I caught myself doing it again last week—mentally sorting sins like laundry, placing some in the "delicate cycle" pile and others in the "heavy-duty scrub" category. A friend confessed to struggling with pride, and I nodded with understanding sympathy. Minutes later, hearing whispers about someone else's moral failure, I felt that familiar tightening in my chest, that involuntary step backward that betrays the judge within me.
Why do I judge sin degrees? The question has haunted me for years now, following me through quiet morning prayers and sleepless nights. I've discovered something uncomfortable about myself: my reaction shifts like sand depending on the transgression before me, as if I'm holding some cosmic scale that measures not just the act, but my personal comfort with addressing it.
The truth is, I've been living with a myopic and narrow view, believing that my role as a disciple somehow required me to be heaven's quality control inspector. I've unconsciously created hierarchies where "lesser sins"—those familiar struggles I recognize in my own mirror—receive gentle correction, while "harsher sins" are met with the kind of judgment that builds walls instead of bridges.
But sin is sin, and this reality demands to be addressed, not categorized by my limited understanding. When I examine my own heart, I realize I've been reserving my angst and careful approach for those perceived lighter transgressions, the ones that don't challenge my sense of righteousness. Meanwhile, I've allowed my discomfort with unfamiliar struggles to create distance exactly when closeness and support are most needed.
I think about the people in my life who've walked through valleys I've never entered. Have I outwardly judged their struggles in ways that hampered the very support they needed? Have I made my help conditional on how their sin appears through my narrow lens? The questions sting because I know the answer.
Support should not be dependent on the sin as I view it. This revelation hit me during a particularly honest conversation with God, when I realized I'd been playing favorites with grace—generous with the sins I understood, stingy with those that made me uncomfortable. But redemption doesn't work that way. It doesn't operate on my sliding scale of acceptability.
In God's eyes, sin is sin. The pride that puffs up my chest and the addiction that destroys a life both require the same divine intervention. They both separate us from the love we were created for, and they both call out for the same merciful response. My comfort level with discussing them doesn't change their spiritual weight or their need for healing.
This understanding has begun reshaping how I approach both my own failings and those of others. When I address personal sin, I'm learning to give the same serious consideration to my seemingly smaller compromises as I do to the more obvious breaches of integrity. Sin needs to be addressed with support and understanding, whether it's the gossip that slips so easily from my tongue or the more dramatic falls that make headlines.
The concept of redemption keeps surfacing in my prayers, and with it comes a deeper appreciation for what it truly means. Redemption implies grace and mercy—not just as beautiful theological concepts, but as the practical tools that should shape every interaction I have with struggling souls, including the one I see in my bathroom mirror each morning.
As a disciple, my approach to helping others and correcting my own sins should flow from this wellspring of grace. Judgment is reserved for God, and His perspective is infinitely clearer than mine. My role isn't to measure or categorize; it's to love, support, and walk alongside others on the journey toward wholeness.
I'm learning that true discipleship means laying down my tendency to sort and rank, choosing instead to see each person—including myself—through heaven's eyes. In that view, we're all equally broken, equally loved, and equally called toward redemption. And in that calling, grace becomes not just a gift we receive, but the gift we're privileged to give.