Don WiltonIt’s amazing, really, to think of ourselves as family, but we are indeed.
Our convention is made up of every size of church fellowship, every age group, and every kind of ministry. These attributes are usually borne out of years of ministry and faithful service, and some are the result of years of difficulties of one kind or another. A good way to think about “us” is the human family. The human family is bound together by blood and love. And so are we in the body of Christ.
We have a common identity in that we exist to glorify our Heavenly Father with the message of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The church is the body of Christ, gathered on Sundays and scattered throughout the week, but bound together in that we are “all sinners saved by the grace of God.”
We are bound together by blood and love. The blood of Jesus is the only reason we have been set free, and love is the product of our having been set free. No wonder the Lord Jesus mandated love for one another as the primary means by which all others would know that we are a family in Christ Jesus. The only difference, in fact, between the best of us in the church and those outside the church is the grace of God.
All of this means we must be centered in the truth of God’s word. Some of the issues that divide us are those of personal conviction and personal preference. As important as these issues may well be, they must never occupy the center point of the church. Many of our churches have been built on personal preference and conviction, rather than on absolute truth. When this happens, our congregations become revolving doors of preference-seekers, rather than places where sinners come to repentance and faith in Christ and disciples come to feast on the unsearchable riches of God’s word.
You may want to call your people together and renew your church families’ vow to our Savior that the only thing that matters is that the name of the Lord Jesus is being high and lifted up, and that the word of God is the only means by which all decisions are made.