By Daniel Darling

Ephesians 5:22-30 (see complete text below)

If you are reading this devotional, then I’m guessing you go to church. I’m guessing you’re wondering why it is that your parents drag you out of bed on a perfectly good Sunday morning and make you put on a nice pair of pants and a shirt. Some of your parents may even make you wear a tie. Yikes!

You probably think, What is the big deal about church? Why can’t I just read my Bible at home?

I thought those same things when I was a teen. I grew up in church. My Dad was an elder. We were at church every single time the door was open. We were even there sometimes when the doors weren’t open.

But here I am, 31 years old, and I still think church is important. Of course, I’m a pastor, so I kind of have to think that way. But I really do love church. Why?

Because God loves church. You see, you can’t separate God from church. Sure, your church doesn’t get you to Heaven. And your church doesn’t give you a relationship with God.

But God values church. God loves the church. God thinks the church is important. It was God who established the church. He refers to the church as his bride, his body, and his family.

It is in the church where we utilize special gifts God gave us. It is where we find community. Our faith wasn’t intended to be practiced alone, in dark closets or far away monasteries. God created you and me to be relational. To live out our faith in community and unity.

Those are all big words for saying that your Christianity, your faith, your walk with God will really get stuck and go nowhere if you skip out on church.

Church is where God is—where a special people called by him gather and worship Him and learn from His Word.

So if you’re tempted to roll over next Sunday morning, don’t. Drag yourself out of bed and go live out your faith with other people. That is what God would like you to do.

What is my attitude toward church? What keeps me from church? How can I reengage in church life?

Ephesians 5:22-30(NIV)

22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing[a] her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body.