We Are A Community ….
As we have been looking at Acts 2:42-47, I have been using our mission statement in our weekly chats and our bulletin covers. Here is how it reads:
… we are a community of believers broken by sin but bound together by God's love. We are on a Spirit-led journey to know Christ, grow in Christ, serve Christ, and share Christ.
In looking at God’s TFN Puzzle we started fashioning back in February, we can CLEARLY see the “brokenness” in the “community” of this puzzle.
Things happen in life – good things … bad things, and they certainly happen in the midst of wherever people are gathered – work, school, family, neighborhood, and, yes, church. You may know the reality of bad things happening in the latter, your church, but you have remained FAITHFUL to God and to others, even those who may have brought an offense - a brokenness - into your life. You have remained faithful because you have known and experienced the faithfulness of God; the most telling way you have known and experienced His faithfulness is through His forgiveness. Just as Paul penned to the Romans:
while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Romans 5:8b
WHAT GRACE! WHAT LOVE! WHAT DEVOTION!
When brokenness comes into your life, no matter the source, your help, your “healing,” your protection, your growth, and so much more is found in Christ Jesus AND within the context of His Community, His Body, The Church … including your church … all of US at TFN!
I know firsthand that finding this help & “healing,” this protection & growth will be more difficult when the “brokenness,” the sin, the hurt, the offense has roots in another part (individual or group) of the church but the help & “healing,” the protection & growth come as the whole, including you & me, genuinely continues to seek Jesus & follow the Spirit as we “do the work” of encouraging one another, building up one another, loving one another, and yes, correcting one another (actually speaking the truth in God’s Love), confessing to one another, forgiving one another, etc. Without such GRACE, without such LOVE, without such DEVOTION, we run, we hide, and we become more broken and unfortunately, perhaps bitter toward the group of which we are a part, perhaps the entire Church, and even toward God.
Yeah, that puzzle is a mess and has likely finished its course in our midst BUT even as a pile of “rubble” many pieces are still connected and most are clumped together (devoted to one another I might say). The pieces in most danger of getting lost or accidently knocked away are those most disconnected.
So, I am GRATEFUL you have allowed me to get connected to you, even when I am broken and especially, even when I may be a source of your pain! You bring a bit more of the reality of God into my life … even when it’s a mess! THANK YOU!
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. … (They devoted themselves to God and to each other.) Acts 2:42ff
- Terry