AUGUST 22, 2025: For as long as I can remember, I’ve been told that being a Christian meant believing certain things, going to church on Sundays, and following rules written centuries ago. But belief without embodiment has always felt hollow to me. If Jesus lived, breathed, and loved in his time, why shouldn’t I try to do the same in mine?
I don’t want to just believe in Christianity — I want to be Jesus himself of my era. Not in the sense of perfection or divine claim, but in radical love, compassion, and courage. Jesus didn’t spend his time propping up traditions; he disrupted them. He healed, he challenged, he forgave, and he embraced the ones society rejected. That is the heart of his message.
I was brought up in a Southern Baptist environment. My mom even taught at the church, though we didn’t always go to the services every Sunday. Still, the culture shaped me. I remember VeggieTales, Bible-themed arts and crafts, and the day I gave my soul to Jesus and was baptized. I don’t regret a single moment of that. Those were my first encounters with God, and they were real.
But as I’ve grown, I’ve realized that God and Jesus don’t look the way some people want to portray them. The God I’ve come to know isn’t the God of hate-preaching or exclusion. He isn’t the God invoked by people like Kim Davis 🤮 to deny the dignity of LGBTQ people. He isn’t the God whose name gets used to justify immigration laws that rip families apart. That is man’s hate wrapped in religious language, not God’s heart.
The God I know is bigger than that. The Jesus I know is the one who said, “Let the little children come to me.” The one who told the woman caught in adultery, “Neither do I condemn you.” The one who dined with tax collectors, prostitutes, and outsiders, not because it was easy, but because it was right.
And yes, I am gay. Some would say that puts me outside the circle of God’s love. But that’s not the God I’ve walked with since childhood. God didn’t make a mistake when He made me. My love is not lesser, my humanity is not flawed, my soul is not disqualified. If anything, my queerness makes me even more aware of how wide God’s love stretches, because I’ve lived as someone told I was “other.”
And let me be clear: the God I know isn’t the God of government-assisted / Old-Money everything. He doesn’t spoon-feed destiny. He made us to sow into our own futures, to work, to build, to create. He believes in accountability. Yet — and this is where His might is unmatched — He also believes in redemption, second chances, and new beginnings. He is not a God of handouts, but a God who reaches down when you’ve fallen and says, “Get back up. I still have a plan for you.”
That belief in accountability and grace is part of what makes my work as a Bail Bondsman resonate with me. It’s not my whole identity, but it does bring me face-to-face with people who need both responsibility and a chance at redemption. In a way, it’s one more space where I get to live out what I believe about God: that He cares about people’s futures, that He offers another way forward.
To embody Jesus in my era means standing against hate, just like he did. It means calling out hypocrisy while offering love. It means saying: God would not pass laws that tear families apart. God would not turn away the refugee or the immigrant. God would not deny people jobs, housing, or dignity because of who they love.
Being Jesus in my era doesn’t mean trying to be divine. It means trying to be human the way he was human. Radically loving, radically compassionate, radically inclusive.
I want my life to be more than belief; I want it to be a living gospel. A gospel that says: God loves everybody. Straight or gay, immigrant or citizen, rich or poor, broken or whole. No exceptions.
And that’s the faith I choose to walk in — not just belief, but embodiment.
*This was written for myself and myself only. Though I hope it resonates with someone out there.*