I am sitting here in my Christian crack house called Starbucks, also known as my office.
I sometimes come here to fill my addiction to caffeine and spend time to myself reading the word and maybe even eavesdrop on a few conversations. I don’t do that kind of stuff. LOL You know sometimes listening to the sounds of voices around you can get one to think out loud. I am not one to listen in on another persons conversations all the time but sometimes the people around you want you to hear what they have to say just because you are reading the Bible. So I here a conversation about religion and how the Christian people are so religious in their beliefs. Of course this is coming from someone who just chased a hangover with a cup of java. They could not understand why there could be so many mean christians out there. Why so many Christians are so nice to you when they need some money and then turn their back on you. I thought to myself man who disappointed this person, who turned their back instead of reaching out. I looked over at the lady and she returned the look of “well what about it”. I took it as an opportunity to first apologize to her for my fellow church who let her down. She and her friend let me in on their conversation and I found out that she was a dancer at a local strip club. She was trying to turn her life around and do the right thing. She went to church occasionally and gave her tithe and even an offering. She knew that God was not happy with what she was doing but that she grew up in this kind of environment. Just the other day the church that she had attended confronted told her that she was not welcome any more once one of the elders there found out where she worked. Some people in our church have a ministry that reaches out to women who are in this field of work. And I shared this with her. I know that she had been let down by the very source that she thought would be her refuge. She felt betrayed. And now we all share a label. If we are to turn our backs on those who are trying to change then what does that say about out Christ like love. I could not stand there and say I wash my hands of her sin and her problems. I could only apologize to her for someone else’s ignorance and lend out another hand in hopes that it would help. Are we so religious that we cannot share the love of Christ to those trapped by sin? Are we so religious that we turn our back on the ones who need our hand and our love? Imagine if Christ turned his back on us because of our sin. Where would we be today? This woman has picked out the Pharisees within the church today and now labeled everyone. I don’t condone her labeling everyone for one church, but it is what it is. I hope that we can look deep into our own hearts and see that we often put a band-aid on the sore spots in society an look the other way instead of implementing a cure. We are supposed to be a hospital for the hurting and sick, a refuge where people feel safe. Christ was all these things and he always led people to a place of safety from the sin they were trapped in.
Luke 14:21 So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’
You see there is always room for those in need of hope and salvation. We should never turn away or condemn anyone. How can we turn someone away when we ourselves are still living in sin. We all have fallen short of the glory of God. I like to remember the scripture in JOHN 8 John 8
1But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" 6They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." 8Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" 11"No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."
I think that if the church would have accepted this woman for who she was and not what she has done she might be running from her job as a stripper and turning other women as well from this degrading lifestyle. Instead now she finds herself running away from the doors of the church. May God bless her and give us all the courage to love and reach the lost.
