ThoughtShades - Journal

Isn’t it amazing how inconsiderate people who block others’ view, cut in front of them, talk loudly and generally disregard the people around them become so irate when the same thing happens to them? Sensitivity to the welfare and feelings of others is the core of manners.
The best hosts know that hospitality consists of attending to guests’ needs as though they were their own. Courteous guests never demand anything, even those things that most of us deem necessary. Therefore, the host who anticipates his guests’ needs and provides them without being asked will always be praised for his graciousness.
Job security for volunteer laborers will never be in jeopardy.
Forgiveness can be perplexing. Can a person demand to be forgiven? If he doesn’t feel that others are doing their “Christian duty” in forgiving them, can he criticize them and use it for leverage and power against them? If an offending person has done something so bad that others have to watch out for him, is that forgiveness? What is “fruit suitable for repentance?” Is there a difference between virtual and actual forgiveness, meaning that you can forgive in your heart without expressing it with your mouth? Is forgiveness verbal? Have you forgiven if you haven’t forgotten? Do you forgive me for asking these questions?
Whenever I am confronted with strange doctrinal positions that seem to condone disobedience to God, the Scriptures and spiritual authority, I am thoroughly confused. How can anyone read the scriptures, embrace the gospel by faith, and confess to know Christ, yet so freely sabotage their own beliefs? Is there a theology of disobedience? Evidently, some such odd theological position must provide the basis for a seemingly convoluted doctrine like this. A theology based on disobedience to the Word of God is more of a non-theology or an anti-theology.
It is amazing how we hide behind scriptures that seem to excuse or condone unscriptural behavior. One scripture often quoted to justify this position is “man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.” Therefore, we reason, if we pay attention to our heart, we can ignore our outward appearance. This seems to grant license to violate another scripture, “Avoid the very appearance of evil.” But God never presents two opposing positions to us and then informs us that either one we choose is fine with him. If two right choices stand in front of us, we are to choose both. It is not either/or. It is not inward or outward holiness, it is inward and outward holiness. The operative scripture in this instance is “This ought ye to have done, not to have left the other undone.”
Unity, the desired goal for all disparate believers, finds fulfillment in Christ alone. As we embrace his doctrines, keep his priorities, live his lifestyle and die his death, unity will appear. I salute and support every attempt to move the church in this direction. Our world has grown weary of the replicas of the first church. They continue to search for the originals. May our impulse toward oneness bind us together in Apostolic distinctives.