Thanks to the Olympics opening ceremony, social media this week is full of debates about how to love unbelievers and what to do when we see depravity, perversion, immorality, darkness.

(Note: Many people who call themselves Christians can’t even agree on what IS perversion, darkness, immoral…. but that’s a different post. Let’s pretend that all Christ-followers are on the same page that what was presented at the Olympic opening ceremony was sin-filled, dark, perverted, and against God’s best according to His Word)

The truth is that GOD is LOVE. So if you’re not pointing to God and trying to steer people to God, you aren’t loving.

When we see somebody celebrating debauchery, sexual perversion, and darkness… have we become so worldly to believe that human love will be their Savior?    If offering human love and acceptance and trying to rally others to do the same is the only solution we have for the lost – we are simply worshipping the same idol they do: the idol of SELF, or in the plural, the idol of people.

The Bible phrases it like this: “…they loved human praise more than praise from God.” John 12:43 

It is simply false and unbiblical to think that if enough people just affirmed / praised the broken, then they would be healthy and whole.   The lost need their Creator and His love.   They need to understand that HIS ways are best and that they need him. That HE is the answer to their soul’s deepest longings for acceptance, belonging, identity, and satisfaction.

People will never be a good Savior and human praise and acceptance isn’t sufficient to meet our God-given need for divine love & acceptance.  

Trying to evaluate our worth or define our identity based on other people’s view of us is what gets us entangled in darkness and psychologically harmed in the first place.  So how is offering the lost the same “solution” that they are enslaved in – loving? It’s not. We are actually keeping people in unhealthy codependency when we try to be a “friend” or “advocate” without offering Jesus and sharing that HE is the way, truth, life.  

We must truly assess ourselves and our ideology and the messages we communicate. We are either pointing to JESUS or we’re pointing to an idol.

GOD is LOVE.  He is what we all need.