Thursday, September 26, 2013

Loving the Lost into the Kingdom



Being a Christian on a very secular college campus on the “Left” coast is not exactly a walk through the tulips. There are days, even weeks, where my very spirit is twisting and turning in agony. Some days, it feels like my tiny little prayers get sucked up into a bubbling, oozing tar pit of decay, and other days I can feel the air electric in spiritual warfare. My heart grieves for the vacant eyes I see walking by in search of what, they don’t know.  I’ll tell ya, it can be exhausting and downright uncomfortable. 

This week was particularly tough. It was “sex week” on campus and they had posters and booths set out in the quad with large crowds gathered around. What I found a little more than interesting was a booth that was set up right next to them with a prominently displayed sign that read “Homosex is a God Damn Sin.” I wasn’t so sure how to feel about that booth, and I almost went over there out of curiosity. It was still a few minutes before my next class started and I could have gone over there for a few minutes, but I refrained. I suspect some well meaning Christian or Christians decided to put that up, and it drew just as large a crowd as the other “sex week” booths. 

Let me first say, I am in total agreement that homosexual sex is a sin, and so is any sexual intercourse outside of marriage. However, this is not my judgment, but God’s judgment, so if others have a problem with it, then it’s something they must take up with God, not me.  Therefore, I don’t have a problem with the anti homosexual sex message, but I do have a problem with the nature in which it was delivered in this case. 

What these vacant eyes I see passing by me on campus are looking for is not more of the same empty crudeness they can find at the “sex booths.” They are looking for the joy and the peace and the love and the grace that we have. They can go anywhere and hear crude language.  In these days of “political correctness” simply saying “Homosexual Sex is a Sin” is plenty enough to shock and awe onlookers.  I would even venture to guess that the crowds would have been larger if they weren’t trying so hard to use shock advertising to get a Biblical truth out and draw crowds. What they did with that sign was open the doors to angry arguments rather than true discourse.

We should trust the Holy Spirit to be able to do the work for us.  People can go anywhere and get anger, disdain, and condemnation these days, so they surely don’t need more of the same from us. Yes, we must proclaim the hard truths of the Bible, truths that people don’t want to hear, but we must do it in love. That is what this world is so thirsty for, and that’s what we should offer them in Christ Jesus.