While running a few errands today, I went past a familiar spot of town and noticed a church that use to be in a particular spot. The building was present, the marquee was their, but it was blank; evidence the build was once used by church members. Seeing the church building vacated like that reminded me of the many of vacated homes throughout the many counties in Georgia. Homes once inhabited, now vacant, a reminder of bad economic times.
In Atlanta, Georgia you will find many streets with foreclosed houses with maybe one or two houses with inhabitants and you only know this by a car in the driveway. It’s sad to see a place that someone once called home, abandoned and empty. The site of a foreclosed, abandoned and empty church building may be the result of tough economic times, but their is something greatly different between a house once inhabited and a church once inhabited.
It’s interesting how people actually relate a church building to a place where God resides and the building is held in such reverence and esteem because it is said to be Gods House. The fact that people make up the church is difficult for some to accept. The building is not the church, the people are the church. The church is never abandoned, foreclosed on not can it burn down.
I’m glad that God no longer dwells in a place made with hands. If He still occupied buildings (and not the heart of man) God would be left all alone in that poor old foreclosed, abandon place we call church, that caught fire six months ago. Its bad enough if the building is occupied members act like God stays their until the next service. As the economy shows signs of a slow recovery (some seem to think not), remember the next time your see a church building and its either foreclosed, abandoned and run down…It’s just another empty building.
God doesn’t live there ( He never did), It’s not Gods house (it never was), its was simply a place where the people of God once meet to fellowship. When that great day shall arrive, when the Jesus Christ shall return for His Bride (the Church) He’s not coming back for a (or to a) foreclosed, abandoned and run down building, but for a people; a people not having spot, wrinkle or any such thing.
That is the Church!
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