This last Sunday I had the privilege of performing a wedding during our Sunday service. It was between a former Muslim, and one of the ladies who lost her husband to AIDS and was left with five children. All along she thought she was sick with the HIV virus but when we prayed and believed God, she took courage and went for a blood check up. She was shocked to find out she was negative! I believe this was the miracle-working power of God that changed her blood.

Then the enemy struck her and she found herself falling into sexual sin. This shocked all of us. What amazed us was the courage she had to come to my office without anyone forcing her and confess her sin to the pastors and to the church. In a long time I have not seen anyone come by themselves to repent just because they felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Most people have to be found out and caught. We stood with her and helped her back on her feet.

But many people judged this woman and even talked about banning her from fellowship for some time. It was during this period I started thinking about the word “grace” and the love of God. In John 8:4 the religious people brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and were using the word as justification to stone her. Note that the one who wants to stone others also uses the word. But Jesus wrote on the ground and no one knows what he wrote. I just have a feeling he wrote something like “I did not come to condemn but to save,” and then maybe just drew a picture of this woman caught red handed with the church people there watching her as she is brought before the Lord with pants down. But Jesus knew that he was not called to judge anyone. Remember he did not say she was innocent, but he said even the guilty ones deserve a chance to be forgiven if they repent.

I feel that is one issue the church has overlooked for a long time. In our zeal to protect the name of the Lord and the name of the church in our communities, we have wounded many of those who are already bleeding from the enemy’s wounds. The church, instead of receiving them with mercy and grace, has stones in our hands to stone whoever we feel is not glorifying the name of the Lord in the way we think is right. Many of us have forgotten that we are saved by grace. If it were not for the Lord, every person might be caught with pants down. We need to stop talking and teaching about grace and start walking in grace.

The spirit of unforgiveness and criticism does not come from the Lord; it is the enemy who works to accuse the brethren and who tempts us to point fingers. The point is not that we should treat sin as a little thing, but how do we respond when we find out someone in the church, or even part of the ministry team, or a family member has fallen into sin? What we do and say may cause them either to repent or go deeper in sin.

You may be the one who people are accusing or talking about and you are about to quit fellowship with them. I will ask you to do these things:

1.     Find out from your heart if you are repentant before the Lord; if you are

2.    Receive the grace and the forgiveness of the Lord; Psalms 103:3

3.    Forgive yourself; stop condemning yourself. Unforgiveness can kill you and stop you from receiving grace from the Lord.

4.    Bear the fruits of repentance let those who judge you know that you have changed and you intend to walk with the Lord all the days of your life.

5.   If you find yourself in the same sin you repented of; remember that God is still merciful.

If your problem is forgiving people whom you think are not walking right with God, think about the following:

1.   Are you using the Lord’s word to judge or your own standard that you have set?

2.   Are you judging sin or the sinner?

3.   If the person who sins repents, can you see Jesus in them or just another potential sinner who you expect to fall in sin any time?

Some people have set standards for themselves and they are not of the Lord. Perfectionism can be dangerous even to the person who practices it.

Maybe the doctors have told you that you are sick because you eat the wrong food or you did a certain sin. God is not looking at what we did, or did not do, but he is calling us to receive his grace. I’m not talking about cheap grace. Grace without repentance is cheap grace and will never take you anywhere.

I may not be what I need to be, but at least I’m not what I used to be. Grace has made me what I am! We should all be ministers of grace. That is what Jesus is. Do not give up in your struggle with sin. Know that God’s hands are open to receive you. Do not sin more for when you do you make this grace useless and in vain. Grace is the power that has taken away our sin and taken away all the desire to sin. God help the church to be full of grace! Let our homes be full of grace.