One of my former classmates, a man who knows loss and sorrow, and victory and joy, Curt Heffelfinger wrote a great little article the other day that I thought was worth passing on.
If you have sometimes struggled with loving your brothers and sisters in Christ or even the members of your own household, this will be helpful to you.
How Embracing Others with Differences of Conscience Protects Church Unity
I have always felt that this little ditty hits a little too close to home for comfort:
To live above with the saints we love, oh, how that will be glory; but to live below with the saints we know, now that’s a different story.
Quote that to any follower of Jesus with any length of time invested in His church, and that person will likely smile, wince, or both from a history of painful experience.
The New Testament prescribes numerous–what I call graces of gospel community–which we must apply in church fellowship, if we expect to eagerly preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph. 4:3).
One such intricacy of love–lesser known than many of the others but oh so important–is welcoming one another. Paul’s epistle to the Romans addresses this issue toward the…
View original post 367 more words
