Day 6 - A Love for Your Church

Read: Matthew 16:15-20; John 13:31-35; Acts 2:42-47; Ephesians 3-4

Why should you love your church? Because Jesus loves the church. Ultimately, your church doesn’t belong to you or to anyone else in it. It belongs to Jesus. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus said, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” In Acts 20:28, we are told that Jesus paid for the church with his own blood. Jesus loves the church and gave himself for her. Your church may be nothing to look at from the outside world, but take a moment to consider what Jesus sees. In the end, Ephesians 3:10 tells us that God intends to put on display His manifold wisdom through the church. He does this by uniting Jews and Gentiles, not by some geographical or ethnic commonality but through faith in Jesus Christ. 

God’s grand plans for the church get worked out through our loving one another (John 13:34-35), through our devotion to gathering together to sit under the teaching of God’s Word (Acts 2:42), through our pursuit of God together in worship and prayer (Acts 2:42-47), through our walking together in holiness and unity (Ephesians 4:1-6), and through our giving ourselves in ministry to build one another up (Ephesians 4:12-16). Loving your church in these ways gives us a front-row seat to the glorious plan God has to make Himself known in the world. 

As you reflect on what it means to love your church, consider reading our Church Covenant. This is the commitment we make to one another before God as a church family. 

Prayer Points

• Pray for God to strengthen and encourage our church to grow in holiness

• Pray that we might be marked by unity and love for one another

• Pray that we might grow in evangelism and discipleship 

• Pray that God would use us in our new location to serve our community and to reach people with the gospel 

• Send a text to someone to ask how you can pray for them.