I was encouraged recently to receive this message from David Foster, who is Senior Pastor at Manor Park Christian Centre and Chaplain to the Metropolitan Police in Newham, London. It is reproduced below with Pastor David’s permission:
As we continue to navigate the days ahead, the most important thing we can do is to keep our eyes focused upon Jesus. Many Christian leaders are in agreement that the Lord’s desire over the past 13 months of the Covid-19 pandemic has been to continue to change His Church into what He wants us to be. This means that the Church as we have known it in the past will be changed to look and to be something different in the days ahead. He wants “to make her [His Church—believers in Christ] holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle . . .” (NIV, Ephesians 5:26-27).
The Lord wants to cleanse us of the worship of anything or anyone else other than Himself. For example, as believers in Christ, particularly those of us who have had the privilege of living in relatively free and non-repressive societies, we have been blessed by the tradition of meeting and “doing church “ inside a church building. But we must not “be devoted in love” or “worship” our church traditions or ministries. Jesus wants us to only worship Him “in Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks” (NIV, John 4:23).
The Lord wants “to present [believers in Christ] to himself as a radiant church”—one that has been “brought to complete unity to let the world know” the truth about Jesus being sent to us because of the Father’s love for us (NIV, John 17:23; 3:16). And in order to be “a radiant church” that has been “brought to complete unity” means that believers in Christ must not identify or see themselves as Baptists or Anglicans or Charismatics or Pentecostals or by any other man-made terminology. But a Church that has been “brought to complete unity” is one that identifies or sees themselves foremost as believers who are “in Christ” and as a Church whose unity transcends all local, national, international, social, racial, cultural, denominational or geographical boundaries.
We are all like clay in the hands of the Lord, who is “the potter” (Isaiah 64:8). But in order for the clay to be mouldable it must not become hardened by our church rituals, traditions, ministries, or man-made boundaries. And hardened clay is much like old wineskins that will crack when new wine is poured into them. In order to allow the new wine of the Lord’s Spirit to mould us and to change us—believers in Christ, His Church—into what He wants us to be for the uncertain days ahead, then we must be mouldable. So what kind of clay will you and I be?