Okay, this whole deciding which site to blog on is difficult, but today Phusebox wins!  I may just copy and paste this to MySpace...

I saw in the Religion section of the paper the other day that there is a church in Minnesota that refused to care for a transsexual.  For those of you who do not know, a transsexual is someone who begins life as one gender and then later in life is surgically altered to become another gender.  In this case, the person was born a man and became a woman.

A little more information: the church worked with the community to take care of invalids and others who may need care during the day.  People who needed assistance would register with a community organization that would then divide up the list between the participating churches.  This church received this person and refused to care for her.

When asked why, the minister at the church said that the church wishes to minister to everyone, but this person was living in direct contradiction to the teachings of the church.  First of all, who is NOT living in direct contradiction to the teachings of the church? Last time I checked, we're ALL sinners and ALL sins are in the same book.  They would have to turn everyone away if they were consistent with this policy.  Secondly, what exactly is this church teaching? Certainly not the Bible, because the book of James advises the church not to turn ANYONE away, to not be a "respecter of persons."  Thirdly, if you want to minister to everyone, like you say, DO IT.  The people who are living in such "blatant disregard" of the scriptures are the ones who need ministering most.

What have we done, church?  Where did we turn wrong?  We've lost our heart.  We've lost our burden.  We've lost our vision.  We are to LOVE.  Christ said to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Guess what?  Sometimes our neighbors struggle with different sins than what we do.  Love them anyway.

I hope that with this Easter, or as it is popularly called in evangelical churches, Resurrection Sunday, that we focus on Jesus.  Not on our new outfits or who is going where for dinner, but on Jesus.  Newsflash: He died for ALL of us.  We don't get to choose who can be saved.  Christ already did that.  He also decided who we have to love.

Love everyone.