Do to Others

Do to Others

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” 
                   Matthew 7:12.
Someone once called me a liberal evangelical. I think that’s a good description of me, at least with respect to the so called evangelical movement in North America.
I am a member of the Evangelical wing of the Christian Church as would be defined here in North America.
Some North American evangelical preachers claim they are keepers of true Christianity yet are far from it.
Within what passes for evangelical Christianity today are men and women that claim to interpret the Bible in it’s purest sense.
They don’t. They interpret it with their own biases and prejudges. Just as others have done over the centuries.
In the United States, Canada and other countries over the centuries the Bible has been used to condone such barbaric practices as slavery. While others have used it to point out the equality of man and fought against slavery.
Today many preachers claiming to be evangelicals are preaching against homosexuality among other things.
So called evangelical preachers especially those in the media seem to be against everything.
When I tell them homosexuals can get to heaven I get a barrage of criticism. Worse when I tell them it is important that we accept members of the Lesbian, bisexual, gay, and trangendered into our church congregations they go ballistic.
I know by writing this I will get some rockets heading my way, but such is life.
Jesus said,
“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” 
                   Matthew 7:12.
I am eternally grateful to the pastor and friends that led me to accept Christ as my Lord and Saviour.
They believed in practising Matthew 7:12, as well as Matthew 7:1,2.
They accepted this very rough around the edges nineteen year old into their church and showed him friendship and love.
In so doing I became a Christian.
Now while I’m not gay. Still these people accepted me for what I was, very rough edges, and at times very fowl language.
They showed me what it was to be a Christian forming the foundation of what I am today, a firm believer in Jesus Christ.
A person who wants to reach as many people as I can for my Lord.
 Jesus didn’t care who you were. He sat down and ate with tax collectors and sinners, and we are all sinners.
Jesus also told us,
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  
For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Matthew 7:1,2.
Jesus told he disciples and through them we who are believers of the twenty-first century.
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Romans 3:23,24.
All of us are sinners from the pope to prime ministers of this world, to the presidents of nations, to the man and woman on the street.
We are all the same, sinners in need of salvation. A salvation the apostle Paul tells us is free when he writes,
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast.” 
                                                                            Ephesians 2:8,9.
Jesus made it very clear when he said,
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” 
               John 14:6.
He also said,
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”  
John 3:16,17.
The apostle John wrote,
“Yet to all who received him,(Jesus) to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—  children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” 
                                                  John 1:12,13.
These were scriptures shared with me when I became a Christian.
In them Jesus did not discriminate, he made it clear all who receive him. All who take that step of faith and accept him into their hearts “to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God”
Think about it.