God’s Assigned Place of Protection - Part IV
The Blessings Of Commitment To Church Family
by Dr. John Tetsola

Last month we saw that if God’s people are ever going to be fruitful and mature, discipline is essential. True biblical discipline is pain plus impartation. You will have opportunity to be offended as you submit to local church discipline, but if you press past the pain you will receive the impartation and blessings that stem from the local church which is God’s assigned place of fruitfulness and maturity. Now let’s see the blessings associated with true commitment to the local church family.

God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.

Psalm 68:6

Just as the natural family is a divine institution which functions optimally with the commitment of its members, so it is with the church family. Covenant church life requires the unified and ongoing commitment of every joint supplying. It is God’s purpose to set the solitary in families, yet we have Christians whose level of commitment to their local church family is limited to sporadic church visits and part-time fellowshipping. But unless commitment to Christ and His church manifests itself in a substantive level of commitment, it is a false commitment that cannot attain God’s maximum blessings. When a believer is committed to a local church family it means he is committed to a specific place and to the vision of the leadership in that family. It means he is committed in terms of time, energy, as well as to the meeting times (meal times) of that family. It means he is committed in terms of financial support to the family and to bearing the burden of that family. To say that you are committed to a church family while not identifying with a local church in a specific way keeps one bound with chains, spiritually dry, and can ultimately lead to rebellion. So if you lack spiritual luster, check your level of commitment to your church family because “He bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.”

The Purpose of the Local Church Family

For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

Ephesians 4:12

The local church is a tool God uses to perfect and develop character in us. To bring this about, God plants us in context with other believers in a church family. These individuals are just the ones we need to help balance our deficiencies and to rub off any rough edges in our character. Besides developing character in us, God uses the local church family to edify His body as He develops ministry in us. One qualification that God places on church leadership is that they are not to be novices. The word novice in the Greek means “new planted.” If we are constantly being uprooted and newly planted we cannot effectively contribute to the edification of God’s family in the earth. We’re to know them which labor among us (1 Thess. 5:12). If we are not committed to a local church family and of good report among the brethren, we lose a great deal of our efficiency. Stay in one place long enough to be known among the people, to edify the body of Christ, and to be planted in a local church family because a stranger who exhorts does not have the same effect as a brother who exhorts.

by Dr. John A. Tetsola