I’m just as guilty as the next person. It’s really easy to trash-talk the Church and declare it to be a lion’s den full of hypocrites, pharisees, and Christians that care more about their appearance than loving the insides of the hearts around them. Anymore these days, our culture and my generation in the Church has jumped on this bandwagon that almost justifies tearing down all of the religious nonsense that has infiltrated the sanctuary on Sunday mornings.
We’ve gone too far.
This is really something that God has been putting on my heart in the last couple of months. I’ve neglected to say anything though. I’m just tired of generations of believers getting so hung up on denominational barriers now; getting stuck on conservative or liberal jargon; allowing so much cynicism and bitterness to slip in that they tear down and no longer build up.
What’s more terrifying to me is that I sometimes became the biggest proponent for this kind of thing. I thought it was fun to walk into coffee shops, churches, or schools and see how many of my “religious” or theologically-savvy friends I could tick off every time I mentioned something about the Holy Spirit and healing (or something similar).
But it’s sick and twisted humor.
It doesn’t unify; it divides.
So I need to apologize. I did this a few years ago but I neglected the repentance part, the whole “changing your mind” and seeing things from a new perspective thing. I apologized though. I apologized to the Church. But now I feel like I need to repent. It’s been a year and a half and things have finally gotten to me.
I repent – I repent for aiding others’ cynical attitudes, for purposively driving a wedge between others, for publishing words that divide and don’t unite. I repent for continuously trying to always be “right” and to “win”. I repent for not loving when I should’ve. I repent for my lack of patience. Please forgive me.
For a Body composed of royalty, of sons and daughters of God, we can do better than this. So let’s stop punching Jesus’ bride in the face. We’re bloodying ourselves and I’m tired of looking like a whore that doesn’t know who She is. We’re His Beloved. Let’s treat each other similarly.
