We Are Just People

We have become obsessed with ourselves— our ethnicity, our skin color, our gender, our physical stature, our body shape, our adornments (jewelry, tattoos, hairstyles, etc.), our clothing.  Many people are willing to pay any price to “make themselves” just right.  That payment comes in the form of money, habits, surgeries … some of which may very well cost your life or the future lives of your potential children.  A permission slip from the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) named “Puberty Blockers for Young Teens” says, “If your child starts puberty blockers in the earliest stages of puberty, and then goes on to gender-affirming hormones, they will not develop sperm or eggs.  This means that they will not be able to have biological children.”  To say the least, the consequences can be enormous.

The problem is that our focus is on the worldly things not the godly.  Our vision is regarding the body, not the Body of Christ (the Church).  Our purpose is to serve and honor our own selves, not to serve and honor God.  We refer to ourselves as black, white, Asian, Hispanic, straight, transgender, queer, binary/non-binary, religious, atheist … and so on.  You get the point.

The reality is that we are all just people.  Fallen, broken, sinful, and in need of a Savior. Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles, in his article on 6/27/2023, said it this way, “There’s no such thing as transgender people.  There are just people.  There are people and people are defined by things outside of their own self-perception and their own disordered desires … some people are confused … some have fallen into fantasies … disordered sexual desires and fetishes. But that doesn’t change who and what they really are…” Part of Mr. Knowles’ point in this article has to do with whether transgendered people have a right to a job just because they are transgendered.  His answer is, “No.”

What people, of any ilk, do have is a right to hear and accept the Good News of Jesus Christ. The true message is that none of us need certain clothes, jewelry, surgeries, ethnicities, or any other false identity factor to be included or fulfilled.  We all need the saving grace of Jesus Christ.  We all need the transforming power of the Holy Spirit within.  We all need the guiding truth of God’s Holy Word— the Bible.

God has left it up to us, as His children, to spread this truth through our words, our actions, and His love in us.

“Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature” (Romans 13:14).

Model and teach your children these things, and in so doing, equip them to avoid the temptations of this world.  Then we all can demonstrate to the world around us what the world needs to see and hear.

“Your beauty should not come from outward adornment … Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight” (1 Peter 3: 3-4).

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel