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Because I love you I’m going to say this to you.

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Hearing the truth isn’t easy. Sometimes the truth stings, burns, and hurts deeply. Sometimes before healing begins, truth must enter the wound first. The wound is already there. The truth doesn’t inflict the wound, but the wound is secretly infected. So the truth must enter and purge out the bacteria. The purifying burns.

What I’m about to say will sting.

Let’s start with what scripture says…

2 John 4-11

Truth and Deception

I was very glad to find some of your children walking in the truth, in keeping with a command we have received from the Father. So now I urge you, dear lady—not as if I were writing you a new command, but one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk according to His commands. This is the command as you have heard it from the beginning: you must walk in love.[c]

Many deceivers have gone out into the world; they do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.[d] This is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves so you don’t lose what we[e] have worked for, but that you may receive a full reward. Anyone who does not remain in Christ’s teaching but goes beyond it, does not have God. The one who remains in that teaching, this one has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your home, and don’t say, “Welcome,” to him; 11 for the one who says, “Welcome,” to him shares in his evil works.

Jude 3-4

Dear friends, although I was eager to write you about the salvation we share, I found it necessary to write and exhort you to contend for the faith that was delivered to the saints once for all. For some men, who were designated for this judgment long ago, have come in by stealth; they are ungodly, turning the grace of our God into promiscuity and denying Jesus Christ, our only Master and Lord.

Jude 16-18

These people are discontented grumblers, walking according to their desires; their mouths utter arrogant words, flattering people for their own advantage.

17 But you, dear friends, remember what was predicted by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; 18 they told you, “In the end time there will be scoffers walking according to their own ungodly desires.” 19 These people create divisions and are unbelievers,[h] not having the Spirit.

Truth and love must not be separated. Look at verse 6 again in 2 John before we go further: “ And this is love: that we walk according to His commands. This is the command as you have heard it from the beginning: you must walk in love.[c]

Love is walking according to His commands. This must remain at the forefront during the conversation that will follow. What is walking according to His commands? It is following Truth.

We are also warned about deceivers. We are warned throughout God’s Word to be on the lookout for deceivers. Is this unloving or judgemental? No, it is not. We are guarding our hearts so our love doesn’t run cold.

In this age of constant information, it’s easy to find ourselves worn down from the beating of the same drum over  a story. Our attention spans are short online. We’ve heard it and read it from 10 different viewpoints and we are ready to move on. This also leads us to a numbing of our senses. I imagine you’ve read many thought-provoking, disturbing, and heart wrenching articles on the Jen Hatmaker situation.

The Lord keeps pushing me towards writing about this and here is why. Truth and love go to together. The Word of God is being twisted and distorted. And I fear many of you will be deceived. I love my readers. I love this community. And there is this mama bear burning inside me that is flaming mad about the deception going on.

I believe the end is very near. As in nearer than we can imagine. I believe it is exactly why many Christians are feeling so fatigued and worn down. It’s not that evil has necessarily increased (though I think it has), it’s that a veil is being removed and we are seeing what has always been.

Jen Hatmaker has a ginormous following. This in itself is dangerous. When you serve a platform her size, standing for Truth in this culture is a most difficult task. (In fact, I will lose subscribers after this post. It happens every time.) This culture isn’t truth-driven. This culture claims to be love-driven, but it’s not. If we were love-seekers, we’d be truth-seekers. You simply cannot separate love and truth. To lead with lies is to hate.

I believe Jen Hatmaker and her husband have been deceived and blinded by satan and this breaks my heart. We each must guard our hearts from deception. How? By knowing the Word of God. When we know truth, we don’t believe lies.

When Jesus spoke of the end of the age in Matthew 24: 10-14, he said, “Then many will take offense, betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. Because lawlessness will multiply, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be delivered. This good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed in all the world as a testimony of all nations. And then the end will come.”

When I read Jen’s original interview, my heart literally sank. It was so full of theological error I felt my head spinning. How could she possibly be a follower of Christ and believe these lies? Not only believe but take a bold, public stance. She is a leader, a teacher, she is held to a high standard.

You simply cannot be a true believer, a true disciple of Christ and believe and teach what Hatmaker is teaching. (Refer back to 2 John 9).

All I could think about as I read her words were how many women follow her that don’t know their Bibles well enough to realize she is speaking against the Word of God. If Jen Hatmaker says it, they will take it as truth. This should never be. We should test everything against the Word of God. Don’t take my word for anything I’m writing. Take it to scripture. Test it there.

Satan has done this same trick from the beginning. He takes God’s Word and manipulates it. So it carries some truth in it so as not to be obvious, then he twists it in order to deceive us.

If you don’t know your Bible, you will read the Hatmaker’s words and think they made a decent case for their position. Reading our Bible is crucial in these days. The end is nearer every day. We have to know our Bibles!

When I read the words of Brandon Hatmaker, my mouth hit the floor. Here’s a sampling of these shattering words.

“To be clear…

Jen and I are 100% on the same page regarding her recent interview about our love and hope for the LGBTQ community. This is a journey we have been on together. We both believe a same-sex marriage, as a life-long monogamous commitment, can be holy before God.”

Holy? He called sin holy?

He goes on to talk about the pain and suffering in this world and their journey to “help”. Well, how about we start with the gospel? That’s always a great place to start. Love and truth. The gospel. Love poured out.

He continues, “We’ve seen so much pain among the LGBTQ community: Suicidal teenagers. Divided families. Split churches. So. Much. Pain.” Again, how about using truth in love? You know why there is so much pain, suicide, split families and churches in this community? It’s because they are living separated from Christ. Christ is the bridge the Hatmakers need to be preaching. They love to talk about healing by building bridges, did they forget about the bridge of the cross? It’s been built, but we have to choose to walk across that bridge. The consequences of sin is death. Yes, living a life of sin will bring pain, death, and heartache.  They are leaving out the cross and trying to find a new solution to a problem that arose in the garden. It’s called sin. God gave us the solution already. But the deceiver is spinning us around the issue so we can’t get to the root and ultimately the solution.

Sin brings death. But the gift of God brings eternal life. What the LGBT community needs is christians to pour love on them with the truth. We love them by treating them as created in the image of God. We love them by telling them they are living apart from Christ and the way to Him means we must deny ourselves. The best thing I read on the internet last week was this article. Please take the time to read it. Written from a former lesbian who gave her life to Christ and realized she had to walk away from that lifestyle in order to receive Christ.

The Bible tells us to deny ourselves and pick up our cross. To deny ourself is to lay down the sins we love so that we can pick up the cross. That cross represents true grace. Unmerited favor. When we accept Christ, we don’t continue in our life of sin. Yes, we will stumble. Yes, we will continue to sin. But we don’t remain in our known sin patterns. The beauty is that when we surrender to Christ, we are given a Helper, the Holy Spirit.

What was impossible now becomes possible. All things are possible through Christ who strengthens me. (Phil 4:13) Without Christ, we can’t fight sin. With the Holy Spirit living inside us, He gives us strength to walk away from our sin. It’s beautiful. It’s love. And it’s truth.

The Bible is clear that when we come to Christ for salvation, we first repent. We can’t become a christian without a turning away from our sin. A confession, a surrender of the sins we love, and a commitment to let God give us the strength to walk in His light, which is away from sin.

It’s no different than a thief. Say they’ve lived a life of stealing. They see the light, they want Christ. They confess, ask forgiveness, and repent. They turn away from a life of stealing. They can’t be in Christ and continue to live a life of stealing.

An adulterer, same philosophy. A murderer. To come to Christ for the forgiveness of sins, we must turn away from those sins. It’s only in the homosexual conversation that we are now saying, “It’s ok, you don’t have to turn away from your sin. You can still be in Christ and continue in your life of sin.”

This is why what the Hatmaker’s have done is so devastating. There is no gray area in scripture about homosexuality. It is a sin. God calls it sin. What satan has done so brilliantly is to begin to tell us that it’s not sin. We are born that way or it’s “holy” as the Hatmaker’s believe.

I believe the reason God is pressing me to write on this topic is because of the strong allegiance I’ve seen to the Hatmakers. Her supporters are clinging to her for dear life. They are waving their support banners and believing every word she says. You know the most loving thing we can do for our christian brothers and sisters? It’s to reveal the lie, proclaim the truth, and pray for the deceivers and the deceived.

We should give no man, or woman, our unhindered devotion. That is idolatry. And that is what is happening here. People love Jen Hatmaker so much, they have set her up on their altar of worship. Instead, we should love her enough to pray for the deception she is under. To pray she sees the truth and turns back to the Word of God. And pray for those under her influence.

When we know Truth, we won’t be deceived. Guard your heart from deception. Unfollow those who you know are deceivers of Truth, don’t applaud them. Pray for them to see the truth. Pray for your brothers and sisters living in an age of deception. And look up. He is coming soon!

I know many of you are going to walk away from this post angry. You will believe I’m judgemental and harsh. And I’m sorry if that is how you leave this conversation. God did not give me this platform for myself. He gave it for His glory. And when I see this dividing our christian community, and I see the Word of God trampled in this obvious way, I can’t remain silent. Because I love you too much. And love holds hands with Truth. If I didn’t love you and only cared about my readership and platform, I’d keep my mouth closed so as not to offend or step on any toes. Like I tell my kids all the time, dealing with hard issues is only worth it in the eyes of love. If I don’t love you, I don’t care about entering into a mess. I’ll stay away because I don’t really care about you. But love insists I enter into this.