Every Breath

"But we are."

SAW THE COMMENT, “Jesus is coming. You’d better be ready,” and knew what God would say. No one sees that and knows God is love and gets saved. No one feels gratitude. Fear saves no one. Fear helps no one. Fear heals no one. Showing others the love of Christ is seen in our behavior more than our words. We are not a pushy salesman trying to convince you your house is about to burn down. I’m not convinced we even need to preach He is coming past making it known. Most go into negative “forthtelling” (I refuse to call it prophecy) that isn’t accurate and, again, is just fear. Or arrogance. God would rather us not teach a subject if it now causes fear because of the church’s wrong doctrine.

Marriage, is another example. Teaching marriage using Scripture from a marriage perspective always detours from the true meaning of the verse. Ephesians 5, for example, isn’t about marriage. It’s about Christ, who is Father, Son, and Spirit. Christ is not just Jesus. To make it about marriage, though that is the picture painted, removes its purpose. We are supposed to see what Christ desired, that we are ONE with Him. Again, Father, Son, and Spirit. It is also a very Jewish view of relationship. The apostle Paul was (is) a Pharisee and a Jew. Other places in his letters use a husband and his wife, or a single person, as an example. But not for us to turn it into sex talk. It being a Jewish point-of-view is a beautiful thing. But, bottom line, healthy people make a healthy marriage without ever teaching what will always become what should never be said and points of argument.

Marriage talk causes some fear and discouragement. Here, some say we are not responsible for how people feel. But we are. Our loving Christ is patient and kind. He wants us to share God’s love, His heart for healing. Which circles me back to “turn or burn” “Jesus is coming. You better be ready.” No, God is merciful. Far, far more than we allow Him to be. We send people to hell simply because they misunderstood Christianity. Or were mentally ill. Or were Jews. It takes a heart wholly committed to sin for a person to go to hell. And only God knows the heart and only God judges it right, without our human judgment.

He isn’t using a checklist of righteous rules He holds but all the individual’s thoughts and intents, the finest pieces of who they are. What looks like mud to us is grains of sand to Him. We’re better said to tell people, “I love you,” and let the Spirit show them Jesus. Accosting a man or woman on the street to turn them from Judaism only shows our lack of knowledge of it. Accosting a man or woman on the street with fear of the future only shows our ignorance of it. Accosting hearers in our services with “Jesus is coming and people will miss out” is not the heart of God.

We preach whole sermons wrong. Not one word is Jesus except our worship. And that we should give more time because He is worth it. Worth every breath.

Photo by Анна Ширяева on Unsplash


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com