Restoration

Restoration has been on my mind a lot lately. Maybe the fact that we've been restoring and remodeling our old house for the last few years has influenced me. Yeah, probably. But there is much more on my mind than a newer looking kitchen (uh, yeah the year-long kitchen remodel is finally drawing to a close...picking out, and putting up the tile backsplash is all that's left - whew).

Actually, I really got on a restoration frame of mind when listening to an awesome young man preach a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, you know him. One of the things that really stood out to me was his uncommonly good common sense about dogma. I was totally captured by the idea that we believers in Christ are absolutely horrible at loving one another with His grace. Just to be clear, that's not what Jason said, it's the thought I had when he talked about Matthew 7:1 - you know the verse, "Do not judge..."

Wouldn't it be cool if the body of Christ could all just get along? I am not advocating that everyone meet in the same building with the same style of worship and same service. No, no, no. Keep your identity and power to you. I just want not to be judged for how I choose to worship, dress, express my beliefs. That's all. I am not telling you you have to believe every word I speak, I am simply asking you to listen with the same grace Jesus gave to His disciples.

Think about it. Jesus' closest disciples, the 12, had all kinds of screwy ideas about who He was, what He was about and were in a near constant state of amazement at His radical ministry. Yet He corrected them with love, mercy and grace. Even when His words seemed a little harsh, there was such love behind them that instead of being angry they simply repented and came around as best as they could.

Wouldn't it be great if "charismatic" or "evangelical" or "Pentecostal" stopped bringing with them all kinds of baggage and criticism by those who consider it their sworn duty to be gatekeepers of the truth? Don't the gatekeeper websites and books sound an awfully lot like the Pharisees of Jesus day? They too, were the learned religious scholars of their day. And they completely missed the day of their visitation.

Let's not miss it, shall we? Let's build bridges of love and grace and leave the tired old dogma behind.