Love is complete acceptance?

There is some­thing that greatly trou­bles me; love.

I don’t mean love in the tra­di­tional sense of the word. I mean love in the new sense of the word; to show love is to show com­plete accep­tance of some­one. I must be accept­ing, sup­port­ive and fully embrace every aspect of that per­son to which I claim love. Love, it should be said first of all, is a sec­ond order thing. That is to say that there is some­thing before the onset and choice to love. For instance, before I love some­thing or some­one I get to know and become aware of that some­thing or some­one. Love is not first order, I do not first love some­one or some­thing and then get to know that some­one or some­thing. We as peo­ple, it seems, have con­fused this impor­tant distinction.

There is an atti­tude quite a few Chris­tians have adopted. This atti­tude states a cou­ple of things. Firstly, we don’t mea­sure up to God’s stan­dards, why would we ever believe it our place to con­demn or point out sin in the life of another per­son. Sec­ondly, Christ died for us and (sup­pos­edly) met peo­ple where they were, why should we judge peo­ple? Thirdly, if we don’t love — and by love I mean com­pletely accept — those who are dif­fer­ent from us then we’re judg­ing, unlov­ing and con­demn­ing. I won­der, God cer­tainly hasn’t dis­played the sort of love these peo­ple have in mind, would they protest the gates of Heaven?

Would these peo­ple approach the throne of God and in hum­ble sug­ges­tion declare, ‘might you pos­si­bly get rid of this sin busi­ness?’ Well, isn’t it the case that some of these peo­ple have already done that for God? In case it was a secret, Jesus didn’t die for the world because God accepted every­one. Jesus died for the the world because God loved us while we were yet still sin­ners and while we were yet still sin­ners he rejected us as filthy and fit for Hell. In the minds of some of these peo­ple God for­bid I artic­u­late and express such a wretched view of human­ity. It’s the Bib­li­cal view of human­ity. Wasn’t it part of the min­istry of Jesus to say I died for you… Now stop sin­ning! That involves rejec­tion in some degree.

The mis­take is view­ing con­dem­na­tion of sin as a per­sonal procla­ma­tion of spe­cific believer. Whether or not I ‘meet God’s stan­dards’ (which I myself will never meet). Whether or not I have sin in my life (and if I do I should repent of it imme­di­ately and leave it behind me). If I see another sin­ning, it just might need point­ing out. If I see and expe­ri­ence some­one push­ing for the accep­tance of an action that’s con­sid­ered sin, then out of love I must go against them. I don’t con­demn sin because I con­demn it. I con­demn sin because God con­demns it. As they say, when we sin, we sin against God.  Should we in that judge peo­ple accord­ing to our own stan­dard? Absolutely not. Should peo­ple be judged accord­ing to the stan­dard set by scrip­ture? Absolutely. Jesus Christ may have died for you, he also con­demned the action you’re tak­ing. In con­demn­ing the action you are or have been tak­ing, He didn’t com­pletely accept you.

I won­der how many Chris­tians actu­ally stop to think about the views they express because when it comes to things like this, it doesn’t seem they have. For in this con­cept of love, they’ve excluded God.

Related posts:

1. C.S. Lewis on the cost of love, and avoid­ing God.
2. Agape: An Unearned Love
3. A God of love?
4. Love Your Neighbour?
5. Some Thoughts on Love Wins