Thoughts for a beginning

Matthew 16:18
Jesus said that He would build His Church
i.e. He would build it
It is His Church

How much of the ‘church’ that we see to-day has been built by man and how much do we claim it is our church?
How much of church theology and doctrine is based on the epistles rather than on the Gospels?
We often look at the teachings of Paul and the others (many books written on or about the epistles) yet rarely look at the teachings of Jesus (not so many books written on or about the Gospels)
We look at what we call the ‘Great Commission’ Matt 28:18-20 and yet a greater ‘Commission’ can be found in Matt 22: 38-39 for surely out of this would come the other.
Jeremiah 6 vs16 tells us to look for the old paths. In other words go back to basics.
The basics of our Christian life are to be found in the teachings of Jesus i.e. the Sermon on the Mount for one.
Surely it beholds us to look at those and apply them to our lives
However by loving God 1st and others as ourselves (Matt 22 vs 38-38) what we read in the Sermon on the Mount becomes our way of life.

This is not easy. It requires us to constantly place everything before God.
To quote David Adam:-
Between each thought and each action place the presence (of God)
Between each encounter and each event place the Presence (of God)

Still there you are, I don’t have the answers but somewhere along the way we shall discover a better way of mission.