The ultimate con: believing "Christian" lies about God

A seeking brother, currently being led by the Holy Spirit out of the hell-trap of legalistic and bigoted "Christianity", wrote me last week about a Scripture being used in the "church" he's grown up in to "prove" God hates him.

On the surface, this "church" uses Scripture to "prove" God despises Gay and Lesbian people. But there's a far deeper message they are communicating to themselves, their families, and the world. And it has to do with God's very character.

God, they say, is a hater.

I can't even describe the level of anti-Christ blasphemy it is to re-make God as sharing and justifying the worst of one's own repulsive human nature, and then imprinting that evil lie about God into the minds of one's children, friends, neighbors, and more. It's a sinful lifestyle they've chosen, one that kills and destroys – and it's also a desperate one, wherein those caught in it rarely even recognize their sin, much less decide to repent of it (check out John 10:1-21, for example).

People living this sinful lifestyle happily make themselves enemies of anyone and everyone not like them, drawing false lines between what is "pure" and "impure" and what is "godly" and "ungodly" – and too many people (both Christian and not) go along with their assertions and definitions, rather than recognizing them for the frank delusions they actually are.

We might understand why non-Christians would believe their self-worshipping nonsense. But as Christians we have no excuse because the Bible itself describes people caught in and living out this sin as existing even in the early history of the church. Paul and others in the New Testament give us clear warnings about such people – but we've been taught by those with a reason to hide the truth that such Scriptures aren't about them or those they follow, but about "the world", or non-Christians, or someone (anyone) else they can shift blame onto.

Realizing the truth of those choosing to live this sinful lifestyle isn't just about recognizing that their self-created version of what God thinks about Gay people is wrong.

In fact, if our understanding only goes that far, we're still no more right with God than they are. In such a case, we're like Philip, to whom Jesus said, "“Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me?" [John 14:9]

No, realizing the truth about their sinful lifestyle means also recognizing the truth about God and His character – as described in the Bible, and as illuminated for us through the light of Jesus Christ [John 1:4-5]. It means knowing, just as the Bible tells us to know, that Jesus Christ is God, and God is Jesus Christ – and was Jesus ever a hater? No.

So is it even remotely possible that God is a hater?

No. And if we or anyone else believes He is, then we need to double- and triple-check our theology – because it's contradicting the Word of God while claiming to be only about God. And even the idea that we could have wandered (or been shoved) that far away from the real God should terrify us.

So, are you well enough acquainted with the Word of God? Do you fully understand the real Gospel?

Don't be so sure! There is a world of seminaries, denominations, churches, pastors, priests, and more that's worked overtime to make sure you THINK you have the real deal, when in fact you are not only living but also teaching a complete fake.

And the fake isn't going to get you into heaven, no matter how much you attend church, prophesy, sing praise, feed to hungry, tithe, memorize Scripture, and more [Matthew 7:21].

Love and respect Jesus enough, then, to renew your acquaintance with God's real truth of those Scriptures that not only describe and warn us about those who have chosen an anti-Christ "Christian" lifestyle, but also tell us what to do with and about them.

For example, here's what Paul wrote to Titus about these same kinds of folks and their sinful lifestyle. With whose eyes do you read this passage? God's? Or religious human beings'?

"For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain. One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, 'Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.' This testimony is true. For this reason reprove them severely so that they may be sound in the faith, not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth. To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed." [Titus 1:10-16]

The people Paul called "those of the circumcision" we call "legalists", today. They are people who adhere to and promote the letter of the law (often quite proudly!) to the exclusion of the intent of the law. They are also the people who have for centuries – and continue even today – to falsely remake and reinterpret Scripture to make it appear God says things about Gay people He does not.

So, reading this passage with God's eyes, tell me: what does God think about legalists? What does God want us to do with or about them?

If you need to, read it again – and again, and again – until you release the lies told to you perhaps all your life, and you instead open to the instruction of the Holy Spirit and come to understand that God says of legalists that they are not the wonderful children of God they claim to be, but are instead:

• Rebellious and disobedient to God (e.g., God says live humble other-love, but they live arrogant self-love)
• Blowhards, liars, and deceivers (e.g., they mistranslate God's Scriptures on a host of topics -- and just one of those topics is Gay people)
• Destroyers of families (they do so today in families with Gay people, but they destroy other families and their own for all sorts of reasons)
• False teachers (e.g., they preach and teach a different gospel than what Paul and other New Testament writers taught). 
• Only concerned with their own disgusting benefit (e.g., they build "Christian" organizations in order to make careers, have a place to religiously show off, and more)
• Evil (e.g., glorifying war, economic oppression, and domination of others as "Christian")
• Absorbed in people-inspired myths and commandments (e.g., almost everything you find in or about a modern "church" is completely human-made, and has no basis in the true Gospel)
• Defiled and impure (e.g., using God's reflected glory to make their sinful human cliches and organizations appear "godlike")
• Claiming to know God but by their deeds proving they actually deny Him (e.g., being self-serving hypocrites)
• and, being unable to do anything good (since in God's eyes, even "good" things don't count if done for selfish reasons - it's true: nothing they can do could ever truly be good!)

Too often as Gay Christians we allow people whose hearts and lives prove they haven't even begun to understand God, dictate to us how we will understand God, and how we will believe God understands us.

But that's a crock! And it's exactly opposite of what God tells us to do.

We each, then, need to say, "No more!"

• No more to being tricked by the lies the false gospel of legalism tells about God.

• No more to elevating any human beings to God's place, allowing them to define whether we are worthy of His unconditional love through Jesus Christ.

• No more to not understanding that people living the false gospel lifestyle need our prayers and compassion – and not our obedience and deference.

Here are some other Scriptures I invite you to also take a new look at, in your search for what God really thinks of the people who condemn you just for being Gay. These Scriptures also talk about how He wants you to understand and react to their sinful lifestyle (note these are just some of the New Testament verses – continue your new study by finding the others in both New and Old Testaments!:

• Romans 16:17-18
• Titus 3:9-11
• 2 Timothy 4:1-4
• Matthew 23
• 2 Corinthians 11:13-15, 19-20
• 1 Timothy 6:3-5
• The book of Galatians
• Revelations 3:7-13

Study and read, study and read, study and read! – always asking the Holy Spirit to help you release the false message you may have been taught or assumed in them, and to instead take in God's real message.

God has more in store for your Gay life than cowering under the oppressive weight of people who are spiritually hard of heart, fearing for your salvation because they tell you to!

Stop sacrificing yourself on the alter of their self-worship!

And may God not only continue to bless you on your continued journey toward and on His narrow path to life, but may He also inspire you to avoid, challenge, and pray for those anti-Christ "Christians" in your life as He directs you to!

In His love,

Lynne