I go to church because it’s the only place I’ve found containing powerful agents of healing, hope, and help walking around on two legs.
By no strength of their own—but only by the manifest presence of God at work within them through the Holy Spirit—normal, ordinary, everyday people operate as the hands and feet of the Almighty through their submission to the Father’s will and surrender to His power at work within them.
Collections of people who have chosen to claim Jesus as their Lord—or, in other words, as the master to whom they willingly yield themselves to—invite the Kingdom of Heaven into dusty, dismal, ordinary places, and it’s in these places that the miraculous unfolds.
I am so happy to have found my place in the family of God.
No child of God is meant live as an orphan when there is a community of Life and Love ready to enfold them and offer them the redemptive storyline that God desires for every person who bears his Name.
Have you experienced this kind of family, yet?
When I go to church, it starts out simply. I walk in the door and find no flashing signs or flashy displays just the soft, warm glow of flickering soul flames.
And as we enter into the worship sanctuary, like soft flames being fanned with a holy wind, the fire begins to blaze and engulf us as though we are God’s holy sacrifice—offering our praise in a moment of heaven touching earth.
We are met with words of truth—anointed and presented humbly—and while I am personally swept up in the ministry of the Holy Spirit, poured out amongst community, I am confident that if I were to look around the room, I would see eyes upon eyes filled with the tears of those being met by God in a tangible way. You would see hearts being transformed and hope swelling to tears welling—as the Holy Spirit accomplishes in teaching what no man could possibly do on his own.
We seal in this beauty with a final moment of worship—or, on some Sundays, with the remembrance of Holy Communion: a time where we honor the atoning sacrifice of Jesus who made the way for all of this to be possible.
The service commences and we mosey into the sanctuary. One might think the Holy Spirit has completed His mission as the service ends, but au contraire.
In a simple, taupe hallway with honey-oak trim—healing, helping ministry continues to unfold in a coming together of consecrated encounters. A compilation of divine arrangements begins as strangers-made-brothers-and-sisters begin with, “how are things?”—and, as if no time has passed at all—find themselves offering meals to help in hard times, loaning cars to those in need, sensitively sharing encouragements in just the right time and in just the right way, praying over trying circumstances, praising over healed heartaches—and living together with the fellowship of the Spirit amongst them as Jesus ministers to his people through the interactions of ordinary human life.
So, that’s why I go to church.
Because the aroma of heaven is intoxicating and I haven’t found it in just the same way anywhere else.
Beautiful Related Scriptures
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. Hebrews 13:15 NIV
Ephesians 3:20-21: Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21 NIV
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Ephesians 4:11-13 NIV
All the believers were together and had everything in common. Acts 2:44 NIV
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household… Ephesians 2:19 NIV
Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings,having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Hebrews 10:19-22 NIV
