Don't Apologize. Celebrate!

 

"You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel." Hebrews 12:22-24 NIV

It seems lately that the enemy is using a new tactic and that is one of enforced silence. Many of us in America are being told that we shouldn’t speak, that we cannot speak, that we need to listen and learn rather than say what is in our hearts. Now I’m not condemning listening. We do often talk too much and we are admonished to listen more and talk less. James 1:19 NIV: "My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry." We should listen to those around us. We should listen and be slow to form opinions. We should listen, really listen, rather than simply using a dialogue as an excuse to promote our own position or opinion.

That being said, there is something that we should say, that we should shout from the rooftops, that we should repeat over and over again: We have come to Zion! We have come to the city of the living God. We are among the thousands of joyful angels! Our names are written in heaven. Jesus has saved us!

Christianity has become something where either its outward form is being forced on others or we are, in a sense, apologizing for being Christians. Think about it. How many memes do you see that promote the fact that as Christians we are somehow less? "I’m a Jesus believer. I’m not perfect. I’m just human trying not to let the devil win." "I am an imperfect person loved by a perfect God." "Yes, I’m a Christian. Yes, I can be the biggest hypocrite ever. I backslide. I stumble. I fall. I stray onto the wrong path. But God is working in me." All of these things are true. But unfortunately, these things have become our mantra rather than our shame, our banner rather than our cross. We wear our sinfulness like it’s some kind of badge and we celebrate it in a feeble attempt to become accepted by sinful society.

Of course, we need to admit that we’re sinful. We need to daily—and more often—confess our sins to the Lord, knowing that He is faithful and just to forgive us those sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). But we need to stop apologizing that somehow the Church of God is less than perfect. We need to stop focusing on our humanity and focus on His glory! If I invited someone to my home, apologizing at every step on how dusty the corners were, how many spider webs clung to the ceilings, how discolored the tiles were, no one would want to come visit me! But if I invited someone to my home, focusing on a wonderful Guest that would also be there, the dirt wouldn’t matter nearly so much. Who would even see it in the light of the Guest?

We have a joyful message for the world. It is aptly named the "good news." We are heading for a place that is wonderful beyond description. We need to begin celebrating how wonderful, how precious, how exciting our saved lives really are. We are the children of the King! It doesn’t get any better than that. And we should shout it from the rooftops!

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.