I'm a bit cross.....

I'm trying not to be cross, but I'm not succeeding at this point.

Last night we had the first of a course of bible studies on grace. We discussed how the church is perceived as judgmental and hypocritical and how we can show more grace to the world.

There was one person there with a real "us and them" thing happening. He was saying that we can show grace to "the sinners" by being tolerant and correcting them. Excuse me? I held my tongue for a little while but then pointed out that "the sinners" are us. We are all sinners. The reason we need to go out into the world and share the message of grace is so that other people can be saved by grace. Not so they can stop sinning, no one can stop sinning. The point of grace is that God loves us in spite of our sins. Of course he didn't hear a word I said. Just sat there smiling inanely while I clenched my jaw and ground my teeth.

It's self righteous people like that that give the church its judgmental tag. Can't they see that? So many people have been hurt by the people in the church and they never come back! We need to correct ourselves not them! We need to show grace and love and forgiveness to everyone, not just the ones who "deserve" it. No one deserves it!

Ok, time for a deep breath. I apologise for my little rant. As you may have noticed this is something very close to my heart. My husband has been hurt by the very church that I attend, and I'm afraid that he will never come back.

Lord, I pray that you can use me to show your grace and love to everyone. I know I can't do this on my own, it's not in my nature but I do know that I can let you do it through me. I pray that I can lead by example and show what's good about the church, that people will see you working in me, and come to love you as I do.