“These are the words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens: I know your works. Look, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut.” (Revelation 3:7-8)
An Open Door
The following quotes are from a powerful video called “Through My Eyes.” The conclusion is from the sermon “The True Family of God” by The Reverend Dr. John Judson, FPC Birmingham MI, Feb. 6, 2011.
I feel “like a spiritual fraud.” I’m told I will be “cast into the Lake of Fire.” “Why isn’t God making me normal?” If this is a “test of faith,” will God keep testing and tempting me all my life?”
“Why would I choose to be this way?” “I need to be fixed.” “If you are sick, you can get better, right? I should be healed.” “I believed God would heal me.”
“Being this way is the ultimate sin. God hates this sin more than any other sin.” The counselor said, “I cannot change the way you feel but I can change your behaviors.” “What made me this way? I’m frustrated with God.” “I felt like I was a disease.”
A friend told me “The fact you are this way is challenging my faith.”
“They are hurt because I am this way.” “I need Christ in my life.”
“Do I need to choose between being this way or being a Christian?”
Who are the people who said all of these things? Who are the people who experienced all this pain? Are they the wrong color? From the wrong part of town? Criminals?
No!
They are all young Americans, raised in Christian churches and homes.
They have all found out – usually to their horror or dismay – that they are gay. And their Christian churches and homes and friends and families have turned their backs on them.
Prayer: Dear God, help us be your open door to all who want to be a part of the Family of God, to all who “seek to live lives that express the will of God as lived out in the life of Jesus, lives of love, grace, compassion, and justice.” Amen.
Diane Falconer
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