The church is made of broken people. Those that form the church grew up in the world, and they share the same brokenness, mindsets, attitudes, imperfections that the world has. If we are to express love, understanding, patience, kindness, etc., to the lost, how much more should we express these to our brothers and sisters in Christ? We should learn to expect that, out of their brokenness, our brothers and sisters in Christ will hurt us just as much as anyone in the world might.
Now, let me clarify that I am not talking about abusiveness here. If a Christian is purposely sinning and hurting people, there is a much different dynamic at work and it needs to be address through the discipline process that the bible outlines, but that is a different topic. I am talking about every-day hurts and offenses here.
What would happen if, instead of expecting our brothers and sisters to behave according to our own definitions (and expectation) of sinless perfection, we expect them to hurt us every once in a while and choose, beforehand, to express forgiveness to them? What if we expected them to make the human mistakes that we are so eager to forgive when we make them ourselves? What if we expected them to have different opinions, mindsets, ways of thinking and understanding than we do?
What would happen if every Christian chose this attitude, instead of choosing to become offended and react out of their own hurt and pain?
I think that we would experience a much different church, a more relevant, tolerant, and understanding church, a church that is much more appealing to the lost as well as the saved, where members flock to in order to experience true, intimate, SAFE, fellowship. I think we would see much more unity in the body, instead of church and denominational splits every other week.
What are your expectations of your fellow believers? What attitude do you choose to have towards your brothers and sisters? What attitude do you think Jesus would have you choose towards them?
No comments:
Post a Comment