Thursday, October 8, 2015

Conformity and Compromise

Just like believers should not conform to nor compromise with the world, we should also not practice conformity and compromise among ourselves in the church. The church is full of traditionalists who want every church member and every church program to conform to their idea of what is right. The problem is that keeping with traditions leads to legalism. Keeping with traditions is religion.

There are some traditions that need to be abolished. There are things that we do in church buildings that have nothing to do with Jesus Christ. The Son of God came to earth to live as a man to free us from the law; He came to show us how to live in God’s grace. Yet we, like the early church’s critics can’t seem to accept the freedom in Christ. We just can’t seem to be able to grasp that we don’t have to follow a set of rules or live by a religious creed in order to be saved.

Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ ALONE. If we had to abide by everything someone has added to that formula, we would all be hell bound. The whole purpose of God sending Jesus Christ was to prove to us that we couldn’t save ourselves through obedience to the Law. We are incapable of keeping all of the Law, so we would be guilty of breaking all the Law.

We are to be one, as God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one. Being one doesn’t mean being identical; it doesn’t mean being copycats. Being one means that we are on the same page with our purpose of spreading the Gospel. We may have different methods, but we should be unified in the message. Not all traditions are bad, but we need to separate tradition/religion from the work of Jesus Christ.

John 17:11 (NASB)
I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.

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