God desires mercy more than sacrifice.

[pastorlois]

This is echoed throughout the entire bible. How did the church get the reputation of being merciless and judgmental? When I was in seminary an unsaved friend of mine offered to type me papers as she was very fast and it would pain her to watch me hunt and peck. She never went to church and was raised by unchurched but decent parents who were both teachers. Her experiences with Christians had been limited with most coming from media. After several papers, she came back startled and said”I never knew the bible had anything to do with love!” I was as astonished as she was but for different reasons. She is now convinced of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but is afraid to tell her husband. Where are we going wrong as followers of Jesus and what must we do to be saved?
As a servant leader, erring on the side of mercy more that sacrifice is a trait we must stress within our churches. Many are too busy making their first priority the agenda of the political right that it is almost counter-intuitive to then preach about loving your neighbor, enemy and those who despitefully use you. They will know that we follow Jesus by the way we show love. I was at a Joyce Meyers conference with thousands of women. We broke for lunch and when we came back, a group from “Black Lives Matter” had surrounded the front of the building and formed a human chain chanting “no justice, no peace”. I watched hundreds of bible toting Christian yell at these people and show them anything of the love of Jesus. A few young women as well as myself went forward to find the leader and talk to them. We listened to them, discussed the issue and encouraged them to let these women go in and affirmed that they were not acting as followers of Jesus. I had an opportunity to have exchanges with many women after this event and discuss how our witness did not show the love of God we profess to have for all. How we had missed a wonderful opportunity and what would have happened if we tried to listen to them, pray with them, invite them in to hear the word…and tell them that Jesus believes in justice too!
We have missed the boat as a country and as leaders when we shun the very people who are hurting and don’t know Jesus but truly need him. The ball is in our court on so many issues if we would just prefer mercy and be courageous as leaders to preach love and righteousness. Jesus spoke to the issues of his day from the perspective of compassion for the people because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Many people are still sheep without a shepherd and still need our compassion.