I think it is worth noting that the church has done a great deal of damage by inflicting shame on its constituents and the greater world for not following God the way that they think they need to. What you said about performance-based acceptance has permeated every aspect of our culture and is insidious even in our personal relationships. Most people's marriages and friendships are very performative and therefore lack the genuine love that we really are looking for in our lives. A lot of people that I know are desperate for the unity that you are talking about but have not experienced the healing that enables them to love in a very deep capacity. I find that the best cure is to actually experienced love. You do point this out but I think it needs to be stated again that people need to experience genuine unconditional love in order to believe that it's even possible to give or receive that kind of love.
Our inability to face the level of legalism preached by our religious leaders, which generates immense levels of shame, is probably the greatest problem faced by believers today. We all preach out of both sides of our mouths, and do so because our faith/trust in Jesus' atonement is still being perfected in us. And facing the problem is, as always, the first step in seeing God fix it. We dearly need to humble ourselves and confess our problem with legalism. I have this issue. You have it. We all have it, ever since Adam ate that forbidden fruit of legalism. We need to trust God to fix our Pharisee as much as we need to trust Him to fix our pleasure-worshipping hedonist.
I think it is worth noting that the church has done a great deal of damage by inflicting shame on its constituents and the greater world for not following God the way that they think they need to. What you said about performance-based acceptance has permeated every aspect of our culture and is insidious even in our personal relationships. Most people's marriages and friendships are very performative and therefore lack the genuine love that we really are looking for in our lives. A lot of people that I know are desperate for the unity that you are talking about but have not experienced the healing that enables them to love in a very deep capacity. I find that the best cure is to actually experienced love. You do point this out but I think it needs to be stated again that people need to experience genuine unconditional love in order to believe that it's even possible to give or receive that kind of love.
Our inability to face the level of legalism preached by our religious leaders, which generates immense levels of shame, is probably the greatest problem faced by believers today. We all preach out of both sides of our mouths, and do so because our faith/trust in Jesus' atonement is still being perfected in us. And facing the problem is, as always, the first step in seeing God fix it. We dearly need to humble ourselves and confess our problem with legalism. I have this issue. You have it. We all have it, ever since Adam ate that forbidden fruit of legalism. We need to trust God to fix our Pharisee as much as we need to trust Him to fix our pleasure-worshipping hedonist.