Grace to Belong

When you became a Christian, you were called into a relationship with God (1 Corinthians 1:9) and it’s a wonderful thing. 1 John 1:3 also makes is clear that we enter a fellowship that goes two ways – with God and other Christians.

It’s the relationship with other Christians that isn’t always wonderful.

Now, I have good friends who are kingdom-minded Christians, and they maintain healthy Christian relationships without going to church very often. They stay connected to the body through service or ministries. These few people are the exception to the rule.

Most Christians need to attend church even if they don’t believe they do!

The New Testament never divides Christians into church members and non-church members. It assumes that everybody participates in the local assembly. It gives no examples of Christians who belong to the “universal church,” but have no link to the local church.

Any idea of enjoying salvation and being a Christian in isolation is just plain foreign to the New Testament. Christians met regularly. Any time Paul made new converts, he immediately organized them into a little church.

The next thing he did was ordain pastors not only to feed and lead those congregations but put them in order. For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you. – Titus 1:5

The reason for this is that the church must work together to carry out God’s purposes. It’s not a hard thing to understand, but so many Christians miss this! They fool themselves into thinking that salvation is the end of things, when it’s the beginning!