Religion
HIV/AIDS.”
AIDS is presented as God’s weapon.
It is viewed as a tool God loves so much
to use to get his people in line. There are
common statements like “A person was
promiscous and finally God sent his Field
Marshal on him and now they are coming
to us asking for us to pray for them….
God forbid!!!! You are reaping what you
sow!!!!”
Some preachers have the audacity to
quote scripture to support their view.
They are so quick to read from the book of
Galations 6:7 “Be not deceived; God is not
mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap.”
Then there is a class of preachers who
want to scare the hell (or may I say sin)
out of the saints using this HIV/AIDS
gimmick: “Sin will certainly catch up
with you! God is not mocked! AIDS is
going to sort you out!”
Then we have church members whose
first question whenever they discover
that someone is HIV positive is: “Who
sinned? How did the person get the virus?
Who sinned?” God help us! Does this
enquiry into who did what ever going to
solve the problem we have before us? No!
In my humble opinion and in my
walk with Jesus, God has not presented
himself to me as a vengeful God, or a God
who is up in heaven with a giant whip
getting everyone in line and whipping the
sin out of anyone who gets out of line!
God has presented himself as a loving
and compassionate God, who will leave
ue
Iss
99 sheep in search of one lost sheep. The
parable doesn’t tell us that the shepherd
set wolves on the lost sheep so that it
would return to the flock! No-o-o! We
serve a gracious God.
I will use the words of Jonah in Jonah
4:2 “...for I knew that thou art a gracious
God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of
great kindness, and repentest thee of the
evil.” This is the God we serve! A gracefull God! And the Church should be that
as well.
The church shouldn’t be a place where
my “196” should be discriminated against
by being told that they are serving God’s
death penalty. Instead, it should be a
place of hope for the hopeless. It should
be a lighthouse for the world. Imagine
you are in a ship and you encounter a
violent storm, shipwrecked and without
hope, hanging on a floating piece of
wood, thinking that all is lost then all of a
sudden you see a flicker of light?
It’s a LIGHTHOUSE! What joy feels
your heart? You can’t wait to get to the
lighthouse because your hope is rekindled.
Where there once was gloom and doom
now is HOPE. A church should be like
that, and not a place where more doom
is piled onto an already hopeless person.
And for the record, it is not everyone
who got AIDS from being promiscuous.
We have partners who got the disease
from their spouses and we have innocent
children who are born with the disease.
Then we have those who got the disease
because they were breaking God’s law!
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But, who are we to judge and condemn
them? We should love and embrace them.
I believe the church should be a place
where my “196” should be comfortable
to take their ARVs without fear of being
discriminated against. There should do
this knowing that they have come to
bethel-the house of God!
Now back to our early thought on
“..Jesus, moved with compassion, put
forth his hand, and touched him.”
Christians need to follow Jesus’ example
and stretch forth our hands and touch him
who is HIV positive. We don’t necessarily
need to move our hands but we need to do
something to touch the lives of our fellow
saints who are victims of this dreadful
disease.
Today, please go to that person whom
you have been shunning because of their
HIV status and touch their lives and
reassure them that Christ died on the
Cross even for them.
And to my “196” I will say God is love!
Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or
peril, or sword? Shall HIV and AIDS?
Romans 8:35, 37 “Nay, in all these things
we are more than conquerors through
him that loved us.”
And if anyone dares to discriminate
against you then shout out loud “For I
know that my redeemer liveth, and that
he shall stand at the latter day upon the
earth:!!!!!!!!” Job 19:25. TP
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