I remember a story Francis Chan shared in one of his sermons. He talked about the time he was offered free tickets to watch this Nascar Race. Francis is not a Nascar fan, but since he was offerred one of the best seats in the entire stadium, he decided to go. He got to sit right at the Drivers’ Pit where the crew works to change the tires. While there are thousands of die hard Nascar fans sitting way up in the grand stands, Francis got to enjoy it all under the best conditions. It was only then that he was enjoying Nascar because the conditions were just right for him. If he was invited again, he would only do that under those same conditions.
What Francis pointed out is that he was acting the same way that the North American Christians act like when it comes to our attitude towards church. Where if we are invited to go to Church, we will only go if the conditions are just right for us. We got to have to right daycare, the right worship music, the right atmosphere, the right speaker, and the right message. The Nascar fans that sit all the way at the top of the grandstands that are screaming with joy should be a reflection of how Christians should be like when it comes to church. They should not care where they sit or what they listen to because they are diehard lovers of Jesus.
Another way to view church is how the Hospital is meant to heal our Body, the Church is meant to heal our Spirit. God heals us spiritually: Psalm 147:4, Proverbs 17:22, Jeremiah 17:14, Luke 10:9, and James 5:14.
While we can take great joy in worshipping God, church is important for our spiritual health. One week some of us are doctors, and another week some of us are patients. We need to go to the church for the same reasons we go to the Hospital. We go to get diagnosed to find out what is wrong with our body, and how we can try to cure it. In the same way, we go to the Church so we can be diagnosed what is wrong with our Spirit, and how we can be cured. There is no reason why we should not go to Church. It does not make sense for someone to say, “I will not go to church because the church is full of hypocrites”. That is like saying, “I will not go to the Hospital because it is full of sick people”.
Many of us treat Church as this To-Do list when really Church is time spent healing. God is tremendously in love with us. God is like a husband that would do anything to care for us and protect us. We have THE GLORY OF GOD which is an incredible privilege & honor.
