The person who pursues homosexuality or the person who despises them for it?  Or perhaps a better question:  Is the sin of the despiser justified because of the sin of the despised?  Here’s another:  We know that Jesus said we should love our enemies (Matt. 5:44).  Can love exist without some form of expression, or is disregarding someone as powerful as hatred? 
I need a little time for introspection and soul-searching.  Some of these divisions are becoming indistinguishable.  Do I hate, or do I ignore?  Is that the same thing? I find it easier to use my awareness of moral degradation as a venue to contrast my own spiritual piety with their depravity.  Woe is me.  In Jonathan Edward’s famous resolutions, he profoundly stated:

“Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.”
Sin elevates no one.  It exalts no one but the inexhaustible merits of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.  He is great and greatly to be praised for He has defeated sin and death.  We sin.  Understand that the knowledge you possess of others lawlessness does not reposition you any closer to the glory of God’s throne.  All sin should humble us.  As Edwards states, the sin in others should lead to humility in us.  If we would respond in like manner, love and compassion would flow much easier. 
Our Lord never wasted words.  When he commanded us to: “First take the log out of your eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”  (Matt. 7:5).  That seems quite irrational when it is wholly evident to me that I have but saw dust in my eye while my brother carries the proverbial weight of a two by four upon his soul.  The reason I see specks and logs is because I measure my iniquity on the false balance of horizontal humanity.  Woe is me. 

            Love like Christ.  He who was without any specs came not to condemn men, but to bring them to repentance.   How shall we do the same when we condemn them though we, having been under condemnation, received grace?   In this, we must be perfect just as our heavenly father is perfect.  (Matt 5:48)

 


Comments

JA

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:12:32

I read a quote about this text tonight from John Piper’s book “What Jesus Demands from the World" and it reminded me of this good blog you wrote.

“When Jesus says, “First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye,” he shows that it is necessary to make judgments about the speck in a brother’s eye. What turns this kind, caring, healing judgment into the judgmentalism that Jesus forbids is the failure to see the log in our own eye…We live in the consciousness of our own great sinfulness and in the awareness that only the mercy of Jesus can take the log out of our eye with forgiveness and healing. This awareness turns angry judgment into patient and loving forbearance and delicate correction.” (Page 149)

This not only states the PRIMARY IMPORTANCE of self-examination and removing our log, but also the duty to DELICATELY correct others. Not from judgment rooted in hate or pride, but “governed by the experience of mercy.”

 

anonymous

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:36:19

Sure, the bible makes a claim againts homosexuality being an abomination. However, the bible also says that eating shellfish is an abomination:

Leviticus 11:9-12 says:
9 These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat.
10 And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:
11 They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.
12 Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.


So, answer this. Why are christians so quick to line up on the sides of streets with signs like "God hates Fags" and "God bless aids" and "Homosexuals are going to burn in hell" but you don't ever see any christians lined up outside the red lobster with signs saying all those people are going to hell.

The. Bible. Is. non sense. WHy don't you get a REAL job.


 



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