Here's what makes me angry more than anything: Christians often put so much effort into non-Christians that they often neglect their very own brothers and sisters in Christ. Now hear me out, it's so awesome to see people being the hands and feet of Jesus! That's exactly what we're called to do, and it encourages me SO much to see people accept Jesus into their lives!!! I love seeing God work! But here's the thing that we as Christians often do...we invite them into our family, they accept the invitation, and then that's it. Okay! Our job is done! Now go fend for yourselves! Umm...NO!!!!
I have been noticing this a lot in the Church. If a Christian asks a question, like, "How do you know God is real?" because they're beginning to have doubts, other Christians shake it off like it's nothing because this person has already accepted Jesus. Guys, if you do that, we're going to lose a lot of people. I've asked the question before, and I've gotten responses like "I've seen too many things to not believe" or "Jesus is proof"...those answers don't satisfy me. Sorry, but I want to hear the stories, hear the testimonies, hear the proof. Not just some one sentence answer because you don't feel like dealing with my crap. What if I went home and burned my bible, said, "Screw this" and killed myself? That opportunity would've been ruined. A lot of us ruin opportunities. I do too.
I am honestly so tired of feeling like my own family of believers doesn't care about me. And this isn't a me-me-me post, because if I'm feeling this way, then how many other people feel this way? I can deal with this, I'm used to being alone, but for the sake of the other believers that feel like this, we need to fix this huge problem. It is a huge problem when I feel like my work is more of a family than my church. It is a huge problem when I'm scared to ask questions with other Christians because I don't want them to think negative things about me. It's a huge problem when I cry because of the words of another believer. It's a huge problem when I doubt my faith because of another believer.
You know what guys? I'm tired of it. Your first priority is always God. God is our Father. We are his children. We are all brothers and sisters. We need to be there for eachother with love, support, trust, strength, encouragement, truth. We need to reach out for and be there for our brothers and sisters who are struggling. We need to take them seriously. If they say, "I don't know if God is real." We should in no way assume that they'll get over it. Never assume someone will "get over" anything. Soon, they will have a knife to their wrist. They will have a bottle of pills. They will have a gun. They will drink alcohol to drown the pain. They will. Why do you think God gave us eachother? So we could hold eachother up in times of weakness! So we could have little slivers of him here on this earth.
Don't ignore your family in Christ, guys. Don't take them for granted. They are a gift, and we should always treat them like that.
I love you, family.
Ariel
You're right, Ariel. Discipleship should be very important to us. If Christians are not growing in their faith, then what use are we? You cannot have evangelism exclusively nor discipleship exclusively. Both go hand in hand and are necessities.
ReplyDeleteI've definitely seen issues with people who receive the Word, yet no follow-up was given, so the person's faith becomes choked. They're not being fed, so they begin to starve spiritually. Sad reality, but we need to come to a balance in this area. It's all too easy to become either a church that is exclusively evangelism minded or exclusively discipleship minded. But a balance does need to be reached.
Ariel - good article as usual. Yes, unfortunately a lot of times one finds his or her walk with the Lord to be by oneself alone. We must realize that we are all members of the Body of Christ and function better together as a unit. I hope your "family" relations gets better Ariel.
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