Life Without Mother

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. … Live in harmony with one another. … Do not be conceited. … If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.“

Romans 12:9, 16, 18

Dear friend,

As I unpacked conflict within the family of believers — how we are to relate to one another in our differences as unified by Christ — I’d like to unpack what it looks like to live at peace with the rest of the world, while not compromising in the Gospel of Christ. Please bear with me in this effort to not take this passage out of the larger body of scripture.

It is important to recognize the context of this passage. It is a small part of a letter written by Paul to the believers in Rome. This particular passage comes as an instruction in how to respond to the reality of the Gospel, which Paul had just spent eleven chapters explaining in great detail. He gives these specific instructions as part of what being “transformed by the renewing of your mind” looks like.¹

Paul says we are to be transformed rather than conformed. Conformed to what? “To the pattern of this world.” What is “the pattern of this world”? It is where people attempt to define what is right and wrong for themselves.² We were all once in this pattern. But as believers we are to be transformed. Being transformed is to be set apart. 

And here is where twice Paul exhorts believers to “not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but with sober judgement” and “do not be proud… Do not be conceited.”³ We are set apart because God saved us from what we once were.

So, as I read verse nine, that my “love must be sincere,” I ask myself if it is. Is my love sincere? Is my love “free from deceit, pretense, and hypocrisy?”⁴ I’ve heard the Church often criticized (by both those who don’t attend and many who attend) for its lack of sincere love. Unfortunately, the witness of some has hurt the witness of many others. But I’m not here to point a finger or cast blame — that is between God and every person, and God knows I have had to repent countless times for a judgmental attitude. What I am here to do, is to ponder what it looks like for the Church to have sincere love.

During 2021, I remember walking with a dear friend through Manhattan, seeing signs hung on some churches that read the common creeds of that year: “Black lives matter” and “All are welcome here.” I commented to the friend, “While I don’t disagree with the words on these signs” — apart from the heavily politicized context of them — “I think it’s sad that churches feel they have to put them up.” My own pastor made a comment to the same effect a week later — that church buildings used to be places of refuge. Today, more often than not, these distinct buildings and the cross are seen as symbols of judgement and condemnation rather than God’s love and mercy. 

To be clear, friend, there is condemnation in the Bible. In the very Gospel itself. But, two things: 1) that condemnation is all-inclusive;⁵ and 2) Jesus came to save us from that condemnation we are all under.⁶ This is where the next line of Paul’s exhortation comes in: “Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” As the Church, part of being at peace with everyone is recognizing that we must hate what is evil — starting with the evil within ourselves.

We are to hate sin. What is sin? We must understand what God says is evil in order to hate it. Sometimes sin defined is as straightforward as “don’t murder” and sometimes it is a little more personal in regard to our own convictions from the Holy Spirit.⁷ Church, we cannot justify our sin. For then we fall back into that same category of defining what is good and evil for ourselves — don’t go back to to that old death-trap! Praise God that even when we do fall back, we can never fall too far from His grace and mercy!⁸

And it is in light of that grace and mercy that I note Paul saying, “hate what is evil,” and not “hate who is evil.” I’ve heard it often said, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” And I think we don’t fully understand what this looks like practically. First, we must hate the sin within ourselves, as mentioned before. We must repent and once again walk in the light of God’s lavish forgiveness and grace. Only when we have an accurate understanding of the great love God has toward us in that He forgives our blatant disregard of and active rebellion against Him by taking that punishment upon Himself in Jesus Christ can we even start to understand how to love the sinner and hating their sin — and warning them of the consequences of that sin. 

I think a beautiful, practical example of this is in John 4 — the story of the woman at the well. (Check it out if you’ve never read it.) Here we see Jesus, our Lord and Savior, our God Himself made flesh, love a sinner and hate her sin. Some key moments in the story layout principles in how to practice this God-love:

1. MEET SOMEONE WHERE THEY ARE: Jesus does what Paul talks about, going to “associate with people of low position.”⁹ The cultural context: Jews would go out of their way not to associate with Samaritans. Jesus did not go out of His way to circumvent Samaria. Instead, He went straight through it, knowing there would be a need to stop for rest in one of the towns. (Some could say He went out of His way to meet her.) He goes to the marginalized. Just as we were once marginalized and alienated from God because of our sin, we must be intentional about reaching out to those who are in the margins and alienated. The only difference between believers and unbelievers is faith in Jesus Christ. And Jesus came for all who would believe!¹⁰
2. INVITE THEM TO LIFE: Jesus begins the conversation with an invitation to life. He offers both a relationship with Himself and the life that comes through that relationship. When we encounter people, do we immediately condemn them or write them off because of their lifestyle or their outward appearance? Or, do we immediately offer a relationship — the very thing we were made as humans to crave? To offer a relationship is to offer to “do life” with a person. But, to do life with someone is not to approve or affirm their lifestyle — similarly to how believers who do life together are to actively call out their brothers and sisters in their sin with the hope of repentance and reconciliation (with God and with the Church). And here we come to the third principle —
3. SPEAK TRUTH IN LOVE: Jesus does not shy away from asking the hard questions and acknowledging her sin. Now, the situation here and her responses imply that this woman already knew the societal condemnation of her lifestyle. However, Jesus also acknowledges her lifestyle, not as simply a break from societal norms, but as her disobedience to God’s standard (a.k.a. sin). Because, in His eyes, our sin is a gaping wound leading to death. If your best friend — or, heck, even a stranger on the street — is walking around with a knife in their side, slowly bleeding out, what would you do? I’d hope you’d tel: the person refuses to acknowledge the knife in their side, or they figure they’ll die anyway, so what’s the point of acknowledging its existence? However, does that person’s opinion of the knife in their side change the fact that it is there? Or that they’re bleeding out? No! Believers are those who once had the same knife in their own side, — but Jesus removed it and healed that gaping wound completely. So, friend, why are we afraid to point out to that our loved ones, or even strangers, that the knife is there when we know the Way to remove it? Why are we timid when it comes to acknowledging sin and calling it what it is? I am a sinner, saved by grace! Those who do not know Jesus are just sinners, dead in their sin just as I was, and they have just as much opportunity to be saved as I was.
4. TELL OF THE ONE WHO SAVES: The conversation of the woman and Jesus ends with His second invitation to life — that He is the Messiah who has come to save! The Gospel does not end with condemnation. The Gospel ends with life that is never-ending! 

The end of the story is a beautiful one of redemption: the woman believes and proceeds to tell everyone in her town of her encounter, leading to the salvation of many. She was the marginalized of the marginalized, and because of an encounter with Jesus where the ugly truth of her life (and eventual death) was transformed into everlasting life for many in a single town.

This is our story, friend, as believers in His message! We are to be unashamed of the Gospel. It is offensive because God has a standard of holiness that no one can ever hope of meeting apart from His assistance. We couldn’t do it on our own. But, He made a way for His own glory!

I think what we often see is an attempt to love others with the errant thought that this means affirming their sin because of misunderstandings of our identity as humans and the severity of sin in the presence of a holy God. There are so many sins we excuse as justifiable, and others that we condemn as what the Bible says not to do. God is clear in scripture as to how He has designed us and how we are to live and look more like Him. And this is not necessarily a call to look for and/or verbally judge sin in every encounter; rather, we must be willing to speak His Truth and not shy away from it.¹¹ We speak the Truth of humanity’s state of condemnation so that we may see our need for His salvation and respond to it!

We must recognize sin for what it is, not in order to have the right stance on what is wrong, but in order to see those who are bleeding out be healed. So, really, we love the sinner by hating the sin.

In this way, friend, as believers we will never achieve the human perception of “peace.” But, to keep quiet about the global disease that is killing everyone who has ever been born seems to me a much larger evil, especially when I know the Cure!

Friend, I confess and testify that I have for so long misunderstood the severity of my own sin. By the grace of God, He is exposing these lingering effects of my old nature and illuminating the wonder of His amazing grace and new mercies every day. It is His sanctification in our lives that produces the fruit of peace that we are to shod our feet with every day for every occasion as we walk in His truth and life in the darkness of the world.¹²

From your friend, a saint being sanctified in the Spirit,
Hannah

1. Romans 12:2 ↩︎
2. To see where this whole debacle started, see Genesis 2-3, and read through the book Judges for the chaos that ensues in doing what is right in man’s eyes. ↩︎
3. Romans 12:3, 16 ↩︎
4. Refer to Google, again, for this basic definition ↩︎
5. Romans 3:23; James 2:10 ↩︎
6. John 3:17-20 ↩︎
7. Romans 14:22-23, 1 Corinthians 8-10 ↩︎
8. Romans 7-8 ↩︎
9. Romans 12:16 ↩︎
10. 1 Peter 2:10; John 3:18 ↩︎
11. 2 Corinthians 4:2 ↩︎
12. Galatians 5:13-18, 22-25; Ephesians 6:10-17 ↩︎