I remember a pastor telling the story of a man who went from church to church trying to find the perfect church.  The pastor told him, “Well, if you find it, don’t join it, because you’ll ruin it.”  How true.  We, as believers, are not perfect.  We would like to be, but we all have a human nature.  We go to church because we love the Lord and want to be together to worship Him.

The White Dove of the Desert, San Xavier

Why don’t you go to church?  I know why I don’t go.  I have bronchial asthma, and perfume is a trigger that sets me off coughing for days.  A lot of people complain that the church is full of hypocrites.  Well, duh!  You’ll find that the bars are full of hypocrites, too, but nobody is complaining about that.  Why the double standard?  Why are people who aspire to a higher standard judged more harshly than people who don’t want to aspire to any standard whatsoever?  You would think that people who want to do better than they are doing would be admired for their effort.  Oh, well.  I have found a lot of honest people in churches, and I’ve found a lot of honest people in bars.  We are all trying to get through the day.  But people in church are drawn there by the love of God.  He loves us even though we are not perfect.

I have been to a few churches where I did not feel “accepted.”  In “Choosing Life,” I told you that I was divorced, a single mother raising two children alone.  But not “feeling” accepted never bothered me.  I wasn’t there to be “in your face” to the other people.  I was there to learn the word of God from a good teacher and to worship the Lord.  That’s all that mattered to me.  Over the years, I noticed a change in churches that truly believed in the Lord Jesus.  Soon I was included.  I learned that the church is full of imperfect people longing to grow and improve.  Just like me.  We all belong there.