Why do we shoot our wounded...

I got to thinking today, and yes that is usually dangerous. But, why do we as Christians finish off our brothers and sisters in Christ when they are hurting? Why do we shoot them rather than bearing them on our backs and hauling them to the M.A.S.H. unit? Why do we cast out lost and hurting souls? Why do we shun those who enter our churches with faces covered with the shame of their sins as if we were never once that way? Why is it that when marriages
go sour, and wives and husbands struggle, we ignore them, and ostracize them? Why, when a husband dies, to we leave the widow home alone for fear of saying something wrong? Why is it that when members of our congregations fight amongst themselves do we let them fight to the death, and not step in to maintain peace? Why don't we we help the teenagers who are pregnant? Why don't we buy groceries for the widows? Why don't we practice reconciliation and healing? It's simple, we're not very much like Christ Jesus.

I wrote this blog because God brought to my attention how horribly mean we are to one another, and how this is nothing like the perfect love our Savior and role model has shown us. When Jesus left this world, he left us with the ministry of reconciliation and the commandment to love one another. We are to reconcile people to God by sharing the truth of Jesus Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. Then we are to teach them to love one another. And we must practice those things ourselves.

I heard a man speaking of churches one time. He said:" There must be a place where shame meets grace, and this must be that place." Oh,how I wish that quote would be used of me when I die. Oh, that it might be said of me: "Wherever Chris was, that was the place where people were reconciled to God, and loved with the love of Christ Jesus." What about you? Are you going to jump into Jesus' ministry of reconciliation and love, and be a place where the shameful of the world come to meet the grace of our Lord? Or are you going to shoot the wounded?