May 7, 2015

Whose Church is it anyway?

James 4:1-7

Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?

But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:

“God resists the proud,

But gives grace to the humble.”

Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Personal Challenge

Why is it aht the modern, western church is so ridden with divisions and splits. Maybe it is because of allowing so much of the world into our churches. We demand that the music sound the way that we like to hear it. We expect that the teaching will tickle our ears and when it doesn't we threaten to leave or worse yet stay and make everyone miserable. Are we not becoming the warring and sinful people that this passage is talking about? How is it that the Eastern church has been able to survive for 2000 years and not be divided and changed by the demanding people? Maybe because at the heart of true orthodoxy is humility, the willingness to accept that the Church is not mine to control and manipulate, the willingness to accept that I belong to the Church and should change to become one of Her faithful. It is not that our church is perfect, for it is filled with imperfect people who are on journeys toward theosis. The Church is an ark that provides us shelter in this broken and fallen world. It is my responsibility to serve Her and yield to Her. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!