Skip to main content

What's Love Got to Do With It?

A couple of high-profile evangelical pastors have recently proclaimed to their churches and the world that they have changed there views on homosexuality.  They have had children "come out of the closet" and this has caused them to rethink their beliefs about God and homosexuality.  In much of the world at large there position has been championed as being God's love in action.  I have great sympathy for the struggle these men have endured, but I believe that rather than being examples of God's love they have failed the love of God entirely.  I know as soon as said that many will label me a profoundly unloving person.  However, I would like to explain myself in terms of love itself.

1.  These men have chosen to love their children more than Christ.  The first and great commandment, contrary to the thinking of much of the church, is not to love my neighbor as myself.  The first and greatest commandment is to love God with all my being.  The constant struggle faced by all believers is the enduring pull of dozens of other gods who tempt us to love them more than Christ.  By choosing to accept the sins of their children, these men have made the choice to love the idol of their children more than Jesus. 

37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. (Mat 10:37 ESV)

2.  By violating the first commandment they have lost the objective standard to determine what true love is.  What these men are doing sounds loving, but is it really?  Oh I am sure there are lots of hugs and their children feel very affirmed, but is that really what their children need most right now?  CIs their father's acceptance the most loving gift that could be given.  By the world's standard it is.  But God's standard it is, in fact, an act of hate.  If I can apply a verse:  What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world's acceptance and loses his own soul?  Accepting a person lovingly while they head merrily to hell is not an act of love.  True love seeks what is actually best for the other person, not what makes the person comfortable as they lose their very soul.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Families' Fridays

From Focus on the Family 10 helpful tips for single parents Imagine this: you’re the sole parent for your children. You get them up, get them fed and send them to school. You do the housework, maybe you go to work yourself, you get home and you’re still the only adult there. There’s no one to relieve you. No one to pass the baton to while you take a shower or take a few minutes for yourself. You make dinner and gather the family around the table to eat. You play with them, read to them, give them baths, get them to bed and there’s no one there to sit with and process your day. There’s no one there to laugh with you or pray with you. Instead you keep working. You clean up the house again. You pack lunches for the next day. And you eventually crash into bed, knowing you’ll be doing the same thing tomorrow. For many, this is not an imagined scenario. When you parent alone – whether due to divorce, the loss of your spouse or having a spouse who works away from home for long periods of...

Death For a Believer

We picture death as coming to destroy; let us rather picture Christ as coming to save. We think of death as ending; let us rather think of life as beginning, and that more abundantly. We think of losing; let us think of gaining. We think of parting; let us think of meeting. We think of going away; let us think of arriving. And as the voice of death whispers,  "You must go from earth," Let us hear the voice of Christ saying, "You are but coming to me."   Norman Macleod

Let Me Introduce

It is almost a joke to imagine I am introducing John MacArthur Jr. to you.  In our circles of evangelicalism his is a well known name.  He has spoken at the national convention of our Fellowship of Evangelical Baptists on at least three different occasions.  However, the last of these was almost twenty years ago.  I believe that is because we have changed as a Fellowship and have strayed from the message that Dr. MacArthur preaches.  Dr. MacArthur has served his congregation since 1969.  That, in itself, should commend this man's message to us. As a pastor, I appreciate his commitment to the expository preaching of the Bible.  He has published an entire New Testament commentary set based upon his faithful preaching of the text.  I have never met this man personally, but I have appreciated him laying down a faithful path which younger men, like myself, have been able to follow. Grace to You