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…