-
Refresh (7) Honor Series
Contributed by Michael Monica on Jul 15, 2017 (message contributor)
Summary: Who is God
One of the things that really stands out to me in the Bible is that Jesus said that our love for one another (believers) would actually reveal that we belong to Him and the world would know that Jesus is sent from God. our love for one another would be supernatural.
Furthermore, in John 17, Jesus prayed for unity among believers because supernatural unity could actually cause the world to believe in Christ. That’s pretty amazing when you think about the impact that both love and unity could have on the community around us.
While the church is far from perfect, the church is the greatest expression of God’s kingdom on earth. The church is the best way of reaching the community with love and hope. Jesus was the 1st church, he was the 1st community. In the gospel accounts of his life, he was going around, showing hope and love to everyone. He was a friend of sinners, he healed all kinds of sickness and disease and he just loved people.
Everything Jesus did on earth was only what he saw His Father do. If you look at their relationship, Jesus did everything out of love through honor. Honor is a huge part in the kingdom of God and therefore, also the church. God wants honor to be lived out among us. As imperfect people, we are not always going to get along, we’re not always going to agree on everything, but God demands and expects honor to be at the forefront of everything we do.
If we, the church, could better honor and celebrate Jesus in each other, we could enter such a revelation of community that the world would truly know us by our love. Now for some, church is unimportant. Some believe church is nothing more than a ritual and or even boring. While I sympathize and I totally understand that on some level, the reason the church exists is to facilitate our need for relationships with one another.
The church allows us to grow and develop together. That is why we place such an emphasis on small groups and being plugged into one of those. One of the greatest and perhaps most unknown character that comes through small groups is mentoring. As we are called to live in the context of community, one of the greatest ways we grow is by helping others out with advice and sharing our experiences.
Question: do you have a mentor or are you mentoring someone already? If not, would you be willing to seek one out?