June 27, 2006
Wrecking and Restoration
Years ago we put an addition on our house and I was, shall we say, a little more anxious than my husband to open up the connecting wall between the old and the new. One day while Bill was at work I took a sledge hammer to the 100 year old lath and plaster wall and opened up an eight foot section for the new walkthrough. After hauling out the debris and cleaning up my mess I felt pretty good about my accomplishment. When Bill came home that night he ‘gently’ explained that my newly created walkthrough was once a load bearing wall. Sometimes in the church we take sledge hammers to one another…and that’s OK, because there are times when a hard heart needs to be hammered. Though the church is great with the wrecking ball, it fails miserably at restoration. The Apostle Paul says, “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.” (Gal 6:1 NIV) Even though it was years before our remodeling project was completed, restoration of the structural support I demolished took place immediately!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Gail;
----A couple years ago I read in a popular book by a doctor that the body maintains life on a cellular level. If some condition arises somewhere in the body, then the body will respond with whatever measure necessary to safeguard the cells effected by that condition. If the body is poorly fed, then it will redirect what nourishment there is available to those cells that are injured. Unfortunately, the body then has two problems: the expected, but yet to occur, healing of the injured cells, and the malnourishment of the rest of the cells. This doctor's whole point was not about the way the body functioned - robbing nourishment from the healthy cells to redirect to the injured cells - but it was about feeding the body enough nourishment so that there can both be healing of the injured cells and maintenance of the healthy cells.
----But biological analogy does does not help us to see what is happening in many of our church bodies today. In those, the injured cells have their nourishment nearly cut off, the rest of the "healthy" cells are given not a whole lot more nourishment, so that the most of the nourishment can be redirected to foreign cells that have not even chosen to be a part of the body. It sounds like the problem with at Southern border. Go figure!
Post a Comment