Encouragement

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"The problem with the church today..."

Within the last year or so I began to realize how often I hear these words. I'm starting to get sick of them. How is the church supposed to fulfill it's God-given role if all it ever hears are what it's doing wrong? How much hope does a child have who has only ever been told that he'll never amount to anything, that he's doing something wrong and needs to correct himself? This is what's happening to the church. If you don't believe me on this one, try this out: what's one of the first things you think about when you hear the words "the church"? Not always, but making a pretty consistent appearance towards the top of that list for me is criticism in some shape or fashion.

I'm hard to convice that the church is any way worse off than it was in the past. The church has always struggled. To criticize "the church in America today" is to assume that there were happier times generations ago in which everyone knew their bibles inside out, sang hymns all the time, blah blah blah. My Bible doesn't support that though. We haven't been there since before the fall of mankind. The church wasn't in "Leave It To Beaver" shape in the 1950s. People didn't get worse during the radical 60s. All that happened in the 60s was that people became more bold about the sin that was already there in the 50s. It's foolish to be nostalgic about the happier times of the church. The problem in the church today is the same problem that was in the church yesterday: SIN. Specific struggles may differ, but the condition of the heart is the same. I don't know if any theologian has really been happy with the church in his own day. I wonder how much we're missing out on life by living in such constant dissatisfaction.

I'm definitely not saying that the church doesn't need improvement. It does. But that will be the case until Christ returns. We need to be rebuked at times. Yet that's all some people hear: rebuke. Conviction without exhortation is discouragement. The church will be worn down and broken in a sea of endless discouragement or thrive and grow on encouragement to keep following Christ. I would love to preach a two-talk series someday. The first talk will be on the improvements the church needs to make to function better. The second one will be revolutionary. It will be all about what the church in the modern times has been excelling at, all for the purpose of encouraging them to continue in it and know that the fruits of the church have not been in vain. How can we be encouraged without hearing how our Lord is moving in this world?

Just some thoughts. I'm not of the mind to believe that something of which Christ is the head is doing everything wrong.

May we resort to rebuke only when necessary and abound ceaselessly in encouraging the Bride of Christ rather than calling her a whore.

"'Let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.' It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, 'Write, "Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb."' And he said to me, 'These are the true words of God.'"
-Revelation 19:7-9 NASB

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