Churches, even bad ones, emphasize love. They just put their own spin on what it means to love. We were told they loved us, and that if we loved God and loved Truth, we’d stay in their churches, that if we loved our brothers in Christ, we’d wear long skirts and never look a man in the eye, and that if we loved the pastor, we’d obey him. If we loved… Yet they didn’t know what love was. I Corinthians 13:4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Yet they were jealous, proud, loved talking about all they’d done and hearing others say how wonderful they were. They talked about how only they had the truth and called other churches trash cans. They yelled at people, publicly berated and humiliated them without ever even first hearing both sides of the story or searching for the truth in the issue they were yelling about. They were quick to judge and condemn, and if you did any little thing they could bring up the whole laundry list of everything they knew or thought they knew you’d ever done in a heartbeat no matter how you’d repented. They had no problem throwing people out or creating an atmosphere were certain people couldn’t stay, and immediately washed their hands of those “hell-bound reprobates.”
Love. One simple, yet very misunderstood, word.
Please follow and like us:
Author: Through Grace
I was raised in a somewhat unhealthy church group within the Nondenominational Christian Church. After graduating high school, I began attending a United Pentecostal Church (UPC). I've been a member of four UPC churches and visited many others. Of the four of which I was a member, I was "encouraged" not to leave the first and then later sent to the second; attended the second where an usher repeatedly attempted to touch me and the pastor told me I should not care about the standards of the organization and was wrong to do so; ran to a third at that point, which threw me out after a couple years; and walked out of a fourth. For these transfers and because I refused to gossip about my former churches, some called me a "wandering star, a cloud without water" (Jude 1:12).
I love the fact that when the blind man was healed, questioned by the Pharisees and temple rulers, and expelled from the temple, Jesus went and sought him out. He very rarely did this once someone was healed, but for this man, he did. I believe God has a special place in his heart for those who are abused, wrongfully accused, or condemned by religious leadership. I believe He loves those who are wronged by churchianity--yes, churchianity, not Christianity, because those who do these wrongs follow a church, not Christ.
1 John 4:7-8
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
View all posts by Through Grace
Such a great explanation of the misrepresentation of love in those environments. I can fully relate!