BY GREG CRUM
“And he that was healed wist not who it was: for Jesus had conveyed himself away, a multitude being in that place. Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.” John 5:13-14
“Sin no more.” A challenging “whose line is it” that without the assistance of the above reference in John 5 many would have difficulty identifying its source. What? You mean Jesus said something so definitive, so morally absolute, and according to the ideology of many today, so “hateful”? Yeah, he said that and a lot more things like it.
It seems that for a great number of people the Gospel of Jesus has become a message of self-affirmation. They have changed the true message of the love of God into one of compromise and His open arms for all that would come to the idea that He is tolerant of man’s sin. God’s love is absolute, but so is His righteousness, and His desire for man is that as we come to Him we will be progressively changed and “sin no more.”
Last week we wrote of the transformational experiences we should have in our worship times with Jesus. All authentic interactions with Jesus result in a positive change in our hearts and minds, and that’s what we should seek as we spend time with Him in our worship together as congregations and in our personal devotional times.
We mentioned last week that the Lord is looking for such interaction. He loves to commune with humanity; he’s not hiding from us. Just as during his time on this planet, he takes all comers and will not turn the earnest heart away—no matter their position in life or their moral track record.
That brings us to our next point, though. Jesus does take all comers, just as they are as the old song proclaims, but he loves them too much to leave them that way. Jesus is love, the epitome of love in fact. There has never been anyone who loved mankind the way he did and still does, yet he is not tolerant of sin. He wasn’t 2,000 years ago, and he isn’t today.
When Jesus met the man in the temple he had previously healed at the Pool of Bethesda, he didn’t say, “Hey, I know you have some bad habits and you’re struggling. Just do the best you can and I’m good with that.” No. Jesus told him point-blank to “sin no more.” Why? Because Jesus was ticked off at him, or because he was out of touch with the needs of humanity? No. Because Jesus loved that man and didn’t want a “worse thing” to come unto him.
Sin can be deadly, and all sin puts some distance between us and the Lord, and that’s putting distance between us and that transformational interaction that we need so desperately to be what our hearts desire.
Brothers and sisters, once we come to Christ we need to be putty in his hands and allow him to shape us into better people. Have you ever read Ephesians 5? There you get a glimpse of what early New Testament Christians heard ministered during their meetings together.
The message? A call to holiness! Read it (or re-read it) yourself, and maybe you’ll see why many of our churches today are weak and ineffective. Hint—it’s not because we aren’t “seeker friendly” enough; quite the opposite.
Friends, Jesus has called us to come to him. It’s when we are with him that we are bettered. It’s in those times of genuine interaction that we are changed and can leave better people than when we came.
Greg Crum is the pastor of Calvary Temple in Lovely.