The best
advice the Lord ever gave me came through my dear wife over thirty years ago. We
had been married over ten years before I came to Christ; she had been a
Christian all along. One day while sitting at our bar in the kitchen eating
supper, a few years before we had kids, we were watching Oprah Winfrey on a
little TV sitting on the bar. She was interviewing prostitutes that day. I had
gotten saved about three months earlier. As Oprah would ask them a question I
would say, (I have been talking back to the TV for a long time), “I know one
thing, if you don’t get saved lady, you are going to hell.” With each question
to each lady I would end up saying that or something similar to it. After about
the tenth time my wife had enough. She dropped her fork in her plate, turned
those pretty green eyes toward me, cut them down and then said, “Who do you
think you are?” The hair stood up on the back of my neck! “What do you mean who
do I think I am? I am a Christian, that’s who I am.” I answered smugly. “Let me
tell you something,” she said, “You are not any better than those women. The
only difference between you and them is that you have accepted Gods salvation.
He loves them every bit as much as He does you, and, you have no authority to
send anyone to hell!” She picked up her fork and kept eating. My food kind of
tasted like my foot.
I tell that
story often in church because it was the first step God used in preparing me
for what I do today; pastor. When I came to Christ and He opened my eyes, I
began to see sin everywhere and in everybody it seemed; except in me. Today, I
can relate to what the Apostle Paul meant when he considered himself the [1]worst
sinner of all. The closer he got to Christ the worse he looked; same with me. I
now tell folk that when God really needs to get my attention and I am not
listening, He tells my wife and she tells me! He knows I listen to her.
I have found
that we sometimes push people away from us because of our judgmental attitudes.
We may not intend to do it, we may even guard our words; but our body language
and tone of speech can reveal our attitude. Jesus never hung out with sinners
but He certainly associated with them. He accepted invitations to dinner, He
touched the untouchable, and He never offended any sinner; only religious folk.
Just as God used my wife to teach me a lesson He used Paul to teach Peter the
same thing. [2]Paul
got in Peter’s face just as my wife did mine. Paul and I both are better for
it. So, let this be a lesson for you. Learn from my and Peter’s mistake. Quit
judging and start loving. That is what Jesus did when He was here in the
physical and that is what He wants to do today, through us. May we quit seeing
people as degenerates’ and begin to see them as Jesus does; salvageable.
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