Condemnation is not a friend to anyone. This morning I awoke feeling condemnation bouncing off the walls of our country. I heard accusing voices in my head with such stray thoughts as, “You shouldn’t have said that.” “How could you have hit a mailbox and scrapped our car?” Or passing a mom and her child riding their bikes to the gym, “You didn’t ride your bike with your children to the gym.” Fortunately I was quick to recognize the absurdity of that rabbit trail. No, I don’t measure up. That is why I need a Savior.
Accusation only serves to pull us outside of the crowd, while waving a finger in our face to say, “You’re not good enough. You don’t fit in. You are an outsider.” Remember Jesus’ words to the people attempting to stone a woman caught in sin? “Let him without sin cast the first stone.”
It’s interesting that our country is in a similar battle. It doesn’t matter what your political persuasion, there is a picture here for us in this Presidential Campaign. It is time for the outsider to be brought in.
The country is sick of politics, the boys club and the political snobbery amongst the Washington elite, but this isn’t new. These old school tactics have been around for a long time. In Jesus day, it was the Pharisees who bullied the outsiders, condemning and ostracizing those who wouldn’t play by their rules. And that same political spirit still exists among us today.
But it was Jesus who broke with tradition, and turned systems of the day over on their ear and brought near all those who were outcast, forgotten and ostracized. He suspended conventional thinking and never tried to join the irrelevant elite.
That means when the accuser starts the drill, don’t strive to be included in his inclusive club that goes no where, and only satisfies the insatiable needs of the power hungry. Simply turn down the volume, embrace the truth and stand strong being outside the rhetoric and inside His accepting love. Jesus was content in being an outsider and He’s still about the business of embracing outsiders and drawing them near.
