Please Fogive Us

Now listening to "If We Are the Body" by Casting Crowns. I really like this song. It speaks truth. The chorus is this:

But If we are the body
Why aren't His arms reaching?
Why aren't His hands healing?
Why aren't His words teaching?
And if we are the body
Why aren't His feet going?
Why is His love not showing
them there is a way?

I heard something yesterday that really hurt my heart. Someone my mom knows used to be very involved in the Catholic church and actually worked for it. He's a good person and believes in God, but he has trouble with structured religion now. Back when he was with the church, he messed up. Just like we all do. No one is perfect, right? Anyways, something happened when he was in high school. He got a girl pregnant. He didn't want her to get an abortion, so she didn't. He went to his priest to tell him what happened. Instead of responding with love in a hard situation, the church turned him away and fired him. Though he messed up, wouldn't you agree that he did the right thing by being honest with the priest, who was supposed to be his friend, and not letting his girlfriend get an abortion?

How can God's kingdom grow if we don't show love toward people? I'm just as much a sinner as the next person. Instead of condemning teenage girls for getting pregnant, or the guys who get them pregnant, we should be willing still to show them love and help them if we can. I'm not saying I agree with the wrong decisions people make that are displeasing to God (I've had my share of bad choices, too), but if our reaction to it is negative to the point where they are turned off to God, how does that help them? It certainly isn't glorifying to God. Jesus was surrounded by some horrible people when He came to preach the Good News, but he loved them anyways. Of course, we will never be fully like Jesus, for it is harder for us to forgive people who hurt us, or to love our enemies. We are a flawed people. We lie, cheat, steal, hate, lust, and worship the world. We give into the temptation of temporary things.

Right now, on behalf of all Christians, I would like to ask forgiveness of those who we have hurt, for the ones who have been turned off to God because off our ungodly actions. I beg you to realize that we are like you, flawed as humans are. I am so sorry if the Christians you've met are not what you expect of followers of Christ. And I challenge you to seek God not based on what you've seen in people. Certainly, you can learn from each other, but the One true source of salvation and life is He who created us. Jesus came to clean our sin away so that we would no longer have to live by law, but by faith. We are in God's grace, a free gift, but in order to receive that gift you must reach out and accept it. When God made man, man lived by the law as a means to get into Heaven. But man was full of sin, so Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, was sent as a living sacrafice to take on all of our sins. Once our sins were cleared, we no longer lived by law, but by faith alone, under God's good grace.

I guess my point right now is, to those of you have messed big time and have been rejected because of it, just know that God will never abandon you. Jesus loves you so much that He died on the cross to set you free. Don't put your faith in people. They will disappoint you. The Holy Spirit does not disappoint.

"As for you, you were dead in your trangressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among the at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we we by nature objects of wrath. But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions- it is by grace you have been saved... For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:1-5, 8-10

Again, to anyone hurt or turned off by so-called followers of Christ, I humbly ask for your forgiveness. Let us not be the deciding factor in your expectation of the Almighty saving Lord God. He has done nothing wrong. It is we who do the wrong. Please forgive us.