gay marriage

My dear friends, I’ve been silent here lately because like most of us, I’ve been sorting through the tornado of emotions, thoughts, words, pictures, posts, news reports, celebrations, sermons, and sound bites, the hatred, the venom, the slurs, the lifting up and the tearing down of one another in multiple given scenarios just this month… and especially this past week… sifting each of them through the permanent filter of God’s Word, seeking what He would have ME to personally do with the information coming and going from all directions.

On one hand, my heart is heavy because this “one nation under God” no longer seems to want to remain that way.  National sorrow over sin hasn’t been recognized in some time.  But lately?…We have jumped from “tolerating” what the Bible names as sin to celebrating, promoting, and encouraging it.  If we measure solely according to what we see and hear in the media, it would appear that the whole nation is embracing this new way of thinking and living with open arms. We know this isn’t really the case, but if we’re not careful, we can allow ourselves to become overwhelmed into thinking it is so.

However, there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9), so we can be assured that our 240 year old country hasn’t invented anything that hasn’t already happened in every other country around the globe since the beginning of time. So, on the other hand, my heart remains at peace, secured in the foundational Truth that what is happening in the 2015 USA is no surprise to our All-Knowing, All-Powerful, All-Reiging God!

It is no accident that you and I are alive and active in this world today.  As was the testimony of Esther and David, we too were born for such a time as this, to serve God’s will and purpose in our own generation.  (Esther 4:14 and Acts 13:36)  

So we will not be discouraged!  We will not adopt a defeatist attitude!  Though our nation is begging to lose its specialness and become like every other nation in the world, and though one day soon God may choose to give us over to our majority’s desires, God remains on His Throne!!!  He is still King of all Kings.  He still loves the world.  And God expects His children to continue to act and react in the ways He has taught us from the beginning – He has commanded us to look and act like our Daddy in both Truth and Love.  (Ephesians 5:1)

I said all of that to say this, which is my “official” statement on the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage.

In numerous conversations, the issue has become a debate about whether or not God loves homosexuals, especially those who are Christians. This is how God has led me to address this issue:

God absolutely loves His children!! ALL who belong to Him are precious & cherished & intimately loved to a depth beyond our ability to comprehend. (Jeremiah 31:3) However, in His love, God set up boundaries within which we are to live.  When any of God’s children deviate from those boundaries, like a loving parent disciplines his/her child, we too experience the result of God’s discipline.

This new picture of “American Marriage” is outside of God’s boundaries set up in His Word – established as early as Genesis 2, and the fact that our nation is celebrating and promoting this “marriage” is what grieves me so.

I cast no stones. I am a sinner saved by God’s Grace. In my own life, I am sad to say that I push and cross God’s boundaries daily, and because God loves me and is true to His Word, He often allows me to suffer the consequences, which eventually lead me to repentance… And when I repent and seek forgiveness, always He forgives and restores. Always.

We must not let ourselves think that this is an issue about who God loves. That, too, was settled early in the Scripture, with the “when” & “why” God created man and woman in the first place. Then, there’s the ultimate act of love that was demonstrated for us when in knowing that we were still, and would always continue to be sinners, Jesus gave His life to pay the penalty for ALL of our sins (Romans 5:8). Now THAT is LOVE! True Love! The kind of LOVE that WINS and lasts forever!

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him should have Eternal life.” John 3:16 ❤

Praise the Lord! He loves us ALL!

So what are we, as Christ-followers to be doing in this 2015 USA?  The Lord kept bringing one passage back to my mind over and over again: Micah 6:6-8

6 With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?

7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, and to love kindness and mercy, and to humble yourself and walk humbly with your God?

                                       Micah 6:6-8 (AMP)

What does the Lord require of us?
 
1.  To do justly.  To do what is right.  To obey the Lord and His Word.  To make sure that our own lives are lining up with His Word before we begin to point any fingers at anyone else.  Remember: People will not be brought to Jesus Christ by the pointing of fingers and casting of stones.  Let’s let God Have His way in our own lives and make sure we are being obedient.  That’s how He begins to change the world one person at a time.  When you and I begin to do justly, God begins to work mightily.

2.  To love kindness and mercy.  Not just to practice kindness and mercy for duty’s sake, but to live in such a way that we delight to be kind and merciful in our actions and reactions.  For me (and most of us) this is H.A.R.D. work!  But it is the way that others will know that we belong to Jesus.  It is how they will see Jesus in us and through us, and how they will be drawn to His presence in our lives.

I give you a new commandment: that you should love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you too should love one another. By this shall all [men] know that you are My disciples, if you love one another [if you keep on showing love among yourselves].  John 13:34-35 (Amp)

If this seems impossible, take heart.  “What’s impossible with men is possible with God” (Luke 18:27).  Because “God will give you both the desire and the power to do what pleases Him” (Ephesians 2:13).  Praise the Lord!

3.  Humble yourself and walk humbly with your God.  This is the key!  If we are making sure that we are being obedient and loving… if we’re not careful, we will become proud of ourselves for doing so!  😉

The most unattractive and ineffective witness for the Lord Jesus Christ is a prideful, selfish one.  Yet isn’t that the type of secret sin most of us are battling deep within our own hearts?  You and I may not be struggling with the “big” sins in the world spotlight right now, but these sins of selfishness and pride are the ones that trip up the Kingdom progress every single day.  Pride is the sin that keeps you and me from bowing ourselves low enough to the ground to humbly receive the  low assignments God has for us and the blessings that always accompany them.  Pride is the culprit that prevents unity among the body of believers, within families, and between friends.  Pride is the thief of peace.

In the days to come, in whatever it is that happens in our nation, state, city, church, or home, how would God have us to respond?  1.  To do what His Word says.  2.  To love others.  and 3.  To humble ourselves and walk Humbly with God right through it one step at a time.  He will lead the way.

And though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide Himself any more, but your eyes will constantly behold your Teacher.

And your ears will hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way; walk in it, when you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left.

Isaiah 30:20-21 (Amp)

With love to and thankfulness for each of you, Smelling Coffee friends~

Keep reading, friends, for more about this love, as quoted from the Billy Graham association: