Attitude Adjustment

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus"
(Philippians 2:5)

Through out church history churches have split over the silliest things from the color of the carpet to the difference in the styles of music to who should be in charge of cooking the fried chicken for the yearly singing & “dinner on the ground”, I mean Betty’s chicken is always to dry & that Annie Mae I tell ya, bless her heart, her chicken is way to grease it’s like your chewin’ on a bottle of Wesson Oil…any way, there is a church in Louisiana whose roof is green on one side and red on the other. This was done because some members of the church stubbornly wanted green and other members unyieldingly wanted red. The disagreement was so intense that the church was going to split because of it. Fortunately, a compromise was reached and the church did not split. Unfortunately, the red and green roof is a monument to the surrounding community of the disunity within the body of Christ. Church splits are an awful thing, something that should never happen, but often do because of one thing, we forget who our attitudes should be like, we forget in whom our unity lies.

Paul tells us in Philippians 2 that we as the church should be "...like-minded, having the same love...” what "same love" is it referring to? Is it just, love for each other or being people who love their community? No, it’s nothing like that; this verse is speaking of Christ. What always causes petty arguments inside the body of the church, is when we forget our true love, our reason for being in the body...the one who saved us. When we are all focused on Christ & His will, we don't have time to sit around & find petty things to gripe about, nor do we want to. We become "...one in spirit and purpose", because we are concerned about the will of God instead of will of self.

When we forget about self & put others first, we take on the most important thing that will heal any rift in a troubled church…we take on the attitude of Christ.

Vern