When Monieca and I were much younger and living in Sumter, she worked as a social worker with DSS. We attended a picnic with her coworkers and their families. It was a large crowd and there was a lot of alcohol. I remember feeling very uncomfortable being there and I didn’t enjoy myself. In fact, I was stand offish and not engaging at all. I also wasn’t supportive of my wife in that moment.

Over the years I’ve reflected a lot on that experience. My dad was a recovering alcoholic and I have a strong personal aversion to alcohol in any form. But that wasn’t the only thing making me feel so uncomfortable that day. I’ve since realized that a bigger reason was the culture we’ve created in our churches that causes preachers and most dedicated believers to feel uncomfortable around lost people, especially when they act like lost people.

Why do we expect lost people to act like us…like saved people? After all, they’re lost.

Some of the lyrics in Casting Crowns song “Jesus, Friend of Sinners” (see yesterday’s blog) that the Holy Spirit used to convict me is these:

We cut down people in Your name
But the sword was never ours to swing

The truth’s become so hard to see
The world is on their way to You
But they’re tripping over me

Open our eyes to the world
At the end our pointing fingers
Let our hearts be led by mercy

Nobody knows what we’re for
Only what we’re against
When we judge the wounded
What if we put down our signs
Crossed over the lines
And loved like You did

The truth is we not reaching the lost in our world because often we don’t like them, let alone love them. We condemn them because they’re not like us and we avoid them because we don’t want them to rub off on us.

It’s not easy standing for truth while loving those not living in the truth. Yet Jesus did exactly that and so must we. I pray that God helps me…and you…to do more loving and less condemning. Maybe then we would become a friend to some sinners…just like Jesus was.

Pastor Steve Hogg