"Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum"
- St. Augustine
The above quote is a popular christian mantra we love to use in the christian church to describe our relationship with the world of sinners outside our church walls. The quote roughly translates to,"With love for mankind and hatred of sins." In the south we just say, "Love the sinner, hate the sin." I totally agree with this quote in principle but its rarely adequately lived out. We often point out sinners with "heavier" sins than ours. The bible says we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.(Romans 8:23) In other words, we can point to other people that have sinned but the one thing we usually don't do is look in the mirror at our own sins. One group of people that receive a great deal of abuse and scrutiny from the church is the "LGBT" community.
The purpose of this blog is not to argue what may or may not be sinful because sometimes I don't know the sin in my own mirror. The purpose for this post is to say that as the church we often give our mirror to other "sinners" and fail to take a glance into it ourselves. The "LGBT" community is a popular and often misunderstood group of people. I have personally been among this particular group of people and I've never found a group closer to Jesus. They really get this whole "Love the sinner, hate the sin" mantra. My only experiences with this community has been met with unbridled love and true acceptance. They don't care where you come from or what kind of past you have, they just love. We want to call them "sinners" but we fail to realize that if we are human, then we are in the same boat going over a waterfall. As the bible says we have all sinned and fall short of God's glory. The verse goes on to say that we have redemption through Jesus's blood on the cross.(Romans 8:24-26)
I've said all this to simply say that we have all sinned and we can all have redemption. Sin is what truly creates equality. We all equally fall short of the perfect glory of God. We are all equally engulfed in our own total depravity. The only way we are all equally saved is through the totally undeserved gift of Jesus's blood. The best way I can put it is that no matter your lifestyle or creed, we are all equally undeserving of God's holy and glorious Love. Sin has left us all dead but Jesus died to raise us all up from our own grave. (Ephesians 2:1-10)
I know we weren't put on earth just for pointing fingers. I believe that we were placed on earth to love God and love people. (Matthew 22:37-40) Love can't be contained into a box of fear and misunderstanding. Love is unbridled and without limit in its rawest form. (1 John 4:18) Let us all walk in love and the notion that we are equally unworthy. Lets love without condition and watch God move like he has wanted to all along.
P.S. Thank you for the artwork! ( http://www.whatisblik.com/customize/manifest-equality/)
P.S.S. Thank you to everyone who spends their valuable time reading my little blog.
P.S.S.S. For notifications on future post follow me on twitter (@learninhowtodie)
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