God's diverse family

1 John 3:1-6

          John, the Beloved disciple, gets it. He is a child of God. WE, are children of God. All created in his image but all unique, special, purpose built, capable of love and more, no batteries required!

          Of course the flip side to that, the hard part for many people is that if we are in fact a child of God, so is every other person. That requires some thought. That means we are all brothers and sisters, eh? It also means we all deserve the same respect. We need to love and respect each other. I think for many the hardest part is this uniqueness about each of us. We are all different in so many ways. But of course we have to love and respect those differences. If you think about it, what would the world be like if all the animals were just horses? or manatees? or pidgeons? I don't want to say what my favorite animal is, some of you may know, but there is beauty and diversity throughout the animal kingdom. Did you know close to 1500 species display homosexual behavior? There is also bisexuality in some species. In some species the male is the homemaker and rearer of the young. Women are the hunters and gatherers. The diversity is astounding and quite beautiful. In the human species, about 10% they say are homosexual. These humans, of which I am proudly one, are your brothers and sisters, capable of love, capable of long term relationships, capable of respect and are loved just as much as any other of our brothers and sisters.

        If we simply note that God created all of us and that we are all brothers and sisters it has some powerful implications. After all, God don't make junk as they say. Being gay is not a mistake, it's not a sin, it is a gift from God.

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him.