Know Your Bible
July 2004

The Church Of God's Choice!!

We often hear people urge others, "Attend the church of your choice." This may be a very democratic attitude, but is it pleasing to God?

Now what kind of question is that? Well, I am rather inquisitive and at the same time interested in pleasing God and doing what it is that pleases Him. Naturally such a combination of nature and attitude is just going to generate questions. so, - I was just naturally wondering if God may have a choice regarding the church we should attend and if He does have a choice, if we want to please God, wouldn't it be necessary for us to choose to attend the church of His choice? It occurred to me that if we were to choose to attend a church that was not God's choice, we might be displeasing rather than pleasing to Him. Now my inquisitive nature combined with my attitude toward God just made me ask this very serious question. That is the kind of question it is.

Many people honestly think it makes no difference what church you attend. Most churches contribute to this belief even though officially many of them hold that they are the one and only church that is pleasing to God. Let no one tell you that there is just one church that believes it is the only one.

Of the hundreds of churches in the world today, has God made a choice? The only way we can find the answer to this is to open the Bible and read what God has revealed about churches. There may be several places where we could begin, but of those many places we must choose only one with which to begin. If it is all right with you, we will choose Ephesians as a beginning place. Because I am the one who is writing this article and have made this choice, the only way you can please me in regard to it is to choose to do what I have chosen for you to do. What of God's choice?

In chapter 1 verses 22 and 23 Paul writes in regard to what God did for Christ when He had raised Him from the dead: "And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all." Just what does this tell us about the number of churches that are pleasing unto God? Nothing, I guess. That is, it tells us not a thing about the number of churches that are pleasing to God, IF Jesus arose with just any number of bodies. However, IF -- IF Jesus Christ has a certain number of bodies and IF we can learn from the Bible how many bodies He has, then -- THEN! this tells us a great deal because it reveals that "the church" is the "body" of Christ.

Well, how many bodies does Christ have? Please get your Bible and read Ephesians 2:11 - 18. Read it right now. Now look at verse 15. It reveals that Jesus was a sacrifice for us "to make in himself of twain" (Jew and Gentile) "one new man, so making peace." Interesting! Making of two enemies "one" makes "peace." Also notice verse 16. "Both" are said to be "reconciled unto God in one body." to be "reconciled": is to be returned from enmity to a state of "peace." Therefore, verses 15 and 16 are concerned with the same thing. The "one body" of verse 16 is the "one new man" -- "in himself" of verse 15. We properly could term this the "one body" of "himself." You can easily see that this is the same thing as we found in chapter 1 verses 22 and 23, "his body." Now, how many bodies are "His body"? That's right, "one body!" The "one body" in which we are "reconciled" (made pleasing) "unto God."

There you have it, my friends, the Bible here shows us that "one body" is pleasing to God and that the "one body" that pleases Him is the "body" of Christ. Remember that "the church which is his body" (Eph. 1:22 & 23). This is plain, but that does not make it any less true that only ONE CHURCH is pleasing to God.

Which one of the many hundreds of churches in the world today is the one that pleases God? Well, there went my nature and attitude making questions again. Why don't you treat this question the way we treated the first one I asked. Just take the Bible and read the description that God gives of the church that pleases Him. No doubt, the church that is described in the Bible is the "one" that is the church of God's choice. To find out if any church is the "one" church, compare it with the description you read in the Bible.

---Fred Shewmaker

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Why Attend Church?

A Churchgoer wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday.

"I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me I can't remember a single one of them. So I think I'm wasting my time and the preachers are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."

This started a real controversy in the Letters to the Editor column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:
"I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But for the life of me, I cannot recall what the menu was for a single one of those meals. But I do know this: they all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me those meals, I would be dead today."

No comments were made on the sermon contents anymore.

(Story taken from "Bible Insight", Vol. 4, Number 27, July 8, 2001)

Reasons For Attending The Right Church:

1. It Is Being Considerate of Others. "And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." (Heb. 10:24-25)

2. It Provokes Others to Love and Good Works. "And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." (Heb. 10:24-25)

3. God Commands It! "And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." (Heb. 10:24-25)

--- Andrew Mitchell

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*****SENTENCE SERMONS*****

"A lot of people spend six days sowing wild oats,
then go to church on Sunday praying for a crop failure."

*****

"The first screw that comes loose in the head is usually
the one that controls the tongue."

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