Let me just say that I love church! I have everday of my saved life! November 3, 1997 began a day in my life that would change the way I looked at, approached, and live out the rest of my life! I know, I know, you say well you are a Pastor, you are suppose to say that, but may I ask a question; does the same God dwell inside you as me? Then why should your love of the church be different from mine? You see when God saved me, He changed my life forever! I am encouraged when I go to church by handshakes and warm smiles. I am encouraged by people bringing in their children to hear the word of God, and I am uplifted by the old hymns where the blood, the grace of God , salvation and heaven are constant reminders to me about what my Saviours has done, is doing, and will do.
I love coming to church for the biblical insight God gives us through the power of His Holy Spirit. I love to examine the contents of the bible and relay what God has given me to you for the edification of your souls and for the encouragement of those that are discouraged. There are many other reasons I come to church:
I long to know the Lord more and fellowship with His people in a public display of worship to our Saviour! The Word of God is the strength of my life: it grows me, I thirst for it, long for it and every day, I find my self reaching more for it than anything else! The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 421-2 “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God,for the livingGod: when shall I come and appear before God?
Church is more to me than handshakes and smiles! I am there because I am thirsty and long for the word of God! The Living God! I am a dry brook without God’s living waters flowing through my veins, I am a creek-bed desiring the creek to overflow with it’s abundance. My soul thirst for, longs after, desires greatly for God’s Word.
I want to obey God’s word as the writer of Hebrew’s states in Hebrews 10:25 “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together,as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” There was a time in my life when being obedient to God wasn’t in the top 100 of my life, but when Jesus Christ saved me, everything changed and I bcame a new creature in Christ and my desires changed, for the new nature took control and the new nature desires to hear from God, desires to commun with God, desires to fellowship with God. Even when I fail in my Christian walk, God doesn’t forsake me or leave, but God leads me back to the paths of rigtheousness.
May I encourage you today to go back to church if you haven’t been. If you have never attended a church service, go, and ask God to give you everything you need in those services to sustain you, grow you and mature you in the Lord! Better to be a humble servant filled and overflowing than to be a dry brook!
Psalm 122:1, “I was glad when they said to me, Let us go into the house of the LORD.”
