Day 5: City on a Hill

This a two fold post as the title encompassed two topics, todays one shall be it's use in Casting Crowns's "City on a Hill". This song portrays a nation living together in the city of the hill that once was a magnificent city but now has diminished because everyone thought they could go it alone. I suppose it has links to Zion and Isreal when the Babylonians came and scattered them among the nations.

You see, the poets thought the dancer were shallow
And the soldiers thought the poets were weak
And the elders saw the young ones as foolish
And the rich man never heard the poor man speak 

We constantly put labels on others and judge them accordingly, making assumptions and treating people accordingly. I certainly judge people by first impressions and whilst my judgement may sometimes hold true, it almost always doesn't. We should be treating everyone with love and acceptance, but we don't always succeed on this point. If we let our differences and perceived differences cause us to stay away from people and if we don't tolerate and or accept different ways of doing things then how can we stand united. A common objection I find discussed in apologetics books is this "Why should I agree with you when you can't agree with each other?" Denominations are great as a form of letting people who find it easier to express themselves in a certain way do so but all to often it can become a cause for strife and argument. People get set on a particular way of doing something and start to think most other ways are generally wrong all for a sake of comfort. They are comfortable doing it this way, why do it another way yet we barely ever go search for an answer as to why they have mass or lead worship the way they do.
I recently judge a friends plan on leading worship because I felt it was more adept for a jam and not lead worship but in all honesty it has recently been one of the better worship sessions I've had. I don't know why but when I feel like there is a problem with something I try and enjoy it less but I keep getting told God "Stop resisting change and just go with it" and when I do it leads to a greater experience than before.
What I want to challenge people to do is to drop their judgements, it's not easy and you can spend most of your day going "Am I judging them prematurely or do I have proof for this?" but if it ever reaches a natural level then I can see it making life a lot more blessed. This leads on to what my main message should be and that is that we should all be standing united in Christ, not denominations, nor gifts, nor fruits of the spirit, nor strengths but quite simply in Christ. Otherwise we are in danger of following the quote up above, thinking others are shallow, weak, foolish or even completely ignoring people.
A quote by Charlie Chaplin  in "The Great Dictator" says this: The kingdom of man is in all men, not one man, not many men, but all men. I take this to mean that we aren't ever going to fully see the kingdom of God here on earth until we can see all men united for the risen Lord. This probably won't happen in my lifetime but when you catch glimpses of it in groupings of people united for Christ, it's a blessing and something to be remembered.

God Bless.