Ponderings of a Philalethist

I recently read that there is a sign that hangs on the walls of New Jerusalem that reads, “We cannot fully recover until we help the society that made us sick recover.”  I love that!  It means we take an active role in our own recovery!  Christ asks of us, “do you want to get well?” 

While there are miracles that happen everyday where people are just “healed”, with no doing of themselves, or no explanation, I am finding that so much healing comes from seeking to be active in God’s work WHILE we are seeking healing for ourselves.  Meaning that God uses the broken, even as our dignity, and independence is spilling through our cracks.  We forget that God works with the little people, the forgotten, the dirty, far more than He works with the clean, polished, and educated.

Like the saying goes, it is far easier to hug a dirty kid than a stiff one.  For some, “stiff” means stubborn, or it can mean, dead, as in too little too late.

I am thinking the best way to learn this is not to seek it from man, or even other books, (although those are good for encouragement) but to get out and live for Jesus, taking Him at His Word, allowing yourself to be Jesus with skin on.  Becoming the Word Flesh!  Being Jesus!

I am struggling right now with the idea of comfort vs. discomfort.  I have found that i grow the most from discomfort, and God embraces me in these times.  While I praise God in the times of comfort, I look back and realize there was little growth.  So I wonder: what is better?  Can I say one is better than the other?

Another thought that comes to mind when questioning the framework of the American Church is a quote I heard a few years back: We have to unite ourselves as one body.  Because Jesus is coming back, and he’s coming back for his bride, not a harem.”

 Too any times it seems, that another church is established right down the street from another, and breaks its back, and its budget, screaming its differences from the one down the street.  why?  If we are the church, it shouldn’t matter our differences, except when we are celebrating the vast diversity that reflects God’s beauty! 

Another favorite quote of mine, “If we are to refer to the church as a building, that is tantamount to calling you and me two-by-fours.”  We are the church, we should be one.  Not many.