Evaluating the Church Through Christ's Eyes

I hear a lot of people say their life is their testimony. But that can only ever be partly true. A testimony has to have something to say or it’s incomplete. But no one will listen to your message unless your life backs up your message. And for a redemptive message of love like the Gospel, your life must be a life of loving.

Experience bears this out: A Salvation Army worker found a derelict woman alone on the street. She invited her to come into the chapel for help, but the woman refused to move. The worker assured her: “We love you and want to help you. God loves you. Jesus died for you.” But the woman was unmoved. She wouldn’t budge.

As if on divine impulse, the Army worker leaned over, kissed the woman on the cheek, and took her in her arms. The woman began to sob, and like a child, was led into the chapel, where she ultimately trusted Christ. She later said, “You told me that God loved me, but it wasn’t until you showed me that God loved me that I wanted to be saved.” What a tragedy when love isn’t shown.

A lady one time being witnessing to was urged to come to the Lord, but she responded, “No! I’ve done too much in my life. God couldn’t ever forgive me.”

“How do you know?” she was asked. Her response: “Because Christians can’t.”

“Well, what makes you say that?”

“Do you see the way they look at me? They won’t talk to me. They treat me like I’ve got the plague.”

How often that is true. We don’t reach out to them, don’t invite them in, because they are involved in or damaged by sin.

“Ah, but she’s not worth it,” some might answer. “She’s a fallen, broken, tainted, woman.”

How true! How right! But how universal! The truth is, not a one of us deserve God’s love – not you nor I nor any of us. Not even the great Apostle Paul who wrote in 1st Corinthians 15:9-10, “For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am.” Or in Ephesians 3:8he wrote, “To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given.”

How can any believer look down his nose at another human being, as though we are somehow superior? To do so proves we know nothing about the grace of God. If we claim to believe in grace, than our deeds must bear out our words. Our message of God’s love must be accompanied by our own love or else our claims are a sham.

Sheldon Vanauken, in “A Severe Mercy,” wrote this:
“The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their love, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive; then Christianity dies a thousand deaths.”

Chang Kai-shek, former ruler of china, before his salvation came to his Christian wife, who was saved much earlier, and said:
“I can’t understand these Christians; why, they have been treated most abominably here, they have been robbed, beaten, many of them killed, they have been persecuted fearfully, and yet I never find one of them retaliating, and any time they can do anything for China, for our people, they are ready to do it; I do not understand them.”

“Well,” said his wife, “that, you see, is the very essence of Christianity. They do that because they are Christians.”

Indeed, that is true. As it says in: 1st John 4:16, “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”

The church is meant to reflect God’s love to a dying world. What a tragedy if all that love is only reflected inward - If we keep it all to ourselves, and just love each other.

What lessons are there for us in the church? Perhaps when we evaluate our “success” as a church we’ll try to evaluate by God’s standards, not our own. “Well, Lord, we’re not doing too bad. We’ve got this nice building, and our music program is pretty good, and we’ve got the best pot lucks in town. Oh, what’s that, you ask, Lord? Do we love? Well, that’s hard to evaluate.

“What’s that you want to know, Lord? Are any of our people not talking to each other? Are any teens feeling left out? Do any elderly folks feel forgotten? Do any of the singles who struggle not really sensing they belong to the church? Are there any widows who need someone’s shoulder to cry on? Are there any folks who need some more food, or clothing, or help with bills?” Maybe those are some of the questions we would use as we evaluate our church.

And this: Are there any people in the community burdened with sin, needing someone to put a loving spiritual arm around them and who will tell them of a Heavenly Father’s love and how He longs for His prodigal children to come home? The needs are there, but is the love?