To God Be Glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus

“CHURCH” … for a moment forget everything you think about when you hear the word, “church” … so that you can grasp what God is saying in Ephesians 3:21, through the words of a prayer written to those who believed in Jesus in the city of Ephesus. In this one verse God reveals what the entire New Testament confirms: The CHURCH, the Body of Christ, is God’s chosen means to bring glory to Himself, even as He does through His Son Jesus Christ!! It would quite probably not be an exaggeration to say that billions of people today fail to understand this truth because they reject the very idea that God’s purpose from the beginning has been to gather for Himself a people out of the entire human race. Wanting instead to believe that all people are entitled to fashion their own gods or to choose to imagine that they themselves are “god,” the masters of their own fate, people hate the very idea that a “chosen people” exists and even more, hate those who proclaim that the sovereign God who chooses to send His Son to gather such a people for Himself is the one and only true God! To understand the Church, you must understand what Jesus came to do. He did not come to love the world into obedience to God’s Law, given 1400 years earlier. He did not come to show people that God really doesn’t care about disobedience to His commands or about people knowing who He is. Jesus came to reveal the one true God to the world and to gather a people who would continue that task after He ascended into heaven and until He returns. Jesus promises, “I WILL build MY Church!” For nearly 2,000 years Jesus has been doing just that. Are you part of this “called- out assembly?” Here’s how you can be sure!