It's good to be a church...

I'm not usually one to gush, actually probably I am, but whichever, it doesn't matter, I'm going to anyway.

I just can't get over what a privilege it is to be part of a local church. I mean, I was sitting at church yesterday thinking to myself, man who has this?

Who has a group of people who have committed themselves to being one hundred percent for them? And not just for them, in like a hey I'll say whatever you want me to say kind of way, but really for them, in like a hey I'll love you enough to talk to you about embarrassing things like your sin kind of way.

What's more, who has a group of people who are not only committed to being for them, but who have been in some mysterious way united to them by God Himself...think about it, it's not like we go to church and pretend to be a family, we are a family in just a real of way as with my physical family.

Beyond that, who has a group of people who are being molded and shaped by God Himself to be more loving people, more like Jesus Christ? I mean, if we were just in this church thing by ourselves, we'd be done no matter how good our intentions. But we're not, we've got God working full time on changing us into the loving kind of people that He wants us to be.

To top it all off, who has a group of people who flat out say that they are not striving to put themselves first, but other people first? A group of people who are absolutely against treating people differently on the basis of what those people can give to them?

No doubt, we could talk all day probably about how difficult local church life can be, we could sit around and moan about how ornery some people are, you know how it goes...but really, if we can get outside of ourselves and our situations and stop and think about it all for a minute, I think we'll have to admit taht even that is part of what makes the whole church thing so beautiful; because we're not just loving other people when it is easy, but when it is hard, when it is like the last thing in the world that you feel like doing; and you know, it's in moments like those, when we are working so hard to show grace and kindness to people who are just treating us so terribly that God grants us a special privilege, an amazing opportunity to know a little more about the kind of love Jesus has for us.