Growing in Love for the Church

How can we grow our love for the church?  

First, be aware that your heart is susceptible to growing cold.  Misunderstanding, hurt and man’s sinful nature is found in every church.  Which makes it easy for Satan to tempt and manipulate believers into becoming apathetic or critical. So take daily inventory of your heart.  Is it growing in love for the church?  Or growing cold?  Weeds of indifference or negativity will always try to sprout up.  Our responsibility is to see them, pull them up and put them off.  Ephesians 4:22-24

Second, Jesus is our model.  What does Christ do?  He loves His bride through faithful prayer.  Hebrews 7:25 reveals Him as the Perfect High Priest who never stops praying for His people.  “…since He always lives to make intercession for them.”  Let Christ’s devotion to prayer guide our hearts to do the same.  Prayer nurtures our affection for the church.  In Acts 2:42 we see the early church praying as Jesus, and we see a church’s love deepen and become more fortified.   

Last, Christ sacrificially died for the church, so let us follow and give ourselves sacrificially on her behalf.  Our time, our treasure and our talent, these all belong to God and are to be used for God.  Sacrificial living will include parting with some things we hold dear (our comfort, time or money for example) to gain that which is far greater in value, eternal and lasting.  And seeing God glorified through the faithful proclamation of the gospel and disciple making is worth it!  God uses the humble service and sacrifice of the saints to not only accomplish His mission, but to grow and build the church up in love. Ephesians 4:16. 

So, let us imitate Christ and keep growing in love for His church.