I know it's been a while since I last posted....but you guys know I don't just blog for no good reason.
I have been thinking for some time about this post, mostly because I know that this is a sensitive subject at the moment and something that has been the cause of a great deal of contention. So I'm going to say upfront that I am aware that this particular post may offend some (you have been warned), but as I always say if you don't like it don't read it.
2 subjects have come up recently in South Africa and I think in a lot of ways very much relate to each other in some aspects.
First of all Lady Gaga had her first tour to South Africa and in connection the gay issue has sprung up yet again.
Let me tackle the first issue first, Lady Gaga. Let me just say right off and get it out of the way, I can't stand the woman and for a number of reasons mostly I think she's mentally disturbed and is in some desperate need of psychiatric attention (you can take that any way you like). Second of all I don't like her from a Christian perspective because I find her lyrics and videos too be blaspheming at every chance she gets and I think she does it on purpose. Another reason I don't like her is because as an animal lover she is a full supporter of the fur industry and don't get me started on the meat dress. I also don't like her because of the influence that she has on an impressionable younger generation and the things she teaches them and influences in them. She's a freak and I don't like her and yes I was one of the many people who was anything but thrilled to have her in our country.
Having said that... At the time of the announcement a certain Facebook page was gracious enough to promote my blog on their page which I am very grateful for and in return I joined their page. I quickly found out to some extent the current mentality of some Christians and I can honestly say I was shocked, disappointed and dismayed to say the least.
I saw on that page Christians who for lack of a better word were being utterly militant in their beliefs. There were times when I was waiting for them to resort to death threats on unbelievers, what I'm saying is they were acting just short of a bunch of Islamic Terrorists in their militant stance on things. You'd be shocked to know (it even shocked me) that I had more arguments on that page with Christians than with any other person, be they atheist, agnostic or whatever and I eventually stopped contributing the page and just sat back and watched in utter shock. And it started to make me question things and that is why I have been so quiet for so long. I've been thinking......
In the last few months we have seen Christians acting so badly and it horrify's me as to the bad name we are giving ourselves in our actions. Recently their was a video posted on YouTube by a group of Christians attacking Islam and in watching that video my only question was "do they not have work for their hands?" "Do they have nothing better to do with their time than to act as badly as other militant groups in the world?". There are so many things in this world that need our attention, human trafficking for one is on the rise, there are people in the world dying of hunger, there are abandoned children living on the streets, America to date has aborted 50 million babies, there are churches in the world in desperate need of bibles to distribute (I know, because a church in an african country has approached me for assistance), the world is falling apart around us with people in desperate need and apparently we have nothing better to do than make stupid movies for YouTube. Now before you get on your high horse, I am not doing what I was accused of doing on the page and that was to say that Christians should sit down, shut up and do nothing, I am not saying that at all. On the contrary, in these times we do need to stand up and open our mouths and have a voice BUT there are ways to do things, there is a right way and there is a wrong way and the way some Christians are conducting themselves would most definitely fall into the category of the WRONG way.
I believe as Christians we need to pick our battles for the simple reason that some things are way beyond our human ability to handle on our own. Some battles we need to accept that the battle belongs to the Lord and He will handle it His way, again, in these instances the battle is too big for us as human beings....and He would be the only one capable of handling the situation. Lady Gaga, coming to South Africa as annoying as her presence was, was too big for us as people to handle, our best course of action would have been to say "this is too big for me, I'm giving it to the Lord to handle" because there is a verse in Isaiah where the Lord basically says when talking about the spirit of Pride (and I think it can be referred to in the case of anything that is bigger than us) "You can't, but I can".
Things like this are going to happen all the time around us, especially in the times we live in more and more, but we need to pick our battles.....the Lord will vindicate us, in His time, when the time is right, remember His timing is perfect....He's never in a hurry but He is always on time.
So yeah....my belief on the Lady Gaga, issue, we didn't manage to stop it did we? no. My personal opinion, instead of going onto the media with a militant stance and getting all worked up and starting online fights and arguments what we should have done was say 'fine she wants to have a concert in our country...ok....nothing is stopping us from doing the same thing'. Would it have really taken that much hard work to organize a Christian concert? no......we spent all those months since the announcement moaning and complaining and fighting and getting into arguments online...was it worth it? did it accomplish anything? no. And yet I kept saying to people stop moaning about it, stop fighting, stop arguing, stop getting in people's faces.....rather get off your backside and DO SOMETHING about it. Anybody can sit behind a computer and moan and complain and fight with people etc but it's a whole other thing to take some initiative and do something constructive. What we did was most definitely not what I would call constructive.
Do we remember what happened to the Israelites when all they did was moan and complain and fight and argue etc? and obedience was definitely not on their immediate list of priorities? I'll tell you...God left them to wonder in the desert for 40 years. An 11 day journey, turned into 40 years..because of moaning, complaining, bickering, fighting and disobedience......I think there may be a lesson here.
I have to add this before I continue....when the Israelites came into the promised land and they were faced with the battles of the old testament, in the beginning when they had to take on their first enemies, they approached God and asked Him "which tribe do we send first?" and God always said "Judah goes first" why? because the word Judah translates from Hebrew to English as "Praise" (any Hebrew/English experts feel free to correct me if I got that wrong - I am still very inadequate in Hebrew)...what God was saying was Praise always goes first. By extension in any time of trouble or trials Praise goes first "Judah goes first". And what happened in those times when the tribe of Judah lead the Israelites...God hand delivered their enemies to them practically on a silver platter...I think there may be a lesson there too.
I have to add this....Israel is sitting in the situation they are in today because of their disobedience to God, because they have walked away from Him, its that simple. Israel the Jews are God's chosen people, that has never changed, they are blessed that has never changed. But do yourselves a favour and sit down sometime and read the first 6 books of the bible (Genesis to Deuteronomy is what constitutes the Torah, but I've added Judges in their because it shows the same thing but more clearly) and have a look specifically at the difference between when Israel walked with God and obeyed Him and trusted Him and the times when they turned away from Him. Look at the things that happened to them in both instances and then look at what is happening to Israel today and then sit back and give it some thought as to why Israel is in the position they are currently in. I don't think I need to draw a picture.
So, as I was saying, did moaning and complaining about the situation get us anywhere? no. Did we do anything constructive about the situation? no.
Was the situation resolved for us? no.
Some food for thought I think.
This brings me to the gay issue.
I read a blog post that I was lead to through a link on the internet recently and I have to be honest in reading his post I really wanted to comment on it with a sincere apology on behalf of all Christians. He mentioned being in public with his partner and being verbally abused by heterosexual people, he spoke about at times being physically and verbally harassed and ridiculed and publicly humiliated by those professing to be Christians. Ask yourselves an honest question, how do we as Christians treat the gay people in our society today? I think it would be quite fitting to say with nothing less than hostility.
Again don't get me wrong, I do not in any way condone, approve of, or accept the gay lifestyle - in fact the Bible calls the gay lifestyle an abomination - its that simple. But at the same time I would never as a Christian abuse them in any way. For one simple reason...actually no...2 simple reasons....Jesus would not have treated them with anything but absolute love and kindness and second gay or not they are still God's creation and as children of God I believe it is expected of us to treat all of His creation with respect and kindness for the simple fact as I said that they are still His creation, no matter what they do wrong....by extension no matter what ANYBODY does wrong. We as Christians seem to forget one simple truth...who were the people that Jesus dealt with? I'll tell you, prostitutes, tax collectors (Mathew was a tax collector), thieves, adulterers, the lowest of the low of society, those were the people Jesus headed for first. Do we remember the woman at the well, she had had 5 sexual partners by the time she ran into Jesus at the well the last one she was living with and not even married to....did He condemn her? no, did he verbally assault or abuse her in any way? no. He forgave her, blessed her and told her to go and sin no more. Do we remember the woman who had committed adultery and the pharisees were about to stone to her? what did Jesus do when he came upon the scene? (the way this was depicted in The Passion of the Christ just blew my mind, it was beautiful), He drew a line in the sand between him and her and the Pharisees, took her by the hand, helped her up, turned to the Pharisees and said "He who is without sin, throw the first stone"....the Pharisees dropped the stones and walked away (not too happy about it I might add). He turned to the woman, forgave her, blessed her and told her to go and sin no more. Now a story from our current time...Angus Buchan told this story in his book "The Mighty Men Journey" a gay man came to the conference one year and during a break the man ran up to Angus in desperation and told him he didn't want to be gay anymore and he wanted help. Angus stopped and spoke to the man a while, prayed for him and the man stayed at the conference for the duration of the weekend. A few weeks later Angus got an email from the man, thanking him, he had given his life to the Lord and was now in a happy relationship with a woman. My point is, did Angus attack the man for being gay? no, did he ask him to leave or have him removed? no. He treated the man with kindness, love, respect and dignity.
Do we remember Zaccheus? he saw the crowd coming following Jesus and he climbed into the nearest fig tree because of his extremely short stature and shouted to Jesus, Jesus stopped and called him down and told him "I must stay at your house tonight". Zaccheus was a tax collector if memory serves, and for those of you who don't know in those days tax collectors were despised and more times than not were crooks....hmmmmmm sounds like 2012 too.....hehehehehe.
The point is Jesus dealt with the lowest of society, the lowest of the low, the dregs of society....these people were His focus, society had thrown them away but Jesus loved them and accepted them and redeemed them unconditionally. What I''m getting at here is we have Christians in this world who seem to think that because they're Christians they seem to be morally superior to others, they seem to think they have a right to sit in judgement of others. Yes, the people you're judging may very well be doing things wrong, but while you were out judging others some skeletons fell out of your closet. We have churches out there, who will look at a single mother and completely reject her and tell her God can't love her because she's divorced or because she's had a child out of wedlock. Who are you to tell someone for whatever reason that God can't love them? There are churches which if a person of colour has to come to the church seem to think they have a right to decide that they'll tolerate them if they have to. Since when was blatant racism acceptable within the body of Christ? And since when did you get the right to dictate who may or may not come to your church? Do you seem to think God is working for you? that you make the decisions, that you tell God what to do? that you have a right to dictate to people who God can and can't love, or who can and can't come to church? Do you think God is meant to obey you? a spirit of pride is an ugly thing and please remember God resists the proud. Or are you wise enough to realize that you work for Him, He makes the decisions, He makes the rules, you obey Him. Or at least that's how I was taught.....
Since when do you approach a church for a donation and the church expects you to pay for it? Or you donate clothes to a church for the poor and the church members go through the donation first to see what they like to take for themselves and give the rest to the poor that it was originally intended for? I'm not gonna mention names that would be tacky, suffice it to say, that will be the last time that church will get anything from me.....ever.
We need to remember something as Christians, we may have eternal life, we may have salvation, but we will still be judged and we will still have to give an account of our lives and we will still have to answer for our lives and our actions. Quite frankly when I get to Heaven one day I'd much rather hear the words "well done my good and faithful servant" than have Jesus standing in front of me holding my broken, bleeding, unborn infant asking "which part of Thou Shalt NOT Kill, did you not understand?", or have to explain, why I chased a black man out of the church because of his skin colour, because I decided he wasn't welcome there because he didn't match the skin colour of the rest of the congregation. Or have to explain why I publicly humiliated a lesbian because I thought being a Christian made me some how better than her and gave me a right. Or have to explain why I felt I had a right to sit in judgement of a single mother who was brave enough to bring herself and her children to church. Jesus said "come to Me ALL who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest", he didn't say, only people of colour, or only straight people, or only women, or only men, or only homosexuals, or whatever, He said ALL.
We are meant to be beacons of light in a dark world, we are meant to be His representatives on earth, we are meant to be God's hands and feet on earth, we are meant to walk in love towards ALL mankind, we are meant to have people be able to see Jesus in us. But most importantly something a friend said to me recently.....WE ARE the Bible people are reading.
We need to think about this, the next time we feel morally superior enough to sit in judgement of someone else, or we feel the need to ridicule and bad mouth someone, or we feel the need to reject someone based on who they are or their circumstances, or the next time we feel the need to make someone feel unwelcome in our church because they don't fit our mould or our standard, or feel the right to reject and turn our backs on people because they're not Christians and we feel are morally inferior to us. Let me tell you something friend....there is enough wrong with you at this present moment to fill a book, you may not even know the half of it, but I can guarantee you God knows it all....so you have no place or right to judge anybody. We are all saved by Grace if it wasn't for God's Grace and Mercy, I don't even want to imagine where you would be today. So instead of sitting in judgement and ridicule of everybody else, go and look in a mirror and deal with your shortcomings first before you point fingers at other people.
"Remove the plank from your own eye before you remove the pebble from your brother's".
Ok, I'm done and now I'm getting off my soapbox for the night.
If I happened to offend anybody - build a bridge and get over it.
Goodnight, God Bless and Shalom
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