The best times are intimate times. We desire intimacy with the Lord. We desire to connect. We desire to share. We desire to be one with others. We also desire to share the Lord with one another in a close way.
When we structure it, it kills it. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. The letter is the law. Structure, rules, agendas, bulletins, time schedules are all law oriented. These things kill intimacy through legislation.
Things of the heart are spontaneous. Things that are real and from the heart cannot be scheduled. “Ok, at exactly 2 pm, pour your heart out to Jesus, then stop it and shut it off when time is up”. It doesn’t work that way. When was the last time you organized and scheduled an inspiration? Or, when was the last time you planned when your next revelation would arrive? The heart is organic and made to flow.
When we get together as the church, the point is to have a very intimate time with the living God. We are to enjoy Him together. We are to love Him together. We are to love one another, pray for one another, and operate in our gifts as the Lord inspires us. As we are intimate with the Lord, it must flow and it must not be controlled – otherwise we will offend the Lord and quench the Spirit, which happens way too often.
Man has continually tried to legislate intimacy over the years. Communism for example, doesn’t work. You can’t force people to hold all things in common and work for the greater good. I’ve heard of married couples pre-determining on which nights of the week they will come together. The vast majority of worship times are too scheduled, too structured, and too pre-determined in order to foster a natural and spontaneous flow. The way of life is spontaneity. Yesterday’s manna is old stuff. Even if it was good yesterday, it’s rotten today.
The best times I’ve had in any relationships have not been planned. We in the church are a long way from it, but I believe that if we were in love with Jesus all of the time, (and therefore loving one another often) we would be thrown into many daily church life situations in which we found ourselves preaching one another a sermon for instance, while working on the car together; we would find ourselves singing praise songs on the way to the grocery store together; we would show up for a surprise visit at a family’s house and wind up spending the evening in prayer and encouraging one another; we would find ourselves confessing sins to one another while in the driveway before we go in for the night.
Most things unplanned, we would be fed by Jesus all during the week by spontaneous meetings of body life. God should not be limited to a Sunday morning time, one hour a week to teach us, to use us, and to build us up. True church life in God is not to be meeting-centered but Christ centered, a spontaneous flow of love and unexpected blessings at unexpected times.
Life in Jesus and in the church is to be lived, not planned. Our hearts are not a water faucet to be turned on and off, but the very river of God flows through us, when and how He wishes.
