.
Church
Book Summary by:
forgivenessngrace
Original Author: Melody
-
Summary rating: 5 stars
(1 Ratings)
-
Visits : 74
-
words:900
-
Comments
:
0
Church
Living in the Bible belt of Tennessee, I have been to many churches. There are so many
denominations! I’m now beginning to understand why some people skip out on church all together! It seems people are more likely to first ask you what denomination your from. “Are you Baptist, Church of God, Methodist, Church of Christ?” The list could go on forever! What happened to the simplest and most important question of all? “Are you a Christian?” Shouldn’t that be first question that we ask? To be Christian means to be a follower of Christ, not a follower of a denomination! As believers we understand that we have a responsibility to our church. We are to give our talents and God given abilities and our tithes to our church. When we start falling into a religious rut, we seem to conveniently forget were we came from! We choose to forget the pit of despair that God has so graciously pulled us out of! We tend to deceive ourselves into believing that as long as we attend church regularly, and help out with a few bible studies that that’s all that is expected. We are quick to judge the ones who are at home and not attending. While we are sitting in Sunday School smiling as we happily sign our names on the attendance book, do we ever stop to wonder if God is holding us accountable for the friend or family members still at home? Do we even give them a reason to want to attend with us? Would they accept our invitation if we invited them to attend? It’s a very sad but true statement to say that not only do we not invite our loved ones to attend church, we forget to invite Jesus to attend too. Our first thoughts on Sunday seem to go a little bit like this: “Am I going to be late, again?”, “Where’s my bible?”. “The kids are not up yet!”, “Where’s my coffee?”. How about “Where’s Jesus?” Do we invite him to join us at church, by entering into his presence with praise and worship music while were getting ready to go in the morning? Do we pray for our pastor to be filled with The Holy Spirit, and to preach a message that will touch the hearts of his congregation? Do we ask for God to fill those around us with the joy of his presence during worship? If not, then maybe we should just stay at home, like the ones whom we judge! Do you ever stop to wonder what would happen to our church or the lives of those around us if we started inviting Jesus to attend? Would the blood from Jesus’ feet and hands stain the carpets of our sanctuary? Would those around us feel uncomfortable or even convicted if we raised our hands to worship our Lord and Savior? What if we said “Amen!” during the pastors sermon showing him that the message he is preaching is touching our hearts? What if we didn’t sit with our usual group of friends and family members, and got out of our seats and went to the overflow room or balcony, when we saw someone lost looking to find a place to sit and listen the message at our church? What if we actually greeted new faces instead of the usual ones? What would happen if we took off our religious mask and we start to begin to allow God in our church? Maybe then the ones whom we’ve judged for not attending will be asking us, “What time is the service on Sunday?”. “I want what you’ve got!”. “Something real!”
Written by:
M.D.Write your abstract here.
Published: April 07, 2007
More in Arts & Humanities