Alf Olivier from Pretoria writes:
Pride month supports the LGBTQ+ community with different sexual orientations, identities and expressions. In many places there is still strong discrimination against this community.
Conservative Christians believe that sexual diversity is contrary to Christian teaching. Liberal Christians argue that Jesus’ death on the cross paid for all our sins – and we no longer have to feel guilty about sexual sins as long as they don’t harm anyone.
Today, everyone is brainwashed into feeling guilty about discrimination – not realizing that people abuse this very feeling in us to force our approval to continue living in sin.
Paul writes that “there will come a time when the people will no longer tolerate the sound teaching. They will follow their own desires and gather for themselves teachers who will only say what they want to hear.”
Proverbs 16:18 shows where pride leads: “Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall”.
In 1 John 2:16 we read “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world”. It is contrary to God’s will.
Paul writes in Romans 1:24-25 that God allows people who honor themselves more than Him to lust after one another.
Pride is a sin because it shows an exaggerated self-love and self-exaltation, which can lead to the contempt of other people and even rebellion against God. On the other hand, humility is a virtue, which promotes a right relationship with God and other people.
There are certainly people who struggle daily with sexual orientations – but it is not justifiable as Christians to tell them that they must give full expression to their lusts if it is contrary to the Word.
All sin leads to death – and only by accepting Jesus’ death on the cross can you obtain eternal life. Paul writes in Romans 6:12-23 that if we know this, why will we continue to live in the flesh? Don’t you remember then that the spirit conquered the flesh? So we must now urge all those who struggle with the flesh to live in the spirit – because this is the true life – which leads to eternal life.
Let us reach out in love and empathy to people who still walk in the flesh – and also to those who sometimes stumble and fall and struggle to get up again. But let us not mislead people and proclaim that what is wrong in the Lord’s eyes is right.
