The Church is a hospital for sinners and not a rest home for the saints, as anyone who has been in a church for more than fifteen minutes will be aware.

Many, many people experience this and then burn out. Why go to church, why be part of a community when it’s simply another place to have to deal with people, but these ones by voluntary association? I have to do this at work, why do it here?

If you approach the question like this and run a social financial cost-benefit analysis on what you get for connecting to Jesus’ Body, you will certainly come up short. But if you think this way you will also come up short in everything—in marriage, friendship, at work and in your family.

Of course this not how it actually is, but selfishness in grabbing more for oneself always makes us feel empty, and generosity and obedience always makes us feel full and overflowing. If we run a biblical cost-benefit analysis, we see all the blessing God has poured out upon us. What does it cost to give it away? What do we get if we do? It was given us to in order to love others, and the only way it will be a blessing to us is if we do. This applies to every area of our lives—relational, vocational, emotional, financial, and spiritual. God gives to us so we can give, and when we do He entrusts us with more so we can give again. He who is faithful in little will be faithful in much.

The Church is a hospital for sinners, but it’s also a factory for saints. This is where God works on us, and He never burns out on us. God’s grace is abundant in the body life of His Son. Come to Him and find rest.