Last week I met a stranger named Person and someone gave me a bottle of water simply labeled H2O. Perhaps we over label people! Then I read where someone had posted: “The Bible calls us to leave behind all the old earthbound categories.” Over categorizing things complicates life, and too much labeling of people limits our ability to show them love, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Trying to feel better about our wrongful behavior by comparing our “badness” to other people’s “immorality” is a false measure because we “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” so much that none of us deserve the label “good.” The Bible even states that “All your righteousness is as filthy rags,” and “There is none righteous, no not one.” Self-effort can never make a person good. Instead, we need a supernatural change in our inner nature. We need to die to our unholy self and let the living Jesus live in, transform, and direct us.

Although we like to categorize degrees of immorality, in reality there are no hierarchies of sin. Whether someone kills one person or a million people, he is a murderer. Whether he tells one lie or a million lies, he is a liar. Whether he commits one sin or a million sins, he is a sinner. We are all dead in trespasses and sins. The only way out is to be born again into Jesus’ resurrection life.

To achieve and maintain sanity is one of life’s most important goals. Over labeling doesn’t help. All dishonesty is a twisting, distorting, and denying of reality.