My friend suddenly stopped coming to
church. I reached out to him several times before he finally called back to say
that he would no longer be attending church. He was honest in confessing that
he was engaged in a particular sinful activity but felt that no one had the
right to judge him for his actions. He went on to explain that when he came to
church, he felt bad about himself, so his solution was to stop coming to
church.
Many people in our society have adopted
the same approach as my friend. The problem with this approach is that dropping
out of church does not address the behavior that brought out the negative
feelings to begin with. Regardless of what our culture may say, there are some
behaviors that are right and some that are wrong. Simply avoiding people, or
groups, who may point those wrong things out will not solve our problem. That
is like a person with a heart condition refusing to go to the doctor out of
fear of what the doctor may say. If the condition goes on long enough without
treatment, the result is not going to be positive and the treatment for the
condition will be much more invasive than it could have been if it had been
addressed earlier. The same is true when we have poor behavior in our lives
that we have not addressed. Eventually we will reap the consequences of that
behavior. By the time all those consequences finally hit us, it may cost us far
more than we ever intended to pay. In essence, our fear of minor judgment
eventually causes us to experience much more significant judgment because we
have not dealt with our sinfulness.
Perhaps it is time to start re-examining
our opinion of church. Obviously there are some overly judgmental churches that
may not help us be healthy. But there are many churches that understand that in
our human weakness we made bad choices and now we are trying to fix those
issues. Those churches will walk with us through the journey until we get where
we need to be. They will not tell us that all of our behavior is acceptable,
but we already know that. But they will remind us that God loves us in spite of
our behavior and that He will help us become the person we always wanted to be.
It is time for us to overcome our fear of judgment and start dealing with the
baggage in our lives. We are going to need the help of other people to do that.
That is what church is all about. It is a group of sinners encouraging one
another to be transformed into the image of Christ. There may be some painful
moments in the short term as our sinfulness is exposed, but the joy that comes
from godly living will be worth it.
Lord,
help us examine our own hearts so that we can be in right relationship with
You. Do not let our fear of judgment cause us to flee the very thing that can
change our lives. Amen.
This post is an excerpt from the book, The
Heavenly Mundane: Daily Devotions from Ordinary Experiences. Filled with stories of how God spoke in
big ways through small events, the book will encourage people to look for God
in the mundane things of life. Great for both personal use and to give as a
gift to friend, either the print version or the e-book version may be purchased
at this link:
Amen.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the affirmation brother Shirey
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