- We have led members to believe they need the proper arrangement/alignment of sequential verses in order to tell the true story right. We have mistakenly assured them their story of falling in love with God and wanting to follow Him is not enough.
- We have led members to believe we are the only ones right. Therefore, when sharing the gospel with others they better tell it "the only right way". As a result, this quenches all ambition to reach to others as insurance for not getting the story wrong.
- We have led members to believe the fruit of a Christian is another Christian. This unnecessarily heaps guilt. The fruit of a peach tree is not another peach tree. Otherwise orchards would snap as one looked out to see trees hanging from trees. Each tree bears lightweight and easy fruit and within the fruit is the seed for another tree. We are to bear Holy Spirit fruit and within such is the seed for another Christian.
- We have led members to believe we do most of the work and God does very little. The reverse is true. God works. He's calling to lonely and fearful and frustrated hearts constantly. We are to simply perceive ourselves as His useful puppet in connecting the soul dots. He is the Potter; not us. God works directly in the Christian's life via the Holy Spirit...through us to the hurting.
These are only a few traits of convincing the church it cannot win the world. Some are bent on reversing this mistaken trend. I am most grateful for a patient brotherhood who has helped me gain confidence in the Living God and not in myself. We are destined to win others to the Loving Christ. If you fit into any of the above categories, may this note today give you the courage to jump from a mistaken ship and soar into the unknown zone of reaching freely to a very needy community!
May you be convinced knowing God is information enough to have something to share. May you thoroughly looooove your life in Christ. May you smile brightly in rooms of others where they barely see as life is so very dim. Light up your heart. Shine upon a dark office crew or a gloomy reunion or a murky church service. Let's free our people by encouraging the body of Christ we have abundant life and assume others would want in on the privilege!
4 comments:
We definitely are afraid! I was brought up with the "right way" mentality. It extinguishes any passion I had.
Just a couple of years ago, I always heard or it was implied that Jesus' warning in John 15 about bearing fruit was another Christian. It worried me to want to hurry and get someone under "my belt" so that I wouldn't be "cut off". After some other studying, I got to thinking about the fruit would easily be that of those in Galatians 5:22-23. The Fruit of the Spirit are a good place to start and then the seed of the gospel would be found in love, joy, peace, etc. When you help a neighbor out, you give a piece of fruit, in that the gospel seed can take root. So then you go back to water and fertilize it.
I said this exact idea last night when talking about Matthew 3 and the "fruit" that the Pharisees and Sadducees didn't produce. It wasn't followers, but fruit like love, joy, peace, etc.
A couple of weeks ago, I had my entire congregation draw a line drawing inside of a lunch sack. They had to do it without looking and in one continual line. They had one minute. After, they opened it up and looked. Most had a good laugh. My point was that I told them regardless of what it looks like, it is the line drawing. Then I showed them a picture of a baptism and said that we get too bogged down trying to reproduce that result. Pointing out that regardless of how they share Jesus, and what it "looks like", they will have still shared Jesus in the end...that is our assignment!
Blessings ~
Converting others to US rather than to Jesus has not helped the cause either. As for "being right" on all points of doctrine, I think this is one of our greatest faults. We are not save by our rightness (I know I'm preaching to the choir) nor our rightness. But our particular tribe is "wired" in series so if we are wrong on one point of doctrine, we just might be wrong on all points, so there is no chance we're wrong on anything! And all our passion is diverted to being right.
Great post.
Post a Comment