“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
There is evidence that secular culture is becoming exhausted in all areas and despite the trend to seek self help strategies mental health is still a growing casualty of the population.
The church declared Jesus would have its foundations upon the rock and the gates of hell will not prevail.
Biblical Christianity and truth must not be departed from in attempts to modernise and fit into culture but the reverse. Culture has to reform to the acceptance of the kingdom foundation and principles.
Our body as an individual and corporately has profound importance. Our faith and beliefs are influenced by our attitude towards this importance and respect.
Life in the human body is materially based. In the soul and spirit it is immaterial but requiring an earthly body to flourish.
Doctrines hinge into this. At the fall the sin significantly influence our body concept and image bringing shame upon its nakedness that God provided clothes to then cover.
The doctrine of Christ engulfs the necessity for Him to become incarnate and embody all stages of our development from embryo to death for our salvation.
The doctrine of the Spirit is in dwelling and activating each of us In our essence. The doctrine of eternity is from a disembodied spirit’s resurrection to a resurrection body.
Our contemporary culture of questionable identities needs a certainty of truth setting to unlock and liberate God’s intent and purpose for our creation. Humanity was His design. Culture is challenging that precept attempting to normalise what has become broken and fractured in the world.
The secular world does not have the foundational answers of who ‘Me’ is, it offers endless confusion. There is clarity in the word in Christ and the church body affirming truth not mis-concepts.
Our outer and inner beings have been carefully crafted as human beings.
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”
Our body is not an accessory or a disposable throw away receptacle for ‘us’.
It is our form we are as a human a body individually made for our spirit and it is intrinsic to who we are inside and out and what happens to us.
“then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.”
We as a human being also become both one with Christ and the Holy temple that the Holy Spirit resides within, requiring righteousness and purity in both.
We honour God because our body is not our own. We have been purchased at a price and are His purposed to glorify Him in all we represent.
“Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
Wholeness and good living is how God designed us to bring healing and wholeness and a culture of the kingdom to prosperity.
The light in the darkness of the secular. The wisdom to the lost.
The illustration shows the simultaneous creation of the birth of the church rock foundation and of each of us as children of God in His image. Light emanating to push back the darkness.
Four Scriptures that come to mind:
“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Matthew 16:18-19 ESV
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” Psalm 139:13-16 ESV
“then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.” Genesis 2:7-8 ESV
“Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 ESV
The song Hold On To Me. Laura Daigle
Lessisgreater 