I was in a church in China. It came to the pastor's attention that someone in the church was systematically going from person to person asking for large sums of money. Telling the sad story of her financial difficulties. Carol (not her real name) received much more than she said she actually needed.
Yet she asked even more people. Pastor talked to me. I agreed that we needed to stop this. Carol had AIDS at the time. In the early 2000s, we believed that AIDS was a death sentence. Carol was a Christian but had a lot of character issues. She led a rough life of drugs, etc.
I agreed to talk to Carol about this. My first response was anger. But I remember what a pastor once told me. If it doesn't hurt you to correct someone, then you're the wrong person to do it. In other words, if you don't love them, you can't talk to people about what's wrong with them.
Only love can open the door to repentance and forgiveness. I began to pray for compassion for Carol. I actually liked her as a person. But after praying for a while, I began to feel Jesus love. For Carol, it was so different, so much greater than my frail human love.
I felt so much pain as I thought of her tragic life. I came to dread the appointment that had been set with Carol. My heart was so heavy. When we finally did sit down, I. I felt Carol's pain. God shared it with me. It was horrible. After a while, I asked her about the request for money.
We talked. Then gently, I confronted what she had done. I told her how much we loved her, but asked her to stop asking people for money. I cried. She cried too. Then I just loved her with Christ's love. Carol was in church the next Sunday and came up to talk to me in her usual friendly way.
I was so grateful she didn't leave that church. She didn't feel rejected or judged. She continued as a member of that church family. And she did stop asking people for money. Jesus had loved her and corrected her at the same time. I was just there. It was one of the most precious experiences of my life.
Jesus had just shown me what grace feels like. Forgiveness, acceptance, love. Passionately loving people, but doing everything possible to separate them from the sin that is destroying them and separating them from God. That is grace. Romans 5:5 and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.