Flipbooks

6 Lutheran Life GOING AS CHURCH VERSUS GOING TO CHURCH We love to use the phrase "going to church." Even though many times it means we're going to a building or place to worship the Lord, we also understand that it is a place or building that gathers God's people together in the midst of a community that He loves. As we "go to church," we are reminded that we are going to the community God has bought through the blood of Jesus and brings together every day by the power of the Holy Spirit. How God sees His cHurcH Our heavenly Father invites us to "see" the Church as He sees it. He sees it as His Son's Body through the vision of the Holy Spirit. He sings about the Church, sings through it, and sings out of it into a world that needs to see and hear Him. He speaks to her with bold and tender words. He is intimately, really present in and with her. God Helps us Be His cHurcH When we struggle to see ourselves as He does, when we fall short and sin against Him and one another, when we don't represent our faithful God well, He still knows we are His. He will guide us to continue to become who He knows us to be—Jesus' Body, a community alive with the love of Jesus, set apart for the good works He has already prepared for us to do. We faithfully confess this reality even as we daily work to live in it. May we be a community of saints that is always going as the Church. w Adapted from Devotions on the Small Catechism, pages 56–57 © 2019 Concordia Publishing House. All rights reserved.

• Cover