Love, Grace and Mercy : Don't judge!

“This was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: 
She and her daughter had pride,

fullness of food, and abundance of idleness;

neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy”

Ezekiel 16:49

Lisa Bevere asked this question in her recent teaching ‘See it’ - ‘What was the sin of Sodom?’. My answer had nothing to do with the verse above. Carnality and perversion came to mind. I remember reading about Sodom and Gomorrah and thinking what a bunch of sadistic, crazy, immoral people. When Lisa brought this verse to focus, it was as though something hit me so hard. All those sins stemmed from pride, the abundance of wealth, selfishness, laziness, etc. All those sound so familiar. These sins are not foreign to any of us. We struggle with them. The more I look at it – the more I realise how we judge many things without looking at the root of the problem. Sodom allowed such sin to continue to manifest and escalate, until there were not even ten righteous men left to save the nation.

To live by grace has changed the way I think tremendously. Its so easy to judge and push our beliefs onto others. There is a difference between standing for God and judging for God. We Christians were never called to judge others. That is God's area of expertise....He does not need our limited knowledge to help Him out. But to show love, grace and mercy to others just like Jesus did - that is a supernatural gift. We need to understand that doing things in our own strength only takes us to a certain point with limited resources. Oh yes, humans can do a lot on their own but we are still limited. The gift that comes from God transcends what we can do and is not about our strength. We have access to heavenly resources (Ephesians 1:4 – ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with EVERY spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ’). THAT’S JUST TOO AMAZING!!! At the speed of thought, I can have access to God’s divine privileges and resources because of my relationship with Jesus Christ and is activated through the the Holy Spirit. 

I am so blessed to have a God that forgives my sins every time I mess up. There are moments where He gives me glimpses of how He views things and my whole being becomes calm cause I know God has everything under control. If we all asked the question – ‘what is the root of my problem?’ every time we slip up, we find answers. We know we cannot solve it but we are able to give the root cause to God for His supernatural power to work in us and through us. How can we receive something we have not asked for? We are always reminded to ask and we will receive, seek and we will find, knock and the door will be opened. Most times we don’t just ask, seek and knock once – but keep doing it. It is true that God knows all things, but we still need to ask, seek and knock. If not He will have a church full of spoilt brats that have no appreciation for the things He does for us.

‘Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me’ – those words always have new meaning every time I sing it. To take the dust of the ground and give it purpose – that’s how amazing my God is. Be blessed awesome people.

Shalini xx

P.S I have so much to share about the amazing things God has been doing in my personal walk. Coming soon!