I am sorry

   When I was a junior in high school, an adult I trusted gave me some horrible advice.  I was considering being a history teacher for a career, something which would have fit me, but the person said I would never get a job as a history teacher and advised me to become an economist.  I realized I did not have nearly enough math interest to be an economist, so entering college I decided to study legal studies.  The sad outcome was I got on the wrong job path, and I would end up having job struggles for several years.  Yet years ago, I forgave the person who gave me that advice!
   And a blessing from God was still available.  Accepting that being a lawyer was not the career for me during the summer after my senior year in college, I abstained from going to law school even though accepted to four good universities.  Entering a period of career uncertainty, I was more open to listening to God.  I then gave my heart to Jesus about one year after graduating from college.  Then as a young follower, I became extra open to doing what God would have me do.  Listening to God, I eventually realized my calling was vocational ministry, which I totally love.
   Yet there was a rocky transition, and for a period of time as a young Christian I worked as a “Legal Research Specialist.”  I was on one project for a long time, whereas my co-workers kept rotating.  Then one week our office went through a huge move.  Instead of having my own office, myself and my co-worker at that time were put at desks in the corner of a large room with numerous clerks.  The room was noisy, whereas my office had been quiet, and stress increased as I tried to concentrate.  My current co-worker, fresh out of law school, was a spunky woman who only planned to work that job for a short time until she passed her law exams.  She would ask me many questions, which was a bit distracting, but she did her job well, and we got along fine.  And I learned she was a Christian.
   One day we had a disagreement, a first.  The more we discussed it, the more insistent she became on doing it her way, and likewise with me.  Then I became upset, because I had so much seniority on the project I thought I should get the final say.  But she would have none of that, and finally I threw my hands up and said she could do it her way, and in saying that, I loudly said a bad word.  (It was the "s" word, and not "shoot.")  The entire large noisy room went absolutely quiet.  The entire large room stayed absolutely quiet.  No one had ever heard me say a bad word.  Though some other people at worked cussed frequently, I was a young Christian who was convicted such language dishonored God, and people would even sometimes comment about how I never cussed.  Yet now I had.
   That evening at home, my phone rang; it was my co-worker.  I do not even know how she got my phone number.  The first thing she did was say sorry.  Here I should have apologized to her, yet she had worked to do so to me.  I then said sorry to her, and we had a blessed phone conversation.  She soon got another job, but she even invited me to her wedding a few months later.
   Why is “I am sorry?” such a hard phrase to say, and even a harder phrase to truly mean in your heart?  One thing is for sure, forgiveness is an aspect of love, and genuinely repenting for doing something wrong is opening yourself up for love.  And telling someone you are sorry is a way of expressing true love.  Jesus instructs us in the Lord’s prayer to seek forgiveness from Him: “Forgive us our sins” (Luke 11:4 NIV).  Likewise we often need to say sorry to people we have hurt by our sins, as Jesus taught in Matthew 5:23-24.  The Holy Spirit can convict a willing person that he or she has done wrong, and the Holy Spirit can enable a repentant person to express that repentance.  The more the years continue on with me following Jesus, the more intent I am on saying sorry when needed, thanks to the work God has done in my heart over the years.

+: Thank You Holy God for enabling Your children to recognize our need for forgiveness from You, and our need to say sorry to You and to others when we do something wrong.  Thank You.
Hunter

Who is the Church?

   I was watching a football game many years ago in my youth where the announcers were Pat Summerall and John Madden.  In the midst of a break in the action, a camera near of the top of the football stadium focused in on a church in a neighborhood close to the stadium.  John Madden started making circles with his famous pen as he said, “This is the church, this is the steeple, look inside, and see all the people.”
   I thought his play on a childhood rhyme was hilarious.  Yet I was not a Christian at that time, and gradually after becoming a believer in Jesus, I learned the Church consists of God and followers of Jesus, and nothing less.  The Church is the body of Christ, with Christ as the head: “…as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior” (Ephesians 5:23 NIV).  And Paul states: “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27 NIV).  Taken in context, the “you” here is the believer in Jesus.  Thus Jesus is the head of people who follow Him, and they are members of the Church whatever country they live in, whatever their language, and whatever “church” they attend.
   From the Church derives the natural human development of Christian institutions called churches which involve by-laws, leaders, committees, more committees, faith statements, music teams, web pages, and on and on.  Churches are hopefully a product of the Church, yet not the Church itself.  The Church is not a conglomerate or collage of human institutions, many of which have extremely different doctrinal convictions, and many of which do not even fellowship with churches of different denominations.
   A few weeks ago I wrote down the various Christian denominations of which I have worshiped in one of their churches over the past 26 years.  The total number of denominations was nineteen.  Wow.  For some I have worshiped in one of their churches countless times, for others I worshiped there only for a season, and lastly for others it was merely a single visit.  Yet I have been exposed to many different “churches.”  But not a single one of those human institutions was The Church.  Yet within every one, so far as I know, was the Church, since Jesus said, “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20 NIV).
Hunter Irvine