Day 222 - FOUNDATION STONES IN A YEAR

by King's Cross Training August 27, 2022

God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

Ephesians 1: 5

Reading: John 1: 12, 13

Just as the baptism in the Holy Spirit is baptism into the Spirit of Christ, and baptism in fire is baptism into the fire of the Lord, and baptism of suffering is suffering for the sake of the Lord – so baptism into the church is about baptism into the family of Christ.

Christ is the head. I know you want to be part of him. But you can’t be part of the head and not part of the body. That’s impossible. And weird.

In order to understand why your immersion into local church is so important, we need to start with looking at what it means to Jesus. I have news for you. Jesus didn’t save you so that you could continue being an isolated individual. As our main Reading for today states, God saved us so that He could make us part of His family. The place where His family is on Earth, is the church.

It would be incredibly weird if you adopted a child and that child took your surname but refused to join the rest of your family. The child, let’s call him Tom, Tom wants his own house, his own bedroom, his own meal times in his own house without any of the other siblings there…you get the idea. Disturbing. And yet, that’s how many children of God are.

No. The Lord is not going to give you all your own little individual things..He’s going to meet you in the family. In church.

Prayer

Lord, help me to understand how weird it is to be a Christian outside of the church.

For the family

Discuss how weird it would be if you had another baby and it wanted nothing to do with the rest of the family. Explain that church is God’s family – and it’s FAR from perfect – but each one of you need to immerse into it.