Show Christ to the world in all we do

In the devotional I read this morning, a question came up.

Will you still love me, even if I mess up? Now, I remember as a child being in complete fear of my parents because I messed up. It might have been something I broke, or bad grades, or a bad report from school or a neighbor. The fact was, I was convinced that my parents love was conditional on my behavior.

Guess what? I was wrong. Yes, there were times my parents got upset. There were times I was punished. But the real reason they were upset, was not because of a lack of love, but because they knew I could do better.

I think that many in the church think that God is the type of parent that withholds love when we mess up. For some reason, we have mistakenly led people to believe that only certain people are loved by God.

We have convinced many that God is waiting for us to mess up. We even think that when bad things happen, it’s because God is angry with us.

Folks, we must stop this lie. Romans 5:8 tells us “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Now, why would One who is angry with us die for us? Why One who had been beat and hung on a cross ask for forgiveness for his torturers? Why would God call missionaries and preachers to go into places around the world to share the Gospel, knowing they may not survive?

The reason is love. Yes, I’m sure God gets upset with our actions. People are doing atrocious things to each other, so, yes God is disappointed. But has He stopped loving us? NO!

If anything, His call to love is even more emphatic. We as members of the body of Christ, regardless of denomination, need to share a loving God, not a retributive one.

Does this mean we allow sin? No, but we do correct with grace. We hold each other accountable. We show a better way, and we show it in love. The world needs to know the true Christ, not this media hyped son of a vengeful God thing.

My friend, I believe we are at a critical juncture in the ministry of the church. I saw a statistic where non-believers now outnumber believers in this country. We are no longer a Christian nation, if we ever were.

Now it is more important than ever to show Christ to the world through our lives, actions and words. Christ did not come into the world to condemn it, but that the world through him might be saved (extra points is you can name book, chapter, and verse).

If we are going to bring people to Christ, we need to show the true Christ, not the vengeance-seeking punisher of sinners that the world wants to make of him. We are followers of Christ, and as such we need to make more followers.

See you in church.

Rev. Kent Wilfong is the pastor at the United Methodist Church, Doniphan/Neelyville.