Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Learning Through Pain

If you are in church long enough, especially in the ministry, you will hear horror stories about how we as believers treat each other. This was one of the biggest shocks that I think happened to me, the fact that we profess so much love,caring and grace for our fellow believers yet when things go bad, as they are prone to do then they will be the first to point fingers. Before Christ called me to Him, I truthfully didn't like people, most could not be trusted and the ones that I did took a very long time to earn that trust, most relationships where very superficial. Then Christ goes and saves me, makes me want to love my fellow man, something completely antithetical to me and at first I thought how am I going to do this?
I opened myself up to His word and studied, I tried to live out the "Love thy neighbor as thyself" even though at first I did not agree or understand. I expected non-believers to turn on me, show me there true selves but to be bitten by those who profess to care for me, really caused me heart pain. See, Christ changed my heart, he gave me one of flesh that really feels and with that can come pain, which I am completely not able to deal with on my own.
If you don't know me then I will tell you something about myself, I fall into the Reformed school of thought. I am a 4 point Calvinist, because I cannot find any true evidence for Limited Atonement, this is just some background to explain part of my outpouring. If you listen to most people who profess to be reformed and listen for any length of time, they will talk about Grace. Yet, I have found that many lose any sense of Grace or what Grace truthfully means. God's Grace is awesome, its what saved a sinner like me, yet many of my fellow reformed types miss it all together.
They have become bogged down in a Neo-Pharisaical Legalism, not showing Grace and Love but use the Bible as a hammer to beat people to conform to what they believe is right. They have lost or maybe just missed the section where Jesus (also through out the epistles) that we are to do all thing out of love. We get tied up with all of head knowledge without it ever touching our hearts, so we judge people with impossible standards and leave out any Love or Grace.
I was hurt very badly by those whom I loved the most here on earth. I believe that there is a reason for everything but that doesn't help with the pain. I have to switch churches, move my family to a new body of believers, hoping that it wont happen again. All the while I am trying to truly forgive those who have caused my family and myself this pain, so if you are reading this please pray not only for me but for those who have caused this.

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