The Hands and Feet of the Messiah

While, theologically, one may not agree with all Teresa of Avila believed, this quote often attributed to her is a beautiful picture of where our focus should lie.

"Christ has no body now, but yours. No hands, no feet on earth, but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ looks compassion into the world. Yours are the feet with which Christ walks to do good. Yours are the hands with which Christ blesses the world."

Sitting down with scripture and deciding what we are to "look like" as a local body, is an interesting task. There are definite models represented in America, some successful, some less so. It often depends on the people at the head and the goals they set forth.

But.....

What do you do when that model is overwhelming and wrought with problems?

Do you challenge that status quo?

Do you reinvent the wheel?

Do you hide inward with a small group and just live?

Do you give in and just replicate what you know?

These are honest questions, that involve imperfect people and real issues in the American Church today. Honestly, I don't have the perfect answer.

What I do know is that Scripture tells us what the Lord wants from us. The New Testament is filled with over a thousand commands. I won't try to lay them all out here, but in looking forward to this year and this ministry, we have chosen to focus on these (but not to the exclusion of all the others).

• Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand/ Bear Fruit in keeping with repentance

• Use your gift accordingly

• Worship the Lord, your God and serve Him only/ Let your Light Shine before men

• Give to him who asks of you

• Pray without ceasing/Be devoted to prayer

• Seek first the Kingdom

• Make disciples of all the nations.

• Whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your servant.

• Love your enemies

• Love one another, just as I have loved you.

• Rejoice with those who rejoice/ Weep with those who weep/Bear one another’s burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Messiah.

• Examine yourselves! Do not grow weary of doing good

• Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world

  
  
  
  

   Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these.

The goal as the body at Shalom Nashville, is to focus on these points so that all else will fall into place. In creating an atmosphere where these things are encouraged and practiced, the hope is that eventually, in our brokenness as humans, when we stand before the Holy One we will hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant".

Seeking Him together in prayer and fasting. The leaders and attenders alike, being servants. People using their gifts. Taking care of the poor, widows, orphans, neighbors, nations, and each other. We may not be able to solve the problem of which church model to follow, but we can solve for the HOW.

Kristi Summers- Outreach & Volunteer Coordinator