The Greatest Commandment, Shame, and Purity

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him,“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matt. 22: 34-40

Has anyone kept the greatest commandment their entire Christian life? For one day? Five minutes?

You may not have, but I break the greatest commandment every day. I do not love the Lord my God with all my heart, my soul, and my mind. Like the Apostle Paul, what I want to do, I don't do, and the things I don't want to do, I do.  But God's response is this. "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (Rom. 8:1 emphasis mine) 

This is wonderful news, isn't it? When I fail to love God as I should and come to Him in repentance, He does not reject me. Neither does He give sin a pass. Sin is such a big deal that the sinless Son of God died. Jesus received His Father's just wrath that was directed at me, so I could not only be forgiven of my sins but be freed from sin's power. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)

God does not tell me I am damaged goods because I have loved other things more than Him. (You know where I'm going with this.) God does not tell me my relationship with Him is tainted because I have given a "piece of my heart" to something or someone else. 

So if God pronounces "No condemnation" when we break the greatest commandment, why do we use shaming tactics towards believers who may have past sexual sin or have failed to keep that hard-to-pin-down, almost Vulcan-like concept of emotional purity? Why the need for name calling? Damaged goods, pawed-over secondhand goods, a piece of chewed gum that has been spat out, a cake that's been cut into, the tattered rose, etc.? 

This issue has been on my mind for more than a year, and I've finally gotten up the nerve to post this. I've been reading various courtship/dating books with my daughter in mind, and to be honest, I've been disappointed and saddened by their use of shaming. IMO, she is better off not reading them.^* Why? Because purity is held up almost as a guarantee of a happy Christian marriage, and if you've blown it, you might as well hang it up for life. But it's nothing more than a carrot-and-stick approach that minimizes the gospel and the Holy Spirit's power to change hearts and lives. Purity is not a bargaining tool to get God's blessing. Likewise, if someone is forgiven in Christ, who are we to call what God has cleansed unclean? Also sexual immorality has taken on the dimensions of nearly being an unforgivable sin. But by elevating this sin, it minimizes the need to deal with other sins such as pride, selfishness, anger, jealousy, etc.

I think we can do better than this. Yes we should hold up holiness because we love God and desire to honor Him. Period. But we need to hold out the grace of God in equal measure - the grace that saves to the uttermost.

Read this post by Tim Challies and watch this video by Todd Friel. They say it a lot better than I can.

*I recommend Sex, Dating, and Relationships by Gerald Hiestand and Jay Thomas, Crossway, 2012.

(I've disabled comments because this is can be a controversial issue. All you need to do is read the comments on Challies' post and you'll see what I mean. These are my convictions. You decide what is best for your family, and I will do the same for mine.)