Tolerance Redefined?

tolerance and ten commandments

One definition of tolerance, in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is:

Willingness to accept feelings, habits, or beliefs that are different from your own.

Tolerance is a daily action required by every human, enabling them to function in their daily lives with other people. We tolerate the loud or obnoxious co-worker because we have to work together and need the job. We tolerate the neighbor’s membership to the Klu Klux Klan, or we have to make plans to move. How about those crazy drivers on the roadways trying to cut you off? Or the check-out line at the local store that seems to take forever and a day, and is filled with the crying of unhappy kids? How is our tolerance level then? Some of us do better than others, some days, but not all the time.

But who or what should be tolerated? Is there a limit to tolerance? Today, tolerance also means that one has to accept and affirm the behavior, if not the beliefs, of the one demanding tolerance.

I believe that there has to be limits to tolerance; or tolerance can easily turn into a blanket of justification for the most heinous of actions and crimes. How many of us are guilty of judging another to justify our own wrong actions? It happens all the time, and there is a maxim for it: “An excuse is the skin of a reason stretched over a lie”

Tolerance is a two-edged sword. ‘You are intolerant if you think the other person is wrong, yet one must think another person’s views are wrong in order to be tolerant in the first place.’ The distinction between that of beliefs and that of behavior has become blurred, if not erased altogether. Universal toleration allows any behavior permission, within reason. But what exactly is “reason” from one person to another?

Was the reasoning that the Nazi moralists engaged in any different than the reasoning we used to condemn them? Is toleration of genocidal beliefs and behavior acceptable? Is the kidnapping of the young girl who is offered as a sacrifice on a Satanic altar to be tolerated because the person who did the kidnapping and offering of her as a sacrifice believed that ‘they were told by a demonic voice’ in their head to do this? Will you tolerate your loved one to use drugs in your house to fulfill their belief that those drugs help them cope with life? The reality is that the ‘borders’ within which one will tolerate others are different from one to another.

In Africa, I saw Witchcraft being practiced in all areas of the five countries I ministered in. These beliefs involved digging up dead bodies and selling their body parts for magical powers, and the abuse of children sexually for forced labor and human trafficking. Should these beliefs and behaviors be tolerated? What if they were taking place in the house next door? Would you move if the law of the land wouldn’t or couldn’t do anything about it? Why? Does that make you intolerant?

True tolerance can only come about through moral absolutes. Jesus Christ is the only one who has ever claimed to be the ‘absolute moral truth’.

The modern use of the word ‘tolerant’ demands the acknowledgment of an individual’s independence to believe and behave in any way that one desires, which is usually selfish and disrespectful to others, especially to the Creator of all.

Man has been created to worship, and he will worship anything from celebrities to his own intellect and talents. He will make a religion out of something, even if it is his belief in no God or all roads lead to heaven.

God is Light and in Him dwells absolutely no darkness, and man has been created in His likeness, and thus innately draws toward His Light via the inner spiritual man. Only our fallen sinful souls living in a dark sinful world hinders the inner man from realizing the Truth of God in Christ as the only source of eternal life; a life of dwelling in a light that no earthly body can exist in without being consumed. “They loved darkness more than light because their deeds were dark.” (John 3:19)

Jesus wasn’t all about Love and Tolerance. Jesus was angry at the Pharisees because of their self-righteous ways, exalting themselves over others as superior in intellect and behavior. Jesus was angry at the moneychangers in His Father’s House, turning it into a house for making money instead of a house for making prayers. Jesus was angry at Peter for trying to hinder him from going to the cross to fulfill the will of His Father. Jesus loves sinners and hates the sin, while firmly teaching that “if you love me, keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)

Tolerance doesn’t mean one has to accept and affirm the beliefs and actions of others who disagree with or refuse to accept the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Paul taught his son in the Gospel, Timothy, to withdraw from those who teach against the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. (I Timothy 6:3-5) Jesus teaches that there will be those at Judgment Day who will say that they have done miracles and other great things in His Name, but He will say “Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.” (Matthew 7:23) (There are Christian women preachers who go into strip joints to help the girls accept Christ and escape from that lifestyle – but if you heard of a male preacher going into those establishments, what would your first reaction be? Huh uh!)

Max Lucado says it well in ‘Just Like Jesus’:

“When my daughter was a toddler, I used to take her to a park not far from our apartment. One day as she was playing in a sandbox, an ice-cream salesman approached us. I purchased her a treat, and when I turned to give it to her, I saw her mouth was full of sand. Where I had intended to put a delicacy, she had put dirt.

Did I love her with dirt in her mouth? Absolutely. Was she any less of my daughter with dirt in her mouth? Of course not. Was I going to allow her to keep the dirt in her mouth? No way. I loved her right where she was, but I refused to leave her there. I carried her over to the water fountain and washed out her mouth. Why? Because I love her.

God does the same for us. He holds us over the fountain. “Spit out the dirt, honey,” our Father urges. “I’ve got something better for you.” And so he cleanses us of filth; immorality, dishonesty, prejudice, bitterness, greed. We don’t enjoy the cleansing; sometimes we even opt for the dirt over the ice cream. “I can eat dirt if I want to!” we pout and proclaim. Which is true—we can. But if we do, the loss is ours. God has a better offer.”

Jesus loves each of us and always will, no matter what we do against Him; but this doesn’t mean that He will allow you or I to stand in His Holy Presence of Pure Light with any belief or any behavior that is tainted with the darkness of this fallen world and it’s ruler of rebellion and defilement. He loves each of us enough to clean our mouths and our hearts; knowing that we can never enjoy the pleasures of heaven He has prepared for us, if we insist on keeping our spirit man filled with the things of this life.

Jesus ‘tolerates’ each of us while we sin, but refuses to enter into a locked heart’s door. Jesus even eats and drinks with sinners, but He always teaches them to go and sin no more. Jesus ‘tolerates’ each one of us until the second of our physical death, then He demands that we give an account of what we have done in this mortal body that is like Him.

What will He say to you when you breathe your last earthly breath of oxygen? “Well done” or “Depart from me”? He created you with a choice, and you have to exercise your will to make that choice. An old Persian Proverb sums it all up:

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”

Will your ‘habits’ and ‘values’ be comfortable with the character of Christ for eternity?

 

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