Why Church?

Read the following from the book Preachers & Preaching by Dr Martin Lloyd-Jones over at Desiring God.

The primary task of the Church is not to educate man, is not to heal him physically or psychologically.... I will go further; it is not even to make him good. These are things that accompany salvation; and when the Church performs her true task she does incidentally educate men and give them knowledge and information...she does make them good and better than they were. But my point is that those are not her primary objectives. Her primary purpose is not any of these; it is rather to put man into the right relationship with God, to reconcile man to God.

A sharp reminder to make the main thing the main thing. Too often we can focus on changing people. Change behaviour. Change lifestyle. Change habits. We can educate. We can reason. We can argue. We can protest. We can plead.

We may even be able to get people to change for a while. They can be good for a time. But we have to understand that change is not the goal. Relationship is the goal. Change will not make you part of God's family but a relationship will.

A relationship with Jesus.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him (Jesus) to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.- Col 1 v 19 & 20