Jesus' Love Is Not Approval

 People are celebrating Christmas this morning.

(By the way, I no longer make a big deal out of Christmas. I exchange gifts with loved ones - as we do all year round - and I do respond to wishes of good tidings. So I hope everyone has had a wonderful time with family and friends this day.)

Now. I have a bone to pick with a tweet I saw this morning. I went on to Twitter to send a message to the support team for an appliance I have and I happened to see this tweet from David Corn in my feed:

That looks like a nice and positive message for the day that some people choose to celebrate the birth of Jesus. (Or for the day that a lot of us choose as a reason to go consumer-crazy.) 

The problem I have with that message is that it is all kinds of shady and misleading. Let's take a look at some of the shade being thrown.

First and foremost, the message implies that followers of Jesus (you know, Christians) are nothing like Jesus because... we follow the teachings of the Bible? It's as if we are being shamed for holding a set of beliefs that come directly from the Bible.

All of this part is true about Jesus. It's also true of many Christians today. Many.

But it makes it sound as if Christians today (or at least the ones Mr. Corn knows of?) would never be seen hanging around with "lepers, hookers, and crooks". He doesn't acknowledge the Christians who spend time working with those who are outcasts (because of illness, deformity, or otherwise), working the streets, or in jail.

Then there is this part:

Jesus was not anti-wealth. It isn't being wealthy that Jesus has a problem with. He just does not want wealth to come between man and salvation. We are not to put wealth above all. 

Because Jesus is not only the Son of God but God Himself, he was not anti-death penalty. He believed in punishment, he just did not want the condemned to die unsaved and unrepentant. 

He was certainly not anti-public prayer, he just did not want man using prayer to call attention to himself by trying to look holy and pious versus being holy and pious. Our prayers are for and to Jesus, not for the approval or admiration of others.

As far as the "anti-gay" mention, Jesus was never against any sinner - gay or otherwise. If the Lord is against sinners, he would be against me. His problem is with sin. 

Remember that Jesus is not just the Son of God but God Himself. God is anti-homosexuality - not anti-homosexual (or anti-liar, anti-thief, etc.). God made man and woman for each other and to procreate together. Man with a man or woman with a woman cannot procreate. I would not be here, you would not be here in that case. (Of course, now science is creating life from life without the need for male-female interaction. But they have not and cannot create life from nothing as God did.)

On the abortion issue, Jesus (God) saw life as it began at conception and, in fact, knew us before we were born, as mentioned in Psalms and elsewhere in Scripture. Taking life before a child is born is murder. 

I'm pretty sure Jesus (God) is not good with the abortion of the unborn child - unwanted or inconvenient - any more than he would be with the abortion/killing of the unwanted or inconvenient child already delivered.

And the birth control? Well, that comes back to the issue of procreation. We use birth control so that we can have the joy of sex without the inconvenience of pregnancy. Aren't we picky? 

This last one was the slickest one of the lot:

No, Jesus most certainly did not "slut-shame". He did, however, tell us to "go and sin no more". 

Listen. God (the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit) is not the who or what, or why that we sometimes want Him to be. He is who He is. We either chose to follow the Son or not. We can't choose which of his teachings to follow. We can't twist his teachings to fit our desires. (Well, we can if we want to, but we aren't fooling the Lord.)

I might be wrong but I don't think that Mr. Corn was trying to point out the goodness of Christ so much as he was trying to make Christ's followers look or feel bad. I think that what Mr. Corn might be trying to say is that we all need to be better people. I agree with that. I pray every day for the Lord to "create in me a clean heart" and to "renew a right spirit in me".  There are days when I am a disappointment to myself. I can be horribly judgemental and wrong-minded. I tell people that I am a work in progress. We all are, I think.

We Christians are not all walking as Christ would want us to but we are individuals. It's not fair to lump all of us in with the worst of us. It's also not fair to try tarnishing Christianity by holding every "bad" thing about it up against your personal ideals. 

I am not Christ. I am his follower. I try to live more by his rules than I do by any other. Being a "good" person doesn't make me a Christian. Being a Christian assures my salvation. It doesn't ensure that I will always be nice, kind, understanding, etc. Ask any of my family or friends or go read some of my blog posts.

By the way, although Christ loves all of us, and doesn't push any of us away because of our sins, he does not condone sin. He forgives them. But to be forgiven, we have to acknowledge that we need forgiveness. One cannot ask forgiveness for things they don't believe is sinful. 

One cannot happily, readily, purposefully, and - most importantly - unrepentantly indulge in sinful things and want forgiveness. That makes no sense. Either we want the sin or we want the forgiveness. 

Now, I am not a theologian, Bible scholar, or any kind of an expert in debate. As a matter of fact, I struggle with an illness that affects my cognitive abilities. I am just a Christian. I am sure that someone could find a better way to get across what I am trying to in this post. I just had to address Mr. Corn's tweet. I hope that he does not think I am attacking him. I think that he has a good heart. But I did have to respond in some way to his post on Twitter.

Peace

--Free