The Church of Jesus - Strong & Powerful (Daily Devotional)

Hello everyone and welcome to Living Supernaturally, the daily devotionals by All Peoples Church, where we take a few minutes just to spend time in God's word to encourage us and build us in our faith. This week, we just want to focus on the theme ‘the church of Jesus’ and today, I just want to talk about what really is the church? Because when we think about the word church, we may get a lot of pictures, images that are running through our heads. Like for example, a building with a cross or maybe its people worshipping, but what really is the church of Jesus? Jesus gives us the definition in Matthew chapter 16, verses 16 to 19, He says, "Jesus answered and said to him, 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who's in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.'" Now very interestingly, this is the first time the word ‘church’ is written in the New Testament, and this is how Jesus introduces the church. He says, "On this rock.” Peter just revealed that Jesus is the Son of the living God, and it is on that truth, on that word that the church is built on. The church is built on Jesus. Then He says, 'I will build my church.' So, the church is really a building that is built by Jesus and when we look at the word ‘church’ in the Greek, it is ‘ekklesia’. It simply means a gathering of people. So, Jesus is building his church, and it is really a group of people, a gathering of people of faith who believe in Him. And then He says, "I will build my church." It belongs to Him. No pastor, no bishop, no denomination can claim ownership over God's people because the church is built by Jesus. Then He says something about what the church will do. He says this phrase, "The gates of Hades, the gates of hell, shall not prevail against it." Now, in Bible times, gates were a place of authority. So, really what He's saying is the gates of hell are the power centers of the enemy on the earth. We know that the enemy is active, he's ruling on the earth, and so He's talking about the power centers of the earth, and the enemy cannot go against the church. Why? Because He says, "I will give you the keys," which means the church is authorized and it has power. Keys represent authority, represent access and so, Jesus says, "He will give the church the keys of the kingdom of heaven." So, just want to remind us of two powerful truths through this passage of what the church is. The church is strong, it is built on the rock, that is Jesus Himself. He is building this church. It's a group of people gathering together. The church is powerful; the church has the keys of the kingdom of heaven to go against the kingdom of darkness. So, the church is strong and it is powerful and I pray that each one of us who believe in Jesus will get a true revelation of what it means to be part of the church of Jesus. Let's pray, Father, we just thank you for this time. Thank you for this revelation, we thank you that you, Jesus, are building this church, and each one of us are part of your church. Lord, we thank you for the reminder that the church is strong and the church is powerful advancing the kingdom of heaven on earth as it is in heaven. Lord, we thank you for this time and we thank you for this reminder, in Jesus’ mighty name we pray, Amen.
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Daily devotions to strengthen your faith each day. Daily Devotional for Spirit filled living. Each daily devotion is about five minutes in duration. These daily devotionals are centered around a weekly theme. So there are seven daily devotions that focus on the theme and bring you insight, understanding and revelation from the Bible. Each week's theme is listed as a series. So you can listen to the current week's devotions or go to any previous theme/series that speaks to your present need (https://apcwo.org/resources/daily-devotions ). Also available free sermons (https://apcwo.org/sermons), and free Christian books (https://apcwo.org/books) to nourish and strengthen your faith.