation of this verse.
First, I don’t think God was talking to me specifically this morning, calling me “Peter”, so no
name changes are imminent for me.
Second, I kept thinking of the words “rock” and “church”. Then about the gates of hell and
prevailing. And this is what I came up with. In a war, a gate is not used as an offensive weapon.
It is defensive. It’s used to keep things out (or in). But a rock… you could use a rock in battle.
I guess what I am saying is that I have been guilty, as probably a lot of people, of thinking that
this verse meant that the gates of hell would not be able to destroy the church. But if you think about it, this really doesn’t make any sense. As I said, a gate is a defensive weapon.
So what is this gate not prevailing against? The church. “Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”. The church is supposed to be knocking down hell’s gates. And what is the church? A building? No. The church is not a building, it’s people.
I’ll tell you, when I look around, I don’t see many offensive Christians. Well, let me rephrase that, I don’t see many Christians playing offense in this battle. I see too many that are offensive. Like the “Christian” who makes it to church only on Christmas and Easter. Or the guy on TV that smiles a lot and tells you how great everything would be if we just gave it all to God, and that we can have our best life now if we just smile all the time… can I just say that offends me?
We are supposed to be knocking down hell’s gates. Not sitting in a ¾ full church saying all the right things, standing at all the right times and patting ourselves on the back we had a “great service today”.
Aren’t we called to more than that?
What about feeding the poor, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned? What about opening ourselves to our neighbors? What about loving them?
Some of you now are probably thinking that I am the one being offensive. I know that sometimes people think that I’m too negative… that I don’t see the good things, like our Lord of the Streets ministry or our Habitat for Humanity or any of our other organizations that we support. I do. I really do. I also see that we have very few people doing lots and lots of things.
It’s a new year. Time for resolutions and change.
I am calling for a change. I’m calling for people to get off the sidelines or off the defensive and join the offense. Let’s get on the right side of the battle and knock down some gates.
How?
That’s up to you and God. Ask Him.
~Porter
Comments