I will say before anything else that at times I can be a hypocrite. This message is for myself as well as everyone else.

Consider it a mission statement. In the past, editorials have focused on issues that question individuals ability to lead Christian lives when they make the choices they do.

I grew up in the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. I learned right from wrong from my Sunday school teachers as well as my pastor. I’ve been baptized and confirmed. Still, I sin. I sin a lot and you know what? Sometimes I really enjoy the sin I’m committing. I know this is wrong. I ask God for forgiveness, and I try to live a more Christian life. Notice, I ask God for forgiveness. Not my peers. This is because I answer to God and to the elected government and that is all.

You may feel you are more righteous than me, but I would like you to remember who was on the cross next to my savior and who was with him that day in heaven. Yep, a thief, not a Pharisee.

I might be mistaken (I doubt it) but, in God’s eyes, aren’t all sins equal? You cannot tell me you have never sinned because then you would be placing yourself on the same level, as God and I believe that goes against one of the commandments.

Right now there is a lot going on in our world. People are fighting centuries-old wars, our environment is being destroyed in the name of a profit, young girls are being pimped out because they can make more that way than in sweat shops, AIDS continues to kill hundreds of people every day, our soldiers die every day defending a country who has not known peace for a long time, people continue to be raped and sexually violated and then left to wait on our slow judicial system for any kind of justice. Everywhere you look there are issues so much more important than whether you think you are more Christian than everyone else.

That is just one sinner calling someone else a sinner. Criticizing someone else’s mistakes does not bump you up in the line to heaven.

I suggest this instead. Keep your hypocrisy to yourself. If you do everything, but, before you are married, you are no better than someone who is in a monotonous relationship based on love and commitment. I don’t believe one is better and I don’t believe one is worse.

Why not demonstrate the love and compassion that Christ so graciously showed to you? “That which you do to the least of your brothers you do to me.” Hmm. Why does that sound familiar?

So, if you want to make this world better, shut your mouth, open your eyes and your heart and love and be tolerant to everyone, not just those on the first row every Sunday.