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The True Church - The Place in Yah's Spirit World Where He Dwells

     Dictionary definition of the word church: “An edifice for public Christian worship; also, the whole body of believers in Christ; also any division of this body professing the same creed and acknowledging the same ecclesiastical authority.”

     Some believe that the church is a religious organization that holds meetings once, twice, or three times a week.  Some believe at church one can learn about God and the people in the Bible.  By going to church one can make sure of their final destination after death, whether they are going to heaven or hell.  Most people hold this concept or something very similar.

     The more enlightened may see the “church” as a group or body of believers, human beings who have found each other compatible in their beliefs and concepts about God.  They consider themselves the church, a body of followers of the true God.  They put less emphasis on the organization.  But by our words we are justified; by our words we are condemned. 

     Our words betray our  concept of what “church” really means to us.  “Are you going to church this weekend?”  The concept in the heart which comes out of the mouth is that “church” is either a building or a collected group of fellow believers assembled in one place that we go to!

     Someone is asking about now, “Well then, what is it?”  First  of  all,  church  is  not  an  “it.”  Many  know that the word comes from the Greek word ecclesia, meaning called out ones.  But what does the scriptures define “church” as?

     We have all read the passage in Ephesians 1:22 that the church is His body.  Is your body part of you?  Yes.  Well, then, His body is part of Him.  As our earthly body is the dwelling place where the mind and heart, the seat of our being, resides, even so, His body is the place where the essence of His being, His Spirit, resides.  Paul goes on to tell us that the church is not only His body, but also the fullness of Him, the completeness of Him who fills all in all.

      First, the church is His body.  Human beings have the opportunity to become His body, to become the place where His Spirit dwells, to become His temple, His house, where He (the Spirit) takes up His residence.  That is our calling—to be His body.

     In order for this to happen, we human beings must surrender our old selfish lives to an early watery grave, reckon them dead, and by believing that the Father (the invisible Spirit) raised the Son (“the image of the invisible God/Elohim”) from the dead, we too can walk in a newness of life by that same Spirit that He raised Him with and has given us.  We then by belief/faith walk in that new life, reckoning our old selves “dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God.”

     This walk of faith that it is no longer us that is living, but rather Him living in our earthly body—this walk of faith is a pre-requisite, a figure of the resurrection walk of life that we will receive after He changes us from mortals to immortals (I Cor. 15).  If we can’t believe that now in this earthly mortal life He is capable and has delivered us from sin and sinning in this present life, then how are we ever to really, truly believe that some day we will obtain from Him immortality and everlasting life? 

     Which  is  easier  to  believe:  that  He  is  able  to really change us by the power of His Spirit  and to keep us from sinning, or that He is able to change our perishable earthly bodies into immortal spiritual bodies in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trump?  Which of these two is more farfetched, incredible, way out there?  The tougher assignment is the latter, of course.

     So if we can’t believe that He  can take our old life and change it into Him-in-us-doing-righteously by His Spirit within us, then our unbelief is not some day going to mystically disappear when the end comes.

     Now is the acceptable time!  We must start believing that we are His body, His church, His dwelling place.  We must start believing that He in us is the fullness of Him that fills all the universe!

     This puts us right smack dab in the middle of the power of the universe!  He will use our beings as the way for Him to fill the whole universe with His essence.       We must start to look at ourselves this way.  What would hinder us from really believing that we are His body, not His body-of-believers, but His actual body—the place where His Spirit dwells?

      The answer is threefold.  First, secret desires for our  self—us believing that our old lives are still around, still the center of our everyday longings.  That is a description of the lusts or desires of the flesh.  Second, our eyes and minds are tainted with old leaven of insincerity and untruths as to what the truth is about the body of Christ.  We have to speak it and walk in it the way Paul did. “It is no longer I that lives, but Christ that lives in me.”     Third, we must not trust that our justification (that which gets us right with God/Elohim) comes through anything we can do for our own lives or clean up in our own lives.  That is the point!  If it is “us” doing this or not doing that in order for us to get right and stay right with God, then we are still there!  And that is the problem!   The lies definitely with us the created beings and is this. We have an erroneous concept as to what His body the church is, and our relationship to Him as His body.  And this fundamental problem is spiritual.  His body is a spiritual body.  Look at the definitions widely held for what “church” is and you will see that they are all through fleshly eyes! 

     Man in all his splendor and grace in so many things is a bumbling idiot when it comes to the spiritual things.  This passage comes to mind when the Master said, If I have told you of earthly things and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly or spiritual things?

     The true church is a body of followers who have surrendered their lives to the death of the cross.  They then receive His Spirit and become His temple.  They are, in fact, “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people” (I Peter 2:9).   They are that special place upon this earth where Yahweh’s Spirit dwells.  They realize that it is no longer them that lives, but Christ that lives in them.  It is through them that the Spirit of the living God will fill all of this universe with His presence.  They are Yahweh’s special abode in His spirit world.