Joyful Ruins

It is ironic that Jesus, the Son of God, said, “I did not come into this world to condemn it, but to save it.” He also preached to always forgive and always love.

Yet, Christians around the world are living lives of condemnation, towards themsevles and/or others.

When confronted by our own weaknesses, be it missing a commandment or just feeling insecure, we blanket them as sin. Then, we go beyond what Jesus ever taught us and condemn ourselves.

We may find ourselves in the midst of anxiety day after day. We mislabel something like that a sin, because it makes us feel weak and we attack it. We berate ourselves for not having greater faith, or being stronger. Why can’t we just believe greater?

This leads us to unhealthy actions, like hiding our anxiety from others, isolating ourselves, and or ignoring our own physical health.

It is the same with our disobedience. Yes, we will all sin, every day. If any of us were capable of sinlessness, Jesus’s death would hold no meaning. When we sin, we throw stones at ourselves. Rather than embracing the mercy, grace, and love that Jesus extends and covers us with.

As long as we choose condemnation, guilt, hate, and anger as a response, we will truly be rapped in chains of legalism and servitude. We will not experience Christ’s light and easy yoke.

So many in the church also condemn others. Despite so many verses, teachings, on loving, welcoming, seeing, caring, forgiving others, we laser focus on their “sin”, what we see as disobedience to Christ, even if the other person doesn’t believe in Christ.

We act like the people Jesus corrected and drove out of the temples. We pick up the stone to fling at the woman caught in adultery. We sneer at the widow who gave just a penny, but gave all she had. We point out every nitpicky miss of the law, just as the Pharisees called out the disciples for picking grain, Jesus healing, and the lame man carrying his mat on the Sabbath. We, too, question Jesus’s choice of dinner guests, except we question the welcoming of liberals, black lives matter, prochoicers, and LBTQA community.

How incredibly ironic, no, how heartbreaking, that Jesus lived out the opposite. Why would we condemn ourselves and others when even Jesus did not?

What did He do instead? He looked at us with love, forgave us first, and called us to follow Him. He did not tell us to punish ourselves or follow a strict fasting schedule in order to receive His love or mercy.

To learn to love and live like Jesus and from His love, we must learn to respond to every part of us and others in the same way He did.

Weakness does not equal sin. Anxiety is not disobedience. It is a signal pointing to something deep within us that needs healing and attention. We need to stop labeling things that make us weak or uncomfortable as sin, because things that make us weak and uncomfortable are the very places that God wants to use, love, heal. He wants us to lean into them with Him, rely on His gentleness and love, and be healed supported, comforted by Him.

When we sin, we also are not called to hate ouselves or beat ourselves up. Jesus was literally hated and beaten up for us so we would not have to be. The more we respond with hate and condemantion towards our sin, the further away form Jesus we are. Why?

Because that is not His heart towards us in our sin. His heart is forgiving, empowering. We also can’t love or accept our sin as that is the enemy’s response. And we do wrong to the world by showing them that their sin means damnation, that they must get their act together in order to be love by Jesus. If that were true, all of us who believe would still be earning His love and would be earning it for the rest of our lives.

Jesus looked at sickness, sin, outcasts with gentle, loving eyes. He may have commanded, “sin no more” but He did not begin a conversation with a pointed finger saying, “You are living in sin and must stop before I love you.” In fact, Jesus rarely called “sinners” out for their sins, except for the religious people. He saw broken people for what they were, His children, hurt, acting out, and He knew what they needed was a reminder that He loved them, saw them, and chose them.

Jesus began and ended with love. Truthfully, we must do the same, not because we don’t want transofrmation, God’s word, change, conviction. We do! We want those things, but a hand slap will never lead to those things. It may lead to children of God who live from a place of burden, rules, and duty, but it won’t lead to free, holy spirit lead, loving children and that is who God made us to be. That is why Jesus came.

So, I challenge you to notice when you sin or when you are weak, how do you respond to yourself? When you see weakness or sin in others, how you respond to them?

Are you being Jesus to yourself, to others? Do you reflect His message? Or do you go right to condemnation or legalism?

Don’t forget that Jesus spoke against condemnation and legalism. Try leaning into His loving arms instead and witness how His love is more transforming than any rules or guilt can bring.