{"id":1938,"date":"2011-06-15T06:00:46","date_gmt":"2011-06-15T13:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devonline.us\/dailyevotional\/?p=1938"},"modified":"2011-06-16T16:36:37","modified_gmt":"2011-06-16T23:36:37","slug":"god%e2%80%99s-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/god%e2%80%99s-church\/","title":{"rendered":"GOD\u2019S CHURCH!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Matthew 16:17-18<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #c40000;\">\u201cJesus answered and said to him, \u2018Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.\u2019 \u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p>As I have been studying the subject of the church, I have been reminded of the many times I have heard (or used myself) the expression, \u201cmy church.\u201d Perhaps this is most common among pastors who come to feel that it is their church. May God forgive us for this narrow minded and erroneous point of view.<\/p>\n<p>Can I let you in on a little secret? Pastors are human! Yep! That\u2019s right. We are subject to all of the emotions and failings that everyone encounters. Since a pastor\u2019s ministry is usually wrapped up inside the concept of the church it seems natural for him to assume that it is \u201chis\u201d church. Beep! Wrong answer!<\/p>\n<p>Notice the last sentence in today\u2019s Scripture. Jesus speaking to Peter says it is \u201cHis\u201d church. It was then and it still is today! We must never lose sight of the fact that we are members of Christ\u2019s church and we need to treat it accordingly. Those in positions of leadership must always remember that it is not their church and they are merely the serving at His pleasure.<\/p>\n<p>The particular group of believers that you congregate with may vary in size. It may be a large congregation or few in number. The size has no bearing\u00afit is His church and we need to be in anticipation of hearing His voice whenever we meet in His name.<\/p>\n<p>Blessings dear hearts. Draw near to God today, trust Him completely and be a blessing!<\/p>\n<p>Pastor Cecil (360) 570-0074<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>P.S. &#8211; You can help! <\/strong><\/span>Please consider trying to get one other person to subscribe to the Daily-E-Votional. This worldwide ministry asks for no funds and is sent to glorify our precious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matthew 16:17-18 \u201cJesus answered and said to him, \u2018Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matthew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}