Why the Hurt?

     My wife made an interesting comment not long ago. She said; "It would be easy to be a Christian if it were'nt for other Christians." We usually accuse Satan and his menions for the evil of this world and rightly so. But it disturbing to me the way Christians allow themselves to be used by the devil in sowing discord in the Lord's church. This should not be. As Christians, we are supposed to be bringing people in, not driving them away.


     I have recently read two books written by Dave Burchett. The first; When Bad Christians Happen to Good People."  It confronts the fact that there are people who who have been hurt, not by non-Christians, but by bad Christians. You may ask what is a Bad Christian? It's simply a christian caught up in sin. The second is Bring 'Em Back Alive. A follow-up to the first, its theme is how to reclaim those that have been hurt and driven away by the church.


     I have had the unfortunate opportunity (more than once I might add) to witness Christians behaving badly over the past few months. I have seen first hand the damage that it causes. I have witnessed the jealousies, the lying, the selfishness and other sins that have disrupted the fellowship and disheartened those that are fragile and may be waivering. This ought not be. Paul describes the ideal church attitude in the following verse.

⁹Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. ¹⁰Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. ¹¹Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. ¹²Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. ¹³Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. (Romans 12: 9-13, ESV)

We need to take it to heart.

What Defiles a Person

     Matthew chapter 15 begins with Pharisees and scribes asking Jesus why His disciples broke the traditions of the elders because they didn't wash their hands when they ate. As Jesus so often did, he responded to their question with a question of His own. Simply, "why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?" Evidently they didn't honor their fathers and mothers. In verse 10  he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: ¹¹it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”  And at this the Pharisees and scribes were offended.

As He had done before, Jesus had to give His disciples an explanation. "¹⁷Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? ¹⁸But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. ¹⁹For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. ²⁰These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

My question to you is...  What's in your heart? We may say it's the Lord, but do our actions, our thoughts, our speech say something else? We may say one thing, but our actions speak volumes. It may be time that we perform a healthy heart check by asking ourselves "is there something in my heart that defiles me/"

Do all in the name of the Lord

Colossians 3 is a great chapter on Christian living. We can apply that group of verses into our lives and positively affect every aspect of our lives. One verse in particular, verse 17, tells us that whatever we do in our lives should be done in the name of the Lord. Sometimes we talk about how we apply this verse into our lives. The question to consider is, do we really?

Do we really live our lives in a way that we can say is in the name of the Lord? This includes every word that we speak, every step that we take and every decision that we make. The scriptures tell us that we all sin and fall short of the glory of God, but our life should be one where others can see Jesus living in us.

The verse concludes that as we do this, we should be giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Translation: While we are living our life in the name of the Lord, we should be thankful to God for being able to. This is where many people falter. The attitude is: "I am going to do this, but I'm not going to like it." We should not only like it, but we should be thankful for it.

Our Christian life should reflect a desire to live for Christ.

An Eye on Eternity

In Luke 16: 19-31, Jesus was teaching His disciples about eternity. Specifically, how what we do in this life effects where we spend eternity. The rich man spent his life enjoying the pleasues that his wealth afforded him. On the other hand, Lazarus, the sore covered hungry beggar sat outside the gate of the rich man staving. They both die with the rich man being tormented in Hades and Lazarus recieving the comfort in Abraham's bosom that had been denied him while he lived. The rich man could have provided some comfort for Larzrus but truth being known, he probably never even acknowledged him.

 In his torment, the rich man asked for two things: 1) send Lazarus with a drop of water, and 2) send him to warn my brothers. According to Jeus, Abraham told him that his brothers had Moses and the prophets and the warnings they had given. That wasn't good enough for the rich man, he wanted someone from the dead to warn them. Abraham told hin that if they hadn't listened to Moses and the prophets, they wouldn't listen a dead man.

Even after His death and resurrection, there were those who did not believe. We live our lives today for our eternal hope. We are obedient to His word, we treat people the way we want to be treated and we feed and care for those less fortunate both physically and spiritually.