A new year

Happy New Year 2014!!! It has been a crazy and difficult year but a great year. I have had to walk through so many things and choose to grow through them that I sometimes feel like one preparing for the Olympics. One area that has come alive to me has been the fruit of Grace. In Pentecostal circles we do not understand grace. It is something we all want but many are not willing to give. I have almost deleted my Facebook account many times because all I see is harsh knee jerk reactions to things that we want to say and we use the bible as our platform. Recently it has been the whole Duck Dynasty issue, I am not going to respond to the issue but the fruit of what I have seen. In Romans it says that while we were still in sin Christ died for us, it also says that it is the grace of God that brings us to repentance. When we sit there and put all of these scriptures out there and start to react to things using the bible as our soap box then we are doing the same things as those we are speaking against. In many ways we have taken on the wrapper of those we are suppose to be bringing hope and love to and are spreading hate and anger. We start putting partitions together saying that we are going to not go to this store or watch this show, let me ask how is that going to bring people to Christ. When Jesus met the women at the well he didn't come against her or belittle her, He revealed Himself to her and showed her the way to hope and salvation. Then this women steeped in a lifestyle contrary to the law, ran and proclaimed the new gospel she had heard to the whole village. They then came and heard Jesus themselves and it started a change in the region. If Jesus had used history and the law as his pulpit He could have destroyed every argument she had. He did not He gave her grace and hope that she could be changed. SO in 2014 please choose to operate in grace and love those around you. We have a whole world that is dying and living as if they have no hope. Lets give them hope maybe it will change them for eternity.