March 19, 2012
Perfect Body
At the fitness center I can see people of all shapes, sizes and ages
working out and I admire their efforts. However, if anyone were to see these
folks on the street or in their work place, they would have no idea how much time,
energy and sweat has been expended in order to keep fit. I’m wondering if
something similar can be said of the Body of Christ. Very few people see our
perfect body because for many of us, the only time we exercise our faith is
when we are in the church setting.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Gail;
-----Sometimes I feel most thankful for God’s mercy and grace. Sometimes I am sure that His manifold wisdom which He is making known through the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places is the applications and effects of mercy and grace in its greatest degree: that shown to a people who having come to the truth enter it with reservation. In a sense I see your point about our faith being exercised only in a church setting. But in another sense, I don’t so much.
-----In our Sunday school we are studying A Scandalous Freedom by Steve Brown. He gingerly writes about the possibility that maybe we should not try to be better. Then he boisterously discusses rather much about not trying to be perfect and the freedom we loose by wearing “goody goody” masks to church. While I find it debatable as to exactly how much freedom God means for us to have in this present life and of what kind is that freedom, I completely understand how the new life is stifled by masking our imperfections just to look better than we are.
-----We know the ways and manners and services which really should flow freely from our ordinary, moment by moment, new lives. But they don’t. So as we cross the threshold of the church door, we mimic what we know we should be doing as those behaviors not ordinarily ours through the week grip us for the next few moments. Is that really faith? It seems more a paranoia to me. In this sense I agree with Steve Brown. If those masks meant only to make us look better were left off, then maybe we would actually become better. The corners of our untidy mannerisms will get knocked off and our gnarly spots rubbed smooth more when they are allowed to encounter folks better performing the same nuances of the masks we otherwise wear.
-----I don’t know about you, but I feel that an embarrassingly profound number of my rounded corners and smoothened gnarly spots have happened upon the profane sidewalks of human affairs. If I wear masks there, they tend to be a bit more shear. And its people are much more willing to whack off an offensive corner. Most everyone learns a sociability on the streets for getting past each other with less injury to either. And it is this simplicity of social affairs which begins the thread of truth tied to possibly caring for others enough to do something that might help them. As long as we mask our corners and gnarly spots in church, it will be upon the sidewalks where we are being the more shaped and the more real. Since our faith does not exist further than does our being of a real shape, then maybe what faith we actually have is quite obvious outside the church house. Maybe we might look less different, out there, than more.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
straight to the point. cool!
Jennifer,
Welcome to the conversation.
Gail
Post a Comment