Are You Showing Them Jesus or Blocking the Way?

• By candidasullivan
• October 1, 2026
• No Comments

Do you believe that salvation and Christianity are only for some people?

Salvation is free, and God’s plan of salvation includes you.

I can’t imagine telling someone otherwise. Sometimes we get so caught up in what we believe makes a good Christian that we forget the most important part. We can become so focused on our lists of what we think a Christian should look like that we forget how any of us became Christians in the first place: by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

We don’t get to decide who is invited to come to Jesus. The gospel invitation goes out to “whosoever will.” The only thing that prevents someone from accepting salvation is unbelief.

Therefore, why would we ever, as a sinner saved by grace, tell someone that if they do this or that, they can’t be a Christian? Unknowingly, those types of statements reinforce unbelief.

As someone who has sinned (and still does) and received God’s grace and salvation, all I want to tell others is how much God loves them. That’s what I want to reinforce.

When someone is in the trenches of life, surrounded by heartache and sin, they need us to shine a light so they can see God. We don’t know what they’ve endured. We don’t know their story or why they’ve made the decisions they have made. And I definitely don’t want to judge them.

I want to love them.

Not just say the words, but put the love into action. And if I can’t love people because of their sins, then I need to sit with the Lord and let Him help me.

Loving someone and condoning their behavior are two different things. Jesus loved everyone—even the ones caught in the very act of doing something wrong. The interaction of Jesus and the woman caught in the act of adultery (John 8) is a beautiful example of love. Jesus had the opportunity to shame her and condemn her, but He didn’t.

When He could have led with the law, He extended grace. Jesus didn’t pretend her sin didn’t matter. But He didn’t use her sin as permission to stop loving her. He gave her grace and truth.

We can do those same things. We can choose to love those living differently from us. And pray for them. We can take them to God and ask Him to help with their needs. We can speak truth about sin without telling a sinner that Jesus isn’t for them. If anything, our sin is precisely why every one of us needs Him.

We can’t lead someone to Jesus if we block the way. I did that. And it broke my heart.

Nothing has hurt me more than someone telling me they didn’t like my God. They weren’t rejecting the God I knew and loved. They were rejecting the version of Him they had experienced through me. That realization broke my heart. The words carried weight.

They broke me and changed me.

I can’t save anyone. Only Jesus can do that. But I never want my behavior to make it harder for someone to see Him clearly.

I hope and pray that I never again let my judgments stand in the way of loving someone else. It’s not my job to judge them. I don’t have the same grace and knowledge that God has to make a righteous judgment. Therefore, I leave that to Him.

When I stand before God and He judges me, I hope He sees a heart of love and compassion and that I used those gifts to help others to Him. I hope those who don’t know the Lord feel love by sitting with me. And I hope that I can show them a beautiful representation of my Lord. That I represent my Lord so well that they want to know Him, too.

To me, being a Christian means that I am saved by His amazing grace. Because He has applied Jesus’ blood to my soul, I can love the Lord with all my mind, heart, and soul, and love others as myself. I didn’t earn His love or salvation. He gave it freely to me. And He has enough for everyone.

Matthew 22:37-39 KJV

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38 This is the first and great commandment.

39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Sweet friend, I don’t want to decide who deserves Jesus.

I want to remember how desperately I need Jesus.

I want to tell people the truth, but I want to tell it with a heart overflowing with the grace I’ve received myself.

I want the hurting, the ashamed, the struggling, and the people whose lives look nothing like mine to know they can sit beside me without being treated like a project or a problem.

I can’t save them. But I can love them.
I can’t change their hearts. But I can pray for them.
I can’t be their Jesus. But I can point them to mine.

And I never want my judgment to become louder than the grace I’m trying to tell them about.