Stalkers, 'Serious Sin,' and Such

Well, I’ve always wanted to be famous, and it seems as though that is starting to happen. Its official, I have my first stalker! Not exactly what I was hoping for in the way of fame, but it has to be said, it is a start… although a kind of creepy one.

In my last post I talked about the whole ‘hamburger’ parallel, that just being in a church doesn’t make you a Christian. This is a good example of that, where someone who came into the church to watch a Musical Drama, saw me and has obviously become obsessed with me in some way… she just got my phone number yesterday.

What’s even spookier is that she lives just across the road from me.

It seems that God is always testing me, trying to extend me further in my Christian walk. Jesus experienced something like this. He had a woman stalk him to the point of wiping his feet with her hair, and he managed to help her get a better life. Maybe I can do that too, although it’s worrying as well.

Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, something like this happens…

The last thing that God was working on me with was the mindset I had towards gays. This is another of those flavour things… there seem to be two sorts of Christian when it comes to gays: those that hate them and those that accept them without question. I actually believe Christians are called to be the third flavour in this point: We should accept them as people, care for them as friends, and still not agree with their choice of lifestyle. Sure, the Bible calls homosexuality a sin, but it also calls lying a sin, and lustful thoughts a sin, and we as Christians don’t expel liars and thinkers from the church. The thing that Christians have to learn is that there is no such thing as ‘Serious Sin,’ God sees all sin as equally wrong. So a liar is just as bad as a murderer, or a homosexual. We shouldn’t kick them out, but invite them in, and make our friendships with them. We shouldn’t accept their faults, but let God work on fixing them.

I heard an interview on the radio a few days ago that helped me realise this. A man who had been gay, came to church and was accepted in, then became a Christian, still while gay. After this, he was reading his bible and realised that it said that what he was doing was wrong in Gods eyes. He said to God “If you want me to get rid of this, you’re going to have to help me,” and then, working through a course called ‘Desert Springs’ he slowly came out of that life. If the Christians in that church had condemned him as a homosexual, he never would have found God. If they had told him that homosexuality wasn’t serious at all, he never would have changed.

The element that Christians are called to do in this area is love the person, but not agree with the sin.

After figuring this out over the last month, one of my good friends txt me and told me that he was gay. God prepared my heart to respond in a loving way, without damaging our friendship, but still telling him that I didn’t like his choice. He has accepted this, and I still have the foothold of friendship in his life. I can still be the Christian influence, helping him come to God, whereas if I had condemned him, he would have hated me, and if I had just accepted him, he would never realise that he needs to one day change. – God will do that, not me.
If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to post them here. I am going to set up an email address soon too, but haven’t organised one yet. Until next I write…

Christians vs Reality - Vanilla, Hamburgers, and Poisoned Water Supplies

Christians are weird.
Maybe it would be kind of prejudice for other people to say this, but, since I myself am a Christian, I think I have the right.

Let me explain a bit.
Christians are weird, because they don't seem to live in the real world a lot of the time. Have you ever been to a church service? They stand there, raising their hands in the air, worshipping an invisible God that most other people (except maybe Jews, Muslims, Mormons etc) don't even believe in, and they they claim that the rest of the world is in denial because they don't believe in Him too!

Weird, eh?

But, then again, I must be weird too, because I believe this as well. But, there are definately some things about 'Christians' that I do not believe.

Its never straight-forward, is it? If only there was one type of Christian, then we could classify them easily. You know, like with ice-cream, you know that vanilla will always taste like vanilla, or choc-banana like choc-banana. But, with Christians, it doesn't seem to be like that.
You hear someone say "I'm a Christian" but what does that mean?
Christian A might be one of those ones who wears scarves on their heads, doesn't drink any alcohol or smoke, spends hours a day reading the Bible, and never seems to have any fun.
Christian B might be a street preacher type, yelling at you as you pass that you're going to hell to burn forever.
Christian C might smile as you come in, say that "We accept you as you are" and not seem to believe in anything at all.
Christian D might be a punk-rocker....

Thats not vanilla! Thats more like 'lucky-dip.'

However, there are some ways to classify Christians. Sometimes, the easiest way to see something is from the inside, and I happen to be on the inside. The Bible (you know, that big fat book Christians read) talks about Christianity as being a body, and explains that there are different parts to the body.

So, Christian A might be a small-intestine, Christian B might be inflamed tonsils, Christian C might be an appendix, and Christian D might be a spleen, but they still might all be Christians.

Then again, there can also be people who call themselves Christians but aren't. Theres a well-known saying among some Christians that "Being in a garage doesn't make you a car" or "Being in McDonalds doesn't make you a hamburger." The basic point to this is that "Being in a church doesn't make you a Christian."

The main issue for Christians is that there are a lot of people out there claiming that they are Christians as well. Think about it. If you were a doctor, and somebody went around calling themselves a doctor while simutaneously killing patients left and right, and poisoning the towns water supply (any similarities to persons living or dead is entirely co-incidental) it might give doctors a bad name. Its the same for Christians.
We believe we have something good to offer the world, medicine of sorts, but there are so many people out there killing people, and poisoning their opinion of Christians that it is hard to reach everyone. They don't trust us.

Thats tragic. Imagine that you have a disease that is going to kill you, but that there is a doctor who has a proven cure for it, 100% effective. But, your local doctors have been so busy poisoning the water supply that you don't trust doctors at all, and you never go and see this doctor, and end up dying.

Don't mistrust all Christians just because the ones you have seen are not trustworthy.

Feel free to leave a note for me, and I'll try and answer any questions you might have. Failing that, wait a few days and I might write some more.