Is your church legalistic? What about spirit-filled? Charismatic? Reformed? Traditional or contemporary? Calvinist? House church or mega church? It’s at least evangelical, right? God forbid it’s Catholic!
How many labels do we need to put on churches to figure out who has the best grasp on Christianity?
Sure, maybe some labels just help us to understand what a certain church believes about Christianity. Oftentimes, though, we use these labels to come to very personal conclusions about people. “They aren’t the true Christians.” “They aren’t walking in the fullness of Christ.” “They’re heretical.” How dare we speak of God’s church this way just because of differences in certain theological beliefs!
In John 17, Jesus prays for the church to be one. How important that must be! We say it all the time, but how willing are we to actually put aside our theological differences to be one church? Each church will have their own issues they might need to deal with. The issues could even correspond with some of their theological beliefs.
For example, a church might only sing hymns and say that Christians can’t drink or dance. Now, is there a possibility that some people might walk away from a church like that with a bad taste in there mouth? Sure. Maybe people walk away thinking Christianity only cares about following rules. On the opposite end of that, perhaps there is a church that drinks and dances, but believes you only have the Holy Spirit in you if you speak in tongues. Is there a possibility that people could walk away from this church as well with the same thoughts as the first example? Absolutely. Do we all believe that Jesus is our savior who died for our sins? I would say there’s a fairly high chance.
So why do we divide? Sometimes I want to scream, “WE HAVE ENOUGH CHURCHES!”
Are you going to be able to survive heaven when you see that fire and brimstone baptist preacher? Are you going to be able to survive heaven when you see the charismatic pentecostal woman who dances around during worship and looks like she is in another world? Are you going to be able to survive heaven when you see someone who you perceived as lukewarm? Are you going to be able to survive heaven when you see who all God brought into His kingdom?
I ask you that when you hear of or see other people or churches that believe differently than you, you remind yourself that we are one church. Remind yourself that Jesus prayed for us to be one just as He was one with the Father and Holy Spirit.
“We believe in infant baptism.” We are one church.
“We believe in pre-destination.” We are one church.
“We believe that everyone goes to heaven. We are one church.
“We believe people who are homosexual can be Christians.” We are one church.
“We believe in one holy and apostolic Catholic church.” We are one church.
“We believe the Bible is the only authority and way that God speaks to us today. We are one church.
“We believe that Christians shouldn’t drink.” We are one church.
“We believe in the manifestation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.” We are one church.
“We believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.” We are one church.
I’ve left this blog with a lot of questions to ask yourself. Pray that God shows you where you’ve divided yourself from the Body and ask to be reconciled to it. We are a two billion piece puzzle that God longs and aches to be put together.
