Message From the Margins Needs Your Help
The Gospel needs voices willing to speak with clarity, compassion, and courage in a world that has grown loud with anger and thin on mercy. Message From the Margins exists to do exactly that, to reclaim the teachings of Jesus when they are ignored, distorted, or weaponized, and to offer a faith rooted in love, justice, and truth.
This ministry reaches people who have been pushed to the edges, those wounded by the Church, exhausted by culture wars, and hungry for a Christianity that still looks like Christ. That voice matters right now, and it only exists because readers like you choose to support it.
A little truly goes a long way. Your support doesn’t fund noise, it sustains daily pastoral writing, public witness, and resources that help people rediscover a Gospel worth believing in. Becoming a supporter is a way of taking a stand, not for outrage, but for mercy, not for dominance, but for discipleship.
As a thank you, supporters receive immediate access to the full library of courses and e-books, including:
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How to Pray When You Don’t Know What to Say
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Loneliness: The Silent Epidemic
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Faith in the Fire – A Spiritual Survival Guide
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A Book of Prayers for all Seasons
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Faith After Church Hurt
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The Message from the Margins – A Reminder of Who Jesus Was and what He Came For
If this ministry has helped you think more clearly, love more deeply, or hold onto faith in difficult times, I invite you to stand with us. Help spread a Gospel that heals rather than harms.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for caring. And thank you for helping keep this work alive.
Opening
I am seeing something happen in these politically rancorous times, and sadly, it does not seem to matter which side of the aisle we are on. Everyone is angry. Everyone wants justice, however they define it. And increasingly, everyone wants a head on a silver platter.
We are living in a moment where outrage feels like moral clarity. Fury is mistaken for faithfulness. The louder the anger, the more righteous it is assumed to be. In this environment, restraint is viewed with suspicion, and mercy is dismissed as weakness or betrayal.
This anger has not remained in secular spaces. It has made itself comfortable in the Church. Scripture is quoted like a weapon. Theology is flattened into slogans. The language of faith is used not to heal, but to wound, to justify cruelty, to demand punishment rather than transformation.
What troubles me most is how normal this has become. Many Christians no longer seem startled by the distance between the teachings of Jesus and the behavior we now excuse in his name. We speak easily of judgment, eagerly of consequences, and rarely of mercy.
And yet, when I turn back to the Gospels, I find a Jesus who consistently frustrates our appetite for vengeance. In the garden, when one of his own disciples reaches for violence to defend him, Jesus stops it immediately. “Put your sword back into its place,” he says, “for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” Matthew 26:52.
Jesus does not say this because he is indifferent to injustice. He says it because he knows exactly where violence leads. He refuses to let the Kingdom of God be built with the tools of the world.
Jesus had a lot to say about how we treat those who oppose us, exploit us, and even harm us. I see very little of it practiced in American Christianity today.
Reflection
Christians are not indifferent to justice. Scripture is clear that God cares deeply about the oppressed, the exploited, and the wounded. Anger in the face of injustice is not a sin. It is often the first signal that something is wrong.
The danger comes when our hunger for justice mutates into a thirst for vengeance.
Jesus draws a hard line here. “Love your enemies,” he says. “Pray for those who persecute you.” He does not offer this as spiritual poetry or idealistic fantasy. He offers it as a way of life for those who claim to follow him.
This teaching is not naïve. Jesus lived under occupation. He understood power, violence, and cruelty firsthand. And still, he refused to let hatred set the terms of faithfulness.
I will admit, this is where I struggle. There are days when mercy feels like complicity. When forgiveness feels like surrender. When anger feels earned. I want justice with sharp edges and clear winners. Jesus never grants me that comfort.
Instead, he keeps returning me to a deeper truth. “Blessed are the merciful, for mercy shall be theirs.” Not blessed are the victorious. Not blessed are the correct. Blessed are the merciful.
He presses even further. “If you love only those who love you, what reward will you get?” Loving people who already agree with us is not Christian virtue. It is basic human instinct.
There is another temptation we must name honestly. We often demand God’s Old Testament wrath for our enemies, especially the most egregious ones, while expecting Christ’s mercy to cover us and those we love. We want thunder for them and grace for us.
When we do this, we are trying to apply the world’s standards to the Kingdom of God, and in doing so, we turn the Gospel upside down.
The Kingdom is a paradox. It does not operate on retribution or scorekeeping. It runs in the opposite direction. We pray it every time we say the Lord’s Prayer, often without noticing how dangerous the words really are. “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
That is not poetry. It is a condition.
The forgiveness and mercy we all require comes at a cost, paid by God, but entrusted to us to carry into the world. The purchase price of mercy is mercy given. The currency of the Kingdom is not vengeance, but love enacted, forgiveness extended, grace practiced in real and often uncomfortable ways.
Jesus never separates God’s forgiveness from our willingness to forgive. Not because God is cruel, but because mercy cannot be hoarded. It only exists when it is shared.
Call to Faithful Action
This moment, as volatile and frightening as it is, presents Christians with a choice.
We can mirror the darkness of the world, amplifying outrage, sharpening divisions, and baptizing cruelty as courage. Or we can let the light of Christ shine precisely where anger feels most justified.
That does not mean abandoning justice. It means refusing to surrender our souls to hatred. It means resisting injustice without becoming what we oppose. It means choosing mercy not because it is easy, but because it is faithful.
Following Jesus will cost us the intoxicating satisfaction of righteous outrage. In return, it offers us something far more demanding and far more powerful, a witness that does not deepen the darkness, but pushes back against it.
Closing Prayer
Merciful God,
you see the anger we carry,
the fear beneath it,
and the wounds that make mercy feel impossible.
You know our longing for justice,
and you know how easily that longing hardens into vengeance.
Teach us again the way of your Son.
When we are tempted to strike back,
remind us of the garden,
where Jesus laid down the sword and chose the cross.
When we are tempted to dehumanize,
remind us that every person bears your image,
even those we struggle to love.
Give us the courage to seek justice without surrendering compassion.
Give us the strength to speak truth without contempt.
Give us the humility to remember how deeply we ourselves depend on mercy.
Make us people who carry your light into dark places,
who refuse to repay evil with evil,
who believe that love is stronger than hatred,
and mercy stronger than fear.
We ask this through Christ,
who loved his enemies all the way to the end.
Amen.
Let’s Talk About This Together
This teaching is hard. It asks us to sit with tension rather than resolve it too quickly. I’m curious where it landed for you.
Where do you feel the pull between justice and mercy most strongly right now?
Where does forgiveness feel faithful… and where does it feel almost impossible?
If you’re comfortable, leave a comment and share your thoughts. If this stirred something deeper, you’re welcome to write a Substack note or a longer response. I read them, and I respond. This is a conversation, not a monologue.
And if this reflection felt helpful, please consider liking or restacking it. Those small actions matter more than you might realize, they help this work reach people who are searching for a Gospel that heals rather than harms.
Thank you for being part of this community.