Today I had another encounter with my friend at the gym. Let's call him "Dave"...because that's what his mom calls him.
These posts would be far too long if I dissected our conversation in one piece so I'll take a couple of posts to do it.
One of Dave's gripes about 'modern church' is that to him it is not respectful to God. The loud music, people getting excited, wearing street clothes, etc. are just disrespectful to Jesus.
To me, the ultimate way that we can respect God is to do what He tells us to do.
In John 21 I think we get Jesus' heartbeat when he asks Peter, "do you love me?" Peter of course replies "You know that I do." To which Jesus responds, "Then feed my sheep." This is a powerful exchange in which Jesus is saying, if you love and respect me then you will show it by loving people. Jesus doesn't respond by saying, "If you love me then show it by cleaning up, bowing your knee and singing me a hymn." He simply says, "Love people" He says we show our affection, thankfulness, and respect for Him by making our lives about others.
That is what we try to do here.
You may feel it is harsh, but I told Dave; "The difference between you and I is that you are all about Dave and what makes Dave happy and I am all about doing what it takes to reach lost sheep."
Yes, we are still good friends.
I just think it would be incredibly disrespectful to Jesus to tell people to go to hell because we were hung up on tradition.
What do you think?
Bellevue Camus Update
12 hours ago
4 comments:
perry noble talks about ....if we are willing to give our lives up.... then why won't we give up the little things... like style of music etc...
Interesting. We actually had a very similar discussion in our Life Group last night. Studying Revelation 2 - letters to the 7 churches. The question was asked "What are some areas the church has compromised today?" This was an issue that was brought up. We had a good discussion on it and "What are the things God truly desires of us?" as opposed to "What has been the 'standard' of behavior in the past?" Dress and music were part of the discussion. :)
Evan, I plan on sending this guy Perry's talk from Unleash! Wont make him happy, but Perry communicates what needs to be said.
Betsy. Cool discussion Im sure! Id be interested to know why people think that dress and music are areas that we have compromised and how they come to that conclusion biblically. :) Thanks for leading a group!
Didn't Jesus wear street clothes???
Post a Comment