When Paul confronted fornication within the Corinthian church, he told them to judge the sin in their own house, and to leave the sin of those outside the house of God in the hands of God. Paul writes, It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, “You must remove the evil person from among you.” ~ 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 NLT
As Christians we are called to live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity to be a testimony of the goodness of God. Our conversation is to be gracious and attractive so that we will have the right response for everyone. ~ See Colossians 4:5-6
Waging political warfare against groups of people outside the Christian faith such as the LGBTQ community is not walking wisely towards them, nor is it gracious and attractive for the cause of Christ. It only further isolates them.
In Titus 3, Paul instructs that we should not slander anyone and we must avoid quarreling and to be gentle and show true humility to everyone. Paul then reminds us that once we, too, were foolish and disobedient. We were misled and became slaves to many lusts and pleasures. Our lives were full of evil and envy, and we hated each other…
But then something happened!
But—When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior. Because of his grace he made us right in his sight and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life. ~ Titus 3:4-7
As Christians we are not called to condemn the world for not living up to our moral standards, and neither are we called to wage political warfare against various groups of people such as the LGBTQ community. Rather we are called to be light to those who are lost in darkness. If you are a Christian, the gay married couple is not your enemy, they are your mission field!
This is understood when we consider the ministry of Jesus.
And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him. And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. ~ Matthew 9: 9-13
There is a whole lot in this one portion of scripture that upends the entire ideology that many Christians have been indoctrinated with.
First, consider that Jesus called a tax collector (Matthew) to be one of his disciples who would later become an apostle. Secondly, Jesus actually sat and dined with publicans and sinners in Matthew’s house.
How often have you heard of Christians inviting a gay couple from their neighborhood over for a meal? Yet Jesus modeled this when he sat with the publicans and sinners and ate with them. Jesus did not lead them to repentance by isolating them and dehumanizing them as untouchable sinners. No, Jesus led them to repentance, as a physician helping the sick. And he tells those who were appalled by his dining with publicans and sinners, go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.
Unfortunately, many within the church have yet to learn what it means, and if you are indoctrinated with the ideas of christian nationalism and you have made the LGBTQ you political enemy, you certainly don’t know what it means.
In closing, consider the words of Paul who writes the following:
And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. ~ 1 Timothy 1:12-16
Rooted and Grounded In Christ 
Thanks for this article.
How is it compatible with these verses
1 Corinthians 15:33
33 Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”
Psalms 119:115
115 Away from me, you evildoers, that I may keep the commands of my God!
Psalms 26:4-5
4 I do not sit with the deceitful, nor do I associate with hypocrites.
5 I abhor the assembly of evildoers and refuse to sit with the wicked.
Blessings Lex
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I wrote you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. In no way did I mean the immoral people of this world, or the greedy and swindlers and idolaters, since you would then have to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who calls himself a Christian who is sexually immoral, or greedy, or an idolater, or verbally abusive, or a drunkard, or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a person. For what do I have to do with judging those outside? Are you not to judge those inside? But God will judge those outside. ~ 1 Corinthians 5:9-13
Bad company corrupts good character actually applies to the influence that Christian nationalism has on Christians. What I have written in this article has to do with how we live our faith towards people who are lost. I am not encouraging anyone to hang out at the strip club with their co-workers or at bars with their drinking buddies as a way of evangelism. That would be unwise. What I am saying is that waging “political religious wars” against various groups of people is counterproductive to the evangelism we are called to.
Christian nationalism breeds mean attitudes within Christians, rather than settling them and establishing them in the grace of God.
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Praise our LORD for your deconstruction of “Christian Nationalism” in these three posts. I also praise the LORD for your use of the LGBTQ community as an example of the type of group of people who are very much in the firing line of the Christian Nationalists and the vitriolic hatred that they seethe with.
I would like to point out that the issue of sexuality was something that Jesus Himself was completely silent on during His time on Earth. This I know because the Lord led me to read every word He was recorded to have said. My Bible was not a red letter edition but it now is because I highlighted every word He said with a pink highlighter. The verses condemning homosexuality in Leviticus are the law. The law which we were freed from through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The book of Galatians is very clear on this. It states that if we insist on anybody observing one law then we must keep the whole law ourselves. The verses in the New Testament, i.e. Romans, actually deal with the Lord giving up gentiles to their false worship, temple prostitution being one of the chief forms of worship conducted in their temples. This has nothing to do with loving relationships between people at all.
I am a Christian, I am also gay. Please do not assume that all gay people are not saved because that cannot be further from the truth. I would like to draw your attention to the revelation that Peter had in Acts 10. The blanket with the non kosher animals. Three times the Lord told Peter not to call unclean what He has called clean. This was not about dietary laws, it was about people. It was about the gentiles who were being saved and being grafted into the body of believers. I am one of those, I have been grafted in through faith in Him Who died for me. I know that Jesus has saved me. I also know how faithful He is because when I, like the vast majority of the Church, believed that I was unclean because of my sexuality, I ran to hide from the Lord but every time I stopped, He was there. Why I thought that I could outrun the Omnipresent, Omniscient and Omnipotent God, I do not know but I did, to my shame, try to run. It did not matter because wherever I ran, which was, in the end, thousands of miles, He was there holding His hand out and telling me that He loved me. He left me only one choice, to stop running and listen to Him. I did and it was then that He led me to go straight to the heart of the matter in the Bible. He showed me that the sin of Sodom was not homosexuality but rape. The issue was the Sodomites did not care if the visitors (angels who had no gender) consented to their being “known” had they been allowed to, they would have committed the act even if the angels said no. He clarified for me that I was no longer under the law of sin and death but under His grace through faith in Him and that He knew me before He even created a single thing. He showed me that Adam and Eve being naked was only shameful and sinful AFTER they ate from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They walked with God in the cool of the day naked as the day in which they were created. He showed me that I was reconciled to God and that through His blood could walk with God in the cool of the day not shamed by anything, just as Adam and Eve did before the fall, through His blood. He even showed me that He knew before He created time that we would fall and that He planned for this. He showed me that the commandment not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was, in fact, the first form of the law of sin and death. He showed me that the even from creation, Adam and Eve were under the law of sin and death and this was planned for knowing already that they would disobey. He showed me that He planned for this so that through Jesus’ death, blood and resurrection He could fill the New Heaven and New Earth with those who freely chose to believe and who through faith alone received the free gift of salvation. More recently, I have learned, as He continues to teach me, that His ENTIRE plan of salvation is contained in the very first word of the Hebrew Bible, “BERESHEET”, which we translate “In the beginning”. I know He calls me clean because He has told me I am because I am washed in His blood. I know that He considers me righteous, not because of any deed I have done but because of the two way communication that I have with Him on a daily basis. The Lord would not talk to me nor would the Holy Spirit witness to the truth or react within me against “Trumpianity” a.k.a. “Christian Nationalism” guarding me against falling into the trap of the enemy who has disguised his lie inside a lot of truth to make another gospel. None of that would happen if I were estranged from God. I have had to learn at His feet, not at the foot of a pulpit and I am glad of that. What I know comes from Him and it is on Him that I rely, not any pastor, teacher or so called prophet, only Him and His word. I know that He loves and accepts me as I am just like every other believer. My salvation is through faith in Him, His spilt blood and His resurrection. His blood was shed for MY sin just as it was shed for every other believer. Of course I am a sinner, if I were not, I would not need salvation and Jesus would not have needed to die for me and for being a reason why He needed to give His life, I am truly sorry and turned from the life I lived without Him. I needed His salvation and He freely gave it to me. That is His GIFT to me and at no point has He said to me that I can only be saved if I become heterosexual, asexual, celibate or tear myself in half denying who I am and give Him only what the Church deems acceptable not the whole person He saved. He has not said this directly to me, nor has He shown me this through prayerful and open hearted study of His word. Sexual orientation was never a condition of salvation, ONLY faith in what the Lord has done when He fulfilled the law that we could not, died for our sins, rose from the dead, released us from the law of sin and death and brought us into His grace through faith not works.
Now, there is no law. The law of sin and death is done away with. So what then does keeping the Lord’s commandments mean to us as Christians? The Lord’s commandments are summed up as thus: To love the Lord our God with all our hearts with all our minds and with all our strength, to love our neighbour as ourselves (Jesus said that upon these two laws hang ALL the law and the prophets), to love one another as He has loved us (His new commandment) and to go out into the world and share the good news of salvation through faith in the death of Jesus for our sins and His resurrection through which we conquer death and enter into eternal life (His Great Commission). Jesus said when giving His New Commandment “By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another”. How did Jesus love us? He said “Greater love has no man than this, that a man gives up his life for his friends” then shortly after, He spread out His hands, was nailed to the cross and died for us. I ask everybody who reads this, would you die for our Lord or for any of your brethren? I pray that the Lord gives me the strength to do so should circumstances require that I do to glorify Him or strengthen my brethren, His disciples! We are reconciled to Him. That means that God speaks to us all the time. Keeping His commandments means that when He says go, we go, when He gives us something to say, we say it, when He tells us to help someone, we help them. We do this without question or hesitation and without thinking about what impact that will have on us or our lives because we are crucified with Christ. Of course we live but it is Christ living in us now, we are under His management. THAT is keeping God’s commandments… DAILY DOING WHAT HE IS TELLING US TO DO THAT DAY. The law sufficed while we were estranged from God but now we are RECONCILED to God through the blood of Jesus and that means we have a RELATIONSHIP with Him and need to listen to His still small voice and do what He tells us to do.
I know from everything that I have read on this site that you are both preaching and adhering to these commandments of love and sharing the Gospel and again I praise God that you are doing so. It seems that huge swathes of the Church are falling into the trap of “Christian Nationalism”. I am joining you in prayer against this religious extremism, against the spirit of antichrist (which is the other spirit of the other gospel) and for the believers falling prey to this false gospel. I pray also for you, that the Lord continues to strengthen you and help you to stand strong in the face of adversity.
Love in the Lord, Terry
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Thank you for investing the time to write your comment. It is my sincere hope that you will prayerfully consider my response which is being written with genuine sincerity and kindness.
Too many times we see what we want to see in the scriptures. The homophobic person, sees a God who hates gay people, and who condemns gay people, thus they feel justified in expressing their ugly behavior towards those within the LGBTQ community.
Conversely, it is easy to justify homosexuality by appealing to the doctrine of grace and salvation by faith. I am convinced this is what has happened with you based on what you have written. You said, “I would like to point out that the issue of sexuality was something that Jesus Himself was completely silent on during His time on Earth.” Secondly, you said, “I read every recorded word that Jesus said.”
Contrary to your conclusion, Jesus did address sexual sins in the gospels on multiple occasions. Consider his words from the Sermon of the Mount:
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. ~ Matthew 5:27-28
Adultery heart is a heart issue.
Likewise, Jesus refers to fornications as sin which comes from the heart in Matthew 15:19 and Mark 7:21.
In scripture same sex relations fall under the category of fornications. Jude specifically refers to the men of Sodom as fornicators (Jude 1).
Yes, they were sexual predators, but they were also fornicators. Never once does the scriptures justify same sex relationships and there is not a single text that even speaks well of it. That should be worth considering.
You mentioned that homosexuality is condemned in Leviticus under the law and you appealed to the book of Galatians that we are not justified by the law, to which I agree, but this does not change the fact that those things which were revealed as universal sins under the law are now justified under grace.
Paul says to the Romans, What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. ~ Romans 6:1-4
As we go through Romans 6, we find that walking in the newness of life means following the Spirit in a life that pleases God. Justification by faith through grace leads us to seek to serve God in obedience to Christ. And if you truly want to obey the will of God for your life you will take to heart those texts in New Testament which deal with sexual purity.
You wrote a lot about Jesus’s death and resurrection to justify your sexual orientation, but there was no mention of the work of the cross in your life in relation to the Spirit of the Lord leading you into a crucified life. You have communicated to me that God has justified your same sex passion/attraction/desires rather than calling you to a surrendered life pleasing to Him. There is no mention of your willingness to give up your sexual orientation for the Lord’s sake.
Could it be that it is your own heart that is justifying your lifestyle rather than the Lord? Consider this question in view of the scriptures.
In Galatians (the same book you cited regarding not being justified by the law) Paul refers to fornication as a work of the flesh contrary to the leading of the Spirit (Galatians 5:19). In Ephesians, Paul says, that fornication should not be named even once among us once we have become saints. ~ Ephesians 5:3
Why do you justify homosexuality as if the Lord has led you this way when the apostles said otherwise. In Acts 15, fornication was one of the things that the apostles and elders admonished the Gentile believers to abstain from even though they had determined that these same Gentiles were not under any obligation to be circumcised and come under the Law. So while we are free from the Law, we should abstain from fornication of which homosexuality is a part.
Again, homosexuality is a kind of fornication.
Consider Paul’s words from his first epistle to the Thessalonians:
Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more. For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication: That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor; Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God: That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified. For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit. ~ 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
Throughout your comment you repeatedly speak of what the Lord has shown you as if you are being led by the Spirit, but your claim does not align with Paul’s words to the Thessalonians. God’s will is our sanctification and this includes abstaining from fornication of which homosexuality is a part. Paul explicitly says God’s will is that we know how to possess our vessel (our body) in sanctification and honor. Not in lust of concupiscence (sexual desires).
Paul tells the Corinthians that no effeminate (homosexual) person shall inherit the Kingdom of God. If you were my neighbor I would be kind to you and treat you with respect, but I have to tell you the truth. God has not led you into a mindset that justifies homosexuality. It is your own heart that has done so.
May God grant you the grace you need to seek to live according to his will and not yours.
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One thing that you referred to was Jude 1v7. Here you highlighted the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah saying that the sin of Sodom was called fornication by Jude when he wrote the epistle. Ok he does say that Sodom, Gomorrah and the cities around them were given over to fornication. That much is clearly set out in the account given in Genesis. It is you, however, who is interpreting that to mean that HOMOSEXUALITY is fornication. Nowhere does it say that, not in Jude 1 or in Genesis 19. It is an assumption made and overlaid onto what the scriptures ACTUALLY say. Jude said that the Sodomites (those who dwelt in the city of Sodom, not homosexuals) were given over to fornication. Careful not to add to what God has said and not to take away from it either. Revelation 22v18-19 is a very serious admonition and I do not believe that the book of prophecy referred to is just the book of Revelation but the entire canon of God’s word. From Beresheet (In the beginning) in Genesis 1v1 to Amen in Revelation 22v21.
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I take great exception to this phrase “you as if you are being led by the Spirit”. Do not try to put in doubt my walk with God, that is not becoming of a Christian and certainly not of a Christian minister. My walk with God is with Him not you. What God tells me is between Him and me with the exception of when He tells me to share what He has said to me. That I am doing and it is not on my behalf because I know what He has said to me and I am utterly persuaded that I am saved. I am doing it on behalf of all of the LGBTQIA+ community, the community you consider a mission field. I am sharing because you are in danger of giving them the wrong message and causing even greater estrangement between the community and the Church.
You can quote as many scriptures as you like about fornication. That is not the subject under discussion. What is under discussion is sexual orientation and sex WITHIN the context of a loving committed relationship. Fornication falls OUTSIDE of this context. Again you are assuming much more than basing your contention on actual facts. You are giving viewpoints you were taught by other heterosexual men which they were taught by the generation of heterosexual men who taught them. You are giving “as gospel” views which do not stand up in the face of the whole body of scripture without even giving them a second thought just because that is what has always been taught. That is so easy to do but that is how we ended up with nothing but an idolatrous church, men standing between us and God, praying to saints, praying to Mary, running around the world to visit that collection of bones, this bit of the cross, yet another thorn from the crown of thorns etc etc etc and with no access to God’s word in our own tongue. God is asking you to question what man has told you and to instead listen to what HE says. Casting doubt on whether or not I am led by the spirit is very dangerous indeed. To do so could put you in danger of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit so I advise great caution before you continue with that vein of thought.
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On sanctification. To be sanctified is to be set apart unto Him. That I am. Through faith in Him, His crucifixion, His spilt blood, His death, His resurrection, His ascension into Heaven and the hope of His return as King. I have not nor will I ever advocate that any believer does not repent from a life of sin, wickedness or evil because that is not what Jesus taught us. Nor will I accept anybody telling me what sin is based on a law that Jesus has freed me from. What Jesus wants me to abstain from, He will tell me to AND I WILL OBEY. We were filled with the Holy Spirit so He can lead us and teach us and tell us what is and is not His will for our lives. Listening to Him and following what He tells us is how He always intended us to live.
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In Matthew 15:19 Jesus mentioned fornications as sins which come from the heart. There are many types of fornication and homosexuality is one of them.
The word, fornications, in Matthew 15:19 comes from the Greek word πορνεία (porneia) a description of illicit sexual intercourse and includes adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, and intercourse with animals etc.
Men having sex with men, and women having sex with women is fornication, and this is why Jude refers to the men of Sodom and Gomorrah as fornicators. Paul condemns men with men and women with women as DISHONORING their bodies BETWEEN THEMSELVES, (See Romans 1).
The same Greek word used in Matthew 15:19 for fornication , πορνεία (porneia), which includes homosexuality and lesbianism, is used in Galatians 5:19 and is described as a lust of the flesh. in Ephesians 5:3 it is referred to as a sin that should not even be named among us once we have become Saints. It is also used in 1 Thessalonians 4:3 as something we should abstain from because it is the will of God that we possess our vessel (our body) in sanctification and honor.
I could go on, but if you truly are genuine about wanting to serve Christ, you will take what the scriptures say to heart. The truth is you don’t want to see homosexuality as sin because it is a sin you love and don’t want to give up. That is just the reality. Yet Paul says that no effeminate person will inherit the Kingdom of God.
You claim that God speaks to you, but what you claim he tells you is contrary to what he says in the holy scriptures.
You made the following statement: “You can quote as many scriptures as you like about fornication. That is not the subject under discussion. What is under discussion is sexual orientation and sex WITHIN the context of a loving committed relationship. Fornication falls OUTSIDE of this context.”
Your comment is full error because sex between two people of the same gender is never approved of in scripture and is ALWAYS condemned as sin. It matters not how much you love another man, you aren’t to have sex with them. In scripture we have examples of men who loved one another dearly but they weren’t romantic in sexual relationships with one another. David and Johnathan are one example. The scripture says, the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul (1 Samuel 18:1),
Jonathan and David loved one another dearly, and I would say even deeper than you love your partner, but they did not have sex with one another. Loving another man deeply does not mean you marry him and have sex with him to fulfill that love. Godly love between two men is holy, sex between two men is lust.
Regarding sanctification, we are called to live a life of sanctification according to God’s word.
Regarding your claim that you will not accept anyone telling you what sin is based on the law, speaks volumes of lack of understanding of the truth of God because Jesus and the apostles all appealed to the law when addressing what sin is.
According to the law, taking God’s name in vain is sin, worshipping idols is sin, murder is sin, lying is sin, adultery is sin, covetousness is sin, stealing is sin – Have these things ceased to be sin because we are no longer under the law? Did Jesus free to do these things because we are no longer under the law? Am I free to lie, steal, and commit adultery because those things are sins under the law, while claiming at the same tile I am saved by faith in Jesus? That’s not faith, that’s deception. Christ changes the heart so that I want to please God and do his will.
You claim that you will not let anyone tell you what sin is based on the law. Does that include not letting Jesus tell you what is because he expounded on the law. Not being under the Law does not mean we are free to do the things that the law reveals as sins. Murder is sin under the law! Has it ceased to be sin? Can you murder and claim to have faith in Jesus while committing that act?
You should know better.
You also wrote, “What Jesus wants me to abstain from, He will tell me to AND I WILL OBEY. “ Is that what you think he is telling you in your human mind and your own heart, or is that what he tells you in his inspired word, the scriptures. Paul told Timothy that the holy scriptures, are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. ~ 2 Timothy 3:15-17
Anyone reading our comments can readily see that you are appealing to what you hear, feel, and think, and what you want Jesus to be like. I am appealing to what is written in the scriptures – the very scriptures that reveal Jesus to us.
Your error is you are NOT holding what you think you are hearing accountable to what is written. What you claim is Christ leading you is contrary to his word. You cannot show me a single text anywhere in scripture where homosexual relationships are approved by God. They are condemned every single time. God created male and female to become one in marriage.
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Terry and Michael, I’m grateful to have been able to read this conversation between the two of you, because it is an important matter for us all. It really is important to me personally.
Terry, thank you for being vulnerable here by sharing your understanding. My heart is for you, as I have dear and close loved ones who are same sex attracted. I praise God that you have a love of the Word, a knowledge of the Word and zeal for the truth!
In love I say, I do agree with what Michael has shared, AND I know how badly it cuts to receive it. The Word cuts us. It is living and active and sharper than any double edged sword. It’s job is to show us our sin, and please don’t think you’re alone, or that your struggle is unique. We are all cut, and we all struggle with our own sin. We all wrestle with YHWH alone for the faith, so that it becomes our own.
We must all deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Jesus. The crosses we carry are personal, but Christ does sympathize with us, as He was tempted in like manner as we are.
It is so hard to let the Word do it’s job, to reveal sin, to cut, to point us to our desperate need for the Savior that really does save… not to okay us continuinh in our sin, but to rise above it, through Him.
I have heard the view you’ve shared, and I can be honest and say, at times, I’ve wished it were true, for my loved ones sakes, because, in the weakness of my flesh, I wish it to be easier for them. However, I know that it is the hard thing that Christ asks of us, not the easy thing. He asks us to love Him and trust Him the most, above ourselves, and He empowers us to do it.
I have a loved one who is a gay Christian who for over 30 years has been faithful to Christ in a way that I can only marvel at. He has been called to carry a different cross than mine.
From where I stand, it looks terribly heavy and lonely and more than one man can bear. I have other loved ones who are faced with the daunting task of carrying a similar cross, and I can understand every attempt to try to find some other way! But there is no other way but to pick it up and follow Christ. It is too heavy to carry alone, and that is why God gives us His Spirit.
My gay, Christian friend is one of the strongest Christians I know. His faith and his faithfulness encourage me daily as I struggle under the weight of my own cross.
God has a way of using our struggles, the very things that can sink us, to lift us up and to lift others up too, when we trust Him.
I hope you recognize what God has called you to. He has spoken to your heart and shown you that His Word is true and that He loves you dearly, that you are accepted in Christ, AND that is not so that you can continue as before.You are a new creature in Christ! You must rightly divide the Word. “The sum of Thy Word is truth.”
There is a quote that I love that says, “He lifts Thee up, that ye may go further down.”
Terry, YOU are the missionary that God is preparing. The harvest is ripe, but the workers are few!
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Excellent response and seasoned with grace. Thank you.
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