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Before you point a finger, check the following read, and tell me if you fit into the context of its thoughts.

"God doesn't call the equipped, He equips the called." They even did a slick little video intro listing the biblical men God used, you know the one: “Noah was a drunk, Abraham was a liar, Jacob was a trickster, Joseph was a dreamer, Moses was a murderer, David was an adulterer.”

Sounds good and can be really reassuring to someone struggling with their own calling. Just one little problem.......

• Noah wasn't a drunk.....he got drunk once.

• David wasn't an adulterer.....he had an affair.

I am not trying to minimize what Noah and David did or justify their actions in any way. What I am trying to do is to point out a problem that is crippling the church today. In our zealousness to identify sin, we risk identifying people by their sin and as such we might hinder their ability to find the grace that God has poured out.

The choice that both Noah and David made in the moment caused them to sin and as such fall into separation from God. We cannot minimize the gravity of a choice, but we should never identify a person by a single mistake.

Stop and take a moment and look at your own life. What could you be called if you were judged by a single mistake? What can people say about you if everything you did or would become was filtered through the lens of your worst day?

Now go extend the same grace you received to others. Think about it.

By, Pastor David Peterson, Northland Assembly, Badger.

The right or the left? The right or the wrong? “Us or them,” or, “what do you think about so and so?” It never changes. Someone once said, “the ground is all level at the foot of the cross.” There is not a high place or a low place. There isn’t a beginning of the line nor an end. It’s a big huge circle. Standing there, holding hands? All of us, needy, and vulnerable. All of us, defeated by sin. All of us, looking for grace and forgiveness. It’s a good place to be wouldn’t you agree?

Blessings, Julie