God's Grace

He leads me …

We have to be very careful about judging the sin and not the sinner.

For example, stealing is a sin, but we should not reject the thief. The foundational commands from Jesus are, ‘Love the Lord your God …’ and ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ (Matthew 22:37, 39).

I was part of Full Gospel Business Mens’ Fellowship International (FGBMFI) in Auckland during the 1980’s. During this time there was a continuing flow of new people that attended the monthly dinner meetings made up of men from all sorts of backgrounds. What quite a lot of the members did not know was that quite a few of those invited had been on the wrong side of the law, but because we did not know this, we could not judge them. We accepted them instead.

The result was around 30 men committed their lives to the Lord each month, while the local churches were struggling to get any new commitments at all.

We should remember that we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). However, we now enjoy an amazing relationship with the living God thanks to what Jesus Christ has done on the cross for each one of us.

How do we help others to enjoy the same experience? Do we wait for the Holy Spirit to guide them into a church service, so that they can respond to whoever makes a call for people to ask Jesus to come into their lives? Maybe we should be open to the Holy Spirit working in us, so that we can invite the enquirer along to church, or better still lead them through the sinners prayer ourselves?

I can assure you that there is little that is more moving than hearing the tears of repentance from someone you have just lead to Jesus.