Common Threads

My Uncle used to have a saying: “If you’ve had a series of bad roommates, and every single one of them is bad, who is the common denominator?” I was thinking about that while I was getting ready for my day, today. How often do we blame everyone else for our problems? In work, in relationships, in most things, we have a tendency to expound upon the faults and issues of others while looking back at our part with rose colored glasses. We do the same thing in the church, too. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying there are not congregations or preachers who are power hungry and abusive, there are. Yet I find it difficult to believe that all Christians everywhere are abusive, mean, and uncaring.

The issue, most of the time, I think, isn’t other people. This doesn’t diminish your hurt with others, but an honest assessment might change perspective. Were the people of every single congregation you visited unkind and uncaring, or did they have expectations? Was there an accountability they tried holding you to that you just didn’t want to be held to? Were you looking to get something out of the meeting, or were you looking for Christ? How you answer this is vitally important!

Loved ones, I say all of this because, in our emotionally charged culture, we’re looking for feelings, connections, and other things apart from God when we come to Church. Instead of seeking the Lord and Master of the universe who died for our sins and rose on the Third Day, reconciling us to God, we’re looking for affirmations. Instead of seeking repentance, we’re looking for satisfaction. The invitation to Christ is always “come and die.” He saves us by His grace, but we also must die to our flesh. Affirmation is not a virtue of Christ, repentance is! Jesus didn’t die because we’re fine the way we are: He died because we are a mess, dead in our sins and trespasses, and needed saving! So instead of seeking to affirm self, let us seek Christ. He will lead us to where we need to be. And He, while working on the sin and imperfection in us through His Holy Spirit, will help us to work through the imperfections of others as we, together, seek the One who saved us.

Ephesians 4

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says,

“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,

and he gave gifts to men.”

 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.