I fell in love with music because my father studied and sang opera and savored great classical music. I fell in love with reading because Barb, the girl I fell in love with, read volumes as soon as she had been taught how to do so as a child.
I suppose most of us learn our treasured delights from those who most influence us. Sadly, love for the church seemed to be at one time a tragic exception within my own soul. Jesus refers to his church as nothing less than his “bride” and his “body.” He loves the church! “Church” did not mean to me what it clearly means to Christ – that he died for, prizes, and is inextricably bound to his bride.
May I suggest that you pursue a similar path? Fight hard against cynicism and hardness toward those Jesus loves so very much. Cultivate a love for church.
It was not uncommon for me to hear, whispering in my jaded soul, a sordid cynicism toward individuals or the gathered people of God. “Forgive me!” I shouted in God’s presence, “This is your wife! I am sorry!”
Still, my heart betrayed me and I needed to repent and more deeply love God’s church with holy passion. But how could I cultivate that love?
I decided that vital church relationships could enflame my heart from frozen disregard toward the new community for which Jesus gave his very life. So I asked several men to “be church to me” by doing four simple things:
- First, contact me spontaneously and regularly by phone, text, email, letter, or visit with only one purpose: make the Lord Jesus vivid and large to me. Some read Scripture to me, and others sang great hymns to me by phone. Some sent beautiful handwritten quotes from John Newton, Samuel Rutherford, and others who loved the Master so well. The timing of these exchanges was providentially stunning.
- Second, pray for my heart every day and intercede for my callous inner man until it melts and softens toward Christ and his people.
- Third, if my phone number comes up on your caller ID, please answer or return the call quickly. I am not calling to chat. I can tell my inner man is hardening and drifting. I am calling for help!
- Fourth, allow me to visit you where you work and live and permit me to fellowship with you until brotherhood cuts through the hard crust of my sin. Let close-quartered church hammer my heart into tenderness.
As these men were “being church to me,” their faithfulness shattered my resistance to “being church to them and others.” The church became a fresh means of God’s grace to me and helped me to be a renewed means of grace to others.
May I suggest that you pursue a similar path? Fight hard against cynicism and hardness toward those Jesus loves so very much. Cultivate a love for church.
Remember…those people on the pew or in the chair next to you on Sunday are his “wife.”