I realize I haven’t written a post here for quite a while…but this was too important to not write at such a late hour…
My heart has been burdened by everything that has been going on in the fallout of the Religious Freedom Act that recently passed in Indiana….and not for the reasons that you might think…
I am troubled watching people whom I love give into fear and into the misleading rhetoric of the media. It is that fear that I believe controls us. I believe we fight fear not with politics and debates, but by exposing those fears…
Recently, I wrote these words in a comment status in one of my facebook posts…in it, I reveal why I am afraid of those who don’t believe the same as I do…This is my heart guys…
“First, for clarification, again, I am not denouncing my church family nor my fellow Christians…nor will I denounce the God whom I serve, nor the Savior, Jesus Christ, who has saved me…
I believe that God defines what is right and wrong, not man nor emotions….I believe that scripture is very clear about not only homosexuality, but other sins….
I believe that we are born with the ability to sin…everyone has a specific sin that is genetic…sin we may have to fight with for the rest of our lives…
I believe that our identity doesn’t have to be defined by our sins…but by the redemption from our sins through Jesus Christ, who was both Man and God…
I also believe that ppl will twist scripture to mean whatever they want it to mean; specifically that it paints a picture of a hostile, angry, selfish God…which, at face value, makes sense…
Yet, with context of history, Jewish culture, lives that have been changed through out history, and personal experience, we can understand and see (written in this text) the truth of a God who is both Merciful yet Just in a way that humanity may never completely understand…
Now that this piece of information is out of the way, let me continue…
Let me begin by saying, I wouldn’t say I have ever been afraid of ppl from the LGBT community…at least not in the way that most might assume…
The first time I even heard that being LGBT was possible was during the 2004 election, so, that would be high school…I didn’t think much of it and just thought it was weird, but wasn’t afraid that LGBT would take over America, even it was listed as a threat everywhere I turned…
Then came college, and i had to figure out where I stood on this issue….and while I believed (and still believe) that the act is wrong, I came to a realization…both sides of the debate are human, both sides struggle with sin, both sides need the love of God and not some stupid political law to bring them freedom or rights…
I have met people from all walks of life who have put there identity in the LGBT, as well as friends and family I have known for most of my life. And that made me realize that this was not just some political or culture war.
I believe that Jesus would treat someone from the LGBT community the same as He treated the woman caught in adultery whom he saved in John 8 from religious accusers:
“Woman, does no one condemn you? Then neither do I condemn you. Now go, and leave your life of sin.”
And that is what I want to say to all of my friends who believe differently then I do…as well as my Christian friends who are straying…And there you have my conviction…but with that conviction came some fear…
THIS IS MY FEAR: That because of my beliefs, that those who believe differently then me would call me bigot, homophobe and maybe even NOT a Christian…
What most of you don’t know is that I have been called these things…but I have also been called F-ggot…
I have lived in this fear for a while, not because it’s true, but because it’s not true. I have gone out of my way to test my own motives and prove that to you, my friends…I live in fear of being accused of something that I am not…I live in fear of being seen as a stereotype and not a person. That my attempts to encourage love would be seen as something insincere…
I live in fear of losing friends…of losing the love of people that mean the world to me…I live in fear of being misunderstood…I live in fear of being ostracized from the very people that I love…both Christians and everyone else…
(I dont want to sound cliche, but I am literally writing this with tears streaming down my eyes…)
But I don’t want to live in fear anymore…There is a God who cares about me and understands who I am more then anyone ever could…It’s because of His Love that He has shown me, that I can live a life without fear and a life where I can love those whom I should be seeing as an enemy…
And now you know my fear…What are your fears, my friends?
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