The human spirit, soul and body were created to be God's delivery system of love on earth. Each person comes equipped with an inner and outer reality that should be completely and continuously at the service of God's loving intentions.
When the Scriptures say in Romans 3:23 that we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God that means we have all used our inner and outer life for something less than love. God's glory was meant to be revealed by each human being continuously loving God and loving one's neighbor. To sin is to fail to love. This failure is coming short of the glory of God.
Perhaps the easiest way to notice when our inner and outer life have stopped loving is to notice each time we begin to judge other human beings as not worthy of our love. We have all done this. We have all sinned. Pay attention today and you will find yourself judging.
I grew up in the south of the USA during a time when people of a different skin color than mine were "legally" categorized as not entitled to the same love as other people in our town. This institutionalized love withholding left an entire country with a deep sickness of the soul. Many are still sick with some level of this spiritual sickness.
Laws were passed and much has changed in the USA. Even so, the issue we all face is much deeper than the color of one's skin. The issue is God's glory (continuous love) not being revealed by human beings.
As I travel across our world teaching that we must all abide in Christ if we are to be what God intends us to be, I am amazed at how many ways the human soul can create to justify the stopping of love. Truly without Jesus we can do nothing that even approaches God's glory. Without Jesus' perfect love filling our spirit and our soul our love will stop and we will find ourselves once again part of another culturally "legalized" form of sin. Every culture has its own form of "racism." Every culture finds a way to stop love.
If you would be free from the human tendency to stop love, you must abide in Christ moment by moment. He is the only way for a continuous culture of love to be found on earth. That culture is called the Church of Jesus Christ.
Jesus must heal us all for the Church to be the Church.
Bud McCord
Abide International
No comments:
Post a Comment