Empowered by an email.....

I love my morning times with the Lord.  After spending some meaningful time in devotion this AM I decided to go through my email on my phone to try and weed though some of the "garbage" that filled my Inbox.  Little did I know that God still wanted to spend some time with me right then and used my email to do so.  I love how He works.  :-) 

I found an email from Group to be thought provoking.  

Why Nobody Wants to Be Around Christians Anymore Our friend Ali admitted to us that she used to be one of those "judgmental Christians." It surprised us to hear that, because we know Ali to be a loving and accepting person. She told us that, unfortunately, she wasn't always that way. "I'm a recovering judgmental Christian," Ali said. "In middle school and high school, people knew me as 'Bible girl' because I kept a Bible in my locker and hung verses there. And that would've been fine…if it weren't accompanied by my holier-than-thou attitude. When people swore in front of me, without fail I would point my finger right in their face and say, 'Language!' Sometimes I would even quote Ephesians 4:29 to them. The message I sent during those years was this: 'Clean up your act. Jesus will never love you if you live like that.' Quite often, we as Christians, can get "stuck" thinking that the only way we can "bring" people to the Lord is by being abrupt and forward. Showing we have the knowledge and we know what walking with the Lord will do to help "others" begin their walk. I don't think it is intentional for many of us, but it happens none the less. That is why I love the following quote.   "When faith becomes a relationship, the message of Jesus can shine through". It is that simple. When we walk out our faith, without judgement of others, we shine Christ love by loving people right where they are at.  Just how we have been called.