"We Need the Church"

  We need the church! Why? Because it is the body of Christ. It's not a religious organization but the body of Jesus Himself. Every time man gets their hands on what the Lord creates, we destroy His intentions with all our haughtiness. The church has turned itself in many cases into something worldly, fleshly.

  But here is Jesus, calling us to Himself through the gospel. You and I joined nothing! The gospel of the Jesus Christ came, we answered His call and are reminded: "But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desire." (I Cor. 12:18) God placed each member. We didn't place ourselves. We were united with Jesus in baptism and God placed us right where He desires us to be. What do we do? We fight, argue and divide over matters that were never intended to be matters. People take issues and make them so monumental that the body is splintered leaving it weak. It's not Jesus who is weak. The weakness of the members is affecting the whole. 

  As we look closer at this spiritual body of Christ we find so many varied teachings and directions that come from fleshliness. We fight and argue among ourselves and challenge to debates as if that's the solution. The lovelessness is demonstrated. We look everywhere but one place: the Lord! If God placed us where He desired, why are we so divided and splintered?  Paul tells the Colossian brethren: "And not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God." (Col. 2:19) There is our answer. Not holding fast to the head, Jesus. The result? Not growing with a growth from God. Many think its up to them. They become church 'watchdogs' attacking where they can. The church grows weaker because man is no longer holding to Jesus the head. 

  I know this all sounds like a downer but what are we to do? How does the true church survive? By the Spirit of the living God that dwells within her. The Lord's deathless life is her life. The church doesn't survive by the people. It survives by the resurrected Christ and His power! It's for these very reasons that we cannot live without her! We need the church because it belongs to God and is Christ's body. We need to focus on who this body is attached to as the head. Yes, there will be those who try to run other peoples lives, who will make mountains out of teachings that the Lord did not make, who will turn her worship into something the Lord never called for, who will divide over every little thing, hating one another to the extent of attaching themselves to another part of the body thinking they are okay with the Lord, who will try to rule with an iron fist but because Christ lives and God places, they determine everything about her!! It's time we stop the non-sense, get back to our purpose in Christ Jesus and that's preach His gospel to a lost, hell bound world! We, the church, exist for God's purpose and that purpose is found only in Christ Jesus. The world needs the church! Let's get busy to what we are called to do.