Does God Love Homosexuals?
by Ray Geide

        Of course, He does. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" (John 3:16). God loves the world. He loves every person, not just the good, not just the religious. God values every individual because they are his creation and He loves them so much that He sent His Son to this earth to die for them.
        It is His love for homosexuals that causes God to say the things He says about homosexuality.
        I love my son but when at six months of age I found out that he had a fascination for electrical outlets, I had to do something. As much as I hated it, I slapped his hand whenever he tried to stick his fingers in an outlet. My son would cry and it hurt me. Did I quit then? No, I didn't because when you love someone, you keep them from harm.
        God invented the idea of sin not because he dislikes certain actions or is offended by them, but because those actions harm us. God uses sin as a way to warn us about the things that will hurt us.
        God does not just call homosexuality a sin, He calls it an abomination. "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination" (Lev 18:22). "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination" (Lev 20:13). "In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done" (Rom 1:24-28).
        Here is a fact about homosexuality that everyone knows but no one mentions: Homosexuality is a killer. It kills over a million people a year. Even though people know about its deadliness and how to avoid it, its death rate continues to increase. Homosexuality also has other physical, psychological, social, and spiritual dangers.
        How can a person love a homosexual and not warn him that it is a killer and that it has other dangers? If you love a drug addict, will you not convince him to break his addiction to drugs and stay up with him night and day as he suffers through the withdrawal symptoms? If you love an alcoholic, don't you at least convince him to go to AA? If you love a pedophile, don't you persuade him not to pursue children?
        I have suffered the blows of sin. When I was sinning, I would think that I was smart enough to avoid the dangers or that the dangers would not be that bad. But what I found out later when my world came crashing down was that there were a lot more dangers than I knew about. Sin is devastating. God knows that. That is why He warns about sin.
        Since God is about a million times smarter than us, shouldn't we trust Him when He says that homosexuality is a very bad thing (an abomination)? If you say that you believe in God but ignore His warnings, what does that say about your trust in Him?
        What should we do then? Should we sit by and condone homosexuality knowing that it is harmful and often fatal? I think not. We must love homosexuals, warn them, and help them quit their self-destructive actions. God loves homosexuals with a real love and we should too.