NOT RANTING OR WHINING - MERELY DISCERNING

I am not ranting or whining in my recent blog posts about church. I am observant and I am questioning. I do not consider my assessment to be disrespectful or insolent although it may be marginally peculiar considering that most of my life has been invested in the organized church. I actually believe I am entitled, maybe commissioned to interrogate the church. Why wouldn't I continue to query her today for the sake of Christ. We, the church, are after all, Christ's bride. As a constituent member of this corporate persona, I must be concerned about our purity, our mission, our reputation, our effectiveness.

I am optimistic about Christ's church. I really am. That's because I already know the end of the story. You can too.  An assembly of persons too numerous to estimate, comprised of individuals from every country, every tribal group and linguistic dialect will be attired in white robes as they bow in worship and unitedly shout, "salvation belongs both to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!" These people will be those about whom it will be said, they have come through severe distress and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." It is now metaphoric and it will be a true identification. All the suffering, hardship and privation of their lives will end as God wipes every tear from their eyes and satisfies them with what cannot end. We will be among them, some of the countless sheep for whom Jesus's life was surrendered as though he was a sacrificial lamb so that he could rebound as the resurrected shepherd of the entire flock.

The apostle John's actual visionary prediction is in Revelation 7:9-17

CHRISTIANITY

Let me tell you what it is not and then what it is.

Christian faith is not primarily about the sacrifice that believers make for Jesus in order to become Christian, but rather about the sacrifice that he made for us. Christianity is not about intensified devotion, trying even harder, doing better and being better, proving ourselves. No, no. Its essence is not doing something for Jesus but rather it is Jesus accomplishing something in us. His sacrifice once, and his ongoing work in us now. That is something that people find attractive because that is not religion. It is relationship. This is not about performance with respect to a faith system that legislates morality. A heavy-handed condemnation has resulted from that model and people have walked away from Jesus when they should have walked away from that specific model of Christian expression. Jesus' proclamation was good news. It was good news to good people and to bad people, to free people and prisoners, to healthy and diseased people, to sighted people and blind people. It was good in the first century and it is still good today because is about God's mercy to every last one of us, each of whom is naturally undeserving. Yet we are invited into relationship through faith in Jesus, Son of God, Lamb, Saviour, King, and endorsed a member of God's family.