The Spirit Brings Us Together... We Pull Ourselves Apart

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I'VE GOT SOMETHING YOU DON'T! You've heard that taunt from your children, haven't you? Maybe you’ve said it yourself a few times. It's okay... you can admit it. We’ve all said things like that to one another at some point in our adult lives.

One of the most serious problems with our personal passion and strong commitment to follow Christ, is that we allow it to overpower our balance... our view of ourselves and others. You might be wondering how something so good, so rich and rewarding as a life commitment to serve the Lord could be a threat to our spiritual growth and standing before God.

Here’s the problem. We often deceive ourselves with an all-too-human spirit that says my experiences or my spiritual practices or my commitment or my doctrinal understanding give me a better connection with God than you have.

You have deceived yourself into believing that what you’re doing for the Lord and His Kingdom are better than what others are doing and therefore God recognizes "you" as better than others. You might even see yourself as sort of a “savior” for your congregation.... as if they couldn’t get along without you... your teaching, your insights, your wisdom and so on. In your eyes, you think of yourself as humble... a person “extra” blessed by God, working passionately and diligently in doing God’s will. Thinking like this is a sure sign that you're not what you think you are. Said another way... expressions such as these are quite literally a "holier than thou" attitude.

It's great to have spiritual experiences, right doctrine, knowledge and understanding of the Scriptures. It’s great that someone can explain and teach the Word of God effectively. But such gifts are not a “measuring stick” to be used in evaluating one person over another. Having what you equate as more skills and talents, does not mean that God has imbued you with more, thereby making you better than others.

Working to bring people together is a responsibility for all of us. But some of us just seem to have a knack for pulling people apart. Here’s a short list of skills many of us seem to have mastered rather well: starting arguments; spreading gossip; creating cliques; carrying grudges; backstabbing; deliberately undermining those in authority; pitting one person off against another; lying; setting up rules in order to create social barriers; being a racist or sexist or elitist; giving orders and demanding obedience; using principles or even 'righteous' anger as an excuse to cut off contact; personalizing a dispute; raising the stakes in disputes; having an 'I win, you lose' attitude; acting without concern about how it affects others. That’s enough! More than enough to undermine your personal relationship with Jesus and cause competitive divisiveness in a congregation.

God have never given us any evidence that He “measures” one person against the other based on skills, abilities, or knowledge. God loves us all equally. Jesus died on the cross not only for all... but for each of us.

God seeks to work within each one of us, thereby achieving His purposes through a collective gifted body of believers whom He empowers to work harmoniously together. The Holy Spirit works for the good of the whole body of followers, doing so by assisting us in cultivating the personal gifts each one of us possesses. God’s treatment of his children is impartial with grace for all and blessings bestowed on sincere hearts.

When we worry about measuring one another, especially when you set yourself up as the “measuring stick” for evaluating the contributions and value of your Christian brothers and sisters, we craft an ugly picture for the whole world to see. You can’t hide this type of attitude, it shows forth like a flashing neon sign giving a poor witness to onlookers of the Christian experience. The unbelievers in the world use various forms of measuring people, but they expect something better from those who say they believe in the concepts of unconditional love and acceptance of all.

Harboring such attitudes will cause a body of believers to be less effective in using the gifts God gave to each of us. The tighter the group is, the worse these attitudes can be. God designed His Church to be a tightly knit body of believers... so it stands to reason that we will succumb to feeding on one another from time to time like ravenous wolves!

In many churches, this is what church life is like. Just ask the steady stream of once-active Christians who walk away from the Church in disgust. Instead of finding acceptance, hope, joy, edification and building up by the Spirit, enthusiastic members frequently get torched with flame-thrower-like legalism imposed by the "extra gifted".

Jesus gave us a better way. He taught us to love one another with God's love. An unconditional love without expectations of anything in return (John 13:34-35) Paul laid out the strategy for how we are to use our personal talents... when he wrote about spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:12-27). Our gifts, abilities and talents are to be used to build up one another, thereby making the body a powerful unit able and capable of being used by God to accomplish his purpose.

The Christian faith is full of struggles and conflicts among brothers, but also healing and strengthening, conflict resolution, spiritual nourishment and growth. Rather than measuring how much better you think you are than others in your congregation, spend your time figuring out how you can “fit into the plan of God” working in harmony with your fellow Christians... using your gifts to enhance, to encourage, to build one another up in love.

If you need to measure someone... try measuring yourself against Jesus. Then get on your knees and thank him for not measuring you against His gift.