"I always love you, but I don't like what you're doing."
In one way or another, every good mother has used this phrase with her children. It helps express to a child the distinction that their mommy makes between them and their behavior. The words reassure a child's sensitive heart that mommy may get upset, frustrated, even angry about my bad choices, but mommy never stops loving me. Children are prone to conflate their choices with their person, as if being rebuked or disciplined for sinful choices meant their parent had stopped loving them. Parents must consistently reassure their kids, especially in times requiring discipline, that this is being done in love not without love. I have often told my oldest daughter in disciplinary moments, "Daddy loves you too much to let you sin without consequences."
Every June in these United States, we are bombarded with the opinions of people who apparently were never taught this reality about love. PRIDE and all its followers equate love with enthusiastic approval for their every action, choice, or behavior. "If you really loved me, you would approve of ___________". We are informed that, if believers in Christ do not approve of LGBTQ+ lifestyles, we are failing to love. Yet, we who know our Bibles know that these sorts of choices and behaviors are labeled as sinful, and (like all sin) are destructive to those who engage in them, as well as the broader society celebrating them.
We are not (reasonably) pressured to do this with any other soul-destroying sin. If I preached against drug abuse as destructive to the souls of those who engage in it, no one could reasonably accuse me of being unloving to drug addicts. If I condemned pornography as an enslaving, mind-warping tool of hell, I have not revealed a lack of love for those who are addicted to it. In fact, quite the opposite! I cannot truly love the soul struggling with porn addiction without hating the porn that is enslaving them. I cannot love the man or woman addicted to drugs without hating the drugs that are destroying their souls.
To love what is good requires that we hate what is evil, NOT to hate those who are doing evil. The apostle Paul commands us in Romans 12:9, "Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good." True love doesn't approve of sin, but loves sinners. We know this to be true because that's how God loved us. The Bible is clear that God hates sin. But the Bible is equally clear that God loves sinners. God's hatred of our sin was shown as He poured out His wrath on Jesus Christ on the cross, who bore the wrath of the Father for our sins. But His love for sinners was equally shown as Jesus willingly offered Himself for us, that all who believe in Him might be freed from sin and receive everlasting life.
True Christian love must look at PRIDE month with hatred for the sins displayed and celebrated in it, BECAUSE the Christian loves the sinners who are destroying themselves with those sins. You cannot truly love those lost souls without hating the sin enslaving them, and you cannot hate those sins in a godly way without loving those who are lost in them. Remember that Christ, not culture, will be your judge in the last day, and Christ has called us to love one another, as He has loved us: not by leaving us enslaved to sin, but freeing us from sin. (John 13:34)
+ Blessings in Christ +
