How do we get divisions to melt among us? Each trading in a demand or two isn't the solution. All of us are far from completion. Read the scriptures. We are nothing and He is everything. Realizing our complete depravity might move us to closer ties of pulling for one another that the power of Christ might live among us.
I wonder if we have a grasp of how far off we are from what God expects of us. Holding the Bible up to our most liberal or most conservative friends finds gaping holes in both groups. We are nowhere near what God thought we should be in our practices. Our only hope is to rush to hide in Jesus for we must find salvation in order to escape from ourselves.
If we could get things done right we would have been given progress sheets; not Bibles. Our people have mistakenly assumed that if we would lock in on five strong items (and for the zealously faithful, nine) then we will have pretty much covered the zone of religious requirements which please our Lord. He is so holy. We are so not. To prove the latter all we have to do is read of our righteousness coming from Jesus and not from ourselves.
If we will drop our screeching claims to doing God best and realize we are all but a pitiful people in need of redemption, perhaps then we will experience the unifying thrust of Holy Spirit life in churches. As it is, we are losing ground in the land of darkness because the light we are trying to offer is phony. If the light were to come from the reflection of Jesus in us, we would surely be offering a powerful hope to those in our midst.
Unity? It's one of those major church components which is not out of reach. We must do our part to see that we are not out of touch with the glorious call of God. We have not mastered church. We have been invited to open the door. He stands and knocks. Shall we continue to run church the way "we" want or humble ourselves implying what little we know isn't much?
6 comments:
Wouldn't I like to have all the answers? Not really. Then life would not be challenging, I would have to be like Superman or Batman, and be everywhere all the time. Only God has that capability. I wish I were right more often than I am but there will always be those that might do it better than me, reject me no matter what, and those know it all type people. I have never been this way, have you??? I would be surprised if we weren't all that way at times, it is human nature. As Terry Rush challenges us with his diversity of thoughts on different subject, I find myself sometimes deciding to look for just the right book or website to send his readers to, but does that even matter? I love God and through a Relationship through His Son, Jesus Christ, life has much much more meaning than just life itself. Read Ephesians 4 for more information than I could ever give you alone on the subject of unity. And then if you feel like it go to the 2 websites below and read some if you like. God Bless, Jim Cooke
http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue88.htm
http://rouses.net/blog/2007/07/progress-toward-unity-in-omaha.html
I read the post and think "What great inspirationally (is that a word) intelligent comment could I leave? Then I realize that it does not have to be brilliant just to say "Terry, thanks for being in my life" and "GOD, I will try to do my part and be the example I need to be for your kingdom"
Help me out here--what do you mean by complete depravity?
REGARDING ANONYMOUS' QUESTION OF TOTAL DEPRAVITY.
You raise a very fair question. I was hoping to slip that one by without challenge; yet, I didn't succeed. So, yes let me explain.
I do not mean Total Depravity to mean that state of "we can't help it as to how bad we are" doctrine which was properly weeded out in years gone by.
My intent (meaning) is to awaken us to what I believe to be a fact that we are far more removed from doing Bible things Bible ways than we dare imagine. I believe we divide as a people because we are so sure we do so very many things which please God....when in actuality we are far from the mark He desires.
I hope this explanation is somewhat satisfactory.
I liken our shortcomings to a toss at a dart board. We toss the dart at the board, and miss the bullseye, every time, each by a varying distance. Some are "close", and some are far off, even off the board.
We miserably try to compare who is closer or further from the mark, focusing on our skill at getting close to the mark. But the truth is we ALL missed it...100%! A miss is a miss...doesn't matter how far.
Jesus is the only one who ever hit the bullseye, and thank God for His grace to bridge us back from where we missed to where He hit it.
Thanks for your posts.
What 5 or 9 items are you referring to? esc
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