The community for you? Or you for the community?

I don't have much time to really work through and clarify all these thoughts right now. But I have been pondering this struggle of wanting a church for me versus wanting to give myself to a church.

I do want a church to be something for me. It's just who I am...selfish...more often than I like to admit it. I am, like Paul says, a sinner who does what he does not want to do, and what I want to do I do not do.

But I want to give myself to the church community, not go to the church community for myself. "Me for the community, not the community for me."

But...

I am a sinner in need of faces of people who love God and others...and I am that "other" to you...

I'm not in need of touchy, feely, crying, and hugging love...though that could be part of it. I'm not in need of another program, men's study, or bible study...though that could be a part of it. What I am thinking of by saying I need others who love God and love me are people who know that:

God asks us to love others...not do things to get them to like us...and God is not pursuing us in our lives to try to get us to like Him...the things He does and the way He pursues us us is loving us regardless of whether we like Him or not...and regardless of whether we return that love or not

Do I want to be loved? Or do I want God and you to make me happy? Do I want God and you to work to find ways to make me like you? Do I want to be loved or liked? Do I want love others or work to make them like me?

A recent study says that:

More specifically, 28 percent of churchgoers who choose to leave their previous church do so because the "church was not helping me to develop spiritually," the study revealed. And 20 percent of respondents leave because they "did not feel engaged or involved in meaningful church work.

There is meaningful "church work" in every face we see....whether it's at "church" or not...

We love...we don't work to make others like us; or like our church service. Or our teaching. Or our sense of humor. Or our music. We don't work to make others like us for anything we do or say. We love them by "doing unto others as you would have them to unto you." Do I stop and think, "If I were that person, what would it mean to me to be loved?"

We are called to love God and love others. God created us...me...you...and He loves us so much He suffered for us to get you back to Himself.

He suffered and died to bring us back to himself. He loved us...regardless of whether we liked Him or not...regardless of whether we killed Him or not.

Believe and trust that God loves us, and then we don't need to work to make others, or God, like us. We love others, regardless of whether they like us or not...regardless of whether they kill us or not...in word or deed...

For God loves us first...

John 3:16God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die.

Father, thank you for loving me and forgiving me...even when I turned my back on you, forgot you, killed you, hurt myself, hurt others, or wished you were dead in my own heart...help me to not work to make others like me...but to love them as you loved me.