Was talking to someone I love when the conversation turned to a topic about which we disagree: their relationship with a woman whose dossier includes an active pornographic website, multiple social media accounts under fictional identities and a criminal history.

That alone is enough to warrant disapproval from the most generous soul, but that’s not all. This vile person has worked hard to destroy relationships between the one I love and everyone who truly cares about them.

Yet, the one I love would have me overlook all that and embrace this “significant other.” Their argument: “How do you know they haven’t changed? Aren’t Christians supposed to forgive people?”

It sounds so spiritual.

Back-sliding Christians who have decided to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, naive souls who believe in cheap grace, and people who live like the devil all have this in common:

When confronted with their sinful behavior and reckless associations, they are quick to defend with some variation of “Doesn’t the Bible say ‘Judge not’?” or “Shouldn’t Christians forgive?”

Does the Bible really say forgive on-going, unrepented sin?  Does it say ignore reality and not assess what you see?  Jesus didn’t do that. Jesus came to earth to deal with sin head-on.  Reconciling us to God required clarity about our true condition.

• Jesus told the Samaritan woman that she’d had 5 husbands and the man she was with was not her husband. (John 4:16-18)
• Jesus told the outwardly pious Pharisees that inwardly they were full of sin, white-washed tombs. (Matthew 23:27-28)

Christians are to “be imitators of God” (Eph 5:1), the God who makes a “distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.” (Malachi 3:18)

Sin is like rotting flesh and fecal matter to holy God. God loves us, but He won’t embrace sin. We can understand that. We separate ourselves from excrement and garbage because the filth and stench attracts vermin. We flush toilets. We bag garbage, take it outside and pay people to haul it away.

Jesus came to forgive our sin, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and to make us acceptable to God. He changes us, if we let Him. That change is not just something we say; it’s something others can see.

Signs of real change?

• We acknowledge and confess our sins that we may be forgiven. No games. No excuses.
• We have “godly sorrow” for having sinned. Not sorrow for being caught and punished but sorrow that we have betrayed and offended a holy God.
• We “repent,” meaning we turn to God and turn away from sin. Repentance is a 180-degree turn. Our lives should be going in the opposite direction of sin.

To judge is to condemn a person as hopeless. Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world but so that the world might be saved through Him.  (John 3:17) Because His  offer still stands, anyone can change.  Whether we actually have changed is evidenced in how we live.

“For of this you can be sure: no immoral, impure or greedy person – such a man is an idolater – has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient” (Eph 5:5-6)

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“Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal, “The Lord knows whose are His,” and, “Everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness.” (2 Tim 2:19)