Be the Grace and Love They Seek

Photo taken from The Blaze website

In these times when grace and love seem to be so hard to find, we as the Church need to be the grace and love that people seek.

All this week I have been listening to the talk and observing the way various people have reacted to the horrible mass murder by a terrorist in Orlando last Saturday night.    

A friend of mine knows someone who was friends of one of the first victims killed. His heart was broken and needed some understanding but he did not see it in a church. This particular church did not acknowledge the tragedy nor did they pray for the victims. 

While in a meeting, I heard people talking about how they couldn't believe all of the publicity the LGBT community was receiving from this awful event. They were talking about how terrible the media was because they felt that if this had been 49 Christians killed, there would not have been as much of a show of support. It was as if they were a little jealous of the media attention.

I do not support the choice of the homosexual lifestyle. BUT I do support love and grace. The people that were shot and killed were fellow human beings. God loved them just as He loves you and me. He wishes that all people be saved. Paul says in I Corinthians 10:33, "For I am not seeking my own good but the good of the many, so that they may be saved."

I told my friend that I wish her friend would have been in our service on Sunday morning. Our Worship Minister and the Preacher both prayed for the victims and their families. But at the meeting I had attended, I did not speak up. I had to process their attitudes a little before I could speak.

The Preacher has said on many occasions, "If we, as a church, are always showing people what we are against, then how will they ever know what we are for?"

I'm sure you have heard the saying, "hate the sin, love the sinner". Do we say it just to be talking christianese and we feel we'll sound more holy? We all deal with our own sins every day but thank God He still loves us in spite of it. 

So as we go forward in the wake of this tragedy, let's not go forward in hate. Let's go forward in love. Let's go forward with grace. 

Be the Church, be the people that Christ wants us to be.

Love from the Preacher and I