BURDEN OF A WATCHMAN (Dec 12)

Where is the Church?

Where the “church” is I do not know, but wherever the Presence is, there I will be. Sometimes ago, every sunday morning hurled over my quiet soul, nudging me into struggles with demands of religion against the true essence of faith. I was yoked with the compulsion of service in exchange for eternity, a contradiction that barely interpret my role in partnership with the cause of Christ. My activities in response to church duties however was spelt with several editions of doctrine. The church cleverly built a system that duly punish my conscience if I erred or revolted against its static and preemptive policies. The rod of the tongue scourged my soul and condemnation flooded my badge of sonship with little or no help of grace to pick it up. I struggled to not yield to noxious and lustful influences and its multiple impulses of the flesh.

I have a considerable penchant for the aesthetic gem of Calvary but often felt too ashamed to look up to him that was hung thereon. I was vulnerable to guilty pleasures yet willful in embracing moral touchstone. I hoped that If I was schooled and tutored enough, I will someday become a perfect insignia of holiness; time however races against such prospect as I was fast becoming a civilized hypocrite, polished in the similitude of a Christian. Thanks to my saving Grace that was both ahead and behind in my rough alleys, mending my patches, committed to his love. A bruised reed he said he will not break, a smoking flax he promised not to quench. I was not better off than any other I would have called a “worldly Christian” for there is no such term in the branch of Christianity. I love the Lord from my childhood, I love his ways but was caught in the web of earning my own righteousness by my own resilience, an act that betrayed my convictions.

The whips of the law could not wean me from the staggering facilitations of the flesh, unanswerable questions surmount my soul when I stood in contrast to men with false heralds of grace, as their boasting against the law has produced nothing like Christ either. 

“Isn't Jesus enough?” this was all I needed to know. Would I still love him if there is no heaven or hell? If there are no rewards or crowns, if there is no hell to burn. Would I still love him? Perhaps we can all answer these questions, we would judge our sincerity. Why do I serve? If serving him just for who he is was all I was called to do, would I still love him? Do I then have to worry about eternal homes if I have truly found a home in him. Isn't the embrace of his love sufficient?

I grew tired of my own charades, When my incomprehensible lack of love met his incomprehensible excess of love. If I would be a perfect model of a Pharisee, I already have a highway to trail. But for the love of him who is committed to me and the beckoning of his perfect hope. I must take the steps farther than the borders of denomination. A decision that put my being through surge and sway. Could I serve him perfectly without a “church” well that depends on individual's understanding of the Church. No man can please God in isolation from the body of Christ. “He is the Vine we are the branches” no branch survives on its own. The Church however is never and has never been our administrative structures, our denominations and church buildings is nothing more than an esteemed edifice and famed circle of indoctrinated folks. I will rather embrace the church as the body of Christ, stay wherever he stays and leave wherever he leaves.

If then a church is the hall where the king of Zion was chased with stones, there I will also flee. If the church is the little room whose door received the King of Zion, there I will also stay. Therefore I do not know a church but Christ and his love. I will no longer be bound by the ways and the waves of religion, I have shed their petals on the floor for the effulgence of the true glory of my King. I must therefore cherish him for the sole treasure that he is, and cleave to him as the highest price of every pleasure and the deepest comfort in every pain. Then it is safe to conclude that where his Presence is, there is the Church.

Oni Omotayo