Start the Love

When people who don’t know Christ think about Christians, they often think “Hypocrites.”

And I hate to say it, but are they right?

Because a lot of times, I’d have to say, I agree with them. 

A lot of times people say, “I want nothing to do with God, because every Christian I know says they believe one thing, but then they do the exact opposite.”

And that’s true, too. A lot of times, we mess up, and we don’t represent Christ as well as we should. 

But to the people that think that: 

We are people too. 

We mess up too. A lot. 

& We aren’t perfect. Not even close. 

And we can be judgmental, just like everyone else. 

Even though we have Christ living in us, that doesn’t mean we never mess up.

In fact, it means we know that we mess up, but we are saved by grace, regardless.

I have heard many words come out of the mouths of people following Christ that would make someone want to stay away as far away from the Christian faith as possible.

“Gays are disgusting.”

“He murdered- he deserves death."

“They should have just shot him right there.”

“Maybe instead of begging for money he should just get off his butt and go get a job”

We are so quick to judge. 

But Church, what in the world are we doing?

By treating people this way, judging without knowledge, making assumptions and things, how many people are we pushing away from wanting to know Christ?

Why are we so prideful? Do we think we are more deserving of love than these people? Because we aren’t. 

If God’s love for all people is equal, and we are supposed to follow in the image of God, shouldn’t we be trying to do the same?

The decisions we make have never made God stop loving us, or even love us any less. 

So why should the decisions other people make keep us from treating them like human beings? Or keep us from loving them, or even just liking them? Or just treating them with respect?

They may decide to be gay, they may decide to commit crime, maybe they just make decisions we wouldn’t make. But why should that stop us from loving them like the Father has loved us? That’s right. It shouldn’t. 

You don’t have to agree with someone’s decisions to show them the love of Christ. 

The goal isn’t to change their mind. The goal isn’t to change them. I mean sure, that’s the ultimate goal, to help them change to a life of living for Christ. But before we can even do anything close to that, we just have to LOVE THEM first. 

Love isn’t judgmental. Love isn’t putting people down.

Love is encouraging. Love is accepting. Love is love. 

So we have to stop being hypocrites! We have to stop hating! We aren’t going to get it right all the time. 

But we have to start loving, and we have to start now.