Fair warning, this is a very straight-forward, shoot from the hip kind of post. Enjoy :)
If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well; but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. James 2:8-13
In this passage, James is continuing with his thoughts on partiality that we looked at last time. Because Christ has commanded us to love our neighbor as ourselves, when we show partiality, we are in sin. Not because we choose to show love to the lovely, but because we choose to discard the unlovely. You see, the reality of the situation is that when we break the law at any point, we have broken the whole law. When Christ said that the law was summed up in 2 commands, love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself He was not only simplifying the law, but was also showing us how when we fail at one point, we fail at all.
Sin in sin . There is no sin that is worse than another in God’s eyes. Sadly, we humans have taken it upon ourselves to assign a rating system to sin. Sins that are visible for the whole world to see, theft, murder…a child out of wedlock, these things we respond to with shock and horror. But the secret sins, hate, covetousness, pride, self-indulgence these are accepted without a second thought. Let me be very clear, just because you can see someone’s sin walking around in flesh, doesn’t make you better than them. I believe that is what James was getting at here. We will be judged, and if we aren’t willing to show mercy, none will be shown us on that day when we stand before God.
Mercy-compassion or forbearance shown especially to an offender
Forbearance-a refraining from the enforcement of something (as a debt, right, or obligation) that is due
So how do we respond to sin? Should it be all mercy and no truth? I think we’ve established that Christ did not demonstrate that. However, we should be ready to forgive and embrace those around us as they repent and seek to follow after God. If they are not repentant, well that is a whole other ball game.
Ladies and gentlemen, we need to come down from our high horses and love people. I have personally seen far too many people seek the Lord, only to be turned off by those who claim to be His, but refuse to show mercy.
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