Lost Grace

When I saw this scene last night I was honestly floored as something spoke gently to me "Carl, this is how people feel about the Church." Here was a man, Ben Linus an evil and sinister man by confession, who was standing there broken, hurting, and begging for forgiveness. He knew his life was full of wickedness and it was eating him up. When he was asked the question "where will you go?" Ben answered "to Locke he's the only one who will have me."

How many people have left the Church for the world because they felt those are the only people who would have them? We live in a world that is broken and hurting. Far too often instead of welcoming those broken and hurting people into the church we turn them away with our judgment about who they are. We need to be a people who will answer "We will have you" no matter what they have done. It is not our job to judge people, that job belongs to God alone. But it is our job to reach out into the messy world and love the broken and hurting. Too much of the time we get our job confused for God's and end up sending people who are desperately looking for someone who will have them into the waiting arms of the world, which instead of hugging them strangles them to death. We must remember that each and everyone of us has stood before Christ broken and hurting and he said to us "I will have you". How can we now do anything different?