A Friend's heart

This is a post a good friend of mine posted on Xanga. I hope all who read it are convicted and encouraged by God the way I was.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Okay, it's time for some more of my heart's ramblings...I've been doing a lot of thinking about so many different things, but mainly friends and how they affect you good or bad. And the question that keeps coming back to my mind is this: could I tell you *anything* at all, and you still look at me the same? Absolutely no changes in how you view me? And the conclusion I have come to is that if the answer isn't a confident "yes", we are merely acquaintances no matter how much time we spend together. This isn't a plea for pity or a cry of "I have no friends" because pity from man is completely bunk. I find this attitude in the church that if you change any sort of doctrine that doesn't line up with what we "grew up in", you are automatically labeled a rebel and put into a group that has no hope for redemption. Shame on us for causing so much of the division in the church we complain about. To take it a step further, there is a sick misconception of salvation and sanctification that I find distressing. We are taught that being a good Christian leads you to live a good, healthy, wealthy, long life with your dream girl and a good family. Yes, you will have problems but there is no anguish, no true pain that is acceptable. Instead we want God to take everything away that makes us uncomfortable. Have we not learned nor accepted that it is by fire we are sanctified? It is by the fear of God we repent and grow closer to Him because He is the only salvation from a life of futility and death when we die. Back to my original point, we need to befriend each other as Christians. We need to truly be brothers and sisters....NOTHING can separate us. No matter what my brothers or sister have done in the past it does not negate our sibling status. In an even more intense way Christians should be inseparable because we are the family of Christ. What is stronger? Our blood or His? Then why must we insist on creating conflicts and contentions because we don't like how someone worships or someone's past? Or what someone struggles with?! We are doing more for Satan in the body of Christ than we are for God. And the sad thing is we don't even realize it. Why are people afraid to open up to other Christians? I'll tell you why...a lack of compassion and understanding. A combination of apathy and self obsession is what discourages so many people who may want to be Christians from repenting and fully embracing the God that everyone talks about but nobody knows. Christ is so much more radical than we "Christians" think. Why are we not reaching out to the lepers? Why is no one ministering to the homosexuals who have been raped and abused as children and are so marred as adults?! We have become comfortable with being normal. Rather, we have become comfortable trying to pretend we are normal. If we are not real with people they will not be real with us. Please, let us drop our pride. Stop acting as if their sin is more disgusting and despicable than yours. Guess what? It's not. Our pride is far more despicable than the sin of who we gossip about. We are shutting the doors to our own houses because we don't want to let anyone in and then find we are lonely in our selfishness. Our houses are empty of real fellowship and we have no one to blame. Oh God, make us people that will tremble at Your feet and move at the whisper of Your voice. Please Jesus, will You take away everything within us so that we have no pride? So that we can glorify you as true empty vessels for Your honor? We are sick as a body, we have turned against ourselves. We are the virus. Have grace and cure us Jesus. You said that the world will know we are Your disciples because we love one another...why has it been so hard for the world to discern real Christians from those who claim Your name in vain? Separate us Lord for Your glory! Draw the line and let us unify as Your body and in one accord declare Your glory to all the earth rather than have hundreds of different voices shouting different things simultaneously so that nothing is heard by the world. This is my cry Jesus...let it start here.