"Love before judgment."
These were the words of Rica Peralejo as she reflected on how sharing the word of God should be rooted in compassion, cautioning that self-righteousness is ineffective.
"I totally understand the desire to share God with other people but when you are not careful in doing it, whereby you sound self-righteous and all, then do not expect the message to come through. Love before judgment is the way of God. If the latter goes first, don't call the unbeliever misunderstanding because the first miss here was yours. You didn't really understand the way of the message," she remarked in a post on Threads.
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The actress shared that this realization stemmed from her own past experiences.
"I know this btw cause I was just as blind before. I thought the most important thing to do was to shove it into people's minds how 'different' I am by choosing to 'stay pure' and all. Hoping they'd want to change, too. Yet all that did was earn praise from the believers while I totally put off the unbelievers. The irony of catching fish that's already caught and well within the basket," she pointed out.
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Rica then urged Christians to reflect on who the message is truly reaching.
"I think Christians should be able to tell what it is they are actually doing. Is it speaking to 'the lost' or is it swimming in the praises of fellow believers? Cause you can really confuse the two. You think you're 'sharing the Gospel to those who need it' but the applause really is only coming from those who already know it, thereby making one a fisher of fish that’s already well within the net."
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She also pointed out that some people may be drawn to ministry work because of the sense of affirmation they receive from fellow believers.
"My theory of why people are addicted to ministry is because they find an amazing amount of significance in such a small pond. I mean, the applause can be very very loud in a small space which they think applies to spaces beyond the pond. Then they wonder why people outside aren't happy when they speak their mind. Worse is that they label this as persecution or just a terrible misunderstanding. But newsflash, that was more like lack of reflexibility and awareness," she stated.