Patience...Encouragement...Grace... Or not?

              We are doing a study at church by Beth Moore...a study about having a heart like His. The study focuses on David, the man God referred to as "the man after my own heart". I am only in the first week and am so incredibly blessed by what I have learned so far. I have read countless books that challenge Christians to evaluate where we are in our walks with the Lord, that force us to question whether we have truly submitted to Christ or not. Many of them leave even the most confident believers wondering if we truly grasp what it means to follow Christ. Then God hits me with this study, and I am filled with relief and comfort, because despite the ugliness that comes out of me so often....the pride, the envy, the jealousy, the judgment and criticism towards others... God looks at our hearts, He sees whats deep down, what our true desires are. Others can only see what we show them on the outside, our actions and our words, but God sees our most personal and precious asset...our hearts. "The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7 Praise Him for that! Even when I question my motives, my thoughts, and my actions...and even when others do... I know, and above all, God knows, that deep down I truly do desire to know and follow my Him. I fail miserably ALL.THE.TIME, but I absolutely do love Him and want Him to fill me and change my life continually.

               I think this is true for many of us, but I have noticed that most of us (believers) fail to allow for each other's failures, for each others lack of maturity in certain areas. I have grown to despise Facebook most days, not for the same reasons most do... but because I am continually discouraged by the lack of love and encouragement we as believers are showing towards one another. I expect those outside of our faith to question us, to attack us, to criticism and mock us... and I can handle that. That is part of following Christ, our message is foolishness to them. (1 Corinth. 1:18) We are promised persecution, even though the persecution we face in America is NOTHING in comparison to what our brothers and sisters around the world are facing daily. What I cannot handle is the criticism and judgment that we all have towards one another, towards other members of the Body of Christ. I watch as we post things that each of us find encouraging or challenging, and the first people to attack and "bite back" aren't our non-christian friends, in fact many times they are liking these posts. Its other Christians! I watch as so many come back with a rebuke towards the article, blog, or quote, expressing why they feel it is completely wrong, un-biblical, or out of context. Who do we think we are?! How much are we hindering one another when we do that! How much are we interfering with God's work in each other's lives when we are constantly arguing and disagreeing over the silliest stuff! I understand if we are posting about things completely against God's word, things that are clearly a hindrance to our walk with the Lord. In those cases, we can privately message that person or meet with them if God so lays it on our hearts to do so, and point them to God's word, rebuking them in LOVE. However, most of the time this is not the case. Most often we are arguing over things that are completely a matter of opinion... we are airing those opinions out of selfish motives...and clearly the problem is that we all seem to expect everyone to share the exact same opinions and thoughts on EVERYTHING...and of course, our OWN opinions are always the correct ones. 


                  Where is the patience? The love? The encouragement? Where is 1 Corinthians 13 in our relationships towards other members of Christ's body? What message are we sending to the watching world? None of us have it all together, none of us have all the answers...I think we need to be reminded that yes we have been saved from the ultimate consequence of our sins, but we are in the process of sanctification until the day we meet our Lord face to face. We are (well, we should be at least) in a constant state of growth and maturity in our faith and knowledge of God and His word. Our lives today look nothing like they did 5 or 10 years ago. Our lives 5 or 10 years from now will look nothing like they do now. What we think we know today will most likely change over the course of the next year or so. I can say that there are a dozen things I thought I was right about a year ago, and God has humbled and broken me over the last 12 months to show me I was completely wrong. And I guarantee I will look back and think the same thing again a year from now. I may think what "so and so" says is wrong now, but I may agree with them in a few months because the Spirit will have opened my eyes to that truth. None of us are always right! We should be in a constant state of humility, recognizing that even if we are right and our friends are wrong, it is only by the grace of God that we have gotten to this point, and we should pray that God will work on their hearts to reveal to them what He has so graciously shown us. In the mean time, praise God for the fact that our brothers and sisters in Christ are seeking after Him! God is ecstatic that their hearts are open to Him and choosing to follow Him, whether they have it all together or not, and we should feel the same way! 
                  Look at David... man did that guy make some mistakes! His emotions were all over the place, he made terrible decisions on many occasions, but God didn't focus on that... God still called Him a man after His own heart. We look at his life and are encouraged by him, we admire him... and yet when it comes to one another we criticize? Those of us that may be more mature in our faith are intimidating those who are new to the faith, we make it difficult for them to grow and open their hearts to us because they are terrified we are going to jump down their throats for being "wrong". That is not the love of Christ, that is not the body of Christ working to encourage and build one another up. I am not simply pointing fingers either, God has been tearing apart my own heart and revealing to me the ugliness and lack of grace I have shown towards others over the years, and that I continue to show. May we all strive to live as 1 Thessalonians 5:11-15 says...
     "Therefore encourage one another and build each other up...Live in peace with each other. And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else."