Matthew 10:32-39
In almost any gay movie that involves someone coming out, there seems to be a requisite scene. A young man who has 'been with' someone meets them at some later point in public. The other person offers a sincere gesture of recognition to the person only to be rebuffed, often in a very harsh way, almost as if to say, OMG you're gay??, get away from me! The person is not quite ready to come out yet.
There is a very hurtful feeling that is elicited when you think you are friends with someone and you are turned away. I suppose it's the same with straight people when you fall in love and at some point one party or the other falls out of love. You approach the person and are summarily slammed down. Your are shocked, your world is rocked - and not in a good way.
One of the visions of what sin is that I learned as a youth was that you are turning away from God. Venial sins were a movement away while Mortal sin was a wholesale turnaround if not a sprint away from God. Either way though you are rebuffing God. Whatever action it is that denies your holy essence or makes the worldly more important than God, you are rebuffing God. I find this concept somewhat useful even if it is simple.
The question arises, will God look upon you at your death or perhaps before and say I don't recognize you? Would God rebuff us even when we turn away from him? An interesting question for sure. I found great solace in a book called Good Goats, it speaks of this very question.
The question eventually comes down to what is more important though. While God recognizes family and relationship and wants them honored, if they become more important than the love of self and God, they can be placed aside. Our eternal salvation , in the end, is not from family, spouses, lovers or friends. Salvation does not come from being a member of a specific church or religion either.
Ultimately, we must turn toward God and if not perfect in doing so, at least make the effort to constantly try to make turns toward God. While God is loving and loves us enormously, I wonder if our wishes to be separated from him (by our turning away - sinning if you will), will be honored. Perhaps that is the essence of Hell if there is one. It is God's sad recognition that we can turn away from Him and he cries as he acknowledges our choice. Basically, we send ourselves to Hell if that is what have chosen. We condemn ourselves.
In the meantime, I have no desire to seek God and hear him ever say to me Who are you? I will always try to make my choices in concert with God's love and will. How about you?
In almost any gay movie that involves someone coming out, there seems to be a requisite scene. A young man who has 'been with' someone meets them at some later point in public. The other person offers a sincere gesture of recognition to the person only to be rebuffed, often in a very harsh way, almost as if to say, OMG you're gay??, get away from me! The person is not quite ready to come out yet.
There is a very hurtful feeling that is elicited when you think you are friends with someone and you are turned away. I suppose it's the same with straight people when you fall in love and at some point one party or the other falls out of love. You approach the person and are summarily slammed down. Your are shocked, your world is rocked - and not in a good way.
One of the visions of what sin is that I learned as a youth was that you are turning away from God. Venial sins were a movement away while Mortal sin was a wholesale turnaround if not a sprint away from God. Either way though you are rebuffing God. Whatever action it is that denies your holy essence or makes the worldly more important than God, you are rebuffing God. I find this concept somewhat useful even if it is simple.
The question arises, will God look upon you at your death or perhaps before and say I don't recognize you? Would God rebuff us even when we turn away from him? An interesting question for sure. I found great solace in a book called Good Goats, it speaks of this very question.
The question eventually comes down to what is more important though. While God recognizes family and relationship and wants them honored, if they become more important than the love of self and God, they can be placed aside. Our eternal salvation , in the end, is not from family, spouses, lovers or friends. Salvation does not come from being a member of a specific church or religion either.
Ultimately, we must turn toward God and if not perfect in doing so, at least make the effort to constantly try to make turns toward God. While God is loving and loves us enormously, I wonder if our wishes to be separated from him (by our turning away - sinning if you will), will be honored. Perhaps that is the essence of Hell if there is one. It is God's sad recognition that we can turn away from Him and he cries as he acknowledges our choice. Basically, we send ourselves to Hell if that is what have chosen. We condemn ourselves.
In the meantime, I have no desire to seek God and hear him ever say to me Who are you? I will always try to make my choices in concert with God's love and will. How about you?
‘Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.
‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
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; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
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; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
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