Who is Winning at Tug-of-War?

People say, "I can pray at home. In fact, my prayer time is better by myself instead of with a bunch of hypocrites. I can talk to God anywhere - anytime. I don't need churh to talk to God. I can take a walk, sit in a tree, or fish and feel just as close to God."

First of all, it is 110 degrees right now. So please don't even try to tell me you are taking praise and worship nature walks! More importantly though, you don't go to church just to pray. You really can pray right by yourself. You go to church to be encouraged, be spiritually fed, and to put your spiritual gift to work so that God can accomplish through you what He created you for in the first place. He didn't create you to watch 4 hours of T.V. a day.He didn't create you to shop until you drop. He didn't create you to mow, bushhog, and landscape away. Some of these activities may be part of your life, but they shouldn't be your life. God should be your life.

Church is where you go to do life. The body are the people to laugh with, cry with, eat with, pray with, praise with, and serve with. See, if you aren't in the body, you don't have your anchor, and let's face it...you're already playing tug-of-war in a pit with an unfair slope. Our culture says to do what makes you happy, take care of #1, let someone else help-you've done enough. If we aren't careful, we'll feel ourselves slip in tug-of-war. We'll start to loosen the grip on the rope. We'll start to point our feet forward so the opponent can slide us over, because maybe it is better on the other side.

The devil, evil itself, would like nothing better than to see you out of the body. He loves to hear, "Well, I can just pray at home." He loves it because he knows he can win against you. He just can't win against the church when the body of Christ is your anchor. God didn't say we couldn't be a one man island, He said we shouldn't. God gave us the church as the perfect platform to do life.

You can tell yourself all you want that CNN, FOX, and The Bachelorette have life all figured out. You can try to tell yourself you are better off without a bunch of hypocrites (aka sinners-we are all sinners thus hypocrites at some point). However, don't be shocked when life seems harder than that hypocrite in church. Don't be surprised when you go through a crisis, and it is that hypocrite in church who is there for you. Don't be shocked when you lose the tug-of-war and discover life like it seems on T.V. is pointless, ridiculous, and depressing.

Some days I am the encourager. Some days I need to be encouraged. That's why I go to church...and oh yeah, I don't like to lose at tug-of-war either!