“You’re Not a Christian if…” Fill in the Blank.

This is not Tim Keller, just a guy. Lol

Tim Keller is my favorite preacher, but I have heard him say many times that a person is not a Christian if he thinks, says or does… fill in the blank. This has always upset me but I overlooked it because everything else in his preaching is so deep, helpful and meaningful.

I heard him say it again last week. I listen to his old sermons on podcasts. Finally, I thought I should write my opinion on this. It’s just my opinion that I have come to through 53 years of being a believer in Jesus.

I was raised in a strict, evangelical, Bible believing religion. When I became a Christian at 19 years-old I thought the same way as Dr. Keller. If someone was smoking, drinking, partying etc. then they weren’t a Christian. They didn’t have a relationship with God. I was legalistic and judgmental.

I was also super critical of myself and felt guilty over the least little think I did wrong. I thought I could be perfectly like Jesus, but this didn’t happen. I was changed, the Lord changed me so much in wonderful ways, but I still felt hounded by guilt. I think it was because my church was horrified by any sin and never told us that if we messed up, which we would all the time, we were still okay with God and he would forgive us over and over.

It took years for me to understand the grace and forgiveness of God. I love how Jesus said, “If someone sins against you 7 times in one day and asks you to forgive, you must forgive him.” Well, God must feel the same about us and our sins.

One thing someone might say, “If you don’t love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself, then you are not a Christian.” I don’t believe that. I believe this is something to strive for through prayer. I myself have been through times when I have hated God, gotten mad at him, or questioned his goodness. I have doubts and fears all the time, yet I know I am a Christian.

Loving God is complicated. We think of love as a feeling, whereas it is an action or principle. I have had feelings of love and admiration for God many times, but this comes and goes. I want to love everyone as myself, but I don’t always do it. I pray for this teaching of Jesus to be in my heart every day and I should trust he can do it.

I know a Christian who hates people, so she says, yet she has done so much good for people she has met, people she doesn’t even know. She has been hurt by people since her childhood, so she has no trust. But the Bible says even Jesus didn’t trust people because he knew what was in their hearts.

Does she feel love for God, no, but she believes he is the God of the Universe and is all good. She says she never wants to make a decision without asking him because she has learned how she messes things up, but God doesn’t.

I think loving God and all people is something we must learn all our lives. It’s a long process called Sanctification. It is like Jesus said about our spiritual growth, “The earth produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head [of grain], then the mature grain in the head.  Mark 4:28 Crops don’t spring up overnight and we don’t become like Jesus overnight. We have a lot to learn.

I think I’ve learned more about God in the last ten years since I retired from babysitting my grandchildren. I had a lot of time to myself. God showed me some things about myself I didn’t know and wasn’t happy about. He also showed me how he is enough for me. I don’t need anyone or anything more than him. It’s not that it’s been all roses. I’ve gone through long illnesses and another death in my family. Also, recently some conflicts with my daughters that were not pleasant and I got angry and sinned against them by yelling. Didn’t know I had that in me either, to tell the truth. The Lord showed me my sin and I asked for forgiveness, but I’ll tell you I didn’t think it was that bad for two days! Yes, at 73 I am still a sinner for sure, yet Jesus loves me just as I am.

I remember when my mom lived with me, I could see God was teaching her things even though she was in her nineties! I thought, “Man, he never stops!” When she was in rehab for her hip operation, she was acting terrible, threatening people and refusing treatment. I was afraid she “wasn’t a real Christian” and would be lost. But God spoke to one of my daughters and said to her, “Call your mother now and tell her, her mother is going to be saved.” So, she did. She also said, “God sure is loud!” Lol Yes, I guess he can be sometimes. See, I was judging my mother while God was accepting and loving her.

There are many verses in the Bible that tell us we are saved, not by our works, but by our faith in Jesus’ death for us. I know in many churches, including my old one, you can’t get baptized until you stop sinning and sign a paper promising to keep all the teachings of the church. In the Bible, people were baptized right away. All they had to do is believe. We are so far away from that simple faith, and maybe some of the books of the New Testament even sound like we have to be so perfect. I don’t know, I just want to believe the simple things Jesus taught and not worry about my salvation and judge other people about their salvation. Jesus said we will know if teachers of the gospel are good by their fruits. I’m going to list the fruits of the Holy Spirit. These are words of love we should aspire to.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

Galatians 5:22-23, NIV

 

 

 

Hate and Sex Education.

 

Anyone can copy anything on my blog posts and use them.

When I was in 8^th grade, I took sex education. This was in 1964. All I remember was a list of diseases we girls could get from boys. I’ll never forget how they told us you could get Herpes from cold sores on a boy’s mouth. I had just kissed a boy with cold sores. I was horrified.

I told my mom I might have this sexual disease. She didn’t ask any questions, just took me to a doctor where they did some tests. He came back in the room and asked me where I thought I got a sexually transmitted disease. I told him I kissed a boy with cold sores on his mouth. The doctor was furious with my mom. He asked her if she had asked me about this and she had to say no.

At the time, I was dating and my parents had just assumed I was having sex because I was already drinking and smoking. I was a virgin, but then, they never asked. Sex was not talked about in my family.

When my daughter had sex education at school it was co-ed. I asked her how it went and she said, “I wanted to ask questions, but there were boys there, so I didn’t.” I thought that probably the boys wanted to ask questions too, but the girls were there. Ridiculous to have co-ed sex education, but they still do it.

I believe sex education is good for teens. They need to know they can get diseases and how to prevent that. They need to know how to use contraceptives to prevent pregnancy. They need to know sex is an important activity.

I should probably tell you now, I am a Christian. But I know that kids who take sex education classes have less unplanned pregnancies. I know my daughter always made every male she had sex with wear a condom and she has never caught a disease. I’m glad about that. I didn’t want her to have sex until she was married, but I’m not stupid and I accepted her as she was. Turns out she and my other daughter were bi-sexual too.

My wonderful younger sister is a lesbian. Or perhaps bi-sexual, since she has been with men also. But she prefers women. She is a Christian too. She is such a blessing to me spiritually. God shows her many things about life that have helped me. I try to help her too. We are opposites politically and in many other ways, but our love for each other overcomes that. She likes Trump, I don't think he is fit to be President. We know we each have the right to believe how we want. She doesn’t believe being a lesbian is a sin at all. Neither do my daughters and granddaughters. For myself, I’m not sure and leave it all in God’s hands. Paul says in the Bible that if someone believes something is a sin, then to them it is sin, if someone believes something is not a sin, then to them it is no sin. Can’t argue with that.

Okay, so now I am getting to the subject of “Parent’s Rights,” as far as sex education goes. I have been listening to arguments from both sides of this issue for a long, long time. What has hurt me the most is how those who want LGBQ etc. taught in schools tell everyone who doesn’t want this part of sex emphasized, hate gays, trans kids etc. For me, this is the farthest from the truth you can get. I do not hate trans kids, lesbians, Queers, etc. Not at all. I just think, from what I have read and heard, sex education has become too involved and intimate.

By that, I mean going into detail about what everyone does sexually and how sex can be “fluid” and one’s sexual tastes can change and this seems to encourage experimentation. I’m not saying sexual desires can’t be fluid, I’m saying we don’t need to teach this to kids who don’t even know who they are yet.

Sure, teach them about the different kinds of sex there is in the world, and teach them we should never judge or hate anyone who likes a different kind of sex. But after you inform them, let them come to their own conclusions about themselves. Give them that freedom.

Now to the nitty-gritty: bathroom laws. This sharing of bathrooms and locker rooms with trans men and women horrified me at first. Mainly because I was sexually abused by my father and my mom and daughters were all sexually assaulted during their lives by men. Teachers, bosses, doctors, dentists and even a Bible Salesman, have harmed my family.

If you don’t think a man would pretend to be Trans so he could go in a woman’s bathroom, then you don’t know much about men. They have done this and will keep doing this. I have written online to some podcasters who think some people hate gays because they feel the same way I do, yet when a few of them went to a nude women’s spa and a man came in saying he was Trans and wanted to join in, they were pretty upset. Luckily, the woman in charge told him no.

Privacy, this is very important to most people, but a woman has no privacy if men are allowed in the public washrooms. How do we know if they are truly Trans? We don’t. When I have read of young girls having to share locker rooms with boys it fills me with anger. Not at the boy, not at all, but at the new laws that allow it.

I’m sure most of us have heard and seen some of the books at the schools on sex, even in elementary schools. Some are explicit, which I think is terrible. When I see a placard that says, “Let Children be Children,” I know what they mean. Children don’t need to be thinking about sex, especially the intimate details of how to do it or how to pleasure another person.

I don’t know what else the “Parent’s Rights,” organizations talk about. These are the problems I myself see with the new sex education. I sincerely hope we can teach love, acceptance, and kindness to people of all sexes, races and identities. This is what the world needs now, but the biggest problem we have is hating each other and calling each other haters. I don’t hate anyone, and I don’t want anyone to hate me, but I am expecting it.