By the Love We Have

I was mildly interested to read this on the internet:

Salem Congregational Church in Clitheroe, Lancashire is a Christian congregation serving the Clitheroe community and encouraging others through a life-changing Christian journey.

We seek to serve God by working for justice and peace, respect and learn from all the great faith traditions and desire to be known by the love we have for one another.

It comes from a website called JoinMyChurch.com and which evidently pulls churches’ details from websites and Facebook pages, automatically populating its own listings with them. On account of our remote location, I salute anything which publicises our existence. Yet the generic, little patter above is pasted into all their listings’ Who We Are sections. Is it actually true?

We are indeed a Christian community. What we have in common is not politics, nor interests, nor ethnicity, but our common relationship with Jesus Christ. 

We serve the Clitheroe community, but many of our regulars hail from Pendle, Yorkshire, with some from Burnley and Blackburn.

I’m not convinced that Christian journeys are life-changing. I would rather say that Christ Himself is the changer of lives; having encountered Him in our conversions, only then do we journey on.

Although we seek to serve God, working for justice and peace is not something we generally do, for the courts and armed forces do a much better job. This is something of a cliche, with pastors fancyingthemselves as social campaigners, in a vain attempt to salute the woke culture which so permeates the national landscape. Spiritually, however, and the claim might be more accurate. When a sinner comes to Jesus, repenting of sin, Christ’s sacrifice justly and judiciously removes their guilt, fitting them for God’s company. Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. This peace transcends are earthly lives, our earthly deaths and our eternal futures. This we proclaim.

At Salem, we reject many ‘great faith traditions’. On the Bible do we stand or fall. Yield to its teaching, and we shall share fellowship with you. Embrace the gospel, and we be brethren. We rebuff the claims made by all religions, sects and denominations that are not borne of God’s revelation. Whereas we might note other traditions and faiths, our loyalty must be to God and His written word, that record of His thoughts and intentions.

With the last clause I would occur, though it is far sooner said than done. To love each other with that divine agape, and to be known thereby would be precious indeed. It is sometimes easier to reject false teachings that it is love the truth and the people of truth. This is why the apostle Peter, in his second epistle, urges his readers to grow and become fruitful by adding to their faith virtue, brotherly kindness and love, ahead of his warnings to combat and resist the machinations of the impostors and deceivers.  

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. John 13:35

Image by Jonathan Sautter from Pixabay