"On hearing this, Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’ ” - Mark 2:17
Who is worthy of the love of God? Are any of us? We often get bogged down in the mindset that sins falls on a spectrum - that some sins are really, really bad and some are not as bad but still basically bad. To be fair to this mentality, I think that when it comes to "sin", intentions play a huge role. For instance, killing someone is horrible, but everyone knows that killing someone is horrible. However, some people think it's a sin to eat meat, and while the general consensus is that we're not sinning when we eat meat, if those specific people ate meat while still believing it was a sin, to them it would indeed be a sin. They would be intentionally disobeying God. This concept of sin based on intentions is laid out by Paul in Romans 14 . However, we most commonly sin unintentionally - feeling and thinking things that aren't right. A thousand times, every day, we each re-crucify Jesus with the thoughts that we think and the things that we say. Basically we all have fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).
Despite all of our own mistakes, we each subconsciously build up in our minds this model of "sin" and how we perceive it. We layer sins in our mind, and end up judging other Christians and isolating non-Christians depending upon their sin. There is a mistake that many Christians make where we look purely at the sin, and not at the sinner. We look at our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and think that they are less of a child of God because of the way they behave. We look at non-Christians and think that they must be going to hell purely because of their behavior. But wouldn't we rather people know Christ as a savior before they know Him as a judge? Are we called to judge, or are we simply called to love and love and lead people to Christ?
C.T. Studd said, “Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell. I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.”
We need to get past this concept of sin in levels, even outside of Christianity. How are people supposed to know the love and the word of God if you do not teach them? Following Christ is not about being judgmental or living life inside a comfort zone. Jesus loves us. There are no exceptions. But we have accepted the grace of God and our job is to make sure others come to Him as well.
Comments