December 6, 2013
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THE END OF A SEASON.
I'm not talking about the holiday season, of course, that has just begun. I'm talking about the current season of my life. The call of God is an incredibly beautiful call. Counseling, men's ministry, theater and arts ministry for mentally/physically challenged youth. But perhaps the most important is working in God's call for the Church to take up the most broken among us, the sexually broken. The Church must take up the sexually broken.
I've written and talk for years about my dealings with hookers, and most specifically about "Lilly". The truth is Lilly didn't need me at all. I was just one more religious preacher guy who offered her nothing but condemnation. I was of no use to her, but what is most important of all, I was no use to God. Lilly didn't need me I needed her. Someone may come up with the argument that God didn't need Lilly at all, but God did need Lilly to teach me his ways. The very fact that God did such an incredible transformative work in my life through Lilly is all the evidence I ever need. God worked through Lilly therefore God needed Lilly, for my benefit. When God gave me the understanding that I needed Lilly along with that understanding came a very clear message: "The Church, God's Church, needs the sexually broken. When the Church steps up and embraces God's call to the sexually broken, which is really just the fruit of the breakdown of relationships in their lives, then the Church will learn.
What is it the Church needs with sexually broken people? The Church needs to see their reflection. When Christians reach to minister to the sexually broken and immoral one of the first things which will confront them is the breakdown of their own relationship with God. Without Lilly I would never have seen how badly broken down my way of relating to God was. When God opened my eyes to truly see myself I saw that I was exactly like Lilly. I've been asking leader and laity alike for over 20 years now, "Why can't the Church minister the life giving relationship with Jesus Christ to hooker people, LGBT people, porn addicted people, fornicating people, and etc.?" The truth is the Church can't give what it doesn't have. The reason the Church has the most difficulty with LGBT people is because they don't want to see that homosexuality is to physical relationships what the Church's spiritual relationship is with God. The Church doesn't know what to do with LGBT people, because they can't do anything about how we've broken faith with God.
Sexually broken people are vitally need by the Church. When the Church embraces the broken people, and invite God to transform them, then the Church will, through their involvement with God's work to the sexually broken, find freedom and restored relationship with God. God revealed the truth about the Church, to me, when he revealed the same truth about me, through Lilly. My response to this knowledge at the time was absolute terror. "God!!, I exclaimed, "Why do you keep telling me these things?!?!" But with the knowledge came responsibility and a very clear understanding of God's call.
All of God's call amounts to the same thing: Giving the worth of Christ to a worthless world.
For now I'm calling God's call: THE VALUE ADDED TOUR. Be on the look out for tour dates!
That's a joke. I don't really believe God is calling to tour around like a rock band or something. But I do know that all God calls me to is about offering the overcoming love and worth of Jesus Christ. So until I get a better name, VALUE ADDED TOUR, it is!!