How and Why I Stay in the Dysfunctional Family of God

When I read the book of Acts, I see a bunch of guys who hardly knew what they were doing, but were routinely having their work rescued by the Holy Spirit.

If the Christian family were made up of only people like this, I’d be much more happy.

But then again, if it were, it wouldn’t be a real family.

Real families are messy.

The harder family members to deal with are the emotionally and psychologically narrow uncles and cousins. I’m talking about the twenty-year old guys in Bible college who just read John Calvin and think they know everything.

Or the forty-year old guys with the personalities of bitter old men who are always ranting about how much they hate the President.

I don’t like the Christian leaders who go around like territorial dogs, peeing circles around everything.

To me, that just makes everything smell like pee.

Have you ever wondered if some of the people who are bringing the most people to Jesus are the same people who are pushing the most people away from Him?

I’ve wondered that sometimes. Somebody ought to do a study about that.

Nevertheless, this is our absurd Christian family.

I won’t pretend to like everybody and God knows they don’t pretend to like me. But we will spend an eternity with most of them.

So what do we do about the crazy uncles and cousins? How do we stay in the family of God when all our instincts tell us to leave?

Here are some paradigm shifts that helped me stick around.

1. I realized not all Christian leaders know Jesus.

Jesus warned us about this. He said there would be very serious leaders who use His name and build His kingdom and even heal people who do not know Him at all.

If somebody knows the Bible inside and out, pastors a mega church, writes bestselling books and so on but is consistently known as an arrogant person, chances are they don’t know Jesus.

They are certainly influencing the family, but they aren’t in the family.

I find that sad and comforting. I find it sad because it would be awful to think you know Jesus when really you’re just a religious guy who has the Bible memorized and uses it to build your own empire. How in the world would you ever figure out you really don’t know Jesus at all when you can debate just about anybody on the Bible?

But I also find it relieving, because those guys make me, and anybody else who won’t submit to them, feel like garbage. And I don’t want to spend an eternity feeling like garbage.

I hope they can figure it out and repent and come to know Christ.

2. I realized the family of God isn’t represented by a denomination.

No denomination is completely right. Calvinism isn’t completely right. It’s just not.

No human being has crammed all the right theology into their head. I stay away from people who claim they have. It just makes life easier.

The truth is God’s church, as seen by God, is mixed and mingled with the church as man sees it, but is very, very different. I consider myself part of God’s church, not man’s church. And while I certainly believe right theology is important, I don’t believe God will conduct an entrance exam to get into heaven.

I think He’s just going to say, hey, you, I know you!

3. I realized I’m a leader in the church, and so are you.

While I do consider pastors and elders leaders, I see them more as guides and, not unlike the church in Acts, I report directly to the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit spoke directly to the people then and He does the same now. Man has set up a kind of trickle-down system through which God’s word descends to the idiot masses, but you can bypass all that and drink from the source.

God speaks directly to you and I because He considers us leaders. Storyline Blog