When we are children we learn right behavior from wrong behavior. We learn that it is wrong to steal, lie and defy our parents. Our parents want us to be perfect human beings. I wonder if they think it makes up for the wrongs they did, or they want us to avoid the mistakes they made. They mean well but some take it too far.
We have all sinned and fell short of the glory of God. We were born with a sin nature so it was inevitable that we would sin.
If you choose to steal from others often you don't know what you have done until someone steals from you. When you understand what you are doing to someone else, you stop.
Some sins are harder to understand than others. In the ten commandments, homosexuality is not mentioned, which makes me wonder why it isn't in there. In other parts of the Bible it is said to be an abomination against your own body.
If you were born and grew up feeling an attraction to the same sex, this feels right to you. This is a struggle many have. Sometimes when one is abused by the same sex, which happened to me when I was a child, you may not have wanted the attention, but that doesn't stop your body from reacting. I hated that my body reacted and even though it did, it does not mean I am gay. This once was once a fear for me that I was. I am currently married for 27 years and can't imagine my life without my husband. However, I can understand loving some one and being attracted to some one of the same sex. I would not be comfortable in a gay relationship. As much as I cared about the friend that wanted one with me years ago, I did not choose to respond to her advances. It didn't change that I cared about her and wanted her as a friend, but she did not want me as a friend if she couldn't have the relationship she wanted with me.
Many people believe that pedophiles are mostly homosexuals. The statistics show that there are more heterosexual pedophiles than homosexuals. This wrong assumption really affects the way gay people are treated as they are often considered mostly pedophiles. The sad part is we often don't know if a friend or neighbor is a pedophile until they get caught. We have no idea and we would have no reason to avoid them yet many will avoid saying hi or shaking the hand of a person who is living openly gay. Shaking a gay persons hand will not give you aids. You can get aids from anyone and there is no way of knowing or being able to tell if someone is hiv positive unless they tell you.
We do not know much about where homosexuality comes from. From what I have heard gay people have felt that way all their life. Some say they were molested as children and that led them to being gay. This is a difficult dilemma for gay people, they feel attracted to the same sex just like heterosexuals feel attracted to the opposite sex and society says, “Don't follow what your body says, you are wrong, and if you do follow what your body is saying, you are committing a grave sin.”
Our relationship with God is each of our choice. We can chose not to believe in God. We can choose not to accept Jesus as our Savior and we can choose to ignore the Holy Spirit.
Many profess to be Christian but do not live or act Christian. Jesus said to Love one another
John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
Jesus also said to love and pray for our enemies:
Matthew 5 :43-48 You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.'"But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
When we decide to condemn others and preach to them that they are sinning we are judging them. If you haven't walking a mile in their shoes, you ought not do that. How would you feel if you didn't believe in God and your Christian spouse found out you took office supplies from work and told you that it was stealing and you weren't going to Heaven and you were condemned. Many do it and think it's no big deal. You would get upset that he/she sat in judgement of you, decided you were condemned and you would be upset at the idea that taking a few pens would keep you out of Heaven. You wouldn't want to know his/her Jesus or his/her God if he would condemn you over a few pens, would you?
This is what happens when you condemn gay people. You keep them from looking for answers in Christianity. It is up to GOD to deal with them just like he dealt with you and your sins. It is up to GOD to work with them and show them how to live a better life just like he has done with us. It is GOD's choice. Maybe God wants all types people to be Christian so they can reach others around them whether they be gay, rich, poor, etc. Everything is on his time table, we are all his creatures and he loves all of us and it is not his wish that we all become condemned to hell. He sent his son to die for us, all of us, even the people you think will never get in Heaven. He wants a relationship with us and if we go around condemning others and playing God, I don't think it will make him very happy or lead others to believing in his son. Just as you recognized one day that you were sinful and got on your knees to get forgiveness and accept Jesus's gift of eternal life, so may they, but they must do it on their own for the sins they feel they have done.
1Peter 4:8 Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another for love covers a multitude of sins.
We are to be ambassadors for Christ. We are to allow the Lord to guide us, change us and use us to reach others. We represent Christ and if we are going to go around condemning people we have missed the point of Jesus. He told us not to condemn in:
Luke 6:37 Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned.
Jesus came for the sinners which we all are :
I Timothy 1:15 It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.
I implore you to consider these words before you condemn others.
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Comments: 34
Otherwise being gay is just natural. It's natural for nature to have variations. The more people have bothered to look at nature scientifically the more they've found that.
That makes me feel a little less special and fabulous, but science can be so cold.
I struggle with spelling as words don't look right to me any more so I am always looking words up...guess my husband is right and I didn't get the spelling gene.
A couple of thoughts and a few of the things I say when talking to "christians".
Number 1 - Does your god make mistakes and if your god does then he is not god.
Number 2 - The bible says that you shall not spill your seed upon the ground - are people condemned if they masturbate or have nocturnal emissions.
Number 3 - When someone talks to me about their beliefs, they are just that, their beliefs. I ask that they keep their god off my body.
You are a sweet and caring woman and I appreciate that this whole article was very difficult for you.
Power and blessings to you and yours.
Thank you Sharon! Reading and quoting the Bible can be so taken out of context. If we are to follow what it says in the Old Testament, we would be still sacrificing animals for our atonement. Even the Jewish people do no do this any more. Why don't we do it? Because it was done so we would understand the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, the unblemished (sinless) lamb of God. Does it say anywhere in the Bible, forget sacrificing everyone, it's no longer needed? I don't think so. My point is not to invalidate what the Old Testament says, but to say it was written for a reason. The Old Testament is a history of God reaching out to his people. If they/we could follow the ten commandments, they/we wouldn't need Jesus. So maybe the ten commandments is what God wants us to follow but when we find we can't do it on our own, we understand to follow what God wants we need Jesus to help us do it.
King David sent Bathsheba's husband to the front lines of battle to his death to cover the sin that he slept with and made Bathsheba pregnant. Moses killed a man who mistreated a slave, and Paul held the coats when Stephen was stoned to death. All these Bible greats greatly sinned, but that don't say that in Sunday school. The point is that even Bible greats messed up. God didn't chose "perfect people" to work with. The main theme is that he knew their hearts and he knows ours and that is what is important to him, he is not a sin accountant, he is interested in our hearts.
I know you don't believe in what I believe and I respect you enormously. I hope you realize that I am explaining something few will say. I don't think God makes mistakes as there is a reason for everything even if I don't understand. Many things are awful in life, but I do believe we have free will and that there is a being, Satan who's sole purpose is to get everyone to think God doesn't exist or has forsaken them. "How can God love you after you did....?
I just get so angry when other people judge and hurt other people. I have it done to me, How can you be a christian when you are so large, isn't gluttonly a sin, why do you pray over your meal if you don't attend church very sunday and how do you still think you are a christian? What do you think your relationship is with God when you miss sunday service? Sometimes "church people" turn off and turn away others, and this is what I was trying to get across in this article.
Peace to you Sharon! And thank you for your friendship!
Thanks Kim! Love is the key!
(That will be a scary ignorant voter)
Then I read something interesting in this article that made me pause and realize it's very similar to something I am working on. I have a series that I am writing about discovering why I am the way I am as an adult and it tend to come down to a sexualized life that I have had. I was sexually abused by my Mother from a young age and became very aware of it in my early teens. I blocked out most before that age. I attended an all girls boarding school and I found out that I had crushes on girls and I wanted to do things with them sexually. I agonized that I was as sick as my Mother. I felt dirty and disgusting. Then as my teens ended I learnt more about bisexuality and homosexuality and I made friends with people in various lifestyles across the board.
I told someone very close to me that my Mother had made me gay and she said very seriously to me that she was raped by her Father and he didn't make her straight! As funny as that sounds I guess I came to realize that gay parents raise straight kids, abused kids can be straight or gay. It's not that. I'm bisexual and I may have been even if I hadn't had such trauma.
Anyway, as far as God loving me, when I am in my choosing to believe in God mode, I do feel that he/she/it/they are loving to all and if you go through life working toward the best life you can without doing harm to others then you will be welcomed in heaven, nirvana, valhalla, whatever. Or recycled into another lifetime etc. So, I just hit the rambling point. I'm done. :D
However, lately I have noticed a disturbing and increasing trend in the GLBTQ community as well - Christian bashing. Rather, maybe I should say Conservative Christian bashing. Both terms would be appropriate. I think judgment and condemnation coming from either side are a waste of time and energy. Until we have reach out in respect and love to each other, neither side will ever listen to what the other is saying.
Matthew 7:1-5Do not judge so that you will not be judged For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
If only people would worry about their own sins and relationship with Jesus and God maybe there could be less bashing. It is a waste of time because the only one we can change is ourselves.
But the anti-gay politics makes it VERY un-ignorable.
Sometimes I believe that hell is right here on this Earth. So is heaven. That maybe it if you go seeking hell in things.....you will find it......and some folks will take it so far as to look for company in the hell of their own making that they can't even see heaven when it is before them.
Since when was real love shared between two beings wrong? And since when was joy meant to be stolen or disgraced.
You cannot help who you love........and when you are with the person who you have chosen.....no.....are compelled to love.....it is concentric.....I believe anyway. How could that not be of God.
If I am wrong.....I am sure God will let me know. But I am not accepting the condemnation of someone with the devil in their heart. Because I am sure....that is not of God.
I hope that made sense. Thank you.