Religious trauma from the AIDS crisis is communal & generational, and health scares like COVID-19 bring it out. Right now, there are gay xians who are scared of getting sick and dying from coronavirus as God’s judgment for being gay.

If that’s you, I’ve got a few thoughts.

First, this is a fear that religious extremists intentionally fabricated in order to justify their celebration of our deaths when we die. It does not come from the Holy Spirit. It comes from a twisted religious atmosphere that preaches a God who kills instead of a God who saves.

If you’re gay and you find yourself in a place of fear, ground yourself in the truth of the Gospel. And not just the Gospel in abstraction, but the Gospel applied to *you.*

“Jesus Christ didn’t come into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved.” Jesus Christ didn’t come into *your life* to condemn *you* but that *you* through him might be saved.

Second, remember who you are in relation to a heavenly Father who gives “good gifts” to his children, who loves you because you are his child and holds your hand through the scary moments of life. You are his child. You are not a vessel of wrath.

Even if you *have* sinned and you *have* made mistakes, God’s not waiting for a chance to do you in. Like the father in the Prodigal Son, he’s waiting for you to come to him, where you’ll find love and acceptance and celebration upon your return, not anger.

Third, so many gay xns overwhelm themselves with fear that they’ve answered Qs about sex wrong & that God is going to unleash his wrath upon them as a result. But that’s not God. God is working through the messiness of those Qs *with* you. He is your help, not your executioner.

Fourth, remember that Satan is known as the “accuser” for a reason. That voice in your life reminding you of all the awful things you’ve ever done and mistakes you’ve ever made and anxieties you’ve ever had, that’s not God. That’s the devil.

As the father of lies, Satan wants nothing more than to turn God into a monster & make you believe in that monster instead of the Gospel. But Jesus Christ rebukes those lies. Remember Jesus. You don’t follow a God who wants you to die but rather a God who died in your place.

Finally, allow yourself to sit with and feel and accept the reality that you *will* die one day, whether today or tomorrow or in the distant future. And when that day comes, God will be waiting to welcome you into his home, not as a God of wrath but as a Father who loves you.

God loves you. Any other voice in your life that tries to make you believe otherwise, or that twists this love into condemnation, is a voice that comes from the devil and not the Holy Spirit. God’s love is perfect. And “perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18)