About a month ago, I made a post on my facebook, and never got around to continuing it here, but I am feeling as if I need to. So without further adieu, here it is, with a little added to it. :)...
My God is an offensive God. But not to the people you'd think. The truth in His teachings are only offensive to the people pretending to follow Him. He loves everyone equally, and all He really asks is that you do the same. But Christians are bad at that. They are the ones offended by the idea that they should show love to those they view as "less" then themselves. This has been the case from the very beginning.
Jesus was really good at pissing off the Pharisees back in the day. For those that don't know, the Pharisees were the original "high and mighties". They took the original Jewish law, and added to it, always to make themselves look better. If God said fast for 1 day a week, they would do it for 4, and brag about it publicly so that everyone would know how "holy" they were. They openly thought they were better than everyone else.
Jesus wasn't a fan of their attitude, and he liked to make it very clear. They often tried to test him, they would ask him questions that seemed to have no right answer, and he always blew them away with his answers. When asked what the most important commandment was,he answered "love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself". This was a huge deal to the Pharisees. They were very focused on things they were forbidden from, stuff they WEREN'T supposed to do, so when Jesus up and says that the most important thing was something they WERE supposed to do, and weren't doing, it was a huge slap in the face. Christians today are way overdue for such a slap.
Somewhere along the lines, the mindset of the Pharisees was reborn in the Christian church. People started becoming obsessed with the "rules" that they started building walls of judgement and condemnation that Christ had torn down. And started building themselves up onto the pedestals that they thought they deserved, for being such good rule followers.
But we forgot something very important. God is the one on the pedestal, not us... And guess what... He climbed down off it and hung out with lowlifes. Not because he pitied them, not because he was trying to change them, but because he thought they were awesome. Ya gotta dig that offensive love.
Truth is, none of us can earn such love, and we can't keep trying to convince people that they need to. We have to climb down off of our undeserved, self-constructed pedestals, and recognize the facts. We're all lowlifes, and we're loved as we are. Now we have to start showing that same love, and offend as many judgemental people with it as possible, so that the walls of hate can finally be broken back down.
