I once read in someone else’s blog, “I thought my job was to stop people’s sin.”

Actually this is much of the problem right here. Because deciding what is sin and what is not depends almost entirely upon judging. Judging others and judging their actions, their proclivities and inclinations; in fact, by inference, judging their hearts. Which of course only God can do. This is key; I’d even say it’s actually the nub of the problem.

We need to be careful, though, of judging those who judge. In the same way as we are railing against, their actions too are subject only to the judgement of God, because only He knows their hearts.

In that blog, a responder said ‘I pray our hearts join to bind up the brokenhearted and restore their hope in the Body of Christ as a place of healing, refuge, strength and joy!’ and on the back of this, I would also say that those who judge are also in need of being healed and restored. They too need to be released into the “glorious freedom of the Children of God”. (Romans 8:21)

But we certainly should not judge them – else we are just as guilty. Instead, ‘Pray for those who persecute you’.

Just as an addendum, to those who would say ‘sin is sin, and that’s all there is to it’, I would say that very often what appears right to some people might appear wrong to others. It’s not our job to decide what is sin for others, only for ourselves; indeed Scripture is (I think deliberately) not all that clear in terms of specifics – there are no real ‘lists’ of what is ‘sin’. Granted, there are lists of ‘fruits of the sinful nature’, but  that’s not the same thing; the essential right/wrong decisions are based on letting the Peace of Christ rule in our hearts. And who are we to judge someone else’s faith? We are only answerable to the Master in that regard. (Romans 14:4)

Indeed, I believe that in fact it takes a stronger faith to be openly a ‘different’ Christian – a Christian who does not necessarily agree with what everyone else believes – than it does to just go along with the masses. Because then you are really standing up for what you believe in, in the face of social and religious rejection.

Just like Jesus did.