31 Days of Less and More: Less Judgment, More Acceptance.

"Your love never fails.

It never gives up.

It never runs out on me." 

One Thing Remains, Kristian Stanfill

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:35-39

God is the Judge, it is not our place nor do we have the standing to judge others. The keener we are aware of our own failings, the more accepting and drawn toward the messy people we become. Jesus was accepting, not of sin, but of the sinners who knew they had no moral standing before His Father. Jesus hung out with the mess-ups. It's not until we realize just how messed up we are that we understand the amazing Grace of Jesus. 

He didn't come as an encourager for us to follow in his footsteps, He didn't come as a moral standard for us to live up to, He came as the only One EVER. Just Him. The rest of us, negated. It is Christ who lives in us. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God. It's always only ever been Him, no other wannabees. That's grace. Not you, not your efforts; Christ. Not your strainings; Spirit. That's it. 

When you realize this Gospel (Good News), where can there be judgment for a fellow man's failings? We all fail. I failed today, but He never runs out of love for me. He accepts this dirty rotten sinner and uses me in my weakness, by grace.