Do you love yourself, not to judge?

People sometimes ask you a question you wish to not answer or don’t know how to answer.

The past month two friends during separate occasions asked me: "Do you think God loves gays?" My response was we all love and are proud of what we create. So if we firmly believe God created us as humans why ask if he loves you?

Question should thus be do you love yourself not to judge yourself?

Saying the youth is the present that will inform, educate and motivate the future was the encouragement behind this note…

Do we have a generation that loves themselves for who they are, created in the image of God? Boys and girls who, look past their race, sexual orientation and social challenges to be proud on who they are.

Back to the question my friends asked me, they responded to my answer with, "but the bible says it’s a sin to be gay". It makes me wonder how we, who do read the bible, read it. Do we read it and take it as is or do we read and interpret it through the Holy Spirit?

Those against argue with quotes from the bible like Genesis 1:27, 28, Genesis 2:18-25, Genesis 19:1-29, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:23, Romans1:18-32, 1Corinthians 6:9 and 1Tomothy 1:10 - now some of these scriptures don't even mention homosexuality and others speak of homosexual acts.

As a fellow human being I respect the arguments from my neighbour on the topic and to debate is good. To debate however does not allow me to be God and judge others. Those who watched the movie Evan Almighty should have learned this. In the movie God goes on holiday and picks a normal human being to be God, Evan soon realizes being God is not easy. Yet there are so many who want to be God.

 “Let us be gentle with each other, as with ourselves. We do not have all the answers to all the questions surrounding right or wrong expressions of Gods gift of our sexuality,” according to Archbishop Desmond Tutu in The Bible and Homosexuality.

My favourite bible scripture is 1Corinthians 13 and verse 7 and 8 (a) reads “Love never gives up, and its faith, hope and patience never fail. Love is eternal.”

All around us there’s drug abuse, gangsters, teenage pregnancy, adultery, violence, etc… and while we don’t speak out on this we quick to judge someone based on their race or sexual orientation.

The debate should be concluded with the words from Prof. Allan Boesak in his report to the General Synod of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa in 2008

“For the church, homosexual persons are not the objects of discussion or study, whose lives are to be pronounced on and regulated by church bodies. They are human beings, children of God, created in Gods image, persons in need and in search of love and understanding and fulfillment.” He continues with “Today we recognize that sexual orientation is not something a human being learns it is inborn.”

To add to this if we were to create ourselves there’s probably a lot we would change, some of my gay buddies would most probably have decided not to be gay, but reality check God created us, each with our own unique talent and in his eyes you perfect.

Quite frankly I’m more concerned about the pregnant teenage girls in church, youngsters who don’t attend church and those using drugs we don’t want to talk about than the boys that are more feminine than the church sisters.