I wish to add this to my last post, “Amalekites Abound.”
We are Christians, and we need each other.
We need to live and work and love together in spite of our doctrinal and denominational differences. We need each other because we live in a dark and evil age in which our faith comes under attack from many directions at once. We need to give each other strength, encouragement, and love.
We do not need to be going all our separate ways. That’s what our Great Enemy wants.
Read Paul’s epistles carefully, and see the troubles he had with the new churches he was planting. He never gave up on them. He never walked away from them. Those people in Corinth gave him fits. But he never quit on them.
I agree with Ben Franklin: hang together, or we’ll all hang separately.
Our personal, individual sanctification is a slow process requiring repeated acts of forgiveness: not only God forgiving us, but us forgiving one another.
By this we know, as St. John tells us in his epistles, that we are in Christ, and Christ in us.
God grant I’ve said this right. And all of you, please, forgive me if sometimes I’m a fat-head.
You’ve spoken a great truth here, Lee. As the times become more stringent, our position as Christians becomes evermore precarious in this fallen world and we all nee each other. We can get into lots of denominational discussions about various doctrines, but I suspect that as things around us deteriorate, we may all find ourselves paring back to the most basic of Christian beliefs and leaving denominationalism behind.
The second greatest commandment, “Loves your neighbor as yourself.” I Cor 14 lets us know what agape looks like. When Sara Huckabee Sanders was viciously ridiculed at the Correspondence Dinner over the weekend as she sat at the podium table, she didn’t lash our or get up and leave, but relied on the Lord for strength because she is a believer. Lover conquers all.
Thank you, Lee. What you have written is vital and beautiful. I think it must break the Lord’s heart to see his children at swords point over over such differences. We have infinitely more in common than what divides us. And with the world attacking Christianity at all levels, it is critical that we all remember that he didn’t seem to be fussing over differences when he prayed that all would be, as he and the Father are one.