Have you ever had a MRI?
Me neither!
But over half the adults in our church have! (I know this because I asked for a show of hands when I introduced the idea of God’s MRI recently.)
MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) is a medical imaging technique used to visualize the detailed internal function of the body. It’s especially useful in cardiovascular imaging.
The second I read that, I thought of the verse from I Samuel 16:7.
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
So, if God were to perform an MRI on the heart of our church . . . any church really, what would God be looking for?
M – Are We Missional?
Has God’s mission found its way into our heart?
“God does not want anyone to perish. God wants everyone to come to repentance.” (II Peter 3:9)
Leonard Sweet writes: “Mission is not just an activity of the church but an attribute of God. God is a missionary God, Jesus is a missionary Messiah and the Spirit is a missionary Spirit. Mission is the family business.”
When God performs His MRI on the church, He’s not just interested in the church’s missionary activities and practices, as important as orth-praxis is. He’s looking to see if the church has a missionary heart (ortho-kardia).
Has God’s mission found its way into our hearts? God is a missionary God. Are we God’s missionary church?
R- Are We relational?
Jesus was anything but ambiguous about the importance of . . . the centrality of . . . loving relationships. We are to love God and others. This is the greatest commandment. This is the Jesus Creed. (Check out Mark 12:28-34)
When God performs God’s MRI on the heart of the church, does He find agape love for all persons? Friends, family, enemies, work associates, school mates, fellow church goers/doers, everyone.
Wesley wrote:
“Holy solitaries is a phrase no more consistent with the Gospel than holy adulterers. The Gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness but social holiness.”
Some have criticized Wesley’s love ethic as lacking specificity. Actually he spent a great deal of time preaching and teaching on the specific requirements related to relational holiness. For Wesley, the Sermon on the Mount gave specifically to Jesus command to love ones neighbor as oneself. The importance of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-8) to Wesley’s love ethic is established by the fact that he preached on it hundreds of times before he published his sermons on it. The sermon was for Wesley the standard for relational holiness.
And Wesley was just as adamant about the necessity of a pure heart if the love ethic described in the Sermon on the Mount was going to be lived out. Without a pure heart, the love ethic described in the Sermon on the Mount is a dangling carrot . . . it is an ideal that cannot be attained.
So, has the love of God found its way into your heart? Only when you love God with your whole heart can you love the person right in front of you . . . no matter who it is!
I –Incarnational
“Missional is the mind of God. Relational is where God’s heart is. Incarnation is what God’s hands are up to.” - Leonard Sweet
The incarnation that began in the birth of Jesus . . . when the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood (John 1:1-14) continues into the 21st century in the Church of Jesus Christ. (I Corinthians 12:12-27)
The church is the body of Christ, His physical presence in the world today. We are His hands and feet or as my friend David Brown says most every Sunday at Stillmeadow: “We are Jesus with skin on . . . our skin . . . your skin.”
So when God performs His MRI, does He see in you a desire to be like Jesus? Or more importantly does He see Jesus in you, a person clothed in his righteousness alone? His story being lived out in His church, His Spirit . . . a Spirit of love . . . made flesh and blood in His people?
Give God permission to perform His diagnostic on you, His church, and listen carefully as He lovingly shares the results with you. He’s the only one who can perform such an MRI.
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