A Church-less Gospel?

Is it possible to be "Gospel Centered" and leave out the church, the Body of Christ? Nope, not really. The excerpt below is from A Church-less Gospel? at| SBC Voices:

When we minimize, indeed, even eliminate the local church from Christian living and following Jesus we have missed the Gospel.

Part of this stems, in my opinion, from our over-focus on a “personal relationship with Jesus.” And while undoubtedly the Christian life is very much about a relationship with Jesus (John 17:3), we must remember what the church is in regards to Jesus: his body, the temple of his Holy Spirit, his bride, his flock, and his household.

Several times over, the Bible calls Jesus the head of the church which is his body—and we are the members. A church-less gospel is like the thumb trying to be in a relationship with the head while maintaining no connection to the hand, the wrist, the arm, the shoulder, the torso, etc. A severed thumb really has no relationship to the body at all, let alone the head.

The Gospel is more about Jesus saving a people (Titus 2:14) than a particular individual. Yes, God saves his people by saving individuals but then he takes them and makes them part of something bigger than themselves—part of a flock, a body…a church.

The Gospel produces the church. And no individual Christian can live a Gospel-centered life apart from belonging to and involvement as a member in a local church....

Much more at the link.

Claire’s Prayers

Some beautiful thoughts from Anthony Russo on the heartfelt prayers of an elderly Alzheimer's patient - Claire’s Prayers | SBC Voices:

...There in the silence of a room full of people Claire prayed as though only Jesus could hear her. Said with a slow and careful reverence, we all heard the same childlike words of faith God was hearing,

Dear Jesus, Thank you for being my Savior. You are my Savior and I love you. Thank you for my husband and our church and our pastor. I love you Jesus. You are my Savior.

If ever I sat in a holy moment, it was that one. Claire’s once agile mind, now racked with all the altering cruelties the disease could press upon it, could not be diminished in expressing the deepest loyalties of her heart. The atheist Richard Dawkins himself would have been converted if he heard her tender sincerity.

Alzheimer’s is not the only illness inside Claire. While it is attacking her mind another is attacking her body. How much longer she has is known only by her Savior. Even so, the very thing that has made Christianity unique everywhere it has been proclaimed is no less true for Claire: Resurrection. The “living hope” as Peter calls it; just as the Lord Jesus Christ defeated the damning effects of sin and triumphed over the hopeless grave, so now we who hope in Him need no longer despair that which comes to us all.

Someday, because of Jesus Christ, Claire will have vitality in mind and body like she’s never had on earth. A glorified, sinless vitality. Eternal life. And when that day comes she will look at her Lord and say with perfect clarity, “Dear Jesus, Thank you for being my Savior. You are my Savior and I love you.”

Amen, Sister Clarie, Amen!