FOR JULY 6 : WHY BOTHER WITH CHURCH?

[cimi]

July 6
Sunday


WHY BOTHER
WITH CHURCH?

READ:
Ephesians 4:1-16
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Let us consider one
another in order to
stir up love and good
works, not forsaking
the assembling of
ourselves together.
__Hebrews 10:24-25
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Winston Churchill once said that he related to the church rather like a flying buttress: He supported it from the outside. (A flying buttress is an external support that reinforces the walls of old cathedrals.) I tried that strategy for a while, after coming to believe Christian doctrine sincerely and committing myself to God.

I am not alone. Fewer people attend church on Sunday than claim to follow Christ. Some feel burned by a former experience. Others simply "get nothing out of church." Why bother?

Today, I could hardly imagine life without church. Church has filled a need for me that can't be met in any other way. An early-church leader wrote, "The virtuous soul that is alone... is like the burning coal that is alone. It will grow colder rather than hotter."

Christianity is not a purely intellectual, internal faith. It can be lived only in community. At a deep level, I sense that church contains something I desperately need. Whenever I abandoned church for a time, I found that I was the one who suffered. My faith faded, and the crusty shell of lovelessness grew over me agian. I grew colder rather than hotter.

And so, my journeys away from church have always circled back to the chruch. __Philip Yancey
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```````````````We join our hearts and hands together,`````````````
```````````````````Faithful to the Lord's command;````````````````
```````````````We hold each other to God's standards__````````````
`````````````All that truth and love demand. __D. De Haan``````````
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The church is not a select circle for a few
but a spiritual center open to all.

***************Today's Bible Reading __ Ephesians 4:1-16**********

1 I, therefore, the prisoner of
the Lord, beseech you to
walk worthy of the calling
with which you were called,

2 with all lowliness and
gentleness, with
longsuffering, bearing
with one another in love,

3 endeavoring to keep the
unity of the Spirit in the bond
of peace. 4 There is one body
and one Spirit, just as you
were called in one hope of
your calling; 5 one Lord, one
faith, one baptism; 6 one God
and Father of all, who is
above all, and through all,
and in you all.

7 But to each one of us
grace was given according to
the measure of Christ's gift.

8 Therefore He says: "When
He ascended on high, He led
captivity captive, and gave
gifts to men." 9 (Now this,
"He acended" __what does it
mean but that He also first
descended into the lower
parts of the earth? 10 He who
descended is also the One
who ascended far above all
the heavens, that He might
fill all things.)

11 And He Himself gave
some to be apostles, some
prophets, some evangelists,
and some pastors and
teachers, 12 for the equipping
of the saints, for the work of
ministry, for the edifying of
the body of Christ, 13 till we
all come to the unity of the
faith and of the knowledge of
the Son of God, to a perfect
man, to the measure of the
stature of the fullness of
Christ; 14 that we should no
longer be children, tossed to
and fro and carried about
with every wind of doctrine,
by the trickery of men, in the
cunning craftiness of
deceiftul plotting, 15 but,
speaking the truth in love,
may grow up in all things
into Him who is the head__
Christ__ 16 from whom the
whole body joined and knit
together by what every joint
supplies, according to the
effective working by which
every part does its share,
causes growth of the body for
the edifying of itself in love.