Why Is It So Hard?

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. Romans 8:1-2

Throughout my life, I have been instructed on how straight the path was and how narrow the gate if I was to be accepted by God to enter heaven. The passage above gave me no confidence since it was so easy to fall out of favor with God and lose my salvation. While I think it may be foolish to believe we do not have the ability to be lost, I no longer think it is as easy as I once thought. In fact, as I heard preached not long ago, I grew up believing it was not so much a possibility but a probability and now, aware of the possibility, I live in no fear because the probability is I will be there with the rest of you reading this post.

Knowing we have no condemnation, why then is it so hard to keep ourselves from condemning others in their worship or praise to God. My own life serves as my example of this problem. I can remember the occasion last year when a worship leader from the Fort Bend area was invited to come lead singing and praise one evening in our congregation. When I got to service that evening, I saw the microphones, the speakers, the singers walking around with their music and my evening was ruined! I can remember sitting down and when the first song came up and there were no notes I was even further devastated by what was taking place. I got up out of my seat and spent the rest of the time sitting in my van upset that anyone would let this take place.

Here I am knowing on an intellectual level that nothing is wrong with what took place and yet I took it as a personal attack on me and had a variety of mixed feelings about how unhappy I would be if our congregation chose to follow this lead and make changes necessary for this to continue. When I look back at the incident now, I can see how little value my heart had towards God and His children on that specific evening. My heart was so far from God, I can almost hear Him say "why have you forsaken me?" My selfishness (what I like) was more important on that evening than a Christian heart set on putting others ahead of myself. I probably even went to one of the elders and told them how I felt about this taking place and now I wish they had looked me in the eye like Jesus and told me "since there is nothing wrong with what they were doing the problem could only lie within my own heart."

The solution to my heart problem was to focus my condemnation back on the heart taken so far from being a loving heart wanting to put others first! For some reason it seems it is only a good thing to put others first when it agrees with our own selfish desires. While I get a "sick" feeling just considering the possibility, it would be a good thing for my faith to have this happen again. You see, my prejudice against what I don't like is actually strengthened by getting my way and being allowed to enjoy what I am used to experiencing when I come to worship God on "my terms."

Some have asked me why I am writing these things and if my purpose is to push our congregation one way or the other away from our traditions and the answer is much to involved probably to make much since in print. I have become disappointed in the way we have come to treat our traditions as being the "gospel of Christ" and yet if it is my choice, there would be no change! I like things the way I grew up having them done. I am trapped in my tradition and until change is forced on me by those not trapped like myself, I will enjoy services like they have always existed.

What I do wish to see changed is our approach to those things that would trap future generations of those loving God who might not want to carry on my tradition. I was made to feel guilty and some would still have me feel guilty for doing something "not authorized" by the bible. I wish to see the youth of our congregation grow up with out these same chains and when they get to make decisions, I would like to know the decisions they make are a result of a heart placed in love near to the heart of God and not because someone else demanded the selfish desires of their own heart.

If we are going to empower future generations to love God fully, we are going to have to upset Mike's cart once in a while. When Mike comes forward and says "are you going to let that happen" or "I didn't get anything out of service today," we need to respond appropriate to Mike's heart needing some work. The tradition is not what is important but rather the loving heart helping a misguided heart to grow their faith. Yes, this is a blog about Mike's Growing Faith and the desired purpose is to write about things in my life which have promoted or changed my faith. I desperately believe we need open discussion about so many things in all of our lives and I believe each of us has something we picked up in our past which just seems would be the "last straw" for us in the congregation. Help me with my heart and I will try to help you with yours!