Marlon and I accomplished plenty of honey-dos and vacations in 2023. My greatest joy was his building my greenhouse. I love it so much. I have always wanted one, and now I genuinely appreciate its capacity to bring forth life. Secretly, don’t tell him; I wish it were bigger. Over the last few years, the winter has killed many of my potted tropical plants. While I could take them to the garage, there was the problem of space capacity. This past winter, many of my tropical potted plants were saved from doom by resting in my greenhouse. It is not huge, but it held over 15 of my pots. This is one of the features of a greenhouse. And it saves us money from repurchasing perennials that should not need replacing.
Instead of starting my seeds for a vegetable garden on the table on my back patio, I set them in the greenhouse. Usually, I begin the process at the end of March for fear of a freeze that occurs in the early to mid-part of the month. I started seeding vegetables in February and sharing them with neighbors. These folks do not need to purchase cucumber, tomato, or herb starts, all because of the gift of this greenhouse my husband chose to bless me with. This has been another feature of the greenhouse. Not only does it positively impact my home, but it offers the capability to bless others.
When I drove past a reader board in front of a church declaring, “A Hospital for Sinners,” I got it. I even said this to many people over the years. It poses a humility that speaks welcoming to a person who needs God. Is this how the Church is talked about in the Scriptures? I think not; I'd use the analogy "The Church; The Greenhouse for Discipleship."
Jesus said, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” Luke 5:32. Understanding who was being addressed as he was calling sinners to accept him as Lord and enter His Kingdom is key. It was not an invitation to continue as a sinner but to become a disciple, Christ-like, and a saint. He was making disciples, not continued sinners. Though his disciples would sin, that was not how they’d be characterized throughout the Epistles of the Bible. Also, in Mark 2:17, “Jesus told them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick…” This was also an initial call to those who recognized their sinful state before bowing to His Lordship, not a continual state of being. Those in Christ do not walk in a chronic state of sin but may stumble in ways that will not be an acceptable lifestyle. They run to the King to repent. The Church should not be filled with spiritually sick people. That is not exemplified in Scripture.
Paul addressed the Corinthians, one of the churches that had a lot of spiritual growth needs; Paul told them they used to be sick but are now… 1 Corinthians 6:9: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.’” These sick were who they used to be. Those who needed the hospital that Jesus was, in his idiom, were not saved but were being called to salvation. They were not in the Church. Those in the Church had entered the life of the Greenhouse, The Kingdom of God. Their sickness was healed; they no longer needed a hospital. Paul was addressing the latter. They required the growth LIGHT of the Greenhouse, which comes through the transformation power of God’s Word. They needed the fellowship of growing Christians using their Spirit-given gifts among the Body of Christ. This is not what happens in a hospital full of sick and sinners.
Paul was disciplining believers and correcting the thinking of those in the Corinthian Church. Paul expected them to submit to this call to new thinking of themselves in Christ. If not, they would need to understand that they were those who would not inherit the Kingdom of God. They would be identified as "such were some of you" now growing in the Greenhouse. Or "sick in sin and "will not inherit the kingdom..." He was giving them training in righteousness.
“Hospital for sinners” denotes a place where folks can identify with their sins and not recognize the healing power and forgiveness of life in Christ. In a hospital, we say, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace,” words you will not find in The Bible. Peter, Paul, and others speak of the Blessedness of being in Christ. Those who have believed, repented, been baptized, and filled with the Spirit of God do not live in sickness. After such a life change, theirs is to call sick people, which those calling are not anymore, to be spiritually healed and then welcome them into the greenhouse. They can say, like the blind, "I was blind, but now I see!" Like the prodigal son's father, they can share, "... he was dead, and is alive; he was lost and is found." We were sick but now healed. We were sinners and now saints. We no longer need a hospital but the growing power of the Light of God. Those in the greenhouse grow and are transformed, meaning they've turned from the deadness of sin, not conforming to the world, and are given out to others through the gifting of the Spirit so that they might impact those around them. They do not continue in the sickness of sin.
Paul prayed for Churches sent in a letter that landed in Ephesus; his prayer did not address the sick in a hospital, but the disciples in the greenhouse called The Church. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ… that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love (a call from sickness and sin) …” This is a prayer for growth for those already healed from the life of having been a sinner, “to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.” This is not the hospital where sinners continue to identify their sins. This letter was written to The Church - A Greenhouse for Discipleship.
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