What would be the church of God’s dreams?
Unity, love, yielded surrendered people like Jesus who said, I’m about my Fathers work. He only did what his father told him to do. The church of God’s dream needs to have no oppression or exploitation, but having compassion, care, and a love for one another, a new LAW of Love, Acceptance, Welcome.
What would it be like to be in the sandals of the Celtic Monks? Would they even have a dream of the church of God’s desire? Yes, the book of Acts.
They established a church not as we know it, and what the Celtic Monks know as the church; it would be so different than our current day church. I’m finding it hard to visualize what it would have been like to be n their time in history. It is a gradual unfolding as the Holy Spirit lead, and these men and women yielded to hid guidance.
What can we learn by walking in their sandals, what would it be like?
It is hard for us to imagine all the hardship the Celtic saints had to go through to get to the desolate barren locations and then establish a community. We have the convenience of cars and public transport, food in stores we can purchase with ease. These men and women of God press on forward demonstrating the love they had for the poor, as they where one poor sinners, now rich in love, because of a God of love, who is love. This God loves them and desires that they enter a relationship and is as close as the very air they breathe, and is not a god that has to be appeased with offerings, and if this is not fulfilled stirs up wrath and misfortune into their lives.
We tend to do things that are right in our own eyes, do the things we want to do, but when it comes to walking the ways of the Lord, we tend to drag our feet. We forget that the Lords ways are higher than our own. Do we deny ourself or make a personal sacrifice? To begin leave behind the familiar and comfortable for the greater cause of the Lord’s enter into the Lords plan. We can get so easily caught up in the cares of the world, the everyday stuff, distracted, even led astray, when we don’t have the Lord in every aspect of our lives. The acts of our everyday actions becoming a prayer, a symbolic action such as dressing, visualizing that you are clothing yourself with Christ, or being covered by the shadow of the lords wing of protection. In the act of having a shower in the morning, make it a prayer to be clean, symbolically wash away the sin, and allow the Holy Spirit to wash over you and empower you for the day. To be aware of each act of your life can become a way of having the Lord present in every moment of your life.
Do we have tears of compassion and tears of remorse for the things we should be doing, for the things we have left undone?
Do we trust, and entrust ourselves into the hands of the Lord?
Thinking of the Celtic Monks, could we live with no wealth, give to the poor anything that is gifted to us. Hand over ownership of monetary gifts, as it is the Lords and not our own to do with as we please, but to do with as the Lord wills.
Being content with the simple daily provision, grateful with what they had as a community, and not asking for extra, for there was at times, not more to have.
To be faithful with what we have been given and do the things that the Lord has told us to do. Life can be a test of endurance. However, do we even enter into the extreme conditions the Celtic Monks went through, what they put themselves through as an act of devotion and service. Do we even have self-discipline, mastery over our bodies, minds, thoughts, deny ourselves anything, do we take up the cross of suffering? Do we feed soul and not just bell? Do we go to bed early, early to bed early to rise, so as to have quality time with the Lord? Are desirous of getting a word from the Lord? As a person cannot live by bread alone, but by every world that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.
We are family, and to be in a community of faith, for in this community we are tested, and shaped, and this is the plumb-line we use to test our faith. In the way we handle with care, in the way we treat its weakest members, we will be asked one day how we have treated them. Jesus said, the poor you will always have with you.
The Beatitude, “Blessed are those who recognize their spiritual need. For the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.” (Manga MessiahBible). We can be poor, if we don’t recognize our spiritual need, not just poor materially.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for all that is right. For they will be filled.” (Manga MessiahBible).
Is it possible to live such a life? With the temptations and the voices of the world, pressing to get our attention. How is this accomplished? Holy Spirit we need your help!
These thought are a work in progress for me also, we are all growing into our faith. May we not be fooled by being full of information, as we need to see the transformational work in people lives, and in our own lives.
Here are some of my beginning research, that is a work in process with regard to the changing face of the church. What is our place in it? Those who profess to be Celtic Christians. I don’t admit to being an expert if there are articles, books recommendations, please suggest and I will add to this work in progress.
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Websites that looked interesting to me on this subject of Church, and following this Celtic influence and those who are the visionaries so far. I have not read them all, so not able to endorse them as everything I believe, however look like they would be informative.
“Get a dream from God that is so big that only God can take you there. Then ask the Lord to show you how to get there.”
https://soundfaith.com/sermons/122278-god’s-dream-for-our-church
The church is! People, we need to not forget this, it is not a church building and its programs, it is people who have a heart for God.
Matt 16:18 says, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”
– The greek word ekklesia (church) refers to a meeting of people called out and summoned together.
– In the N.T. it designates primarily the congregation of God’s people in Christ, who come together as citizens of God’s Kingdom (Eph 2:19) for the purpose of worshipping God.
– The word church can refer to a local church (Matt 18:17; Acts 15:4) or the universal church (Matt 16:18; Acts 20:28)
– So therefore as individuals, we are the church, and when we come together we make one body or one unit.
– Like I mentioned before, there a local church which we are a part of, and the universal church, which is everyone who is saved that has died and gone on, and who is living around the world.
– God’s plan for the church is truly amazing. So what is the church:
– The church is presented as the people of God.
– The church is a people called out, also the church is the temple of God.
– The church is the body of Christ and the bride of Christ.
– The church is victorious over sin, death hell and the grave.
– The church is on it’s way to Heaven and the gates of hell can’t stop it.
– The church truly is a people with a future hope.
“We need to first discover God’s dream and vision for our church, and then build our dreams around His.”
https://tonymorganlive.com/2017/01/16/is-your-churchs-future-rooted-in-your-dreams-or-gods/
“Are you serving Him first in everything you do?”
https://www.intersections4life.org/2017/04/from-where-you-are-to-where-you-should-be
“Scripture says that the Creator of the universe knows you and longs to have a relationship with you. He has a dream for your life!”
http://livingontheedge.org/broadcast/gods-dream-for-your-life-part-1/daily-radio#.WR9VhRPyvVohttp://livingontheedge.org/broadcast/gods-dream-for-your-life-part-1/daily-radio#.WR9VhRPyvVo
“I dream, you dream, we all dream God Dreams. If you were ever excited about something that’s yet to be, then you are a visionary.”
https://www.saturatetheworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Ch1_Pursuing_God_Dreams.pdf
How can the influence of the Celtic Monastic monks/saints help us in today’s church?
http://www.prayerfoundation.org/brief_history_protestant_monasticism.htm
http://www.prayerfoundation.org/how_did_celtic_monasticism_page_2.htmhttp://www.prayerfoundation.org/how_did_celtic_monasticism_page_2.htm
http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/celtic.aspx
https://www.northumbriacommunity.org/articles/monasticism-the-heart-of-celtic-christianity/https://www.northumbriacommunity.org/articles/monasticism-the-heart-of-celtic-christianity/
http://www.raysimpson.org/blog/indigenous-wood-speaks-today
David Cole
http://waymarkministries.wixsite.com/mysite/single-post/2016/09/30/Does-Celtic-Christianity-Exist
Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
naught be all else to me, save that thou art –
thou my best thought, by day or by night;
waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-60/be-thou-my-vision.html
https://iona.org.uk/about-us/history/
George MacLeod
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/29/obituaries/rev-lord-macleod-96-founder-of-church-community-in-scotland.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/29/obituaries/rev-lord-macleod-96-founder-of-church-community-in-scotland.html
http://www.ionabooks.com/george-macleod.htmlhttp://www.ionabooks.com/george-macleod.html
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/11943117.George_MacLeod__visionary__crusader__impish_iconoclast/
http://www.scotsman.com/heritage/people-places/seeking-spiritual-enlightenment-on-iona-1-2936306http://www.scotsman.com/heritage/people-places/seeking-spiritual-enlightenment-on-iona-1-2936306
http://celticchristianmission.org/
Is there a physical location of equivalence in the USA.
Like Iona, Lindisfarne, and the Northumbria Community?
I want to start discussion, does anyone in the community know of a sacred place and space that is a pilgrimage location here in US?
I asked this question 2016 this was the responses.
https://markscelticchristianspirituality.com/the-answers-given-to-my-question/
