Let's open our eyes!

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

Peter 4:8

What I'm about to write is something that has bothered me for the longest time. A lingering thought the Lord put in my heart, that had to be made into words.
Whenever people hear the word church, they tend to frown or roll their eyes, but why? What is it that makes them reject God and His house? One of the things that most seem to stand out are the words "old-fashioned," "judgement," "criticism," "hypocrisy,"  among others...which characterize humans, not God.
What has slapped me on the face as a hard reality is that what pushes people away from God the most, tend to be christians themselves.
Picture the random guy at the streets with a sign on his hands that says REPENT SINNERS shouting to people that they'll go to hell if they don't...do people want to hear him? I don't think so.
Not even I would like to hear him.
        With great regret and embarrassment I realized that christians have not been known by the world for living in the love of God, loving one another unconditionally, being united, being  full of forgiveness, without judgement, willing to help the needy, defending and helping their brother when he falls, loving the lost soul... 
Why isn't  there more often a random guy in the streets with a sign that says JESUS LOVES YOU and shouting to passerbys messages of encouragement and hope?
      It seems that "christians" have been known through history by being outright religious than spiritual, critical than forgiving, more fervent and aggressive to defend their faith and their morals to the death than to defend the weak and fight for the hopeless, do things in the name of God only for their personal interest, divided into their own denominations and doctrines, and trying to "save" others by pointing out how wrong they are, how lost they are. We forget that we are all one body, and forget to do what God himself has commanded us:
Love one another...  "Loved them as I have Loved you"

Yes, I am talking to all christians out there.
Do not take offense and please read with your heart.

 If your son or daughter made a great mistake, people come and accuse them, and they're in great trouble...what would you do? Turn them in and agree for their punishment? Judge them coldly and kick them out of the house? Ridicule them in front of others by pointing out their mistake?  No..you would forgive them, do everything you could to defend  them and make things right, be willing to cross moral and ethical lines, and even put yourself in their place. But why?
Because they're your children. Because you love them. That simple. 
Love sees past the flaws of the beloved. Love forgives...
..But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Romans 5:8
If we want change, it needs to start in us, not in other people. If we want others to change to make things better, chances are who needs to change is us...and once we have been willing to allow God to change us, our change will touch their hearts, and bring a glorious destiny ahead.When we do things for the people of our church and our community, it must not be because we have to, because "is the christian way," or because is the right thing to do...

WE NEED TO DO IT OUT OF LOVE.

We need to Love the people, we need to love the lost, as Jesus loves them, as Jesus loves us. Oh how many of us have forgotten that! How many of us serves out of duty or out of self-righteousness! If we are supposed to be like Jesus, and become His light in the darkness, we must learn what Jesus did while He lived on this earth. He was never afraid of what people might say, he felt completely comfortable with the sinners, the outcasts, the lepers.
Jesus didn't reject them, He opened His arms to them. He didn't judge them, He loved them. He walked with them, without fear, full of love. 
      He rebuked the religious and the critic, however. Those who pressumed of justice and who claimed to be fair and followers of God when in reality led corrupt lives and did good only for show. In fact, His death was planned and executed by the religious and the critic...
Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. Romans 2:1
For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. Romans 2:12-13

Apostle Paul is a great example. He became a Jew for the Jews, Greek for the Greeks, a Gentile for the Gentiles, a Philistine for the Philistines...he endured being judged as one of them, but His actions of love from God reached the hearts of the people. How better to reach people than by becoming one of their own, but one who carries the light of Jesus in them?
Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law. Romans 3:27-31

What's the point of being a light where there's no darkness, and keep to ourselves? What's the point of being in the darkness and not shine our light? Why do we allow our light to go opaque by becoming a pointing finger of accusation to those in the darkness?
    By becoming the judge, and degrade the sinner, we become sinners ourselves...I would say lower than them if possible, because we're supposed to know better. And while we fight among us trying to determine who is right or wrong, the enemy gains ground to destroy our unity, and to destroy the souls of humanity.
No wonder why many who are completely away from God today were once christians or came out of strong religious backgrounds, take many celebrities for example. 
     Is not by preaching and lecturing that the lost gets saved, is strongly by our actions that they start to believe,  "you will know them by their fruit.."
God commands us to preach His gospel to all creatures, to love them. how then will they hear if we won't go to them? How will they believe if our actions are full of deceit? How will they run to God if we push them away from Him?

   As Christians we must be an example of His love, not an example of Human's dark nature.
Let's stop staining God's name and start making His real nature be known!
The time is running short, Jesus is coming sooner than we think.

Let's open our eyes!

Stop being a religion.

Start being His Love.

--Linda Angeles