To LGBT Friends

There are two things I’d like to ask you to consider. First of all, that you’d give us another chance. Our nation, our world needs healing and it will start with people who are willing to drop age old battles and try to connect. This will mean meeting us halfway in an attempt to understand each other. It will mean forgiving the comments, stares, the harsh ways in which you were treated. You have many reasons to be angry, to question, to challenge, to turn away in disgust. Why not? That’s what was done to you.

Secondly, I ask that you give God another chance. I know many LGBT continue on in their faith. But a vast majority find God and faith to be irrelevant because there have been few provisions made for them in religious settings, particularly Christianity. I plead with you not to give up on God just because people have given up on you…or because you feel He was silent in some pretty dark times. God loves everyone. It’s my attempt through this blog to communicate that you do matter a great deal to God.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”  John 3:16 is arguably one of the most quoted Bible verses. Yet, we forget the essence of that simple passage. Some of the simplest thing we learned as a child, we can quote by memory…but it’s one thing to quote and another to believe it and communicate it effectively.

“God SO LOVED the world” That statement is pretty much all-encompassing. No one left behind. No better than anyone else. God’s view of us? He SO loves us. So much that He came for us. He is not a distant monarch, thousands of miles away in the cosmos. But an ever present Father; Immanuel – God with us.

“He gave His ONLY Son” Think about your favorite person in the world, whom are you’re closest to. God didn’t send a 2nd class angel. He gave His best.

“That WHOEVER believes in Him” Being part of God’s family isn’t an elitist club. Regardless of your ethnicity, bank account, education, where you grew up, whatever you’ve done, Christ is here for you.

“Not perish but have eternal life” I think of the angry statements that have been made to make people feel even less ready and less willing to come to God. God’s plan for people is not punishment but for relationship with Him…in a place where there will be no more tears, shame, condemnation, anger, violence, and fear.

Let’s talk about it.