I'm just Sayin'

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Christ does not need to be defended. He's God.
But just for the record:

Jesus does not destroy relationships nor does he promote the destruction of them.
Christ promotes unity. He requires sacrificial love toward Himself and our neighbor (and gives a broad definition of neighbor to include even a sworn enemy). His character and grand work on this earth are redemptive and reconciliatory in nature, not destructive, and while a person may be able to pull out an individual scripture here or there to support a cutting off of relationship (the one about forsaking father and brother for Christ comes to mind), you cannot twist His character as demonstrated in the whole of scripture into something that would support and perpetuate any destruction of relationships for an individual's or group's personal safety or control. It's just not Him. Sorry. I know it's nice to create safety for ourselves, but He's not like that. And I bring this up simply because I'm tired of "Christian" assertions that He is. Blech!

Jesus does not promote the cutting off of communication as a healthy answer to relational problems.
This does not need to be said, and yet here I am pointing it out. No one promotes the cutting off of communication as a healthy solution to any problem. Furthermore, "waiting" is only a Godly attribute when we are "waiting on God", not when we are refusing to deal with problems we've created. Christ promotes humble repentance. He even says that if we come to Him to serve Him and remember that our brother has something against us, we're to leave and go take care of the brother before we serve Him, not wait until…when? later…? This is a central tennant of Christ's and the apostle's ministries as well as a glaring character trait of Christ's sacrificial love. It can't be avoided. Christ will, of course come and bind up the hearts that we have left to rot in relationships we've refused to attend to, but He is not pleased about it.

And when a heart that has been left to rot by someone acting less then Christ-like is bound up and healed by the Savior, you should expect that heart to protest loudly against false claims about it's Christ.

Be careful what you say "God told you" to do. If you say it and then do it, it better have an uncanny resemblance to the dangerous, generous, kind, selfless to the point of complete sacrifice, life that Christ lived, or you are a false witness. And false witnesses, according to scripture, don't have a bright future.

I'm just sayin'.

...Oh. But I do want to add:
Jesus does promote forgiveness to anyone who will ask
Unconditional, extravagent, irrational forgiveness.
I promote that too, actually.