I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Rom 12:1-2

My pastor used the text from Romans quoted above for his sermon this morning.  He focused on how a lot of us have not had our minds transformed.  Then I watched a video on Shannon’s site and read the comments there concerning homosexuality and how we react to this sin in ways that are very different from the ways we react to other sins.  (Another free plug, Shannon)

I agree with my pastor’s sermon this morning and I also agree with much of what was said on Shannon’s blog but I still have problems with all of this.

God did not make any of us the way we are.  We all come into the world through the act of procreation and not creation.  God stopped creating after He finished up the sixth day and then He has placed the rest mostly in our hands.  He still, I believe, steps in and works in this realm at times but it is mostly up to us.  We choose to be, do, say, and act out of who we are; which is a reflection of many things such as environment, how we were raised, the attitudes of our parents, culture, education, and lots of other things.  We live in a fallen creation and start out as slaves to sin.  This cannot be denied.

We need to learn to love.  We need to practice love.  We need to embrace each other as Christ embraced us.  And that includes homosexuals.  We have way too many fundamentalists in the Kingdom that are hypocritical and judgmental.  The sins that offend them the most are the sins that they believe offend God the most.  This is just not true.  So I would say that I agree with most of what I have read today.

But the problem I have is that most all of those trying to find another answer seem to want to just overlook sin in its entirety.  I am not saying this about those whose comments I have read today but I have been thinking this way myself a lot lately.  But is that going to do those in sinful lifestyles any better than the fundamentalist viewpoint?

Let’s say the fundamentalist is wrong and God loves everyone enough that no matter what they do He will not turn them away.  Then we really have to introduce these people to Christ so they can have a chance.  It is not up to us who is in and who is out.  It is up to God.

But look at what happens if those who want to say sin is alright and all things are forgiven and covered by the blood of Christ are wrong.  We may share some warm and loving moments while we reach out to those living in sin while we are on this planet, before eternity, and then have them turn to us at judgment and ask why we did not warn them.

I just don’t know.

This whole issue is tough.  I am of the opinion that neither side is right but I admit that I do not know where to draw any lines.  I do know that we must all, me, you, adulterers, homosexuals, liars, thieves, etc., present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.  We must also not be conformed to this world, but instead be transformed by the renewal of our minds.  And this is the only way that we can even begin to try to discern what the will of God is and what is good and acceptable and perfect.

One thing I do know is that we better get serious about finding out what God wants us to do about all this.  Just feeling good about our own beliefs is not the answer and there is more at stake than causing anyone to feel ostracized or unloved here.  There are eternal consequences to our answers to these dilemmas.

This is serious and I believe must be concluded but as I said, I just don’t know.

Love you all

Tags: attitudes, Belief, Culture, eternal consequences, Eternity, fundamentalists, Good, homosexuals, Judgment, living sacrifice, Perfect, procreation, Self, Sin