Today, I have found myself sickened by the retorts of "Christians" bashing a Bishop in Sweden. After I wrote my first response which was simply "Remember John 3:16, WHOSOEVER" I went to town and completed my errands. While I was out, I shot off a few short prayers about how to handle this situation. In my soul, I felt God whisper, "Until she has a real experience with Me, I won't be real to her." After a stop at the library, I shot off another short prayer and this time I felt the spirit say "Until your last breathe, I can save you."
When I got home, I was reading the responses and I was being attacked, left and right. I even said "Maybe she's never had a real encounter with God; but He could change her." and "Until she breathes her last, she can be saved." Immediately someone named Edmond Greer went to my Facebook page and said "Oh, I get it now...you're a crossover." I knew full well what he meant, but I wanted to see him write it out. Evidently I was born a man...something that was news to me, because my official birth certificate says I was born a girl.
Friends, your words matter. According to Dr. Mark Pagel, Language provides the rails on which thoughts ride. The words we use — and how we use them — matter immensely because they shape the way we perceive the world and participate within it.
Chris Hazell states "As Christians, we try daily to use our words with care and to cultivate understanding. But still, we fall short." As a matter of fact, James 1:24 says "If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless." Proverbs 18:21 "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits."
Are you scaring people away from God with your words?
Ephesians 4:29 urges us to "Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear."
Job 6:24-25 states "“Teach me, and I will be silent; make me understand how I have gone astray. How forceful are upright words! But what does reproof from you reprove?"
When it comes to my Homosexual friends, I want everyone to know that as a Christian, I believe that every individual is made in God's image: "And God created man in his own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them" (Genesis 1:27). This means that everybody is loved by God and has innate dignity and worth as a human being. And when the time comes to answer the question "Is it possible to believe in Jesus and be a homosexual at the same time?" The answer, as I see it, is both yes and no. I take the view that there's an important difference between feeling gay and acting on those feelings. As with any form of sinful behavior, the transgression comes not in being tempted, but in willfully engaging in activity that is contrary to God's law. So yes – you can be a Christian and struggle with homosexual tendencies at the same time; but no – you can't be a faithful, obedient Christian while willingly involving yourself in homosexual acts. Anybody who seriously desires to follow Jesus Christ needs to make it his or her goal to abstain from sexual practices that the Bible clearly identifies as sinful.
Now, before all of my LGBTQA+ friends get angry, I want to go a bit deeper; the great mystery of the Christian life is "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27). Not alongside you, not over you, but in you. This is the deeper reason why a practicing homosexual cannot be a practicing Christian. The same would go for any human being engaged in any sexual sin; just as Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians, "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not!" (1 Corinthians 6:15). When we accept Christ as Savior, we also make a decision to live the way He wants us to live – righteously by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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