I just wonder where this notion came from that as Christians if we aren’t “laying down the law” or “smacking someone on the head with the Bible” that we are not true Christians and couldn’t possibly love God enough.
Sin disgusts me, period!!
Part of the issue for me is that while we condemn gay people some of them are also being beaten by the person that’s supposed to love them. I’m sure they deserve that because of their sin. Someone who has sex outside of marriage DESERVES to get pregnant or an STD or AIDS. They asked for their own suffering. Someone who grew up being abused and neglected deserves to spend the rest of their life in that cycle because they magically know how to act different and simply choose not to. Or that person that walks into church at 30 and knows very little about God DESERVES to have you not not judge her but make sure she knows how messed up and wrong her life is and that she should change today. After all if you love God you have peace and should change and be like Him with the snap of a finger.
I know those thoughts probably seem ludicrous and completely off base but I fear that that is what many people get from well meaning people that truly love God. I have been thinking a lot lately about getting pregnant with Justin when I was 17. Everyone treated me like I was terrible and that the rest of my life was destroyed because I did something I wasn’t supposed to do. It has become abundantly clear in the last year that what I have always said is true. Justin SAVED me!! God may not have caused me to be pregnant but I believe with all my heart He ALLOWED it in order to SAVE me. I can clearly see now that very few if any people around me knew anything about mental health. Mom said a lady at church is the reason why she took me to be evaluated in the first place. But I choose to believe that no one knew what they were looking at, no one had the experience or reason to think that I could have Bipolar. But it is so clear to me that many of my issues during my teenage years stem directly from it. I am a sweet, kind, big hearted person. Always have been but that got hidden for years. And for that I am so so sad. But God used my son, my sin, to save me. He uses our mistakes and our broken to SAVE us and make us better if we will just allow Him to. I have always believed Justin saved me somehow, but since being diagnosed I have realized that there’s a very good chance that I am still growing with God because I had Him in my life. He changed everything and for that there is no greater reward than going to heaven.
We as Christians should be loving and kind. We should try to show people their errors and not just call them out and condemn them. Not quote Bible verses to them. If you don’t know or believe in God how much sense does it make to use scripture as your reasoning. That works for me and other believers. But God confidently made most things with a vision of people being able to understand it, without a bunch of studying. We should definitely study and learn but ALL that is necessary to be saved is a love, need, and desire to know Him and learn His ways. We will send our whole lives learning and growing, even us “perfect” Christians. We are not perfect and never will be the sooner we can accept this and accept Gods amazing grace the better off we will all be no matter what the president, Supreme Court, or anyone else has to say.
