Thursday,
June 8, 2023
These people are as
useless as dried-up springs or as mist blown away by the wind. They are doomed to blackest darkness. They
brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. With an appeal to twisted sexual desires, they
lure back into sin those who have barely escaped from a lifestyle of deception. They
promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you. And
when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are
worse off than before. It would be better if they had
never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the
command they were given to live a holy life. They prove
the truth of this proverb: “A dog
returns to its vomit.” And another says, “A washed pig returns to the
mud.”
2 Peter 2:17-22
The backstory on
this part of Peter’s letter is the Apostle’s warning about leading people away
from God, and into a twisted lifestyle of sin.
It is proclaiming sin as holy, and is the upside-down version of what
God desires for each of us. Peter calls
this kind of leader useless – slaves to their own sin;
they lead others astray. The metaphors,
dog and pig, are always surrounded by filth.
Dogs cannot ignore what has come up from inside them, and pigs are
hopelessly drawn to the mire.
A troublesome reality
of the church’s marching orders is Jesus’ command to love. I don’t disagree with the Lord, just saying: we mess up what He’s saying. Loving is not simply embracing everything and
everybody. If a person is a serial
killer, we can love them; embracing their lifestyle is altogether a different
matter.
Preacher, where did you
come up with that notion? Well, the seeming
dichotomy of loving people, but rejecting their lifestyle is the example of
God, Himself. In many passages of
Scripture we learn that God is the very essence of love. Jesus proved that God so-loved everyone, he gave his life on Calvary’s cross. On the flip-side of that are the many
passages pointing to how this loving God will bring
judgment for lifestyles that reject Him.
Listen to how another apostle, Paul describes God’s judgment for those
who say they love God, but choose to prove just the
opposite with their actions, their lifestyle of perversion:
Don’t you realize
that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who
worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice
homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are
abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. 1
Corinthians 6:9-10
Leadership (bishops,
and a predominance of clergy) of the tribe in which I have served the past 18
years (United Methodist) have moved closer and closer to accepting
homosexuality as a valid lifestyle. It
is proclaimed as loving.
In practice, however, it is elevating perverted sexual desire
over self-discipline, and honoring God’s command. Those who do so are “loving” neither the churches
they are leading into disaster, nor the ones who practice their sinful
ways. They are merely heaping up
judgment on their own heads.
For You Today
Question for those
second-guessing a church, now in full-blown division/schism:
Is it a right
decision to stay “united” and, without words, affirm a sinful lifestyle in
rebellion to God’s way…or is it better to stand with God’s Word and separate?
There are about 2,500 devotional
posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions
library. To dig deeper explore
some of these: Living in Sodom and Legacy of Lies and Out
of the Frying Pan Into the Fire and He’s
Got the Whole World in His Hands
Title Image: via Pixabay.com Images without citation are in
public domain.
Unless noted, Scripture quoted
from The New Living Translation©
