Sometimes... Belonging with a group, individual or even family can have it's positive and negative sides. Belonging costs you and I in a myriad of different ways. Those too can be positive or negative. Belongings has as it's center philosophy the needs and wants that everyone brings with them. What about Christian belonging? There are positives there and negatives as well. Attitude and motive are defining of how the group you belong to is either positive or negative. A Christ centered group (marriage, family, church family, even work) is certainly superior to any other choice as long as it IS Christ centered. When we look at Scripture we see the model of a Christian belonging set in place by Jesus himself. Sometimes I don't feel like belonging and I imagine you don't feel like belonging as well. For the sake of this blog I'll try to concentrate on the personal belongings and leave political stuff alone. I know, that'll be hard! I'll also try to keep myself from wandering to much and being a distraction.
Many years ago I visited a certain denominations church and was pleased with the sermon. I went home and looked up their beliefs and never went back. Their beliefs were outside Scripture. As years went by I repeated visiting different denominations churches and then went home and discovered that many of them simply did not exist within the confines of Scripture. The Bible says that through Christ we are set free. These churches were holding people captive by their manipulation of Scripture for their purposes. Wherever there is secrecy (expounding on what they believe) in masking what they believe, there are bound to be control issues. Besides the secrecy and control, the element of manipulations is added and where once people found themselves liking the message, they found themselves repelled by those churches or they were embraced and slowly accepted the control and manipulation as well. This isn't different for marriages, friendships, families, work environments or even government. Wherever there is secrecy, control and manipulation, there you will find the enemy hard at work perverting the Gospel. These were the same three elements the serpent brought to Eve in the garden and Adam after his conquest. This system has served him well throughout eternity.
There is a saying that goes like this: "If you love my yes but don't love my no, you don't love me." Why is that? All of us are lives lived with yes and no according to our beliefs. Sometimes people try to take away our no and love only our yes or agreement with them. They don't love you, they love themselves. Self seeking has no place in any group. Loving people's yes and no means you are willing to accept that they, like you, are individuals. We can let people believe differently as long as we don't fall prey to beliefs that we don't adhere to. Disagreeing is as important as agreeing. Without the two you have individuals and with the two you have a group. If you or I were to only hold to our beliefs we would do so by measuring everyone and every group by our beliefs and not on Scripture alone. IF we are dead to self and Christ lives through us then the basis of our belonging is the same with others as we belong to Christ. Do you belong to Christ? Do you belong to the world? There is no other logical choice for those who would claim to be Christian. Remember, it's always your choice.
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