Today's Passage - Ephesians 5:25-27

River of Life Christian Church ︳www.rolcc.net/english Ephesians 5:25-27    "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansingher by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless."     God's will for His church in the world is to "build His glorious church". I grew up in church. The pro is that I was already familiar with all the biblical teachings and participated in all kinds of ministries long time ago. The con is that I have seen too many problems inside church. So when God called on me to become a full-time minister, I didn't consider pastoring a church at all. All I wanted was to do campus ministry, because I was thinking that working among those young, energetic and teachable students was very promising, while working in a church could be complicated and problematic. However, two years later, God took me away from campus ministry to serve in a church in a very clear way. At that time I was still not completely confident about my switch.     After several years of fumbling in church, even after certain achievements, I was still wondering which direction God's church should go in, and what God's will for His church should be, until I went to a retreat. During that retreat, Senior Pastor Chou of Bread of Life Christian Church Taipei portrayed an unforgettable picture for me in his sermon "Build God's glorious church": In the future wedding banquet of the Lamb in Heaven, Jesus is the bridegroom while church is the bride; Jesus awaits at the front, while angelic hosts are in the audience. When the bride appears, according to the Bible, she will be a holy, blameless, and glorious bride, worthy of being married Jesus. God taught Pastor Chou not to look at church from people's point of view to only get more and more discouraged, but to look at church from God's point of view according to God's eternal plan to get more and more excited.      By the vision God entrusts him with, Pastor Chou started to become more and more joyful in his ministry. From then on, God also planted the same vision deeply in my heart. The most important work of the Spirit in this world is to cleanse, equip and build up church to become holy, glorious and satisfactory to God until the day Jesus returns. Can you get such a vision? Are you willing to work with God and build up His church together?                                                                                   Pray with Pastor Tong           Lord, we thank you for once again planting this vision of glorious church in our hearts. You will in the end times is to build glorious church. May you lift us up so we can dedicate ourselves to your Kingdom ministry in our daily life and our ministry until you come. We thank you and we pray in the victorious name of Jesus, amen!