Discipleship Minute: Mean Love?
The television celebrity impressed me deeply. I couldn’t help thinking that if he and I had grown up together or had served together in the military, we would have been good friends. I liked him in spite of all the rumors about his lifestyle. He joked about being a “backslidden” worshiper from his childhood church. God had cycled our lives together for one fascinating afternoon when he introduced me to his media world and I talked with him about the history of Church of the Open Door.
Just before our day ended he looked off and asked of no one in particular, “When did the church become so mean?”
I said, “We’re not mean, why don’t you come here and give us a chance?”
He laughed uncomfortably, and said, “I might just come and visit you some Sunday, Ed.”
I prayed for him and we shook hands. As I watched him drive away with his cameraman, his question haunted me.
On the drive home that night I turned my radio dial to Christian talk radio. Appalled by the snarling arrogance of the host, I prayed that the man I had met that day wasn’t listening. Whether he knew it or not, his “we’ll show those sinners when this bill gets passed” and “just wait until God deals with these idiots” sent a message to those outside of God’s grace: God’s on our side and He hates you.
The Bible teaches that God is on the side of the righteous and emphasizes that ultimately our side will win. But our victory will not come through favorable voting returns but at the return of Jesus Christ to rule and reign on earth.
What the Bible does not teach is that God hates sinners. The New Testament says that the message of the church is the Good News of reconciliation “who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:18)
If God hated sinners—those unreconciled to Him—this verse tells us He would have to start with us. Instead, He loves sinners and sent His Son to die in order to reconcile sinners like us. To us, the reconciled sinners, He has given this ministry of reconciliation, “that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and his commit to us the world of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:19)
So how would your non-Christian friends and acquaintances classify you? Do your life and words scream condemnation or do they whisper reconciliation?

We Lived It

In the first three chapters of my book,
This is an excerpt from my book about the 

Before you can finish the sentence, “I’ve been set free by Christ, and now…” some spiritual hall monitor is going to remind you that “Your liberty in Christ should not lead to license.”