… And He “saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).
God’s Love over Guilt and Shame
God is love. That is His nature. He loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus, to redeem us from sin. No healthy, normal parent enjoys seeing their child suffer. But God the Father endured the agony of seeing His Son suffer horrendous torture and death so that Jesus’ sinless blood sacrifice could pay for our sins once and for all.
When we confess Jesus as our Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9), all of our sins are cleansed, and we, too, become children of God. We receive God’s love in our hearts and everlasting life with our Heavenly Father.
When the blood of Christ cleanses our sins, we are no longer guilty before God. As we begin to read and understand the Bible, we realize there is no more reason for feeling shame. God accepts us in the Beloved, Jesus Christ.
Through His Word, the Bible, God teaches us how much we are loved by Him, without any guilt or shame before Him. I John 4:19 tells us that “we love because He first loved us.” People can only love themselves and others with God’s love when they understand that God loves them.
The Prison of Guilt and Shame
When people don’t turn to God and acknowledge their need for the Savior, Jesus Christ, they remain in sin, and along with it, guilt and shame.
Being lost in sin, guilt, and shame is a miserable place to be. As a result, unrepentant sinners attempt to change things on the outside, hoping they’ll feel better about themselves on the inside.
God Made Them Male and Female
The world is now promoting more than ever a drastic transition for unhappy people to feel better about themselves. It’s called transgenderism.
Just because a man thinks he should be a woman doesn’t mean he can make it so. He can dress like a woman, grow his hair long, take hormones, and even have reconstructive surgery. But in the end, he is still a man, with X and Y chromosomes in his DNA. The same is true of a woman who thinks she should be a man. She can’t change her DNA.
The root problem of a person who wants to be the other sex is that they don’t love themselves. They believe that if they change themselves on the outside, they’ll be happy. But after all the changes in clothing, hairstyle, makeup, hormones, and surgery, they are still the same person on the inside. And the inside person still isn’t happy because they don’t love themselves. And they don’t love themselves because of the sin, guilt, and shame that separates them from a loving God and Father.
Lies Kill
Someone who wants to attempt the impossible by trying to change their sex will only be in for a rude awakening. It doesn’t work, and it won’t make them happy. The attempted suicide rate among transgender people is an incredible 41%, nine times the national average of 4.6%.[i]
Instead of encouraging the acceptance and surgical mutilation of people who aren’t happy with their sex, Christians need to speak the truth in love. If you attempt to change yourself on the outside, you will be living a lie contrary to your DNA inside. According to Psychotherapist Brad Blanton, lying kills people. Lies imprison and enslave people to the father of lies, the devil.
The Power of God’s Love
On the other hand, Jesus loves us and offers deliverance from the enslavement of lies, self-loathing, and sin. We can learn about Him in the Bible, the Word of truth, in which He says, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:32, 36).
As God’s children, we can reach out to people with the love that God poured into our hearts. We can speak the truth in love that will free them from the guilt, shame, and bondage of sin. We can’t be silent. The world needs to hear the truth spoken in love. Those who desire to know the truth will be made free by Jesus Christ, secure in the love of their Heavenly Father.
[i] Study performed by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Williams Institute, based on a detailed analysis of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey results. The number of suicide attempts is based on interviews of 6,500 transgender people.
7 thoughts on “God Made Them Male and Female”
So true…so true. Only God can heal people and only God provides man and women with their true identity.
Amen! Thank you for your feedback, Robyn!
Judy thank you for your thoughts on this controversial subject. Satan, the great adversary is “alive” and active in our world and constantly spreading lies as he sows seeds of destruction. He is at the root of this and all plagues and only God’s love will protect us from the ravages of his activities. Again thank you for your thoughts and words. Have a God blessed day.
Amen, Ron! God bless you!
Judy,
Thank you for your 04/05/2021 devotional in The Upper Room. After reading it, I navigated to your blog page, and I am respectfully responding to your blog, speaking the truth in love.
The last paragraph of the study you cite (https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/suicidality-transgender-adults/) states:
“Our findings underscore the urgency of research to identify promising intervention and prevention strategies to address suicidality in this population. USTS respondents have the elevated risk of suicide thoughts and attempts that one would expect based on general risk factors that affect the U.S. population, such as substance use and serious psychological distress. Yet, it’s clear that minority stress experiences, such as family rejection, discrimination experiences, and lack of access to gender-affirming health care, create added risks for transgender people. Furthermore, the cumulative effect of experiencing multiple minority stressors is associated with dramatically higher prevalence of suicidality. Future research that supports the design and evaluation of suicide intervention and prevention strategies for the transgender population is urgently needed.”
While it may be true that some transgender people do not love themselves, I submit that they are far more likely to commit suicide because our society does not love them. They are not unhappy with their sex, they are unhappy with our treatment of them.
You wrote, “Instead of encouraging the acceptance and surgical mutilation of people who aren’t happy with their sex, Christians need to speak the truth in love.” I believe the study you cite leads to a different conclusion. Instead of marginalizing, rejecting, abusing, and denying access to gender-affirming health care, Christians need to love and accept those who are different.
Know God’s Peace.
Thank you, John, for taking the time to read my post and the referenced website. I cited that study for the suicide statistic, not for their conclusions. I believe Jesus’ words that the truth will set us free. I believe that attempting to be a gender contrary to our DNA is unfortunately living a lie, which will never set a person free. We’ll probably need to agree to disagree on this one, but I respect your thoughts on the subject and am thankful for your input.
Hello,
I enjoyed your Upper Room submission – thank you! I wanted to see more so I found your blog. I also appreciated your waterfall picture with your husband. My husband and I enjoy hiking and waterfalls too.
My heart tells me I must write for another reason too, and so prayerfully I am. I submit that God is infinitely more creative than we may give our Creator credit for. If you study genetics, neurobiology, and endocrinology, you can see that gender and sex are not simply defined as X and Y. The DNA and body systems are so much more complicated than that; scientific research shows this. Most people never get exposed to these complexities. It gives me joy and hope as I find God’s creativity and love astounding.
I agree with John comment’s above and pray we all can support our transgender family so that they may thrive.
Thank you for “listening” to another Christian who thinks differently. Conversations like these can be hard and I pray God keeps helping us along and that we can all keep growing in loving relationship with each other and our God.