Until We All Are One

In our hyper egotistical American culture throwing stones from off of our tongues has not only become a favorite pass time but a staple food to satisfy our appetites to be right and elevated. We are an overt critical culture. We belittle and backbite men and women made in the likeness of God, and why? Because their theology is a little different than ours? Because they do not fit our particular mold of standards? Where did we get the crazy idea that loving someone despite their flaws is some how consider condoning the behaviors/ideas we hold as wrong?
Do not get me wrong! I am an advocate for truth and I am typically quick to try and shed light on situations that I do not believe to have a firm footing in the truth. I am all for the defense of the truth. Sadly we use it as an excuse to degrade our neighbors.

I was a heavy drinker of cynicism. I am honestly still recovering from this arrogant “know-it-all” personality that caused me to spend my life being uber critical of others. What is more disgusting is how I convinced myself for so long that it was justified in my walk with Christ. I am so relieved to finally be at a place in life where grace has begun to weed out all that nasty cancerous garbage.

Christ said the sum total of our purpose as the church, the primary way the world would believe, was to live in harmony in the same way that the Trinity exist in Harmony! Boy! Have we dropped the ball on that one! The Trinity exists in perfect union all the while still being distinctively unique and diverse. Sadly the church does not. It is almost like we hunt for new ways to become increasingly more separate and disconnected. It all stems from the false idea that our particular denominations or “camps” have it all together. Last week I had a fellow brother in Christ tell me that diversity is the killer of the church. Honestly I was floored. It is that exact idea that disables us from being “one as they are one”.

Note I’m not saying that there are not deal breaker differences. Because there are things that are non-negotiable. Sadly it is not those things that have caused the mass schism in the body of Christ. It is our obsessive need to be right over the non-essentials that honestly hold no bearing on the expansion of the Kingdom. Honestly at the end of the day the real kicker is that no matter how Jacked up or wrong someone is we are to never regard them as in the flesh! We are called to see the best in each other! We are called to see Christ in every human being that walks this earth! And in doing so love can do its perfect work! Even if they believe something outlandish! Love trumps all of it! We need more love and grace than debates and arguments. They only seem to breed more and more quarreling. It is an endless cycle of continually building up higher and higher walls. We need to get it through our thick skulls that love trumps our need to be right all time! There are times for correction but the current state of grotesque bashing is completely anti-Christ in nature. We are cursing the very people made in the image of love!

I desperately needed a refresher course in the authentic practice of loving my neighbor as myself! With no ulterior motive or agenda! With no snap judgments! and without my insatiable need to vomit trash about the people I am called to love like it was some involuntary reflex! We need to get back to the basics of this thing! Loving God and allowing that immense love to spill over on to everyone we see, no matter how much they have it wrong!

Through whom, to whom, and for whom all things exist!

-Ryan

 

Ps. Here are some verses to ponder on!

 

2 Corinthians 5v16

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh!

James 1v19

 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger

1 Corinthians 1v10

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and though