Wesley United Methodist Church, Orange TX

Do you build walls to keep people in, out or both? 

1 Corinthians 1:10-18
1:10 Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.

Well all of you United Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Church of Christ, etc, etc, etc, have you done something to seperate all of those who love Jesus Christ from your worship because they may not agree with everything you do?  Isn’t the love of Jesus Christ what should bind us all together and encourage each of us to go and make disciples in the name of Jesus Christ.  Seems like Paul could see further into the future than he could ever have imagined.  Seems like Paul had real insight into human nature that extended well beyond the church in Corinth.  Maybe it is just me but the divisions between all of the denominations serves to show those outside the church that there is conflict within the church.  Conflict only serves to drive people away from Christ and gives those skeptical fuel to degrade the churches we now attend.  Paul’s appeal is in the name of Jesus Christ that we be in agreement and that there will be no divisions among those who believe in Him.  While we may not be able to do anything about all the different denominations we can all be united in our desire to bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ without running down denominations different than our own.  And oh yeah I am talking to Pastors too.  We as believers in Jesus Christ must be in agreement with no divisions in our effort to tell people about our Lord and Savior.  We are all a priesthood of believers with one goal in mind bringing unchurched people to Christ.  Just one more thought, Jesus did call us to love our neighbor, how can we follow Jesus’ teachings and run another group of people down.  It just does not fit our mission as disciples of Christ. 

God’s Grace and Peace, 

Randy

This entry was posted on January 18, 2011 at 9:54 pm and is filed under Pastor's Ponderings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.