Accept One Another: Devotions From Time of GraceSample

Only Good Girls Are Welcome

A persistent church disease is that congregations behave like country clubs instead of field hospitals. The spirit of the Pharisees has never died. Good boys, i.e., respectable achievers with money, are desired. Bad girls, not so much.

Those quiet visitors to your church, who sit in the back and try not to be noticed, are there not because they are really successful and are looking for a wider audience to appreciate their life performances. They are much more likely to be hurting and broken, looking for forgiveness and acceptance and hope. They know they need God, and they would love a loving community.

Joshua's scouts' innkeeper turned out to be a bad girl. Rahab was a prostitute, but she wanted something better for herself and her family. She figured out who the spies were and told them, "I know that the LORD has given this land to you. . . . Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and that you will save us from death" (Joshua 2:9,12,13).

That bad girl became a good girl. She ended up marrying a leader of the tribe of Judah named Salmon, which makes her King David's great-great-grandmother and an ancestor of the Savior.

Are "Rahabs" welcome at your church?