INSTITUTIONAL GOLDEN CALF

Exodus 32

Institutional failure is the fruit of a faulty foundation.  The Israelites exchanged God and Moses with a golden calf when Moses failed to return from his meeting on the mountain with God.  Christians may be just as guilty by exchanging Jesus with the institutional church when Jesus failed to return in a timely manner.  Both of the exchangements were for forms that could be seen with the eyes and touched with the hands.

“Make us gods who shall go before us.”  The golden calf was made of all the gold that God let them bring from Egypt.  (Exodus 12:35,36)  The very things God gave them were used to replace God as the One they were to look to for deliverance.  The same was true throughout church history and is true today. 

Money, time, and energy go into building huge buildings and ministries, even after Jesus said the Temple and Temple system would fall and He would replace it with Himself.  Spiritual gifts and abilities are used to set up systems that take the form of worldly power, control, and lordship, a form that Jesus clearly rebuked his disciples for desiring when he said, “But not so with you.”  (Luke 24:30)

Jesus was building his church when “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”.  He was building his church as he became One with his disciples as he was One with God.  He continues to build his church with those who respond to his call to come and see by following him; with those God gave the right to become children of God by receiving him and believing in his name; with those who respond as Peter and recognize that indeed, Jesus “is the Christ, the Son of the living God”.

These are his church and continue to be his church throughout eternity.  He is the rock that the gates of hell shall not prevail against.  Anything else is idolatry and will not stand in God’s Presence.  There will be no institutional failure in his church.  People will stand on a firm foundation and will bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit to a hungry and thirsty world.  They will be His people and God will be their God, forever.  This is the church I want to be a part of.