My Troubled Heart
If I ramble, please forgive me. This is more a stream-of-consciousness writing than a “paper” – it’s not polished, but it’s from my heart.
I hardly slept last night as I meditated on the church’s weakness in the area of interpersonal relationships. Recent events forced my mind to kick into over-drive, and even the little sleep I got was met with troubled dreams. I woke up with some clarity, and also received some insight from a sister that sparked off some understanding for me. So, today I am speaking from the viewpoint of a minister who is simply a member of the Body of Christ.
One of the major conflicts within the American Christian Church (I cannot speak for other churches) is that looking good and being right too often takes precedence over watching out for the little ones who come to us for instruction and care.
I’m pretty sure that the moment pride enters a human heart, the Holy Spirit begins convicting and convincing of sin, righteousness and judgment. But it is amazing how far we will go, “kicking the goads” so to speak, before we capitulate. How much damage has to be done to interpersonal relationships, our personal walk with Christ, and our testimony to the work of God in our lives, before that happens? How hard must we struggle before we can no longer hear the Holy Spirit, before our consciences become seared?
There are some Christians who are “lone ranger” types, and feel that they do not need the Body of Christ (meaning, in this case, other members of the Church). They are unconcerned with relationships, and so there is no guarantee that they will seek to preserve Unity in the Body of Christ in order to explore touchy subjects. They want no emotional investment, but prefer to bludgeon strangers with their truth and then “wipe the dust from their feet” as they move on to a new target. We are told that we will know the wolves by their fruit; blights on the love feast, foam cast up from the ocean, wandering stars that lost their first estate due to rebellion, clouds without water, etc. We are to keep away from such as these, because they threaten the very work that Christ left for his followers to do.
I came up in a great number of churches after the Lord found me at age 14. I not only attended, but over the years I joined, most of the major denominations and the “nondenominational” denominations as well: ancient and modern, hippy and conservative, reformed and renewed, including the Catholic Church and the Messianic Jewish Movement.
I was on a quest to find the Lord in each expression, or denomination, and there were rare exceptions where I could not. But what grieved my heart the most, was that you couldn’t tell many of them that you had found Adonai God in the church down the street, TOO! Rather than rejoicing with me in a good report, the thing that immediately jumped up in most of them was their need to be ‘right’, above all others, in some little way. This is one of the saddest things I have ever experienced in my years within the Body of Christ.
Years ago I gave up what I call “my membership in the Christian Religious System” because I couldn’t bear to hear the Catholics bashing the Seventh Day Adventists (who erroneously believe the heretical doctrine that Jesus is a created being, and not God the Son), and the Baptists bashing the Catholics: the Seventh Day Adventists questioning the salvation of every other denomination, and the Catholic Church saying, “Leave the Jews alone,” but to everyone else it was: “all other Christians are in rebellion and they may get to heaven but it won’t be until after a long spell in Purgatory, so come to Mass every 10 days or else you are a lapsed Catholic and you can join them!”, etc.
From my church pew, it seemed that much of what they did in the way of relating to other denominations was in the form of further delineating our differences, rather than focusing on Christ, first and foremost. This was so far from what I read in my Bible that it was hard to recognize true Christianity in what they were doing.
When worship, and when obedience of Adonai is the focus, where the name and sacrificial work of Christ is central, and when the Holy Spirit is allowed to counsel and whisper wisdom in the ear, there is Unity in the Body.
But like I said in an earlier paper, Unity is NOT Uniformity. Just because we try to get back to the simple ways of the early church, it does not mean we can immediately cleanse the chametz (leaven in the bread, but also indicative of the infiltration of sin) of bad teaching and false doctrine out of our heads for the asking. And it does not mean that we will automatically know how to love one another as we were commanded to do. Relationships take work.
I am guilty of pride sometimes, though not very often because I never forget what I have done to deserve punishment, what the Lord has done for me, or to be sober and grateful for all that He has forgiven me. My main struggle is in the area of becoming over-protective of people who come to me for counsel and advice, and the thing that sets me off is usually a perceived danger from anti-biblical doctrine or a legal laundry list that someone outside the group is pushing on someone in my care. If it is from someone who, in my opinion, should know better, I sometimes “shoot first and ask questions later”.
I’m better about it now, but I was especially zealous about this when I was ministering to a counseling group of former drug/alcohol addicts, former gang members and people who had repented for various sexual sins; these people were struggling just to put one foot in front of the other each day, trying to stay clean and sober, and to learn the foundational principles of the Kingdom of God, and they needed it in small doses. It was amazing to watch how their minds healed and their bodies followed as they soaked in the Word of God and the love of the community.
Sure, they had setbacks, and sometimes they had to be brought to task for their actions. They needed to learn that what one did affected all of us. But it did these people no good to harp on them, or speak for God, when usually all we needed to do was to see what the Bible said, and to pray. Still, some “normal” folks in our fellowship had phobias about these people, and they just couldn’t seem to be able to love them with the love of Christ.
I remember a sad and aggravating case in point: some years back, a “normal” lady pulled her “normal” adolescent daughter out of our fellowship and left because she “didn’t want her daughter exposed to druggies and gang members!” Well, I tried to reason with her that these were EX-druggies and EX-gang members, and that all of us who are in Christ are EX-SOMETHINGS. In my view, that is a great source of HOPE! I asked her, “Which would you want to have your child meet as a first experience: the active addict, or the FORMER addict who has come to Christ?” No-brainer, right? Or so it seemed to me. But she allowed fear to overcome her, and to influence her decision-making process.
We have always had an open door policy in our fellowship, and all are welcome to come and go, come and stay, or whatever, as long as it fits with their spiritual needs. So it wasn’t that I was sad to lose a member – there is no membership, per se, We don’t pass the collection plate, so it wasn’t about losing money in the “tithe and offerings” , either… I was upset because I knew it would cause offense and hurt to others who knew why she left, too. Fortunately, in this instance, though it hurt their feelings, I was able to help them see her side, and nobody else left because of her.
Of all the lessons I have learned in my walk with the Lord these 40 years, the one that sticks out most in my mind is that we will be tested on everything we judge others for. Jesus wasn’t exaggerating or lying when He said that we would be judged with the same judgment wherewith we judge others!
Our mission is to LOVE one another as Christ loves the Church. Paul gave such a wonderful example about what it meant to be part of the Body of Christ when he illustrated the comparison of one human body part with another – the mouth saying to the eye, “I don’t need you.” Could you imagine the ear trying to do the work of a foot?
When you stub your little toe, your whole body stops what it is doing and immediately attends to the need of the sore toe! And if you get a serious injury, your brain sets in motions certain systems that shut down nerve centers, put you into shock, or provide endorphins to ease pain. Paul didn’t go into that much detail, but I’m attempting to show that the Body of Christ is complex and you and I who choose to be a part of it must realize that if we are functioning correctly, we will recognize our need for every other part, and we will do our part to help the Body survive.
Why are there many sick and some sleep among us? It is because we do not discern the Body of Christ. We cannot seem to realize that we need each other, and not for stepping-stones, either. We need each other to practice our loving compassion and understanding. We need to practice hospitality. We need to practice not being boorish and inconsiderate, but we need to learn gentleness, meekness, self-control and kindness. We need to give and receive love, and we need to share our journey in Christ with each other for our mutual edification.
We were warned that in the last days lawlessness would increase and the love of many would grow cold. Is there a message in this for us?
When Jesus returns, will he find faith in the earth? Will he find us tearing each other down, or building each other up in our most holy faith?
As we ponder these questions, may the Lord deal with each of us and shine the Light of the Truth on our hearts this day.
Humbly and sincerely,
Pastor C. Covert
