Church People and Our Assumptions

In order to go about "being the Church," one imperative is that we stop focusing on other people's perceived shortcomings (I really want to say "you" instead of "we" because I think it would sound more personal). It goes for me, but it goes for you first (and vice versa, odd as that may sound). Chances are pretty high that most of the shortcomings you and I focus on in other people are more like presumptuous leaps and assumptions about motives.

I don't mean that we're not to hold other Christ-followers to the high standard that's been set for us in the Word. If we find that a fellow believer is in error or sin, it's our responsibility as their family to help them back to the right path: "Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself." - Galatians 6:1 (NLT)

We like to quote, "By their fruits ye shall know them..." (Matthew 7:16, ASV) However, willy-nilly fault-finding immediately leads to a superiority complex. And once we start, it's difficult to stop doing it!

If you start a complex math problem and get one of the early sums wrong, but continue working it out with that incorrect value, the wrong value will not correct itself as you get deeper into the problem. Instead, it will throw all the other values out of whack and lead to a wildly wrong answer. The same can happen in our observations of other Christ-followers. If we start by assuming a particular motive, we can easily determine what we think to be a pattern of behavior based upon that first assumed motive. Before we know it, we've built up a total assumption of a particular person's belief system that potentially couldn't be more wrong.

Self-examination, by definition, begins with self. Do you love Christ with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? Are your motives pure? Are you driven to do everything out of a deep, undying love for Christ and compassion for people? Do you do good things for people with total abandon because you know that not only has God "got your back," but so do the other Christ-followers? Or do you not trust Christ-followers around you because you've been focusing so much on their faults that you think they're not good enough Christians to help you if you put yourself at risk for the sake of Christ?

Following are some fun types of things that Christians are prone to say about one another. Don't say, "Yeah, but..." -- instead, start by just seeing if any of these fit you:

• "He does that kind of music because he only wants to appeal to the younger crowd."
• "He only gives that much to the church because he's jockeying for influence." (I just wanted to use "jockeying" in a sentence...)
• "She just likes to hear herself talk."
• "He says that other people should come to church but then he skips Wednesday night services."
• "He says he wants to build a building for the sake of the kingdom of God, but he really just wants to say he's the pastor of a big church."
• "She talks about people behind their backs all the time!" (saying this to someone immediately turns the statement into an oxymoron...)

I'm curious about some of the assumptions you've made in the past (hopefully) about others in the Church, that God's convicted and corrected you on.

"For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another." - Galatians 5:13-15 (NLT)

Posted in: Christianity, Relationships, The Church