A Refuge for All Times

I am sure that at some point in your life you have heard people say they like going to church because there is a sense of peace, harmony, and tranquility there. That is true, but it can often be disappointing. We, the church, are those redeemed by the blood of Christ, but we are all still very far from perfection.

Truly, one should go to church to seek God and encounter his Son, Jesus Christ. He is peace. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you” (John 14:27a). Whoever lives in the Spirit enjoys supernatural peace (the peace that “surpasses all understanding” (Phil. 4:7)). It is not the church that produces peace, but the presence of the Spirit in the life of each of its members. When the redeemed bear witness to God’s presence in their lives and testimonies, the church becomes a spiritual home—with walls or without walls—a place of refuge for sinners who seek God’s grace, for those who come burdened (by sin) and weary (from all their cares) and accept God’s grace in their lives through faith in Jesus Christ.

God overlooks absolutely nothing that interferes with his plans of redemption for humanity. Three thousand years ago, God commanded Joshua to establish cities of refuge in the territories conquered and allotted to the tribes of Israel. Refuge for sinners, specifically for those who had caused another person’s death “accidentally and without premeditation” (Joshua 20:3). There they had to await a verdict that would condemn or acquit them. A strategy from God to keep violence and death from multiplying because of the presence of unchecked killers among the people. A decree of mercy and grace for the sinner that calls to mind the time “when we were still dead in our trespasses and sins” and the Lord came near to offer us the best refuge.

The Lord has given the church an extraordinary provision so that the repentant sinner may find his only refuge in Jesus Christ. The church becomes a city of refuge when Jesus is at the center of everything it does and envisions, when it protects the helpless and provides spiritually so that its members long to grow to the stature of Christ.

There are those who, concealed beneath a cloud of confusion and uncertainty, come to church seeking another kind of refuge rather than Christ. They hope to acquire a new identity and image through contact and fellowship with Christians that will allow them to stay “afloat” in the world’s turbulent waters. They are “refugees” of convenience, those who come and go but never stay; immigrants from the world who put down no roots in the house of God or anywhere else.

Between those cities of refuge established by Joshua and the church of the Savior of the world, there is a fundamental difference: in the former, the killer who was found guilty was handed over to the avenger to exact vengeance; in the church of the living God and in Christ, the killer, even when found guilty under the laws of the world, is forgiven and finds salvation. Every Christian, without exception, had fallen short of the glory of God when enslaved to sin. The liberating grace of Jesus makes us accepted and righteous before the Father when we embrace the Son through faith and entrust our lives to him alone.

Even the good soldiers of Christ can fall. Spiritual warfare is a matter of life and death, and the church—both the individual and the congregation of believers—must become a city of refuge full of love and grace for the wounded who come seeking comfort and help. If God did this for us one day, how much more do we today owe our neighbors and our brothers and sisters who have fallen in life’s battles a great measure of mercy. The church—you and I—is also a refuge for sinners who repent, so it is not the exclusive preserve of the redeemed, but is also for the unredeemed who seek the face of God and the shelter of the only one who brings peace, comfort, and love.

May God bless his Word!

Suggested reading: Joshua 20