Years ago when I abandoned God and embraced sin, several Christians demonstrated their “loving like Jesus” by affirming my right to make my own choices, rallying around me as a “caring, non-judgmental” support system, and never once confronting my sin (or even implying that my adultery, drunkenness, and the like were sin).
If someone accidentally brought up any passage about sin, judgment, or repentance, these people quickly chastised them as using outdated scare tactics, having no comprehension of true love, aligning themselves with judgmental right-wing legalists, or being so spiritually immature that they just didn’t understand.
Thank God that another group of Christians (though very few in number) treated me with love, respect, and kindness. These Christ-followers didn’t hesitate to remind me of the will of God that I’d abandoned. They genuinely listened to me, but never affirmed or tolerated my selfish claim that God is so gracious that He was fine with whatever I believed, desired, or did.
This second group cared far more for my eternal life than for whether I liked them or not.
A couple of times, I cursed vehemently as I demanded that some of those folks should mind their own business and leave me alone. Typical response to me when I did that? “I can see you’re having a bad day, so I’ll leave now. Remember that I love you. Oh, by the way, I’ll check back on you in a couple weeks. Call me if you need me.” And sure enough, they’d be back in a couple weeks.
“Remember that I love you. Oh, by the way, I’ll check back on you in a couple weeks. Call me if you need me.”
That small “loving like Jesus” group of Christians really was loving like Jesus. They led me back to God through a true faith that demanded my ceasing sin, truly repenting, and living a life in harmony with God.
Both groups claimed to love me.
Thank God one of them really did.
When I encounter people affirming and endorsing behaviors that God clearly identified as sin, claiming they do so because they are loving like Jesus, it breaks my heart. I believe that all who have been rescued from sin feel similarly. My broken heart isn’t only for the delusion that their endorsing sin is “loving,” but so very much more for the eternal fate of the person they’re misguiding.
Bottom line: If you believe that God truly exists and that He has set different destinies in the life to come for those who do His will and those who refuse to do so, please understand that abetting sin is actually a demonstration of hate, not love.
“If you believe that God truly exists and that He has set different destinies in the life to come for those who do His will and those who refuse to do so, please understand that abetting sin is actually a demonstration of hate, not love.”
We don’t have the right to change God’s will. We don’t have the right to modify the meaning of any scripture that God had His writers state so very clearly and simply.
A woman wrote me the other day that our disagreement about passages addressing a particular sin actually is simply a matter of our interpreting Scripture differently. I replied our difference isn’t based on interpretation. Verses in both the Old and New Testament address the sin explicitly, even describing the behavior in vivid language. No, our difference isn’t interpretation. It exists because one of us ignores plain, simple, vivid statements from God.
I think I may start using that brief response. “In Bible study, there is a vast difference between seeking to interpret and deciding to ignore.”
Each of us will face God’s judgment as a sinner in need of grace. However, I, for one, will not meet Him as a person who claimed to represent His truth but in actuality encouraged people to sin. I cannot fathom anyone justifying false teaching about sin by claiming it’s an act of love (James 3:1-12).
What about you?
