The church is open to all who believe.

In his book Gifts of the Desert Kyriacos Markides quotes a Greek Orthodox Monk saying, “The Church Is like a hospital, it takes fallen, sick, and confused human beings, who suffer from all sorts of destructive passions and sins, and with its very tangible therapeutic methods helps them attain real health.”

In Ephesians 4 14-15 Paul says this:

14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.

Many people say that the Christian Church is exclusive But when you step back and look every major religion is exclusive.

But I also want to make it known that it is also inclusive Jesus said in John 3 starting at verse 14 Jesus says this:

“14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Don’t miss the next sentence

17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

People outside the Church spend so much time telling us that we cause hate because we believe that Jesus is the only way to God. God knows who will and who will not accept Christ. We do not need to put human constraints on an all knowing, all seeing, eternal God. If some one does not want to be with him now why would he want to cause them the grief of spending eternity with him.

The world today says the Christian message today is one of exclusivity but I want them to see that Jesus died for everyone and when you take all the world religions today none of them but Christianity have a loving God at there heart who would give his son for our sins. They just don’t.

The church of god (Anderson In) says this: No one person decides that another will or will not be admitted to membership in a local group. Neither congregations nor congregational leaders vote on who shall be received as members. The Church of God believes that when one accepts Jesus Christ as Savior, God places that person in the church

Jesus’ prayer in John 17 sums it all up.

20“My prayer is not for them alone (he has just prayed for the disciples). I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. 25“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

If you are not part of the Body of Christ today I’m not going to tell you that you have to go to the front of a church, you can pray right where you are. None of us are here by coincidence or chance we are here for a reason. So if you do not know Jesus all you need to do to start the process is tell him you want to know more about him ask him to guide you as you read your bible and he will begin to draw you closer to him and reveal himself more and more to you.