By Ken Laue

That twenty-year-old Dodge van. It would have to take something substantial to get me past the nostalgia of years of family vacations, camping trips to the lake, Bible study, prayers, and refreshing naps during my long midday work breaks. What a wonderful machine. Showing its age, though. You could milk twelve miles per gallon out of it if you kept your foot out of it. That hurt real bad on my forty-mile commute each work day. And a money-sucking magnet for repairs. First the front end rebuild for a small fortune. Then the brake work. And the final insult: the tranny going out for the third time in fifteen years. Okay, Obama, I’ll take the forty-five hundred bucks you offer for my worthless wreck and get me a gas sipper for a song. Thank you, Cash for Clunkers program.

I’ve been pretty quick to suck up whatever freebies my government will give me. But really, what have I done to build my country? “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” As a WWII vet of PT-109 fame, President John F. Kennedy certainly had a right to ask that question. I’m not a veteran. In fact, I was a hippie with a low enough lottery number in the draft that I didn’t have to go to Canada. But hey, vets, before you kill me… I got saved after that.

But JFK said don’t just take advantage of the benefits of living in the USA, but give yourself to make it a better place for all. How have I done that? Maybe transporting countless kids day in and day out to and from school so they could get an education. Maybe that helped build my country. Thirty years worth. A life of yellow buses. Who can guess the long term impact? That and never cheating on taxes? Maybe that’s it for me.

But what Kennedy said could be applied to the body of Christ. Christ has given me no small benefit by dying on the cross to pay for my sins. And He has blessed me many times over in countless ways. What have I done for His body? What have you done for His body? Ask not what Christ can do for you . . . What you can do for the body of Christ takes place as you attend a Bible-believing church. Attending church regularly and consistently, getting locked into a Bible-believing, Bible-preaching congregation, is vital to anyone who calls himself or herself a Christian.

Over the course of thirty years of salvation I’ve heard many good sermons on the subject and even explained Scriptures regarding its importance to a number of co-workers and others who told me they were non-church-attenders, or believers who had drifted away from church. I’ve explained it’s necessary in developing our faith, like an athlete develops his or her body, through regular training. The book of Romans tells us that our faith is built up by hearing the Word of God. Who wants flabby faith? We need to hear sound biblical preachers on a regular basis. And while sound Christian preaching can be heard online or on the air, there is no substitute for rubbing shoulders in real time with other Christians and making life-long friends. God will even use friction with other church family members to develop your character. “Iron sharpens iron” is a favorite Scripture quote of many believers who have experienced character growth by having to deal with conflicts in situations with other Christians. But one of the greatest reasons for church attendance and involvement is this: Besides saving our souls from Hell, one of God’s other aims in saving us is to bless us. A great deal of that blessing He channels through His people. So if you’re not forming relationships with other believers, you will miss out on a lot of God’s blessings. And then there’s the flip side of the coin. If God likes to use His followers as channels of blessing, what do you suppose the chances are that He wants to use you to bless others?

I’ve often pondered why God gives humans a relatively long lifespan compared to most creatures. If you’re an animal lover, you’re going to outlive several faithful pooches and twice as many cute kitty cats, and your kid’s guinea pig will be very lucky to see half a decade. But I finally figured out that there is so much work to do in my heart to conform me to the image of Christ that God will need all of the six, seven or eight decades He grants most of us just to get to first base in building my character. As my pastor has often said, the longer I’m saved the more deeply I’m aware of my need for God’s forgiveness, mercy and grace.

Recently the benefits of being part of a church family were driven home when, much to my surprise, I ended up in the hospital with heart problems. I went in for a drug-induced stress test, because my doctor didn’t like my EKG on a recent checkup. I thought he was just being over-cautious. You know, doctors these days are paranoid about malpractice suits. But I went along with it just to humor him. How could anything be wrong? I had just done a sixteen-mile bike ride the day before and felt fine. Hurry up, let’s get this over with, let me get back to work, I thought. The nurse-practicioner-tech running the setup was hooking me up to all the machinery, getting me ready for the CT scan. Then he stopped.
“Buddy,” he said, “You are no candidate for this test. In fact, I’m going to slap you into ER.” During a five-day hospital stay and a number of further tests, the doctors found two arteries with 90% blockage, and two surgeries later I had a total of three stents. But that’s just the back story.

The real story is all the people from church who either came to visit me or called me on the phone to comfort me, pray for me, and cheer me up. It dawned on me. Hey, a lot of people care about me! When I got out of the hospital, a number of people intercepted me at church to ask how I was doing and to explain how they had been praying for me. Not just close friends or fairly good acquaintances. Even people I barely knew.

“I could feel your prayers.” Christians say this so often it is almost cliché. But I know it’s not Christian jargon, it’s something real. I can feel the difference all the prayer has been making in my recovery. Hey, you know, I had a close call with death. I had two critical heart arteries at 90% blockage. The upcoming heart attack was how far in the future? A day? A week? A month? I betcha dollars to donuts the prayers of the saints kept me alive. What do you think? Suppose I was a loner Christian without a church body. The sheer number of prayers going forth for me would have been much reduced, to say the least. What a blessing! I’m glad I’m a member of a church of caring, blessing, praying believers! If you’re reading this and you’re not, hey, don’t be crazy; don’t miss out! Just by serving faithfully in the congregation for a number of years, and most of that “behind the scenes,” the blessing and benefits swooped down on me in a time of need. So, ask what you can do for the body of Christ. Because what the body of Christ will do for you is unstoppable, if you get involved.