I have a lot of things pulling at me, Father. During this time together, may I be able to focus on You and what is most important for me to understand and communicate. Amen.

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Over the years, one of the goofy things my wife has been known to say is, “That makes my heart hurt!” And with a lot of “emotion,” she places her hands over her heart. It’s a means of jokingly guilting one of us about some perceived insensitivity towards her. We usually roll our eyes and respond, “Oh, brother!”
That may all be in fun, but recently, my heart has been hurting—not my blood-pumping muscle but the center of my emotions. What I’m about to share may not be well received by some, but it will more than likely be embraced by others. Culturally, it seems that Christians are interacting more and more with their heads and less and less with their hearts. And the world is taking notice.
God has zero tolerance for sin, but as the first Epistle of the Apostle John tells us, “God is love…” The entirety of 1 John 4:16 tells us

We have come to know [by personal observation and experience], and have believed [with deep, consistent faith] the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides continually in him. AMP

I hear over and over again from many believers that God will not tolerate sin. I agree. There will come a day when we will all be held accountable for what we have done for and against Him. But until then, He is compassionate. He is loving. He is patient. And as I’ve said before, He is most assuredly long-suffering.
I’ve stated before (and at that time, it was said with more anger than anything else – but now it is more and more with great sadness…an ongoing grief) that you will not find Jesus, anywhere in the Gospels, despising and rejecting sinners.
In fact, the Gospel of Mark, chapter 2, verse 15 says,

Later, Levi [also called Matthew] invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.) NLT

Verse 16 follows that up with the response of those who claimed to have direct contact with God Almighty and proudly proclaimed it to be the case. This is how the holier-than-thou “religious” leaders of His day responded.

When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” NIV

The New Living Translation states, “Why does he eat with such scum?” And that is honestly how they felt!
Verse 17 gives us Jesus’ response.

When Jesus heard this, He said to them, “Those who are healthy have no need of a physician, but [only] those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners [who recognize their sin and humbly seek forgiveness].” AMP

Where do we as Christians get off thinking that God made us the judge of humanity? You won’t find that in Scripture either…
We must abide in love to abide in God. If we don’t do one, we can’t do the other.
We must consider our stance on various issues in relation to that rule of guidance…God’s rule of guidance.

Mar 7th, 2024, Thurs, 7:44 pm