Monday, March 19, 2007

Reading

I have been catching up on my reading and I am currently reading through The Church and its Purpose. There are some really interesting points raised in this book, this quote stood out to me: "The purpose of the gospel is not simply that we should believe in the love of God: it is that we should love him and neighbor. Faith in God's love toward man is perfected in man's love to God and neighbor. We love in incompleteness, not as redeemed, not in attainment but in hope" pg. 33. I really like this quote because I think that it signifies something significant in the Church as well as something that is in the Gospel. We follow the Gospel in the Church as a foundational way that has been around since the time of Christ. The purpose of following this is not that we should become tied up in the matters of legalism but instead that we should love God.

That is the purpose of the Church. To love God. And when someone is loving God because of that love there is an over pour of God's love into other areas of their lives. Showing that loving other people requires that we love God.

This isn't easy though, sadly. And even sadder then that although we think that loving people should be easy in Church because that is where we love God, loving people doesn't always happen either. We are as the author of this book puts it, loving in incomplete love. We are not perfect people. But I am not sure that's an excuse. We get to caught in the Gospel and the law then loving God in Church. And because of that it causes us to love incompletely.

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