For many years, I treated the church as if it was a form of torture. I wanted nothing to do with people who oozed with the “churchiness” that I loathed. I held myself in arrogance over those who were found in church, as if they were to be pitied and despised.
Slowly and gradually, the tender kindness of God has changed that perspective. He has shown me that my despising others was not of Him, but rather out of my own insecurity.
I don’t want to hold up theology and beat others with it, forgetting love.
I don’t want to have to agree with someone in order to love them.
I don’t want to assume that I hold the image of God alone, but instead see it reflected in many different ways throughout the body of Christ.
I don’t want to condemn others when God Himself has stated there is no condemnation. (Rom 8:1)
I want to see people with God’s eyes, past their behavior and posturing to their heart.
My friend and mentor, Mike Wells, used to say that anytime we move from the center of the wheel down a spoke to the edge, we are missing out. Anytime we require a program, a way of thinking, a behavior ahead of Christ, we have moved from the center of the wheel. It must be Jesus first and Jesus only. He is our Life, and we can’t find that in productivity or moral living. We are not supposed to be generating our “pleasing-ness” to God. He has already made us pleasing in making us a new creation. We need only live in that.
Too often I look at those in the body of Christ (I call it the big “C” church rather than a building or denomination) and forget they are all a part of a bigger whole. We are all the body of Christ, and when one mourns, we mourn. When one rejoices, we rejoice. When one believes something to be true, we can support even if we disagree. But we don’t want to move from the center of the wheel.
So, if the body of Christ has moved from Christ, we want to bring them back. We want to remind them of the Lover of our souls, and keep focusing them on the One who knows and loves endlessly. We remind others in the body that Jesus is the common theme, and all the rest is subservient to Him.
And before I get emails, I know the people in the body of Christ have hurt others. I have hurt others. You have hurt others. I mourn the pain in that, but I don’t believe that this should alienate us from the body. If a person stubs their toe, they don’t let the toe cut into the head because the head misdirected directed it. They take care of the toe that has been hurt, and try to get it back to functioning again.
I say all these things as one who stepped apart from the body of Christ and tried to push it away for a great many years. I didn’t want to get hurt by it, and I felt the tension of disagreement or comparison. Instead of separating, though, I believe we are called into the body, in whatever way He has for us. Perhaps it is in the simplicity of ministering to a family member or in a workplace, but each of them is still a part of the body. I want to partake in that body, as crazy and weird as it is sometimes!
Let’s stop beating up others and comparing our knowledge or behavior to theirs, and instead come seeking restoration and love. God is the One who heals us in the hurt people have caused us, but also the One who empowers us to love those who are different from us.
If I were to speak with eloquence in earth’s many languages, and in the heavenly tongues of angels, yet I didn’t express myself with love, my words would be reduced to the hollow sound of nothing more than a clanging cymbal. And if I were to have the gift of prophecy with a profound understanding of God’s hidden secrets, and if I possessed unending supernatural knowledge, and if I had the greatest gift of faith that could move mountains, but have never learned to love, then I am nothing. And if I were to be so generous as to give away everything I owned to feed the poor, and to offer my body to be burned as a martyr, without the pure motive of love, I would gain nothing of value. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
Just as the human body is one, though it has many parts that together form one body, so too is Christ. For by one Spirit we all were immersed and mingled into one single body. And no matter our status—whether we are Jews or non-Jews, oppressed or free—we are all privileged to drink deeply of the same Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:12-13
You are the body of the Anointed One, and each of you is a unique and vital part of it. 1 Corinthians 12: 27