Sin.....What did Jesus say?

I want to write a "thank you note" to all of you who have taken the time to read my ramblings, and so graciously commented on them. I am blessed and excited to be on this journey with each of you, and I cherish the freedom to share my ponderings along the way. I pray that each of you are somehow spurred by my questions, not to blindly agree with me but to seek out the answers for yourself. We must be encouraged to break out of the Mosaic mold of one man hearing God and all others relying on what he heard, to the New Kingdom Jesus brought to us by going away so that we could have constant fellowship through the Holy Spirit. He is our Teacher, and we are encouraged by our Lord to "be taught" by Him. I grieve that possibly the church setting as it has remained for so many years has limited our revelatory capacity. I do not believe it is the heart of a good pastor to share and expect the listeners to take his word as the final word. But in our laziness, and even busyness, I believe that is often the case.

OK. On to the subject of this post.....the subject of sin and what Jesus' said about it. Honestly, it is very surprising when one gets out a concordance and searches for the words of Jesus on the subject of sin....surprising in that there aren't very many.....words that is....regarding sin. Other than He said don't do it. But even that He didn't say very often. And interestingly enough, He said those words to people to whom He had first revealed Himself by a very loving act of compassion.
The Pharisees were always trying to point out sin and sinners to Jesus. He would always put them in their place by exposing their own sinfulness. In fact, what I found while searching out the matter is that Jesus used the word "sin" most often when referring to the religious leaders. Interesting, huh?
In the book of John, Jesus....while speaking of the Holy Spirit....tells them that He will convict us of sin. I did not find any commandments given by our Lord to us, to make sure we try to convict each other of sin. Instead, He told them to receive the Holy Spirit and then told them He would lead them into all truth, and also convict them of sin.
The few times that Jesus did mention sin to those people who did not know Him, He would always do so within an atmosphere of love. "There. I healed you. Now go and sin no more." More like a prescription for future health.

In all, I only found 10 uses of the word "sin" in the Gospels, all of them in different contexts, but none of them in Jesus' instructions to His disciples. Sin was not mentioned in the book of Mark, nor was it in Luke. John mentions it the most. Which causes me to wonder if sin was mentioned most by the writers who were most hung up on it?
What I did find Jesus commanding us to and focusing on is love. He simply said "Love God, love others." "Go and wait until you receive the Holy Spirit. You're gonna need Him to teach you and guide you into everything you need." He focused on relationship.

I believe that Jesus knew His purpose. He knew and understood that He came to show us a new way of life so that sin would no longer hold us in bondage. And He also knew that His greatest act of obedience, dying on the cross, would deal with sin's power once and for all. So why teach on it, be hung up on it, or feel the need to train us in how to point it out in others?
The enemy tempts us, finds our weakness.....and we succumb to him, act on it, and "sin". Then he immediately moves in on us with accusations (he is the accuser of the brethren) so he tempts us with sin, then says "Aha! Look at you! You did or are doing this and this! You horrible sinner!" So my concern is, how does our coming into agreement with the accuser help anyone?  Whose side are we on, anyway?
But love......now that is an altogether different story. It has been my experience that we are way more proficient in pointing out sin, fearing sin, examining sin and talking about sin than we have been loving. I don't know about you, but I welcome a new focus. I say may we all be so hung up on love....on receiving God's love, on sharing testimonies of His love, being determined to make love our highest goal.....that the atmosphere around us changes....just as it did around Jesus.....that men would truly be drawn to us by our love. That they would no longer steer clear of us for fear we would expose their sins, but the power sin has over them would simply melt in the sweet atmosphere of love around us.
Instead of bearing signs of condemnation and pointing fingers at sin, may we lovingly point the sinner to the open arms of the One who dealt with it completely.

Love the Sinner. Period.

I am being challenged right now in almost every area of my life. Challenge, while I would never actually welcome it in the sense of saying “bring it on” I’m finding to be an amazingly freeing friend. The trick is to not resist challenge, but to give in to it and allow it to have it’s way.
Not only am I being challenged on my “beliefs” but I am also challenging myself and those things I have thought to be truth. I am learning to ask God the right questions, and He has been quick to answer. I am allowing Him to undo some thinking that I have recently found was not really truth. I am asking Him to show me His heart on some very important matters. I am finding His heart to be way different than I might have once thought. Challenging for sure.

Which brings me to a quote that I have recently been examining and now find myself challenging. “Love the sinner hate the sin.” First off, what does that even mean? It isn’t in the Bible. Can we truly love someone while all the time hating their sin or sinful behavior? Hate is a very strong emotion. I am not sure that true love can come through me and be displayed if I am standing in judgment of someone else's sin. Honestly, doesn't some of that judgment spill over onto the person doing the sinning? Well, I found that to be true in my life. Didn’t Jesus deal with sin once and for all? So why must we hate it? Shouldn’t sin be a non-issue? Were we called to love God and love others, or to hate sin?

What about “His yoke is easy, His burden is light“? What does that mean really? We talk about the yoke of sin. But I found that even though my own yoke of sin has been broken, and even though I am walking in the fullness of His forgiveness, I had picked up a yoke of another kind. The yoke of judgment….judging the sins of others. Can anyone relate? We take on false responsibility, we are determined to make God proud by not standing for any sin to come near us. We will love others, but if they are blatantly sinning…well, then we must make it our duty and call to put a “but“ on our love. I love you, but……I cannot disciple you or have fellowship with you because I must hate your sin. You see, others are watching me and if I actually have relationship with you, an obvious sinner, others will somehow get the idea that I “approve“ of you and approve of sin!
How silly is this way of thinking when examined closely, because we can only apply these boundaries to those few whose sin is out in the open for our judgment. What about the closet sinner? What about the accepted sins? (gossip, gluttony, etc.) What about our own personal accepted sins? Do we apply these same standards? Of course not. So aren‘t we really trying to appear loving when in fact we are only being self-righteous? Ouch. I would say that we are not really free until we can love someone who is walking in visible obvious sin, without feeling the need to “fix” them.

Hidden agendas. That is what God wants to deal with in His people. He wants to expose our hidden agendas.  And trust me, we all have them. Yep, the church has them. Every time we talk to a stranger with the sole purpose of “getting them saved” we have a hidden agenda. Let’s examine this. Is it Biblical? Is it truly loving? Are we to view the world and all people as “projects” that we are to fix or as outsiders we are to somehow coerce “in”? Or are we called to love others and love God, period? What have we added to the Good News, to the gospel? We received freely by grace, we were saved while we were yet sinners, and none of us accepted His salvation and achieved immediate perfection. I don’t know about you, but I am still way off the mark.  Why do we demand it of others? Why are we so afraid to love the sinner.....period?

Well....the Bible teaches us to go and make disciples. Disciples of what? Of love? Of church? Of Christianity? Of Jesus? I don’t think I can make anybody a disciple of Jesus, I think He would have to do that Himself. And He seems pretty good at it too. I don’t believe I am to make people disciples of my church or my beliefs, yet that seems to be our point most of the time. Our goal often becomes “Get them into church….invite them to church…….put on a big holiday play extravaganza so they will come to our church…” What are we selling anyway? What gospel are we presenting?

And how have we become so “Us vs. Them” in our thinking?
Is it us….Christians…..vs. the world….sinners? Or is it even more divisive than that? Has it become Us vs. All other churches….Us vs. All other religions….Our church is better than your church……we do it right you do it wrong. Pre trib vs. Post trib. Good guys vs. Bad guys. I thought the only war we’re in here is "good vs. evil" and I thought that war was already won. How did we lose focus? When did all of this competition seep into our thinking? Where will it end?

The wonder of Christianity has always been in the “inclusiveness” of it. God invites us into His story. He invites us into true life. He paved the way for us to come, through His Son Jesus. And we get to invite others in…to Him. To freedom, life and love. And we don’t get to pick and choose who gets in, or even how long it takes them to clean up their act once they are in. We only get to come alongside of them and love. And we get to trust Holy Spirit to do all the fixing. The truly amazing thing about love, this kind of no strings attached love, is it seems to miraculously create just the right atmosphere for the Holy Spirit to do His amazing work, His work of “fixing” or healing or whatever we might call it. Our "job" or yoke is to love, and love creates a safe work environment, and the Spirit does the work. How cool is that?? I love my job!!!

There is freedom in this Kingdom. Freedom to never be an outcast again. Freedom to put down our expectations and fears and prejudices and judgments and take a deep breath and just….....love.
His yoke is easy, His burden is light. He has set me in a very large place. I sense my territory just got expanded by acres.....and I am excited!! God's love is enough! It is so vast, that it will plow right through every deception and every torment and every lie the enemy can try to keep people bound in.!!
His love is the greatest power on earth!
Free at last, free at last….thank God Almighty, I’m free at last!!!!!