"Jesus did not identify the person with his sin, but rather saw in this sin something alien, something that really did not belong to him, something that merely chained and mastered him and from which he would free him and bring him back to his real self. Jesus was able to love men because he loved them right through the layer of mud."

The above is a quote from Helmut Thielicke that I read in Yancey's What's So Amazing About Grace. I am constantly identifying people with their sin; judging them, categorizing them, estranging them. What does it mean to really see someone set free? The people who flocked toward Jesus as refuge were the ones who would feel more than ostracized by the church, by me.

And Jesus set them free by pinpointing their sin, releasing them from its hold, and bringing them back to their true self. I know that I can't be Jesus in the sense that I could set slaves free, but I could try and see through the sin into their hearts, and draw out those qualities. I could stop passing them by or dismissing them b/c of the way they look, or the things they say, or my initial aversion to their personality.

This throws out the book on who people really are beneath the layer of sin that clouds their true selves. Am I willing to go that deep?

Lord, teach me how to love like that.

posted by Kelly @ 1:48:00 PM