Matthew 21:12-13

21:12 And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, (13) and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

There are many reasons people come to church, some out of habit, and some to see and be seen.  Some come for the four reasons below. Whatever the reason that you come for, come expecting to meet the One who can truly change your life in more ways than one.

We come to worship

This was why God put the church here. We, each of us, make up a part of the body of Christ which is the church. It doesn’t matter what denomination you claim or have been all of your life because if you belong to Christ, you are part of His church, His bride and that is all that matters. There are many so-called “churches” which claim to be the “true church” but the only one that is true is the body of Christ and that is made up of believers! We don’t need a denomination or rules to govern by as long as we are faithful to Jesus and the calling that He came and died for. He rose from that grave so that He can come again to receive us unto Himself and to give us the hope of resurrection. No other religion in the world claims anything like this and not one of them can because Christ is the only One who could.

Christ said to assemble ourselves. We are to do this for encouragement, for support of each other, for many reasons but mostly to praise and honor God. We also come to lend our voices to God in prayer because God’s house is a house of prayer. Each church is a house of prayer. We offer up prayers for praise, for thanksgiving, for our infirmities, for exhortation, for forgiveness and for strength. All of these we need if…

We come to grow

There are people in churches that have never grown as Christians. Why is that? Could it be that we don’t know how? Is it possible that we wait for our preacher to give us all that we need to grow in God’s kingdom? Preachers, Sunday school teachers and other ministers can only give us a certain amount that we need; we have to dive into God’s Word in order to truly grow. Grow in grace toward God and be thankful for the grace given to us. Growing in grace is realizing who we are in Christ and being thankful for the position of grace that we have in Him.

Grow in love toward each other and our love for Christ because He loved us first. Not only that, but love Him because of the forgiveness that we have in Him. When we grow in that kind of love we will love others the way Christ does, not in our human hearts but with His heart and His power.

Grow in the word. We must grow in the knowledge of God’s Word so that we will know Christ more intimately. He is the Word made flesh so if you know God’s Word, you know Jesus even better than you did before. You may even, eventually know Him better than you know yourself. Many of the passages in the Word, in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, directly complement each other. To put it another way, the Old testifies of the New and the New fulfills the Old.

We come to serve

God has work we need to do. The work that He asks us to do is not hard work, most of the time and yet it is vital to His kingdom. God wants all men to come to know Him but if we don’t do the work that we have been called to do, how will they know? We perceive this as hard work, but it is only hard because our “old nature” is against it, we have to do it in love and by the power of Jesus because we can’t do it on our own strength and power.

By the way we are his servants. Jesus called the disciples to be servants to others and He calls us to do the same. Working as Christians for Him is a job that others look at and say that they want someone else to do it. That is the “old you” talking, not the new you that came alive when Jesus entered your heart.

We are his witnesses to win souls. This is a subject that many new Christians, and some who have been in the church for years, never get around to doing. We are supposed to be Jesus’ witnesses just as those that He healed went away and told others about what He had done for them. We are to do the same in order for others to see that what Jesus has to offer, they need in their life. Our “old self” doesn’t want to do this, but we must and we will when we have given our life to Him. Christ is the answer to life’s problems, not drugs or alcohol or money or power.

We come to give of our:

Time, Service, Money, Talents

But most of all we are to give honor to God, with yourself and all that comes with you. A Christian must fulfill God’s will in their life. But, how can you know His will for your life if you don’t read and study His Word so you will know what that will is? Your time is valuable so God honors you when you give any amount to Him and you honor Him as well. When you give your time, you are also giving of a service to God in one way or another whether it is cooking or cleaning the church or anything that you do in His name and for the right reasons.

When we give our money to the church or to worthy causes, we are giving back to Him a part of the blessings that He has given us. When we use our talents, whatever they may be, in a church setting or in our daily lives we are using what God gave us. If we use those talents to praise and worship Him then He gets the glory and honor from it as long as we aren’t being prideful about what we are doing.

All of these things from our time and talents to our service and our money have come from God. They are only ours on loan from Him and yet if we give of them from our heart we are honoring Him and giving Him the glory. Doesn’t Christ deserve at least that much from each of us? We are given a world to live in and the air to breathe so as to learn from Him how we are to serve and be His witnesses to those who may not know Him. God has given us our children and grand-children and friends and all the other people that we know in our community and that we work with and they are blessings to each of us.

They are also the “field” that we are sent into to bring them into God’s family because if we don’t tell them about Him and what He has done for us and will do for them, who will?

Are you a child of God? Have you given your heart and your life to Jesus and asked Him to come into your life and truly make you whole? If you have not, do so today because we are not guaranteed even our next breath, let alone tonight or tomorrow. You may not have a chance at accepting Christ on your “death-bed” because your life could end unexpectedly. I am not saying this to scare you into accepting Jesus but truly we all need Him and if you don’t know Him, you need Him most of all!