A soldier fighting terrorism dies a hero and an extremist group pickets his funeral to protest homosexuality.
What does his death have to do with homosexuality? Nothing at all, unless we’ve allowed hate to corrode our minds and hearts and make us irrational.
Westboro Baptist, a hate group from Kansas, protests military funerals to force the government to give up their support of homosexuality.
Ironically, Westboro’s delusional behavior brings sympathy for the sin they hate. In other words, Westboro Baptist is promoting homosexuality as much as anyone in America.
As New Testament Christians (Acts 2:38-47; 22:16; Romans 6:3-4), we combine the lessons learned from the world with a voracious study of Scripture and we become wiser in our walk for Christ.
We become like Westboro when we lose our perspective on reality. Homosexuality, child porn, abortion and pedophilia are repulsive sins but nothing should lead us to lose our spiritual focus (Romans 12:1-2).
We must never allow hatred for sin to open a door for Satan (1 Peter 5:8). The devil feeds that hate like a fire and we go from a Christian sharing what the Bible teaches to Eric Rudolph blowing up an abortion clinic.
Hate steals our soul and destroys everything in its path. It doesn’t care about anyone.
We must never forget that every sinner has a soul (Genesis 1:27; John 3:16) and we cannot close the door to them. We fight against God when we turn away souls.
Homosexuality is a sin (Romans 1:26-27), but hating homosexuals will condemn us to hell. God hates sin but he loves all sinners and wants them to be saved (2 Peter 3:9; 1 John 4).
We must never allow extremism to steal God from our hearts. The price is too high.