Sunday, October 16, 2011

One Body Under Jesus Christ



Tonight we had a prayer service in the community where our church plant is.  It's purpose was to pray for all those involved in the school corporation of the community.  All of the churches in the area decided to unite together for this cause and to pray together as one body of Christ.  I believe tonight was a beautiful display of what Christianity was intended to be.

Though I completely agree that there has to be parameters set on who qualifies as a Christian body, I believe we are doing a great injustice to Jesus by arguing over who has the better church.  It is important that foundations of Christianity be set as criteria between the denominations and some of the parameters that would be included is the belief in an inerrant Bible useful in modern day teaching, Jesus as the one and only savior of the world and the only way to heaven, the acknowledgment of sin in our lives, and the acknowledgment of the Holy Trinity to name a few.  The devil has weakened the church so significantly today through our division.  We are all one family in Jesus Christ.  I do not believe that there will be different denominations in heaven.  I do not believe that Jesus looks upon denominations with happiness and joy.  I also do not believe we will ever reach the whole world for Jesus Christ as a separated and divided religion.  Jesus' own words in Matthew 12:25 are, "Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand."  


Are we not followers of Jesus living to proclaim and extend the kingdom of Christ?  So can Jesus' words apply to us?  We have got to learn to work together instead of spending all our time coming up with jokes and reasons magnifying our own differences.  I believe that Jesus' words in Matthew 7:3-5 also should be haunting to how different denominations treat each other today saying, "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye."  Folks, I understand that there are certain denominations that have no resemblance to Biblical Christianity any longer but we need to focus on the brothers and sisters of other denominations that share many of our same beliefs and come together to reach our communities and world for Jesus.  We can't do it alone and no denomination has figured out the one and only right way to be a Christ follow, contrary to popular opinion in certain denominations.  


I guess I write all of this tonight because I see so many instances of Christians working against each other instead of working together.  Why do you think the world doesn't want to know Jesus?  Could it be because they are truly watching us and they have enough dysfunction in their lives without needing to add Christianity to their list.  Both Jesus and Paul warned of false witnesses but I don't remember anywhere in the New Testament where divided churches were written about positively.  I don't remember Jesus saying, "go out and make your own sect of disciples and then enlarge your own sect as much as you can making sure that people understand that your sect is the best."  I don't believe that is in the great commission.  


As to the picture I posted for this blog, my wife came up with this analogy, "We are all the beautiful feet of Jesus.  It is just that there are many different shoes represented across the world.  Therefore we need to quit worrying about the different shoes someone else is wearing and focus on getting down and dirty spreading the gospel of Jesus to the world."  The centralizing theme in our lives should be Jesus and Jesus only.  Lets drop the labels of "denominations" and embrace the label of  "Followers of Christ."  Now I know that these things that I just said can be abused and people can twist these words and ideas for other things that are unbiblical and un-Christian but the main idea here is that we are all family as Christians and we need to start acting like it.  We need to start loving our brothers and sisters whether they are apart of our denomination or not.  We need to start working together instead of trying to get credit for an event as our own.  We need to remember our priorities again, which is simply to win souls to Christ for the enlarging of His kingdom and His glory.  Let's lay down our prejudices, traditions, and human stubbornness at the feet of Jesus and let Him begin to do a great work in us.  I believe if we could just do this we would see a revival and winning of souls across the world larger than the world has ever seen.  


Blessings,


Greg

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