Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Letter to Savannah


Savannah, since your church isn't going to love you enough to share with you the truth, I will. Know that I do love you and my heart is aching for you because I know you're going through so much right now. The joys of being able to be yourself, the overwhelming support from outsiders and non-members that I'm sure you're receiving, and all this media attention, right down to some nobody writing about it on his own personal blog. Know that I love you, with all the love that Christ has enabled me to do so. And it is with that love, the love that I believe Jesus has for all of us, the love that says the tough things because they need to be said, the love that isn't afraid to stand alone, the love that cares about your eternal destination, that I tell you the following...


Dear Savannah,

You are being deceived. The treasures that you are getting from all of these people (praise, encouragement, fame) will fade and what you will be left with is a lie.

You say you are a child of heavenly parents. That is a lie. God is not a man, He is not married and making babies with His spiritual wife, He is not your dad. The Mormon God, the exalted man, does not exist and therefore cannot save you. You were not created in a heavenly womb and then given a body. Instead, the Bible says you were fearfully and wonderfully made in your mother's womb (Ps 139:14). It says that the real God, YHWH, is your creator and He loves you so much that He sent His son, the second member of the Godhead, Jesus, God-in-a-bod, God with us, God Himself, to die on a cross for you (John 3:16). 

You say you believe you were made the way you are, all parts of you. That is true. But what you don't seem to understand is that we are all born into sin. We can all say, "I was born a ________. We are sons and daughters of Adam, the man who brought sin into this world when he ate of the forbidden fruit (Gen 3:6). Because of his disobedience to the command of the Lord, he and Eve were cast out and doomed to die (Gen 3:3, Rom 6:23). But, when we trust in Jesus and are saved by His blood and atonement, we are born again. We are no longer sons and daughters of Adam (sin) but we are adopted sons and daughters of Christ and are alive! (1 Cor 15:22, Rom 8:12-17)

You say that God didn't mess up when He made you gay. He didn't make you gay. There is no gay gene. Let me put it in the simplest way possible. Imagine you have two people (one gay, one straight) and they died. Now say that your job was to examine their bodies, their genomes, their DNA, their brain matter, their bone tissues, etc. to uncover which one was gay and which one was straight. Do you know what you would find? Absolutely nothing. What does this mean? Well, simply put being gay is a choice. It is something that people choose to be. Now you might have more of a propensity to choose a gay lifestyle, but that is the same way that a person might have a bent towards smoking, or drinking, or having anger issues, or being a Raiders fan. But having a bent doesn't mean it is not a sin. You are choosing to be gay. God made you in His image (Gen 1:27), but it is our sin nature that rebels against His created order. And it is out of a need to be accepted and loved that we rationalize away our sin, normalizing it.

You say that God loves you just the way you are. In a sense that is true. God loves you where you are in life right now. Meaning no matter what you do, no matter what you've done, God loves you (Rom 8:39). HOWEVER God does not want you to stay where you are! (2 Cor 5:17, Rom 6:4) God pulled me out of my pit of anger. I was suicidal, I was depressed, I was broken, I was angry, I was bitter, I was mean, spiteful, and vindictive. Did God love me? Of course! But, in that love, did God want me to remain in that pain and struggle because that's just who I was? Of course not!! God saved me from that former life and I was given a new heart and the Holy Spirit moved through me and gave me the strength to turn my life around. God does love you, but He in no way, shape, or form wants you to be a prisoner of your sinful life.

You say that you're not a horrible sinner for being who you are. That is not what the Bible says. In fact, the Bible says exactly that and so much worse. But understand this, you are not alone. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is a sinner. Scratch that. Everyone is a horrible sinner. No wait, scratch that. Everyone is a horrid, wretched sinner! Scratch that one more time. Here it is, the truth: everyone is so wretched of a sinner that we are spiritually dead and helpless to change (Rom 3:23, Eph 2:1) Some people like to say that our sin has left us sinking in the water and we need Jesus to throw us a life vest for us to grab a hold of. I'm here to tell you that is completely, 100%, all the time, everyday, unequivocally wrong. As Pastor Voddie Baucham says, "DEAD MEN DON"T GRAB!" The world will tell you that all you need is help! No, no, no. You don't need help, you need a savior. You need Jesus! (Eph 2:5, Eph 5:14, Col 2:13). So, yes, you are a horrible sinner. So am I. So are your parents, your friends, my friends, my family....literally everyone! But the good news is that Jesus has died on the cross so that those sins won't be counted against you and you can have eternal life. All you need to do is turn to Jesus!

Savannah, you are a strong young woman. I pray that you will hear the truth and turn to Jesus. I pray that as you are figuring things out (puberty is no joke!) you are met with all the love and kindness that our gracious God and His church have to offer. I pray that you will be embraced as a fellow sinner who needs Jesus just as much as the next person.

In Christ,

Brenton Laidler




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