The Church is God’s Intention

Church? What does this word mean to you? For many, it is an archaic man made invention to control the masses. For others, it is simply irrelevant. The Sunday morning time slot once reserved for church attendance, now replaced by sport, recreation or the comfort of ones bed. Is the church God’s intention or just man’s invention? I would like to suggest that Church was and is very much God’s perfect plan for us. Those who decry or abdicate the church are in direct opposition to the words of Jesus. He said. “I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevent it”. (Matthew 16:18) If Jesus wanted the church to exist, one has to ask why?

The definition of terms might be helpful here. The word “church” is ekklēsia in the original language; meaning, “the called out ones, to form an assembly with a specific purpose”. Jesus came to the earth with a mission of spreading the love of God throughout the world and to be the salvation to all who would accept his love. Jesus came from heaven to occupy time and space. He came to reconcile humans with the God, and his reconciliation continues through the vehicle of the church. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19  that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:17-19)

In God’s wisdom, he has entrusted the most important event of all history to be properly and faithfully represented by the Church.

Without the Church in the world, we would have no example of God’s love, no vehicle for God’s care, no illustration of God’s greater purpose for humans.

The Church is flawed, no question about it. It is made up of humans. But that in itself reveals the love and wisdom of God. The Church is the place where we can find redemption, love, and acceptance. It is made up of every race, color, ethnicity, social-economic people groups of the world. It has within it, the morally good and the immorally bad, society’s elite and socially outcast, culturally accepted and the rejected, all called out, assembling together in love and with a purpose. There is no example of this in any group of secular society.

God designed a place where one can belong, be loved, and be empowered to make a difference.

This Sunday, I will be sharing the value of church and the reasons God created it for us to enjoy.