“A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”
Ecclesiastes 4:12 (NLT) When you go on vacation, you probably ask a neighbor to look after your house while you’re gone. In fact, some communities even have neighborhood watch groups. But while your neighbors watch your stuff, who’s watching out for your soul? Who in your life defends you, protects you, and helps you stay on track? No matter who you are, you need people who will look out for you and warn you of spiritual traps. You’ll find those people in your church family. In fact, that’s what the family of God is all about. Philippians 2:4 says, “Look out for one another’s interests, not just for your own” (GNT). We all have blind spots—areas of struggle and temptation in our lives that we can’t see. That’s where your church family comes in. They stay vigilant, looking out for the enemy. You have an enemy who wants to destroy your life. In fact, before you even wake up, Satan is thinking about how to defeat you every day with temptations and trials, dead ends and detours. He fights with an arsenal of hurts, habits, and hang-ups. And if you try to fight him on your own, that arsenal can leave you defeated. That’s why you need to find a community of believers who will help you. Ecclesiastes 4:12 says, “A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken” (NLT). Community—your church family—is God’s answer to spiritual defeat. We are always better together.
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“Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.”
Romans 12:4-5 (NLT) When it comes to going to church, God doesn’t want you just to attend church—he wants you to belong to a church family. The Bible says, “Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other” (Romans 12:4-5 NLT). Here are three reasons why you should belong to a church family: A church family helps you focus on God. These days it’s easy to get distracted by details, disturbances, dead-ends, delays, and difficulties. But coming together with a church family will help you focus on God. The more you choose to focus on God, the bigger he gets in your mind and the smaller your problems become. A church family helps you face life’s problems. Right now, you’re in one of three positions. Either you just came out of a problem, you’re in the middle of a problem, or you’re headed into the next problem. Life is a series of problems that God never meant for you to handle on your own. That’s why he built a support group of people around you—the church—who are right there in the fight with you. You’re not alone. A church family helps you fortify your faith. Fortify means to strengthen, to reinforce, and to develop. When you’re in relationship with other people in God’s family, you get the right support. They encourage you to create the right priorities, helping you decide what’s trivial and what matters most. This clarifies your values and fortifies your faith. There are a lot of ideas in the world today that just aren’t true and make it easy to lose sight of God’s purpose for your life. Belonging to a church family helps you focus on God, face life’s problems, and fortify your faith. And that will make all the difference in your life. “God . . . has given us the privilege of being born again so that we are now members of God's own family.”
1 Peter 1:3 (TLB) A church is not a place you go, and it’s not an event you attend. The church is a spiritual family you belong to—and it’s the most important thing on earth. Why is the church so important? Because it is God’s family. In fact, the greatest privilege in life is to be part of God’s family—to be able to say, “I’m a member of God’s family. I’m a child of God.” The Bible says, “God . . . has given us the privilege of being born again so that we are now members of God’s own family” (1 Peter 1:3 TLB). When you were born physically, you immediately became part of the human race. That wasn’t your choice. But you do have a choice about your spiritual family. When you choose to accept Jesus as your Savior and are baptized, you are born spiritually, and you become a member of God’s own family. One of the benefits of being born into God’s family is found in 1 Timothy 3:15: “[God’s] family is the church of the living God, the support and foundation of the truth” (NCV). If you live in an area where there are earthquakes, you know the value of a good foundation. In the same way, when you have the support of a church family, you won’t crumble when life’s earthquakes happen. Everything on earth will eventually crumble—except the church. No business, school, government, or nation will last forever. Only the church will last forever, because it is built by Jesus, and he’s focused on building his family. Jesus says in Matthew 16:18, “I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it” (NLT). In a world that’s full of uncertainty, choose to build your life on the only foundation that is guaranteed to last: the secure foundation of God’s family. |
AuthorTaken from Daily Hope by Rick Warren. Categories
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