Friday, March 03, 2006

Building...

I live in a small one bedroom "shire" behind a family from church's house. Currently an addition is being built on to their house, so each morning I wake up to the serene sounds of nail guns and cement trucks...a fabulous way to start my day. For some reason this morning, with the steady echo of lumber being fastened together in the background, my thoughts went back to a something Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:

"Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each does its work."

The beauty of these words leaps off the page at me. Unity is not an ideal; it is Christ's intention for his body, the fullfillment of the Word, and something Paul wouldn't have spoken so passionately and often about if he didn't think it to be possible. For he truly believed God's children could live in and experience this accord by way of his abundant grace.

I can't remember where I heard this, but I'm sick of [certain sects of] Christians thinking we have a monopoly on truth (the "we've got it right" mentality). I'm tired of witnessing instances of Christians elevating themselves above other groups...groups of other Christians for crying out loud. Where's the unity in that? What kind of message are we sending our culture and communities? A message of pure and penetrating love, powerful grace? Honestly, I dunno guys.... When I read that people in North America are leaving churches at an astonishing rate, something tells me our message has become fuzzy, that we're sending mixed signals, that what we say and how we live don't match up. Is that how we want the world to perceive the body of Christ??

I asked our students Monday night how people who bear the name of Christ are supposed to have unity when we spend more of our time debating/arguing/pondering issues that divide instead of focusing on the matters which brought us to Christ in the firstplace. Their answers were honest and genuine, yet spoken with "truth in love." I desperately long for them to live in unity, to put aside their scholastic and social loyalties and pledge their allegience and their life to the way of Jesus. If this was the pursuit of all Christians, what a different and wonderful place would we live in.

Father, help me to know and speak your truth with love, and to mature daily in that love alongside the people you've placed in my life.
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pic of the day, where I live:

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