Finally, all of you, be like-minded …
Summary: The ideal church holds that the Bible is the Word of God. The members are people who live in submission to God’s will and service to others. There is an openness to feedback from the church body that helps each member become more Christlike.
After reading and studying the Book of Jude, I have a much greater awareness of the importance of unity in the body of Christ. In my experience, the church is constantly under attack. We are attacked by the world, of course, but that is not the source of attack that bothers me most. I expect the world to be hostile to faith in Jesus. What is more dangerous, is a division within the church.
Within the church body, we are sometimes confronted by people who claim to be believers but refuse to act like believers. The damage these people do is substantial. How many lonely sheep have been frightened off by a zealous do-gooder who didn’t like the way they looked or what they said?
The piece that is often missing from the church body is something an engineer would call a ‘feedback loop.’
A feedback loop is a means for a mechanism or organism to know how well it is doing. Do you have a “cruise control” on your car? When you set the speed you want the car to go, a device under the hood takes over control of the throttle. If the car comes to a hill and starts to slow down, a feedback loop from the speedometer sends a message to the cruise control, “More gas!” Going down the other side of the hill, the car wants to go faster. The feedback loop says, “Less gas!”
When children are little, their behavior is monitored by parents. The feedback loop can be as simple as a smile when the child does well, and a stern warning when the child does something wrong.
Proverbs 13:24 is well known: “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.”
The problem with the church is that we are all adults, and the world says all adults are equal. If that is true, who has the right to call someone else to account for bad behavior? But is it true? Are we supposed to live by the world’s rules or God’s?
God’s rule is that we should all be “like-minded.” But what if we aren’t? What if we are each convinced that we are right and everyone else is wrong? How do we come to a point of unity?
In my ideal church, everyone agrees that the Bible is our authority. Not what each of us might say about the Bible, but the Bible itself. In my ideal church, each person comes with the attitude that I can do better. Their presence in the body is about worshiping God, but also about getting feedback on serving Him better. In my ideal church, people don’t make demands of other believers or church leadership. Instead, people ask, people are thoughtful, people are faithful to do what they say.
Will I ever see the ideal church in this life? Maybe not, but I can hope. I can hope that we become more diligent in watching out for the “ungodly” that Jude talks about. I can hope that we are open to questions about what we are doing and why. I hope that the Spirit of Jesus lives in each of us. Not the Jesus that spoke to the Jews as a God speaks to his chosen people, but the Jesus spoke to the woman at the well and the little children.
Application: If we have to walk on eggshells around someone in the Body of Christ, something is wrong. Find ways of giving loving feedback.
Food for Thought: How do you think Christians can become more like-minded?
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I’m watching you, too, Tim!! 🙂
I really didnt have an answer. I’m still searching for wisdom and I get some everytime I visit this blog and read the great comments and thoughts people give. It really puts things in a multitude of different perspectives that I didnt see before. Keep up the great comments everyone.
Wow, this is a tough one. Thought provoking for sure. The line that jumped out at me was that we come with the attitude we can do better. I would hope that would be everyone’s thought, but we know it isn’t. As I have become more involved in church, I have seen the people who tithe and then expect church leaders to act or do something very specific because after all, “Do you know how much I tithe?” I have seen others speak ill of other church members (gossiping) about their actions rather than reaching out to them to speak truth.
I would like to think the ideal church is one where we could all come with the attitude of what can I do better, how can I love more like Jesus today, and it’s not my place to judge, it’s His place to judge.
Thank you, Darla.
It is a tough one. It hurts my heart even writing about it. For all of his authority, Jesus is incredibly humble. He is also incredibly aware. If we can follow in those steps… humble and self-aware, I think we draw closer to the ideal church.
I Believe Darla is spot on.
How do you think Christians can become more like-minded?
I recall my early days as a Christian. I was busy in Bible study, and had been baptized into a very large Baptist church. I remember looking around at all these righteous giants, knowing in my mind why they were there, and wondering why I was there. These people all knew the Bible from cover to cover and I was still using the index to find what page a specific book began on. Time passed and I began growing in knowledge of the Bible. At some point I became aware of discernment God had given me and my eyes were opened to a new world. I began discerning EVERYTHING! I could clearly see cracks and weaknesses in all those around me. At this point I knew why I was in church and wondered why they were there.
I know God was just shaking His head. He took me aside and quietly told me,” Ron, I did not give you discernment so you could look at others, I gave you this gift so you could look at yourself.”
Once again my flesh had managed to “misunderstand” God in my favor, and with His guidance I was able to make the shift and work on me rather than criticize others.
As I read the gifts of the Spirit I can clearly see how all but one are given so we can be better servants to others. They apply to our interacting with others. However discernment is different. Of course we should be discerning while listening to others, but we should really pay attention and closely examine our own lives, our hearts and motives with the power of discernment given to each of us by the Holy Spirit. Stop trying to work on others and allow God to work on us.
Matthew 7:3 Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye?
God has it all worked out If we would simply trust and obey.
Ron,
Once again you provide a great insight! As we went through the book of Jude, I became uncomfortably aware that Jude was really talking about the “ungodly” in me. Ouch! I think when that happens, my ideal church helps me get back into a godly frame of mind. It is a very delicate balance and requires enormous amounts of love.
Yeah, the ideal church, however one defines it, will not happen until each individual person is sinless. Since we all struggle with sin, we can only look in the mirror to see the true problem.
If we look at Jesus and keep looking at Jesus that will help. He is the only sinless One. Let’s focus attention on Him and not people (Hebrews 12: 1 – 3). Then let’s try to emulate His character with the Holy Spirit’s power. This is one way to be likeminded as we look to others interests like Jesus did instead of our own. This was Paul’s answer to the Philippians dealing with this question in Philippians 2: 1 – 11.
Thank you, Rich!
You mention two very significant passages. Your comment about the mirror is spot on.
When Paul writes to the Philippians, he asks them collectively to be “like-minded.” I understand that we can answer his challenge individually. I guess my question would be, is there a way for a congregation to answer his challenge collectively?
I am not asking for an answer. I am just sharing the question that comes to mind in this kind of discussion. It is something I have been thinking about.
To be like-minded we would all have to believe the same thing,..It is all about Jesus and we do seem to get that all messed up in church,..
So to become more like minded the church would have to agree more about what Jesus said and did,..quit arguing over what we think He meant with what He said and just believe in and do what He has said,..so many man made rules in the church,..if you don’t attend as much as the elders want then you will get voted out by the church,..that’s love for you,..NOT!
One time at a church we were attending the congregation was held sorta as hostage because there wasn’t enough money in the plate the first time around, the second time or the third around that day,..just so happened it was the amount of the tithe I was giving at the time,..and we didn’t have it to give that week,..we never went back.
Well they certainly aren’t ideal churches,..I kinda look at them now as churches in the book of Revelation having the big WOE pronounced on them,..sad but true,..
I am with Darla and everyone else,..this is a hard one,..but I do believe it all starts in all of us believing in our Lord Jesus Christ and what He did at the cross for us and leaving the empty tomb behind conquering sin and death for us once and for all,..no if and or buts about it! That’s final,..because He said, ” The work of the Father is that we may believe in the One He has sent”,..
Why does believing come soo hard for some people?,..Like Jeff said,..you don’t have to answer,..I am just whining about it,..
Keep smiling!
John,
I wrote a post a few weeks back on 1 Peter 2:24 (b) titled, “Signpost.” The thing I liked most about that post is that is that it opened my eyes to the idea that Christianity is not about where we are on the trail so much as which direction we are going.
Ezekiel 18 is a fascinating study of this concept. If a righteous man turns away from righteousness, then all of the good he has done is forfeit. If a wicked person turns from their wickedness, God forgets the wicked things they did in their past. What is important is not what we have done but where we are going.
Can we look at Christ and go away from him at the same time? I don’t think so. Can we move towards Christ while keeping our eye on sinful things? It sounds … awkward.
There has been a lot of good discussion here today. I really appreciate it. Somehow it is encouraging to know that I am not alone. Also, I am finding encouragement in being more serious about my faith and my relationship with Jesus and His Word.
Thank you all!
Thank you Jeff for this blog. When I start being tempted and things from my past keep coming up, I find myself turning to the blog for encouragement. I might not post much but I find myself checking for new comments to read throughout the day. Your little bit about our past and keeping our eyes on Christ really helps.
Thank you for the kind words. It is an honor to serve God this way and to share it with others who share their insights, too.