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Our God is a very big God, but do our churches believe it?
It seems that there is a misconception thriving in our congregations. It is found in the question that is often asked, “Are you fed by your church?’ I have answered “yes” and “no” to this question. Only recently I have come to understand the fallacy of asking the question and the fundamental error of answering it.
As Christians, it is essential to fuse it into our brains, weld it into our hearts, and incorporate it into our very lives that we have only one source to draw on. That source is God (Lk. 11:9-13; 1 Peter 5:10; Ps. 118:8,9 and hundreds more). Sometimes, he does use our churches, ministers, congregations or programs, but not necessarily.
If we come to our churches expecting to receive spiritual food from a minister, person or program, then we are bound for disappointment and disillusionment. We will slowly begin to see God as a small God, not able to meet our needs. We also begin to get desperate to be fed and put pressure on others to give us what we need. This leads to criticism and discouragement of our churches (James 4:1-3) and we may leave and look to another congregation, minister or program of nourishment, and the cycle goes on.
However, if we come to church with the knowledge rooted in us, that God is the only source of spiritual food, then we can relax, assured that he will provide, one way or another. Possibly, food will come through sermons, maybe through another Christian or church program … but it may come through the world, hardship or even through suffering.
God doesn’t always meet our needs through pleasant, supportive and encouraging situations, but he does provide. If we are dependent on a supportive church to meet our needs, how is it that people in isolation relying solely on God, grow and thrive? If it is essential that we have a “perfect” minister to feed us, why are churches in Africa flourishing when they have one minister for every ten to twenty churches? If we have good programs to do our ministry why is China spiritually exploding without any?
As we come to church, our expectations should all be on God and ourselves – God, for how he will provide and what he is asking us individually to do, and ourselves, for how we respond to him.
As we look to God to meet our needs, our churches will change from bickering, unhappy places, to homes of joy and praise. We will see that the Lord keeps his promises. We will realize he is all we need. Only then, we will begin to see how big our God really is.