written by Demetrius Morgan

These, my fellow Christians are the three words that describe my shaky walk with Christ. As Pastor Mark teaches us, we live in a world that teaches independence in almost every facet of life. I have been a student of this deceitful teaching am no exception to the rule. Both my parents were, and still are fiercely independent. But is this truly how God designed me to live? The answer to this rhetorical question is no! So then why do I do it? Why do I rebel against God’s infallible work?

First let’s examine the behavior in question. For those unfortunate souls closest to me, they all would most likely agree that one of my favorite hobbies is arguing. I’m all about a good debate, even when it’s unnecessary. I argue about everything I feel I have some authority on. And good ol’ Satan oftentimes has me convinced that I am an authority on everything.

I spend countless hours doing research on issues that are close to my heart. Most of the time, it’s not to gain insight, in order to bring Christ-centered healing as his Ambassador. Instead my typical motivation is to continually strengthen my arsenal for debate.

Through a lot of counseling with Pastors and close friends, I have come to the conclusion that through out my upbringing, about 85 to 90% of the people around me, either beat me, abandoned me, or both. So as many would guess, I have a real issue with trust.

I was at breakfast one day with a mentor and a Christian sister. My mentor got the idea that we should go around the table and challenge each others strengths and weaknesses. When it came time for my little sis to challenge me, she said something that really had me thinking. She said that one thing I need to work on is allowing myself to become fully integrated with community. So to me, she was saying that I walk with my community, but on the sidelines. The results of this adolescent thinking will no doubt, stunt my growth as a Christian.

To prove my approach doesn’t work, we need only to look at the development of an adolescent. You see, from infancy to pre-adolescence, children see the world through the eyes of their parents. But when adolescence hits, they begin to intellectually separate themselves from the influence of adults around them. The result is seeing the imperfections in their parents and heroes lives, and therefore, their perception of the world around them. Now what’s the result of that? Well most of the civilized world knows the anser to that … Rebellion.

Now even though I have come to realize this, I still struggle with applying it to my walk. But one day it hit me. The movie Gladiator! Toward the beginning of the movie, Maximus is in the middle of the arena with a handful of other gladiators he doesn’t know. He’s surrounded by a huge crowd of spectators who want to see his demise (that would be cynical critics) and over looking in his royal box, is Cesar (Satan). Down in the arena is a iron gate that you cannot see thru, but could only guess from the sound (Satan’s demons), that for these Gladiators, today will not be a walk in the park. But what does Maximus do? He looks at the Gladiators and says, “No matter what comes out of that cage, if we stick together, we have a better chance at survival.”

When that scene in the movie came to my mind, it was like an earthquake in my soul. Now if any of you have seen the movie, you would know that there is that one idiot (that would be me) who goes off on his own (again, this is me) and ends up getting roughed-up (to say the least, oh, and that is SO me!).

As a Christian, I live in a world where the culture, in most cases, does not want to see me walk successfully with Christ. In order to have a better chance at survival, I must be willing to do battle side by side with other Christian’s who themselves are in the fight of their life, to follow a Savior that is being crushed by the might of the secular society we live in.

Now with this soul shaking enlightenment, one would think that I am on the path to total Christian community. Nothing could be further from the truth. Everyday I struggle with being rebellious. I am constantly struggling with the thought of trusting others, and to be honest, there are days when I don’t win. The results are usually disastrous for me.

I tell myself that Jesus was a rebel, and in a way he was. But he also had a devine purpose, to die on the cross in order to develop a system that allows Christian’s to be members of one body. A system that allows Godly leaders to turn hard heads into disciples of Christ. A system that allows a man and women to became one, and therefore glorifying God’s name by committing to unity through family, love through Christ, and true intimacy through the Cross.

This system is called the Church…Amen