Note: This article answering “What would Jesus say to the LGBT community?” originally appeared here at the Aquila Report.

The Bible affirms the importance of human relationship and provides wise guidance on how we can be healthy and happy people here and in eternity. God as our creator made us as we are, knows what is best for us under all circumstances, and made the guidelines clear in his Word. He also knows what will wreck our lives and bring destruction of body, soul and society.

Was there ever a country taken over as quickly in our lifetime as Crimea was? So quickly did that annexation come that the world could not even get its diplomats in place when for all practical purposes it was over. I cannot recall anything happening as fast as that since studying the sinking of that great ship, the Titanic. Down she went to the bottom in a matter of hours.

We in the Christian Reformed Church have neatly tucked away a very fine denominational position statement on homosexuality, affirming that love, support and encouragement should be given to those who experience same-sex attractions, while maintaining that homosexual practices are “incompatible with obedience to the will of God” as are all other sinful practices.

Our statement is clear, but what are we as a church body and as individuals in that body doing to address the cataclysmic shift taking place in our culture on these matters and to actually embrace for ourselves the responsibilities that our statement calls us to, namely addressing with the life-changing gospel those overtaken in “explicit and overt homosexual practices”?

One might wonder just how fast is our culture changing?

So quickly is this wave overcoming us that only two years ago no major national candidate could win an election who endorsed the gay agenda [New York Times for 4/6/14], and now the reverse is true.

The church as a body and we as individuals have a scriptural obligation to speak to the world on moral issues and not give our silent consent to evil.

I write this simply wanting to begin another denominational conversation, for I have read a great deal, thought and prayed long and hard on this, and still do not see clearly either the biblical norms and how they actually apply or the way to really reach out in love and effectiveness to those caught within these sinful practices.

What Would Jesus Say?

Pastors have training in handling the other sexual sins, but the sexual sins becoming so dominant today bring in their wake very little counsel so far for helpers and many undiscussed problems to work out. Yet we are biblically commanded “to speak out to warn the wicked to turn from their wicked deeds and lifestyle so that they may live” (NET, Ezek. 3:1). We also hopefully can follow in the steps of Jesus who was able to treat first the heart and then tell his listeners to go and sin no more.

May the following seven things begin to move us to thinking and action. The Lord seems to say in his word to all sinners (and that includes those in the LGBT community):

1. What would Jesus say? I love you because I created you and came to save you!

(Ps. 86:15; Jo. 3:16; Rom. 5:8; I Jo. 4:8-10)