“He is the Head of the body made up of his people – that is, his Church – which he began.” (TLB, Colossians 1:18)
A group of pastors from the community in which I live organizes two community-wide prayer services each year. They don’t all come from any one denomination. Ironically, denominations don’t seem to separate them as much as they seem to distance their members from other denominations. These are men of God – Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Charismatics, Pentecostals, all of whom realize that a belief in Christ should unite us, not divide us.
Sadly, their efforts go unrecognized. Just recently, for example, their first prayer service for this year had fewer than 150 people present. It was held in Baptist church where very few of the host pastor’s members chose to attend.
At the end of the service, the host pastor spoke and confessed that he joined this group of pastors not only because he believes in the power of prayer but to also set an example for his own members. “I probably don’t believe 75% of what some of these other pastors believe,” he told the audience. “But how can I challenge my members to stretch their faith if I’m not willing to stretch mine?”
His words struck a chord with me. As a young man, I frequented lots of different churches in my search for truth. Today, as a born-again Christian writer, I’ve spoken to just about every mainline denomination that exists. Like that young Baptist pastor, I may not have believed the same doctrine they believed, but I was saved the same way they were saved and will end up in heaven, just like them. As I have said many times before, God is not interested in style. It’s substance that counts.
I have a friend who recounts a story in a grocery line one day. She was speaking to a lady behind her and it wasn’t long before they were talking about the churches they attend. The woman asked my friend if she really believed in some of the beliefs that her church practiced. “Of course I do,” she said. “Why shouldn’t I? You can find everything we believe in the Bible.”
Abraham Lincoln certainly agreed with my friend’s statement. When Lincoln was president, he attended a Presbyterian church in Washington, but he wasn’t a member. In fact, Lincoln never joined a church. He believed denominations often frustrated our main charge as Christians, which is to bring others to a saving knowledge of Jesus. In the only public document where he ever gave any personal testimony about his religious views, he said simply, “That I am not a member of any Christian church is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scripture.”
None of the churches to which we belong denies the truth of the Scripture. But the walls our churches build to fortify biblical truths often separate us so much that we can’t even figure out a way to assemble and pray together. What a shame. There’s so much left for the Church to do.
We exercise our bodies to stay in shape, to help us run the race that’s set before us. We must also exercise our faith by looking not so much as who we are, but what we are. God doesn’t see us as man sees us. So the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, or Pentecostal in us is not what matters to Him. What really matters is can He see Jesus in us?
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