What is the church to you? Depending on where you are in your walk with Christ, this answer will vary. God has called each of us to a church where we will be helped, loved, tested, and trained. I can’t say I’ve found in the Bible where it says to go to the church where you feel blessed the most, or that gives you the most. Sometimes God calls us to step out of our comfort zone and be trained in another area of our walk. I think my husband and I can say we have been to churches where we have learned what to do and how to do it, and we have been to churches where we have learned what not to do.

I think one of the biggest areas where we are tested is in submission. I realize this isn’t a word that the world likes at all and even some in the church despise it. I can’t tell you how many Christians have told me they don’t answer to anybody but God! The world has turned submission into a four letter word. It suppresses women they say. Submission is another word for oppression in their minds. Submission is not a bad thing. When I submit to my husband, I am coming under his protection as the head of our home. When we submit to our leaders, we are coming under their protection as the leaders God has put in our lives.

Church is a training ground. We absolutely need to help people get over hurts and gain complete freedom in their lives, but we also need to be trained to become the warriors that God has called us to be. There is a reason that God calls us to put on the His full armor. This life is a battleground, but we must also remember this;

Ephesians 6:12New King James Version (NKJV)

¹² For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age,^[a] against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

If you can’t submit to any authority in a church, you are in rebellion. If you cannot submit to one church and would rather go place to place each week, you are in rebellion. Church is also a place where we have to be accountable. God calls us to one place, even if it is only for a season. God has called us to be a part of the body and when you cannot submit or commit to the body He has called you to, you are not only affecting yourself, but you are affecting your church.

So let us rise up and take our place in the church and stand together in one accord. We must come to a place of understanding that we aren’t in battle with each other in the church. One church is not better than another. This is Kingdom Big! We are all part of the army of the Lord! Find the church where God wants you to be and submit to it and grow in all ways. Trust God and trust that He has placed people in your life that you can trust and submit to. Let’s become the army of God He has called us to be!