The Restaurant

What if I owned a restaurant that had the greatest food in the world? In this restaurant I have perfect vegetarian dishes, melt in your mouth meat dishes, barbeque that puts Memphis to shame, side dishes that could be a meal by themselves, perfect bread that will not make you fat, and deserts that are so good they make you want to cry. 

I hire a waitress that is great. She has a happy personality, when she walks into the room  faces light up. She is smart; never has to write your order down because she remembers them. Her biggest advantage is she loves my food, wants to tell people about it, and to help them experience it. This is a perfect match except… 

After I hire her she starts to have hygiene problems. She stops washing her clothes, she stops washing her body, and she just smells bad. The worse thing is, she picks up a bad habit. When she is not taking orders she sits down at one of the tables, takes off her shoes, bites her toenails, then spits them across the restaurant. 

Guess what happens? People do not want my food any more. My food has not changed, it is still the same perfect food that it always was but people have no appetite for it because of the person presenting the food. 

This is what happens when we as Christians do not follow Christ's example of loving those who are different. When we don’t love those "SINNERS", or we don’t love people who do not believe as we do, when we don't love the down and out or when we don't love the fallen. We become like the waitress, we push them from the food they need.  We may still love the food and want others to experience it but because of us they do not have the stomach for it.  
 
Look at Jesus' example; Every time He was around the sick, the hurting, the unloved, the unreligious, the unbelievers, the untouchable and those considered the lowest of His time. He was comfortable with them and they were comfortable with Him. Why... because He loved them. He loved them as His Father does. 

How often when someone feels like a failure in life do they run to a Christian for help?  How often when they need to know how to find forgiveness from God do they run to a Christian for help? Not too often because they are afraid of judgment or a reprimand from us. They can't depend on us to show the love Jesus showed when He came in contact with people in their situation. 

My prayer is that those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus or who put on that title of Christian show His example in how we treat those around us.