Recently I saw this dude named Bob Goff speak, and he said a ton of really awesome stuff. But I’m stuck on one thing that I truly believe a lot more people need to hear:

“Jesus didn’t hold people accountable, He just held people close.”

Looking through the Gospel, this almost seems wrong–I mean, Jesus spent a lot of time calling people out (Pharisees, brood of vipers, hypocrites?) and definitely had some hard-hitting words.  And that was my first thought. Of course Jesus held people accountable!!

But then I started reading between the lines–and I stopped paying attention to the Pharisees for a second, because they’re a whole different topic.  I stopped paying attention to the people Jesus called out and started paying attention to the people Jesus just called.  It’s no news that Jesus hung out with a lot of dark and messy people, and that we would most likely avoid the people Jesus tried the hardest to pursue.  And if we look at that pursuit, the trend is not accountability.  The trend is Jesus coming to people in dark places, having dinner with them, and showing them love.  The trend is not for Jesus to yell at people who interrupted or got in the way of His preaching–the trend is to heal the dude whose friends lowered him through the roof.  The trend is to notice the woman touching His robe and acknowledge her faith.  The trend is to say “let the children come to me, do not hinder them.”

Pausing there–He didn’t say “do not hinder me.”  He didn’t even say “it’s alright, let them come, they’re not a bother, whatever.”  He told the people not to hinder them.  He wanted to let the children pursue Him.  He wanted to seek out and heal people.  He wanted to come to people where they are and tell them they are forgiven.

He stopped the people throwing stones and said to the woman, “where are your accusers?”

Let me reiterate something we’ve all heard a billion times.  We are supposed to be like Jesus. I feel like at times, that means we justify a whole lot of stone throwing.  But what if we really lived like Jesus with these dark and messy people? What if we started holding people close and coming to them in love?  What if instead of focusing on the people that bother us, we tell the world to not be hindered in seeking love?

This world has a lot of pain and a lot of condemnation–and a Savior who came in love. He came to stop the stone throwing, not tell us where to throw stones.  Jesus came in love, and gave that challenge to us.
The world would look so much different if we all decided to come in love.