There’s something going on over in Australia at present which the Lord has put on my heart and in my prayers and as I’ve been praying about this situation, this question has come up…

Is Jesus a Bigot?

I went to the Oxford Dictionary to see what they defined this word as…

Bigot:  A person who is intolerant towards those holding different opinions.

Then I went to the Oxford Dictionaries definition of intolerance…

Intolerance:  Unwillingness to accept views, beliefs, or behaviour that differ from one’s own.

In my last blog post, Viewing Freedom From God’s Perspective, I believe I laid out a pretty clear picture of how tolerant God is of all the behaviour which occurs in His world which He doesn’t agree with…

It seems pretty clear to me that God is not a bigot – under the sun, while people are alive on earth, God has given them freedom to make choices and to live their lives however they want to, no one is forced to do anything against their will by God, anyone who wants to know Him can and those who do not want to know Him don’t have to…

Thus, as far as I can observe and based on all the evidence I have at my disposal (including the scriptures), God is very tolerant of all human beings who presently reside on planet earth…

Jesus is God, He said this of Himself, “…before Abraham was, I AM”…

Jesus could have taken Himself down off the cross and undone all the injustice which had been done to Him but instead, He was tolerant of all those who have ever resided, were residing or would ever reside on planet earth and took all of our sin on Himself asking God, His Father, to forgive us all…

I can’t think of a more unbigoted or tolerant action which anyone has ever undertaken…

Jesus didn’t shy away from telling us the truth about our sin but then He doubled down and paid the penalty for our sin Himself…

He was full of Grace & Truth as I endeavoured to explain in Balance (Grace & Truth)…

Does this make Jesus a bigot?  Does this make Jesus intolerant?

Does this make any follower of Jesus who speaks truth and practices grace (who ‘accepts’ but does not ‘approve’) a bigot, intolerant or a ‘hate speaker’?

Jesus’ kingdom is “…not of this world”…

Jesus isn’t stopping anyone doing whatever they want to do during their stay on planet earth…

Jesus loves everyone…

Jesus isn’t expecting anyone to change themselves before they come to Him…

He is just asking each of us to come to Him so that He can change us to be like Him…

He will do all this for us, even if this involves a complete makeover of our entire inner beings, spirit & soul…

God isn’t putting any pressure on any of us to ‘sort ourselves out’ or ‘pull ourselves up by our boot laces’ – He tells us to come to Him as we are and “…taste and see that the Lord is good”…

He promises us that our relationship with Him as it grows will transform us into His likeness but that how transformed we get before we leave planet earth shouldn’t be our concern (it is our desire but not our focus) as He just wants us to enjoy that process and our experience of our relationship with Him, which He knows will end in its perfection when we leave this planet and go to be with Him where He is… 🙂

All we have to do is believe what He has done for us and trust Him to do whatever He still needs to do in us until we leave planet earth…

There is nothing for us to do but to receive His love and give ourselves to Him for Him to do everything in us to free us to know and understand Him more and more…

If we choose that we don’t want to spend our time on planet earth getting to know Him, or having a relationship with Him, then He will honour that, which will mean that we will spend eternity in the presence of His wrath – which is His anger against sin…

He doesn’t want any of us to experience this, which is why He tells us that the lake of fire and brimstone is real and eternal and warns us that all who choose not to believe in Him will experience this as the consequence of their decision forever…

He gives freedom but He does not give freedom from consequences…

Our decisions (to either believe in Jesus or not to believe in Jesus) have consequences but if we believe that Jesus is the best thing for us to be spending our time on while we are here on earth then we’ll reap the harvest of that focus once we leave earth and will know Him fully for eternity – His love for eternity – even as we are fully known by Him…

That’s the positive side but there is also a negative side…

The only thing we can do to avoid the negative side is to thank Jesus for dying on the cross for us and give ourselves to Him so He can live His way through us, this is a decision which we make on the inside, He then comes and lives in us through His Holy Spirit and begins to transform us into His image… 🙂