"Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him."

~ Henry Miller

 

 

. . .

 

 

GOD'S CALL

 

 "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves."

 

 

 

What I believe or you believe is of little real importance to God.   God tells us many things, "love, trust, obey, believe," but he never says "figure me out."  Somewhere at sometime some people decided the Bible was what they said it was, and anyone who dared disagree would suffer God's wrath.  Funny Jesus taught that obedient people would know the truth.  James took that a step further, do or you are deceiving yourself.  I don't know where "obey" was replaced with "believe this way, and only this way about the Bible."  When I want to know the truth of the Bible have no further to go than obedience.  The Bible is true, not merely because I've read it, but because of the times I've done what I read.   The guy God holds up as the "Father of Faith", Abraham, does what God tells him to do, and when he has obeyed God he figures God out.  And here's the thing...Abraham had no written account;  Abraham had no Bible. 

"By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,"  concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense."

It took Abraham 3 days to get to the place God commanded him to take Issac to sacrifice.  In that time Abraham came to a startling conclusion, "God is able to raise the dead."  God hadn't told Abraham he could raise the dead, Abraham figured it out, and that was part of God's intent for commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son Issac.  God also means to send us, all of us, a message, "Want to figure God out, then simply obey."  Abraham didn't sit around trying to figure God out, he didn't stand up shake his fist at God and yell, "You promised me, and now look what you're doing," before he obeyed.  Abraham did what God told him to do, and when he obeyed he saw something about God, God had never revealed before.  Today people of faith sit around trying to figure God out, and the end result isn't an understanding of God.   There is a story about comedic actor W. C. Fields, a notorious lush, womanizer, who was completely irreverent, and irreligious.  Someone saw Fields reading a Bible.  "What are you doing, Bill?" came the shocked and incredulous query.  Fields, nonchalantly flipping the Bible's pages, quipped, "Looking for loopholes."  People who want to believe the Bible without doing what it says are looking for ways around God.  God isn't in our debt we are in his.  Those who want to know God have only to do what God says and God will lead them unfailingly to himself, and truth, which makes them free.    

Another of Jesus of Nazareth's  names is "Faithful and True".  If a person is born again, then that person is kind after Christ's kind.  God is conforming believers into the image and likeness of Christ.  "Faithful and True", are what truly born again people are being conformed to, so I have little choice as regards the service God calls me to do with him.  That doesn't mean I have to like God's call, but I have no choice.  I know God will have his way with me.  God never says I have to like it.  Submission is not agreement.  Submission is doing something even when you don't like it, want to do it, or agree with it 100%.  I didn't like the little "Word of Faith" church, (better known as the "health and wealth gospel")  I attended for 3.5 years.  I don't believe in that "name it claim it, blab it grab it," nonsense, and 3 1/2 years did nothing to make my heart grow fonder of "Word of Faith" theology.  Through all of that I remained faithful in my service in that church.   How could I do such a thing knowing parts of their theology were so completely wrong?   It was only the teachings specific to "Word of Faith" theology which were the problem.  My Rheme Bible College trained pastor, when he wasn't teaching WoF (Word of Faith) nonsense had a pretty good handle on the Bible's great lessons.  I submitted knowing I could never agree with large chunks of the theology, and that is what submission is all about.  Submission is something every believer is called to do.  God didn't call me to attend services at the local Jehovah's Witness's Kingdom Hall.  God didn't push me toward the Mormon temple.   

When I kick God's call to the curb my reasons are real reasons...okay, most of the time...sometimes I don't like it and I've got no reason.  Most of the time I have really very valid reasons for balking at what God has called me to do.  As I explain in my post, "Why I hate God's call on my life" (LINK), I had an uncle monster, and instead of protecting me from uncle monster, my human dad all but handed me over to my tormentor.   I have valid reasons to be very afraid of Christians.   I don't function at all when I'm trapped in situations which mirror that anvil (uncle monster) and the hammer (my dad).   I can only sit there and take the beating.  That probably isn't a very good analogy, because someone will say something like, "God is just beating you into something useful."   Um...God isn't responsible for my dad's or my uncle's behavior toward me.  God doesn't promise everything that happens to us will be good.  I've already received plenty of bad from fellow Christians.  

As an adult I asked my dad why he didn't step up to help me as a child.  I didn't bring up uncle monster, I thought that might be too much for dad.  I told him I used to sit just outside their bedroom door, where I could sit unseen and watch The Tonight Show.   I was in most danger when the television went off, so I tried to slip away before that time.  On many occasions the television went off before I could escape, and I'd have to sit silently, for quite awhile before  I could slowly slip off to my bedroom.  Without the cover of the televisions noise I had to move very carefully.   It was during those times I had to sit silently my mother would try to have discussions with my father.  To mom's credit she tried, faithfully and tirelessly, to discuss my troubles with dad.   She'd say things like, "Sam, I wish you would take some time with Lonnie.  He is having a really hard time..."   Dad, was also faithful and tireless in his responses, "Aww! Lonnie's just fine, leave him alone, there is nothing wrong with him."  Dad, to his credit, remembered having some of those conversations...Mom begged, and dad refused, I don't know how many times, for many years, and he now knew I had overheard many of those conversations.  With all of the back story out of the way I asked dad a question, "Dad, why didn't you listen to mom and reach out to help me?"   I wasn't angry, I wasn't accusing, and I wasn't being judgmental.  I knew God had given me forgiveness for my dad, and I simply wanted to give him a chance to discuss it now that I didn't need his help.  He said, "Honey, I didn't know what to do."  I wasn't blown away, shocked, or angry.  I had known for years my dad didn't care about me; didn't care about anyone of us.  The most freeing thing God could do was to show me that my dad didn't care about anyone else but himself, long before I was born.   I was free and I knew it, and I knew without any doubt at all that my dad had never cared anything about me.  

My dad was a very intelligent man.  He knew a lot about firearms, history, pharmacology (he was a pharmacist), our family history, Dale Carnegie's training based on his famous book, How To Win Friends and Influence People.   He took the Carnegie course 7 times.  He wasn't at all interested in winning friends he wanted influence over people.  Dad would have taken the course many more times, but the trainers/facilitators knew dad wanted to manipulate and control people and started working to stop him.  What dad cared about he went to obsessive extremes to learn everything he could.   Dad had a massive library of porn, but not one book, class, or even a conversation about how to parent.  If dad didn't know something he didn't care to know about it.  All of this isn't evidence of bitterness toward my dad.   I say all of this to now say, "For the last 22 years, all of my Christian walk I've asked Christians over and over again, "Why doesn't anyone in the Church ever reach out to sexually/relationally broken people."  I knew the answer to the question, before ever asking the first Christian.  I started asking Christians why they wouldn't reach out to sexually/relationally broken people, because I already knew the answer.  I'd already lived the answer in my own life with my own dad.   And I didn't simply ask Christians why they didn't reach sexually/relationally broken I asked very specifically, "Why don't Christians reach out to LGBT people?"   For 22 years I heard the same exact excuse my dad gave me for not reaching out to me, as my father.   I started asking Christians, not for my information, but so Christians incriminated themselves before their heavenly Father.   It was utterly and completely reprehensible that my human dad had neglected all of his family.  It was worse that he had handed his youngest son over to a cruel teenager, and the only thing he cared about was that the screams for help from his youngest son were disturbing his evening's television viewing.   Do you think God will hold believers any less responsible for their excuses?   

I have always known the call of God on my life.  I never knew all the details, but I knew I wasn't going to like it, and I've kicked against it.  I knew God was calling me to serve the Church.  I don't mean the call was to serve "in" the Church, but to serve the Church, in a very specific way.  I'll get to that in due time.  My defense has always been the same defense... Get Christians to answer one simple question:

"WHY WON'T YOU REACH OUT TO LGBT PEOPLE WITH THE FREEDOM OF CHRIST?"

 

 I've seen the same kind of disinterest and coldness in Christians I saw in my dad.  "The problem homosexuals have is they need to make different choices."   I knew the Christian argument from late night after the TV went off.  "Aww!  There is nothing wrong with Lonnie, leave him alone, he's fine."   There is no real problem, you just think there is a problem.   Of course neither my dad nor any Christians I've known took the time to look into what they were denying.  Dad never once asked me if I needed help, and I've never met a Christian who ever asked me that question when they learned about my past in homosexuality.   The greatest evidence that Christians have not and will not take the time to investigate their accusations, that LGBT people have nothing harder to face than a choice, is their confession:  "We don't know what to do."  Knowing what to do would have taken, at least, some steps to investigate the claims of LGBT people.  "You don't know what to do, because if you spend time considering homosexuality, it is only to make useless and baseless assumptions and accusations.  

Some of you have spent thousands of dollars, years and years to understand your theological and historical approach to what you believe.  Many of you have spent thousands of hours and dollars to learn about and disseminate knowledge about Christian America and why America should be turned back to Christ.   You have poured your hearts into all that is near and dear to your hearts, and many of you have told me how near and dear I am to your hearts.  You and many others have spent a lot of time understanding and defending the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality, but you have spent no time, EVER, learning to understand the road to freedom which leads to the this verse in 1 Corinthians 6...

"...and such were some of you..."

 

Oh!  you were happy God had done it in my life, and you were happy I was doing something about it!!  Even when I've been harsh and profane, in the past, some of you almost went overboard to slap me on the back with the hardiest, "ATA BOY LONNIE!!  GET THOSE GAY AND GAY LOVING CHRIST HATERS!!   At first I thought, "Maybe I could make a difference here, with what I know, maybe they'll listen and go into action."  That hope didn't last long.  So I kept writing and y'all kept cheering me on (There were a few of you who stood up to me at times, and many stopped coming around because they knew something wasn't right, though they couldn't have known what it was).   But I knew something none of you ever considered:  You liked me, some of you loved me, as a Christian, but if you had known me before Jesus Christ you'd have nothing to do with me.  You liked me because I upheld your beliefs, and fought against those bad old gays.  You'd never have liked me if you'd thought I wasn't what you wanted me to be.  What you didn't know, but what I have always known is:   Every time you cheered me on, you were condemning yourselves.  I may not be standing in front of God while he's judging you on judgment day, but all the words of support you tossed my way were going to bite you square in the butt, when you faced Christ's judgment.   I knew I was also in for some judgment for some of it, but I was pretty sure I'd be better off than any of you.  See all that support so many of you gave begs the question, "If God has done such a great job with Lonnie, wouldn't he do it for people who had been like Lonnie???"   You could approve of me, as a Christian, but Christ died for me before I ever came to him.  God, on the grounds of Christ's shed blood on Calvary, had every reason and right to pursue me until he caught me.  All of you pursue me because of what I am now, but you would never, like Christ, pursue me and draw me into loving relationship.  When you get Lonnie, you get what God will do in all those bad old gay people.  Get Christ into them and you'll like them just fine.  When you praise what God has done, but you yourselves will not lift a finger to help, you are guilty of disobedience to Christ, and face certain judgment.  God is not mocked... If you approve what God has done in my life, but will not lift a finger in the face of convincing evidence, then you may expect God's judgment.   Jesus commands obedience, and he says that obedience, not thousands of dollars and hour spent, OBEDIENCE is love for him.  Because God did good to me, he killed his enemy, me, and recreated in me, his friend and son.  What I am, all of those LGBT persons are when God kills his enemy by making him/her his friend.  It excites me when I meet a hooker, atheist, gay person.  I know God has a plan and a purpose to be their friend.  I don't know how he wants to do that, and I don't have too.  I simply approach them relationally, "Hey, how are you today?"  There is always something I see in or on every person I meet.  I can kick off a conversation on something I notice about or on a person.  Once I have made a relational approach the desire to continue building that relationship grows with each moment I learn about that person.   Early in my walk with Christ, every halfway good looking guy became an object of lust.  God taught me to approach and begin the process of relating.  When I speak to a person that is a relational or relating act.  Once I've begun to relate then the desire to relate to the person overcomes the lust to use that person for sex.  God's overcoming power is in relationship, and as I relate that power to draw that person into relationship becomes stronger and stronger.  The more I grow to care about a person the less I lust.  When I begin relating, sex can't compare to the power of the desire to befriend and then want to see that person become an eternal member of the family.  When I'm filled with the desperation of God's love and desire for relationship, LOOK OUT WORLD...YOU ARE GOING UP ON THE CROSS WITH CHRIST AND COMING UP A NEW AND ETERNAL LIFE!!!!  I start relating and God can do anything he wants, and often does.  Talking to people gives me all the ammunition to pray for them later, and sometimes I run into them time and time again. 

When I was a kid, visiting family in Tennessee, in the Summer, we'd catch June Bugs, tie a string around one of their back legs and they'd fly in a circle because they're tethered to the thread.   I could let out the thread or take in the thread to bring the bug in closer, and it would fly faster and closer until I'd pulled the bug back into my hand.  Sometimes it's like God ties a string to me, and onto the leg of some lost person, and then he just pulls the string in tighter and tighter until he brings them in through me.   God is so in love with hurting and lost people, and he loves flying them right into Christ.   See, when you obey Christ it's almost impossible not to draw people in.  Of course if you are fighting God's call the process begins breaking down.  And when you want to show God he shouldn't call you, because Christians won't ever do what he wants them to do no matter what he has accomplished in and through me.   Then I start setting Christians up so they cannot fail to bring judgment on their own heads.  I don't want to bring destruction to Christians, but I've always wanted a reason to keep them away from me.  Hey, you don't want to be around me anyway.  All Christians want from me is to give them a place to send those gay people who bother them.  Christians don't care if I kick their butts or draw them toward Christ as long as Christians don't have to get their hands dirty on "those" people.  Christians like it when "those" people come to Christ, but not because of love.  Christians simply don't want to deal with those people, just like my dad didn't want to have to deal with me.  

So what is Lonnie's call exactly??? 

 

WHAT IS THE REAL DEAL I'VE BEEN TRYING TO ESCAPE??   HOW HAS GOD BEEN PULLING ON THAT STRING TIED TO HIS FINGER AND MY LEG UNTIL I'M AT THE DEAD CENTER OF HIS CALL??

 

      

 

 

 

 

Dr. Roger E. Olson

 

 What do I mean when I say the Bible is "Trustworthy"?

"When I say the Bible is trustworthy, I mean it can be (and for Christians must be) trusted to transform those who are open to its message, the gospel, by bringing them into encounter with the living God through Jesus Christ. I do NOT mean the Bible is a source book of information about history or cosmology or even morality. All those are in the Bible, but they are not its main purpose.

When I say the Bible is trustworthy, I do NOT mean every event recorded in the Bible happened exactly as it is described there. And anyone who says all did have simply not wrestled deeply enough with the phenomena of Scripture. It takes Herculean efforts to harmonize many biblical accounts of the same events and, in the end, they are not worth it and do not really succeed (except by forcing harmony where it does not exist). An excellent example, of course, is the event of Peter’s denial of Jesus. Harold Lindsell had to have the rooster crowing six times to harmonize the gospel accounts..." 

"...Even the great Charles Hodge admitted there are flaws in the Bible. He compared them with the bits of sandstone in the marble of the pillars of the Parthenon. He said we Christians are justified in trampling such arguments under our feet. I’m not sure what he meant by that except to say we are justified in simply ignoring the sandstone (flaws in the Bible) because of the majesty of its marble. However, problems arise when someone whose job it is to inspect the pillars of the Parthenon points out the sandstone. Too often he gets trampled under fundamentalist feet."

 

I encourage you to read the rest of Dr. Olson's post (Link)

 

 

The post is short and too the point.  He says it like I want to say it.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

"A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves."

~ Simone Weil

 

Bad old California!  Really is this such a surprise?  Are you honestly shocked?   It's California for heaven's sake, everyone cool your jets.  And all you concerned Christians, since you seem to be the only ones on Xanga I see concerned, how many of you were offering reparative therapy to young people before the law?   You weren't offering help to the sexually and relationally broken, but now you're all concerned?  Forgive my jaded incredulity, or don't.   LGBT people never gave a crap about laws prohibiting sodomy.  Here's an idea for you take a play out of the LGBT playbook and defy the law.   Or simply take it as a new excuse not to do anything which is what you were doing before the law.  

This is simply the most hilarious thing ever!!  You didn't care enough to wade into the lives of the sexually confused before this, but you honestly expect to be believed that you care now?   So tell me, you concerned Christians in Xanga land, how many of you were involved in offering reparative therapy to same-sex attracted teens, under the age of 18, before the law?   You Christians have access to the only answer, Jesus Christ, and you give a crap about a law?  You won't give Christ, and your excuse is, "We don't know what to do."   You do nothing, but you're upset that some little queer kids in California will be refused the right to seek help?  You know the law only effects professionals.  There is nothing which says people who love God can't step in to take up the slack left, by the couple of therapists who'll have to move shop across state lines.  So shall we see you step up to fill the void in all these young lives?   As a gay man I met a few folks whose parents forced them into some kind of therapy.   The therapy didn't work, because it was forced.  Christians should be worrying more about what they aren't doing for the cause of Christ than some law in California.  Seriously, everyone's worried about California?  The state with the highest crazy quotient and everyone's overcome with fear?   

Someone give Chicken Little Christian a cookie and some milk.  They'll get over this quickly, after all it's election season and getting Obama out of office is the real issue on the Christian radar.   God knows serving God isn't on the Chicken Little Christian's radar.

SPARE ME...

 

 

Too Much To Swallow,

And

 

 

 

That Honestly Makes Me Sad

 

  "Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.  The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.  The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God."

 

 

The materialists have won.  And not simply the hearts and minds of a lost world, but the Christian mind as well.  Christians don't follow the rule of God any longer they dance to the tune played by atheists, secularists, feminists, gay activists, Marxists, Islamists... call it whatever you like, but the problem is none of "-ists" we blame for the world's problems. The problem with Christians is focus.  Focus on everything and everyone except Christ.  We're focused on fighting enemies; fighting for a way of life; standing against sin and unrighteousness, and none of it is according to God's purposes, plans, or call.

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free,and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage."

Instead of freedom we cling to 12 step programs; we swallow self-help schmaltz wrapped in a sugary sweet Joel Osteen smile; We condemn or accept sins, but what we never do is seek to know the freedom Christ has given us.  Jesus tells us "I have overcome the world..." Are we free, is sin overcome?  No, we've bought into what the world says about humanity:  

"Guys are just wired to struggle with lust."

I started dealing with that particular way of thinking at the tender age of 15.  Are humans born self-absorbed?  Yeah, it's a survival reflex.  If you're ever near a new born human try a little experiment... Take a very clean index finger and rub the baby's cheek with it.  The baby's head will turn in an effort to suckle the tip of your finger.   It's a natural reflex human babies all have, so they can find one of mom's nipples.  It's called..."The Sucking or Suckling Reflex".  (Wow, never would have thought to call it that, would you?)   Now take that same index finger and rub a full grown adult's cheek.  You will not get the same response you'd get from a human baby.   Depending on the adult human you might get punched in the face.  If you rubbed my cheek with your index finger I'll quickly pull away, shoot a withering look at you, while shouting, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!?!?!?"  I'll be overcome with the thought, "Where has that finger been?!?!"  The point is just because you're born with a "sucking reflex" does not mean you'll keep it.  We have a term for this process of losing your "sucking reflex."  This process is called, "Growing up."  (Wow, never would have thought about calling it that, huh?)   Because you are attacked by hormones around age 13 does not mean you were hardwired to be a "horndog".   There is a term we use for the process of passing out of your "horndog" phase.  The term for passing out of your "horndog" phase is called "Growing up".  (Wow! I wasn't ready for "Growing up" to be used twice!  That was obviously a trick question thingy... I'm ready for the next trick this guy might pull on me, how 'bout you?)  The problem isn't how guys are hardwired.  The problems is you live in a culture which celebrates horndogs.  There isn't any factual support for the "born this way" nonsense for "straight" horndogs, any more than there is for gay horndogs. (If you remain a horndog past age 25, it isn't a wiring problem, you're a rebellious and stupid child hiding out in an adult's body).

If you are a person made truly born again by God's Spirit, then if you're hit with lust take it as a sign from God.   It's a sign which says, "Time to stop and ask God where the relational brokenness, behind the lust, is hiding in your childish soul."   See God has overcome the sin of lust with something called "love", which leads to a thing called "relationship".   (And when I say "relationship" I don't mean those things you call "relationships" which start with lust, and end after a few weeks, or a few bouts of guilt ridden masturbation).  

Love and relationship are the hallmark of Christ overcoming the world, and here's a clue for you... we're talking about YOUR WORLD.   I know, I know, it's all lost on the materialist Christians.  Freedom is weekly meetings at the local "__(fill in the blank with your addiction)_  Anonymous" chapter.  God doesn't free materialist Christians from sin, that was in the past.  The materialist Christian is up on what "research" says about sin being genetic; or "hardwired" as world class scientists like, John Piper, have begun telling the materialist Christian faithful.  (Oh that's right Piper isn't anything close to knowing what is or isn't genetic  (LINK). But hey, if evolutionary biologist and militant atheist, Richard Dawkins, can expertly (NOT!) dabble in theology, then why shouldn't Piper wade into the shallow end of the gene pool??).   Is there anything wrong with 12 step programs?  Nothing at all, so long as we don't start saying they are God's idea.  God doesn't fix broken human beings, not with 12, 15, or 20 steps.  God has a 1 step program: He creates a new spirit within that broken human, and makes a relationship with that newly created human.   Whatever your orientation is today, when God is done with you, you'll have a God orientation which overcomes all those broken completely dysfunctional orientations you get from being born a human the first time around.   

Don't try to tell materialist Christians what the Bible teaches.  The Bible exists to refute gay people, atheist people, "evil-utionist" people, Democrats, and other people dragging America away from the Christians.   Christians have the deed to America, and that is the greatest reason God gave us The Holy Bible.  See, like I said to begin with: The problem is focus...Instead of being focused on our love and relationship, through Jesus Christ, we're focused on the gay people, atheist people, Democrats, feminist people, ACLU people, and every other God hating, baby killing, butt hugging, yellow bastard who hates the Church.  Though actually all the "haters" hate the Church, because Christians are focused on everything and everyone in the world they want to fight.   What the Christians need to do is follow and obey the person they claim they love, and stop worrying about all they hate about the world.  Jesus tells us, "For God so loved the world, he gave all of the wealth he had; Jesus." (My paraphrase of John 3:16).   But look what the Christians have done.  "Love the sinner, but hate the sin."  You know the best place to start overcoming the world is to stop trying to make God say something he absolutely doesn't say.  "For God so loved the world..."   God doesn't add, "...but hate the sin."  God simply says, "I love the world, so I sent my Son, to overcome the world."   God's answer to sin is overcoming love.  

So if you are a guy, you call yourself a "Christian", but you keep struggling with lust, it isn't because you are just "hardwired" that way.  You lust because God has not yet freed you to love.  Stop fighting the world and hating sin.   Allow God to overcome the world in and through you, and that love will defeat the world better than all the stockpiles of arms, laws, righteous indignation, and those awful religious bumper sticker/T-shirts Christians have amassed for themselves.  And you'll save lots of money you're spending on those (secret) porn sites every month.  (Yeah, right like you've actually been able to keep the porn a secret...The only secret is you think it's "secret"...HA HA HA! We've known about it all the time!)

The world is filled with hellish hate, what God sent was world overcoming love.   That is God's salvation and gospel:  "Christ and him crucified..." (or simply, LOVE) 

"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

 

 

Wow, that was just so hard, wasn't it?

  

 

 

Trapped OR Free?

 

 

"Take it from me: Unless a person is born from above, it’s not possible to see what I’m pointing to—to God’s kingdom.” “How can anyone,” said Nicodemus, “be born who has already been born and grown up? You can’t re-enter your mother’s womb and be born again. What are you saying with this ‘born-from-above’ talk?”  Jesus said, “You’re not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the ‘wind-hovering-over-the-water’ creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom. When you look at a baby, it’s just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can’t see and touch—the Spirit—and becomes a living spirit."

John 3:3-6 (The Message)

 

This series started with my thoughts about a man in my church who left his wife and children to run off with a woman from work.  This wayward sheep wasn't simply one of the sheep.  He was a leader in my church, he'd addressed the men's group, on the topic of Christian marriage.   All the time he was working in the church, putting up a mask of Christian respectability, he was having an affair.  For 8 years this husband, father, respected church leader was cheating on his wife.   The promise of freedom in Christ is just a great load of hooey.   The failure of Christianity is writ large, for all but those deluded by that 2,000 year old book, The Holy Bible.  

The Bible, its age, its historicity or non-historicity has never been the problem.   The problem with the Bible, as I've already said, is those who read it, but do not do what it says.   The problem with the Bible is that Christians, truly "born again" or not, hold to their flesh.   Christ is accepted and then used to support all sorts of UN-Christlike things.  We hold to our national identities and force Christ to serve us and human political agendas.   Jesus, who overcomes the world, is belittled, and made to prop up religious notions of "standing against sin".   Jesus doesn't stand against sin, Jesus overcomes sin.   

"Salvation, to be real and available, must be salvation from sin. Everything else fails. Any system of religion which does not break the power of sin, is a lie. If it does not expel selfishness and lust, and if it does not beget love to God and man, joy, peace, and all the fruits [sic] of the Spirit, it is false and worthless. Any system that fails in this vital respect is a lie—can be of no use—is no better than a curse."

~ Charles Finney

Every man's battle is stuff and nonsense.  When Christ comes the power of sin is overcome; defeated; undone.   Why else are Jesus' followers told in Ephesians 4:22 to put off the old self?  If lust is a life long battle, then why are we told to, "...put it off?"   if lust cannot be put off then the teachings of Christ are null and void; Jesus has not overcome the  power of sin. 

"Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.  Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.  So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."

John 8:34-36

Jesus clearly, CLEARLY... CLEAR AS A BELL, says "If the Son has set you free, you are free."   Jesus isn't talking about coming into your heart and "cleaning you up."   When Jesus speaks he speaks of replacing you with a new creation; literally Jesus points us back to the beginning when God creates, and says, "This is how it works:  "You must be born (newly created) again."  Jesus never leaves sin in our hands.  Jesus defeats our sin himself.   How could you or I ever overcome something which had overcome and enslaved us?   That is the teaching of many today, "Use your free will to will yourself free."  Jesus, again, has made it absolutely clear, "if you sin you are a slave to sin."  But if Jesus sets you free, then you are free.  It isn't faith in human willpower, it isn't following a set of standards and strict self-denial.   Jesus sets the slave free, and we live in that freedom, by receiving the gift of a Holy Spirit freed will, the gift of faith, the gift of repentance, the gift of Christ's sacrifice, the gift of God's new creation, and the gift of the power of freedom, which is the same power which raised Christ from the dead.   All is the power of God to overcome the world.

The problem has never been the Bible, the problem has always been, and will always be human beings.  Humans take the truth in the Bible and reduce it to fit their own desires.   Want a Christian nation?  Simply take Christ and make him uphold your self-serving agenda.   Jesus tells us repeatedly, those who belong to Christ are no longer part of the world.  Want to push the homosexuals back into the closet?  Simply take Christ and make him uphold your self-serving agenda.   Christ could free the homosexual, the porn fiend, the serial adulterer, just as he says, but right wingnut Christians simply want to defeat the LGBT agenda.   Left wingnut Christians accept sexual immorality. 

The battle is won, but the battle rages, not because of any problem with God or the Bible.  Every man's battle continues for lack of faith.   The cure for lust is love and relationship.  God created humans for loving relationship.   Fallen man, who is spiritually born in the image and likeness of Satan, clings to the lie, "I'm just born this way."  So if the lust of Christian men is excused with, "Men are just born this way," then the gay man's argument is equally as valid.  The freedom of both the Christian man who condemns homosexuality is the same as the one for the gay man condemned:  "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."   Win the battle with the only weapon who can overcome sin, and free us from the enslaving power of sin:  Jesus Christ.   Believe Jesus by doing what Jesus says to do.   As always, God says it the best:

 

"For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace."

Romans 6:14

 

 

 

C'est fini!

 

 

 

Who Gives a Rip if the Bible is True or False?

 

 

 “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?

 

 ~ Jesus of Nazareth

 

YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO DO WHAT IT SAYS ANYWAY

 

I knew as a little queer boy of 18 what God was going to call me to do.  I kept telling God, "You don't understand, I'm gay, I don't know how not to be gay, and even if I could no one would ever let a homosexual, current or former, be a leader in a church."  I'm not kidding, I actually said this to God, time and time again.  I said this, for the last time, right before I threw God out of my life and started calling myself an agnostic.   I wasn't an agnostic, not when I start calling myself one, but I did eventually become very comfortable with being an agnostic, and later calling myself an atheist.   Whatever reason I may have had for becoming an agnostic, within a couple of years I was truly an atheist.  Of course at the time I was kicking God out of my life I'd never heard of a gay church, and if I had I still had enough integrity not to make God something he wasn't.  I didn't want God forcing me into something I didn't want to do, and I sure wasn't going to do it to him.  

My thinking about God has changed radically, needless to say.  Still, I feel the same way, about ministry, as I did when I was 18. Only now it's 30 years later.   I don't want to do the ministry work God has called me to do.  It would be fine if God would call me to hookers, crack addicts, skid row drunks, mentally imbalanced homeless people who see little men stabbing them with knives (true story, by the way).   ANYTHING ELSE, ANY OTHER MINISTRY!! other than what God has called me to do.   Hookers hate me because they hate being used by men.  They hate me especially because I'm a "preacher man" and they think all I want to do is tell them what terrible people they are, to make "brownie points" with God.  I can live with that.  I can live with the kind of honest hate hookers, crackheads, and hardcore drunks throw my way.  What I absolutely can't stand is ministering to and leading Christians.  Christians smile to your face and say "God bless you", and then malign, gossip, and plunge daggers into your back whenever it's turned.  I was 8 or 9 years-old when the pastor of the Methodist Church I was raised in was destroyed by people in the congregation.  That pastor wasn't moved out of our church by the Bishop, he requested an immediate transfer out of my church.  I watched my mother cry and cry, because the most wonderful pastor she'd ever been under had been maliciously slandered by a little group of aggressive liberals (I didn't realize it then, but those progressive "christians" pretty much liberal proofed me.  I did go through a short phase as a liberal, during my gay college years, but it was doomed by the stupid progressives in my first church).  What I always found interesting is that after the theologically conservative pastor was run off this little group of liberals all left shortly after him.  We never knew what became of them.  Our former pastor went on to teach at a seminary, author some books, and pastor other congregations elsewhere.   Evidently, he never ran into the kind of problems he'd found at our Methodist Church, or maybe not as bad.  That isn't really the heart of my problem with God's call on my life, but abuse is something I've seen a lot of in my life.  I've seen Christians abuse clergy, and I've seen clergy abuse the laity.   The heart of my problem is the personal abuse I suffered in my own life.  It was a very unique sort of abuse, kind of a perfect storm of abuse. 

My dad wasn't a good parent, he was negligent.   But he didn't stop there, he went from negligent to criminally negligent.  I'll get to that shortly, but first a little set up before revealing the grand betrayal.   My maternal grandfather died about 7 months before I was born.  My maternal grandmother died when I was 3-years-old.   My uncle was over 20 years younger than my mom and her sisters.  Mom and all of her sisters were married and gone by the time their little brother was born.  My grandfather was a huge man. Granddad had been an all star football player, in college, (at a time when football players wore only a thin leather helmet and little to no padding when playing.  My grandfather was the definition of a "Man's Man").  When my uncle was born, the only son, my grandfather was over the moon!   He didn't discipline his cherished son, and even at a very early age, my uncle was a little monster.  After my grandmother died, my uncle, only 10 or 11 years my senior, was passed around to his older sisters.   The monster was soon hated by the husbands of his sisters, because he played cruel jokes, tortured pet kittens and puppies, bullied, his only slightly younger nieces and nephews.   My uncle's, brothers-in-law were soon reduced to incredible rages, which always led to cursing the little monster to his face.  The little monster uncle had to move, or meet his doom at the hands of an enraged brother-in-law.  For me it was a simple case of life imitating Russian Roulette.  Three sisters, and eventually my family would get the little monster hurled our way at the velocity of an 88mm Howitzer slug.   Remember I said my grandfather was a big man, well the little monster was really a big monster.  by the time he exploded my house he was 13 or 14, (I was 3-years-old).  He was already most of the way to his 6'3" height, and weighed nearly 300 pounds.   My oldest brother was 3 or 4 years younger than uncle monster.   Uncle monster made my oldest brother's life pretty rough at times, but he was popular and played sports.  My oldest brother had a way of escape most of the time.  My older brother was a little skinny, shy thing, who'd either hide, or silently endure uncle monster's attentions.  For uncle monster my older brother wasn't any fun.  You know the story about the big bad wolf.  He huffed and puffed, but the first two little pigs escaped.  I'm little piggy #3, and unlike the story of wolf and three little pigs, this big bad wolf hit pay dirt with piggy #3.  I was the little pig which squealed all the time!  I was the fun piggy, I squealed when uncle monster merely looked my way.  I was uncle monster's favorite play thing. 

I'd be sitting on the couch, or a chair in the den, quietly watching cartoons, and uncle monster would join me.   He always preferred to sit wherever I happened to be sitting.  He wouldn't throw me out of the chair, he'd simply sit on me.  I was 3 years-old and weighed, what 35 pounds, 45 at the most.  He put all of his nearly 300 pound, 6'+ dead weight down on a little 3-year-old kid.  Uncle monster should have written scripts for horror movies.  He didn't usually hit me, hitting me was too dangerous.  One hit from him could kill me.  He preferred to throw me in closets, and block the door; use a cinder block as a step so he could reach up and set me on the roof of the house.  One of his favorite games was to take me, open the basement door, and deposit me on the third step, before quickly closing the door.  The basement was unfinished and dark.  The lights were turned on by strings that hung down.  I was too little to reach the strings.  The basement was a terrifying place as it was.  With uncle monster the basement became a room in Hell.  I still don't know how he was able to explain the violence awaiting me in that dark basement.  He spun the story of a butch; a huge fat man covered in blood, who love to slowly cut up little boys, with an endless rack of cleavers, butcher knives, saws, long spikes, axes, and wavy bladed knives the butcher loved to use when cutting the little boy from between his legs all the way up to his chin.  I only have vivid memories of his stories, I remember nothing of the stories my mother claims she read to me when I was young.  I remember other bits of my early childhood, but I remember vividly my uncles tortures and torments (they were, actually, quite brilliant, when I look back at them now).   For all the fear, all the horror visited upon me by uncle monster, there is not even a little anger toward him.  Forgiving my uncle was easier than forgiving my dad.  It took years to forgive my dad.  No matter what uncle monster did it was nothing to what my dad did.  

Uncle monster wasn't a stupid monster.  At first he wouldn't bother me too much when mom or dad were around, but that would change.  I don't know when exactly it happened, but the respite from uncle monster's tortures, my parents afforded me, didn't last long.   Whenever uncle monster tormented me I would cry out.  I would howl, scream, ball my head off.  One night, for some reason, uncle monster was tormenting me, even though mom and dad were both home.  He tormented, and I cried out.  Suddenly my dad's angry voice yelling stopped both my tormentor and my cries.  He'd shouted my name...."LONNIE!" he bellowed angrily.   Then he bellowed again, "LONNIE!...WOULD YOU SHUT UP!"  Dad knew what my uncle was doing.  Both dad's brothers-in-law had given mom and dad detailed reports of the bullying and cruelty their children had suffered at the hands of uncle monster.  Dad knew my uncle had tortured animals to death.  Dad knew his oldest son avoided our home as much as he could.  Dad knew exactly what uncle monster was doing, and despite all of his knowledge he sought only to silence the cries of his tormented young son.   Dad might just as well have handed me physically over to my tormentor.   

Do you know what I feel when I see Christians having stupid, pointless, empty arguments about the Bible?  I feel like my heavenly father is handing me over to a new and worse uncle monster.   Honestly what do any of you care about the Bible?   What difference does it make if it's all truth, or if it's all lies?   You aren't going to  do what Jesus teaches anyway.  If you were doing what Jesus taught you'd have nothing to argue about!!!   Jesus tells us how to know the truth:

IF YOU BELIEVE IN ME, THEN KEEP; LIVE; DO; PUT INTO PRACTICE ALL THAT I TEACH!!   DOING WHAT I TEACH MAKES YOU MY TRUE DISCIPLE, AND AS YOU ARE MORE AND MORE MY DISCIPLE YOU WILL KNOW THE TRUTH AND THAT TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE. 

Don't blame the liberals, the atheists, the homosexual, the pro-choice, don't blame anyone else.  The only threat there is against the truth of God's word is the Church's disobedience.   Do you know why God has called me, an ex-queer to minister to HIS Church???   Because the screwed up, sick, gross way I behaved with other boys is exactly the same kind of screwed up, sick, and gross way you Christians act toward God!!!!  If you were doing what Christ taught you'd have no fear at all of any atheist, or Scripture twisting liberal.  God told you his word cannot fail. 

So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

But obviously God didn't know what he was talking about, because here we are combating people who don't believe the Bible the way "WE" believe the Bible.  You really want to cure your problem with the Bible?? 

"Go!" to the naked and clothe them; "Go" to the hooker and cry out to God on her behalf; "Go!" to the homosexual and offer the love of Christ and offer the right kind of relationship; "Go!" feed a hungry person; "Go!" visit the old and alone; "Go!" and obey Christ's teaching, and you'll never worry about the liberals and atheists.   When people see you act like Christ instead of a religious "uncle monster", then Christ will be honored and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

  You will laugh at the liberals and atheists, and they won't have anything to say about you, because you won't stop helping and blessing people to waste any time arguing with them.  They will see your good works, and be silenced.  I would know about that, because I was an atheist and a Christian showed me the forgiveness of God after I'd treated them exactly the way uncle monster treated me.  I didn't come to Christ through one of you arguing, politicking, law making, Bible thumping, self-appointed morality police, and you never could have brought me to Christ.  I came to Christ because one Christian didn't act like any of you.  The God I was introduced to, showed me, the truth of His word by showing me obedience is the way to know him, and the truth in the Bible.   When God frees you, you are free indeed, but freedom doesn't from hijacking Genesis, because the big bad evolutionists need to learn the truth.  If you knew the truth, you'd obey Jesus, and not waste pearls on pigs.  

Seriously God...wasn't one uncle monster enough?  Please God don't throw me to the Christians.  Throw me to the hookers, drunks, and crackheads, at least they're honest about their natures.  God please remember what my human dad told me when I confronted him with his parental neglect..."Honey, I didn't know what to do."  And remember what Christians have said to me over and over again, when I ask them why they won't reach out to LGBT people,  "We don't know what to do."  Honestly Father, do you think these Christians are any different than the human father who made the same excuse??  My dad didn't care, and neither do they, so please don't throw me to these religious "uncle monsters".  Been there, done that, HATED IT!!

 

 

   

 

 

Is Those Who Read It

 

 

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,"

 

 

Quite the tempest in a teapot over the Bible, here on Xanga.  Is the Holy Bible fraught with discrepancies, inaccuracies, and historical errors?  I don't think that is the right question to ask, at least not the first question I believe we should ask.  Are there discrepancies, inaccuracies, and errors in the humans who wrote the books of the Bible, and are there the same problems with the readers of the Bible?   NOW that is where we should begin.  I had a completely different post prepared, but I received a message from a long time reader, and this was the first line:  "I am surprised to see you supporting an argument against the historical truth of the bible..."

What follows is my response.  I have cleaned it up a bit, and added a bit, for clarification, but this is my response...

 

 

I am not arguing against the historicity of the Bible. I am arguing against the misuse and abuse of the Bible, by people who have hijacked Genesis to fit their own human agendas. Genesis was never intended to help a materialistic culture's religious people to fight against evolution. And further abuse God and the Scripture in Genesis by making a groups religious beliefs a litmus test for whether a person is in the "truth".

Every Ancient Near Eastern people group had a creation story. One said the universe sprang from the blood of a slain god. One story said the universe sprang from the ejaculate of a masturbating god.  God, the only true God, gave Genesis to explain how he created the world as an extension of his temple; his back yard; garden; paradise. The creator God created the universe for his glory and pleasure.  The king's back yard, garden, or paradise, as it was often known, belonged to the king, and was set aside for the exclusive use of the king and those he allowed in his paradise.    God, His Most Majestic Royal Highness, he, in his incredible magnanimity, gracious goodness, and unbelievable kindness deigned; condescended; bowed low, to share this garden; paradise with humankind.  Genesisis the story of how an incredibly loving, stupendously gracious God is betrayed by his creation; humans. When God had created man he said, "Man is good; complete; lacking nothing; the mirror of God."  Man utterly twisted and destroyed all that was good in himself, and God condemned his own abode, and every creature, because of man. But in the first sacrifice of Noah, God smelled the burning animal, and he decided, that though man only ever thinks about and does evil continually, he would not destroy his paradise again, on account of man. God would send a sacrifice which would absolutely blot out the sins of mankind from God's sight, smell, hearing; from his very memory!

So if you are asking me if I believe in the Genesis which tells God's incredible beginning to the story, then I say, "YES!!!" I believe God created the universe and the world, and he created all his creatures, most especially man, to enjoy his beautiful abode; his private (KING'S ONLY ALLOWED!!!) paradise; garden, in an intimate family with him.

If you want me to uphold the standards of a materialistic culture that has to make Genesis into a litmus test for "true" believers, and a proof text against evolution then "NO". God is not a man that he may be manipulate and made to do what religious materialists want. The Scriptures belong to God, and he will avenge himself on all those who twist and abuse his beautiful creation story, and who force his Scriptures to become tools in a culture war he did not start and that he does not sanction.

You know the problem with Christians and homosexuality? The Church has the same problem in her relationship with God that the homosexuals have in their relationships with those of their same sex. One group of homosexuals does it with people of their own sex, while the other abuse God and his Holy Scriptures.

What Jesus said will come back to judge both the liberals and the conservatives.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

"Not so Jesus, we shall be known as those who reject any who do not believe what we say about Genesis. We will be known by our condemnation of others, most especially those who disagree with our version of Christianity.

Jesus says:

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

"for everyone born of God overcomes the world."

Jesus came to overcome the world, and to create a Church through which he would overcome the world, but all the Church today can do is condemn or just swallow the worthless filth the world foolishly calls "wealth".

I'm sorry I'm not a member of the "If you don't believe like I do then you're not a real believer" Club. I know the creative and overcoming power of God in Christ, and I'm free because of it.  God created the universe, God created man in his image and likeness. Genesis belongs to God, and he never intended Genesis to become a proof text for prideful religious flesh to fight against prideful atheist flesh.  God wasn't kidding when he told us, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways." God wasn't kidding when he explained to us, "The weapons of your warfare are not carnal..."

Funny, the way Christians use Genesis all God can possibly think about us is the weapons of the Church's warfare are carnal, and only carnal.   

I believe God gave us the Bible to lead us to himself.  God gave us Genesis to show us truths which transcend the material facts.    

But as it is written:

 

Ha Ha Ha, God that's rich!  What a joker you are!!  I know lots of Christians who know the truth when they see it, and know the truth that they trumpet for any and every ear to here, and their hearts are filled with the knowledge that God is in their religious box.  God you've been figured out, so don't you think it's really time to update that old Bible of yours?? 

 

 

ALONE No More!

 

 

 

 

"Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them."

John 14:23

 

 

Family; that is what Jesus came to bring us: Family.   So was my friend, the hooker, Lilly, a happy, healthy, well adjusted young woman?   Did lust pave the road to riches and accolades for Lilly?   She was a used up husk of a person; a trash can with legs, used by men to dump ejaculate.  Someone using Lilly infected her with HIV.   It isn't shocking that Lilly continued to do what she did, very possibly infecting others with HIV.   We like to think that people, if offered the choice, would not do the things Lilly has done.   The evidence of history shows, when wronged, the majority of us do not learn to do right we learn to perpetrate the wrong done us.   No matter how plain others may think the lesson is, when wronged we learn to do the same to others.   Wrong becomes normal.  Humans are not geared toward doing the right thing.  Doing the right thing is the exception to the rule.   

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands,
organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same
food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,
heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter
and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If
you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the
rest, we will resemble you in that

~ Shylock, The Merchant of Venice Act 3, Scene 1.

At once poetic and humanizing, while at the same time the ugly truth about man's inhumanity toward man.   What you do is what you teach; what you allow is the standard set.  the lesson of wrong is its horrid abominable children cover the face of the earth from end to end; a terrible scourge which begets the next generation of abomination through ever raging wrongs righted.   Justice is not found in the slaughter of the guilty.  Justice is found in the slaughter of an innocent.   With Jesus Christ the abomination ends, justice is sated, and God offers salvation from ourselves.   To be human is to be inhumane.  We wax philosophical about man's noble virtues, but virtue is situational.  When it's killing time, or hooker using time, virtue is always the first casualty.  

I'll tell you a little secret I've never told anyone, but God.  Early in my Christian walk I wasn't shocked by abortion, porn, addiction, all those sins of the world.   Christians always shocked me with their responses.   I knew they weren't any different from me or anyone else, and I always wanted to ask a question, "What rock have you people been hiding under?"   The world didn't hide what they were.  Lilly didn't hide that she was a hooker.   There she was day after day, week after week, year after year.   When I saw Christian people react to Lilly or the other characters around the soup kitchen, I'd have a little chuckle.   The world doesn't hide what it is, but Christ is hidden from the world.   Christians loved to point at Lilly, act shocked and offended, but there was no offer of the innocent savior sacrificed for her sins.  There was no recognition that God loved her, desperately, and that love could and would overcome her sins, which were many.   Lilly was left alone until an ex-queer came along with, admittedly judgment at first, but later with the love, mercy, and God's overcoming grace.   But let's not forget that God first had to overcome the ex-queer's judgmental attitude, before he could reach through him to a woman he simply wanted to love.   What can I say?   If I'd not been obedient to the teachings of Christ I'd never have met Lilly.  If I'd not met Lilly I'd never have learned so many important things about myself, from God.   I'd never have learned that God can overcome what I think are the worst sins and sinners.  Without Lilly God would never have taught me that I, like Lilly's "johns", had been reducing people to the level of objects.   Without Lilly I'd never have realized that broken relationships lead to broken people, and broken people will do the despicable things to other people.  What can I say...without Lilly God could not have showed me the truth about me; that I'm no different from Lilly, not even a little bit.   Some may argue that God could have taught me all he taught me some other way, but that isn't at all the truth.   Jesus said:

“If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Do you know why the Church doesn't know what to do with LGBT persons?  Do you know why porn is as great a problem among clergy and laity alike, the same way it is for the rest of the world?   Do you know why God overcame Lilly's sin and brokenness?   I do!  I know the answers because I did what Jesus said above.  If the Church wants to know how to deal with homosexuality all they ever needed to do is reach out to the sexually and relationally broken.   But be warned when you reach out to the gay guy, or the hooker, or the crack addict God will bring you face to face with the brokenness in your relationship with him.   The Church can't see how to offer the overcoming power of Jesus to LGBT people, hooker people, drug addicted people, because they don't know God's overcoming power in their own lives.  When you allow God to reach through you in love, and not condemnation or acceptance of sin, then you'll see yourself, and then there will be two freer people. 

God didn't merely work in Lilly's life, through me, he worked in mine, through her.  

     

 

 

 

    

 

 

Chewed Up and Spit Out

 

 

"To those who have no sense she says,“Stolen water is sweet;
    food eaten in secret is delicious!” But little do they know that the dead are there,
    that her guests are deep in the realm of the dead."

Proverbs 9:16-19

 

 

 

"The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds."

2 Corinthians 10:4

 

"I'm not to blame, this is just the way I am."  I've heard that for years.  "You are what you are," or according to the brilliant, highly respected, biologist, Lady Gaga, "Born this way."   The fellow who left my church, his wife, and children for another woman just couldn't help himself.  Odd as it may sound the Bible comes pretty close to saying the same thing: 

"For by means of a harlot A man is reduced to a crust of bread; And an adulteress will prey upon his precious life."

 

So that's what the immoral woman does to a fine, good and upstanding man... She turns him into an inanimate object to be consumed, and whatever is left is thrown into the garbage for rats to gnaw.   It's the woman's fault!!   Actually, if you look at Ancient Near Eastern Cultures you'd know it was a man's world run by men, and almost always at the expense of women and children.   What God is really saying is that sexual immorality takes us from the humane to the mundane, small,  of relatively little worth, with a lifespan of very short duration.   God tells us that sexual immorality makes us a thing to be used, consumed, and shortly to be eliminated.   

For me the truth of God's wisdom in Proverbs was acted out with painful accuracy, when I was ministering at the soup kitchen.  Lilly had been used for so long and so often by men that she was the walking dead.  For many years I'd watched her come and go, but I never saw anything of human light or warmth.  When she smiled or laughed there was no joy or pleasure evident.  She was an object, an animated object, but merely an object, nonetheless.   It was only through prayer and the burden of God's love for Lilly, which broke through and called out a human woman; a daughter of the living God, from within a mere object.   Once, not too long after that breakthrough prayer, for Lilly, the Holy Spirit asked me a question, "Lonnie, have you ever used someone like that, (meaning Lilly) ?"   I must say I was embarrassed, for the Holy Spirit to ask me that question.  I didn't hide my past in homosexuality, but when the God who sees all asks such a question it is intimidating.   "Lord, I didn't hold a gun to anyone's head...everyone I was "with" knew what we were doing and wanted to be there," I answered defensively.   "No, Lonnie, I didn't mean it that way..."   I got the Spirit's drift, and for the first time the root of my own sexual immorality and relational brokenness became clear.   I had used people, not sexually at first.   Sometime in very early childhood I'd started relating to people in a completely non-relational way.   

I'd go to school, but because I didn't believe anyone would or even could want to love or befriend me, I wouldn't try to connect with others my age.   I would take my school classmates to my house and there we would play.  I never took a living person home to play, I took people home in my mind.   In my daydreams and fantasies I found the only love I could expect.  In my fantasies I was the best quarter back, basketball player, kickball star, etc. and etc.   Everyone loved me in my fantasies.   And in my fantasies I could be whomever I wanted to be.   I remember desperately wanting to be someone else.  I didn't want to completely abolish Lonnie, I simply wanted to present myself to my dad, and if I was someone else he might decide he could love me.  I started using people for my own ends.  I never hurt a real person, only me.  What I couldn't know at that time was that it is impossible to objectify someone else and not become an object myself.   Just as the Bible says, "For by means of a harlot, a man is reduced to a crust of bread."  Reduce another human being to the level of a thing, and that person will become what you do to them.  What you do to others you also will become.   Keep filling your life with lust for "hott girls" and/or "hott guys", and the ability to relate will be destroyed and all you will have left is a dried out, moldy, hard shell.  Sort of like "pizza bones" left to lie in a pile with old beer cans.   I was never able to build and sustain a human to human relationship.   The only reason I wasn't like Lilly was because I hadn't used or been used as much.  Lilly was like me on steroids.  Lust doesn't lead to love it leads to finding others to use up, or toss out like yesterday's garbage, when we grow bored with them.  I could buy porn use it for a while, but when the piece of porn didn't titillate anymore I'd throw it in the garbage.   I was doing the exact same thing with my classmates, long before it became about sex.   That my fantasies went from a subject like being the best sandlot quarterback to having sex with my schoolmates doesn't take a great stretch of imagination.   If I use people in my fantasies to play then why would it be all that different to start having sex with them?  

I thought I was having relationship, my way, but I was cut off from relationship.  I had reduced myself to a thing, and I reduced others to things.  There was no life, no joy, no warmth, only using.  When I looked at Lilly, a hooker, I was looking at myself.    When I looked at Lilly, reflected back at me were the truth of every man's failure.   Boys are given two places for passion.  One is the sports arena, the other is sex.   We deny ourselves other outlets, but what we don't realize is we are paupers, we hit objects on the gridiron and we hit that piece of tail in the bed.   We have greater needs than we allow ourselves.  We've allowed our sin soaked culture to dictate what we think it is to be male.  We objectify and then make excuses, "This is just the way men are."   REALLY?  Well God says "Your excuse for the way you are has made you a crust of bread."  God sent his only Son to restore to us true relationship.

Jesus said the entirety of Scripture hang upon two commands, :  "Love God with all you have, all you are, and with all your strength.  And the second is like the first, love your neighbor as you (already) love yourself."   Relationship, is what God creates.  God doesn't use people.  God has right of ownership, and could make whatever demands upon us he likes, but God never treats like property to be used.   Satan is the only spiritual entity who treats us and uses us like objects.   The call of God to salvation isn't a call away from sexual pleasure.  The call of God is to the greatest wealth in the universe: relationships with God and humankind.  Right relationships where we are filled with the treasure of God, and in turn God lavishes endless riches on an impoverished world.   Trying not to lust isn't the battle God has called me to fight.   The battle is to draw people to the love and relationship with God and those God has made wealthy.   That man who abandoned his wife, children, and church has made himself a crust of bread.   He has rejected and thrown away the greatest wealth God offers.   

Isn't it Amazing what a man can learn from a hooker if God calls him to go?   What do you suppose would happen to the church, in America, if instead of condemning or approving hookers, gay people, drug addicts, porn addicts, men and women who abandon their families?    If it took God leading me to reach out to a hooker isn't it possible the reason Christians still don't know how to address and deal with homosexuality, divorce, porn, abuse, and all the other forms of terrible brokenness, is because they won't go when God has told us to GO??    The Church in America can't see the solution, because they won't allow God to be the solution in and through them.  They fight battles they cannot win and the spoils of war are just that: spoilage.  

Would you like to know some of the true weapons of our warfare?   Would you like to know how God taught me to fight after showing me he could overcome the sin of a hooker?   It is really incredibly simple, but so subtle, we miss it without God's guidance.   

1.  Tell yourself God's word is true and when tempted rely on God's word:   Sexual temptation would hit, and I got to the place where I'd say, "Father, Satan, my flesh, or both are here accusing you of lying.   Satan tells me to lust after that person, but you tell me Father, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away, behold everything is made new!"   Satan is the accuser and when he tempts there is always an accusation that God has not really done anything for us.  God, and this is literal concrete truth, has made us a new creation.   Satan can't overcome God, I can be overcome, but God's new spirit shares the DNA of God.   

2.  Pray for the object of lust.   If lust is the problem, then defeat it with love.  "Father, I'm being tempted to sin against you, by taking that person and reducing him/her to a mere thing.  Father I pray you would draw that person to your Son Jesus, that Jesus would be preached, and the Holy Spirit would convict of sin, righteousness, and the judgment to come."   "Father, draw this person into a loving and eternally life giving relation ship with you!"    Do you honestly think you could possibly continue to objectify another person if you are pleading with God for his love and mercy?   Do the opposite of lust, defeat lust, and God may also open a door with that person to draw them into relationship with him through you.   Lust can't stand up against love.   True wealth when held up beside "fools" gold shows the true wealth truly shines.  

3.  Have a problem with LGBT people, hookers, alcoholics ?   Then God is calling you.   I've been trying to tell many of you this for many years now, but you keep saying the same things, "We don't know what to do."   Well not only don't you know how to overcome sin, but you don't understand how relationally broken you truly are.   God doesn't call us to the least loved and least lovable so we become righteously indignant, but so that his righteousness, mercy and grace might overcome their sin.  In the process your relationship with God will strengthen, deepen, and bloom in ways you cannot possibly imagine.   You aren't supposed to know what to do.  If you knew what to do you would be God, and since you are not God, if you knew what to do, you would attempt to do what only God is able to do.   Jesus said, "...be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world."  Jesus knows how to overcome the world, and this is exactly why he simply says, "GO!"   

4. Remain always focused upon God's three commandments:  1) Love God with all you are, have, and with all your strength.   2) Love your neighbor, as you (already) love yourself.  3) Love the brethren and sisteren in Christ.   Do this and you will never be defeated by lust.   God's love is the only thing which can overcome the worlds.  PUT DOWN the picket signs, political rhetoric, law/amendment making, and clamor in the streets.  Win the battle, and fight for the freedom of others, by offering the love which overcomes the world.   

Now I haven't given an exhaustive list of weapons or how to use them.  God has a way he desires to work in and through all of us.  I cannot know all of the ways God desires to work in your life.  What I've given here is merely a starting place; the beginning.  Do these things, and God will add, as you obey and follow.  God will have to lead you to the situations he desires for you to work with him, to overcome the world.   In the end God is glorified, makes us rich in relationship, and every man's battle becomes about showing God's love rather than fighting lust.  If God has made you a new creation then don't ever be reduced to a crust of bread.   Do not deny the truth of God's great wealth, and do not refuse it.  

Go with God. Go with life and peace.  Go win every man's battle, so that God, through you may win the battle in the lives of others.   The war is won, we are no longer crusts of bread, but are filled with the wealth of the living God!

 

 

      

 

 

 

Being An Old Discarded Crust of Bread

 

"For by means of a harlot a man is reduced to a crust of bread;
And an adulteress will prey upon his precious life."

 

 

"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Matthew 5:26

 

Sunday I learned a man in my church abandoned his wife and children to run off with another woman.  These days people like to say things like, "Well evolution only allows men to be faithful for so long, and then their eye, just naturally, starts to wander."   Never mind that there have been many many men who were and are faithful.  That isn't to say men don't struggle with an eye which desires to wander.   Stephan Arterburn and Fred Stoeker wrote a book titled Every Man's Battle about this very subject.   There are so many approaches to assessing immoral sexual behavior, but of the many I've read I love what the Bible has to say.

"For by means of a harlot
A man is reduced to a crust of bread;
And an adulteress will prey upon his precious life."

Proverbs 6:26

When I read Proverbs 6 I can't help but think of the picture above, "pizza bones" left lying around in an old box, kinda like when I was in college.   When eating a pizza a lot of people eat all the area covered with sauce and toppings, but toss the outer rim of crust back into the box.  I had friends who reasoned, "It's gross to eat that part of the pizza, because you're eating the handle you and others have touched."   So the pizza bones are the left over crust no one (should?) eat(s).  Eat the best part of the food and toss the rest.  So sexual immorality eats the best parts of us, and tosses us in the trash to dry out and molder; fit only to be chewed by rats.   I think I get the picture!!   Now Proverbs 6 is speaking of an adulterous man straying from his wife, and an adulterous neighbor's wife straying from her husband.   God tells us adultery reduces us to a crust of bread, or even mere bread crumbs, wiped from the lips of the woman who consumed the best parts.   I like that, well not in the sense I think it's a good thing to happen.  I like God's view of what our sin makes of us.   

Sexual immorality reduces us to a piece of bread; an inanimate object to be consumed or left to dry out and molder.  Either way we end up as part of a pile of crap in a toilet or tossed into a dumpster.  "WOW God! That is way harsh, dude!!!"    "Hey God, lighten up a bit, after all it is the 21st Century, and all that old way of thinking is needlessly oppressive."  "We're just doing what comes natural, so let's simply put the Bible away, and move on with progress."  There appears to be a great deal of evidence telling us we should just, "do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel."   Of course what folks who advocate a "do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel," attitude forget is that we cage the monkeys, lions, tigers and bears who are doing "IT" on the Discovery Channel.    All those animals who are doing it on the Discovery Channel must be kept locked in cages, because it is their nature to defend, kill and, consume others.     **These guys are begging to be caged**

But if we, the religious types, would be honest with ourselves we'd have to acknowledge that our battle with our sexuality seems to be a losing fight.   I am being perfectly honest, and I've had this type of conversation with a great many fellow Christians.  We're tired, and it doesn't seem like there is any light at the end of the tunnel.  But there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  God does have very good reasons for having such a harsh view of immoral sex.  

There is a very good reason Christians are battling, but failing.  There is a good reason Christians, increasingly, can't find the light at the end of the tunnel.  There is a very good reason all of the "reasonable" sounding arguments about the Bible being out of touch and out of date.   There is a reason porn use has skyrocketed among clergy and laity alike.   There is a reason so many preachers and laity are abandoning their spouse and children to run off with the "other".   There is a reason, that depending on the study cited, divorce among Christians is 3 to 5 points higher than in the general largely unchurched population.  

A long time ago on a Xanga site, long closed down, I told the story of the hooker named "Lilly".  When I worked in a soup kitchen in Louisville, KY our patrons were among the most poor in the city.  We had hardcore drunks and crack heads.  We had tranny hookers, and regular street walking hookers.  We had every kind of human brokenness you could and can't begin to imagine.  I could never understand why God had me there.  I had no understanding of how to get these people into the treatment and care some of them so desperately needed.  I don't know how to explain the way God got me going out the door every time to minister at that soup kitchen.  The only way I can explain it is, it was like the few times my human father told me to do something and then stood right in front of me with a determined look on his face, until I gave in and did what he'd told me to do.   When it was time to go to the kitchen I could sense God standing there glaring at me with a look of determination.   I couldn't actually see God, but the sense of his imposing and commanding presence hit me like hot waves, until I stormed out the door, and drove to the soup kitchen. 

One of the rules, Pastor Lynn, the pastor in charge of the kitchen, had was that every person must be touched and blessed aloud when they came in the door.  I'd open up the door, block it open with my foot and shake each person's hand.  As soon as flesh met flesh, I'd say, with a big smile and in a cheery way, "God bless you!"   I meant it too, but so what?  What were a few words to people whose problems were stacked to the heavens?!   One of our regulars was this woman I call "Lilly" whenever I write about her.   "Lilly" was a woman in her mid thirties, she was actually pretty, but years of hooking had taken something out of her face.  There was no emotion in Lilly's face; it was a cold dead mask.   I had a serious problem with Lilly, and not simply because she was a hooker.   Lilly was an actively working hooker infected with HIV.   I thank God today none of us ever saw her go off with a "john".   I'd always thought if I could catch her then perhaps we could get her arrested and put away for whatever was left of her miserable life.     Lilly would come in the door hold up her hand because she had to, that was the cost of entrance.   She was just there hanging in space, but not there at all.  She had no use for me, and I understood that.   I doubt she ever truly saw me, I was a glorified door post.  Lilly could literally look through me.  I've never seen someone who was miles away at the same time she was standing inches in front of me.  It was like she was a robot remotely controlled from over seas.  Her physical person was before you, but the house was empty.   I'd see Lilly laugh, but there was no emotion in it.  I'd see Lilly smile, but there was no light or warmth, or pleasure.  Sometime in the past Lilly had simply checked out and gone away.  

I'd hear the excuses of some of the hookers, "I love sex, that's why I do this..."  They'd say I love sex, but from my observations I can tell you they may, in fact, have loved sex, but no one, especially not a hooker, loves being used.   The bits of stories I heard were horrific.   Some of these men and women had known little else but hooking from childhood.   For me something miraculous began happening: Hookers started becoming human beings.  Nothing changed with the hookers, but I started changing rapidly.  I came to respect the ability of these people to endure treatment that would have destroyed me.  I still didn't like prostitution, but I started liking the humans very much.   At some point, I don't know when I started feeling a sense of desperation.  I knew all God wanted for hookers was for them to know how very much he loved them.   I wanted to shout, "GOD NEVER INTENDED THIS FOR YOU!!"   ALL GOD WANTS IS FOR YOU TO KNOW HE CREATED YOU TO LOVE YOU, AND HE WANTS YOU TO KNOW HE NEVER WANTS TO USE YOU OR ABUSE YOU!!"   The words could never come out.  The walls between me and the hookers were transparent, but miles thick.   Lilly did not see me, did not hear me, did not know I was in the room with her.   Lilly couldn't control what men did to her when she worked, but she could completely obliterate them the rest of the time.   The further away I felt, the more desperate I became.  I didn't care about Lilly's sin, all I cared about was the God who could take away the sin.   There was no road, no door, no cow path to Lilly.  Finally on my last day working at the soup kitchen I spoke out to Lilly, "I've always just wanted to pray for you... nothing more," I said rapidly, and a little desperately.   "Please, Lilly," I begged, "Could I just pray for you?"  I was almost in tears!   Lilly still wasn't seeing me, but she said, "that would be alright," and sat across a table from me.  I just started praying, "Father!  I just want Lilly to know that you love her...NOTHING ELSE MATTERS GOD!"    Lilly said, "And how all men just want to use me..."   Lilly, had arrived, she was there, right in front of me... "Father I pray that you are able to show Lilly, that you NEVER wanted anyone to use her, please God, find a way to show Lilly that you love her..."   That was pretty much it.  Lilly smiled at me, "Thank you!", she said, and she saw me, she was there with me, and the smile was real.  There was a human before me I had never seen or met, until that prayer.  

I don't know how long after that, but Lilly came to saving faith in Christ.   I was told by someone who worked with me at the soup kitchen who ran into her coming out of a church downtown.  I know her journey toward Christ started with that prayer.  I don't claim any credit for anything.  God desperately wanted Lilly to know he loved her, and he opened her eyes to see, perhaps for the first time, he loved her. 

I don't have a problem with prostitutes, but I hate prostitution because no matter how much they say they love sex, no matter how much control they feel over their lives, I know they hate being used.   There is no argument which can sell me the idea of legalized prostitution.   There is no way for a prostitute not to be used, so there is no possibility for acceptance.

What I could never have expected was how reaching with Christ's love to a hooker would change my understanding of my own sexual immorality, and how God would completely change this man's battle with with sexual and relational brokenness.   Part II will be about that battle, and how every Christian man's battle would drastically change if we'd step up to reach hookers, gays, porn addicts, and men who have reduced themselves to being old moldering crusts of bread fit only for rats.