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A Morning View From the Patio

My thoughts keep being taken back to a simple time in my life. I remember when I was a young Christ Follower who had the excitement of Jesus in his heart. I was a milk drinking baby of the Lord who was so filled with forgiveness that nothing else mattered. I believed everything would be better now while all the problems of the world would go away. People would get along and life would become fill with great peace and everything would be okay. The church was the safest place ever and all followers of Jesus Christ would be unified as one. 

I'm sure as you read this many of you are chuckling or worse hurting because of pain caused by someone who proclaimed to be a Christian, you know a Christ Follower. It is sad I use the term Christ Follower instead of Christian. I intentionally do because too many people are turned off by the term Christian because of many who use the term do not understand what it means to be Christian. 
In my 50 years of being a Christ Follower I have learned that people often use the church institution for power, wealth, prestige and self promotion. Selfishness instead of Godliness.  In fact I believe our culture has evolved so much that the church in many instances has become a country club for self promotion and not a hospital for sick sinners to become healed whole followers of Jesus Christ. The church often does good stuff in the name of Jesus Christ with personal gain and selfish desires. 
I wonder if humanity has become too self sufficient for our own good? We have so much knowledge of good and evil. We seem to always run back the the wrong tree from the Garden of Eden, We can eat from the best of what God has to offer us in Grace and yet we run back to our own knowledge, self sufficiency and our own strength. Sin keeps us at bay and not effective in truly living the gospel of the one we proclaim. Jesus Christ. I am ashamed to say that perhaps our dependance on our knowledge or more appropriately our use of our knowledge, has created the greatest sin chasm in the history of humanity. 
I just want the simple Jesus Christ story of hope and grace to run free in our world. I remember when it was a simple faith journey...... do you?

“At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”  - Matthew 18:1-5

We need to become like little children living strong with our spiritual maturity and simple in our faith. The faith of a child is refreshing and simple proclaiming the love of Jesus Christ! They sing, "Jesus love me, this I know." They sing, "Jesus loves the little children, ALL the children of the world." They run to church and cannot wait to learn how to live like and love like Jesus. They are pure in heart and have eaten little from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They just love Jesus. They try to share such love with others. 

Do you really desire to be the Church and not just go to church? 

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”  - Colossians 3:15-17

Something radical needs to happen in our childlike faith. May it begin with me.

Peace,

PB

                                  










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