We were created to strive for excellence, to attain the mind of Christ and the heart of God. We were born not only to be holy and set apart but also to truly follow the ways of Christ, for ourselves and for the world.
However, in our attempt to be excellent like Christ, we have fallen short, trying to become a God itself, showing off our perfections and not His.
And we are also the Church, a home to the broken and a refuge for the sinners to run to. We are called to love people and to speak life: to show Christ. Yet we manage to chase the prodigals out and from us, the sinners want to run away. How, we wonder.
Our highlight is this: that we so often testify to imperfections only of yesterday and deny our struggles of the present. We adapt super Christianity and forget to be real people with stories that others can actually relate to. In fact, all we ever do is try to earn points as if we can fix everything, denying our own battles and making believe that all in our lives is without flaw. To expose our weaknesses and struggles is unthinkable. So, we hide our failings and draw attention to the sins of others. We are judgmental about everyone except thy self. Moreover, we begin to manipulate lives using God’s power and we sell Christ only for Church sales. Before we know it, fragile hearts are exposed to Christian hypocrisy and the gospel of Christ is far from being told.
And to this finale have we dawned, that as the Church, grace is only spoken of but never given and that sin can only appear to be our past but never present. Instead of being true, we have some how been drawn to put up a façade. Besides, we rebuke more than we love, govern more than we understand, we wound those who long to be healed, reject those who need acceptance & strive to be God instead of His people. So, now we appear to be kings on a pedestal whom people cannot reach out to neither live by and God Himself knows that our human eloquence has lost its love and luster.
Thus, the call is to take off the masks that we ourselves cannot breathe in & to renovate our artificial principles that choke human hearts. The need is to be real for Christ for we are not only his ambassadors but were first his creations, beautiful as we are. The need is to realize that God is in us and that the world sees him through us, in our love and our response. In fact, how we respond to people and their ways, to sinners and their sins decides if God is seen as black & white or color.
The cry is to truly understand the beauty of grace without ignoring nor manipulating it.. to have the courage to be real as the Church and as a person without exploiting this gift by finding reason to purposely indulge in sin and frolic games.
That we could run the race together, striving for excellence, knowing that there is no condemnation in Christ is what will be the difference. That we would use Our freedom in Christ to win hearts and to speak Grace is what will make us the true Church and that we would testify not of our cleaned up versions but the parts of our lives that we sweep under the rug, the parts that no one has loved, is what will make us world changers.
Let us be what's missing. Let us be all that we are truely meant to be..
* Based on reality. Inspired by The Ragamuffin Gospel, Blue Like Jazz & Purpose For the Pain.
