Some people don’t attend church because they were hurt by the church. That’s understandable, especially if you had people there harassing or abusing you and even doing it, tragically, in the Lord’s name. Hey, Jesus had problems with religious folk in his day, too. In a way, you might feel more access to God not being around those who misrepresent him. Yet in Ephesians 5 we see that Jesus loves the church. He laid down his life for the church—for the purpose of making the church spotless and pure. If you love Jesus, you are part of the church. If you and I are talking about him together, in a sense we are doing church. Church is not something you just go to. It’s when you engage with other believers about Jesus. But because we’re members of a larger body, it’s not something we can do on our own. Of course, if you’re on a desert island or you’re somewhere else where there are no fellow followers of Jesus, no one can hold that against you. But it’s important for us to connect with other believers to honor the Lord together, and if there aren’t any, maybe the Lord can use you to help some others become believers. You’ll never find perfect Christians (or perfect people of any sort) to hang out with, but just as God is patient in putting up with us, we have to be patient putting up with others.
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