This is a VERY hard message. Very disturbing and challenging! It is not meant to be condemning! Please pray about who you are and what you are doing for Christ. Time is short. We MUST be about our Fathers business! Keith
From "WHAT'S SO AMAZING ABOUT GRACE" by Philip Yancey
I told a story in my book "The Jesus I Never Knew", a true story that long afterward continued to haunt me. I heard it from a friend who works with the down-and-out in Chicago.
A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two year old daughter. Through sobs and tears, she told me she had been renting out her daughter--two years old!--to men interested in kinky sex. She made more renting out her daughter for an hour than she could earn on her own in a night. She had to do it, she said, to support her own drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story. For one thing, it made me legally liable - I'm required to report cases of child abuse. I had no idea what to say to this woman.
At last I asked her if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naïve shock that crossed her face. "Church!" she cried.
"Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They'd just make me feel worse.?
What struck me about my friend's story is that women much like this prostitute fled toward Jesus,not away from him. The worse a person felt about herself, the more likely she saw Jesus as a refuge.
Has the church lost that gift?
Evidently the down and out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer fell welcome among his followers.
What has happened?
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His conclusion after thinking about that story was one key word on the Bible. GRACE.
We must show that in order to reach the lost.
Satan does a good enough job condemning people in their own minds after they fall for his lies.
God help us to truly reflect his love and grace to the lost and dying in the world around us Christ is their only hope.
Are we really doing everything that we can to reach those around us?
Do we show love to them as Christ would? We must.
Remember that you may be the only Jesus that some will ever see.
God Bless You!
From "WHAT'S SO AMAZING ABOUT GRACE" by Philip Yancey
I told a story in my book "The Jesus I Never Knew", a true story that long afterward continued to haunt me. I heard it from a friend who works with the down-and-out in Chicago.
A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two year old daughter. Through sobs and tears, she told me she had been renting out her daughter--two years old!--to men interested in kinky sex. She made more renting out her daughter for an hour than she could earn on her own in a night. She had to do it, she said, to support her own drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story. For one thing, it made me legally liable - I'm required to report cases of child abuse. I had no idea what to say to this woman.
At last I asked her if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naïve shock that crossed her face. "Church!" she cried.
"Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They'd just make me feel worse.?
What struck me about my friend's story is that women much like this prostitute fled toward Jesus,not away from him. The worse a person felt about herself, the more likely she saw Jesus as a refuge.
Has the church lost that gift?
Evidently the down and out, who flocked to Jesus when he lived on earth, no longer fell welcome among his followers.
What has happened?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
His conclusion after thinking about that story was one key word on the Bible. GRACE.
We must show that in order to reach the lost.
Satan does a good enough job condemning people in their own minds after they fall for his lies.
God help us to truly reflect his love and grace to the lost and dying in the world around us Christ is their only hope.
Are we really doing everything that we can to reach those around us?
Do we show love to them as Christ would? We must.
Remember that you may be the only Jesus that some will ever see.
God Bless You!
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