Majority Will VS God's Will...A NEW Perspective

 

Don't confuse the will of the majority with the will of God.

 

Many of the great people of history were rebels. They refused to go with the flow.  They didn't follow the crowd....the crowd followed them. Jesus was one of those people. He listened to what the spiritual teachers of that day had to say, and then he made up his own mind about it. 

In John 8, the church people tried to trap Jesus by bringing a woman caught in adultery to Jesus. (Notice they didn't bring the man). According to the religious law of the time, the woman was to be stoned to death for her actions. So they asked Jesus, "Hey Jesus, the law says we should stone her. What do you think?" He paused a while and replied, "Ok, the person who has never sinned gets to throw the first stone." And everyone dropped their stones and went away. So Jesus wasn't afraid of free thinking. 

The God of the Old Testament was a jerk. He was a vengeful, mean, and angry God, who spent his time smiting people who pissed him off, and enjoying the sacrifice of millions of animals which was the requirement for forgiveness of sin at the time. He helped the Hebrews come up with hundreds of laws including stoning kids for talking back to their parents, not eating certain types of food, not wearing clothes made out of two types of  materials, stoning homosexuals, fornicators, and adulterers. Considering woman property was just fine and owning slaves was normal. It was even okay to beat them if they got out of line. The "apple of God's eye", King David, had his mistresses husband killed in battle so he could screw his wife and the "wisest man in the bible" had hundreds of wives and concubines. 

It took the man Jesus being willing to think outside the box to change all that. That's what it has always taken...people willing to stand up and stop following the crowd. Rosa Parks, who refused to go to the back of the bus, Gandhi, who was tired of the way his people were treated,  Martin Luther King, Jr, who was not afraid to have a dream. 

As Jesus showed the Hebrews, just because something is the "norm" or the law, does not make it right. Just because "that's the way its always been" does not mean that's the way it should always be. If so, woman would still be treated as property, slavery would still be legal, kids could be stoned for disrespecting their parents. There comes a time when things must change and it takes strong people willing to stand up and make it happen. 

Although things are quickly changing, a majority of America has been against homosexuality and gay marriage. Their arguments center around God's "holy word" (most of which Jesus went out of his way to change) and the point of tradition (that's the way its always been). 

Which brings me back to the quote above..."don't confuse the will of the majority with the will of God". Sometimes the majority is simply not right. 

I have always been taught that "christian" means "christ-like",  yet what I have experienced in my world is "christian" means someone too afraid to think for themselves. They are told how to live, told what to think. They are afraid to think outside the box for fear of God.  There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but I do not associate that term with the Rebel Jesus, who was willing to think so radically in the name of love, it got him killed. They focus so much on the cross and his death, they forget his short life, which most often found him hanging out with the misfits of society. 

I am convinced that if Jesus were here today, he would be hanging out with my people. He would be standing up for us, walking with us at gay pride, and spend his time comforting those of us driven to depression and suicide by the people who claim to represent him. I can see him now walking in churches pissed off, (much like he did when he got angry at the money changers in the temple), saying "What are you people doing?! How can you hurt others in my name?"

It is because of Jesus' inspiration that I am not afraid to think for myself....to ask questions...to think outside the box. And when I am trying to figure out the right thing, I've started listening to my heart and to my soul. The truth is, the world confuses me. God doesn't. My spirit is clear. And yes, maybe sometimes I go against the flow, but shouldn't I be more concerned about doing the right thing instead of the popular thing?