That is the message of the new covenant.
What we used to fear, no longer grips us. What we used to treat, no longer afflicts us. What we used to avoid, we can hold in our arms. What would have killed us can do us no harm!
Jesus! JESUS!! How are you so good?
You loved the unlovables! You touched the untouchables! You kept the least appropriate community. You chose unlearned men, You spoke to women, and You let the little children come.
Your death brought me in! I was far off, but You drew me near. Your gospel teaches that I can be free from fear. Fear of being infected, dragged down, and tainted. You chose Love everytime.
You are the Light of the World. Where Light is, darkness cannot be. Perfect Love casts out fear. You expel evil with a glance! I'm sorry for avoiding the people you sent me to love! I'm sorry for feeling that I needed to protect my reputation by shunning the people that religion says are outside. Take me to the lepers, the sinners, the prostitutes, the pagans, the bleeding, the dictators, the ones oozing bodily fluid, the ones that hate You (or hate Your Body…they obviously don't know You), the ones who oppress, afflict, and drag down. THOSE are the people we are sent out to. The sick need the Doctor. Here I am! Send me!
I'm often heartbroken to see that the people who are called to be the most loving, most humble, most self-sacrificing are perceived to be the most hateful, most judgemental, most self-righteous people in the world. Why is that perception there? True, Jesus told us that the world would hate us, but often I'm the one that perceives Christians to be that way. I recognize how hateful and judgemental most of the Church acts. I believe this is because of fear. Most of the American church grew up believing in seperatist theology, which preaches that because drinking, smoking, dancing, and __________ (fill in the blank with whatever you've been condemned for) are bad, the people who do those things are bad too. That is true. All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. But if "Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world" is true as well, than we can realize that the Gospel sends us out to the darkest places.
Stop fearing sinners. Stop sheltering yourself from people that aren't cleaned up yet. You were an orphan once, and Jesus plucked you out of the dirt; he didn't make you bathe before he let you into His house!
Jesus touched a leper and made him whole. Jesus infected that dying man with purity. And that same purity is living on the inside. Love your Christian community and be fed and filled by God through them, but please don't hide yourselves away from the world that is "going to hell in a handbasket." The only reason it is going to hell is because it doesn't know the Love of God. Jesus commissioned us to go and love the people that the World loves to hate. And the World loves to hate everyone, at some point or another. Give Jesus a chance to make Himself strong in you. Go and love the people that are in such desperate need of Him. When you feel weak, that's perfect. His strength is made perfect in that state. Know that God is living on the inside, roaring like a Lion! The enemy flees when he hears Jesus' voice.
I leave you with this, a portion from Gabe Lyon's message at the 2010 Catalyst conference. Be encouraged.
