Casting Your Stones

Today, my heart is heavy. I have a heavy heart towards the hateful conversation on social media. I am sure this talk is being shared in other ways as well, but my focus right now is what I have been seeing on Facebook.

In the past few days I have continually seen friends of mine on Facebook changing their profile picture to the photo that is the color red with an equal symbol. Which stands for marriage equality. Which means they are standing up for gay rights.

I am also seeing friends of mine on Facebook post photos that state that they are against homosexuality.

But the saddest thing I am seeing on Facebook is the persecution between the friends who are for and the friends who are against homosexuality. It makes me absolutely sick to my stomach to see such hate between one another.

Here are few examples of what I have seen:

“All my friends on Facebook that support sin (as seen by your pro-fag profile pictures), I am deleting you.”

“I am so sick of seeing the gay symbol. Yesterday. I unfriended all of them.”

“What you wrote was hate, disgust and corruption in itself. This is judging, rude, and full of hate. Ill give you the curtosy and delete you first.”

I can’t help but think about John 8 in the Bible. The story goes like this…

 ^“At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

John 8:2-12

My friends,

who are we to judge, hate and bash those who believe something we do not?

Or are sinning differently than we are?

Do I believe that homosexuality is wrong? Absolutely.

Do I have the right to persecute those who think otherwise? Absolutely not!

1 Corinthians 15:14 says,

“Let ALL that you do be done in love.”

The Bible does not say “ALL” to mean EXCEPT when someone believes in something you do not or EXCEPT when someone is in sin. Let ALL that you do be done in love!! This means that we need to love those in sin, love those who don’t believe in what you believe, love those who post a picture supporting gay marriage.

Do you really think “un-friending” someone on Facebook is the answer? Really? 

I hear of many situations in our world today where those FOR homosexuality or the homosexual themselves walk into a church and get the cold shoulder. Just makes me cringe thinking about it. Thinking about the fact that someone in sin (which may I add is ALL of us), a sin that YOU think is far worse than other sins, walks into a church where they could potentially be set free from that sin, gets the cold shoulder and they walk right back outside those church doors.

This is kinda similar to un-friending these people on Facebook. You see that they are following a path that you don’t agree with and you get rid of them. Looking at John 8 and the story of the woman in adultery.

Do you think Jesus would un-friend these people? 

Or do you think He would love them?

What would make YOU (the one who wants to un-friend people) have more of a right in the sin in your own life then THEY (those who are being un-friended) do in their sin?

Let me tell you something that I don’t want to leave unsaid. Homosexuality is wrong. Not because my own personal opinion thinks it is wrong, but because the Bible clearly states that it is wrong and I am a true believer in what the Bible says.

Leviticus 18:22 says, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.”

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 says, “….Neither fornicators, no idolaters, no adulterers, nor HOMOSEXUALS, no sodomites, no thieves, no covetous, no drunkards, no revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the Kingdom of God.” 

I don’t know about you but that is pretty clear to me.

I will stand on what I believe, but I will not bash any of you who do not believe the same as myself. No matter how disappointing it can feel to see fellow Christian friends stand for homosexuality. It is not my place to judge them OR punish them by deleting them out of my life or being hateful towards them.

Instead I am choosing to pray and love everyone. Those for and against homosexuality. That there will be peace between us all, that we can love one another, encourage one another and be Christ to one another.

Some of you may disagree and still think the BEST act is to just start deleting people off Facebook like a crazy person. But, think about it. Satan wants you to persecute these people just as much as Satan wants everyone standing for homosexuality. Both sides of this are following Satan in some way.

Stop throwing stones at each other.

I mean unless you are WITHOUT sin in your own life, then by all means, cast that first stone…..