The Real Issue

Marriage Civil Rights or Spiritual Issue?

My entry today comes with a foreknowledge that I will most likely be ridiculed by both the Christian and secular communities. I do this with the same attitude that prompted me to start this blog. All week long this week there has been an influx of ridiculous commentary regarding our president’s announcement (President Barack Obama) that he supports homosexual’s right to be married. I have heard a bevy of my colleges be up in arms concerning this decision. They began to scream how anti-bible that it is and that God’s word proclaims that homosexuality is a sin and we should not allow this and we must take a stand and blah blah blah. Here’s the reality, YES homosexuality is a sin. YES the Holy Bible calls it an abomination (of which there are many) in His eyesight. NO the decision is not anti-biblical because as you intelligently read your word, you will find that in the last days these things must be in order for the prophecies of the word to be fulfilled before the rapture. But more to me than all of that NO THIS DECISION IS NOT A SPIRITUAL ISSUE! I am so sick of everyone trying to make this a spiritual issue especially being that most of the people screaming the loudest against it are the ones who aren’t even coming close to living any part of the word of God. This issue of homosexuals being able to be married is an issue of civil rights not a spiritual issue. Allow me (if you haven’t already started cussing me out with your sanctified self) to explain and prove my point.

The first thing one has to understand in order to see where I am coming from is that God and God alone ordains marriage. All this talk about marriage is moot if you haven’t included God in the conversation. God has fashioned your mate for you just as he did for Adam. If you don’t believe that then your base is even further back than what I have time to deal with right now but my biblical backup is in Genesis where God spoke to himself and looked at Adam in his pitiful state and said it is not good that man should be alone.  With that statement God decided to fashion and form woman just for him and created her as a help meet to him. There was no wedding ceremony, no rings exchanged, no vows given to one the other cept Adam seeing her and called her woman and said you are bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. That was the first union, now take a real look at it and see that it was ordained and fashioned by God himself. There is no scripture that I am aware of that changes what was done in the beginning so we must stick with the beginning. People have this foul ideology that marriage is an institution between one man and one woman. I say again you don’t know marriage. Marriage is a gift of love exchanged between man and God. That gift given was woman.

Now, if the gift (woman) was not given by God it isn’t marriage. So what am I saying, I am saying there are a multitude of people who have the license which was established generations later to signify and exchange of property had taken place (so the license was more like a receipt than anything else). There are a multitude of people who have it and still aren’t married. They have entered into a commitment, they have entered into a covenant with one another but aren’t married. If God has not given her to you then you aren’t married sorry to be the one to break it to you. She will be created for him and he for her. Millions of straight marriages aren’t true and real marriage but Christians don’t say a word about it. We only talk about the homosexuals and we do that because that is an outward sin we can readily identify. People don’t scream to loud about the lying pastor, or the gossiping first lady, or the mean and cantankerous evangelist, no because they can act like that isn’t them on Sundays but come across their path on Tuesday and see how they are.

There are 2 types of marriages. Marriage ordained by God and marriage commissioned by man. The marriage ordained by God is just that ordained by Him and the only rule is that He fashioned and created that mate specifically for you. With that rule there is a lot that goes in to the fashioning of you and your mate for each other. She is going to push you man to be your best, she is going to challenge you to continually become better. He is going to take you woman and lead you sometimes to uncomfortable places as God leads him. He’s going to direct you to do somethings that you may not be sure about when you first start, but understand you are fashioned for one another for that reason.  When you look at your wife can you say as Adam did, “she is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh?” The second type of marriage which has been commissioned by man is an institution that gives rights to couples who have a signed piece of paper saying they are married. There are no other criteria than that. Man marriage doesn’t care if you are compatible for one another, if he’s the leader he is supposed to be, if she is the visionary she is supposed to be all you have to do is sign on the line and you are officially and legally married. With that official piece of paper you get to enjoy extra rights like tax breaks and hospital rights single people don’t get to enjoy. It’s these kinds of rights that homosexuals have been denied for years and they want those same rights. Though (as a Christian) I recognize their relationship is ungodly it is still a relationship and they are still citizens of a country that promises to give equal rights to all people. Now as a black man I know that equal rights thing is bull however as a black man and recognizing our struggles I refuse to not support anyone looking to gain rights that they should have just as we had to fight for ours.

Lastly I’ll say this and quit because I can feel the spiritual daggers being thrown at me. As Christians our job isn’t to force people to do or be right. Jesus didn’t force us to accept Him how dare you think you have the right to do that to anyone else. That’s the problem you are trying to change people and that isn’t your job. Your job is to present the truth and let the hearer make up their own mind. Furthermore that isn’t showing love which we are commanded to do for our neighbor as we would want it ourselves. Jesus draws with love. His word declares that with loving kindness have I drawn you. How is it that He draws with love and you try to draw with bigotry (a characteristic that is far from Godly). Then you get pissed when an atheist like Bill Maher (brilliant political comic and commentator) shows you just how not like Christ you are being. Again the Holy Bible lets us know that it’s only by our love that people will know that we are His disciples. It’s God’s job to get people to change, your job to bring the opportunity for them to change. Stop trying to do His job. Matter of fact you have enough trouble just trying to get your ownself to change let alone get someone else to change. Stop trying to deal with the dirty sock in someone else’s room when you have dead animals and faeces all over your floor. Clean up your mess and work on you before you try to get someone else to get right. The Holy Bible teaches us to let our light so shine before men that they may see your good work and glorify your father which is in heaven. No one can see any of the work you do because you got crud all over your light causing it to give a dim flicker of light that eventually will have people lost.

So yes I Minister Jesse Jones am in support of gay marriage. Not because it’s marriage because only true marriage is ordained by God. Not because I agree with or support the lifestyle because I don’t it is sin and I pray that all homosexuals come into the knowledge of Christ.  But because I support their right to choose the life they desire and the right to accept or reject God as they may or may not choose. I support civil rights period. That being said I also support being fair. I choose not to be forced to marry them whether in my church or in a park because though I support their right to do it I will not take part in it. I also choose to continue to recognize homosexuality as a sin and will continue to preach the uncompromised gospel of Jesus Christ to all including those of differing opinions, races, sexual preferences, and religions. I am a minister of the gospel and that is what I do and as such I do it with great pride and understanding of the severity of the call to which I have answered. I pray all come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, that all be saved and none be damned. Grow in God’s Grace and Abide in His Love!