i don't want to be a pharisee.

I didn’t wake up for church this morning. There is a part of me that wants to come up with some kind of excuse for this, but I have none. It was sheer laziness. I didn’t even go to bed that late. Midnight. And I thought to myself, before bed, that I should probably set my alarm clock on my phone, but I deliberately did not. I went to sleep, and I woke up a little after ten. This is a confession. I think and talk a lot about how the American church needs to change, but half the time I don’t even show up.

It is so easy to be a part of the problem, rather than a part of its solution. This has been on my mind all day. You say this, but you do that. The Pharisees did that too, Kristen. They placed heavy burdens on the backs of men but didn’t lift a finger to help them. I don’t want to be a Pharisee. God forbid I spend my life pointing out everything that’s wrong with the church without doing something as an individual to change it. It starts with myself. Actually, it starts with Jesus, and letting Him work through . . myself. Not constantly begging Him to change other people, but change my own heart. This applies to everything, including relationships. It is so easy to become obsessively frustrated with the flaws of another person, and never face your own. I don’t want to be that person. God forbid I remain that person.

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I was talking to one of my good friends a long while back, and I asked her how things were going with the church she is attending while in college. I asked her if she had been able to get plugged in with the people there. She told me that it was proving to be difficult, that the people weren’t very accepting or welcoming. She had been going to the church for a while but was still feeling like a stranger. I became irritated as she told me this, but she went on to say that God was using it to show her what it feels like to be unwelcome and unaccepted, and now she would be very careful about making sure newcomers in any area of her life felt just the opposite. That is just awesome to me. I mean, who does that? It is so easy to become embittered instead of becoming the change. This sister of mine chose instead to become the change, and it inspired me.

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I’m going to leave this blog short since I always write long-winded ones.

I did have a time of worship and I listened to a sermon in my bedroom. (Yes, this was done partially to make myself feel better about not having gone to church, God forgive the selfish intentions of my heart!) But I highly recommend the sermon. Newspring Church is going through a series called “Man Vs. Wife” and today I listened to the first part, called “Marriage: Are You Fighting In It or For it?” It's great for married people, but it's not so much about marriage as it is about being a humble disciple of Jesus Christ. Check it out: