Jesus states this clearly:
“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” — Mark 2:17
If Jesus defines His mission in terms of healing the sick rather than affirming the already righteous, then the church that represents Him must carry the same posture. It is meant to be a place of restoration, not performance; healing, not hierarchy.
This is why judgment and condemnation cannot be the operating atmosphere of Christian community. When people walk into church, they should not feel like they are stepping into an evaluation, but into an invitation, one that says, you are safe to come as you are, because transformation belongs to God, not to human scrutiny.
Paul reflects this posture when he writes:
“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.” — 1 Timothy 1:15
There is no room for superiority when the starting point is shared brokenness. Every believer stands on the same ground: grace is received, not earned. That reality dismantles judgmental attitudes at the root.
Scripture also ties healing directly to openness and honesty within the community of believers:
“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” — James 5:16
Healing does not happen in hiding. It happens in safe spaces where confession is met with prayer, not condemnation; with compassion, not criticism. When the church becomes a place where people fear exposure, it stops functioning as a place of healing.
This is why the posture of those who already belong to the church matters so deeply. As churchgoers, we are not called to stand as gatekeepers of God’s grace, deciding who is “ready” or “worthy.” We are called to be witnesses of grace already at work.
God’s work is never confined to the boundaries of our comfort zones, our assumptions, or our judgments. He is constantly drawing people toward Himself in ways we cannot always see or understand. To stand in harsh judgment over others is to forget how we ourselves were carried by grace into the same space.
Jesus reinforces this heart in His own mission statement:
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” — John 3:17
If God’s posture toward humanity is rescue rather than rejection, then the church cannot embody the opposite. Condemnation has no place in a body that was itself rescued.
C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, describes the Christian life as a process of transformation, of being gradually reshaped into the likeness of Christ. That process takes time, and it looks different in every person. Because of that, we are never in a position to prematurely conclude what God is or is not doing in someone else’s life.
Leanne Payne’s work on inner healing further emphasizes that Christ meets people at the deepest level of their being. His work is not surface-level behavior modification, but deep restoration of identity, memory, and the heart. That kind of healing cannot be rushed or externally controlled, it requires space, grace, and patience.
When the church forgets this, it can become a place where people feel they must perform holiness instead of pursuing healing. But when it remembers, it becomes something radically different: a community where people are welcomed in their process, not excluded because of it.
The call for those within the church, then, is simple but carries much weight. We are not called to stop what God is doing in someone’s life because it does not yet look like what we expect. We are called to make room for it.
A welcoming church does not compromise truth. Instead, it recognizes that truth leads people toward healing, not away from belonging. It is a place where every person is seen as a work in progress under the hand of a faithful God.
And in that kind of church, people do not have to pretend to be whole before they encounter the One who actually makes them whole.
