At its most basic level, a Christian’s job is simple, even though it is not easy.

We are called to follow the way and teaching of Jesus. To do what he said to do. To follow his example. To bear the fruit of the Spirit. To embody the Sermon on the Mount in the ordinary, everyday spaces of our lives.

That’s it. That’s the work.

And yet, somewhere along the way, we’ve often convinced ourselves that the church’s primary task is something else: winning arguments, maintaining influence, protecting institutions, or securing power. We’ve confused faithfulness with effectiveness, and obedience with control.

Jesus never invited people into the kingdom by condemning and criticizing. He invited them by showing them what life with God actually looks like.

The Sermon on the Mount isn’t aspirational poetry; it’s a description of kingdom life. It names a community shaped by humility, mercy, peacemaking, faithfulness, and love of enemies. It’s not advice for fixing the world. It’s a vision for forming disciples.

Which is why Jesus’ warning about specks and logs still lands so uncomfortably close to home.

Christians are in no position to obsess over the speck in someone else’s eye while ignoring the logs lodged firmly in our own. And those logs aren’t hypothetical. They are real, visible, and deeply damaging.

We have tolerated, and in some cases protected, systems of power that allow abuse to persist. We have allowed predators to remain in positions of authority and, worse, to speak for Jesus. We have confused charisma with character and influence with faithfulness.

We’ve also failed one another.

Jesus said the world would know his disciples by their love. Not by their alignment, not by their certainty, not by their volume. But by their love. And yet, we often struggle to love and care for other Christians in the ways we’ve been explicitly commanded to do. We fracture easily. We wound quickly. We justify cruelty as conviction.

This is not the way of Jesus.

The first job of the church is not to manage the behavior of the world. The world is going to do worldly things. That shouldn’t surprise us.

The first job of the church is to be a faithful gathering of obedient followers of Jesus. We are to be people who actually live out kingdom values in their communities. People whose lives make the reign of God visible and believable.

The church exists to reveal the kingdom.
To reveal what love looks like when it has a body.
To reveal mercy that doesn’t need leverage.
To reveal truth that doesn’t rely on coercion.
To reveal justice that flows from humility.

When the church does this well, it becomes an invitation.

Not an argument.
Not a threat.
Not a campaign.

An invitation.

People are drawn to Jesus when they see his life reflected in the way his followers live, forgive, welcome, and serve. They are drawn when faith feels like good news again; when it sounds like freedom, healing, and belonging rather than fear, shame, or control.

You are never going to criticize someone into the kingdom.
You are never going to shame someone into discipleship.
You are never going to coerce someone into love.

But you can embody a way of life that makes people curious.
You can practice a faith that creates space for repentance and healing, starting with yourself.
You can participate in a community that reflects the patience, generosity, and grace of Jesus.

The question facing the church isn’t whether the world is broken. That much is obvious.

The real question is whether we are willing to be faithful: to repent of the idolatry of power, to return to the way of Jesus, and to become the kind of community that reveals the kingdom not just with words, but with lives.

That work begins close to home.
At the table.
In our churches.
In our neighborhoods.
In ourselves.

And it begins, as it always has, by following Jesus, again.

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