The Importance of the Local Church

Today I start a series of messages based on the importance of the local church. Dr. Jim Denison who is the best Christian News commentator posted this on Friday. “Grant me today a kind and gentle heart” If you and I are not living and serving in transformational community, it is because we are not fully yielded to the Spirit’s unifying power. If we are, we are answering Jesus’ prayer for his followers “that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me” (John 17:23). Have you invited the Spirit to “fill” and control your life yet today (Ephesians 5:18)? Have you invited him to use you in unity and community with the people of God? I have found the Scottish minister John Baillie’s prayer to be helpful and encourage you to pray it with me today: “O Lord, your divine tenderness always outsoars the narrow loves and kindnesses of earth. Grant me today a kind and gentle heart toward all things that live. Help me to take a stand against cruelty to any creatures of yours. Help me to be actively concerned for the welfare of little children, and those who are sick, and of the poor, remembering that what I do for the least of these brothers and sisters of his, I do for Jesus Christ my Lord.”