Part 4 – Lesson 35: Why Should I Go to Church?
“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” 1 Corinthians 12:27.
You are in a relationship with other believers whether you go to church or not, and you are also in a different relationship with people who are not believers. Even if you have never told anyone that you are a Christian, there is an evil one who does know, and you have gained that spiritual enemy from the moment you were born again of God. You belong to the Church, the body of Christ. You have an enemy who hates you and will do all he can to destroy you so that he can also destroy the effectiveness of the body of Christ.
A fact about warfare, and a fact about church are the same; we are much stronger as a group than we can ever hope to be alone! Jesus’ promise to His disciples was that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against” the Church (Matthew 16:18).
What does that mean? As a believer in Jesus, even if no one else knows you are a Christian, you will be attacked. There is no way out of this and no way around it. You cannot hide from the evil one! You will be attacked. As a new believer you may not even realize what the attack looks like. It will be doubts and fears and anger and bitterness thrown into your mind that probably makes no sense. You will doubt you are really a Christian, you will fear that nobody wants to be around you, you will be angry at God for reasons that make no sense to you, and you will be bitter because you thought you were signing up for a life that was supposed to be good and full of joy and love. You are under attack, and if you do not know how to put on your armor yet (Ephesians 6:10-20) you have no way of protecting yourself against an enemy you cannot even see.
You need fellow soldiers to teach you how to get into your battle gear and learn how to defend yourself! You need church.
Does that mean that all people (except for you) who go to church are perfect Christians? No, none of them are perfect yet. We all need each other to help each other become strong warriors.
Church is many things for us:
It is a place where we learn together how Jesus wants us to live and how we can be that “church” that the gates of hell cannot stand against.
It is a place where we get our spiritual wounds bandaged by other encouraging believers who have been through the same battle we’ve just been through. They can teach us how they learned to win their battles.
It is a place where we also can encourage others as we see them going through battles we have experienced, and we can tell them about some of the hiding places where the enemy has set traps for us.
It is a place where we worship Jesus together – being part of a whole makes much more beautiful music than a company of a few. Even if the whole group is so large that we can no longer hear our own voices, we are still adding to that entire song of praise.
Pray today: Father, will you teach me what I need to know about being a member of the Body of Christ?
Part 4 – Lesson 35: Why Should I Go to Church? Print
Modified on: Mon, 14 Dec, 2020 at 5:03 PM
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