This Side Of Heaven

I'm convinced that Satan applauds this guy's work. I'm sure they've read this scripture and this one too, and they are absolutely convinced that Jesus isn't referring to them. I'm pretty sure the pharisees felt the same way too until Jesus rebuked them.

A teacher recently quoted a friend who said "Religion is man's idea about God's expectations." Another person defined religion as "man's attempt to get to God." I suspect that the average person really doesn't know what to do with God. He's either some far-off abstraction, or a cruel master, or a powerless benefactor, or... fill in the blank. A lot of us are either unwilling or unable to accept God as being Who he has revealed himself to be and accept whatever that means for us. No, we like having things neat and orderly and contained, like

• The utility company provides electricity if you pay your bill
  
• Mechanics are guys who can fix cars
  
• Do good things and you will have a good life

The last few years, I've been forced to confront one of the hardest truths in the Christian life: Man is finite and not capable of fully understanding God, and God's actions are not always predictable or suited to man's morality. This is in direct conflict with my desire to understand God and understand his actions in and around me. For years, I treated my religion with the standard belief that if I love God and do his will, I will get a good life in return. The problem is that my idea of "a good life" is not really his chief objective. Proverbs makes certain guarantees for wisdom and there are many promises and blessings for the person who does God's will, but there is nothing said in scripture that says everything will go my way. In fact, if I do believe that, I'm not really serving God, I'm serving myself. It's a painful realization to know that God is not subject to my scruitiny, as if I had a microscope big enough to put him under or a brain large enough to grasp his eternal existence. This doesn't stop me from asking questions, but it does help me realize that I will have to wait until I am face to face with him in eternity to get a satisfying answer for each one of them.

One of the questions I don't have a satisfying answer for is why God allows the person in the picture above to go around pretending to be his only spokesman. I see them driving people away from God with these statements, and that really angers me, which can keep me from understanding what God is doing. God doesn't like what they're doing, but God can still use what they're doing. Often, these people cause Christians to stand up and confront the wrong message and present the right one. Their inflammatory rhetoric causes people to examine their own hearts and search out the answers. There is good being worked out. That still doesn't help me see why God allows these people to speak for him. I don't have the answer; just the inkling of a clue for a possible reason. And that will have to do for this side of heaven.

Oh, and if there is anyone who actually is wondering how God feels about people in the homosexual lifestyle, it's true that while God condemns homosexuality as sin, he also cares more than anyone could know about people caught up in that sin, just like the adulterer and the idolater. His word is pretty clear:

[Jesus said,] "What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.

Matthew 18:11-14