Goats left, dammit!

 Goats left, dammit! 

Pay close attention, because this is extremely important – it’s essential.

God hates sin. But God continues to love the sinner. How does that work? It doesn’t.

Wednesday's God hates your sin.*

     No one really believes this because it’s illogical. Let’s say you smell funny to me; it turns my stomach. I can hate the way you smell but love you, right? Maybe, but likely not. Still, that can’t be the way God does it because God loves unconditionally.

     That’s what we say. What we mean, however, is that God loves unconditionally those God loves, the sinner washed clean (of the way she smells). God hates sin but loves the forgiven.

     And God forgives God’s own; and God knows who God’s own are. Except you’re one, you know that. The people whose politics don’t pass the smell test (and their malodorous swarm of followers), not so much.

God knows God’s own. 

     My friend Axel Sundstrøm is fond of saying that the right answer to the question, “Are you saved?” is “God knows,” meaning you (who so disdainfully ask) may not. But, in fact, you do, because you are one of God’s own; you know God’s mind [Ephesians somewhere], and you know that anyone that doesn’t is condemned already. All those that don’t pass the smell test, those that don’t love God – and country! – as they should (as you do), and their goat-smelling swarm of followers: keep going left.

05.25.16

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* or actually, theirs