receiving a fresh vision of the church meetings and the church life in a very practical way

I was recently impressed in a fresh way regarding the meetings of the church. How can you say that you are in the church? Practically, one believer is in the church if he meets with the saints – if he is in the church meetings!

You can’t truthfully say, Hallelujah, I’m part of the church! – yet you don’t go to the church meetings and you don’t meet regularly with the believers!

According to the Bible and also according to our experience in the church life, here are some practical and sweet points regarding the church meetings – the practical church life:

• According to Heb. 12:22, when we meet, we are the church of the living God! Also, when we come together, we have come to Mount Zion, to Jerusalem, a heavenly city! We may be only a few of us meeting there, but according to Heb. 12 we see that there are myriads of angels around us, cheering us on! The church meeting is actually a universal gathering – God is there, man is there, Satan tries to be there, and all the angels and the spiritual forces are watching us! Don’t be discouraged by the small number of the saints you’re meeting with – there are myriads of angels cheering us on! Don’t take the enemy’s lie that you are small in number – the meetings of the church are universal!
• When we meet together, we meet in our spirit – we gather with God and with man! Our spirit is righteous, and we are “spirits” of righteous men! The church in its reality is in our spirit, where there is no condemnation! Maybe we failed a few minutes ago, but now we can deny ourselves and go to the meeting – in our spirit! When we get to the meeting we discover OUR SPIRIT, something corporate! When we exercise our spirit together, we touch OUR SPIRIT, where God and man is mingled! We come together to enjoy a corporate entity of God and man, where God is making His home in our hearts more and more!
• The Lord is speaking to us and through us in the church meetings! He speaks in and through the members of His Body. We exercise our spirit daily to enjoy the Lord, so when we come together, each one has something of Him to share with the others! The Lord as the Head of the Body is being expressed through all His members – He speaks through us, His believers!
• We cannot live without the meetings of the church! We need to meet to live, we need to live to survive! To be a Christian without meeting with the saints is like being a fish without water! For our normal growth and development – even for our survival as a believer in Christ – we need to meet with the saints. The birds need air, the fish need water, and we need to meet with the saints! Just as the “birds of a feather flock together” and “a lone sheep is a dead sheep”, we human beings – even we God-men beings – need to meet regularly with the saints, we need to flock together with those regenerated and sanctified by God!
• We miss a lot when we ‘re not in the meetings of the church – Thomas the disciple of the Lord Jesus missed the meeting when the Lord appeared to the disciples, and he missed the Lord’s appearing! When the saints meet in one accord, as in Acts 2, the Lord pours out His blessing! The Spirit is being poured upon the saints meeting together in oneness and in one accord! Whatever you do and whatever happens, don’t miss the meetings of the church!
• In the meetings of the church we are being richly supplied – we may have a good time with the Lord in the morning every day, and even throughout the day you may touch Him personally, but the grace received personally from the Lord does not compare with what the Lord gives us when we meet with the saints! In the meetings of the church, we are being supplied in a very rich way, and our needs – even the needs we don’t know of – are being met by the Lord through the supply of the Body.
• Do not forsake YOUR OWN ASSEMBLING – as seen in Heb. 10:25, this is our OWN assembling, it is something personal – we meet with the brothers and the sisters until they become OURS! We don’t meet just to sing and read the Bible together, but also to fellowship with one another, know one another, pray for one another, bear one another in love, etc. We meet to fellowship and open to one another, with no fear, no condemnation, no hesitation – here in the meetings of the church it is wonderful!
• The purpose of the meetings is to worship God (here He gets His real worship, through our eating and drinking of Him in a corporate way, through our praises), to be encouraged and build up(through the sharings and fellowship from all the saints, we are being edified and encouraged to continue with the Lord), to build up and encourage the other believers(we experience and enjoy the Lord in a personal way FOR the church, so that we may bring our experiences and enjoyment to the church meeting; we bring our portion and we minister to others – at the same time, we’re ministered to!), and to defeat Satan(The God of peace will crush Satan under our feet shortly; in the meetings of the church, Satan is exposed, his strategy is unveiled, and he is crushed under the feet of the church)!
• The church meetings are the TOP PRIORITY in our Christian life – yes, our career is important, even the university and school is very important, family is important, personal matters are important, but the TOP PRIORITY for us as believers is that we meet with the saints regularly! If you set your priorities straight, you get the maximum benefit! The church meetings are beneficial for the spiritual life and also for our development and growth in our social and personal life! We need to realize what is really important to us – our time with the Lord and our regular time with the saints – and then schedule / plan our daily activities in a good way.

Lord, refresh our vision of the church meetings! Show us the vital importance of our meeting with the saints in a regular way! O, Lord, we look to You that we may have our priorities set in a good way! Be the first in our life, Lord, and may our meeting with the saints be Top Priority for us! We need You, Lord, and we need the meetings! Save us from missing or skipping the meetings of the church! Build us up into the practical day-to-day church life! Lord, we want to be those who go on with You and with the saints day by day! We love You, Lord, and we love the church life!