Before you criticise your church, remember ‘Christ…loved the church and gave Himself for her.’ He hasn’t given up on His church, so don’t you give up on it! And stop talking so much about what you don’t like. If your church was perfect, you’d be out of place! Noah didn’t sail on The Queen Mary; he sailed on a glorified cattle boat. Can you imagine the noise, the confusion, and the violent tossing of a ship in a storm big enough to destroy the world? And how about the smell? All those animals and only one funnel! But here’s the thing – everybody inside the ark was saved while everybody outside of it was lost.
The story’s told of an aristocrat bragging about his lineage and pure-blooded ancestry. Irritated, one of his listeners remarked, ‘I suppose your forebears were on board the ark with Noah!’ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘my people had their own boat!’ You may smile, but there’s only one craft that’s guaranteed to make it safely into heaven’s port, and that’s the old ship of salvation.
Do things sometimes stink in the church? Sure. Jesus issued one of His harshest rebukes to Peter, the disciple who was destined to become a leader in the church: ‘Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest [smell] not the things that be of God, but those that be of men’ (Matthew 16:23 KJV).
But the great thing is that when you mess up, the same grace that restored Peter will be there for you too. So, the word for you today is: love your church!
Deuteronomy 19-21, Mark 13:21-37
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