My husband and i were once part of a Christian community, for three years. It was very sad to watch how easily people could offend each other and divide over so many various issues. Some of them were: speaking in tongues, women preachers, divorce and remarriage, a pre-tribulation rapture or post-tribulation rapture, and i could go on. As important as these issues and others may be, and knowing that you should know what you believe about them and why, can we not just love each other through these differences? Can we realize they are important, but that loving each other and remaining bonded in Christ is even far more important? Love is long-suffering, which means that you as the Christian who believe you are in the right, should suffer a long time with those who do not agree with you. Maybe one day, they will agree with you.
How many of us at one time believed a thing very strongly that we no longer believe? I once believed that married Christian women should wear coverings over their heads, based on the Scripture that most of you may know about. I no longer believe that (what i believe now may be even more radical! haha--which is why i won't tell!) I have since found a different interpretation, and that is what i adhere to. So do i have a lot of patience with mennonites who wear head coverings? Oh, yes, you bet i do. It really helps to have once believed something and realized you were a little too hasty, because that should give you more grace for other Christians. You see, we are all on the road following the same Shepherd, but His voice may sound very clear to some sheep and very distant to others. We will all get to where He leads, so long as we continue in Him, but we will get there at differing speeds. So please, please, be patient with one another and treat all of those who claim to love the Lord as though they were you. Love them as you love yourself. If you were in error, even serious error, would you not want to be treated with love and patience? The Lord is strong enough to handle our errors and to open our eyes. Let us desire good things for one another.
Too many times, i have heard dear brothers and sisters speak badly about one group or another, treating them as though they were just so stupid to believe certain things. Why not just be silent? If the issue is big enough to cause division, you will know. There will be blatant sin coming out, sin that you cannot ignore. But in our day, it seems we know too much for our own good. We have so much time on our hands and such an easy life that we enjoy sitting around belittling those who love the Lord and picking others' theologies to pieces. The Lord Himself, who loves every sheep, even the sometimes wandering sheep, will judge us for our words. "Let every word you speak be as the very words of God" and "You will be judged for every idle word" are Scriptures we need to keep at the front of our minds.
I am not saying we should believe like the New Age religion teaches, where all spiritual roads lead to the same God. No, no, no. But if a person really does love the God of Israel, and they happen to be in a denomination that has horrible heresies within, then do not automatically assume that person is a goat, doomed to hell. See them as a sheep who may not have reached the maturity to see the heresy yet. But pray and hope and expect that they will if they keep after Him. That is why i can love Christians in all walks of life. One brother who grew up in an Assemblies of God church cannot imagine how some Christians do not speak in tongues, and he may see them as ineffective until they do. Let him believe it! Love him through it! You may be the one who wears the head covering and long dresses. So when you see Christian women dressed in tight shirts and pants, love them! They either know not what they do, or they do not see their clothes as immodest the way you do. They may think they are dressed modestly because they aren't showing their bare thighs and breasts.
Hopefully, you get what i'm saying. "They will know we are Christians by our love for one another." How i long for that day when we will all be together worshipping God in the Kingdom, and we will FINALLY realize that some things didn't matter so much to our Shepherd as they mattered to us.
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