Living in Victory is Living Connected

Ever read the Bible and get confused? This morning I read this, (and I'm glad I didn't stop there!):

"and you are complete in Him [Christ], who is the head of all principality and power." Colossians 2:10 NKJV

I like the "I'm complete in Him" part, but the rest? Ephesians says we wrestle against principlaties and powers - these are the 'bad guys' - yet Colossians seems to be saying that Christ is the head of them?

If I didn't read all of Colossians, I might become confused regarding who Christ is in relationship to 'the bad guys', but after reading all four chapters, I know He's not their ringleader, He's their defeater!

The Apostle Paul wrote Colossians to tell us that Christ is the Head of the Body [the church, Christians], and that He has definitively won the battle against principalities and powers, to the point of shaming them in their defeat. He stripped their ability to accuse us any longer when we identify ourselves with Him, connecting ourselves to Him and living in connection to Him. Now, the only real power principalities and powers have is what we give to them.

Stay connected to the Head, Jesus Christ, who's "power extends over everything" (Col. 2:10 MSG), and keep reading your Bible, especially when you come across something you question or don't understand. The clarity is there, you'll find it!

An Imerfectly Perfect Church

Should Church be perfect?

I know that as a wife and mother, I often want to make things better (if not perfect): the house cleaner or more organized; our homelife more serene or fun depending on the circumstances; communication with my husband more (you get it).....And somehow, in my quest, I tend to make things more complicated.  Instead of enjoying where things are at, or simply maximizing what I have, I can stress everybody out trying to reach some self-imposed ideal. And often, when I simply relax and roll with grace and acceptance while doing the best I can, something miraculous happens: the imperfections become perfectly 'us'.  The process of working through life together helps shape who we are as a family. It's not always pretty, but it defintely is unique to us!

Can the same be true for the church?

In his book Practicing Resurrection, Eugune Peterson says this:

 “It is easy to dismiss the church as ineffective and irrelevant.  And many do dismiss it.  It is easy to be condescending to the church because so many of its members are unimpressive nonentities.  Condescension is widespread.  It is common to become disillusioned with the church because expectations formed in the country of death and by the lies of the devil are disappointments.  Disillusionment is, as a matter of course, common.” (p.13)

He goes on and challenges us to consider: what if God created the church to be imperfect? What if the problems we like to point out are actually designed by God to be the very thing that causes us to grow in the stature of Christ, to become mature believers?  If this is true, wouldn't that change our perspective in how we evaluate and experience Church?

I've never met a perfect family, and I've certainly never been to nor heard of a perfect church (not even in the Bible!), but we are all "imperfectly perfecting".

I love the local church, in all it's imperfections, because I know, in the end....God will complete the work He has started. In the meantime, we will continue to grow and mature in responsiveness to the calling that God has called us to.

Really, what kind of "reality" do you want to live in?

Blogs can make me think, can challenge me, can offend, can feed me.  I recently read two blogs.  The first one is a christian satire that I enjoy, and it was highlighted in a secular paper.  The second was a christian author posing a question regarding churches and developing leadership (I'll think about posting the blog links, but I'm not inspired to at the moment.  Both led to strong dialog in the comments, and this is what I learned:

• Non-christians really do think we are off our rockers for believing in God.  They find it unreasonable, illogical, and weak.
• The non-christians who posted couldn't fathom how we believe in heaven, but were proud to announce they were headed to hell?  Not sure how it is easy to see yourself going to hell and yet find heaven unreasonable?
• Non-christians believe we are unthinking, group-think, naive people. 
• There are a lot of "unchurched" christians out there with bitterness regarding the local church, unforgiveness and unhealed hurt.
• There is a an awful lot of generalizations and stereotyping thrown around as weapons both from non-christians and christians alike
• There are also a lot of justifications and rationalizations based upon personal experience/pain (understandable, right?  Or is it?)

I could go on, but it's depressing.  Instead, I'd like to share these thoughts:

Let's love God and love our neighbor.
Let's be real, not weird
Let's put action behind our words
Let's not give up in the face of disbelief
Let's persevere in humility, not letting mockery stop us
Let's be happy, live life to the fullest, display God's goodness in our attitudes, smiles, words, hands and feet. 
Let's remember that we don't fight against flesh and blood - don't hate them, they don't know what they're doing.
Let's keep kindness in our hearts and on our tongue.  A soft answer turns away wrath.
Let's not lose every connection we have to the world around us.  They need the light we have and if we keep closing the doors, our opportunities will be non-existent.
Let's keep asking questions and listening to the responses
Let's guard our hearts
Let's forgive
Let's be healed.  Let go and be healed.

What reality do I want to live in?  What reality do I want to drive me?  Not the ones I read in the dialog.  I'm going to choose a different reality.  How about you?