To be more like Jesus

I too sometimes catch myself condemning sinners with the words of my lips, or with the words I have written (which are in some ways harder to take back). It usually happens, though, when my soul is mobilized by something outside me, like people who are being oppressed, or whatever.

When I stop and just get quiet, with the Lord being right there with me as He always is, it doesn't even enter my mind to judge or criticise even someone who has purposely wronged me. That's why I always retreat to that private chamber as often as possible, certainly every day, usually several times a day.

The world has a way of soiling our feet as we go about in it. Only Jesus can wash those feet clean again. And He is so faithful to forgive us and turn the other cheek to our sin.

[Based on the first comment left on this post, I have edited some phrases and placed them in square brackets. My apologies for possibly mis-reporting “news” items, but I do not watch TV or listen to the radio, and so whatever news I get is often at third or fourth hand. “…if new roofs be risen in the ancient cities, whose empire is it that now sways the world, and if any still survive, snared in the error of the demons?” as a desert father once asked.]

Earlier this week I heard mention that the mayor of my city has [been accused of] having sexual relations with [a young man] who was working with him, probably as an intern of some kind. This young man is now over 21. Upon hearing of this, I commented that it was too bad, but in my soul I felt no passion to condemn. It is so obvious to me after living a very tempestuous life, that the function of the Law is, as holy apostle Paul says, to simply tell us what is wrong. It's the prognosis, but not the cure. Only the living One, the only Lover of mankind, the only Physician, Jesus, can cure, but the medicine He applies is Death. For many “Christians” that is too severe a treatment, so they prefer to hobble along with the burden of their unforgiven sin weighing them down. In that condition, being too sick to live but afraid of Death, they yield to the kind of grouchiness that exhibits itself as judgmentalism.

Who has been forgiven much, loves much.

Back to the mayor. The men I work with here in engineering spent a part of one afternoon nit-picking the mayor and his public sin, and debating whether he should step down and why or why not. The consensus was that he step down. None of my co-workers are Christians, all are apostates or have never been Christians (I am not saying this with judgment, but as a demographic fact), yet they judged as harshly a man whom they don't even know by a standard they don't even acknowledge, as they complain that Christians judge.

I didn't know that Sam Adams was an openly practicing homosexual, a “gay” man, and I can't remember if I voted for him or not. If I had known he was gay, I probably would not have voted for him, simply because his personal baggage could cause trouble to the smooth functioning of the city government. But the odd thing is, those of my co-workers who live in my city most probably did vote for him to be mayor, because most of them approve of the “gay” lifestyle.

I didn't join in the debate, but inside my thought was, “Leave him alone. You elected him, and now you are condemning him for what he did, which is what you know he was likely to do.” The boy he [is accused of having] “molested” was one whom he was openly mentoring into the gay lifestyle, and that was known at the time. So why this hair-splitting? The boy grew up to be a man, and he now lives in the way he chose, based on his feelings and the advice of his “mentor.”

How sick our world is! How deceived we all are! Only by turning to Jesus, who is always near, can we be delivered “from this body of death,” by conquering death by death, as He did, and finally be freed from bondage so that we, like Him, can bring life to those in the tombs…