What then are we to say? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
So it depends not on human will or exertion but on God who shows mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I may show my power in you and that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomever he chooses. You will say to me then, “Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who indeed are you, a human, to argue with God? Will what is molded say to the one who molds it, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction, and what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— including us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the gentiles? As he also says in Hosea,
“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’
and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’ ”
“And in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’
there they shall be called children of the living God.”
And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the children of Israel were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the Lord will execute his sentence on the earth quickly and decisively.” And as Isaiah predicted,
“If the Lord of hosts had not left descendants to us,
we would have fared like Sodom
and been made like Gomorrah.” (Romans 9:14-29, NRSVue)
A lot of the issues today with Christianity in the USA are that it seems like those in power are the ones who are deciding who is in and who is out. People say that the things they do not understand or find disgusting can not possibly be supported by God and use the power they have to keep people out or turn people away.
But we do not get to decide who gets mercy or how mercy is distributed.
God made us, all of us, as we are, and we do not get to decide that someone is changing who they were made to be because we were not made that way, or who is included because their lives do not check all our boxes.
And remember, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because they were unhospitable and exercised power over the stranger and the sojourner. It has nothing to do with sexuality.
God decides mercy; you have no say.
aSacredRebel 