There has been a lot of angst about recent court decisions and legislative actions. Mainly these address things that some people do not approve of being legalized.
Same sex marriage.
Marijuana.
Abortion.
Whatever.
There’s a huge difference between legal and right.
It’s legal to create phony offshore corporations in order to avoid paying taxes. It’s legal to sell clothing made in prison-like sweatshops in Bangladesh. It’s legal to sell iPods made in Chinese factories in which the workers must work 18 hour days and live in company dormitories so they can be awakened at any hour of the day or night when Apple wants to try something new.
God gave us a free will to choose what is right and pleasing to Him. He didn’t restrict our ability to decide; He told us what He wants and then lets us decide on our own. We don’t always decide wisely (remember the apple thing in the Garden of Eden?)
I suspect that He won’t be impressed with our legal loopholes or our skillful splitting of hairs. He’s going to expect us to have done what was right.
It may be legal to ignore the poor, but we do so at our peril. It may be legal to seek revenge for our enemies, but Jesus instructed us to pray for them instead.
Jesus challenged us to be perfect, just as the Father is perfect.
We (starting with me) area long way from perfect, but we can try to do what is right.
This is so true and legal and right are very different. People use behavior to say, “This is who I am.” This is clearly wrong because these are choices and not who the person is and it is only an excuse to justify their choice to do as they want and not what is right. Who are all men and women? God says in Genesis 1:27-28 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Romans 1:18-32 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.