What Exactly is H8?

Right after the nightclub shooting in Orlando recently, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association sent out a team of crisis-trained chaplains to the city, who went there to minister to everyone affected by the shootings, regardless of their sexual orientation.

A Christian fast-food restaurant known for their stand on gay marriage and not opening on Sundays fired up the kitchen on a Sunday, to serve free sandwiches to those who stood in line to donate blood to those shot and injured during the attack.
What exactly is H8? This acronym that symbolizes hate, has come to mean hate from Christians to those involved in the homosexual lifestyle. I can tell you what hate is not: hate is not deploying a team of crisis-trained Christian chaplains to provide comfort, encouragement and a willing listening ear to those in pain, either physical or emotional. Hate is not firing up the grill on a Sunday in a restaurant known for its Christian values to give freely and in love to those in pain.
Hate is not showing compassion and love to people, even though you disagree with their lifestyle and choices.

Hate, on the other hand, is labeling an entire group of people a bunch of haters because a very small segment of them don’t remember Christ’s commands to love and to serve. Yes, protest the actions of a renegade church that does anything but resemble Christ but don’t crucify the entire lot of Christians.

This is what Christians are called to do: love as He has loved us first. We cannot minister to people and get to know them, in order to share the Gospel message, if we don’t associate with them. Jesus Himself was accused of hanging around sinners too much. Matthew 9:10-13 states, “While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Listen up, Church: We are the only Bible some people will ever read. And boy, does the world read us. If we don’t consistently show mercy, and stop with the holier-than-thou-ness, we will never reach the lost. Jesus said He came to call sinners, not the righteous. We are not called to be pew-jockeys, but to know the Word, preach the Word, share the Word, and lead others to Christ.

What exactly is H8? In her book The Hiding Place, (a must-read for any and all Christians) Corrie ten Boom recalled that if a Jewish business caught fire, the Nazi-run fire department would come, but only to spray water on the buildings beside the blaze to they would not catch fire. They would let the Jewish business burn.

What exactly is H8? It is a government that forces a Christian baker to go out of business because they will not turn from their beliefs in not baking a cake for a gay marriage, yet they will allow an un-vetted Islamic terrorist who was on the FBI watch list to obtain guns and kill and wound more than 100 gay people.

The government spews hate and hypocrisy because they welcome a group of people, who in fact hate homosexuals to the point of murder, into this country with glad and politically-correct fare-the-wells. The government, on the one hand, lifts homosexuality up on and condemns Christianity for their desire to share the Gospel with gay people so they might be redeemed and live with Christ for eternity; and on the other hand, this same government welcomes homosexual-hating and homosexual-murdering Islamic terrorists in to murder and destroy the lives of entire families.

Here is the kryptonite of a progressive government: hypocrisy. The H8 they spew against Christians is the same H8 they spew against homosexuals, but only deadlier and masked behind illegal rulings from the Supreme Court and deals made in the shadows. While one hand is pressing the button to display a rainbow flag on the White House, the other hand is signing an executive order allowing the very people who hate homosexuals to death in the country by the masses.

Who has H8 in their hearts? Not followers of Christ. Protesting churches who picket funerals in the name of Christ aren’t showing the behavior of Christ-followers. We cannot share the Gospel to people when we scream at them. “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?” [1 John 3:16-17].

Followers of Christ do not have to agree with the homosexual lifestyle to show kindness to fellow human beings who hurt. John 3:17 states, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” How can anyone be saved if we don’t show Christ’s love through actions?

Remember – each time Christ was going to teach to a massive amount of people, He fed them first. We have to reach out and show people we care in His Name by meeting their needs so they will be attentive and listen to what we say to them about His salvation. Jesus said in the Book of Luke, “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men,” [6:35]. A little kindness goes a long way. A little kindness in Jesus’ Name dispels hate, as hate cannot live where there is love.

This is not condoning the sinful nature of homosexuality, but sharing peace and love in His Name means we have to get in the trenches and minister to people with whom we disagree.

People who are homosexual, please note: Islamic terrorists want to kill Christians just as much as they want to kill homosexual people. We need to remember, together, that in the United States we have a common link between Christians, Islamic terrorists and the gay community – it’s a government that is talking out of both sides of its mouth, causing the beginnings of civil war, and setting this country up for the darkest time in its history that could very well collapse this Republic. We need to remember this in the election booths in November.

Lord, grant us peace.
Terrie
 
© 2016 Terrie McKee
 

---