Hate Sin but not the Sinner

Have you ever heard the saying "Hate sin but not the Sinner."  It is harder to say it than to actually do it.  I can talk about this because I have experienced it in my life.  

Back in 1997, my life was as good as it gets.  I was working for the Lord and I was building my sixth radio christian  station in Honduras.  What people did not know is that my home life was a wreck.  To make a long story short, I ended up in divorce and for seven years, I was out of the ministry and miserable.  I had so much guilt inside and I truly believed that God could not forgive me.  It wasn't until 2003 that I fell to my knees and asked God to forgive me.  I felt a peace that I had never felt before.  I was ready to tell the whole world about what God had done for me and I was ready to start serving Him again.

I never imagined what was going to happen next.  You expect that people who do not know Jesus is going to try to hurt you but Christians, NO WAY.  Well, YES WAY.  Even though God has forgiven me, all my Christian friends did not want to have anything to do with me.  I had never done them no harm but I guess all they could see was a big "D" on my forehead.  I made phone calls and I wrote letters asking everyone to forgive me for not living up to the standards that they expected of me but I received no response.

As the years passed, some people started approaching me and we started building relationships once again but many did not.  Even today, after so many years, there are people who I love with all my heart will not talk to me.  I ask myself, "WHY"  There are so many verses in the Bible about redemption and forgiveness but why can't we really forgive like God does?  I wonder what God thinks about the attitudes that we show towards others.  

As Christians, we should hate sin with all our strength but we have to love the sinner.  When a sinner has asked forgiveness from the Lord, this is when we should love them even more because this is the time that they need us to be close to them.  Life is not easy for me and I only blame myself because if I would of not falling in sin, this would of never happened but it has shown me a tremendous lesson.  I am going to show compassion to people who are hurting.  I am not going to judge anyone because I am not a judge, only God is.  Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well when the disciples would not but she ended being the link to Jesus preaching to the whole city.  

I don't have all the answers but what I can tell you is that Christians can hurt you more than the lost people of the world.  The reason for this is because we expect the lost to act the way they do but we do not expect Christians to act like the lost.

Philip Tyson