We must stay committed and loyal to a church in order to grow spiritually. We are imperfect beings serving a perfect God, and when we take our eyes off of God and turn them toward people, we tend to make the wrong decisions. Last Tuesday, I went to evangelize at the Falls, the mall at Kendall. I approached two young boys and began to preach to them about Jesus. One of them seemed familiar to me. He used to go to my church a few years ago until he decided to leave and switch to another church. He felt that he was at home in the new church and that he wasn’t OK with a lot of things concerning our own church.

The problem with this is when we begin to develop our own mindset about God and about the church. When we stop going to church for God and go for people to hang out with, we are headed to make a huge mistake. Now, we only go to a church because we feel that the people are friendlier, but not because we want to have an experience with God. We want to find a girlfriend, but we don’t want to know the Creator that knows who she is. We want to seek a degree, but we don’t want the God that will give us the degree. When ambition becomes greater to us than God’s vision, we will only seek a church that will satisfy our own needs and our own agenda.

I have met countless of young people that have made this mistake and have ended up in the world. They think that they know all about God and the ministry, and they felt like God was calling them into a different church. Unfortunately, more than half of them are back into the world and back to what they were doing, because the church that they decided to go to wasn’t feeding them spiritually. It isn’t about the people, but it is about God. The problem isn’t what the church can offer us, but it is what we can offer to the church. How can we contribute to the kingdom of God? Judas made the same mistake when his eyes strayed off of Jesus. He began to criticize Jesus. He began to think that Jesus only wanted money, or only wanted a higher leadership position. All these different ideologies played in his head until he made the ultimate decision of betraying him. This led to his “spiritual death.”

In order for us to grow, we must stay grounded and rooted in where God has put us. If we decide to move, then, we are taking matters into our own hands. It is like going somewhere without receiving instruction from the Holy Spirit. We are shopping for a church, when in reality we should be asking God to work in our character. Change isn’t about the building; change has to do with us. The moment that we begin to desire to see change in a building and not in us, we are plotting our own demise. Here are some things to think about when looking for a church:

• The presence of God must be present every time you step foot into that church.

From the very first time that I stepped foot into King Jesus Ministry, the presence of God was evident. I have always wanted to feel the presence of God as a young boy. But I always went back to the world because I was never taught how to enter into his gates. Every week, or every day that I am in my church, the presence is alive, and Jesus is my reality. There is no doubt that Jesus walks in the room every day. There is continuous prayer and intercession, and the life of Jesus breathes into that temple on a daily basis. This is my motivation to keep coming. Every service, every house of peace, and every discipleship meeting is a fuel that gives me what I need to pursue God at all costs and to fight no matter what!

We can’t demand change in people, we must demand to change ourselves.

Why do we want people to be perfect? Why do we come to our church and suddenly we think it is like Disney World, where everyone will be like Mickey Mouse that will do no harm to us? Did we forget that even the disciples of Jesus had contentions with one another? We must be the change that we want to see in people. This isn’t like the world; church is different. We lead by example. I am the example of seeking God, and not getting offended by what people say or think about me. I will stay committed and I will stay here.

We must change the way we think and mature.

We have to make the decision to mature. The hardest people to deal with are those that come from other churches because they develop a different doctrine and idea than the ways that we think about God. Everything that a supernatural church thinks is because they’ve had an experience with God. We must accept that we don’t know everything and that we need to begin to grow. Otherwise, when this church doesn’t present an idea that we don’t like, we will simply leave and go to another church.

We must serve and be a part of what God is doing in that church.

I have heard many people criticize our church because of the commitment that is demanded and expected. They prefer to go to a local church that doesn’t put the same goals that we do or the numbers of souls. The problem with this is that we find an excuse in the numbers to hide the fact that we’ve lost passion and hunger for God. Jesus said that if we want to be a disciple, we must deny to ourselves and go follow him. Nowadays, we just want to attend church and we don’t want to bear fruit. Jesus said that if we don’t bear fruit, he will cut us off!!!

We must surrender our own agenda.

Do we want a leadership title so that we can be recognized? Did we leave our church to attend another one because they offered a salary, or a position, or recognition? We must die to all of that. Jesus saved us so that we can serve, not so that we can be served. None of us deserve to be leaders, mentors, or anything. We are who we are because of his grace, and it is because of his grace that he will continue to move us.