In studying through the Torah, especially Leviticus the rules and regulations for God's people and how they were supposed to live are made clear. The book is full of God telling the people of Israel how they were and were not supposed to worship Him. It seems stifling at first, but after learning about the heart behind it, I find that it is actually freeing. The people of Israel had just come out of Egypt-- a land where idolatry was rampant and the fear of God was scarce to nonexistent. They were also headed to a land (Canaan) where their worship practices were horrendous and disgusting. It was more about pleasing self than anything else. It was NOT in any way about pleasing the Lord. God wanted His people to stand strong as they would be essentially entering battle when they went into the promised land. They would have awful practices that were condoned all around them. God didn't allow them to live that way, not because He was a kill-joy, but because He wanted them to experience what it was for them to worship in spirit and in truth. He wanted them to be free in Him and to experience intimacy in their relationship with Him. They couldn't do that by partaking in the detestable worship practices that the Egyptians or the Canaanites partook in. Because they weren't loving and they weren't life giving.
All this is meant to say that God does have standards-- we can't do whatever we want to worship Him. He does call us to live a certain, different kind of life, but I would argue that that life is not one that is full of chains or things that are holding us back. I would argue that that life is actually the one that brings freedom and the one that brings life in a spiritual sense. I sometimes wonder if we haven't put too much emphasis on certain things-- be it 'sins,' lifestyles or ideas that we forget the heart of what it means to follow the Lord.
I realize that sometimes we follow what has been taught, blindly, without really testing it out ourselves. That brings me to the point of what this post is actually about...
Do we as Christians see people the way that God sees them?
What I mean is this-- there is sin. God is clear about sin in His word. Sin is not ok, and it is directly against God's best for our lives. However, I think the way that we respond to sin is imperative. Do we love people through their sin? Do we remind them of God's love for them? Do we beat them down and tell them to get their act together? One of our instructors for the book of Isaiah mentioned in class the other day that God's enemy is not people, God's enemy is wickedness. I think that is spot on. But do we handle it that way? I fear that sometimes we act as though the person is God's enemy. I fear that sometimes we forget that it is the sin that God is against-- not the person.
When Jesus came he never condoned sin, but he always loved the person behind the sin so gently and beautifully. One of my favorite examples of this was the woman that was caught in the act of adultery in John 7:53-8:11. Basically, a woman was brought to Jesus who was caught in the act of adultery, and the Pharisees wanted to stone her. But Jesus told them that those who were without sin could be the first to throw stones. I imagine that they probably sat silently, insecurely looking at their feet. They were guilty too. Jesus then asks the woman "Has no one condemned you?" and she answers, "No one." Then Jesus says one of the most beautiful things, that is actually the heart of what He came for. He says "Neither do I condemn you, go from now on and sin no more."
I am always blown away by that account. Jesus didn't tell the woman that she was worthless or awful-- be he also didn't say that what she did was 'okay.' Instead he loved her, he saw her for who she was and he told her to sin no more. He acknowledged the sin, but He didn't allow that to skew His view of that woman. He understood her value apart from what she did. She was not his enemy. And yet most others had cast her off and looked down their noses at her because of what she had done. They couldn't separate her from her sin. To them, she was her sin. And that was all she was. What pride.
I don't know about you, but all of this buzz that is going around lately has gotten me thinking-- maybe I need to change the way that I often think about and approach people who live differently than I do. I don't have to agree with everyone, and I don't have to condone sin. I am not saying that we should lie down and just act as though everything is alright. That is not true. That doesn't bring life and freedom. But what I am saying is that maybe we need to start seeing the person for the person that they are-- beloved by Our Father, and the sin for what it is-- detestable. But we need to stop seeing the person as the sin. Because that isn't how our Father sees it.
Jesus died for that sin. Jesus died for every filthy word and action and thought in my heart. And that brings true freedom.
"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."
-John 10:10-11
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
-Galatians 5:1
Photo credit: 60day.adventurechurch.org.
