A Quote by Judah Smith
Notorious sinners didn’t kill Jesus. Religious people did.
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Jesus loves sinners. He only loves sinners. He has never turned anyone away who came to Him for forgiveness, and He died on the cross for sinners, not for respectable people.
Jesus was a master of grace: he attracted sinners and moral outcasts even as he offended the religious and responsible people of his day.
Jesus first of all, loves His Father in heaven and would never compromise the message that sinners must be delivered or be damned. That is the reason Jesus came to earth-to save sinners.
Having spent time around "sinners" and also around purported saints, I have a hunch why Jesus spent so much time with the former group: I think he preferred their company. Because the sinners were honest about themselves and had no pretense, Jesus could deal with them. In contrast, the saints put on airs, judged him, and sought to catch him in a moral trap. In the end it was the saints, not the sinners, who arrested Jesus.
Jesus is never upset at sinners; he is only upset with people who do not think they are sinners.
When Jesus stepped into the waters of the Jordan and was baptized by John the Baptist, he did so not because he was in need of repentance, or conversion: he did it to be among people who need forgiveness, among us sinners, and to take upon himself the burden of our sins.
The targets of this story are not wayward sinners but religious people who do everything the Bible requires. Jesus is pleading not so much with immoral outsiders as with moral insiders. H wants to show them their blindness, narrowness, and self righteousness, and how these things are destroying both their own souls and the lives of the people around them.
If we were not sinners, Jesus would not have had to come. If he didn't see us as sinners, he could have loved us without dying for us. He died for our sins. So if we're all sinners, that means everybody's in the pot together needing the same love, the same grace and the same forgiveness.
Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, even persecutors, the worst of sinners: his righteousness is sufficient for them; his Spirit is able to purify and change their hearts.
The invention of gas and electric heaters has not meant the end of fireplaces. Printing did not end penmanship, television did not kill radio, movies did not kill theatre, and home videos did not kill movie theaters, although all these things were falsely predicted.
When Jesus came to earth, demons recognized him, the sick flocked to him, and sinners doused his feet and head with perfume. Meanwhile he offended pious Jews with their strict preconceptions of what God should be like. Their rejection makes me wonder, could religious types be doing just the reverse now? Could we be perpetuating an image of Jesus that fits our pious expectations but does not match the person portrayed so vividly in the Gospels?
Jesus never met a disease he could not cure, a birth defect he could not reverse, a demon he could not exorcise. But he did meet skeptics he could not convince and sinners he could not convert. Forgiveness of sins requires an act of will on the receiver's part, and some who heard Jesus' strongest words about grace and forgiveness turned away unrepentant.
Radio did not kill books and television did not kill radio or movies - what television did kill was cinema newsreel. TV does it much better because it can deliver it instantly. Who wants last week's news?
Jesus never mentions abortion. But I think that Jesus did care for the unborn child, I think that Jesus did care for people who were completely helpless, who depend on others for their life and livelihood. I just believe that this should be minimized if possible.
The worst sinners, according to Jesus, are not the harlots and publicans, but the religious leaders with their insistence on proper dress and grooming, their careful observance of all the rules, their precious concern for status symbols, their strict legality, their pious patriotism... the haircut becomes the test of virtue in a world where Satan deceives and rules by appearances.
I believe that when Jesus walked the earth He did two things: 1. He came to save and heal the lost, and 2. He infuriated the religious people. Yeah, that's where I'm at right now. I hate the Church and what it has become.
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