Today is Monday, July 5th, 2010; Karen's Korner #1856
As we continue to celebrate our independence and freedoms today, it is not only our forefathers who set us free but also our Heavenly Father. He has spent from the beginning of creation until now, showing and telling and doing whatever He can to set us free from ourselves and our tendency toward sin....to be all that He has created us to be!
Romans 1:18 - 32 describes some of "God's anger at sin":
"Since the earliest of times men have seen the earth and sky and all God made,
and have known of his existence and great eternal power.
So they will have no excuse when they stand before God at Judgment Day.
Yes, they knew about him all right,
but they wouldn't admit it or worship him or even thank him for all his daily care.
And after awhile they began to think up silly ideas of what God was like and what he wanted them to do.
The result was that their foolish minds became dark and confused.
Claiming themselves to be wise without God, they became utter fools instead. (20-22)
So God let them go ahead into every sort of sex sin, and do whatever they wanted to--
yes, vile and sinful things with each other's bodies.
Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God,
they deliberately chose to believe lies.
So they prayed to the things God made, but wouldn't obey the blessed God who made these things. (24,25)
That is why God let go of them and let them do all these evil things,
so that even their women turned against God's natural plan for them
and indulged in sex sin with each other.
And the men, instead of having a normal sex relationship with women,
burned with lust for each other, men doing shameful things with other men,
and, as a result, getting paid within their own souls with the penalty they so richly deserved. ((26,27)
So it was that when they gave God up and would not even acknowledge him,
God gave them up to doing everything their evil minds could think of.
Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness and sin,
of greed and hate, envy, murder,
fighting, lying bitterness, and gossip. (28,29)
**
Bible Commentary: Paul (writer) clearly portrays the inevitable downward spiral into sin. First people reject God; next they make up their own ideas of what a god should be and do; then they fall into sin--sexual sin, greed, hatred, envy, murder, fighting, lying, bitterness, gossip. Finally they grow to hate God and encourage others to do so. God does not cause this steady progression toward evil. Rather, when people reject him, he allows them to live as they choose. Once caught in the downward spiral, no one can pull himself/herself out. Sinners must trust Christ alone to put them on the patch of escape.
God's natural plan is God's ideal for his creation. Unfortunately, what comes naturally to human nature is sin. Sin often means not only denying God but also denying the way we are made. When our society says that any sex act is acceptable so long as nobody gets hurt, it is fooling itself. In the long run, sin hurts people--individuals, families, and whole societies.....
Homosexuality is strictly forbidden in the Bible (see Leviticus 18:22). It is considered an acceptable practice by many in our world today--even by some churches. Many homosexuals believe that their desires are normal and that they have the right to express them. But God does not obligate nor encourage us to fulfill all of our desires....even normal ones. Those desires violate his laws are wrong and are to be avoided.
.....(and there is more in the commentary, which I would be happy to email to you, if you'd like....)
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