Accepting All

We were talking, and as we finished the conversation, my friend kept walking, and I opened the door. A few minutes later, we laughed, as we ended up at the same place. So many things in life are that way, aren’t they? People take different journeys to go to the same place.

One journey—a person or a group of peoples’ journeys to the Lord—is often under attack. It seems, we humans struggle with accepting another’s journey to the Lord, if it looks different from our journey.

Often, we get religious-picky and start looking at how others sing or praise or, in general, “do church” as indicators of their position with the Lord. It’s just my opinion, of course, but I believe God deliberately left out a “set of instructions” as to how to do worship and Bible class and praise services. I believe that God, in His great wisdom, knew times would change, the tools people would have access to would change, and a thousand other things would change in 2000 plus years. These variables make “doing church” look different from one generation to the next and one civilization to the next.

It makes me sad to read religious criticism on social media. I understand that some people think they are “standing for what’s right” but wouldn’t it be great if we saw more acceptance for fellow believers, than condemnation. More love than hate. More hope than despair. Most of the issues people argue over have nothing to do with salvation but are traditions that someone has decided is the “truth”. 

Let’s let it start with us. Let’s work on accepting all who are seeking Jesus, even if they don’t look like us, sing like we do, or gather at the same time we gather. Let’s remember that we’re challenged to think on whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy and not let those negative thoughts and words come to the surface. (Philippians 4:8) Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. (Romans 15:7)

Hugs, Chrys