I'm linking up with Lisa Jo Baker and a couple hundred other bloggers again for Five Minute Friday. The past few weeks, I've been writing my Friday post on Sunday. I'm late, and I've been going over my five minutes. I'm not usually a rule breaker, but things are stirring on the inside. I would love for my blogging friends to join us at the link up every Friday. You will be so encouraged by the community of writers there! This week's word prompt is Choose.
It had been a long week. Getting things ready for my sister's bridal shower with my mom on Friday was just a small thing on my task list. I had a whole list of things on my mind about home things I needed to do as well. While I was making my bed, the Holy Spirit spoke softly to my heart. He said "Love wins. Choose love." There wasn't any turmoil going on in my life, so I didn't think of it as something I needed to correct my attitude in immediately.
However, throughout the past week, there was a lot of political talk going on in our country about who we should serve and why our beliefs would dictate who we could serve. I don't usually carry strong opinions on this matter, and I'm not very politically active. You can boo me now if you'd like. But, this thing I heard while making my bed stirred up something in me I didn't know I had.
I thought about Jesus, who is our ultimate example especially if we call ourselves followers of Christ. Jesus, in all of the gospels, in all of the words written that were spoken by him, never ruffled the feathers of the sinners. Instead, Jesus was really good at stirring up the religious elite (Pharisees), and sometimes even His own followers.
Jesus wasn't out to condemn the sinner, but often shows that He had compassion for them. I felt so convicted in this area of my life Friday. I felt fired up, something I very rarely feel in my INFP/green/phlegmatic personality. I'm typically laid back, easy going, so for me to get riled up, you must know that God is working on something in me.
What if, as a church, we have it wrong when it comes to the sinner? What if our call is not to choose to cast them aside, believing our own sin is without weight, but instead to offer them hope and show them love? What if, as we call ourselves followers of Christ, we acted as such and acted as Jesus would if He was living in 2014? I'm pretty sure He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He would have compassion on people today just as He did 2000+ years ago.
I believe that our call as a body is not to stir up and condemn the sinner, but to engage with them and show them His extravagant love that we so often talk about in our music and church services. Do we even really know what that extravagant love looks like? Merriam-Webster defines extravagant as "exceeding the limits of reason or necessity; lacking in moderation, balance and restraint." That is HIS love for US! For ALL of US! Y'all, I know how much my Jesus loves me. Why would I not want to share that LOVE to everyone? Why would I want to hoard His love?
I believe that it's time we choose love and lay down our weapons of words that pierce the already wounded and fall on deaf ears and blind eyes. Instead of choosing to shut our doors to people who don't look like us, live like us or believe like us, let's open our doors and love them relentlessly. Let the Holy Spirit do His work, because honestly, we can't. Choose love, friends. I choose love.
