We Must Welcome All Who Follow Jesus
Most Christians spend time with believers who think like they think, who act like they act, and who share a common perspective. I get this. It makes sense. It’s comfortable.
Yet this limits their understanding of God and in living their faith to the fullest. Instead, they need to embrace all of Christianity.
We all do.
Echo Chambers
When we surround ourselves with like-minded people, we place ourselves in an Christian echo chamber. Everything we hear reinforces what we already think.
This is not the best way to grow in our faith. In fact, it’s an easy way to fall into accepting less-than-ideal practices and beliefs.
When we function within an echo chamber, there’s no one to challenge our perspectives. That’s because everyone agrees with us. In this situation, our beliefs can become unbalanced. It’s also when heresy can creep in if we’re not careful.
In this situation, it’s all too easy to reject other followers of Jesus who don’t think, act, and believe exactly the way we do. This is the opposite of the unity Jesus calls us to pursue. It’s disunity, and it isolates.
Consider the Trinity
We intellectually know that God is three persons in one. We call this the Trinity. The Trinity comprises of God the Father, Jesus our Savior, and the Holy Spirit as Counselor.
Yet most people embrace just one part of the Trinity, two at the most. They tend to favor the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit. In doing so, they risk diminishing—or even ignoring—the other parts of the Trinity.
Yes, Jesus is the focal point of our faith as our Savior and Redeemer. Yet we must remember that Jesus is the way and not the destination. He points us to the Father.
Likewise, as Jesus’s followers, the Holy Spirit lives within us to guide us in our faith journey and how we practice our faith. We must embrace him if we are to fully live as Christians. Yet we must not do so at the exclusion of the Father and his Son.
Instead, we must pursue a balanced trinitarian perspective that pursues all three parts of the godhead. We must embrace a holistic view of Christianity.
A Holistic View of Christianity
To expand our understanding of God, we will do well to interact with his other followers who aren’t exactly like us. This means they think differently, act differently, and even believe differently.
As long as we have Jesus in common, that’s what matters. In doing so, we will most benefit from iron sharpening iron (Proverbs 27:17).
This embrace of all of Jesus’s church often gets messy. But it’s a good tension that we should welcome. As we do, we become better informed and more accepting.
This grows the church of Jesus and amplifies our witness for him and our worship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
May it be so.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.
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