My Two Cents Worth.....(and we all know that a penny isn't worth much these days) ;)

I have very purposefully not commented on any of the very ugly posts concerning the hot-button issues that have been posted on Facebook by my friends…..my friends and my family members on both sides of the issues. I have read posts by my Christian friends the past few days that made me literally CRINGE.  The hatred, the ugliness, the scorn, judgment and condemnation portrayed in some of their posts (often coupled with Bible verses!) break my heart.  And while I do believe with my whole heart that God calls us to stand for what is right….I don’t think He calls us to hate or hurt or condemn in the process.  In my Bible, I never read where Jesus confronted or condemned anyone who was in sin or hurting ….he LOVED them.  He hung out with them. He had dinner with them.  The only people he EVER condemned were the self-important religious people who judged others.  There’s a message in that for us, fellow-believers.  We are ALL sinners and we have no stones to throw....so please drop your rocks.

How do I define sin?  Anything that is contrary to God’s word. Sin can be thoughts, actions, lack of action, attitudes, beliefs……anything that breaks God’s heart. I refuse to be sucked into the quagmire of trying to determine exactly which actions constitute sin and which do not…….I can only answer that question for myself and my own conscious…I’m not about to try to determine what would be sinful for anyone else…that is not my responsibility……THANK GOODNESS! 

As humans, we tend to categorize sin.  We find that some sins are horrible…. and some are just petty little sins.  Kind of like the way we categorize a system of lying: we have lies and then we have “little white lies.”  Both are still untrue.  I think we look at people who sin differently than we do and think, “Wow.  At least I’m not doing as bad as THAT guy!” and we justify our own sin and arrive at a dangerous place of thinking that we’re better off than we are.  Truly, not a single one of us has a justifiable reason to think we are better than any other of us. We are ALL sinners.  With God, wrong is wrong is wrong.  There are no degrees of wrong.  ANY sin breaks our fellowship with God.  And the Bible is very clear that it doesn’t even take action to sin….our very thoughts are sinful.  The Bible pretty much says, “If you think it, it’s just as bad as doing it.”  

I’m as guilty as the next person…..I look at murderers, pedophiles, rapists, extortionists, cheaters, adulterers, robbers, thieves, gang-members, drug dealers, and so on and so forth….and I think “Wow.  I’m a pretty good person! I’ve never done any of these terrible things!  But am I really any better in God’s eyes?  Nope. I still sin.  Daily. Hourly.  Probably minute by minute.   My thoughts are not God’s thoughts.  My ways are not God’s ways.  He looks at the convicted criminal and he looks at me.....and he simply sees his own child that He loves so much that He gave his life for him……He grieves over the wrong that his child has done…..but He doesn’t love them any less…..and neither should we.

This concept really hit home for me when my own son was convicted of drug possession when he was 17 years old.  He knew better, but he did it anyway. I was heart-broken.  I cried for days and days on end.  I was angry with him and I was hurt by him and by his actions and apparent lack of thought for his own future.  But I never, ever, EVER for one single second stopped loving him.  I would lay down my own life for his without giving it a second thought. But even though I loved him completely…..I had to allow him to face the consequences of his own actions.  It was painful to watch.  It broke my heart.  But it was a necessary part of his learning experience.  One night, when I was sobbing my heart out, praying and crying and grieving over everything that had happened, it was like someone turned on a light-bulb in my brain and it dawned on me….THIS.  This is how God feels when I sin.  He’s hurt by me.  He’s angry with me.  He knows that I knew better and chose to sin anyway….and He’s going to make me face the consequences of my actions…but He NEVER, EVER for one single second stops loving me.  No matter what I do.  

When this kind of love and mercy is extended to us…..how can we in turn offer anything less than God’s love to others?  How can we afford to accept God’s forgiveness so freely….then turn around and condemn a friend because he has different (or, in our eyes….worse) “sins” than we do? 

I don’t think we can be a beacon of hope or a spokes-person for Jesus by being hateful.  Our pithy little Facebook posts with thinly veiled judgment, pictures or comments taken out of context, or outright condemnation are not going to point ANYONE to Christ.  Quite the opposite.  They are a turn-off.  People KNOW that Christians aren’t perfect…and they know that we have no right to judge them…… but there we go, doing it anyway….and we do it in the name of trying to evangelize!!! We’re not winning any one…and it scares me to think that what we’re doing is probably pointing people in the other direction.  Here’s a scary newsflash:  The world doesn’t want to be like us….they don’t want ANYTHING to do with what we say we have….because we don’t package it or market it very well. We don’t practice what we preach. We’re hypocrites.  We say, “God is Love!”  and then we don’t act very lovely.  We say, “God blesses me!” and then we don’t act very blessed.  

A few years back, I was working as a Hospice nurse in Chattanooga and we had a team for an AIDS benefit walk called “The Strides of March” to benefit AIDS research.  As nurses, therapists, chaplains and social workers….we worked with people dying of AIDS every single day and wanted to make a difference in those lives that we touched.  Along the downtown route that was marked off for the benefit walk, people stood with protest signs that said, “REPENT! YOU ARE GOING TO HELL!”  and as we walked by, they spit on us, called us horribly offensive names like “homos, fags, lesbos” and one red-faced man waved his Bible and spit on me as I walked by….loudly proclaiming, “YOU ARE AN ABOMINIATION!”  I was there as a nurse supporting my patients……I wasn’t even his target audience….and yet his ugliness and hatred sticks with me to this day!!  He actually thought he was doing God’s work by spewing hatred and ignorance on everybody who walked by him.  It was one of the saddest things I’ve ever experienced in my life.  Not because he called me names….but because the way he acted is how many people view “Christians” as a whole….and in my mind, he was not being very Christ-like at all.  Jesus NEVER called anyone names (except for the hypocritical, judgmental, religious men….and boy-oh-boy, did He have quite a bit to say to them!).  He never belittled people who needed Him.  He never publically shamed anyone.  He obviously never spit on them.  My goodness, haven’t we taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque and just allowed ourselves to be misled?   Satan is laughing while we do all his work for him.

A few weeks back, I posted my opinion on the spectacle some of my women friends from church were making over the whole “Magic Mike” movie and I opined that I didn’t think it was becoming for married, Christian women to be openly lusting after the young men in that movie…..and I stated that I wondered what kind of a message we were sending and what example we were setting for our young daughters. While I do believe that with my whole heart that it is not okay to lust after anyone (even movie stars)……my post was perceived to be judgmental and harsh and hurtful to many of my friends and the back-lash was immediate.  I was called “Judgmental Judy” and was told that I had a “stick up my butt” and one lady even suggested that I’d probably never enjoyed sex nor ever had a day of fun in my whole life.  She said that God gave her more than “Two goody two shoes” and that she enjoyed wearing all of her “God-given shoes” and implied that I wouldn’t get very far in my single pair of goody-goody shoes.  I don’t know about all that shoe stuff…..but afterwards, I worried that what I posted was indeed too harsh judgmental…..wasn’t I just pointing out their wrong-doing instead of focusing on confessing and repenting and turning from my own sin? Probably so. It’s hard for me to know where to draw the line.  When is saying what you believe “standing up for what you believe in” and when is it just meddling? How do I determine if I am offering Godly advice to fellow believers or if I’m just being “holier than thou?”  Discernment is not a black and white issue for me……there is a whole box of Crayons tied up in this for me….shades and nuances that must be weighed and balanced.  

I try my best to be cognizant of my own judgmental feelings…..because, yes….even though I try not to have them…..they are there…and sometimes, they bubble to the surface.  It is my goal to show the world the LOVE of Christ.  It is my goal to show the forgiveness and mercy and grace of my wonderful Savior! It is not my place, it is not my goal and it is not my intention to do anything but point people to Jesus.  It’s His kindness that leads us to repentance….not condemnation or judgment. (Romans 2:4).  It’s knowing that God loves us…no matter what we do……….or more correctly maybe - in spite of what we do. 

I would hope that anyone who knows me well should know exactly where I stand on these current political/moral/ethical issues and hot-button topics by the way I live my life on a daily basis……..but you will have to forgive me because I refuse to post or repost things that reduce my faith and believes down to a “bumper-sticker” mentality and I refuse to post or repost anything that I think might be hurtful or judgmental to anyone on either side of the fence. I have friends and family members who could be hurt by thoughtless comments either way…… and I don’t want to be a stumbling block to anyone. There’s a line in a Casting Crowns song that says something like, “They’re trying to get to Jesus, but they are tripping over me.”   Sometimes, I fear that is the case for me.

I am not perfect.  I don’t always get it right.  I make a mess of things and I hurt people that I don’t intend to hurt.  I’m selfish. I’m lazy and I tend to take the easy way out.  I hate confrontation and discord and will avoid it at all costs.  I am the poster-child for mercy and grace because I’ve needed so much of both to cover everything I’ve done wrong in my life….but. I don’t always love as I should. I don’t always extend forgiveness as I should.  I try to live openly and honestly….but I don’t always pull it off.  I don’t always say the right things or do the right things (or honestly…even THINK the right things sometimes!). 

I’m trying to live my life the best way I can…and in doing so…..hopefully leave some kind of fingerprints of mercy and grace on the lives of those I touch.  I will not be posting my opinions on the so called “homophobic chicken sandwiches” or “Obama-Care” or even the presidential elections…. because these issues are so polarizing and have caused so much discord…even among believers.  If you truly want to know what I believe…we can have a civilized and respectful conversation in person and I will be more than glad to tell you what I believe and why I believe it.  I’m just sick to death of all the ugliness on-line.    

Jesus Loves Me, this I know……and my earnest prayer is that I can somehow reflect that perfect love back into the world in a manner that makes people WANT to know Him too!