I want to move on
and write about other things but God seems to have other ideas and I learned a
long time ago that His ideas are better than mine so we're going to take
another look at the "can't we all get along" view of Christianity vs.
the "exclusive family benefits" view of Christianity. (Didn't know what to call the second view so
I made that up. If someone has a better
name let me know)
As an example, on
Friday I showed how in John 17:9-22 Jesus says that He prays for those who are
saved and those who will be saved but He doesn't pray for the rest of the
world.
John 17:9-10(NKJV)
9“I pray for them. I do not pray for the
world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours.
10And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are
Mine, and I am glorified in them.
John 17:20-21(NKJV)
20“I do not pray for these alone, but also
for those who £will believe in
Me through their word;
21that they all may be one, as You,
Father, are in Me, and I in You;
that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent
Me.
This is an example
of the "exclusive family benefits" that comes with being heirs in
Christ. It's not that Jesus wishes them
any ill will. In fact they are free to
join the family any time they wish, He really wants them to. He's just not wasting any of His prayer time
on them, that is a resource that is reserved for those that believe in
Him.
What brought me back
to this topic again today was the following verses:
John 6:61-67(NKJV)
61When Jesus knew in Himself that His
disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you?
62What then if you should see the Son
of Man ascend where He was before?
63It is the Spirit who gives life;
the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.
64But there are some of you who do
not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did
not believe, and who would betray Him.
65And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come
to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”
66From that time many of His disciples went back
and walked with Him no more.
67Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do
you also want to go away?”
At times Jesus could
be pretty in your face. Here He flat out
tells the disciples (not just the Twelve but all of them that were with Him)
who He is and that He knows some of them don't believe Him. He gets right in their face, "Does this
offend you?"
Here is my point,
while Jesus wants every single person to be saved He wasn't willing to water
anything down to keep from offending them in hopes that maybe someday they
might come around. He simply explained
to them who He was and how it worked.
They were free to believe Him or not, their choice. Some chose not to believe and walked with Him
no more. Pretty sad.
So let me be very
clear here. I think we should be
friendly, courteous, helpful, etc to all; believers and non believers
alike. We want to let the world see the
love of Christ shine through us. But I
believe we also have to be truthful about what it is we believe and what it
takes to be a follower of Christ. As we
can see from this example, no sometimes we can't all just get along, not when
it means compromising the word of God!
This can be a difficult thing to navigate at times. It can be a challenge to see where to draw the line of showing God's love to others but not backing down from your beliefs. This is a good reminder that you can still let Christ's love shine on others but hold to the truth of Christ too...even if it offends someone.
ReplyDeleteIt is a tough one isn't it? We don't want to offend because we don't want to be the ones "responsible" for turning them away from God, but at the same time we want to stand up for what we believe. It's a fine line.
ReplyDeletePersonally I think we worry too much about the offending part. It's kind of like that saying about raising kids. Many parents are afraid to tell their kids no (I know, hard to believe) because they don't want to make the kids mad when really the kids want some limits set.
Way back before you kids were born your Mom and I were living together. We wanted to become members of the church we were attending. They very gently but firmly told us no. They accepted us with open arms and we were more than welcome to worship with them but because of our living situation we did not qualify for membership. Contrary to the concern of some, that didn't make us mad at all. In fact I understood perfectly. It was nice to see a church that actually stood for something.!
So just let God be your guide. As I've written about elsewhere, depend on god to put the right words in your mouth, and if those words piss someone off so be it, those were the words that God put in your mouth!