CHURCH

For more than 20 years, the church to me just served as means to feel good about myself and at times, it stroked my pride and my self-righteous attitudes. I looked at my leaders as perfect and tended initially to put them on pedestals. I loved the hierarchy and the structure and thought that nothing could go wrong. God moved in many circumstances exposing different leaders’ sin, and my heart was constantly challenged to look to God and not just to people in my relationship with him. However, when the Church’s structure and hierarchy that I relied so much on dissolved, I eventually gave up on God and on his body.

 

Just as a lost sheep who had gone astray, God had graciously come after me until he found me and put me back into his fold. This time he showed me the value of being in his body and that my life is not all about me but that it is all about him. He has continuously shown me that my relationship with him cannot be complete without him strengthening my relationships with my brothers and sisters in Christ. God has graciously revealed to me the importance of being open and being held accountable in following his Word. He has proven to me time and again how his Word works so perfectly in my life as I choose to glorify him in all that I am. In addition to doing all that I can to glorify God, I now decide to surround myself with others who also have chosen to follow Jesus and who are willing to hold me responsible in my choices as I submit to God’s most excellent plan.