What is the church? A collection of religious snobs? A hospital for the sick? A Sunday morning service where we get a few scratches healed up? A building where we come to appease God and hope it will help us eternally? If that's your vision, it may explain why your experience is lacking in this divine community.

The True Definition

The church is God's earthly extension of heaven. When we are birthed into this mighty, eternal organism, we are automatically given dual citizenship. We no longer merely belong to this world. Paul tried to drill this into the minds of the Colossians, encouraging them to set more of their mind UP.

"Look up there! Seek the things in that kingdom!" he cried in the first verses of chapter three. "Your life is hidden there with Christ in God. It's where you really live, and all its riches are at your disposal" (paraphrased).

He continues in that famous chapter with an exhortation to take off all that is "earthly" in their lives and put on garments from the royal closets of heaven: "compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony."

This is your wardrobe as a heavenly citizen. These are the clothes that were bought for you at the cross.

The Breathtaking Result

When the church is clothed in His love, ruled by His peace, enriched by His Word, and thrilled by His songs (as Colossians 3:12-17 says), we become a microcosmic picture of heaven. We are bringing heaven down, and the divine admonition to pray "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is [being done right now] in heaven" makes sense (Matthew 6:10).

We look like heaven because we ARE like heaven. We live there, and the more we realize it and clothe ourselves for the occasion, the more visible His kingdom becomes.

When people come through our membership class to join our church, I have a section where I teach them how we treat each other, because one of our core values is to be "grace-filled."

"We're death on gossip," I say, "because we are seeking to experience and illustrate a heavenly community. We are to be such a beautiful oasis of love that people outside run to us out of curiosity and thirst. Any attitude or practice we put on that destroys that picture must be graciously but firmly taken off."

John Piper explains the results quite well (as he usually does) as he comments on one piece of this heavenly clothing: "What should mark Christians is that we are merciful. We go beyond what is deserved in others, and bless them at cost to ourselves. That's the only thing that will awaken America to the beauty of Christ."

We can bring heaven down. We just need to change clothes.