Today in most towns and villages there are one or more Christian churches, each having different names and different identities but having the same origin. Every church is a community of people who identify with the risen Jesus Christ and together they share God’s love in many ways with friends and neighbours in their neighbourhood.
The first church wasn’t a stone building but was just a group of ordinary men and women who had one thing in common; they knew about the death of Jesus Christ and were among the 500 people who together saw and witnessed that Jesus had risen from the dead.
At that time, Gamaliel – a senior teacher of Judaism, made a profound statement to those who wanted to stop the growth of new Christian converts. He told them not to oppose the new Christian movement, because, if their work was of human origin it will fail and disappear, but if it is from God it will last! We can all see that it has certainly lasted.
The church was birthed and empowered by God’s promised Holy Spirit and continues to grow throughout the world with thousands of ordinary people being added every day. We live in a world where we have so much media information from many different sources and it isn’t easy to know what is true and what is false; what or who to believe and what to dismiss.
When it comes to matters that have an impact on our lives, both now and into eternity, it must be better to have the authoritative truth of Jesus Christ rather than just following common or cultural opinion which is certainly unreliable. The question we will all have to face one day is ”What will happen to me when I
die”? This question is fully answered in the New Testament gospel of John, where we can find out everything we need to know about life and death, from the One who is the only Way, the only Truth and the only giver Life; Jesus Christ. God has chosen His church to be the only custodians of the good news of Jesus
Christ and has given his church the mandate to spread the gospel message to every nation, to every culture and to every generation, bringing God’s message of free grace, forgiveness and hope into our world of increasing hopelessness and despair. Why not contact your local Christian church this weekend and find out for yourself some of the wonderful promises that God has in store for you.
Geoff Duncombe
The Gateway Church, Kings Lynn
4 December 2017