God is love. Love is a trait of His character; so when His Glory is manifested, passionate love is revealed. What we often referred to God’s fire is often a manifestation of His passionate love. God is love. God is a consuming fire. His passionate love will burn up anything foreign to what He loves, challenge what seeks to claim what is His, and purify what He loves to further perfect its original purpose.
So, saying that God loves people who choose a sexual identity and behavior doesn’t say that God loves them “as they are” any less or more than God loves anyone “as they are.” His love expresses itself toward them in passion for the person He made them to be before they were born. Of course, this is where the rubber meets the road on the subject, and why such polar opposite views emerge and conflict about how God loves gays.
LGBT identity isn’t consistent with God’s love. LGBT behavior isn’t consistent with God’s love. Why? Because God who creates all people didn’t create anyone to be LGBTQ. Ever. So, His love for them is intense, passionate, burning, filled with what the Cross can do. And, His love is seeking them, everyone of them, to become the person He created them to be. Surrendering to God’s love for them, they immediately find that God accepts them, just as God accepts anyone who comes to Him, and the immediately find that God is working to transform them into the person He created them to be, just as He does everyone who comes to Him.
Is God angry? Sure! He is always angry about anything or anyone who seeks to turn what He created into something other than what He created it to be! How more clear could that reality be? He is God! He creates all! He redeems all! He restores all! The Cross guarantees that every person can be the person God created them to be because there is power in the Cross to forgive, cleanse, break the power of sin, and restore to wholeness.
The problem with the LGBT agenda isn’t God or His love, and the conflict isn’t caused by believers failing to love with God’s love unless believers fail to have the same heart for people that Father has for them. It is not bigotry to help people to redemptive experiences, even when the process is difficult. For anyone to turn “grace” or “God’s love” into a “just accept people who they are” while failing to understand these ideas would help us arrive at the very opposite objective from what God has for people. The opposite.
Are there bigots in Christianity? Absolutely! Are people prejudiced against LGBT people? Certainly! Should we be? Of course not! We should be just as passionate as God is about people no matter what is twisting their lives away from the what-God-wants for their lives! But, remember what God wants, what Jesus died to do, what the power of grace can accomplish, and remember what activates this redemptive provision: repentance, humility, confession, and surrender! Sound old-fashioned? Well, that may be part of the reason people misunderstand what God’s passionate love for gays is all about.
In any case, no matter what “progress” culture reaches for, it cannot update God or His passionate love so that God fits better into their worldview, choices, and decisions. God remains God, pursuing His purposes for nations and individuals. He is pursuing them with fiery eyes of passionate love! And, as soon as they surrender to Him, that fire starts consuming them with the same passionate love for them He felt when He created them and invested them with purpose!
