To Love Your C/church
Lord I want to love your Church universal. Not just kinda like Her. Not just appreciate Her. I want to love Her. First and foremost because She is your bride, but also because I am apart of Her whether sometimes I like it or not. I want to love Her just the way She is, not the way I want Her to be. And She is a hard thing to love and an even harder thing to understand. She is the ugliest of whores and the most beautiful of brides. She has wounds that cut deep, but Her roots in you run much deeper. I want to love your Church. I want to love Her when the world is against Her. When everyone says She is too far gone and too worldly. I want to love Her when they shout that she is too behind for "these" times. I want to love Her with Her history of hurting others and leaving some stranded in her wake, because I'm not perfect either. I want to love Her until the cows come home and go out to pasture again. I want to love the Church because She is made up of my family. My brothers, my sisters. I want to hurt when She hurts whether that be in Connecticut or Pakistan. I want to feel as She feels and ache as She aches. I want to see Her grow in the grace Her husband has poured on Her and watch Her shower others with that same love. I want to love your Church.
And Lord I want to love your church.
I want to be planted in a local congregation and do nothing but love her. I want to do life together, as cliche as that may sound. I want to delve into the lives of others there and love them deeply. I want to love the single mother with four kids. I want to love the boy in youth group who reminds me too much of myself. I want to love the bitter old widow sitting in the in same old spot of the same old pew who gives me the same old look when my shirt isn't tucked in. I want to surrender my life fully and completely to her. I want to enter into the trenches with other Christians and embed ourselves with the gospel and grace. I want to be intentional about authentic fellowship. I want to love the local church because it is the place that I have a direct impact and where You have specifically placed me. I want to love it when the music is "too 90's" and the preaching is more of a lecture. I want to remind her of her singular focus, Christ. I dont want to hop here to there taste testing. I don't want to be a consumer. As long as she preaches Christ, him crucified, and his sufficiency for my insufficiency, I'm in. And once in, I'm there till the Lord says otherwise. I want to weekly break the bread and drink of the cup with other sinners saved by grace like me to remind ourselves of our first love because we so easily forget.
I want to love your church because I don't have the authority or power to sufficiently love your Church, but by your grace I can do my best to love the church where I am at.
I see the love you have for your Church, your Bride, enough to give yourself up for her; and I feel the call, the duty, to do the same for the church. I will fail, and it will be messy, but by your grace, it will be beautiful, for you work all things together for good.