Not Them But Us

When I was a youth, there was a woman at our church who raised foster children.  Let's say they didn't quite fit in with the "churched" kids:  they had tattoos, smoked, and hung out behind the church in the dark.  There were parents who felt very uncomfortable about their lifestyle, that those teens would have an adverse impact upon their children whom they sought to protect from "worldly" influences.  It seemed like many would have been glad for them not to be at church.  I may have been relatively sheltered growing up, but I never understood this view.  Didn't these tattooed smokers need Jesus too?

I knew these kids smoked, but that didn't mean I was forced to put a cigarette to my lips.  Listening to the complaints of some parents it would seem their kids would have no choice but conform under such peer-pressure.  I wonder:  was the God they served able to save them from the mouths of lions?  Could their God open the eyes of the blind, part the Red Sea, or raise the dead to life?  Was their God able to release them from bondage to sin and Satan?  My God can.  My God can keep me from sin and protect me too.  We shouldn't drive away the people who need Christ because they do not conform to our convictions.  Those who are founded upon Christ need not feel threatened by dissent or even direct opposition.

It is good for God's people to extend grace and love and acceptance to all!  He desires that all would come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved.  God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.  People should not be accepted because they act like us or even agree with our opinions, but because God loves them.  Just because there may be non-Christians hanging out in our churches does not give us license to be un-Christian!  I thank God that He loves me just the way I am.  God is faithful to conform us into His image once we are born again!  Guess what?  Some Christians - real Christians, mind you - have tattoos and smoke.  What is that to me?  Does Christ love them any less?  If a man will confess his sin, repent, and trust in Christ, he will be saved - smoker or not.

Instead of seeing non-Christians as "them," may we labour for them to be "us" as true followers of Jesus Christ.  This does not happen through outer conformity, but an inner transformation by the power of God!  That is why God has seen fit to keep us here:  to share the truth of the Gospel through the love of Christ!  Let us die to self again that we might be raised in Christ's power!