Take the Risk – Love the Saints

 

“We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in

Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints,”

Colossians 1:3-4 

Right now, the enemy of the church is working overtime to create division within our ranks.

We have always had Baptists, Pentecostals, Lutherans, Charismatics, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and on and on.

Each has their own doctrinal distinctive which can often serve better to divide than unite.

We have pre-tribulation and post-tribulation rapture camps.

We have always had the feuds about music styles and what kinds of instruments are acceptable in worship, what is the local churches role in the community, the work and evidence of the Holy Spirit in the church and so forth

There are very few days that pass that we don’t hear of some church that has split because of this or that but now - 

We have the masked and the unmasked

We have the vaccinated and the unvaccinated

We have the go to church crowd and the stay at home crowd

It seems like we have a whole new set of reasons, another whole layer added just so we can disagree and in turn, struggle to love all the saints.

But this challenge is hardly new.

Look at the division that existed in Jesus’ day between Jews and Samaritans.

The Samaritans were looked down upon as ‘half-breeds’ by most Jews.

And if the Samaritans were considered unworthy by the Jews consider the even more intense rift between Jew and Gentile.

How about the divisions among the rulers of the Jews? It seems the only unifying theme between the often feuding Pharisees and Sadducees was their mutual hatred of Jesus.

There were divisions between genders, between Romans and Jews and on and on the list went even back then.

So let’s not think that Paul’s recognition in his letter to the Colossians of their love for all the saints was somehow easier back then than it is today among different folks.

Few things in life are riskier than love.

Perhaps loving all the saints is a risk for you.

Let me be even more direct, sooner or later, loving all the saints will require risk and maybe even a bit of faith on your part!

Perhaps, like me, you are not normally a risk taker.

You like to play it safe.

Left to your own devices you would surround yourself only with others who are like you in so many ways. You try to create a risk free zone around your life but in so doing you must carefully consider that a risk free zone can also be a love free zone.