Indictments

It is so easy for me to indict the church. It is easy to sit in my chair and make comments that point out the flaws in a flawed church. I realized this week that I am pointing out the flaws in a church that I am a part of and that I make up. I cannot say that this is not my fault or that those flaws don't reflect who I am because in reality, they do. We are simply a body of people who seek to follow a risen savior that loves and cares for us. We follow him by loving others and obeying him but failing often in both.

I believe it is only when we stop pointing fingers at each other and blaming each other for things that happen within the body of Christ that we truly can move as one unit. This doesn't mean that we don't confront, it simply means that we take a deep look at ourselves and how we interact with the body of Christ before we begin pointing out how others interact with the body of Christ.

Jesus never told someone that they were too bad to become part of his body. He never told them that they were too messy. He just said "come, all you who are weary" and they came. It is easy for me to think that people need to be cleaned up and put together when they come to the body of Christ, when in reality we see a picture of Christ's body on the cross as broken, hurt, pained, messy, bloody. Even after Christ is raised from the dead and redeemed from that messiness we still experience and see those scars. If we are the body of Christ and we don't recognize our own messiness before we point out others, Jesus talks directly to us as he talks to the pharisees and saducees throughout the new Testament.

Father, let me be a man that desperately wants to be broken before you. Let me serve you wholeheartedly with a mind that is steadfast in your ways with a heart that follows you unswervingly. God let me be a man that embraces messiness and sees people the way that you see people in the broken body of Christ. Help me to see me as broken. in Jesus name...