It is often forgotten in many churches what is of absolute importance and what while important is not essential. Our concern for the purity of the church should be more focused on what is of absolute importance than what is at the edge.
Often what is at the edge of Christianity dominates the discussion. Concerns about style in music or method of distributing the Lord's super or exact details of how this or that should look in the church dominate. All of these things are good and well, but they are always at the side.
The church's focus should always be at the heart of Christianity--the good news of the offer of grace to sinners because of Christ's perfect life, death, and resurrection. If we get the center of Christianity right everything else will fall into place.
It is our union with the risen Jesus which makes people better. Too often we see people trying to improve the behavior of their church by preaching law day in and day out.
Often the problem of behavior in church is not a failure to understand law, but to really grasp grace. It is grace which shows us the greatness of the love of God for us. Often we cannot truly grasp how far we are from righteousness until we see what perfect love is and perfect love does.
Often it is more grace that transforms us than law. We try to faithfully live out law because of and only because of grace.
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