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!!!!!