http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8327
[Virtue Online] 29 May 2008--All of us within the Church wrestle with those who stubbornly refuse to respond to the truth of the Gospel. Often these bred in the bone rebels against God claim the things of the Church as their own, even the very highest offices. Anybody who has been through the long Lent of Church life has slammed up against the concrete wall of "entitlement" that is so often a mark of these claimants to the privileges of the children of God. They often take the high road assuming a righteousness tinged with viciousness. Every church that has tucked some history under its belt has experienced this problem.
Too often the vestibule of the church has a closet full of the robes of the Pharisees and Sadducees who still look for ways to crucify the Christ. Of the traitorous, Sir Launcelot du Lake said, "Hard it is to take out of the flesh that which is bred in the bone" (Mallory). What is needed is not just a heart transplant, but a bone replacement. The very structure of their lives needs to be torn up, so that God in his grace can begin again. They are the ruined pot on the wheel, and the Potter seeks to scrape them off the wheel, pound the lumps out of them, and reshape them one more time.
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