You've already admitted that you haven't kept God's laws. That makes you a sinner in God's eyes.
Oh I know. But NO ONE keeps God's law, every man is a sinner the differance is I have not repented as I don't believe in it.
God is benevolent. However, He is also holy, righteous and just.
This I know.
God's holiness demands that He have a strict moral standard ("the law"). His justice demands that He punish violations ("sin") of that moral standard.[/quote]
I won't debate with you on this, actually I don't wish to debate.. at all . This is one of the biggest conflicts I have had accepting the true benevolence of the Christian god, besides I have ALWAYS been gay, it has been with me as has been my skin color and eye color and and every scrap of my personality, how could that be sinful? It's me and what I am.
The Bible tells us that God's benevolence comes only after we repent and put our faith in Christ and His atonement on the cross.
This I know, but then his benevolence has to be earned which is not benevolence.
And that's what's known as idolatry because what you've done, in essence, is to create a god in your own image.
Oh, as I said this was when I was very young, 5 or 6 or so. That is just how I always pictured him, fatherly you know if I fell or messed up rather then be angry with me, he would give me a pat on the back and a nice try and when I did die as long as I didn't kill or anything horrid like that he would give me a finger wag and a "Oh you little scamp you" kind of chat. The Christian god is quite frightening to a child when you truly think about it so this was my happy go lucky alternative so I could believe in him abit better, but this was WHEN I believed and was very young.
The Bible is very clear that God is angry about our sin and that we all face His wrath on judgement day.
-nods- Yes this too I know but it seems to cheapen the "Love the sinner, not the sin" mentality of Jesus.
While it might make you feel better to believe that God will wink and nod at sin and say "boys will be boys", but the Bible is very clear that God will judge those who are found to be in sin and rebellion.
Yes this I know.
Does that concern you at all?
Are you concerned of an imminent alien invasion in the future? To me that question carries the same air.
But you are a sinner in danger of God's wrath and that's something you need to take very seriously.
If I believed I probaly would be, but I fear we have deviated from the subject abit.
And therein lies the mistake.
You assume to class God as a god of your making, not The God from the Bible. Truly benevolent to you, means one thing. To God it is another entirely. A truly benevolent god would heal all the sick, remove all the suffering, protect all those in danger. This isn't God from the Bible, He is not a babysitter, we have free will to do and act as we wish.
Of course but the god is not truly benevolent. I feel we are grealt leaivng the original subject though..
I notice you did not address my post, it clearly says in plain text homosexuality is sinful. The Bible says that with God, nothing is impossible, so I encourage you to repent and turn from your ways. Don't be stubborn. Be steadfast.
All the best, God bless!
Digit
I can't just NOT be gay, it doesn't work that way. That is like asking you to try and turn gay, you can't do it.
Anyway I can't completley debunk your quites but here is my take on things.
The Old Testament as I said was simply the word of God for the HEBREWS to follow. NO ONE ELSE. This was a group of people in the desert who need guidance so God set all these rules to keep them on the staight and narrow and prosperous, such as "Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard." Lev 19:27. This states quite clearly that SHAVING was a sin for them.
Or how about Leviticus 19:19 which states "Keep my decrees. Do not mate different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material." So anywone who wears polyester, rotates crops or raises mules is sinning. Or Leviticus 11 which is quite lengthy which basically you can't eat lobster or crawfish. Or pork.
BUT! Christians don't have to follow Levitican law, why so? Let us skip abit to Acts of the Apostles or more specifically Acts 15:24-29 which states. "We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell. "
Or how about Collosians 2:14 which states "having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross."
Or Hebrews 7:18 which states "The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless". All of these basically states when Jesus died, all he asked was you to beleive in him and the other laws did not matter anymore, no one had to follow those laws of the Hebrews anymore.
Now let us skip on into the New Testament.
Romans 1:24-27 "
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creatorwho is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. "
Okay where does it say these men sinned of homosexuality? All I see is the damnation of their lusts which is a sexual immorality as is sleeping around.
1 Corinthians 6:12-18 ""Everything is permissible for me"but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"but I will not be mastered by anything. "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body."
This verse says to "flee sexual immorality", but it only mentions whoring yourself. Further, to prove that God condones ALL forms of love, including homosexual love:
1 John 4:7-12 "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."
These verses, properly interpreted and read, not misquote or drug out of context, show that God is behind all forms of love, and that lust and prostitutional fornication are the sexual sins mentioned. The verses from 1 John specifically refer to unconditional love. It states that any love that is unconditional is from God. Homosexuals can love their partners unconditionally, therefore, can have unions blessed by God.
So here is the point of what I have been saying. All of these damming facts of homosexuality being a sin where written in the New Testament when the Hebrews had to follow the laws of Leviticus to prosper but Jesus effectivly did away with this system. Hence we gays are not sinning.
