Pathways Press.com

Written by Lewis and Sarah Allen. Lewis is a contemporary pastor and Sarah a teacher and women’s ministry leader. This is an excerpt from their work: “Resilient Faith: Learning to Rely on Jesus in the Struggles of Life.”

The hardest thing for struggling Christians to recognize is that church is exactly the community they need. So often, they feel it isn’t. Church, they tell themselves, is for the strong, the confident, the “at peace with God and man” believers. When Christians who are finding the journey hard really need to be part of the church, they convince themselves they should be anywhere but church. Is it the tempter at work, or is it just the natural instincts of discouraged people to isolate themselves? It’s both, of course. But this can’t be the final answer for exhausted saints. All Christians always need one another. The church is God’s masterpiece, the community in which his glory in Jesus is displayed (John 17:22; 2 Cor. 3:18). If we’re struggling in our faith, we simply need to get ourselves to that glory display… We see glory in the gathering of the church. As Christians come to worship, God comes to meet with his people. We both really do mean that. Years of church involvement can lead us all to be skeptics. We all are skilled at detecting insincerity, mixed motives, fixed smiles hiding pain or sin (most likely both). We all inwardly groan at clumsy leading, bad music, and bad preaching. Maybe some are dealing with wounds of unkindness from leaders and people alike. Sundays can be stressful. This much is true. What is truer still, amid the failure, is that Jesus comes to shepherd his people. Sunday by Sunday, as we sing, pray, hear preaching, celebrate baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and open our lives to one another, we encounter the glorious love of the Good Shepherd by his Spirit. The Lord who has died to win his church to himself delights to walk in her midst. There is a substitute for our isolated struggles, and it is the corporate gathering of the church. The weary need to hear this and believe it.

Prayer:

Written by Candace Crabtree, a contemporary writer.

God, help our church body to walk in a manner worthy of the calling You have given us. Help us in all our interactions with one another to have humble and gentle hearts. Grant us patience for one another, bearing with one another in love. Grant the Body of Christ unity. May we walk humbly with You, God, allowing You to show us our wrongs.