Is it possible for someone to love Jesus more than Jesus loves them? I would hope that the answer is a definitive NO...
That being said, I just found out that a friend of mine from high school, his nickname was Webber, came out of the closet a couple months ago... He's gay. He also loves Jesus. He was also one of the most spiritual people I knew, in the sense that he was always looking for Jesus. He served in various capacities at church, attended youth group every week, the whole nine yards. He also says that, throughout that whole time, this was a reality that he lived with, and hid from even the closest people in his life for fear of judgment.
I'm reminded of a certain Samaritan woman, she lived with certain realities that she tried to hide for fear of judgment as well. Then this man named Jesus spoke to her (a significant gesture in itself). He proceeded to tell her about the things she's done... She was set free by that act. She raced into town, telling of the man who told her everything she'd done. This was obviously no secret to the people of the town who knew her reputation, but this man had freed her from these haunting realities. He hadn't changed anything, but the things that once haunted her and drove her to seclusion were now the very things she first mentioned when she spoke of her encounter with the Messiah.
So back to the question: does Jesus love Webber? Well, I know that I love Webber, and just about everyone in his life loves him... I can hardly imagine Jesus being among the few who don't love Webber in the realities that he lives with. I can hardly imagine Webber loving Jesus more than Jesus loves him. What I can imagine is Jesus overwhelming him with a love and grace that he can't even come to grips with, because it's that substantial.
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2 comments:
Hey Ryan,
Jesus loves Webber just as much as He loves you and me. Now, the way we show love to Webber is through the truth in scripture; The gay lifestyle is sin. My prayer is that God will use you and your leadership skills to help Webber. Jesus loved the Samaritan women but did not condone here life style. Keep up the good work...
Dan
Hey Dan,
I never meant to say we should "condone" the gay lifestyle, but instead meant to pose the question as to whether or not we could bring redemption to things that we're not necessarily able to change. In the Samaritan woman's case, her unchangeable past went from a source of shame that drive her into solitude, to being the very core of her testimony to her encounter with Jesus.
We see this all the time today as well, people whose testimonies center around their prior drug addiction or promiscuity, and are now free from the burden of shame that they carry.
I don't want to condone the gay lifestyle... I want to "love the Hell out of it" to the point where struggling with same-sex attraction is no longer a divisive point of shame, but a point of redemption that Webber can hold up and say to others, "Look, this is where Jesus has most radically set me free from the bondage of sin and shame."
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