Pilgrims on an eternal journey

Some of my friends have been in their same home church for all of their Christian walk and others have changed churches for one reason or another and some of us have moved and been a part of a number of church families. In late 2011 Dan and I became members of Bethlehem Bible Church (BBC) in West Boylston, MA.

Making a decision to become a part of a local body of believers is not a decision that Dan and I took lightly. For myself, I really thought hard and long, prayed, read, researched and asked questions. As with any organization, there will be some things that we do not agree with but on the essentials we do agree. And yes, a local body of believers is both a church family and an organization. There may be a number of essentials that I could go through but for this blog post I will just talk about two: 1. The Love of Christ as demonstrated through the people and 2. The High view of God communicated by the expositional preaching of God's Word.

The demonstration of love that personally gave me the desire to become a part of BBC was the process of "church discipline." Some of my readers may think, "that is archaic" well let me explain. It was the pursuing of a dear one who was walking away from her family and the family of God reached out to her and with tears, prayers and open arms encouraged her to return and make things right. BBC as a church family had to release her, let her go, and turn her over to the LORD, with the commitment to pray that she will at sometime return to the LORD. Where else in the world do people love each other enough to say you are going the wrong way, come back, we love you, we know that life is hard? And when the person says, thanks but no thanks, those who love their dear one love her enough to let her go. Isn't this what we do as parents? Even with our adult children? Sometimes it is not clear and things get messy and we are willing to walk through the mess with one another. Is this not loving? It IS! Of course, there are many other acts of love that the dear ones at BBC do for one another, their neighbors, friends and strangers....listening, praying, making meals, helping one another move, visiting, etc. all types of family activities that demonstrate a love for one another. This is motivated by the Greatest LOVER of ALL, Jesus Christ, the LORD Most High. One other way that these dear folks love is through the preaching, teaching and heralding of God's Word. This last act leads me to the second point, which is having a High view of God through expositional preaching.

(for those unfamiliar with the term "expositional preaching" here is a good definition -Expository preaching involves the exposition, or comprehensive explanation, of the Scripture; that is, expository preaching presents the meaning and intent of a biblical text, providing commentary and examples to make the passage clear and understandable. from http://www.gotquestions.org/expository-preaching.html)

Today this very day Mike Abendroth preached about Jesus from the Gospel of Mark from Mark 1;1, 4;35-41, 6;45-52. "So yeah, he preached about Jesus. You are a Christian who else is he going to preach about?" Some might think. Today exposition of the text was with the sole purpose of again being amazed by the GOD-Man, Jesus Christ. Today, I was asked through the preaching of the Word to look up to the One who is called the Christ and see Him High and Lifted up by the lowly preacher who is a sinner just like me. He is so unlike us, yet was willing to leave His home in glory to become human like you and me.

As was said today, there does need to be more preaching on Jesus Christ so that our response is to behold the LORD and believe that Jesus is who He said he was and what the Holy Scriptures say about Him. There is plenty of preaching in today's American churches of what I would call, man-centered preaching. It is so appealing to the flesh. A "look what the Son of God has given to us" attitude instead of realizing how Great and Awesome is our GOD. It is such a subtle and fine line, because Jesus has done great things and continues to do things through the lives of His children. The point is for this Christian, I need to have a Higher view of God than I do of man. There are probably many who preach and live with too high a view of man who hold up God higher than man but it is most likely coupled with too high of a view of man. So instead of God being exalted, the gifts given to man from God are given more attention and the gifts are often manifested through man therefore man becomes the central focus of the preaching. It is the "what does this passage mean to me?" instead of "what is God saying in the passage?"

What is the crux of "having a High View of God in relations to man?" In order to get there we need to talk about holiness. A subject that I am not very comfortable writing or talking about. This past year, I took a class on growing in personal holiness A woman in Christ, currently I am finishing The Pursuit of Holiness and I have had a number of conversations with a couple of trusted friends about the topic. I believe a look at God being Holy is required in order for man to have a proper perspective. When I am able to see that the God who saved me is completely HOLY, perfect, all together pure, then I begin to understand why Peter said to Jesus "Depart from me for I am sinful man." When we find ourselves in the presence of our Holy God, our eyes are opened in that type of light to the darkness of our sin and like the angels of Revelation we go and hide our faces. Yes, the beauty, the majesty, the glory is too much for us and we cry out holy, holy, holy is the LORD God Almighty.

It is through the Light of God's Word which some call The Holy Bible that we are able to recognize that we are sinners and in the world there is no hope for us. The good news is not a cover up of the bad news. To simply say I am free in Christ without remember what HE has freed us from can be a dangerous place. A place where I am in danger of becoming puffed up. With "I am God's child and I am free to do whatever I want to do and be whatever I want to be because I am free," upon my lips and forgetting what it is that I have been freed from and therefore lacking gratitude for this precious freedom. Before I come to a resolution for this line of thinking, I must say the following. The first word about every human being is that each one is created in the image of the triune God. We are image bearers, having a likeness of our Creator. How Awesome, how humbling! The next word is that because of Adam's sin, we were born in iniquity and conceived in sin. This is very bad news. If we hope for eternal life with the Holy One then we need to be cleansed of our sins and made holy. Through the blood of Jesus Christ we are made holy, cleansed from all our sins. Jesus says COME! He will wash you and make you as white as the new fallen snow and in Him you will be made holy and righteous in order to be in the presence of This HOLY God, Creator of the Universe, Lord of Heaven and Earth. In the remembrance of what we have been freed from - SIN and DEATH, it is in this place that I am still learning to live in gratitude for the love, grace, mercy, forgiveness and this freedom from sin and death that I can see my place with the Holy One is given to me freely as a gift from the Righteous One, the LORD Jesus Christ delivering me from my sin. This is not just good news, it is GREAT News!

A Settling Pilgrim

By Grace, by Agape Love, by Providence the Mullaney Pilgrims have had the same address for over a year now. Settled? Not quite. However, we are taking steps to settle into a community of believers and this too is a part of the pilgrim journey. Where would this be? Just north of Worcester in West Boylston, MA at Bethlehem Bible Church (BBC).

This past Sunday I finished taking a membership class at BBC where we have been attending for the last year. I had lots of questions and the ones I asked were answered. There are still a few I would like answered before I take the plunge and say yes I'm in. In a number of ways I am already in, that is pretty good for a New England Church but after all I am a native. Actually, I was more skeptical of them then they were of me.
In the past nearly 8 years, we have been blessed by many believers up and down the east coast who have welcomed us into their midst, loved and cared for us, made us feel at "home." Upon returning to our motherland i.e. Massachusetts, we have visited several churches and had done just that - visited. Not until Dan started to attend BBC regularly (and yours truly dragging her feet which we won’t get into here) did we actually start to dialogue about making a commitment to this local body of believers.

It is still quite an adventure. Yes, this is in New England and in Massachusetts and in fact when the kids were little we went to BBC for Awana for 1 year. However, we are here at BBC meeting new people and digging deeper into the Scriptures, discovering and uncovering more truth as we continue on the pilgrim highway. No matter what anyone’s position is in this body of believers, one thing is clear; each and every one is human, imperfect, dependent on God’s grace, hungers for truth, loves one another and desires to serve the LORD, one another and those in their sphere of influence.

(Massachusetts seems to be the next stop for us. This being said after 3 years 3 months and 15 days back in the Commonwealth)

This type of settling is making a commitment. It isn’t quite like picking out the best spot on the beach and “settling in there” because we like it. A lot of Americans go to and become members of a church because they like it. And like any other blue blooded American I like to be comfortable and be at ease. It is a good thing to want to be at home with the people who you would want to call your church family. We need to want to belong to a local body of believers who love the LORD Jesus Christ, want to honor Him in all things, know the grace of God, preach and teach the Word of God, we would want to live in obedience to Christ and encourage one another to do so and above all Glorify God.

We had to pretty much push the like question down on the list. The questions ran more like this: Is BBC teaching sound biblical doctrine? Do they worship in spirit and in truth? Do the people at BBC love one another? Do they extend the hand of friendship and love welcoming those who come into their midst? Do they love one another enough to confront with the truth and exercise church discipline? Is Jesus Christ being lifted up and glorified? When these questions are answered in the affirmative, which they have been. Well then, YES we like it. (Are there things we don’t like? Sure but hey there are things we don’t like about ourselves and one another everywhere we go when we take the time to get to know one another. However, we are given the grace to put up with those things.)

For any of you who know of my pilgrimage, it has been quite interesting (and I am not talking about the 18 moves). So why this church? Well, Dan started to listen to the pastor’s radio show on the local Christian Station here and he like what Mike was saying. Dan couldn't believe that a pastor was saying what he was saying. Dan started going pretty regularly and I visited a couple of times. It wasn’t good for our marriage to be doing church separately especially since both of us wanted to become part of a community of believers. So, I finally came around and started attending, a bit reluctantly but with an open mind. Then something happened that I had never seen in a church and had only vaguely heard about and that was the exercise of church discipline. My second to last question was:
“Do they love one another enough to confront with the truth and exercise church discipline?” It was done with integrity, with love, with anguish and in the spirit and manner for doing so as it is laid out in the Bible. This was the tipping point for me. I could belong to a church like this because if I get really off the mark, I hope someone loves me enough to call me out, loves me enough to want to restore me and bring me back to the LORD. It was real, it was raw, and mostly it was sobering. And I thought “but for the grace of God there go I.”

In Churches there are weddings, funerals, baptisms, etc. Do we gather on Sunday to praise the LORD, to hear the Word preached, to be equipped to go out into the world? You betcha. But life is not always “all good.” God is always good but life is hard. If you believe that God is sovereign, ruling over the good and the bad in life, then you need to be willing as a church family to take the good with the bad and deal with it effectively. Be mature, do the right thing, even with strangers in the midst. I recently heard someone say, “my life got harder after I became a Christian. I became aware of my sin. I want to honor God in my living not in order to earn God’s favor but out of gratitude for His saving Grace in my life.” Obedience to God is not so I can get into good standing. I want to obey because the LORD God has made me righteous through the blood of His Son Jesus Christ. Obedience is birthed out of gratitude. I have been bought by the blood and I now belong to Him. Just like a father loves his child enough to discipline him, a church ought to love enough to exercise discipline for their family members, don’t you think?

So what is the meaning of this post? To say Dan and I are looking to become members of a local body of believers and we know it will not always be pretty or perfect. Like I said earlier in this post, in a lot of ways we are already welcomed in as a part of the BBC Church family and it is our hope that God will continue to get all the Glory as we continue on the Pilgrim Path toward the Celestial City.

Maintaining the Identity of Caitriona
Upon further thought, I will create a new blog to accommodate my fictional musings and maintain the pilgrim journey here at Caitriona. I realize that I didn't really give any warning to my readers. We have moved into the house pictured here in Sutton, MA, a little town just outside of Worcester. Acquiring a third Massachusetts address may seem like we are circling the wagon and that is exactly what it feels like. At this point we are looking to resettle here in the Commonwealth, the home of our fathers.
Look for a link in the future for my fictional writing.

Pilgrim latest read, The Highlander's Last Song by George MacDonald
Originally titled What's Mine's Mine
I just wanted to post a few quotes before I return the book to the shelf.

One of them I am currently using in my email signature,
"A love can never be lost; it is a true possession."

For those of us who are on the pilgrim highway,
"God did not make the world to be dwelt in but to be journeyed through."

Those who long for abundant living,
"...think she(Mercy) must, for she found herself in a region of human life drastically different from any she had ever experienced. Everything said or done seemed to acknowledge something understood. Life went on with a continuous lean toward something rarely mentioned, plainly uppermost. The mother and her two sons appeared to know things which her own people did not even suspect."