We use sterotypes to make it easier to talk and think about things, but therein lies the problem . . . we talk & think about our sterotypical straw people and avoid spending time getting to know real people . . . who are infinately more fascinating and lovely!
We build straw walls to divide people and never peek over them at the people who are more like us then we take the time to find out.
If we can live in the now and, as you told me about, meet people for the 1st time, we would find ourselves with less walls and more friends!

Perhaps this is why God puts so much more pressure on those who are put in position of teaching and leadership, or put themselves there. We live in a world of “Do what I say, not as I do.”

Perhaps a strong reason Christians (or anyone) is so afraid to love other people is they are afraid to be hated. By the person they love - or by other people who say they shouldn’t love the person they love. Jesus loved everyone and died for it. If we love everyone, we will be judged and hated by more people than we can count. By picking and choosing who we love, we attempt to keep a balanced scale - I can love this person with a minimum of negative repercussions - this other person is too risky, let someone else love them, I can’t be expected to love everyone.

But we are.

Their is a great deal of confusion among so many who claim the same Lord and savior. It is easy to say I think and I believe without being able to explain or give an account of what we base this on.
Only by applying ourselves to the study and practice of the scriptures can we truly be taken seriously. As Christians we must reflect Him whom we believe for the world indeed has a different view of Christ than it does of his followers.
As a very new Christian I once complained to the person who baptized me how unfair it was that the world expected Christians to be perfect, that is to say, “And you call yourself a Christian” when we are found to be doing something seen as wrong. He responded to me saying, “Wow, that’s terrific, that they have such a high expectation of you wearing the name of Jesus, thank them for pointing that out”.
I’ve not made a defense of wrong behavior since.
Are we to yield scripture based morality? Absoloutely not, however our words can ring hollow to the listener if our actions and attitude don’t concur. We must be able to give an account for what we belive and back it up.

Is there a difference in the eyes of God whether one man’s sin is a wrongful lifestyle or another chooses yet a different wrongful lifestyle?
One we find more repulsive perhaps and maybe even has greater far reaching consequences while yet alive. Sin is sin is sin and the consequences are always the same as is the hope from such. We may still have to live with some of the results but the end result can be different. Christians live in the world but are not to be of the world. We can recognize sin and a sinful lifestyle. We have to remember that only by the grace of God and the blood of his Son are we any different or have any hope of being different with any hope of a different outcome.
Without knowing how Christ saw people we cannot know. There is a saying, “There but for the grace of God go I”.

We can have opposing views to the world and as Christians should have. We shouldn’t expect that they will be received with open arms. But, as Christians, they must always be based on scriture and interpretation as seen through the eyes of God’s son, our redeemer.
In the end, as God has allowed us choice so must we allow others. Let us put forward a right view of His Son through our lives and a true account of what we belive and a defense of our faith, in love, in hope.

God dealt in the New Testament much more harshly with the religious leaders of the day than the average jew or gentile. These were the people who were entrusted with the teaching and right application of scripture but had perverted it for their own exclusiveness.

Do you know what it means, to miss New Orleans
and miss it each night and day. I know I’m not wrong,
this feeling’s gettin stronger, the longer I stay away.
…as sung by Louis Armstrong

Standing for something does often raise your head above the crowd enough to get hit by tomatoes, but we also often bring the charges of intollerance on ourselves by the way we present our views.
Christians should be experts at listening, and making people feel loved and respected whether we agree with them or not.
This is the foundation for true unity . . . which is what Jesus wants us to strive for, by the way, not Tollerance.

As Christians, I think it is important that we do our best to make sure that those who hate us hate us for the right reason. This means to live the kind of life that Christ calls us to.

I am fairly certain that most of us fall far short. Most of us do not love our enemies. We fight for our rights, we divorce spouses who do not fulfill our needs, we have anger towards one another, we judge. Our eyes are fixed on justice and peace in this world, and as a result, we get entangled in the politics and contention of this world.

Until we get our eyes off of this world, and fix them on Jesus, the world will not be able to see Christ in us. If they do see Christ in us, and still hate us, then we have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.

Sometimes I think that Christians take it upon themselves to try to deliver people from their sinful lifestyles.

In truth, God is the one who saves. He is the one who convicts. He is the one who changes hearts. Our job should be to be a testimony to that miracle. In order to be effective in that testimony, we need to submit totally to God, and to truly live by faith.