The Line

There's a line in the sand with religion on one side and Jesus Christ on the other. Religion harshly judges the people that Jesus loves. I want to spend the rest of my life being on the right side of the line, don't you? Who knows what difference you will make in somebody's life if you do.

Steve McVey

Ye shall be My witnesses

Our joy in Christ speaks a language that all hearts can understand, and is a testimony for Him, such as mere knowledge and utterance can never give.

Robert C. Chapman

We are not called to do witnessing; we are called to be witnesses.

Paul Anderson-Walsh

The Gospel

How is it then that we've come to imagine that Christianity consists primarily in what we do for God? How has this come to be the good news of Jesus? Is the kingdom that He proclaimed to be nothing more than a community of men and women who go to church on Sunday, take an annual spiritual retreat, read their Bibles every now and then, vigorously oppose abortion, don't watch x-rated movies, never use vulgar language, smile a lot, hold doors open for people, root for their favorite team, and get along with everybody?

Is that why Jesus went through the bleak and bloody horror of Calvary? Is that why He emerged in shattering glory from the tomb? Is that why He poured out His Holy Spirit on the church? To make nicer men and women with better morals?

The Gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand-new creations.

Brennan Manning

The Gospel

The Gospel can be summed up by saying that it is the tremendous, tender, compassionate, gentle, extraordinary, explosive, revolutionary, revelation of Christ's love.

Catherine de Hueck Doherty

The Finger

No not THAT finger, I am referring to the one we Christians might use to point out what’s wrong with the world and pass judgment on the behavior of others. It’s the one we use when we yell “murderer” to the woman walking into the abortion clinic or to point out our distaste at the drunk laying in the gutter or when we are whispering about the couple in the church that just filed for divorce. I am not saying that any of those things are OK, but in our fervor to pass judgment on the actions of others we often overlook the fact we are pointing at people who are really no different than we are. They are often faced with circumstances that have completely shaken up the world they knew. They are placed in situations, not always by choice, they see no way out of and every choice they are presented with looks no better than the other.

Yet it seems that many Christians when given the blessed opportunity to minister to the needs of a hurting person instead choose to act as if they have some sort of moral imperative to point out their failures and to tell them, in their view, just what God thinks about it. Where is the love of God in that? Where is the love and grace from them that Jesus showed the woman who was caught in adultery? Instead of condemning her as the Law required and the self-righteous demanded; Jesus chose instead to give her the one thing she really needed and desired, love and acceptance. Not acceptance of her sin, but He loved HER and he accepted HER just the way she was.

The longer I am a Christian the more I am convinced that people can’t come to Christ simply to avoid eternal punishment, to get a “get out of hell free pass.” Yet that seems to be the message that I have heard preached in most of the churches I have been part of in the past. It is summed up in the phrase “turn or burn.” I simply don’t believe someone can be saved with a message like that. I think it leads to many false conversions. I know it did in my case many years ago when a preacher scared me down to the front of the church to say a prayer and get dunked.

No, people come to Christ by being convinced in their hearts of His love and acceptance and forgiveness for them and to be joined to the One who can give them, eternally, His life and hope and love. That is the good news that Christ died for. But people will not come to Christ unless the love and acceptance of Jesus is made real to them in the way we Christians live out our lives. Unless they see the love of Jesus in us, they will walk the other way. That love isn’t best expressed by trying to change their behavior. A change of behavior isn’t what they need the most. What they need is Jesus and to see His love expressed in us.