Go To Church!

    The other evening I lit a small campfire in our backyard fire pit. I enjoy looking into the flames and studying the way fire consumes the wood, transforming it into smoke and ashes. I said to my wife, "Watch this," and I used the poker to pull a red hot coal from the midst of the flame, out to the edge of the pit, away from the other embers. In a matter of a couple of minutes, the glowing remnant of wood went from bright orange, to dark red, and then black. Away from the other embers, it cooled off and seemingly lost its energy.
    Linda said, "It's like a Christian straying away from church." My wife is a wise woman.
    The truth is, we need each other. We really do. God never intended for His followers to go it alone. He saved us to be part of his family, and he wants us gathering frequently and habitually for fellowship, instruction in the Word, and corporate worship, as well as service to one another. That's why the author of Hebrews wrote, “And let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works, not staying away from our worship meetings, as some habitually do, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24-25 HCSB).
    I'm grateful for every service that people attend church. But I want to encourage anyone reading this who may not be a weekly attender, to get more out of it by putting more into it. If you are a Christian, you need to be in church every week. And the church needs you as much as you need the church. Just like embers in a fire need to be clustered together, followers of Jesus need close and frequent fellowship. And that only comes when attending church becomes a top level priority. I have no doubt that Jesus wants that from every one of his followers. Don't you?
    Jesus established the local church to be his family on earth. If you belong to him, you belong to his family. I hope you are not an estranged family member, or one who shirks his family responsibilities. The church was God’s idea. It’s hard to claim you are a follower of Jesus if you are unwilling to follow Him in this area, which to Jesus, is a really big deal.
    You need the church and the church needs you. If you are a sporadic attender of The Bridge, we love you and want you to be the vital part of our Christian family that you were created to be. So I invite you, jump in head first and give it all you've got!