Not too long ago, I went off line at about
4:30 to finish cleaning up the house and get supper started for Bruce
for when he got home from work. We both like to listen to the news when
it comes on at 5pm so I turned the TV on our local news station so that
it would be on the right channel when the news came on. While cleaning
I realized that the show playing then was Oprah and she had on a young
country music star who had apparently recently come out and said she was
a lesbian. She told a heart wrenching story of how she hid it all her
life from everyone including her parents and how being brought up in a
good Christian home she was sure she was hated by God and would go to
hell for it. Her story was truly heart wrenching and my heart went out
to her and to all those like her.
Unfortunately she still doesn't understand the Truth. She thinks she feels a billion times better now because she's told the truth and she's not "living a lie" anymore. And well she should! Lying is a sin (as she knew too) and of course "living a lie" is a sin as well. Sin hurts us in many ways and hurts those around us. So here are these poor people who are so enslaved to many sins that they feel their only way out is to either kill themselves and get it over with, or be a practicing homosexual and decide (somehow) that God doesn't see homosexuality as a sin anymore.
What's even sadder is that many of these people were raised in "good Christian homes" and went to "good Christian churches". Where then was the discipleship they so badly needed when they were young??? Why then do they not understand that God never hated them because they were tempted to sin??? He hates the sin, not them. Where is their understanding that God doesn't make mistakes, that He doesn't create people as "homosexuals" or pedophiles, or thieves, or murderers, or liars etc. Why do they not understand that all of those things, like so many others, are quite simply sins and temptations??? Why do they not understand that God has called us to take our thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ???
Do they seriously believe that God creates people to be murderers and thieves and homosexuals??? Apparently they do, but they are so very wrong!
How very sad that they feel they have to act on their sinful desires in order to "be happy." All they had to do was tell the truth about their sinful desires to have a homosexual relationship instead of hiding them. It's when we hide our sins that we give Satan a hold over us and many of these people obviously hid this sin for a very long time. Then instead of confessing the sinful thoughts/feelings and taking them captive in Christ, they went the other way and determined to find a way to reconcile their sin and yet remain "Christian". Just as Adam blamed God for his sin when he said, "the woman you gave me" made me do it, so they are blaming God for their sin by saying "God made me this way so it's His fault".
And now they are blaming those "good Christian churches" for all their problems and this young lady actually said that churches are ruining young people by telling them that homosexuality is wrong!!!
Unfortunately she's right in some ways. Churches that haven't been or aren't discipling their youngsters, and parents that are waiting for the church to teach their children God's Ways instead of doing it themselves are hurting the young.
Our children should all know that they will be tempted many times in many ways, but that being tempted doesn't make them "bad"and isn't a sin. It doesn't become a sin until we act on the temptation or dwell on the temptation. It simply means that they need to turn to the Lord for His help and they need to be taught how to guard their minds and hearts by taking their thoughts captive for Christ. Basically, it means they're human! They need to know that they can always go to God about any thought or feeling they have and that He loves them always and that He will help them. That doesn't mean that He will make it easy for them though. There's a big difference between helping someone and doing it for them! And that's a HUGE thing that many people today simply don't get anymore.
Everyone wants everything handed to them on a silver platter instead of having to work for it. While God does give us gifts that way sometimes, for the most part He requires us to work out our salvation and use the tools He's given us in His Word.
I could go on and on about what they "should" have been taught, and what they should know, but you get the idea. What's so horribly sad though is that now, because these people think that they have finally been "freed" they are preaching their "salvation" to everyone, using every means at their disposal--TV, Radio, movies, the Internet, meetings and community groups, political activism etc.
Some of them are in many ways a part of this "new Christianity", that Warren, Piper, and others preach--but it's a Christianity without the Gospel and those people are going to go to Hell and will bring everyone else right along with them! So this half of the homosexual group is attacking the church, the body of Christ, with all the ammunition they can bring on it, and the other half, the half that are "atheists" are paving the way for them in society by mocking God.
It really opened my eyes (even wider) to how very active Satan is in our times! It's like an old fashioned cattle round up, only humans are the cattle and they're being rounded up to go to Hell. I think these people, these "stars" are going to be at the forefront of the battle to have the bible banned as hate speech and that's just part of what they'll accomplish. The question is, how much of it will we witness before the rapture???
Unfortunately she still doesn't understand the Truth. She thinks she feels a billion times better now because she's told the truth and she's not "living a lie" anymore. And well she should! Lying is a sin (as she knew too) and of course "living a lie" is a sin as well. Sin hurts us in many ways and hurts those around us. So here are these poor people who are so enslaved to many sins that they feel their only way out is to either kill themselves and get it over with, or be a practicing homosexual and decide (somehow) that God doesn't see homosexuality as a sin anymore.
What's even sadder is that many of these people were raised in "good Christian homes" and went to "good Christian churches". Where then was the discipleship they so badly needed when they were young??? Why then do they not understand that God never hated them because they were tempted to sin??? He hates the sin, not them. Where is their understanding that God doesn't make mistakes, that He doesn't create people as "homosexuals" or pedophiles, or thieves, or murderers, or liars etc. Why do they not understand that all of those things, like so many others, are quite simply sins and temptations??? Why do they not understand that God has called us to take our thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ???
Do they seriously believe that God creates people to be murderers and thieves and homosexuals??? Apparently they do, but they are so very wrong!
How very sad that they feel they have to act on their sinful desires in order to "be happy." All they had to do was tell the truth about their sinful desires to have a homosexual relationship instead of hiding them. It's when we hide our sins that we give Satan a hold over us and many of these people obviously hid this sin for a very long time. Then instead of confessing the sinful thoughts/feelings and taking them captive in Christ, they went the other way and determined to find a way to reconcile their sin and yet remain "Christian". Just as Adam blamed God for his sin when he said, "the woman you gave me" made me do it, so they are blaming God for their sin by saying "God made me this way so it's His fault".
And now they are blaming those "good Christian churches" for all their problems and this young lady actually said that churches are ruining young people by telling them that homosexuality is wrong!!!
Unfortunately she's right in some ways. Churches that haven't been or aren't discipling their youngsters, and parents that are waiting for the church to teach their children God's Ways instead of doing it themselves are hurting the young.
Our children should all know that they will be tempted many times in many ways, but that being tempted doesn't make them "bad"and isn't a sin. It doesn't become a sin until we act on the temptation or dwell on the temptation. It simply means that they need to turn to the Lord for His help and they need to be taught how to guard their minds and hearts by taking their thoughts captive for Christ. Basically, it means they're human! They need to know that they can always go to God about any thought or feeling they have and that He loves them always and that He will help them. That doesn't mean that He will make it easy for them though. There's a big difference between helping someone and doing it for them! And that's a HUGE thing that many people today simply don't get anymore.
Everyone wants everything handed to them on a silver platter instead of having to work for it. While God does give us gifts that way sometimes, for the most part He requires us to work out our salvation and use the tools He's given us in His Word.
I could go on and on about what they "should" have been taught, and what they should know, but you get the idea. What's so horribly sad though is that now, because these people think that they have finally been "freed" they are preaching their "salvation" to everyone, using every means at their disposal--TV, Radio, movies, the Internet, meetings and community groups, political activism etc.
Some of them are in many ways a part of this "new Christianity", that Warren, Piper, and others preach--but it's a Christianity without the Gospel and those people are going to go to Hell and will bring everyone else right along with them! So this half of the homosexual group is attacking the church, the body of Christ, with all the ammunition they can bring on it, and the other half, the half that are "atheists" are paving the way for them in society by mocking God.
It really opened my eyes (even wider) to how very active Satan is in our times! It's like an old fashioned cattle round up, only humans are the cattle and they're being rounded up to go to Hell. I think these people, these "stars" are going to be at the forefront of the battle to have the bible banned as hate speech and that's just part of what they'll accomplish. The question is, how much of it will we witness before the rapture???
We need to understand that it's important for us to know the Truth about what God says in His Word and tell people about that Truth. Christians don't seem to have any problem pointing out to a murderer or a thief that they have sinned and need a Savior, or that God loves them and wants to save them. But when it comes to someone saying they're homosexual, suddenly everyone clams up or spouts the oft heard phrase, "I can't judge them" as an excuse not to speak the Truth in love to them. All they're doing though is condemning these poor folks who are already suffering to an eternity of yet more suffering! We need to stand up for God's Truth and not be intimidated by the homosexual activists who condemn us and say the bible is hate speech. They only say that because Satan has blinded them to the truth and because they've heard some very real hate speech even from Christians! Instead we need to let them know the very same things we'd tell any sinner, regardless of what their sin is: That God loves them more then they can imagine and He doesn't want them to suffer. He wants them to spend eternity with Him. That doesn't mean this life will be easy, or that they won't be tempted by homosexual thoughts and feelings. It means that just as we have to do about any sin we're tempted about, they have to do with this one: ask the Lord for help, study His Word, flee from any tempting situations and not allow ourselves to be put in any tempting situation, and finally to take any sinful thoughts, ideas, feelings, imaginings etc captive and replace them with God's Truth. That's how we're to deal with any sin, any temptation. We need to let them know that they're not bad and not sinning because they're tempted and that it only becomes a sin when they insist on dwelling on sinful things or acting on them. We need to make sure they understand that once they are saved they cannot lose their salvation, and if they were really saved before, then they still are. What they can lose though is the closeness of their relationship with the Lord, as that's what happens when sin comes between us and Him until we repent of it. So we need to let them know how to repair their relationship with Him. (through confession and repentance and then obeying Him) We need to pray for these people and pray hard for Satan, the world and their flesh have all come against them to keep them from our Father's comfort and love which is the one thing they need above all else.
