How can you call yourself a Christian if you are so full of hate? Jesus never taught us to hate sinners but rather to minister to them and turn them from the ways that are contrary to God’s word and the ways that harm their own souls. We are called to love and minister to those that are suffering from their own sins not hate and harm them.
Jesus himself was chastised for associating with sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors. In Matthew 9:12-13 Jesus says: “…those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: I desire mercy not sacrifice. For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
So many Christians want to minister only to the righteous and condemn, hate, scorn and even do physical harm to the sinner. This is the opposite of what Jesus did and said to do. I say shame on you if you are one of these people. Repent, ask God’s forgiveness for your hatred, then go out and minister, in a loving way, to those in need.
This particular story below may not have been a crime of Christian hate specifically but I see, on a daily basis, all of the Christian hate and vitriol towards the LGBTQI+ community. Read these articles, look at the innocent face of this young person and ask yourself if they deserved the hate and violence that they endured to the point of death. Then read my response at the end.
Please, stop the hate and understand just what exactly it was the Jesus called us to do – to love and minister to those that are hurting, not inflict more hurt upon them.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/21/us/oklahoma-teen-death-school-fight/index.html
KoinNews OpEd: Regardless of your opinion about the LGBTQI+ community, it is never OK to hurt another person. You can choose who YOUR friends are, you can choose how you live YOUR life, but doing harm to others just because they don’t abide by YOUR ideas is plainly wrong. Have instructive debate, witness to others about your beliefs, tell your testimony, but don’t do harm to other people, even if you don’t agree with them.
Love the sinner even if you don’t like the “sin”. – the definition of which is a subject for another time, spoiler alert, being born LGBTQI+ isn’t a sin in itself. When Jesus was asked, regarding why a man was born blind, was he born blind because of his sin or because of the sin of his parents and Jesus replied that he was born blind so that the work of God could be made evident in and through him (John 9:1-4).
We are all born the way that we are born, no one is the “ideal” person. We all fall short of the glory of God but He has made a path for us to be redeemed, despite the hand that we were delt or the choices that we have made. In Acts 8:26-40 we see that Philip baptized a eunuch who sought to be saved and in Isaiah 56:4-5 we see that a eunuch is to be accepted as a Hebrew, even cherished by God, if he is willing to abide by God’s laws.
Having a lifetime of personal experience with this subject, being a trans person myself, I can testify that the proper Christian response should be one of love rather than hate.
May God bless and accept the soul of this poor young person who should not have left this world so early and comfort the family who are suffering unimaginable grief. Join me in praying for these people.
Please read the following article about sin and redemption on KommunityKoin.com: https://kommunitykoin.com/your-testimony-and-mine