Focus: Sin or Love?
I have some small reflections about Jesus Christ, and how the Gospel story about Him changed my perception of life.
I understand that I lived by the Rules of the Law for quite a long time. And these Rules always spoke of condemnation. Only the perfect man could avoid condemnation. If you break the law, you are guilty. Fear of the law, fear of mistakes, life is measured by inaction. The way out of this state is death. No man - no mistakes. No man - no violation of the law.
But who is that superhuman who strives not to violate and does not violate?
In my opinion - a fanatic, a pragmatic idealist. A man who put one single desire at the core of his life - not to make mistakes and not to be condemned. I'm writing now and I'm trembling all over. That's how I tried to live, such reactions and patterns of behavior I developed within myself.
The alternative that Jesus Christ brought to me:
Be free from sin, stop putting it first. If your eye is only on this sin and looks - then this fills your whole life.
And here Jesus walks the earth, talks to "sinners", without paying attention to their sins. Not dividing people by this criterion. He seems to say - it doesn't matter. This is not life itself. He says Be Love. He Loves.
And in my life, I sometimes face a choice - to break the law or to love.
To fulfill a duty, or to go play with the children. To focus on the bad or on the good. Or to refuse the good, because with the good - sin.
Because with every good deed, with every act of love, evil and sin go together. And I think that I should not stop love, because of a sin next to it. But we must fight against sin, so that there is less and less of it in our love.
Here's a man lying drunk on the grass, we came to him, lifted him up, helped him get home. He come into the house and beat his wife, swore at the children.
Did we become accomplices to the crime?