I Love People Who are Gay.

"For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? But those who are outside, God judges."  Paul, 1 Corinthians 5:12,13

I love people who are gay.
I love people who are brown, black, white or whatever.
I love people who live in the Middle East.
I love people who live here in Canada.
I love Asians, African-Americans, Europeans, Africans, Indians, Native-Americans, Australians, Swedes, Americans, and so on...
I love Jimmy Fallon, because he seems to have a loving heart.
I love Bill Mahr, because he is searching for truth.
I love Jon Stewart, because he cares about righteousness.
I love John McCain, because of his courage, even though I don't like his politics.
I love Barack Obama, because his forgiveness and patient endurance reminds me of Jesus.
I love Jerry Falwell because of the school he built that has helped countless young people.
I love Tom Cruise because of his courage and kindness in helping people who were in trouble.
I love Johnny Depp for paying off Nicolas Cage's back taxes. (He paid him back already.)
I love Prime Minister Harper for giving Canadians tax breaks. We needed them.
I love Thomas Mulcair because he cares about the underdog.
I love Justin Trudeau because he is passionate about our country.
I love Winston Churchill because he was so brave and a great inspiration.
I love Martin Luther King because of his courage and loving example.
I love Oscar Wilde because of his honesty, his brilliant writing and especially his book, "Deprofundis," where he tells of his acceptance of Christ.
I love my father, who abused me, but also taught me some good things and gave us kids some good times. He was born from a twisted family and became twisted and I'm so sorry that happened. I forgive him and I love him even though he may never have changed before he died. But maybe he did! Maybe he did just before he died. I would be so happy if that were true.

Love is a funny thing. For years I have prayed to love everyone - all people everywhere. God has been gracious to me in giving me love for people. I'm not all the way there yet - there is still lots of room for growth. I still get angry and still sneer inside sometimes. Gotta keep praying.

As the apostle Paul says, we have no right to judge those people who don't belong to our church.

I see plenty of judging from Christians against people who are gay.

We have no right to do it. We have no right to say they are not Christians. We have no right to fight against gay-marriage. 

When Jesus was on earth, he told the church of his time what their sins were. He did not condemn the Romans, their religion or their government. 

"Who are you to condemn someone else's servants? Their own master will judge whether they stand or fall. And with the Lord's help, they will stand and receive his approval." Romans 14:4

Jesus, when he spoke of the Holy Spirit said, "And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment."

It seems to me Christians just love to convict people of sin. Especially sins they themselves don't commit. I think the Holy Spirit is big enough to do his job and we should leave people alone except to tell them Jesus loves them. Then let the Spirit do his work.

One last word. God says in the Bible, "I hate divorce." Yet, Christians get divorced just as often as non-Christians. So don't cast a stone if you have even one sin you have committed. Jesus said that too.

I'll Think About God Later.

The apostle Paul had been arrested and thrown in prison. The leaders of the Jews wanted him dead, but Paul was a Roman citizen so the Romans took charge. One day he was brought before Felix, the procruator of Judea.

"Some days later Felix arrived with Drusilla, his wife who was a Jewess, and sent for Paul and heard him speak about faith in Christ Jesus." Acts 24:24

What a wonderful opportunity for Paul to lift up the life and death of Jesus. Paul cared about Felix and his wife; he wanted them to accept Christ and be saved.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
Drusilla. She was, according to Josephus, the daughter of Herod Agrippa I., who "killed James with the sword" and died shortly afterwards. She was first the wife of Azizus, King of Emesa; but Felix, becoming enamored of her on account of her singular beauty, employed a certain magician, a Jew named Simon, to entice her away from her husband, and persuade her to marry him, contrary, as Josephus says, to the institutions of her country. She perished, with Agrippa, her only son by Felix, in the eruption of Vesuvius, in the reign of Titus

"But as he was discussing righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix became frightened and said, "Go away for the present, and when I find time I will summon you."

Paul spoke of righteousness, which meant he was explaining the way a good person would live out his life in Jesus. 
He spoke of self-control, which it seems from Felix's past, was not one his attributes. 
He spoke of the judgement to come, when all people will be judged by the works they have done. 

All this frightened Felix. He obviously felt himself to be far from righteous and was worried that he may one day be judged by God.

MacLaren's Expositions
Felix and his brother had been favorite slaves of the Emperor, and so had won great power at court. At the date of this incident he had been for some five or six years the procurator of the Roman province of Judaea; and how he used his power the historian Tacitus tells us in one of his bitter sentences, in which he says, ‘He wielded his kingly authority with the spirit of a slave, in all cruelty and lust.’

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
Felix trembled—and no wonder. For, on the testimony of Tacitus, the Roman Annalist [Annals, 9; 12.54], he ruled with a mixture of cruelty, lust, and servility, and relying on the influence of his brother Pallas at court, he thought himself at liberty to commit every sort of crime with impunity. 

We do not know if Felix and his wife ever gave their lives to God; we only know what Felix said to Paul, that he didn't want to think about these things now, maybe later.

It isn't safe to put off our salvation. We are human, we could die at any moment. Also, after putting God off for months and years, we may become so dead to what is right that we may never hear his voice in our hearts again. This is what Jesus meant when he said, ""Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven."  Matthew 12:31

If we continually turn away from the Spirit of God then nothing can save us.

Our Daily Bread.

I read Our Daily Bread devotionals almost every day. Since I recently posted a story about feeling old, I thought it would be nice to share what Mr. Fisher wrote. They allow you to copy their articles. www.odb.org

Paul the Aged, by Dennis Fisher.

Celebrating my 60th birthday really changed my perspective on life— I used to think people in their sixties were “old.” Then I started counting the number of productive years I might have left and set the number at 10. I went along with this dead-end kind of thinking until I remembered a very productive co-worker who was 85. So I sought him out to ask what life after 60 was like. He told me of some of the wonderful ministry opportunities the Lord had given him over the last 25 years.

The apostle Paul, referring to himself as “aged” in Philemon 1:9, really resonates with my own sense of aging: “Being such a one as Paul, the aged, . . . I appeal to you for my son Onesimus” (vv.9-10). Paul was asking Philemon to take back his runaway servant Onesimus. Some scholars believe Paul was in his late forties or early fifties when he wrote this—certainly not a senior citizen by today’s standards. But life expectancy in those days was much shorter. Yet despite awareness of his mature years, Paul went on to serve the Lord for several more years.

While we may experience physical or other kinds of limitations, what really matters is that we continue doing what we can for the Lord until He calls us Home.