Jesus-Centric, Bible-Middle

Today, I visited a relatively new church in my little town. Abiding Life. There were maybe around 15 people there. I LOVED it! The Pastor led the worship and the sermon, and he said a quote based off of something Philip Yancey said that stuck. After it hit me across the head . . .

It went something along the lines of this:

People get angry at those who sin differently than they do.


Ha Ha . . Ha. Ha. Oh wait a minute!
That's what I do, isn't it?

Ouch.


I don't think I had ever heard this before, but it fit perfectly with something that I've been thinking over. My Gospel's professor at Multnomah said something I had never heard before. He said that we should never ever be more liberal than the Bible, nor should we be more conservative. We need to hit Bible-middle. This was so new to me because my mind is bent to think that being conservative is the key, or at least that if I'm going to hit an extreme, being conservative would be better. I had never really let it sink in that it could be just as wrong, that really, being too conservative is often a blinding force because it allows us to see other people's sins while our own are hidden under our conservative shield. It's easy to get angry at other people's sins . . . especially when they're not the "conservative sins" that I commit constantly without exposing them.

Praise Jesus for His grace, that I was able to hear that message. Oh how I need His washing, a cleaning of my heart and mind. The fluid of Jesus' blood spilling into and through every cell of my soul. I don't want to get caught on other people's sin. I want to be healed of my own, and in so doing, focus on the Grace of Jesus, focus on giving that Grace to others. And Truth. (Thanks, Pastor Steve, for showing me the importance of both) I want to be Jesus-centric, Bible-middle. I want to focus on the right things and be grounded in the Love of God. It's a day by day transformation when He's running the show. And He's a great Transformer. (Even a murderer can become an evangelist [[Paul]], a thief becomes a disciple [[Matthew]] . . . what could He do with us?)

I feel like this was kind of a different blog post than normal, but that quote really hit home with me. I need to do some more thinking on it. :) Thank you for taking the time to read my thought processes. I am grateful for you! Happy brand new week! May Jesus work in your life beautifully and wash us clean. He is so good to us!