Yesterday, I was preaching in Portland, Oregon – a city that has been in the national news of late. Early in the morning, my sermon was ready, so I spent time in prayer about the service. It was during that time of prayer that the Lord gave me a prophetic word to share with the Church. It was a word about our perspective as believers that will shape how we respond to life and the kind of testimony we will leave behind in our city.

In that word, I said we must arrange our lives and ministries around the process of redemption, not rescue. If we feel we are the ones whom God has assigned to rescue people, we will be preoccupied with the issues people need to be rescued from. We will draw distinctives separating people into groups. If we pursue redemption, we will see the world differently. We will see people in need of an encounter with the Lord. Then and only then can people be rescued from what holds them captive and living in darkness.

Choosing to speak as a redeemer does not abandon what Paul said that defines a mature believer. They will “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). This means that what we speak as truth must be clothed in the redemptive love of God; otherwise, we will continue addressing the issues that divide us.

We all can too easily default to a rescue mindset. This default position is happening on both sides of the issues that divide us. Both sides are trying to prove a point. These divisions are increasing within the Church at this time in our history. We are trying to rescue those in the Church who hold a differing opinion from ours.

No social label that we attach to someone to prove our point, no emotional declaration made in a sermon or on a blog site, and no form of mockery can ever change a person’s heart. Only God’s love has that kind of power.

It’s time to reorder our faith to become redeemers, both in the Church and in the communities where we live. This reordering is a brave act of our faith. It will appear to some as if you have “abandoned the cause” and become “one of them.” Living a redeeming lifestyle takes courage on our part. Doing so will open the door for acts of redemption we could not imagine were possible. Having a redeeming heart is the only thing that can capture the hearts of our most ardent adversaries.