The Competitive Church

I made a decision a while back to make my blog about Jesus and not as a rant machine, however there are times we must compromise to say what needs to be said…

Jude 1:3-4 (NLT)
“Dear friends, I had been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share. But now I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to his holy people. I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches…”

Jude was writing a letter to the churches dealing with false teachers. I am writing my letter to the false Christ-followers…for many of them have ‘wormed’ their way into our churches (and our blogs) as well.

Dear “Christian,”
We are called to ‘Go’ into all the world to make disciples, to baptize, and to teach the things that God has commanded of us. We were commanded by God to love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, and mind and equally to love your neighbor as yourself. Now it is evident that many of you definitely love yourself because you do no wrong, but in the apparent perfection that God has granted you, it seems that you have the special ability to point out your opinion of everyone else’s wrongs. But, I have to stop and ask, how is this loving your neighbor as yourself? Or in your perfection, was this not written to you? You can treat everyone else as you wish, as long as your neighbor loves you, right?

Here’s the way I see it…when you come to people’s blogs and leave divisive comments or send hateful emails, you have too much time on your hands. Without being judgmental, I would say the perception is, you are not fulfilling the great commission or the great commandment. In no way are you making disciples (for Jesus), you may be trying to make disciples for yourself, as you spew your venomous wisdom; you are not baptizing and you definately are not teaching or illustrating what God has commanded of us…to Love Him and to Love our Neighbor.

Recently a man decided to have a ‘willing suspension of the truth’ concerning a blog post from a friend of mine. It was talking about a new church that is starting in the area where he once served. An area that he prayed for, cried for, and sacrificed for. An area where all the churches in the county combined could not house the residence if they decided to come to church on the same Sunday. This is not the first attempt from this man to bring my friend down or to cause problems with others, but this time he is going a little too far by sending letters to the neighboring churches trying to stir discord amongst them and the pastor who is starting the church as well as my friend. I ask, are you familiar with Diotrephes? Please read what the Bible had to say about him…

3 John 9-11(NLT)
I wrote to the church about this, but Diotrephes, who loves to be the leader, refuses to have anything to do with us. When I come, I will report some of the things he is doing and the evil accusations he is making against us. Not only does he refuse to welcome the traveling teachers, he also tells others not to help them. And when they do help, he puts them out of the church.

Dear friend, don’t let this bad example influence you. Follow only what is good. Remember that those who do good prove that they are God’s children, and those who do evil prove that they do not know God.

I will let scripture speak for itself. It says that those who are God’s children will prove that through doing good. This man is not the only one that has done things like this. There are hundreds who infiltrate blogs everyday! I cannot judge any man’s salvation, but the Bible says you will know them by their fruits. I don’t see any of the fruits of the spirit in these type of actions, do you? I do not see any good in these actions do you? How can someone who truly know the love of God, spread such venom? In the Bible, we called these people Pharisees and Sadducees. Jesus told that group in Matthew 23, that ‘they traveled land and sea to make one convert and when they did they made them twice the sons of hell as they were.’ he said ‘they were like tombstones, pretty on the outside but dead on the inside.’ He said ‘they treated people like a dirty glass, they clean the outside, but leave the inside dirty.’ People like this would rather others look like they want them to, sound like they want them to, rather than to have them live like Jesus would have them to, why? Because they are not living like Jesus would have them to live!

Christian, people are perishing without Jesus. People are living life confused and without hope. They look at Christians and we show them less hope. We do not have time to waste on personal preferences or twisting of words. We do not have time to knick pick about who said what. We do not have time for churches to look at each other as competition. We are not Long Horns versus T-Bones. Its not who can be bigger or who has the most people or the biggest budget. We should celebrate when a pastor blogs or when a church launches, or when missionaries are sent out or the hungry are fed or the poor are taken care of. The only reason we cannot celebrate those things is because usually we are not doing them, and we feel guilty about our own disobedience to our Savior. The church needs to unite, and I fear when we stand before the living and mighty God, we are not going to be able to blame the music industry, Hollywood, politics or anything else for entire generations departing from God (like in Judges 2:7-10), but we will have to admit that it was the weak, divided, judgmental Christian…the tariffs among the wheat that let people slip away. Church, Christian, let us see those who cause division as they are, ignore them and move forward for Christ, sharing his love to a confused and lost generation! Join me!