A COMMENT I LEFT ON ANOTHER WEBLOG...

 This is the sign which occasioned a Christian to say, "I don't see anything wrong with that sign."  What follows below is my response to that comment...

My father was an avid gun collector, and he taught all of us how to fire and maintain a firearm.  He also started teaching us gun safety when we were very little kids.  I have no problem with guns, the Second Amendment, hunting, or even with the use of deadly force to protect the women folk (or men folk for that matter), and all the tiny tots.   I was raised by parents who valued deeply their citizenship, and were always conspicuously patriotic.  I have an American pedigree which is nothing short of stellar; a signer of The Declaration of Independence, and ancestors who served in nearly every armed conflict beginning with the Revolutionary war right up to today.  My oldest brother has served, with distinction, at the Pentagon, for many years.  First in the Army, and now as a civilian, doing the same job he did while in the service.


Until most recently I had several firearms of my own, which I inherited from my dad.  But recently I've given my firearms to my two older brothers.  I have been confronted more and more with my new citizenship in Christ's kingdom, and the conflicts between his kingdom and my earthly citizenship.   God is conforming us to the image and likeness of His Son, and these are a few things Jesus teaches:

"Blessed are the peacemakers,For they shall be called sons of God."  Matthew 5:9

 If the peacemakers are called the sons of God what do we call the gun makers?  To be conformed to the image and likeness of Jesus is to be a peacemaker.

 "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."  John 3:17

If Jesus doesn't come to condemn the world, but, rather, He came to save it, then to be conformed to the image and likeness of Christ is to offer eternal life and salvation through the gospel.  Firearms condemn.
"You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'  But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also."

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven."   Matthew 5:38-39 & 43-45

To be conformed to the image and likeness of Christ means not standing on my legal rights, but rather doing good to the world which is God's enemy.   And being conformed to the image and likeness of Christ means "love your enemies..."  And Jesus doesn't simply stop at teaching love of enemies, but that love for enemies is synonymous with being the children of Father God.  YIKES!!   Guns are most definitely all about my legal right to demand the life of an evil person who has earned that wage, but God is conforming me to the image and likeness of Jesus, so how does being like Jesus work at all with shooting the evil person a Christian is told not to resist??

"Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”"  Luke 23:34

That is the coup de grace!  There Jesus hangs on a cross, looking at the very people who have wrongly condemned convicted and executed Him, but He PLEADS FOR THEIR LIVES!   This is the one I can't get around at all, no matter how I've tried to justify my potential use of lethal force, I can't in light of what Jesus does.  God is conforming me to the image and likeness of Christ, and Christ pleads for the forgiveness of those who murder Him!!!   This is what God is conforming me to be like
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With all of God's conforming going on, within us, who in the Church would have such a sign?  I'm not saying there is never any call for the use of deadly force, but where does it fit in the life conformed to the image and likeness of Christ??  Could Jesus, hanging on the cross, have possibly used a gun to shoot His way out, then looked up to heaven and pleaded with Father for forgiveness for the men He shot or shot at?!
      
Don't get me wrong I miss my guns, but I can't find a place in the image and likeness of Jesus for my holsters, or gun rack!!