I happened to be reading the most well-known verse in the Bible just this week. John 3:16 tells of God's tremendous love for the world and how He manifested that love by sending us His Son. It was not this verse, but the next verse that caught my attention this time. It says that God didn't send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
What's interesting about this verse is that Jesus began by first telling us what God did not intend to do and then by sharing with us the reason for His sojourn on this planet. According to Christ, God had no intention of condemning the world by seding His only Son. Rather, His intent was to offer the world its only means of salvation.
In an effort to really understand what I was reading, I decided to look up the word "condemn". The word, according to Webster's online dictionary, means: " to declare to be reprehensible, wrong, or evil usually after weighing evidence and without reservation". This blew me away! If that is the case, then many of Christ followers are in fact doing the exact same thing that Jesus told us His Father was against! How many times have people left our churches feeling guilty, wrong, evil, or reprehensible? To be sure, God is holy and will not tolerate sin. However, just so we are never confused on the matter, God made sure to inform us that He did not send His Son into the world drive us away from Him, but to draw us closer by His love.
This is the plan of salvation! God's plan was never to set humankind up so that He could catch them doing something wrong. Neither was God's plan to suck the marrow out of life and leave us with depression, guilt, and gloom. God never sent His Son into the world to make us feel worse off than we did when we came to Him, but to point us to a better way and then help us get there.
What if our churches were places where we followed Jesus' example and refused to make people feel more guilty, wrong, or reprehensible than they already do but rather, offered them the same hope Jesus offered to the world? What if people from all walks of life could come into our churches regardless of who they were or what they had done and find fellowship and acceptance? What if churches were tolerant and accepting of people who didn't dress like them or talk like them or even believe exactly as they did? What if we focused on showing everyone God's love? If we followed God's plan, then we would make a tremendous impact on this world for Christ.
