Be The Fruit

Idolatry Thursday – Is church your god?

by Bill Blair on 01/05/08 at 3:45 am

You may be thinking:  “How can church be a god?  Church can’t come before God, because it is all about God.”

Think about it a minute.  Remember in my first post, I used a definition that described “having a god” as making something the center or reference point of your life.  So I ask, is God the center of your life or is going to church?  There is quite a difference between the two.  Essentially, to put church before God is to put religion before God.

When you read through the Gospels, you will notice that the people that Jesus gives his harshest words to were the pharisees.  The pharisees were the most religious people of the time, but they focused on legalism instead of love.  They were concerned with being recognized and praised by men for their religious deeds and not God.  Jesus said of them: 

“Everything they do is done for men to see:  They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi.’” (Matt 23:5-7, NIV)

Are you going to church so that others will see you and praise you for being a “good Christian?”  If you are, then you have put church before God.

I think the worst way people put church before God, is to fill their life with ”church activities.”  Some people probably go to Sunday morning worship, Sunday school, Sunday night, Wednesday worship, home group night, and play in the church basketball league.  With the busyness of church, there is no time to take on the real works of God fulfilling the Great Commandments (Love God, Love People) and the Great Commission (Make Disciples).  Too many people reduce being a Christ-follower to just going to church, and others make it worse by making the church activity the center of their life and never begin to serve God.

Think about the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37.  Jesus told the story of two religious men, a priest and a Levite, who passed by and did not help a naked half-dead man that had been beaten by robbers.  But a Samaritan, a despised group of people of the day, stopped to help the man.  I think about this parable and I wonder how many of us are so busy with “doing church” that we pass by scores of beaten people that need our help.  I know most of us would probably stop for the physically beaten, but what about the mentally or spiritually beaten people that you know.  To pass by people in need in order to ”go to church” is to make church an idol in your life.  To fill your schedule with “church activities” so you don’t have time to stop is to make church an idol in your life as well.

Who do you know that needs to hear the gospel?  Who do you know that needs your help?  Do not pass by these people while on the way to church.  Take some time and help somebody if you can.  Make loving God, loving people, and making disciples the center of your life, not church.

Remember, our church activity has a purpose of preparing and pushing us to do good works.  The writer of Hebrew states:  “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Heb 10:24-25, ESV)  Our meeting together (church) is to stir us up for “love and good works.”  Attending church is a means not an end, so do not make it the center of your life.  If attending church is the center of your life, it has become a god. 

Make God your center, and not church.

Until next time, put God first and “be the fruit.”