When believers bully

For the last few weeks, I have felt an overwhelming sadness. A grief that has been hard to fully process, let alone explain to others. I understand that in a culture that is more aware of depression, anxiety, and mental health than previous generations, you could read those words and assume that I’m experiencing one or all of those. But I’m not. My soul, however, is beyond weary, and it has everything to do with the church.

Not my church or your church. THE church. The collective body of Christ known as the Bride of Christ. The people from every tribe and tongue; the mosaic of faces that reflect the face of One.

That church, and even more specifically, the American flavor of that church. And before I share what I finally realized that I was feeling, let me set the record straight: I love the church. I love the odd mix of people who come together with all of their differences and get blended into a beautiful expression of unity in diversity. I believe in the local church and see how the church does so many things well. She gives generously, she loves compassionately, she serves tirelessly.

But…

There are times when she seems to turn on herself, and in recent weeks, social media seems to be the bloody waters where we see it. As I said to someone recently, it hurts to watch the church eat herself.

I don’t say this because I hope others will jump on the “I HATE CHRISTIANS” bandwagon and comment about how done they are with church. I say this because sometimes we just need another person to shake us, wake us, and remind us of who we are.

So church, this is who you are:

You are worth the blood of Jesus. (Acts 20:28)

You are built on the rock and cannot be overcome, even by hell itself. (Matthew 16:18)

You are the dwelling place of God. (Ephesians 2:22)

You are chosen by God. (1 Peter 2:9)

You are the beloved of God. (Romans 1:7)

There’s an interesting passage in Ezekiel 33:10 that records the first words from God’s people when they realized how far below their identity they were living. They simply cried out, “How then shall we live?” I believe that the same question is rising from the remnant in the church today. We’re seeing people act more like the bully of Christ than the bride of Christ and we are beginning to cry out for God to do something.

Guess what? He is, and it was during a recent conversation with someone who had just been to a message therapist that I realized just exactly what God’s doing.

The therapist had used a lot of pressure to loosen the knots in the muscles which resulted in toxins being released in the body and that had left my friend feeling sore.

Wait, pressure on the body releases toxins into the body and causes soreness in the body? Is anyone else making the connection here? COVID, BLM, Social Media wars, elephants, donkeys. Lots of pressure points that God is using to work the knots out of His body.

But it was what they said next that really grabbed my attention: they had been instructed to drink lots of water so that the water could flush the toxins out of the body.

Water is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. John 7:38-39:

“Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. (emphasis mine)

If ever we’ve needed a move of the Holy Spirit, it’s now. We need rivers of living water to flush the impurities from the body that the pressures we’re facing are releasing. If we stop drinking deeply of the water of the Spirit, we’ll only continue to feel the raging soreness that ultimately results in bullying one another.

We won’t bully because we’re mean, but rather because we’re in pain. The remedy for that isn’t the perfect rebuttal on social media, but rather the perfect comforter from heaven.

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