Assaulting God

The assault on God's image is a sin as old as mankind's original sin.  In the Garden, two people decided to strike out on their own and do their own thing.  It was for them a sorrowful celebration of self.  By their act they "became like God" and by their actions they became something entirely less than what they had hoped.

Their violation was not just in the eating of some random fruit, but their choosing to show God that they can fulfill themselves with lesser things.  Remember, their Garden was full of choice fruits with which they could eat their fill without any fear of punishment or disobedience.  These intended food sources were, no doubt, of the highest order of creation so as to sustain the highest object of creation... humankind. With their solidarity of action, they shook their fists at God rejecting choice fruits for thistles and thorns... lesser fruits.  Think of this for a moment... they chose to sustain themselves on the lesser.  Why was it lesser?  Because it wasn't intended for them.  It was set in the midst of the Garden as a point of choice.  God has never desired robots acting mechanically in relationship, but envisioned a creature that He love and who would return His love.  After all, this is the essence of His very nature... Love.  This is what He is.

In their act of defiance, they assaulted His nature.  Rebellion has never been a substitute for love.  Love is faithful and kind; it is patient and lasting. True love never fails.  Their rebellion was a cataclysmic slight against such a loving God; it was an assault on His Image. It was a strike at His very heart and nature.  It was anti-love.

This same assault is happening in America and it seems at an ever increasing rate.  Homosexuality is an assault on His Image.  God's intentions for humankind were of the purest motivations.  He designed for us each our complimenting counterpart in the opposite sex.  This complimenting counterpart was designed to bring harmony, completion and expression of His nature.  Our joining ourselves to the opposite sex in a marital relationship has so many practical and Divine functions that push mankind forward.  Procreation, celebration, completing love, partnership, companionship and only in marriage in each of its functions can we begin to understand the nature and love and relationship we are to have with God our Creator. 

For instance, in the function of marriage, once we become parents, we can understand for maybe the first time, the undying love and devotion a father or mother has for a child.  As a father, I first began to understand how it was possible for God to love me.  I looked at my first child as an infant, who had no talents, skills, could pay no rent, provide no food, who took up all of our time, cried a lot, stunk up our house with dirty diapers, yet in an instance without hesitation I would have jumped in front of a car for him, or gave him my own heart.  This is how we first see how God truly loves us so completely.  He loves us because we are His.

One more example, in a healthy marriage a husband and wife can experience the intimacy and closeness that God intends for us to have with Him.  We know from the Garden account in Genesis that man and woman were created naked and were not ashamed.  They walked and worked and talked in the Garden with God and each other naked before Him for there was no need to be ashamed.  This wasn't because they were buff and hot and in good physical condition, but because there was perfect trust and love between them and this trust and love never produced fear.  Have you ever thought how weird it is that as a married couple you can both be in the bathroom together getting ready to go somewhere and be brushing your teeth together or fixing your hair without a stitch of clothing on and it be completely comfortable, normal, not weird and without any shame?  Marriage provides the same context of relationship with which we were supposed to experience in the Garden originally with God.  With His model of love, there should be no fear and we can experience a little bit of what He must have intended in the Garden with our spouse.

Sure, some will argue that in their alternative life style they can experience these same things.  The difference however is that God is not involved. There's the selfish rebellion again that separated us from Him.  In order to be in communion with God the Bible clearly gives us the example that if we don't obey His commands, which is another way of saying -- participating in this life as HE designed it -- then we don't have the light in us (See I John 3).  Romans 1 is clear in saying that man and woman have left the natural affections and did degrading, unbelievable, unthinkable things with their same sex. They degraded the relationship God intended and used their bodies in ways God never intended. Again humanity was assaulting God's Image and nature.  In that same chapter of Romans, directly in the same context, Paul says that God abandoned them and turned them over to their depravity.  He had nothing to do with them and allowed them to live in their degraded, or should I say "lesser", passions.

This lifestyle is an affront and an assault directly on His Image.  Satan has taken God's first institutional relationship and has high-jacked it by convincing a percentage of humanity that this lesser fruit is just as desirable and acceptable as His higher-order fruit.  The Enemy has deceived our culture and now our nation is choosing to "institutionalize and normalize" homosexuality. Colossians 3 says that because of these sins, God's anger is coming to all who practice sin (read Colossians 3:1-11 for a listing of sins as well as Romans 1). We will see in our lifetime the acceptance by our governing bodies, in full force, the approval of these relationships all over our nation.  But guys -- church -- it doesn't make it okay or acceptable. 

The scriptures do not change and God will not be mocked by the Enemy for long.  God will be long suffering and He will show mercy and grace to those who seek it, but His anger will come and it will not be a time of decadent celebration. Dr. John Piper in the link I've provided above calls it the "new calamity".  New in the sense of our institutionalizing and normalizing this type of behavior.  Mankind wasn't intended to sustain itself on lesser fruits.  God has a greater, purer and more complete plan for His children.  He will forgive our sins if we ask, and He requires us to turn from these sins and He does provide a way of escape from temptation for those who have a propensity for such temptations.  Through God's powerful Holy Spirit such sins (not just homosexuality, but all sin) can be overcome and we can live in peace with God as He intended originally.

As the church, our response is love and acceptance -- not approval -- but acceptance of such sinners.  If we push them away before we ever get to teach and love them in Christ, then they can never be healed from these wounds of sin.  We are to share with them the truth because of our love for them and our desire not to see any lost for eternity in Hell.  We must pray for them, pray for our nation, and our leaders and show the unconditional love for homosexuals that Christ has for us.  This does not mean we should let homosexuals have leadership roles in our churches because of the biblical mandate of holiness that is required to be leaders in the church.  We must not be afraid to see sin as God sees sin and we must not be afraid to engage people and governments caught up in these deceptions, but our motives must be for God's glory and not because of our political leanings.

God help us, Your people.  Your will is that no one should perish in Hell; please help that to be the will of us, Your people as well.  Let our hearts be broken for the lost-ness of the culture around us.  Let us be in dire anguish that humankind, apart from You, are tumbling minute by minute into Hell -- that they were never intended for.  Please motivate Your people to move beyond the need to have the coolest, hippest churches that have no heart for Your Word despite how difficult Your word may be in the shade of our politically correct sensibilities. We need You God!  We need You God...