Church is an awesome thing. It's a family of people believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Belonging to one surely brings a lot of blessings and joy to one's life. However, expecting too much is a no-no because church can't be everything to us.
Expecting too much from your church, no matter how kind and loving the people in it may be, will bring about disappointments. As believers, we must remember that God is not the church, the church isn't perfect, and the church is a collection of people – imperfect and hurting – who are far from being perfect as well.
As such, here are some things you shouldn't expect the church to do for you.
1. Love You to Bits
We all think that church is a place where those who love Jesus gather together, and because of this, we think that everybody loves everybody, and everybody does good to everybody.
Wrong. That's a very wrong assumption.
Sure, there will be some who will love you complete with all your imperfections, but we cannot expect the church as a whole to love us that way. The church is a collection of many people who have their own likes and dislikes. And though everybody has confessed to following Christ and are working towards Christ-likeness, not all have the same love that Christ had for people.
We should love people in church. But just like what Christ Himself experienced, we can't expect that everyone will love us back.
2. Secure Your Salvation
Salvation is a matter between you and God. Christ paid the price for your forgiveness and salvation, and it's up to you to receive it yourself. There's no such thing as "collective salvation," where just because you're spending time in church or with the saved, you're saved yourself. No.
The church cannot save us. No group of faith can save us. Only Christ can save us. Let's not expect the church to save us from our troubles. Only Christ should be our Saviour.
3. Solve Our Problems for Us
I've seen many people spend their time in church, volunteering themselves because "it feels good to serve God." While that is absolutely true, I've discovered that some of them do that as an escape from other things they should be facing: family problems, academic failures, financial woes, and other things.
Friends, we can't expect our problems to be solved by doing a good thing in church. Going to church doesn't solve our problems, but asking some help from our friends in church might help. Our problems are our own, and the church can't solve it for us.
"Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near." (Hebrews 10:23-25)
