Matthew 23:37-40
Leviticus 19:1-19, 32-37
Mark 12:28-34
John 13:34-35

I was unable to write a blog on Saturday or Sunday so I am writing today. God has His perfect timing. If I had written on Saturday, I would not have experienced what was needed to write this blog.

Last night I was watching the news and there was an item on Satanists in America. These people were winning converts on a platform of social justice, love, peace and acceptance of others. This horrified me. In his usual style, satan was deceiving people by giving them what they needed to hear. And to do that, he had stolen from God’s direction for our life.
That in itself is not necessarily a problem. After all, Christians are known for living the greatest commandments of God – love – and bringing with that God’s insistence on the outpouring of that love in social justice, peace, and acceptance of others. Or are they …?

What is the picture of God Christians give to the world?

The news story spoke of the harsh, judgemental, condemning, uncaring church that has no compassion for the poor or refugee. That belief is prevalent amongst non believers in our society. That is the image they receive of Christians and therefore of God.

It saddens me that I often feel ashamed to admit I am a Christian, not because I am ashamed of Jesus. I am proud to call myself a follower of Jesus. But because of the harsh, judgemental, condemning, uncaring image of extreme right wingers who show no compassion or love for others and prefer to condemn rather than love.
So into this vacuum of legalism and condemnation enters the great deceiver. What better way to win people away from God than by taking the very heart of what God teaches us and passing it of as your own. After all, our God shaped hole matches the profile of social justice, love, peace and acceptance of others.

What are Christians doing to counter this? Precious little. The news item spoke of the church condemning these people, but nothing about love.

It is a valid question we need to ask ourselves:
“Am I by my actions pushing people towards the deceiver or drawing them towards Jesus?”

Stop and think.
Challenge yourself.
Challenge every little attitude.
Then repent and change your ways.

The only way to counter such tactics of satan is to be Jesus to the world. Be His love. His compassion, His peace, His social justice and His acceptance of others.
Remember John 13:34 admonishes us to love others AS JESUS HAS LOVED US.

Do you love others as much as one who willingly died for others?

Repent and change your ways.
 

This is an important question to ask ourselves in a world where extremist views on all things, including Christianity are becoming more common.
This has been brought into prominence recently with a well known Australian footballer being sacked for breach of contract after he tweeted hate speech about those who were homosexual. He tweeted that homosexuals would go to hell and claimed a biblical basis for his statements. He continued these statements, encouraged by his pastor father, and claimed his religious freedom was being restricted. This extremely wealthy sportsman then proceeded to raise money to mount a legal challenge to his termination of contract. Something he could have afforded on his own.
Many Christians have supported him because they see this incident as proof that Christians are being denied the right to express their freedom of speech. I suspect that if a Moslem footballer had tweeted that those who did not follow Islam were bound for hell, there would be an outcry and demands for the man to be sacked.
We must be wary of the double standard.
We must also be wary of behaving in a manner that contradicts how Jesus would behave. We need to know our Bibles, not our pastors beliefs, but our Bible and what God teaches us from it.
Before I look at how Jesus spoke to people, I want to discuss the world of the New Testament. It is worthwhile reading the New Testament, especially Acts 17:16-34. New Testament times were a time when the disciples lived in a world of multiple religions. The disciples did not condemn those of other faiths, they just spoke of their faith in a respectful way and accepted the converts they made, and the groups of Christians that came to exist in different centres. All the early Christians accepted they lived in a world where their faith was one of many. They held to their faith and did not condemn those who did not share it.
What happened? When did Christians become so precious they could not share their world with those of other faiths?
In the gospels, Jesus made a distinction between those who followed Him and those who were bound by legalism. The worst of that group were the Pharisees.
There are two incidents in the gospels I want to discuss with a demonstration of how Jesus behaved in these two situations. I am reminded of what an old man of faith told me as a child. He said that he believed we all strived to live like Jesus. That was the mark of a Christian. So we need to look at how Jesus lived and behaved to understand what we should do.
The first incident I want to discuss is in John, Chapter 4 from verse 1.
Jesus was on his way from Judea back to Galilee. He travelled through Samaria and came to Jacob’s well near the town of Sychar. While the disciples went to find food, Jesus rested by the well. As he sat there, a Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus asked her for a drink. Jews believed Samaritans were unclean and would not associate with them. They would definitely not ask a Samaritan for a drink of water. Yet here was Jesus asking this ‘unclean’ woman for water. He quietly spoke to her of God and mentioned that she had had multiple husbands and was living currently with a man who was not her husband. He did not condemn her, He just stated the facts in a neutral way. He did not judge. He just loved and accepted her. The woman was so in awe of His quiet authority and stating of God’s promise that she became a follower of Him from that moment.
The Pharisees would have condemned the woman and refused to associate with her. They would have denounced her as one who is going to hell. This is what the footballer has done. Instead of expressing love to others and bringing them to faith, he has spoken harsh words that would not bring them to faith. He has judged, when Jesus asks us not to judge. Remember the missionary Hudson Taylor who went to China to bring the people there to faith. Whereas other missionaries, in Pharisee mode, demanded the people they worked with start wearing Western clothes and adopt Western practices in order to come to faith in Jesus, Hudson brought the people to faith and let Jesus change them. Just as Jesus had brought the woman at the well to faith and then allowed His presence to cause her to change her behaviour.
Another example from the Gospels is the story of Zacchaeus the Tax Collector. This is found in Luke 19, reading from verse 1.
Jesus was travelling through Jericho. Zacchaeus, a wealthy tax collector, heard He was coming and wanted to see Jesus. Because he was short, he climbed into a tree. For the Jews, a tax collector was seen as being a terrible sinner. Yet Jesus stopped underneath Zacchaeus’s tree and told him to come down so Jesus could stay at his house. Zacchaeus had climbed the tree because he was curious. He came down from that tree a believer in Jesus. He later paid back all the money he had taken and gave away half his wealth to the poor. Jesus did not condemn him, although others muttered about the impropriety of Jesus going to stay at a ‘sinners’ house. Jesus merely offered him Himself and Zacchaeus responded by walking away from his sinful practices.
A pharisee would have shamed and humiliated Zacchaeus by condemning him in public and refusing him the opportunity to change. I am not going to enter into a debate about homosexuality and whether it is a sin or not. That is not the intent of this blog. I want people to think about how they should respond to those they think are sinners.
Jesus shows us the example of being full of love and acceptance. He offered the woman at the well and Zacchaeus love and acceptance and they responded in faith.
The Pharisee offers harshness and judgement. There is no love, there is no opportunity for change. This is not the way Jesus’ example shows us to be.
So it is worthwhile asking yourself whether you are a follower of Jesus or a follower of legalism. Read the New Testament, make sure you know it and understand Jesus and His approach. Do not fall for the cultural practices of Western Christianity that seeks to infect Jesus love and acceptance with harshness.
Be one who walks in Jesus wake, not one who leads a band of Pharisees.