Friday, June 5, 2009

Listening to Jesus

I’m definitely frustrated, bordering on being just plain angry.  This is been something tha I have been contemplating on and praying about for a while.  Certainly more contemplating then praying, sorry to say.  We started attending church when I was 8 years old, I am now almost 41.  I’ll let you do the math, as I hate math.  I started preaching revivals at 17 went off to bible college and after 3 1/2 years of college I dropped out before being kicked out.  I bought into all that I was told about being gay, never investigated for myself because after all, my denominational officials, my fellow students and professors, my friends wouldn’t steer me wrong would they?  I mean my brothers in Christ, who I studied with, prayed with, cried with, laughed with, counseled with wouldn’t just write me off.  Would they? 

Now on one hand I understand that most Christians don’t really study the scriptures, they may read them, if they do even that, but to really study them, the original languages, their historical context, etc. most Christians don’t do that.  They let their ministers do that for them!  So when the ministers, for whatever reasons don’t, the average congregant takes what comes from the pulpit as the “gospel truth” when it is really an interpretation.  I don’t want to sound arrogant, I don’t expect everyone to come up with the same outcome of those scriptures that I did.  I will say that I could be wrong, I don’t believe that I am, but that is where faith and allowing the Holy Spirit to lead a person comes into the equation. 

You don’t have to agree with me, you don’t have to like me, but you don’t get to tell me that I am not a Christian.  You don’t get to judge me that way, Jesus himself said so:

Don't condemn others, and God won't condemn you. God will be as hard on you as you are on others! He will treat you exactly as you treat them. You can see the speck in your friend's eye, but you don't notice the log in your own eye. How can you say, "My friend, let me take the speck out of your eye," when you don't see the log in your own eye? You're nothing but show-offs! First, take the log out of your own eye. Then you can see how to take the speck out of your friend's eye.
(Mat 7:1-5)(Contemporary English Version)

I think the Christian church, the evangelical mainly and the fundamentalist especially, needs to get back to the teachings of Jesus.

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