Why is now the best time to express love? Because you don’t know how long you will have the opportunity. Circumstances change. People die. Children grow up. You have no guarantee of tomorrow. If you want to express love, you had better do it now.
Knowing that one day you will stand before God, here are some questions you need to consider: How will you explain those times when projects or things were more important to you than people? Who do you need to start spending more time with? What do you need to cut out of your schedule to make that possible? What sacrifices do you need to make?
The best use of life is love. The best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now.
DAY SIXTEEN
THINKING ABOUT MY PURPOSE
Point to Ponder: Life is all about love.
Verse to Remember: “The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Galatians 5:14 (NIV)
Question to Consider: Honestly, are relationships my first priority? How can I ensure that they are?
17
A Place to Belong
You are members of God’s very own family, citizens of God’s country, and you belong in God’s household with every other Christian.
Ephesians 2:19b (LB)
God’s family is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.
1 Timothy 3:15b (GWT)
You are called to belong, not just believe.
Even in the perfect, sinless environment of Eden, God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.”1 We are created for community, fashioned for fellowship, and formed for a family, and none of us can fulfill God’s purposes by ourselves.
The Bible knows nothing of solitary saints or spiritual hermits isolated from other believers and deprived of fellowship. The Bible says we are put together, joined together, built together, members together, heirs together, fitted together, and held together and will be caught up together.2 You’re not on your own anymore.
While your relationship to Christ is personal, God never intends it to be private. In God’s family you are connected to every other believer, and we will belong to each other for eternity. The Bible says, “In Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”3
Following Christ includes belonging, not just believing. We are members of his Body—the church. C. S. Lewis noted that the word membership is of Christian origin, but the world has emptied it of its original meaning. Stores offer discounts to “members,” and advertisers use member names to create mailing lists. In churches, membership is often reduced to simply adding your name to a roll, with no requirements or expectations.
To Paul, being a “member” of the church meant being a vital organ of a living body, an indispensable, interconnected part of the Body of Christ.4 We need to recover and practice the biblical meaning of membership. The church is a body, not a building; an organism, not an organization.
We discover our role in life through our relationships with others.
For the organs of your body to fulfill their purpose, they must be connected to your body. The same is true for you as a part of Christ’s Body. You were created for a specific role, but you will miss this second purpose of your life if you’re not attached to a living, local church. You discover your role in life through your relationships with others. The Bible tells us, “Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we?”5
If an organ is somehow severed from its body, it will shrivel and die. It cannot exist on its own, and neither can you. Disconnected and cut off from the lifeblood of a local body, your spiritual life will wither and eventually cease to exist.6 This is why the first symptom of spiritual decline is usually inconsistent attendance at worship services and other gatherings of believers. Whenever we become careless about fellowship, everything else begins to slide, too.
The church will outlive this universe, and so will your role in it.
Membership in the family of God is neither inconsequential nor something to be casually ignored. The church is God’s agenda for the world. Jesus said, “I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.”7 The church is indestructible and will exist for eternity. It will outlive this universe, and so will your role in it. The person who says, “I don’t need the church,” is either arrogant or ignorant. The church is so significant that Jesus died on the cross for it. “Christ loved the church and gave his life for it.”8