Recently I read a couple of books that made me think about my life, about the way I live and the way I perceive the world around me. One was Anne Jackson’s book “Permission to Speak Freely”. The other was Donald Miller’s book called “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”. I love both of these authors, mostly because they both make me think about things differently; think like I use to before I was a “mature Christian”; think like I am outside of my comfortable Christian box.
A few years ago I found myself becoming a typical Christian. I found that I was starting to view Christianity the way that I had seen others do before I become a Christian. It was as if I forgot where I had come from. I viewed people in the church one way and people outside the church another way. I started to hold people outside of the church to the same standard that I held people inside the church to. And the people inside the church I was holding to the same standard that I was holding myself to. So in the end I was holding people outside of the church to the same standard that I was holding myself to. This is much like holding a newborn baby to the same standard as a sixteen year old, and it doesn’t work.
I began to judge people based on a set of standards that many of them didn’t even know about. I started to look at little things, like did they pray before they dove into that plate of food, did they cuss at the guy who cut them off driving down the road, or do they know the right “Christianese” words to use to describe life! It started to drive me crazy because I could feel myself becoming the very thing that drove me away from God for so long. I started to become the very thing I despised the most, a judgmental Christian.
Then I started to think, “What am I suppose to do, not hang out with the people I know who are outside of Christianity? Can I only hang with those who go to church, who know Christianese? Do I ask every person I meet, ‘Excuse me, do you know Christianese‘ before I can be friends with them?” I started to struggle with the idea of breaking away from the world completely. It wasn’t settling well in me that I should continue to judge and pull away from everyone around me. I started to realize that neither of these two ideas were right. I couldn’t continue to judge or pull away from everyone around me. I started to realize that there is a way to exist in the world, reach out to people, and still be a part of Christianity, and the church as a whole. Paul tells us how we should deal with those inside and those outside of the church.
- 1Corinthians 5:9-13- “I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet [I] certainly [did] not [mean] with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner––not even to eat with such a person. For what [have] I [to do] with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.””
I know some people who have been kicked to the curb by judgment from the church. I know some people who don’t know “Chirstianese”, they don’t know the right thing to say and when to say it. I know people who are missing God in their life and it is causing them to rebel against the world. They may not know what is missing, but it is causing them to lash out at those around them. They seem to not know how to act, but God loves them as much as He loves me. He has a plan for them that they don’t even realize yet. He wants them to come into a relationship with Him and see the truth of their potential.
I started to realize that I was missing it. I was missing the very purpose for my earthly existence. 2Corinthians 5:18 says, “Now all things [are] of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,” I forgot that my purpose in this world is to help others reach a point of reconciliation with the God that loves them through a relationship with Jesus Christ. If God reconciled us through Jesus, and He has given us the ministry of reconciliation, then we can do no less than love those outside the church. We have a mandate to reach out to the outside and help those in need find safety and comfort in the God that we know and serve. Anything less is treason!