Friday, May 19, 2006

A Grace Strangling Church!

Imagine a church of 15 people, wide range of ages & backgrounds. (I have no church in mind by the way).
A high value of status exists within the group.
The Teenagers respect those with either a flash car and/or like a certain type of music
The women 30+ respect others according to the type of house and how well its kept
The men 30+ respect others according to job and education
The retired respect according to behaviour of children and how smart your turned out!

How eager would you feel about joining them, regardless of whether you are a Christian?
Jesus said "They will know you are my disciples by you love one for another".

I am concerned "church goers"**, allow such values to strangle the grace that has been given to them. Either they place a perceived status on someone else and feel they are unworthy to invite the person with the large house round for a meal at their flat. Or the one with the large house feels they could not enjoy an evening of uneducated conversation at the flat.

When Jesus said "by their love for each other". It was love that comes out of fellowship He was talking about, because He said "...they will know they are My disciples". Fellowship is sharing the Grace we have received from God through Christ, with eachother. Yet we strangle it by our "perceived" statuses of others and ourselves.
Further reading Luke 14:7-24
Luke 14:7-14 "Strangling grace by Presumption" - Pride
Luke 14:15-24 "Rejecting grace by Complacency" - Materialism

** By saying "church goers" - thats all they are, for a church is a community of people who know God personally and each other through Fellowship (see above). God is at the centre. Those discribed above do not know this fellowship, because they strangle the grace they have recived, or they have sadly never recieved it at all.

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2 Comments:

At 9:13 AM, Blogger Stov said...

like it bro. Keep on blogging. Keep grace at the heart of all you do. Teach it. Model it.

 
At 11:37 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

Had a great time at Oughtibridge WR Church last night. Afterwards we had a good time talking through the subject of Grace at length. Sorry I was last one to leave!

Luke 14:20 "Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’
This parrable came under my heading "Missing Grace by complacancy!"
Question - Would you prefare your Husband/Wife Full of Grace or Full of Themselves?

To be full of grace, would mean living out and out for the other, without expecting anything in return. 1 Cor 13 condemns us just as did the Corinthians back then. I need to re-read it through.

 

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