Everybody loves to belong, because it’s no fun being stuck outside looking in. We belong to families, clubs, student bodies, churches, small groups, neighborhoods and more. Most of us have also been excluded or eliminated from belonging. I was crushed when I didn’t make cheerleading. Nate was wounded when he didn’t get into Harvard. Rejection comes in all shapes and sizes.

When I was a school girl, I had the same strong desire to belong that every other girl had. Thankfully I found Carol, who turned out to be my best buddy from kindergarten through fifth grade. We were a group of two, and if we felt excluded by the other girls, we had the perfect solution: start our own club.

In the back of my primitive journal from those days, I discovered the founding document of “The Spy Club” started in 1955. Its list of rules dictated that the club was only for spies with flair:

• Never back out on any of the members.
• Must always be ready for duty.
• Must be brave at all times.
• When on pleasure trips, must not spy.
• Never get too close when spying.
• When spying on one person, never take to another until finished with the first one.
• Must wear pin at all times, and you will be checked at every meeting and at school.
• Must be at all meetings unless of a good excuse.

Beneath this list was a description of the initiation process: to go on a brave spying trip.

No specific spying challenges are detailed in the document, but there is a caveat at the end: Whenever any of the members are gone on trips, write letters back and forth telling what is happening.

At the bottom of the legal-sized sheet are the signatures of the club leaders: Margaret Johnson and Carol Miller. No doubt our finest missions were spent spying on the other girls, the ones from whom we probably felt excluded.

There’s only one club I know of that’s open to any and all people, and that’s God’s Club. The one qualification needed is a sincere desire to submit to him as personal Lord. Anyone willing to do that can join the Club by going through the initiation: repenting of personal sin.

There are no club dues, because one Donor paid them all, and that was Jesus. His death covered the cost of being in the Club for all of us, and once we’re “in”, God will never turn us out. We might choose to quit, but he won’t ever quit on us.

Although there were eight rules in the Spy Club, God’s Club has only one: to love the Lord with heart, soul, mind and strength. And when we strive to keep that rule, Club benefits abound! Every scriptural promise becomes ours, and we can look forward to One-on-one time with our Leader, any time of day or night.

Best of all, our Club will never end. Every other club will eventually break up or dissolve just as the Spy Club did, but God’s Club will continue into eternity with the assurance that every member will be included forever.

Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die’.” (John 11:25-26)