"Yes! ...Him, too."

This Sunday in church was my first Sunday volunteering in the nursery! 22 crying babies, and I loved every minute of it! :) I didn't get a chance to hear the sermon, though, since Stephen is studying for his final tomorrow, we decided to bail on the second service. (Though Stephen tells me the sermon was really good, just like all the others!) So I thought I would share with you last Sunday's sermon, which coincides so well with the election going on and, sadly, all the hate and judgement that comes with it.

Pastor Richard was speaking on our views of others. Who and how we judge... He told us a story about a hippie, if you will. A true Seattle-ite, liberal, peace loving, recycling, antiwar, pro-gay, bike riding, green, Jesus follower, "hippie". And into this man's church walks a US General, in all his uniform get up and perfect posture and buzzed head, and stands in the row next to him and starts to praise God through worship. And the liberal just screams "Nooo!" in his head! "I don't want to be affiliated with this man who goes against everything I believe!" But he's in the same church as you... He can't go against everything you believe... And that's when the gospel says "Yes! ...Him, too."

You can't judge a person based on one of their elements. You see the drunk, or the liar, or the Democrat, or the man who cheated on his wife, or the porn addict... But whatever you see, you don't see the whole story. You don't see the person. The Christian. The Christ follower. You don't see what lead them to drink or steal or cheat. It's not our job to "fix" people, to make sure they have it all together. Lord knows I can't go around pointing fingers because my hands sure aren't clean! That's Christ's job! "You preach Christ and let Him do the transformation". Jesus meets you where you are, just as he did you and me. Accept that about others! Yeah, he cheated on his wife, but Christ might use that to bring that man to Him, to change him and help him. Yeah, he's a drunk, but maybe Christ will use one drunk night to change that man's life! No matter who it is or how they live their life or what their political believes are, they want Christ, too. Isn't that enough?

In a lot of situations (like all the political rants on Facebook)... "You are so certain he's wrong, because he's so certain he's right." But in that regards, you are embodying everything you said you don't like about him! It's not your job, nor your place, to judge others or try and change them to be like you. "Love your neighbor." That's all God commands of you. You don't have to admit that he's right or argue back or even agree with him! But you do have to love him. Let Christ shine through you and love others with the kind of love He shows you. If you have Christ in common, what else really matters?

And how much easier is it to walk around being happy all the time and smiling at people and showing them love and grace, than to be judging them and questioning them and trying to fix them...?! ;) And maybe none of this has even made sense... (Reading through it just now I contemplated starting all over and then thought how my Sunday nap would be further away if I took the time to do that and thought better of it.) All I know is that it is not our responsibility to judge others. (And thank goodness for that!) It is only our responsibility as followers of Jesus to preach the gospel through our actions and love others with the love of Christ, no matter the person or their situation.

I also know that Stephen's doing a pretty good job of the loving thing today... He's come out of his study three times now to tell me he loves me, bring me water and Halloween candy, tell me how happy he is that I'm going to be the mother of his children... All the while wearing this gorgeous new sweater we got him from Gap that I am in love with, making him all sorts of irresistible ;)