WHEN WE MUST GET OUR WAY

A significant struggle within the church is from the element of individuals insisting upon getting their own way. I know such a subject sounds....well, so childish. So, why bring it up? The reason I want to discuss it is because it is childish and we are too old to have such attitudes remaining among us.

I must tell you I've had to be taken down a few pegs in the last thirty years. I didn't realize I was living in such territory. Neither did I realize how wrong it was. How could that be? Why couldn't I see it?

I couldn't see it because I just assumed the right way to think was the way I thought. How vain! But I learned it as a kid. I learned it from some of the older folks around me. I had no idea that some (even many) things could be done differently and it would still be all right; that I would still be all right.

The church is this way. Some (even many) have opinions about how a worship service ought to look and have become quite outspoken when the order and events aren't to their specifications. The irony is there is no such biblical description or guideline to do it the way we do it. We just believe it is the right way. To be asked to consider options is offensive to these because this is the way it ought to be done.

Why is this topic important? Too many dear and wonderful people are bent out of shape because of our misguided whims in the name of Truth when nothing of the sort came from the Word. This makes a misery of the people and a mockery of God's revelation.

I found that to express my preferences, with the clear understanding there is more than one way to do a plethora of ministries, makes life flow quite a bit better and a little more in line with what Jesus had in mind. Of course, there a some things not optional to opinion. Yet, the body of Christ is guilty...very guilty....of reversing the way things should go. We have legalized opinions and opinionated God's laws. We have built faulty cases regarding worship styles while dismissing gossip and lack of mercy.

Neither the lost nor the saved can afford for us to clamor for getting our way. It is wrong. Such comes under the umbrella of pride and too many are unnecessarily dying in spirit when we cannot allow room in the spiritual zones God would not curtail.