It is all so very easy to look at someone's life and make judgement about them, their lifestyle, their sexuality, and yet that isn't our job. Jesus challenges those that make such judgements to examine their own lives (John 8:1-11) before judging and condemning others.
The bad news is that biblical law highlights how we all fall short of God's standard and that not one of us is perfect! The Good News is that Jesus came to pay the price of our shortcomings and it is through his sacrifice that we receive God's grace.
After 35 years of faith you would have thought that I would have matured enough by reading God's word that I would be perfect by now. Well, unfortunately, I am not. I still struggle daily with various areas of my life that falls short of God's standard, but each day I can come to Him and tell Him of my struggles, ask His forgiveness and for His strength to do better.
Now whether your weakness is greed, lust, pornography, bad manners, lack of love for others, inhospitable, judgmental, etc., etc., you are in need of God's grace too!
Another thing that Jesus shows us in Luke 6 "You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."
I have tremendous admiration for Vicky Beeching coming out the other day. For someone with such a high profile within the Christian community to share something so personal took a great deal of courage! We must life her up in prayer as she faces people who proclaim to be Christian but do not show the love and grace that I know Jesus is showing Vicky. We need to pray that they will see that their reaction is not Christ-like and does nothing to further God's kingdom.
Now receiving God's grace does not mean that anything goes; Paul argues this in Romans 6. We all must strive to live our lives God's way and be obedient to Him, sharing the Good News to all that will listen. So let us not get distracted by arguing over the interpretation of scripture, let us be obedient to God and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to us what it means.
