What is the way of Jesus? What are those who follow Him called to be and to do?

The answer is simple. Repent and forgive.

Self-righteous finger pointing has no place in the Kingdom of God. Neither does condemning those who sin differently than I do. While we are called to speak in love against people when their actions don’t match their faith, neither you nor I get the right to judge their motives or intentions. Neither you nor I get to decide.

Jesus never said, “You make sure everyone else is living right.”

What He said was, “You live right,” or better yet, “You repent. You seek to serve the least of these. You be holy.”

The Kingdom of God isn’t about a political party or platform. It’s not an ideology, either left or right, conservative or liberal.

It’s about the God’s love breaking into the world, one heart at a time.

You might say to Jesus, “But what about these people over there not doing right? What about those people flaunting their freedoms over and above any responsibility?”

Jesus says to you, “But what about you? You repent. You make peace and live in peace with others as much as it’s in your power to do so.

At the end of the day, the question to you and me will be how well we loved. How well we served and ministered to the least of them. How well we made visible the invisible grace of God.

Jesus also said to forgive.

That becomes possible when you and I understand that the kind of inhumanity and evil we’re capable of apart from the grace of God. Also, we need to embrace the fact that those we deem our enemies are still created in the image of God and loved by God.

When we grasp how much we’re forgiven by God, we can in turn forgive others.

“One of their religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they hoped would show him up: ‘Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most important?’ Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them (Matthew 22:34-40, The Message).'”