Read My Anger

--DISCLAIMER--This post is directed in no way, shape, or form toward either my current pastor or any of my former pastors.

From Pinterest. Tried & failed to find this photo at its original source.

It doesn't take a genius to define sin. In fact, you can probably define it having never cracked open your Bible. Or having never learned to read, at all.

It doesn't require any form of intelligence to say to someone: "Don't do that. Don't have sex outside of marriage (which means ever, by the way, if you have a same-sex partner, because marriage isn't allowed). Don't lust after naked people in photos, especially (God forbid) children. Don't kill people, including unborn people. Don't divorce your spouse; Jesus doesn't want you to do that. Don't harm your body by smoking crack or even cigarettes; drinking alcohol, especially to excess; or eating yourself to death."

If you feel the need to preach on these subjects, I encourage you: give the gentleman in your audience practical advice on how he might overcome his sexual urges. Your lesbian listeners...the ones who live in domestic bliss with two adopted children: how should they proceed? The pregnant sixteen-year-old girl contemplating abortion because she has no boyfriend, familial support, or money: what words can you speak into the gaping, yawning years ahead should she choose to keep her baby? From your pulpit, explain to the couple in the third row back how to repair their marriage. Because the Mary Jane with whom he's having an affair can be neither sweet-talked nor threatened; he rolls her up in paper and dances in her smoke every night, in the garage. He doesn't know how to let her go. Do you have practical advice? Can you demonstrate, from your pulpit, how to break the cycle of addiction to...anything? Anything at all?

And, while I'm asking questions, here are a few more: before preaching against any given sin, how much thought have you given to those in your audience who've already committed it? Have you thought there might be a woman six rows back who aborted a baby and doesn't believe God will forgive her? What about the man who failed to invite Christ into his marriage but has invited Him into his divorce and works so hard, every day, to "do divorce well?" Do you really want to imply that his efforts are in vain?

You and I both know: I could go on and on.

The point is this: if you can't fix it, and you can't, preach this:

Come to Christ, where you are. Where you are, come to Christ. Come, where you are, to Christ.

Because I don't know who you think you are, Preacher, but you're not Christ. There can be no confusion: especially until you get off your high horse and start behaving like Him. 

I don't care how many books you've written. I don't care who endorses your nonsense or how many books she's written. I care only that the one, true message is shared. And the one true message is this:

Christ died for you, a sinner. 

And He can redeem.

Come to Christ, where you are.

And now, watch, Preacher: I'm shaking the dust off my feet and walking away. You've been enough of a stumbling block to me. I've already lost too many hours judging you for judging me.