I have greatly appreciated all the comments, both on and off this page, about my post on A Statement I Live By. You have given me much to think about as I refine and deepen my understanding of what it means to be guilty of loving too much rather than judging too much.
I don’t know what the end result of this idea takes. Well, yes I do, it looks precisely like Jesus.

Yet, how to translate that into my own life is still so nebulous at this point. I do know this: I take the words of Jesus much more literally despite how hard they might be to live out. This is something that the church has failed miserably at. We are much more comfortable manipulating Jesus into our image rather than us submitting to His re-shaping us into His.

We typically shy away from many of his pronouncements to be peace-makers, to seek first the Kingdom, and to pick up our cross daily.
We preach humility while touting self-esteem.
We proclaim capitalism while preaching the need to give.
We talk about peace while advocating war.
And we wonder why people are confused.

In light of all this, let me make a couple of additional observations based on comments left so far:

• When we talk about hitting the proper balance it must not be a balance between love and judgment. The balance is between loving God and loving our neighbors. Again we have to go back to the words of Jesus. He did not say “love your neighbors and judge them in the proper balance.” Instead, He said “Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself.” How that manifests itself becomes the driving point of our missiology.
• How we love God is determined by how we love others. That includes people we disagree with. That includes people that don’t get what I am trying to say. That includes people that are firmly ensconced within the realm of judgmental legalism even if they are, in our own subjective estimation, hypocrites. Let us not be dismissive or condescending to those who are not where we are.
• I do not believe that there is NO place for judgment or calling people to change their lives. There is right and wrong. There is sinful behavior detrimental to an obedient relationship with God. However, in the context of reaching out to those who do not have that relationship, our duty is to lovingly bring people into contact with the Judge, Jesus Christ. We are the conduit to which people find Christ, not the bouncer checking people’s worthiness to enter into His presence.
• We must provide space for people to search. Drawing our righteous lines in the sand does not accommodate the diligent and sincere souls who are trying to work out their own salvation. When we elevate some sins as more egregious and damning than others, we immediately erect barricades to those who struggle with those thorns. Who is closer to finding the Way? The son struggling with his sexuality or the father who has insulted, berated, dismissed and effectively barred his wandering child from his home?
• We must provide space for people to be wrong. This includes the more conservative for whom everything is cut and dry. This includes the permissive for which nothing is sinful. This includes me who may not be right about any of this.
• We must continue this conversation. We have so far to go to be the incarnation of Christ that the Lord has called us to be. Please continue to discuss this with me.

Let us love, love and then love some more. And when this life is past may it be said of us that we loved abundantly. That we received sinners with open arms. That we injected the Spirit of Christ into all of our relationships, that we seasoned our speech with the hope of salvation, and that we embodied the hope of The Way that is Jesus Christ.