Over the last few weeks I have meditated on that thought process. Spoken to me a few weeks back, an older man said “you cannot change them if you cannot get it in them.”

Yesterday, I read an article that spoke of a gospel singer returning to her roots after years of going “off the deep end” in her Christianity. Most people recognize that the church for a number of years; got them “saved” and after telling them what had been erased, now turned and said “be careful” as if God would return to a status of “mad” to keep them there. Freedom would flood a person, the power and presence of God would overtake and two minutes later someone would be instructing how to keep “it.”Over the years of my Christianity I have had well-meaning believers give me some of the following “instruction” told to me in “love.”

• Your hair is too long “God likes His sheep shorn short.” (Did you not read what happened to Samson or take a Nazarite vow? Just kidding!) Hence we cannot attend your fellowship.
• You ride a motorcycle and that is not becoming to a leader! Hence, as much as we like you, we cannot hang out with you.
• The pastor who preached on TV about how I was a “false leader” because I had been married prior to salvation.
• At one point I had 5 cars of which only one was even close to being new. I was told I was “extravagant” as they and others had one car that cost more than my five together. But I was in “error” they said.
• “Business is secular” and so when I looked to the church, I found they loved my money but did not realize it came out of my business or something.

And if that is what people did to me, I soon recognized why many crawled back into their homes and watched many of the TV preachers who asked for their money.

I am not sure about you but I am convinced it was His grace that saved me and keeps me. And with that in mind, I also recognize it His grace that grows me and will continue to grow me. I found a message I preached in 1995 about being pregnant with the Holy Ghost. People were aghast that I used that term. But is that not in effect, what He has done? At our invitation, it tells us in John, that “We have entered you.” His “sperma” (seed-Greek) growing inside our lives, not just for salvation, not just for a habitation, but in fact to grow into His expression through you and I. His power, through us in His hands coming to pass.

I watch many who are concerned about what is “flesh” and what is not. With mercies new every day He is constantly overcoming in a life. A believer has no life to live outside of the one He is planted. I do not disagree people can run and do stupid things after Christ, but it is Him who is on the move in their lives.

What if we simply lived our lives according to the grace we have been given? We have created false hierarchy, added rules and drawn attention to ourselves. Yet, in Him, He has provided for leadership of the Godly kind, removed the rules and offered love and in fact Jesus walked as a man of no reputation. What if we lay down the swords of faulty doctrine and stopped “removing” the body parts we so desperately need? I am not suggesting a “free for all” bur grace is free for all. Let us lay down our defenses that cause us to be more afraid of the devil than invested and trusting of the power of God. You can’t change them if you cannot touch them, so let us reach out for people, sharing His goodness and just give them the gospel in its purest form-Jesus!

Romans 10:14-15
¹⁴ But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? ¹⁵ And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”