Our contemplations will move now from love of God to the love of others.

Contemplation #67
We have heard some say love the sinner and hate the sin – but is that the way of love? Do we love well by starting with boundaries so we don’t love too much? Do we need to be worried about loving too much?

Obviously, the motivation behind this saying is based on a desire to maintain holiness, purity, and righteousness. The problem is that the first act of holiness, purity, and righteousness is to love. Love is not one thing, and purity another. To love is to be pure, and ultimately holy and righteous. To say that we want to love in a way that maintains our moral holiness, is to say that being morally untainted is our first concern and that being loving may conflict with it. Instead, let us love dangerously, for in love Jesus took on himself the sins of us all, sacrificing moral purity in order to love.

Contemplation #68
We have heard some say love the sinner and hate the sin – but is that the way of love? Can we truly separate a person from how he or she acts, speaks, thinks, or lives life? If others tell me they love me, while hating what I do, how I live, the thoughts I have, or my lifestyle, what will their profession of love mean? Nothing.

We cannot dissect others to remove the ‘lovable’ from the ‘unlovable’. We cannot love only certain parts of others. To love our neighbor is to love that soul – the person who is the inseparable combination of mind, will, emotions, body, experiences, spirit, choices, actions, personality, and such. This is who my neighbor is, a mix of inconsistencies, goodness and rebelliousness, righteous and wicked actions . . . a person just like myself. This is the neighbor I am to love. Not the good parts of my neighbor, but simply my neighbor.

Contemplation #69
We have heard some say love the sinner and hate the sin – but is that the way of love? Isn’t this what God does, loving the world and yet condemning sin and all types of wickedness?

Let us be clear, we are called to be like God, but we are not like God. Too many seek to be like God in his judgment more than to be like God in his love. Or they seek a balance of the two. In fact, we should seek first to learn the love of God, and to refrain from judgment. Without perfect love, we are not able to judge righteously. We have so much to do in learning God’s love that we dare not assume to judge. We must learn to love others and judge rightly for ourselves, instead of loving ourselves and judging others.