Sunday, July 5, 2015

From a conversation with a friend about gays, marriage, and the image of God

The image of God is not in our physical bodies, God is outside of creation. When the Word of God became flesh, he had to get it the same way you and I did, thru our mothers. God is Spirit (John 4:24), all the attributes we know of Him describe His wisdom, power, grace, justice, etc., and none of them speak of his sexuality, genome, IQ, health or height, for He has none of those attributes, they are all physical. (Funny to think of Him as not having an IQ, but that speaks to the content and quickness of the mind, and His thoughts are nothing like ours - He knows everything, always has.)

Secondarily, we were created in His image at the beginning, but we have continued to reproduce thru the ages with that image marred. The power to create a child today comes from the original commandment to "be fruitful and multiply," and that commandment has not been withdrawn. We bring forth the next generation based not on an echo or memory of His command, but on the continuing power of that Word still working to effect new life out of us. Nevertheless, what or whom we produce is defaced, marred, wounded from their beginning because we carry Adam's sin nature. Sin doesn't always mean a conscious moral failing, it means something isn't the way God planned for it to be and we pass on every sort of damage there is to our children - physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, DNA, whatever.

Speaking to the irreplaceable and incomprehensible value of your gay friends in yours and God's sight, you are correct. There is no human being on this planet that He does not value and care for in a manner and depth that our current grasp of the word "love" can barely hint at, added to which He also passionately desires to make Himself known to and thru you and your friends, even to the point of death. His own, that is.

This is the place where we have become so familiar with His grace that we can become forgetful of its tremendous power. We know the story, yadda yadda, yet we fail to remember that His purpose is to make people in His image, that His own glory would fill the whole earth - not ours. He wants His wisdom, justice, grace, and purpose working thru us, not our reasoning and desires. He made a new and living way to Himself, and we don't come. We really don't. It's too hard, it's tedious, we don't like changing into His image, and we're afraid of what He will ask of us next. It can suck Really bad. For a Long Time.

Marriage is about being in the image of God, two working as one to create new life and make this earth flourish like a garden. However, civil government can do what it pleases. I've thought for a long time that the government should offer no more than a civil legal union to everyone. Pack whatever or whoever the body politic want in the thing, God is not subject to civil law, but He is King and Master over all creation. What's that saying, you're free to make your own choices, but you aren't free to choose the results? Forget about what you see in the movies and what is being sold on every street corner, judgement and revelation are in the truth about every alternative to God being uncovered and made plain so there is no confusion about the choices being made.

Love your friends, look like Jesus. Some of them are going to want out of the horror this world is becoming and they need you to know the Way in the dark.

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