March 24, 2015
The True Church
Last week I visited the “true
church,” which should not be confused with the “true church” I visited a couple
months ago. In the most recent instance this particular local denomination itself
has fractured into at least five separate congregations, all using a variation
of the same denominational name. The evangelist I spoke to has reached out to
one of the smaller contingents to bring them into fellowship, but apparently the
divisions between the churches is too wide to bridge. Paul addresses divisions,
“When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for
as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One
remains hungry, another gets drunk. Don’t you have homes to
eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who
have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? Certainly
not” (1 Cor 11:2022 NIV)!
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Gail;
-----Don’t let the confusion about these two true churches fool you into thinking there is no true church. There really is a true church. And everyone who belongs to it knows it. But they also know that their behaviors are not completely right, that their beliefs are not spot on, that their doctrines have fuzzy edges all around them, and that the reality they perceive is not necessarily the exact reality. The true church doesn’t sound like a very good place to worship. But it is the best place to worship because the spark of their new life continues sparking on in every one of its members: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9)
-----One of my elderly clients told me yesterday that she sold her car because it had too many blind spots. I had to admire her. We don’t think enough about blind spots. Everyone has them. A giant blind spot follows everyone around everywhere they go, even though some falsely claim to have eyes in the back of their heads. They don’t. They have that blind spot as we all do. But there are hundreds of blind spots right in front of our eyes every day almost as blank but immeasurably more difficult to see into. We can just turn around and eliminate the blind spot behind us. But we must get acquainted with people and interact with them a lot over extended periods of time, carefully remembering things they say and ways they react to various situations and circumstances before we can begin eliminating the blind spot which is the details of another person’s soul. And even the real deep things of our own souls extend in detail out of our own sight, though the Lord can yet see there: “The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all his innermost parts.” (Prov 20:27)
-----So, if we can not even see the deepest most detailed parts of our own souls, how do we know there is no contradiction lurking there nullifying the truth of our call on the Lord? We don’t. The sub-conscious is a storehouse of things most of which you will never see until judgment day. This is why God is so wise to have based the effect of our call for salvation on desire, “…whosoever will…” rather than upon the inward construction of some accurate mental framework. God knows all men are false. He doesn’t have to discover that; we do. And so we desire salvation to know it, rather than knowing it to desire it, which such desire in our condition automatically sparks confession. So we can know for sure we are saved because we desire to be turned from false into righteous. Though the spot remains a blind one for now, all of its whatevers become so-whats by God‘s granting our desire. And that makes us members of the true church.
-----I can know with certainty one member of the true church by holding my own desires true. That would be me. But not because I am any kind of right, but only because I want every kind of right through the only One who can make it so.
-----It is just that the true church overcomes its own falsehood even as it yet exists (“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (I John 1:8)) I can not peer deeply enough into anyone else to know if their souls are ordered by desire for the Lord‘s righteousness. I can make some really, really good guesses about many, many folks. But only the Lord knows for sure who is the rest of the true church.
-----We are so arrogant to cause divisions, thinking we are any truer than anybody else.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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