I was thinking this morning, the reason we have so many letters to various churches in the Bible is due to the fact that every church, no matter the denomination has flaws. While this conclusion may seem elementary, it may not be such. Take a look at your own church or the churches you have visited and the attitudes they have so rigorously embodied and transferred to others knowing them to be the "truth." People do a lot of stupid and terrible things when they think they're in the right.
We're all just trying to figure things out. We're all mixed up and all in the wrong. And that does not mean (as Romans discusses) that we should abuse grace. What is does mean is that we should not judge. That we should be slow to anger abounding in love, as the Pslams state God is. We should love our brothers, because it covers a multitude of sins (I Peter 4). We should give each other a little grace, hmmmm... like the forgiveness and grace Christ gave us? Funny the Bible talks about that and yet we are so quick to forget about it. Are we not called to be imitators of God? (Ephesians 5)
Satan parades as an Angel of Light and oh does he does his work well, church warring against church when we should all be unified. We all know Christ. We worship the same God. And yet we war and argue with one another... when will we see the damage we are doing to our ownselves? No wonder the world wants nothing to do with us.
God forgive us when we fail to see our own iniquities and are so quick to point out and cast out other's. Help us to see with Your eyes, spiritual eyes, the eyes of Your spirit so the we are able to do Your will in the works of Your churches throughout the world. Renew our minds, restore our hearts.
God forgive us.
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2 comments:
Great thoughts. I see you have no comments here and since I just commented on your other post, I'll chip in something here.
I once preached a sermon on this topic and I submit that while we should as we say "love the sinner and hate the sin" that to often we focus on hating the sin first. And the problem with that is that hate is infectious and when we focus first on hating the sin we end up hating the sinner as well.
There's a song (well if you call rap singing) by a group named Everlast (I think) called "then you really might know what it's like" and one of the verses talks about a woman who is confused, hurt and pregnant and who goes to get an abortion. At the clinic she gets hasseled by the ravenous groups of angry "Christians". I am in no way in favor of abortion, but in my sermon I said that if Jesus were alive today he would not be standing out front of the clinic with all hyperactive idiots, he'd be in the back waiting for her to exit so he could love her and tell her she is forgiven.
Exactly. I'm so glad to have you posting here... please continue to come back! I enjoy your thoughts!
And that's a great song. It illustrates a great point. Thanks for your comments!
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