Daily devotion – Tuesday 6th July 2021
Could it be that people are attending Church for all the wrong reasons?
That Churches are striving for the wrong reasons for growth and for people to attend?
Ask yourself today, why is it that you attend Church? Why does your family attend Church?
Paul wrote, Philippians 1:27 Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, 28 and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God.
Paul said the Church of Jesus Christ was to display a fearless unity, so powerful, so clear that it would be a sign to those who oppose Christians and Christianity, of a coming destruction, from the judgment of a Holy God.
What’s this got to do with why we go to Church you say? Paul said there was a very real and powerful demonstration of God’s love to be seen in the gathering of His Church, the reason for its existence!
Not just a unity or love where we avoid arguments, dissent with one another, but the kind where we truly live together as a family!
Where we meet one another’s needs, care for one another regardless of the time or effort required. It is easy to talk about unity and love for one another, but it requires a kind of mutual commitment that is all but absent from many Churches.
Today, sadly, the consumer Christian mentality has permeated the Church so that neither does it have a true love one for another, or a passion to sacrifice for the things of the Lord and each other, so that we may see His will done in our lives and those we sit with on a Sunday morning.
The Consumer Christian is totally absorbed with what the Church can do for them, not to gather we people and share the love of God with those whom He died for.
It’s been replaced with a new selfish mindset that reveals not a love for one another, but a Church attendance that is solely based on the selfish needs and desires of the individual or the family.
People now have a checklist, certainly not on Biblical grounds, as to why they choose to attend the Church they do.
For example, the following:
Does the Church have a café and how good is the coffee?
Is there good parking so I don’t have to walk too far?
What sort of music is played and at what volume?
How long does the sermon go for, anything over 30 minutes is overkill?
Does the Church have a good nursery?
What about the Children’s ministry, can my children be cared for the entire duration we are at the Church?
Does the Church have something special set aside for my aged child – preteen, middle school, high school, college etc?
Can you imagine that checklist of requirements being provided in the early church, the persecuted Church, the underground Church?
We all are aware of the Ten Commandments, but Jesus added one more – John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
The Church has become consumed with needs that are not needs but wants. In order to fill the seats, Churches now strive to provide the new “Christian Consumer” checklist of why they should attend such and such a Church.
How far have we drifted from the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
We have celebrity speakers and leaders now not pastors, shepherds of the flock.
What is the answer to why you should attend Church? It’s pretty simple and seen in two areas really. One, to worship the Lord God Almighty through His Son Jesus Christ, because you love Him, because He first loved you!
Secondly, because you love His family the Church, in which He has placed you, to be a blessing to each and every one of them.
You go to Church, as an individual and with your family, because you love His Church!
You love His Church so much, that it would break your heart to be away from it!
Indeed, such was the power of the love of the Church that in Paul’s time, when people needing to be disciplined they were stopped from attending Church – 1 Corinthians 5: 4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 5 deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
I believe we are on the verge of a revival here at Calvary Chapel Secret Harbour. Why, because our hearts are heavy with the desire to reach the lost, of which there are so many, and it breaks our hearts to see the human wreckage of lives who know not the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.
As we as a Church pray for the love of God to be the reason we would gather here at CCSH, I believe when that comes to fruition, when that desire spreads into all of our hearts, God will draw by His Spirit, the lost souls to a place where God’s love is in every handshake and every man woman and child gathered here to love the Lord Jesus Christ.
God desires His Church to be a hospital for the broken, a home for the homeless, a family for the orphaned and a place where God’s love is so powerful, that to be away from it would be heartbreaking.
Today, it’s a call to prayer, God is refining His Church, each time we have to close for Covid, when you are unable to attend Christ’s Church, if it makes no difference in your life, if life carries on without a sense of missing God’s love and His people, it’s time to repent and seek the Lord’s face and question where your heart really is. Why do you go to Church in the first place!
After each Covid closure, those who are fulfilling the new commandment given by Jesus – it is they who with joy, with appreciation burst back into Church again with a clear joy in their hearts. They have missed their family, the family that Gods has placed them in to love and nurture.
Because they have missed the family of God, they have missed the love of God that is shared abroad in a Church that loves Jesus and meets not the requirements of a checklist, but the words of He who is Head of His Church, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself!
This Sunday, we celebrate communion as His family, and we have a special message on the cross and Helen and I cannot wait to gather with those who love the Lord Jesus Christ passionately and every other soul that walks through the doors of CCSH and calls it home!
The Lord bless you – Jesus is coming soon!