Going about your life, you will sometimes encounter people with different views than your own. It’s inevitable. Whether it’s someone with a different political ideology, religious belief, or something else, you are forced to ask yourself the question “What do I do?”. You have a split second to make the decision, and yet, so often we make the wrong choice. We walk away, we avoid confrontation. Or, we do the opposite. We shun them for being “different”. That’s what I want to discuss right now.
I want to suggest an alternative idea. Why don’t we love them like Jesus? We as Christians have a tendency to sometimes think that we are “better” than the sinners of the world. We like to think that we live in little perfect worlds where-get this- we don’t sin. We also like to think that some sins, like homosexuality and stuff like that, are worse than other sins. I mean, they are “big” sins. And “we Christians”…well, we just do little sins…that don’t really count…right? Why do we like to jump on the bandwagon that says that those “big sins” are the greatest sins and ours don’t really count. We just keep ours on the DL (that’s down low for you non-tech savvy people). The bible says that the greatest sins are idolatry, worshipping things other than the one true God. Jealousy and pride are sins. Sometimes we like to focus on the sins and forget God’s commandments to love the sinner in order to point them to Christ. Rob Brendle is quoted in the book unChristianas saying, “One of the endearing truths of Christianity is to love people the world sets up as your enemies.”
Everyone (yes everyone…the prostitute, the drug addict, the alcoholic, you get the picture) deserves a chance to be loved and to enter into a relationship with the creator of the universe. So often, we try and decide who is “good enough” for heaven in our eyes and we deem these people “unreachable” because we don’t want to get our hands dirty. We don’t want to be spotted with those kind of people at our supper club, our church, our bible study. We don’t want them to be the ones sharing our church’s name with the community.They give tshirts with the church’s name on them to the congregation, but when a needy person comes in that is addicted to drugs and needs a shirt to wear-well, they’re not getting one with “our” logo. They aren’t the kind of people we want to be our image. We begin a PR campaign to make sure that we are seen as the church that is full of “all those people that love them some Jesus”. You know, the ones that have it all together. We keep those people -the unchurched, the sinners, the ones that need Jesus the most- from being able to see the Grace. The forgiveness. The opportunity. We show them a dark tunnel instead and say “Dude…you’re on your own. We don’t want YOU here.” Does that sound very encouraging? The whole “keeping them from Jesus thing”? When we attack these people, we tarnish the reputation of Christ. The word “Christian” means “little Christs”. This is a huge responsibility. We are called to live as him. When we act in these ways that aren’t like him, we are making him look bad and turning people away.
If we instead look to love these people-not condone their actions, just love them as Christ- think of all the good that could come out of it. We shine our little God lights for them to see and they can’t help but notice.Sarah Cunnigham, a Christian author, puts it this way, “I am not asked to impersonate the Holy Spirit but to live a life that gives off God’s fluorescence.” Once we get them in and start discipling them, we can begin to examine the sin in their lives (along with our own) and they can come to a freedom from sin on their own instead of it being forced upon them. 1 Corinthians 13 speaks about true love. Paul writes that love is patient and kind and keeps no record of any wrongs. It always believes the best. If we are truly loving them like Jesus, we can be patient with them and “hate the sin and love the sinner”. We can forgive them when they mess up and we can believe from the bottom of our hearts that there is good in them and it will work out in the end. One pastor (Mike Foster) puts the love of Jesus like this: “I see a man who sought to restore relationships, not destroy them. A man of compassion who was crazy on love with what the religious crowd of his day deemed the “wrong crowd”. God loves each person deeply and equally and wants us to love everyone too. You cannot change someone’s morality and help them see that they are fallen without first introducing them to Jesus. No sin is greater than another and grace is big enough to cover them. It may not happen overnight, but loving them like Jesus sure speeds it up.
Next time you meet someone different, don’t ask “What do I do?”. Ask…”What would Jesus do if he was here? How can I love this person like he would?”
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