GRACE AT WORK

Rom. 1:11 For I long to visit you so I can share a spiritual blessing with you that will help you grow strong in the Lord.

I admire the heart of the Apostle Paul. As he thought of the church at Rome and wrote this letter, his longing was to visit them so that he could share with them a spiritual blessing. He wanted to help them on their journey of faith. He wanted to help them understand better the ways of God so that they would grow strong in the Lord.

The church would be in much better shape than she is today if this would be the heart of every church leader. In fact, if we all had the same spirit, most of the problems in the church would not exist. We should desire for one another spiritual growth. The longing of our hearts should be to help each other in our spiritual journey.

In order for us to have such a heart of love, we need to be a people of grace. We need to not let our hang ups with one another drive a wedge between us. We need to be able to overlook our differences for our mutual good. We need to be quick to forgive and strive to forget the things that upset us. We need to stay focused on Christ as the head of the church and quit trying to be the head ourselves.

In order to have such a heart, we need to take care of our own souls. We need to seriously develop within us hearts of righteousness. We need to never stop growing in our faith. We need to never stop learning how to better life in and for Christ. We, nor the church, will ever get any better than we are until we do.