Nothing has actually changed…
You’d have to live under a rock to have been unaware of the events of the past week or so with the racially motivated murders of nine of our family in South Carolina and then the decision of another nine people that is in the most basic language I can muster – a thumb in the eye of The LORD.
I’ve been reminded several times over the past several days as I have prayed and spent time with GOD that the real issue is still the same…it’s not race (which the term drives me nuts – there’s only one race, the human race…ethnicity is a far better more accurate descriptor), it’s not sexual orientation, it’s not political affiliation. It’s our hearts.
C.S. Lewis is credited with saying in “The Great Divorce”, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.”
We’re all guilty of having broken, sin-sick hearts – of our making. I was born with the sin of Adam but on my own have I sinned against GOD. I most definitely have had a self-centered desire to go my own way on many things and in the end was faced with an immutable Truth that was unchanging, unyielding, and undeniable. His name is Jesus. (Heb 13:8)
No one will go to hell for any reason except for their rejection of CHRIST. People will not be separated from GOD forever because they were gay, cheated on their spouse, lied and stole, or even murdered someone…nope, won’t happen. What will happen is that without genuine repentance for our sin and faith in GOD’s redemptive plan, which was completed by Jesus, we most certainly will be separated from GOD and everything good forever. (Rom 6:23)
Social media has blown up with memes, celebrations and protests. I found it ironic that the hashtag ‘lovewins’ was adopted as the celebratory expression for the issue of gay marriage. For a couple different reasons…against the backdrop of Scripture for those that GOD will say “thy will be done” to, yes…love wins…self-centered, self-serving, self-satisfying love wins. Another facet to consider is that love WON. 2000 years ago on a cross Love beat the crap out of hell and it was a once for all victory…if we really understood that would we be so quick to volitionally keep doing what Jesus went to the cross for? (Rom 6:1)
I have many gay friends who I love. Some are believers and some are not. Those that are my family in CHRIST will walk through this life having this facet of who they are colliding against what GOD has called them to (1 Cor 16:13). My gay friends who are not believers (as well as my straight friends who are not believers) I pray will come to a saving knowledge of CHRIST. Who He is, how great His love is for them, how great a sacrifice was made on their behalf by Him, and as an outgrowth of genuine faith a desire to honor Him in every aspect of their lives. (Eph 4:14-21)
For those that have read Randy Alcorn you might be familiar with the dot and the line analogy. Essentially the time we live here on earth is a ‘dot’ on a page, the period at the end of a sentence. The time we spend in eternity is a never-ending ‘line’ that will go on forever. Randy encourages people to live for the ‘line’ not the ‘dot’. As a believer in CHRIST you’re going to be in the ‘line’ forever…shouldn’t your life here and now reflect that? Not to burst a bubble – but…Scripture says that there will be no eternal marriage but that which is between Jesus and us, His bride – the church (Matthew 22:30). Have we lost sight of this fact? Or, do we know that and just don’t care…we want what we want – and we want it now.
I definitely have a proclivity to act on things that I want…being totally honest a number of those things are sinful. When the dust settles (pun not intended) I want what GOD wants…in those moments of self-assessment I pray that He would examine my heart and bring to my attention any offensive thing and then with The Holy Spirit’s conviction bring those things into the light (Psalm 139:23-24).
I’d like to share some of a message that was given by John Piper three years ago…
After warning the Corinthians not to fall back into lives of sinful practice Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 6:11, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
This is the heart of biblical Christianity. “Such were some of you.” There are Christians in the church at Corinth who were fornicators and adulterers and thieves and drunkards and “men who practiced homosexuality.” They were not driven away. They were folded in.
And the way they were folded in was that they were “justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” That is, they put their trust in Jesus, they turned from their practice, they renounced sinful pursuit of their desires, and God justified them — he imputed to them the righteousness of Christ, and counted them as acceptable in his sight, and adopted them into his family — our family.
They were washed. That is, God took away all their guilt and shame. “Christ himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24). So when they trusted Christ, all that he did counted for them, their sins were washed away.
And then they were “sanctified” — God set them apart for himself and gave them his Spirit and was working in them a power for holiness that would swallow up their disordered desires in something greater and more beautiful and more desirable so that they could walk in a way pleasing to God, even in their brokenness.
The heart of Christianity is that God saves sinners through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The best news in all the world is that Jesus Christ died and rose again so that — homosexual or heterosexual — can be rescued from his path of destruction, washed, justified, sanctified and given a place in God’s all-satisfying presence, by faith in Jesus Christ. This is the heart of our message.
For now, in this moment, I do settle into GOD’s “sovereignity”…that’s a peace (serenity) that GOD’s got all of this (sovereign).
GBU – 2 Cor 5:20
