Individually Corporate

What if your church was just like you? Would you go to it next Sunday? Would you give any more money to it?

In Matthew 10, Jesus speaks of the cost of following him. We are told that we will have to leave father, brother, sister, and mother. He tells us that we will be persecuted and ridiculed. The command is that we must take our cross and follow him. Christ-following is not easy, it is costly. It requires a great deal of sacrifice. These sacrifices can be uncomfortable. The sacrifices of obedience often fly in the face of popular Christianity. The majority of us have been taught that we must always put family first. I agree with this overall sentiment in Scripture, but not in the way we think it lives out. Christ-following will require nights away from your family serving in the church and in your community. Christ-following will require you to put Jesus Christ and his Gospel above everything else. That is exactly what it costs. Yet we like to teach ourselves the exact opposite of that.

This is why and how we grow comfortable in our silence with the Gospel and disobedience with our service. These types of partial truths are what allow us to live lives that are changed by the Gospel but never speak the Gospel. We become Christians that want to go to generous churches, yet never give. Go to evangelistic churches, but never tell anyone about Jesus. Go to churches with great children's ministry, youth ministry, and greeter ministry, yet never serve. Churches that do great mission work, yet never go.

We become comfortable with these lives because we become comfortable with these lies.

You should never expect of your church what you do not expect of yourself.

The church is the Body of Christ made up of the individual members. Nothing will ever be true of the corporate body that is not true of the individual members.

Generous churches are made up of generous people. Churches that are reaching lost people for Christ are made up of individuals that are reaching lost people for Christ. Churches with great ministries are made up of volunteers that work hard. Churches that do great missions work are made up of individuals that do great mission work.

The greatest problem with the culture of Christianity today is that people want to be a part of something they do not participate in. It will never happen.

Oh, something great might happen, but you will not be a part of it.