As you read this, please remember that I don't think that I am right in everything. I believe that the true gospel of Jesus is all that I can be sure of. So please tell me if you disagree on anything else and I will do my best to humbly accept and consider your thoughts.
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Guilty?
Me too.
I wonder what the church would be like if we changed. I wonder what the world would be like if we changed? If you read Paul's letters and read Acts you will quickly see that Paul would be furious with us. He spoke of unity and love and sacrifice. Paul didn't speak of division and arguments and persecution! He did not tell us to kill abortion doctors and build electric fences to keep the gays out!
In Acts we have multiple examples of Paul sacrificing his morality and doing something he knew wasn't the truth, all for the sake of preaching what is truth. He went through the Jewish procedures to enter the temple and paid for meat to be sacrificed, even though it was not his way of living. He did what ever he had to to preach the gospel to a group different from himself. I am not saying that we should all abandon morality and forget about our rituals. I am saying that we should be willing to let go of everything but the true gospel, for the sake of the true gospel. We should be able to become who we are here to love. We should be willing to drop all that we think we are that we may help someone see who He is.
Everything.
I believe that if we actually loved each other and we actually loved the people who haven't been saved, we would be doing everything in our power to live life with each other. Paul said constantly that the church was to house all peoples. Some would say, "Well, it does. We have all kinds of churches." Whoopty freakin do! Paul didn't want us to split up in order to make it work. That is divorce! He wanted us to let go of our differences and conform accordingly to each other's needs in order to live out what really matters.
If the only thing that matters is the only thing that we agree on, that is perfectly fine, because if nothing else matters, we should be able to let go off all the rest. If we can't, then we are making the truth equal with the rest. We are to grab hold of the gospel of Jesus Christ and let that be what bonds us. We are not to grab onto our idea of what is okay in a church and let go of those who disagree! What I find funny is that our decisions for who is aloud are so selfishly made. They are often rooted in what we struggle the least with. I mean, seriously, it's easy for a strait guy to condemn a gay guy. And it's easy for a sober man to condemn the drunkard. But what about the gossiping american suburban mothers?! What about the Lustful porn addicts?! What about the one who thinks he is worthy of something?! We are all guilty!!! Who are we to decide who is aloud in our church?! Last time I checked, sinners were aloud. If that has changed, we might as well make them into skateparks or something, because no one is going to be there. Well, maybe some pharisees being thankful that they don't ever mess up...
We must start loving each other. If we were all as wise as the tax collector, we would all know that whether we are right or wrong is irrelevant in this. We would see that we are arguing about the controversial call that the ref just made so much that we aren't able to play the game.
The only thing that I know is absolutely true is that Jesus Christ is the Lord and that he died that I may live! He came down to earth, a demotion from his original dwelling place. He left a perfect place and came to a place of filth and injustice, a place where he was mistreated and murdered, a place where he didn't agree with anything that was going on. He came here just to love us. He knew we were wrong, but he chose to love and serve instead of leave us to die. He came to invite us in instead of to tell us that we messed up so much that we're no longer welcome.
We must go to the place of conflict, the place of disagreement, not to make it right or to be dominate, but to love the people who are desperately needing it.(Everyone)
The American church, as a whole, is not acting like Jesus in this respect. We are spending way too much time "fixing" our kinks and not enough time loving each other. What if we dropped the kinks? What if we actually lived out the gospel?
The world would never be the same. We must join together for this. I have things you don't. You have things I don't. It is this way for a reason. It is this way so that we can't make it alone. It is this way because when we join as one with God, we will be complete. A body has many parts.
The body has one Spirit.
