Christianity has been a ‘no no’ kind of religion for centuries. ‘You can’t do this, or that… and call yourself a Christian. People with tattoos are not Christians etc.’ The enemy of our souls has switched our primary focus from God’s Love and power, to ferreting out sin – wherever we think we find it. We are all experts on what anyone can and can’t do, because the bible says so… (?) We can make the bible say many MANY things. The bible is not a legal document, nor is it a weapon to prove our point – it is a tool to set mankind free from satan’s lies.
Our vast knowledge of sin and how to avoid it … or not … means we are still eating from that wretched tree in the garden of Eden that led to our downfall! Personally, I want to eat from the tree of life. Jesus made that tree available to me and boy do I need it! However, we cannot eat from both trees. 😶 If you do you will get thoroughly confused and tied up in the legality. We need to carefully pray about what we are eating – it has a consequence – it colours what we are giving away. We try to avoid this type of clarity about judging others, because it seems that we have no idea how to handle it. Sadly, the Holy Spirit is not always our Leader and our Guide – He has become the Person we want to come to our meetings to make our lives more blessed. 😢
Jesus Himself didn’t divide people up into categories the way we do. Let’s remember that the Lord knew about Judas’ thievery, and He deliberately spoke to the Samaritan woman. When Christ looked at humanity, He saw people made in His Father’s image, and ANYTHING that might spoil that image …He either taught against it, corrected it, or He healed it. 🧐 So why are we using the the bible as a weapon to sort people? Our in or out theology is tragic. God’s Holiness does not tolerate ANY sin, big or little. However, it would be a tragedy if we pushed out anyone who could be changed when they met Him. I know that when I met Him, He changed my known world!
Paul said this in 1 Timothy 1:15-17 “This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all. But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of His great patience with even the worst sinners.”
Like Paul, we must remember we were sinners and have some compassion on the lost, without living in FEAR that we are authenticating someone’s sinful lifestyle. To do that we will need the Holy Spirit’s wisdom. Ananias in the book of Acts didn’t want to go to the Apostle Paul after his conversion. Ananias had a big conversation with the Lord about the man who eventually wrote most of the Epistles. And he took some convincing to go to Paul’s side. Our knowledge of good and evil is flawed by our doctrines. We must stop eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and start eating from the tree of LIFE.
What we think we know, has been overshadowed and prejudiced by what we’ve been taught, over a lifetime of swallowing our own church’s doctrine. But we are told, in the bible, to live our new lives being constantly filled with the Holy Spirit, because He knows stuff we don’t know. Let’s focus on that, and treat others with respect, even if we don’t agree with how they live and find what they do ugly and potentially defiling. Clean comes from the inside, out.
Jesus Christ touched unclean people whenever He met them, and the clean inside Him … made them clean. That’s where we need to be aiming – by eating from the right tree. We must live our lives so motivated by the Holy Spirit and His wishes, as a community, that the power of God in us, transfixes and transforms other people’s lives. Lot lived in Sodom and Gomorrah, but he hated it. ”But God also rescued Lot out of Sodom because he was a righteous man who was sick of the shameful immorality of the wicked people around him.” 2 Peter 2:7.
Let’s hate the sin, and love the sinner, and turn this thing right side up – by eating from the tree of life when we eat from the bible. 👋🏻
