What should we do, Lord?

A Response to the Gay Marriage Decision                                                                

Truly we are in complex times. Think of it, the Lord has ordained us to be the ones on earth to represent His Kingdom for such a time as this.  May we be found faithful!!

Every time I try to discern in my spirit what is my “stand” on this issue, I find myself more uncertain.  Man cannot legislate morals and truth, it’s why the letter of the law apart from the saving grace of Jesus only leads to death.  Scripture is clear that homosexual behavior is sin.  So is hate, greed, malice, false witness, other sexual sin, putting other Gods before the One true God, and on and on.  All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  Does this mean we should not pursue lives free from sin?  Of course we must.  When God says don’t, He is saying don’t hurt yourself.  He saved us and brought us into marvelous light, should we willingly keep walking in darkness?  

I believe there is no black and white “stand” to take, apart from love never fails and Jesus is the only way.  Even scripture will take different sides, depending on the situation… For example: Obey the laws of man can be found and at the same time, Jesus and his disciples clearly go against the laws of man.  ONLY Jesus in the form of His Holy Spirit, our counselor and ever present friend can determine the right course of action in any situation.  We must have our hearts and minds so tuned into the Spirit of the living Christ that in the moment, we will know the right response.  How do we do this?  PRAY, Learn to PRAY, PRAY at all times and in all sorts of ways, PRAY without ceasing. We need DIVINE strategies and DIVINE intelligence to stand on truth in love.

I have been searching scripture for parallels to what we are seeing play out.  The one that rings true so far is the story of John and Peter preaching in the Name of Jesus. They were called before the leaders and reprimanded and told not to preach in this Name.  They replied, “should we do what you say?  Or what God says?”  Here we have scriptural precedent to go against the laws of man when God is telling us to do something else.  (btw. Daniel praying, Mordecai and the 3 from the furnace refusing to bow to man are other examples.)

To me the Bible makes it clear that Christians cannot just decide that homosexual behavior is not sin.  However, it is not clear to me that a Christian carpenter should refuse to roof a house of a gay man. Do we ask customers if they are addicted to porn or having an affair or full or greed or pride before we engage, become friends or do business?  No, we don’t.  If we decided we can’t do business with sinners, all business would have to halt. Where does the act of doing business cross into celebrating sin or defying God?  That is for each person to work out with fear and trembling with God. 

Now, back to the story of Peter and John, after they took their stand against the authorities, they went to a prayer gathering to call on the Lord for supernatural courage to continue. We know there was an earthquake and not only Peter and John, but all that were present were anointed to speak out in the Name. Fast forward to another public teaching event… Again they were brought before the Sanhedrin. “didn’t we give you strict orders not to preach in the Name of Jesus?”  “We must obey God”, was the reply. Then they were punished…. And Acts 5:41 says “the apostles left, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.”  Hmmmmm, this sounds very different than publicly fighting for legislation to protect our religious freedom.  If we do take a stand because we feel the Holy Spirit prompt us to go against the rulers’ edicts, and we get punished for it, perhaps our reaction should be rejoicing? See what I mean?  It’s complicated! The “right thing” to do in any situation is not clear before the situation presents itself.  We must lean hard into the chest of Christ Jesus and listen for Him to guide the way and then trust Him with the consequences.  We must hear the voice behind us saying, “this is the way, walk in it”.  We must practice this “listening” on everyday interactions so that when the big test comes, we are ready.  You see a guy with a sign begging for food, do you always give? Do you always judge? Or do you ask Jesus, “what would you have me do and say, right now, Lord?” Your daughter tells you a lie, what should you do?  Your neighbor is hateful about lawn care, what should you do? Only Jesus knows the heart and His ways are NOT our ways, we have to ask Him!  Only Jesus can hold us accountable to absolute truth and at the same time love us unconditionally. We are called to be His representatives right now, not by power or by might, but by my Spirit, says the Lord.