“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. “The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ."
1 Corinthians 12:12 (NLT) God never meant for you to go through life on your own. He wants you to be part of his family—the church. In fact, the church has been God’s plan from the very beginning. Some people think of the church as a building, an institution, or an event you attend. The church isn’t any of those things. It’s a family you belong to. The Bible says, “His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by sending Jesus Christ to die for us. And he did this because he wanted to!” (Ephesians 1:5 TLB) When you’re part of the church, two things are true of you: You’re committed to Jesus, and you’re committed to the people in your church family. The Bible says in 2 Corinthian 8:5, “First they gave themselves to the Lord; and then, by God’s will they gave themselves to us as well” (GNT). You give yourself to the Lord, and then you give yourself to a group of people in God’s family. The first choice makes you a Christian. The second choice connects you with other believers. Together, we are the church—the body of Christ. What does it mean to be part of the body of Christ? The Bible says, “The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12 NLT). To understand how the church operates, look at the way God designed your body. Your hand, nose, spleen, and liver are all parts of your body. They all have separate functions, but together they make up one physical body—just like God’s church makes up one spiritual body. That’s why you are such a necessary part of your church family. You can’t say, “My part—my talents and abilities—isn’t needed.” There are no unnecessary parts. We are all dependent on each other, and each of us has a different role to play. God’s intention “from the very beginning of time” is that we live our lives together in his family. “Let us concentrate on the things which make for harmony, and on the growth of one another’s character.”
Romans 14:19 (PHILLIPS) Do you want to become an agent of harmony and unity in your church? If so, the first step is this: Focus on what you have in common with other Christians, rather than your differences. The Bible says, “Let us concentrate on the things which make for harmony, and on the growth of one another’s character” (Romans 14:19 PHILLIPS). When you concentrate, you focus and give something your full attention. You don’t casually concentrate; it’s intentional. As a Christian, you can choose to concentrate on commonalities—the things that create harmony and unity in the body of Christ. What are the commonalities that you share with your brothers and sisters in God’s family? Ephesians 4:4-6 says that Christians share seven big things in common: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (NIV). We’re one body. Jesus doesn’t have multiple bodies. He just has the church! We have one Spirit. We all have been given the same Holy Spirit at salvation. We share one hope. We share the hope of the second coming of Jesus. He didn’t stay dead. He was resurrected, went back to heaven, and promised to return. We have one Lord. We don’t worship multiple gods. We have one faith. Our faith is contained in one book, the Bible. We have one baptism. We don’t have to be re-baptized every time we sin. We have one God. He knows all things, sees all things, and is with us at all times. As members of God’s family, we also share the same salvation, the same forgiveness, the same grace, the same mercy, and the same future. These factors are far more important than your gender or race, your shape or size, your economic status, your background, your sins, or anything else. Even while you focus on those seven big things in Ephesians, don’t forget that God didn’t just give you things in common with the other people in your church. He also made your differences. God chose to give people different personalities and equipped each person with different gifts. You can unite around the foundation of the Gospel, while you also value and learn from all the ways God made you unique. Don’t just get along with the people in your church. Work toward true harmony and unity as you remember the hope you share. |
AuthorTaken from Daily Hope by Rick Warren. Categories
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