You said: "No one has become what God created us to be; [in my view] We all have need of repentance from sin and the deliverance that Christ Jesus has made possible. And to that end, I am doing my best to be a true christan as much as I understand what this means."

I say "Amen" to that! One thing that a lot of Christians need to realize is that the ground is level at the foot of the cross, and that we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The word "all" is a HUGE word...it means everyone who has ever lived or will ever live. No one is righteous except our Lord, and He died so that we may be made righteous in Him. It doesn't matter who you are or what you may have done, you are forgiven by accepting Christ. Right now there are many, many people who love to point their fingers at others who they feel are more sinful than they are, but they are wrong in doing that. Instead of pointing their fingers, they should be opening their arms to welcome those people into the church; into the love and acceptance of God through His family the church. And I see very little of this going on. The sad thing that I do see going on are Christians with big signs saying that they hate gays, or actually saying that God hates gays. Instead of protesting gay pride parades, why aren't they walking along side of these people, trying to befriend them and bring them into their churches? What WOULD Jesus do?

We are hopefully all doing our best to follow Jesus my friend bu I fear some people need to sit down and really think about that question...WWJD.