Good News

It’s interesting that Jesus used the term “gospel AKA: good news” to classify His message to the world. Yet, if we are honest, most of the world gets a different message from Christians.

It would seem that many churches and church people are communicating through attitude, word, and deed that God hates the world, is angry with everyone, and is against them, but the Bible teaches something different.

According to Jesus, “God so LOVED THE WORLD that he gave his one and only Son.” (John 3:16) In this most familiar verse of scripture in the whole world Jesus communicates God’s attitude toward the world. He loves us, all of us, with a love that initiated a pursuit and redemption of every human being.

Jesus took it a step further. Not only did he teach that God loved the world and was at work for their eternal good through Jesus Christ for the life to come, but is at work in our everyday life for the good of every person, not just the saint, but the sinner too! Jesus said it this way, “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:45)

God is at work in our world for good… for the good of every person. He’s at work in the life of each person for good; to draw them to himself and to help them experience life to the full being all God created them to be.

Most of us are blind to the works of God in our life. Most go unnoticed and the few we stop and recognize we quickly pass off as being the product of something else. We need to learn to see the unseen! Develop those spiritual eyes.

How will we experience this “goodness of God”? Two ways, 1) through the direct operations of God himself (God does things in our life that go unseen. Like stalling us in a traffic light to miss an accident, working healing in our body beyond what a doctor can do, and causing certain factors to line up that are favorable, to name a few) and 2) Through the avenue of Nature: This happens in two ways…A) God has established order in the world to our benefit and B) He works in the hearts of people to bless us at various times in various ways.

While we have little to no control over nature we do have control over ourselves. So, the question is… Am I open to being used by God to demonstrate His goodness to others?

What message, as a Christian, am I communicating? By attitudes, words, and deeds do people experience the good news/gospel or bad news?

Homosexuality - depravity or disposition?

Some have said Homosexuality is genetic and in spite of lack of scientific evidence this falacy conitnues to gain roots in many peoples minds.

I want to point out some things from a biblical perspective...

1. When God made poeple he did this in a way that we ARE genetically inclined to be attracted to the opposite sex, and it is ONLY through a relationship with the opposite sex that the reproductive system works naturally.

LIFE comes through heterosexual relationships ALONE! This is a living testamony of what is natural, blessed, and bears fruit and what is unnatural, cursed, and cannot be fruitbearing/life-giving.

2. They have never found a gay gene in any baby, child, or pre-homosexual person, and they never will! Nor is there any consistant genetic finding in practicing homosexuals. The reason for both of these is because sin is a choice and homosexuality is declared in the Bible as a sin. The Bible does make it clear that there is a physical effect of sin on the human body and in Romans 1 it specifically talks about them receiving the due penelty for their perversion IN THEMSELVES. There is a physical depravity that is the result of sin. There is scerosis of the liver and other genetic changes from alcohol in the body. The same is true in the effects of other sins.

Also, it says in Romans 1 there is a mental depravity that is experienced as well. A brokenness, twistedness, bentness, a decay.

So, depending on the degree of which an individual is steeped in a sin will determine the degree of the physical and mental break down that is found in that person. The longer they engage in the sin and the greater the quantity of experience the greater the negative effect.

3. God condemns sin, which is a choice, and no where in scripture does he condemn someone for physical or mental defect, but if Homosexuality were not a choice, but a genetic disposition then God would be condemning unjustly homosexuals in 1Corinthians 6 and several other places in scripture.

4. Even if someone felt they could justify and argue a genetic disposition, this still would not obsolve the "Homosexually Inclined" of the responsibility to live a morally pure life by obstaining from that which God says is wrong, impure, sin, ungodly, and an abomination.

The fact is, being heterosexual and functioning as mankind is truely designed to function means that there will be an attraction and desire for the opposite sex, but this natural disposition, even as God intended, is not an excuse or justification to cast of all moral restraint and go have sex with just anyone or pursue intimate relationships with multiple partners. This too is sin, called adultery/sexual immorality, and is condemned by God.

Whether hetero or homo sexual, we are all called to excersize self-control and abstain from immoral behaviors.

5. Homosexual temptation and Heterosexual temptation are not sin, it's whether you engage in the temptation.

So, the heterosexual and the homosexual will both be judged, not by whether they were tempted in a particular way, nor by whether or not they could scientifically justify their sexual orientation, but by their choice to abstain or engage in a behavior that God specifically declares to be wrong, sin, and a behavior that can open the door for eternal damnation.

6. As true followers of Jesus Christ, it is not our job to condemn anyone! God alone is the judge. We are to view the homosexual, the adulterer, the drunk, the addict, the "you fill in the blank" as a redeemable, valuable, loved, and special person that Jesus loved so much that he died for them. We can't condemn because as long as they are alive there is the possibility that they could repent, turn to God, turn away from their sin, and ask forgiveness, thus becoming a born-again child of God.

As a Christian, we view all people as equally fallen, equally in need of salvation, grace, and mercy that is found in Jesus Christ alone, and all as equally redeemable/forgivable.