Blue Like Jazz

I have been realizing lately how depraved the world is, how really in trouble it is. The book Blue Like Jazz changed my perspective on this. Donald Miller describes the world as a gaping bleeding wound that I as a Christian should be holding my hands up against trying to bring hope to a hopelessly broken place. I feel like Christianity is too often misrepresented by Christians. Instead of loving the people who live different lifestyles, and embracing people who lead immoral lives, Christians discriminate, and judge those people. If a gay couple walked into my church, I think my church would be ashamed of them, would avoid them, and ultimately they would leave. I know I would not be the one to welcome them into our sanctuary… but I should be. Jesus would sit down next to them and tell them he cared for them and he would want to know them and for them to know him; holding his hands against the wound of the world in their lives. One of the oldest and most intense actions in the world, Love, is seen as a revolutionary idea, when it is the thing we were supposed to be doing from the very start. Donald Miller describes the central message of Christianity as this:
“The message is that man sinned against God and God gave the world over to man, and that if somebody wanted to be rescued out of that, if somebody for instance finds it all very empty, that Christ will rescue them if they want; that if they ask for forgiveness for being a part of that rebellion then God will forgive them.”

This is what God has taught me in the past few weeks:
The world is full of sin so “Do not love the world nor the things in this world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away and also it lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.” (1John3:15)
But love the people who are afflicted by the world; “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep yourself unstained by the world.” (James1:26)
Basically God wants me to Love more, and represent him better, and that he wants me to bring the message of Christ to the wounded.