We Are His Cathedrals by Mike Donehey of TenthAveNorth

The world screams,
“We are what we do!”
“We are what we have!”
“We are what people think!”
But Christ whispers, “You are mine, and I am yours.”

So night after night,
we keep singing it back.
“We are yours!”
“We are yours!”
“We are yours!”

And mysteriously,
what the Psalm says is true.
“The Lord inhabits the praises of His people.”

Somehow, some way, when we cry out together, the wondrous love of God, He dwells among us.

Perhaps even more wondrously though, He lives insides us.
As Acts 17 boldly proclaims,
“He no longer dwells in buildings…”

This God we sing of…
This God who was slain that death would die and we might live; He has built us into his body. We are His dwelling place.
WE ARE HIS CATHEDRALS.

Now, what does this mean?
For us.
For now.

Well, where does one begin?
It means at least a million things and maybe even a million more we’ll never understand this side of the muddled glass, but for now, let me give you three.

One.
We are God’s sanctuary.
His blood was spilt and walls were broken so that now, we are His holy of holies.
We are the place where His spirit dwells. 
We are His tabernacle.
This gives new meaning to following rules.
It gives new meaning to chasing your dreams.
We are never trying to win divine approval, Christ has already bought that for us.
No, we are in search of simply creating more space where He can fill.
And to be filled by Him, all we need is but merely stop chasing
the lesser streams and run to the waterfall.
"He anoints my head with oil, my cup overflows."

Two.
We are “sanctuary” for each other.
Like those great and mighty structures of old, we too can be a place of refuge for those in trouble.
People are no longer a threat.
They are fellow sojourners searching for that eternal spring.
Weary sinners can find a harbor for their souls when they come to those who know they have been redeemed.
We are safety for the stumbling and still waters for anxious hearts.
We have tasted.
We have seen.
And now, we can show them the way.

Three.
Since we are His cathedrals, everywhere we go, we bring the sacred with us,
The division between the secular and sacred has, like the veil, been forever torn in two.
We no longer need to seek out sacred spaces,
instead, we merely need to walk through the door.
Starbucks, school, or supermarket, there is not a place on earth that is not His, and there is not a place we can go, where He is not.
We have the sacred inside.
All the earth is holy ground.

So my friends, to be God's cathedrals, means we are the kingdom come.
It means we are the safety and sacred place of God on the earth.
It means there is glory and honor in even the most menial task.
Like Martin Luther once mused,
"The milk maid has as holy of a calling as the clergy."
It means the greatest thing we'll ever accomplish with our lives is bringing Jesus with us to whatever vocation that may be.
Our lives no longer depend on goals achieved or dreams realized.
Our lives are hidden in Him,
HE IS OUR LIFE.

So, let's embrace the mystery.
Let's proclaim it in every step and space.
Whether mundane or mountaintop, let us not be ashamed of what we are, for we are His!
Bearing the image of the triune community, we are God's place of sacred safety on the earth.
#WeAreCathedrals

-Mike