I find it interesting that you call it a standard to tell people not to do something they are wired to do, followed with inevitable condemnation.
By your “standard,” many people of God fall, including the ministers who preach it. They preach about purity and fidelity, and then they cheat on their wives. They preach against homosexuality and the sexually immoral, and then hookup with escorts or get caught in bathroom stalls.
They preach about this “standard” expected by the church and then they fail to meet it. They fall. Over and over again. Almost as if God were allowing them to stumble.
Funny isn’t it? Why these men of God cannot practice what they preach… But why?
And no matter who falls, the church response is always the same. “They sinned.because they were too weak, because they were never right with God, because they did not pray hard enough or devote enough to God.” And you follow this reaponse by casting them out of your churches. Out of sight, out of mind. Or you snub your noses at them. And you keep preaching THAT standard- If you are not good enough, leave. Get out.
The problem is your way isn’t working. And there is this disconnect where you don’t see you are doing something wrong. But you stay the course despite all of the people it hurts.
You approach this as a cult would. With magical thinking. But the actual sin here is your divorce from human relationship and reality. You cannot turn away from the sin of your lack of love until you stop valuing the Law more than the people for whom the Law was created to serve.
You have within you this craving for hell and damnation. Sadism. You want to hurt people. You want a reason to hurt them. And that is the sin of religion. It’s an all you can eat buffet of smiting the weak and the poor. Even your own family. Which is what every cult does.
That is not the Standard I choose for my life. And that was why I chose to go it alone. Because I knew the church has something fundamentally wrong with it.
YOU cannot sacrifice your sin of self destruction, and destroying others, until you learn to love life and others and yourself, and share in the burden of the sin instead of treating each other like leppers…
Treating people like disposable objects- THAT, to me, is sexual immorality. Becoming one flesh and then ripping that person right off of you, like a wart. After you get what you wanted, of course. And what did you want? To inflict suffering. To kill, murder, and destroy. To lift yourself above others.
That is why Love overshadows the Law. Because the Law gives you an outlet to destroy and to feed your addiction to judgement. But only by listening to the voice that says, “put the killing stones down,” will you possiibly be saved. Until then, you will only be a dog eat dog church in a dog eat dog culture, devouring each other. With no clear defining difference between you and the world that you condemn.
Let he without sin cast the first stone… That was what Christ said. But you look to lord your own supposed perfection in Christ over sinners and pick the stones back up. That is the proof you have not been saved and transformed. When you judge others, you admit to having committed the same sin that you accuse them of. You embody the Accuser Himself, the Father of Lies. And you bring judgement upon yourself.
But if I accept my own failure, own my sin, and learn humility through this process, and as David himself accepted God’s punishment and guidance because he knew God always punishes those He loves and pursues bringing us back to good, when we fall (not if), then I begin to serve with compassion and acceptance.
And in this I will no longer try to kill my own sin through my brother or my children or my neighbor. I will begin to deal with the actual sin, one sin at a time, inside the cup with God’s assistance. With a focus on the heart, from which good and evil are poured out.
But that sin will continue to go on neglected for as long as you are focussed on the sins of others. Turn those damning eyes inward and repent. Forgive the sin, and deal with that thing inside you that seeks to destroy life.
