Reading scripture daily is an active part of my life. Before the day gets started and I’ve barely opened my eyes I take a few minutes and spend time searching for and building my relationship with Jesus. Sometimes that’s easy. Frequently it’s tough.

Like today, when I opened Leviticus. Almost like I was looking to start a fight with God. That’s the honest truth.

The passage sits there with death penalties and condemnations stacked one on top of another. A list that makes us flinch even today. I’ve watched passages like these push people away from faith communities they loved. I’ve seen them used to end conversations before they ever started.

“If their lips are moving they’re lying.”

We were standing outside her greenhouse, not yet warm enough for some plants to grow. I believe there’s good in everyone. To decide someone is lost before you’ve even talked to them, before you’ve seen where they are?

Man. That’s just wrong.

Standing there in the overcast afternoon it occurred to me: if you surround yourself with people whose only goal is to stay out of trouble and avoid consequences, you start to see the world through that lens.

But we’re not all like that.

Instead I decided to sit with this, thinking through why God would give such commands and how they fit into our lives today. Not an easy accomplishment.

“Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” It’s a personal invite. Parents who love their children tell them no. Love like that takes the long way home.

Jesus summed it all up from what he memorized as a child, choosing passages from Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19. First, love God. Second, love others. Jesus said it so plainly. God’s plan was and always has been to love you. It’s who he is.

Jesus invited Zacchaeus down and said I’m eating at your house today. I think we miss where and when his transformation happened. It was after they ate. After Jesus spent time with him.

I know what it feels like to have nothing, nowhere to turn, and feel hopeless. Then one phone call changed all of it. One church changed the trajectory of my life because of how they loved me. Not with material things. They simply started to love me. The stuff came later.

That’s the part that’s hard to find in Leviticus, which is where I’ve heard people point back to after saying hate the sin, love the sinner.

The quote comes from Augustine, meant as an examination statement. A personal way to look at your own heart, your own sin.

The word that trips it up is hate. Hate and love don’t add up. Paul gets us closer in Romans 5. Jesus died for us while we were still sinners. Broken. Unrepentant. And still he moved toward us. Not away.

I think we forget God made human beings in his image. We carry it with us. Imago Dei is part of us all.

That changes how you walk into a room. That changes who you sit with. That changes what you see when you look at someone who feels like they don’t belong.

If God’s image is right in front of me, then it’s my chance to love God and my neighbor. All at the same time.

How cool is that?