Articles
Born Again
""I'm a born again Christian and everything, but I have a personal relationship with Jesus, I'm not into the whole church thing."" Ever heard that?
Jesus once told the Sadducees "You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” Matthew 22:29 ESV. They had a misunderstanding about our relationship with others in eternity. People who say they are Christians but deny the church don't understand their relationship with others in this world. They too “are wrong, because they know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.”
If you truly are a Christian, you are in the church. "There is one body" (Ephesians 4:4). "We, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another" (Romans 12:5). We are reconciled to God "in one body through the cross" (Ephesians 2:16). "For we, being many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread" (1 Corinthians 10:17). "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body" (1 Corinthians 12:13). The one body has "one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all" (Ephesians 4:5,6).
The foundation of the church is the only one of its kind: "For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:11).
And the one body with a unique foundation has one head. Christ is "the only begotten Son of God" (John 1:14,18; 3:16,18; Hebrews 1:5; 1 John 4:9). He is one Shepherd of one flock (John 10:16). "He is the head of the body, the church" (Colossians 1:18, Ephesians 1:22,23). "Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body" (Ephesians 5:23).
Its His church, the body of Christ, that He's coming back some day to take home with Him. It's not a matter of whether or not you want to be in the church, if you have met His conditions for salvation, Jesus has placed you there. You are a member of the family. Acts 2:47 says "And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”
If you are a born again Christian, your family needs you, and you need them.
