The following letter to the Editor was published in the Focus on the Family Magazine for August 1994:
“Thank you for your recent radio program, “Hope for the Homosexual” which aired in April. I am a former lesbian. After many years in the gay community, I joined a Christian women’s Bible study, where I met happy, healthy, normal Christian women who treated me with respect. I’d never had my emotional needs met before. My mother had rejected me and the lesbian community was always looking for “lovers.” Being around real Christians was the most healing experience I’ve had. I haven’t listened to Focus on the Family broadcasts regularly, but after today, I intend to never miss it again!
What an example of Christians acting out their Christian love toward an unlovely person. But that mutual respect earned her attention. Let’s be careful not to let our personal prejudices contaminate the Lord’s love for the lost.
What is your take on the above story?
After the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Steve Futterman of CBC radio broadcast an interview he had with one of the riot’s many looters. The man had been one of many people who had looted a record store. When asked what he had stolen, the man replied, “Gospel tapes. I love Jesus.”
What’s wrong with that picture? Can it be that loving Jesus has no connection with character? Is Christian music simply a part of our culture, but not a part of our heart? A person can wear a cross around his/her neck as a symbol, but not have any relationship with Jesus Who died there for us. It would do us all good to reflect on the above story and ask ourselves just how genuine our love for Jesus really is.
One Sunday after worship, a pastor found a small, stuffed animal in one of the pews. It was tattered and very dirty. His first impulse was to throw it away. Then he realized the fact it had been brought along to church indicating it was loved by some child.
Often we look at someone who is worn or diseased, tattered and torn by life, and our first reaction is to turn away. The way we react to them says in effect, “You are worthless.” Yet, if we allow the love of God to control us, we cannot reject any person, regardless of their condition.
Everyone, no matter what their inner or outer condition, is loved by God. Jesus taught us this when He said, “Anyone who comes to me, I will never drive away.”
Think about the lesson of the loved stuffed animal today when you come upon someone unlovely.
Dr. Martin MacIntyre, a dentist from Potomac, Maryland, refused to allow his daughter Sarah to go to the pool for the third time in one day…He just said no and that was that.
So that evening Sarah – age 6 – wrote a note in red pencil and left it on her daddy’s pillow.
It said: Daddy – I hate you.
And it was signed, Love – Sarah.
Can you use those two terms (Love and Hate) in the same sentence?
Someone once wrote a critical letter to newspaper columnist Abigail Van Buren that went “Dear Abby,
“We have neighbors who have two children in high school and one in college, but the parents act like a couple of teenagers. When the husband comes home from work, the wife runs out to the street to meet him, and he carries her into the house piggyback! If the husband is repairing the roof, she is right up there with him. If he’s under their car, she’s there, too. When they sit in church, they hold hands and read out of the same book when hers is right beside her, closed. What do you think of people like them? – St. Petersburg, Fla.”
Abby replied, “Dear St. Petersburg, “I think your neighbors know the secret of real happiness. God bless them.”
Do you agree or disagree? Why?
In a Peanuts cartoon Linus announced to his cranky sister, Lucy, that he’s going to be a doctor. “You, a doctor?” she asked. “How can you be a doctor? You don’t love mankind.” Linus replied, “I do too love mankind. It’s people I can’t stand.”
Paul gave us a description of Christian love in 1 Corinthians 13. He listed 15 specific actions that can be taken only toward individuals. Love must be specific and it is a verb (action word).
My favorite demonstration of this is found in the 1989 movie ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ Cranky Miss Daisy was embarrassed that she hadto have a driver haul her around and treated him as an insult. Yet Hoke, the driver, faithfully served her and put up with her crankiness. And, in time, the relationship grew. That was a wonderful lesson in humble servant-hood and demonstrated love.
An elderly man lay in a hospital, with his wife of 55 years sitting at his bedside. “Is that you, Ethel, at my side again?” he whispered.
“Yes, dear,” she answered.
He softly said to her, “Remember years ago when I was in the Veteran’s Hospital? You were with me then. You were with me when we lost everything in a fire. And Ethel, when we were poor – you stuck with me then, too.” The man sihed and said, “I tell you, Ethel, you are bad luck!”
This humorous story helps us to see how easy people like us can twist love into something it really isn’t. Let’s recognize the love of Christ for what it is.