FIND A MIRROR;

Placing Blame Where Blame Properly Belongs

Well President Obama went and done it!  He’s opened a can of worms all over the sizable religious movements in this country.  Didn’t someone get Obama the memo that America is a Christian nation?  Maybe the cause of the problem isn’t Obama.  Maybe the Executive Order prohibiting organizations with federal contracts from discriminating against employees who identify themselves as gay, lesbian, or transgender, isn’t the problem.   Maybe LGBT persons aren’t really the problem for Christians in America.  Maybe the problem with and for Christians is Christians.   Perhaps if Christians had been obeying God’s teachings, and if Christians had sought God’s kingdom first, and if Christians hadn’t been cherry picking favorite verses while ignoring other very important Scriptures, Christians would be very different, and there wouldn’t be this problem with  Gays.   Maybe the real problem is that the Church is suffering a terrible identity crisis.

For more than 20 years I’ve been asking Christians, leader and laity alike, “Why can’t the Church minister the eternal life giving, world overcoming power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to gay people?”   The answer I always received was exactly the same, and I mean word for word the same:  “We don’t know what to do.”   Well it was 45 years ago that the Stonewall Riots in New York City kicked off the modern Gay Rights Movement.   You’ve had 45 years, so, just between you, me, and God, when do you suppose Christians are going to arrive at an approach to homosexuality?   Can you give an ETA?

What if the topic under consideration here we’re curing cancer and not homosexuality?    Would Americans put up with a medical/scientific establishment which hadn’t done anything about furthering their and our understanding of cancer?   And more to the point would Americans put up with a medical/scientific community which simply said, “We don’t know what to do about cancer.”?  Would the world let our medical/scientific communities get away with almost 50 years of inaction and excuses?    We know none of us would put up with a medical/scientific community which gave us 45 years of inaction and continued ignorance.   But then cancer is all about beating cancer and outliving it’s incredibly powerful death grip.    Homosexuality is, well it’s not cancer, but according to Scripture it is life stealing, and the eternal outlook for homosexuals isn’t very bright if Scripture be believed.   The most important question for Christ followers should be:  If the world wouldn’t put up with the medical/scientific community, refusing to advance knowledge and treatment of cancer, how is it Christians believe God would accept the Church’s empty and useless response to 45 years of the Gay Rights Movement?   Doesn’t God love Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, and Transgendered (better known by the letters LGBT community)?   We know that God does love LGBT people, and Jesus tells us so:

“FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD HE GAVE HIS ONE AND ONLY SON…”

Surly that covers LGBT persons since they are in and of the world.   God clearly knows how to love, even those, we who call ourselves his children ignore or merely attempt to shame into “proper” behavior.   Perhaps the most important question to ask of all is, “Does God know how to overcome; defeat; put away; end the power of homosexuality and all the baggage associated with the sin?”  That is among the most important questions, but the answer creates more questions and propagates more puzzlement.

“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived.  Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor

nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards

nor revilers, nor extortioners, will inherit the kingdom of God.  And such were

some of you.  But you were washed, but you were, sanctified, but you were justified

in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

(Bold text is my addition).

“And such WERE some of you.”   Look at that, do you know what that is?   Perfect present past tense of “to be”…”were.”   At one time you ‘are’ but now you are, eternally, “were”, as in “You are homosexual, but now God has made you “were homosexual”, perfect present past tense of ‘to be’.   You ‘were’ tells us what is no longer in your present, and what will not be in your future.  ‘Were’ tells us what is in your past and will stay in your past.  God has changed everything for you, and for eternity you will not be defined by ‘were’ but by what God has given you and by what God has made you:  A New Creation.

Clearly, plainly, indubitably, without doubt, with greatest assurance God knows how to overcome homosexuality, and move it into the perfect present past tense for all of eternity.   God doesn’t tell us how he does that exactly.  God doesn’t tell us the step by step instruction for leading people to freedom, but he does tell us what to do.   Yes that’s absolutely right…Jesus tells us what he wants us to do.   If you would say, “I don’t know what to do with or about LGBT people or their sinful situation,” know that God proves you wrong.

“Do to others what you would have them do for you.”

~ Jesus of Nazareth

It’s only been in the Bible for over 2000 years, so Church you have no excuse, and be assured you will not stand before God and say to him, “I didn’t know what to do.”  God will prove to you that you are a liar.  So lets beat the heavenly judgment, and fix our real problem right now.   Take a good hard look in the mirror and say, to that man or woman there, “I am the real cause of my own ignorance.”   Say to yourself, “God has the solution, the cure, the fix for LGBT people, and God calls me to be part of the solution.”

If you will take up this one little exercise you will see the truth of the matter, and that the Church’s problem is herself.   Christians have no excuse for 45 years of ignorance about how God overcomes the sin of homosexuality.   When we start obeying the teachings of Christ God will not fail to lead us to that place…”And such were some of you.”  God calls us to reach with his eternal love with a relational approach.   God will show you the right road to freedom when Christians start down that road.  The road to obedience is always the road where Jesus waits for us to join him in his work.  Jesus has been longing for us to join him on the road to eternal freedom for LGBT persons.   Join him, and you’ll find the love which overcomes the world.

Stay calm!  There is more I have to say on this matter…  After all God has defeated homosexuality in my life, and God’s ways work better than you or I could ever ask, hope, or think.

HOLD TIGHT AND DO NOT WORRY!!

Look for the next post in the seriese

After looking at what I wrote I realized I didn’t really explain how it is that I know God doesn’t create homosexuality.   The fact is people aren’t born either gay or straight.  We understand what God told the first human couple, “Be fruitful and multiply…”  Most of the time we call God’s command procreation.  The world which rejects God’s perspective may simply use, “The Sex Drive,” but even atheist biologists know that humans have, not merely a sex drive, but a drive to propagate the species.

If you want to understand how biology sets us up for sexual expression we need look no further than how biology sets us up to learn and speak language.  Genes dictate that we may develop spoken language, but our genes cannot dictate the language we will learn.   Our genes set the stage for us to learn language, but the actual development of spoken language is far too complex for genes to dictate.   For us to develop spoken language it takes interaction with other humans who can already speak.

Biology allows us to develop sexuality, but like language can never dictate how we will express that sexuality.   Sexuality develops from our interactions in the family and extra-family social environments.   When relationships breakdown healthy development of sexuality breaks down.  The proper question is not  “Are people born gay?”     The proper question to ask is, “How is the Procreative Drive overcome so a person becomes gay?”   If you want to find the culprit behind homosexuality and every other from of sexual deviance, start shaking the family tree.   What drops from the family tree will show you where the problem lies.

Whew!  Glad that’s out of the way…

“On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.  Now both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding.”

John 2:1-2

I just made the worst mistake I could have made.  I allude to the story of how Jesus changed water into wine, at a wedding.   I don’t know if it is the worst faux pas a theologian could make, but it  has to rank up near the top of mistakes.

The wedding at Cana is a wedding between one man and one woman.   As you know I’ve already argued that gay marriage is, in truth, nothing.   So how exactly do I start with the wedding at Cana??    I start with the wedding at Cana for the very reason that I know it cannot be used to explain why Jesus would attend a gay wedding.   The problem is how Christians approach gay marriage and how Jesus approaches gay marriage.    Jesus never said anything about gay marriage, because it didn’t exist.  Still we can read the Bible and it is clear, that homosexuality is condemned, and no amount of religious ceremony will change that.   When we think about marriage we see God’s approval for the kind of marriage we see in Luke 2.   God is pro-marriage between one man and one woman that is true.   Was Jesus at the wedding in Cana to lend that marriage credence?    Was Jesus’ presence at the wedding God’s way of saying, “This action gets 5 stars from God?”    I don’t believe God is saying anything about the particular wedding at Cana.

Set aside the wedding of Cana for a while.   Let’s begin with the right question:  Why was Jesus here on the earth?   We know Jesus didn’t come to give the wedding at Cana the thumbs up.

¹⁷ and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
¹⁹     to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

 Luke 4:17-19

¹⁹ Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

John 5:19

But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33c

Jesus attends the wedding at Cana because he is called by Father, Father was working there, and Jesus went not as a way of approving the wedding at Cana, but because he overcomes the world.

The problem with Christians and gay weddings is they don’t want to have anything to do with them.   The Christian won’t go to a gay wedding because they don’t want anyone thinking they approve of such things (And of course as believers in Christ we do not approve of what God condemns!).   The thinking looks kinda like this.   “Jesus would never approve of gay marriage, so Jesus would never go to a gay wedding.  Since Jesus would never go to a gay wedding I won’t  attend one.”  Certainly sounds like solid reasoning.   The problem lies in the truth:   Jesus doesn’t think the way we think.    Remember that the Jewish leaders leveled the accusation against Jesus, “How is it he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?”  (Mark 2:16).

The wedding at Cana is merely a red herring.    So let me ask you the really important question:   If Jesus knew he could/would overcome the world (utterly destroy all satanic power and control), and if Jesus knew there were lost sheep to be found there, and if Jesus was doing his Fathers work there, WOULD JESUS ATTEND A GAY WEDDING?

Are there not ears in need of the  “good news” at a gay wedding?

Are there not blind eyes which  need sight at gay weddings?

Are there not prisoners in need of freedom at a gay wedding?

Are there not the oppressed who need freedom at a gay wedding?

Are there not those who need the LORD’s favor at a gay wedding?

If there are prisoners, the oppressed, the needy, the blind, and the need for God’s favor at a gay wedding,  then how could anyone believe Jesus isn’t called there or that he would not go?

If, in your mind, Jesus would still not attend a gay wedding, why do you think that?

If  you believe, according to Christ’s teaching, he would attend a gay wedding, give some positive steps Christ followers could take in the right direction?

Now, before anyone starts jumping to the conclusion they know what I’m going to say, just hold your water for a minute.  So let me get some things out of the way before I get into what I hope is some meaty stuff.

The first question we should seek to answer is, “Did God create homosexuality?”   Seems like a no brainer, and on some levels it absolutely is a no brainer.   There is never a positive statement in the Bible about homosexuality.  And the text is always simple and straight forward.  When pro-gay theologians start doing linguistic acrobatics it’s a sure sign the truth will be emptied from the Scriptures.   No matter how pro-gay theology looks or sounds it is bad theology.  Actually the main reason pro-gay theology is so bad is the fact that pro-gay theologians are attempting to change how people approach the Scriptures.  If the Scriptures are in fact God breathed, then how will convincing you or me change anything?  If God’s mind hasn’t changed about the sinfulness of homosexuality, then  If I’m for pro-gay theology I haven’t convinced God to change His thinking about what He said.  Pro-gay theologians cast  God into their own image and likeness, and they’re trying to get every believer to jump on board.   The problem is if they can’t actually change God then the god they’ve created for themselves is really not God at all.

“Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.”

Matthew 24:4-5

Pro-gay theology isn’t about changing God it is about living in  fantasy and the attempted deception of God’s people who’ve put their faith in Jesus and the word God’s Spirit breathed.   They are creating a messiah for themselves to replace the one and only Son of God.  The problem is their messiah is powerless, paper thin, and if you’ve seen the painting  of gay Jesus hanging on a cross with a huge erect phallus, you’d see first hand how shallow and empty pro-gay theology is.  I don’t know anything about the size of Jesus’, but I can tell you that a body having  received as much  abuse and torture, as Jesus endured,  isn’t going to be able to produce an erection.  The shear volume of blood loss Jesus had to endure didn’t allow for much of any bodily functions.   A man crucified wasn’t going to get any wood on the front of him,  because of the wood nailed to the back of him.  The ridiculous gay Jesus should be enough to cause anyone to walk away from pro-gay theology.   Instead of course pro-gay theologians are gaining followers and supporters for gay marriage.

The problem with gay marriage is that like the gay Jesus, sporting a silly cartoon ding dong, there is no substance to, well, there’s no substance to gay anything really.   When God created marriage He did so for His own purposes.   In the New Testament we are told that marriage is a reflection of Jesus Christ’s relationship with His Church.  Would Jesus attend a gay wedding?   Honestly we might just as well ask,  “Would Jesus attend the wedding of  Bugs Bunny to Elmer Fudd?”   The truth simply is not there to be had.  God hasn’t changed, He hasn’t  changed what He has said.   Gay marriage isn’t any more marriage than artichoke marriage is real marriage.   Would Jesus have dinner with Batman?  Would Jesus be for or against the genetic mutations of the Wolverine and Magneto? Is Jesus “Team Edward” or “Team Jake?”  If it cannot stand up to the what the true God has to say, then it’s no more important than who builds hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place.

Honestly, when will we Christians ever learn what God says and believe God?   And don’t think I’m just speaking to you.  I too struggle to keep my focus on what is true and important.   Let’s remember what Jesus teaches:

“Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

Matthew 28:18

Of course it’s a bit harder to believe what Jesus said 2000 years ago than it is to believe what is right in front of our eyes.  Gay marriage certainly seems a pretty solid property, and it’s becoming more and more solid looking all the time.   This is the real problem for Christians today what ‘seems’ and what is God’s reality.   The problem for us Christ followers is we keep approaching the world around us with the same kind of worldly reactions they give to us.  We want to march, we want to scream with frustration and shake some sense into our government leaders.  We want to Bible thump and eat Chick-fi-a  until chicken sandwiches pop out our ears!  But only Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth.  We’re gonna have to put the chicken down, and take up the truth of God.  We’re going to have to quite allowing the world to dictate to us what is important and worthy of the call and time we’ve been given.  And we’re going to have to stop thumping our Bibles and start obeying what Jesus tells us to do.    Jesus exercises all authority, but He does so in keeping with the work Father has called Him to do.   Jesus said that He always did what He saw the Father doing.   When Christ followers decide to do what God wants done, the way God wants it done then we’ll see the power of God displayed in front of us.   In Christ we can say, “What is gay marriage compared to the world defeating authority and Satan crushing power of Christ?”

So now you know…Jesus would most definitely attend a gay wedding.

TO BE CONTINUED…

When I was a kid there was a public service announcement that came on television every night, on every station, “It’s 9 o’clock do you know where your children are?”   My parents knew where I was, because 9 o’clock was bedtime for all the kids in my house under the age of 15.   Fred Phelps, infamous head of the Westboro Baptist Church is late…Late as in dead.   So do we know where the late Fred is?   Do you suppose that late Fred has arrived safely home in the arms of Jesus Christ?    It is impossible for any of us to know if , in his last days, he heard the Holy Spirit’s conviction, or Jesus knocking at the door, as it were.   All we have is the behavior he showed to all the world.

Some of us have our first memory of Fred Phelps connected to the horrible murder of Matthew Shepherd by two godless thugs who tied him to a fence post and pistol whipped him almost to death, and then left Shepherd exposed in below freezing temperatures.    Phelps had, on his web page a cut out of Matthew Shepherd’s head bouncing around in what looked like endless fire.

Do I hope that Phelps heard and answered the convicting call of the Holy Spirit?   Yes, I do hope that God’s prevenient grace was received by Fred Phelps.   I hope that sometime during his final days that he turned and repented of the terrible anti-christ teachings and wicked acts Phelps and his group espouse and practice.   Unfortunately, we may never know the state of Phelps’ eternal soul.   It appears that Phelps was actually voted out of his own church because, as some are reporting,  he tried to get his group to soften the hateful message.    We only have what Phelps said and did publicly, the rest is, at this point anyway, mere hearsay.   What we do have is a terrible and self-condemning  false teacher who preached a message different from  the gospel of Jesus Christ.    The message of Jesus Christ is,

“Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.”

“Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

“For God loved the world so much  that he gave his only Son so that anyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.  God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.”

OH HOW THE WORDS OF JESUS ARE LIKE A COOL DRINK OF PURE WATER TO A DEAD AND DRIED OUT SOUL!!!

The truth of God is salvation, life, relationship, hope, love, joy, peace, and world overcoming grace!    The good news is that God calls us, all of us into a beautiful eternal relationship with him, and with one another.     There is nothing of Jesus of Nazareth in the   messages Phelps (used to give), and the Westboro Baptist church is still giving.   Jesus said of the religious haters, “Leave them they are blind guides leading the blind.”    I could write a scathing truthful excommunication of Fred Phelps, but he’s come to nothing, just as all the world’s tyrants eventually do.   For all of the hate and destruction people like Phelps seek to visit upon all of us there is  Jesus of Nazareth who overcomes the world, and yes that includes the Fred Phelps’ false teaching tyrants in the world.    The Fred Phelps, and Adolph Hitlers of the world do what damage they may, and bring what death they may.  But Jesus ALWAYS brings eternal life!   Remember what Jesus said as his terrible death on a Roman cross drew near:

“In this life you will have Fred Phelps’s, Neros and Hitlers, but take heart!  I have overcome the Fred Phelps’, Neros and Hitlers.”

John  16:3  (Paraphrased a bit)

“Now this is eternal life: that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

John 17:3

That’s the truth!   So let’s forget what is behind us:  hateful and  condemning teachers, bitterness, anger and wrath along with old Freddy whats-his-name.   Let us press on to the high calling of God!!   Now that is some good teaching!!!

“If anyone belongs to Christ, there is a new creation.  The old things (person) are gone; everything is made new!”

2 Corinthians 5:17

THAT IS THE GOOD NEWS!!!

Many years ago I had a friend, I always call him “Ryan” though Ryan is not his name.  When I met him we were both closeted gay men.   We were both in the closet for very different reasons.  I was in the closet because I wasn’t ready to simply throw myself at something, just because some feeling I had.  I’d had lots of feelings and they’d often been wrong.   My plan had always been to carefully study the matter of human sexuality and find the proof I was simply born gay.   I never found any proof that people are born gay.  In fact people are not born gay, and what’s more people aren’t even born straight.   Some of us, due to temperament, may find homosexuality more easily than others.   Still biology cannot account for sexual preference in human beings.  It’s not a matter of ideology or scientific approach.   It is a simple matter of  capacity.    Will a 16oz glass hold the liquid content of a five gallon bucket filled to the brim with water?   It’s a no brainer 16oz. doesn’t have the same capacity as a five gallon bucket.   Biology cannot account for all the matters, issues, social and family environment, and experiences which become forces which work together to form and channel what biology has given us.

Anyway, Ryan had very different reasons for being in the closet.  His family was large and Catholic.  Ryan was the youngest and the oldest was about 15 when he was born.   Ryan’s parents were older than most parents, and I used to think he simply didn’t want to burden or shame his parents.    I would learn from his sister, many years after Ryan was dead from AIDS, that he’d been molested by his brother, who was the oldest in the family.  Evidently Ryan’s mother had walked in on he and his oldest brother “messing around”.  She walked out, and as she did she said, “Boys will be boys.”  I remember Ryan saying, “boys will be boys,” but it never made any sense to me.   Ryan’s mother saw her young son being molested, but left him to his abuser.     I think Ryan stayed in the closet because he didn’t want to deal with any kind of response from his parents.   Deep down Ryan knew he’d been abandoned to his abuser.  Ryan didn’t want to learn that his parents absolutely didn’t care anything about him.  He wasn’t protecting his parents, he was protecting himself.

People who are deeply and profoundly sexually broken have been badly wounded by the relationships which should have been life giving.   For very wounded people sex is actually safer than trying to connect deeply with other people.   What Ryan needed was for someone to reach into his life and lead him out of the dark hole he was thrown into by the people who should have loved him, but abandoned him instead.

True relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, is the safest possible relationship.  The problem is it really takes someone who knows the truth about relationship with God to reach into the darkness Ryan had been plunged into.   It takes a constant and consistent faith that God can and will overcome the damage, and show people like Ryan that God gives worth to people who’ve been robbed of their humanity because they’ve been used as a mere object.    When was the last time a thing reached out to you for help?   Things can’t reach out, they are things.   Is it little wonder that gay people, hooker people, porn addicted people don’t reach out for help?   A thing is a thing and people who’ve been made objects don’t know to aspire to anything higher.  Cursing their darkness, and their objectified sense of self, hasn’t worked when the Church has done it.

It’s too late for Ryan, but there are lot’s of Ryans and Lonnies who need a real life Christ follower to show the way to personhood and the freedom of true relationship with Christ and his children.   If you are a believer perhaps you will consider the plight of sexually broken people, and maybe you’ll think of a new way to confront sexual brokenness.   What do you think?   Can Christians change the way they view sinners and find a better way to bring the world overcoming savior to the growing group of human objects who have settled for their “thingness?”

In the Bible Lot, we are told, is Abraham’s nephew.   Abraham and Lot are both shepherds .  God so prospers both Abraham’s and Lot’s flocks that the two men split up and move their families and flocks in different directions.  Abraham stays on the open plain, and Lot moves to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The Holy Spirit, speaking through St. Peter says:

“and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard).” 2 Peter 2:7-9

The whole story of Lot is found beginning in Genesis 13 and ends in Genesis 19.   Lot has always been held up as a righteous man, and I certainly believe the Holy Spirit when he calls Lot a righteous man.   Righteous or not the man lost everything he had when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.   The great irony is that though Lot is righteous, everyone  in his life has been utterly corrupted by the sin sick culture of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Lot is a righteous man, but in the end his wife is swept away by the very force which destroys Sodom and Gomorrah.   Lot’s wife takes only a moment to look back and is destroyed.   Lot is left with his two daughters, and little else.   Being a righteous man means that Lot and his two daughters live happily ever after, right??   No, Lot’s two daughters, on different nights, get their grief stricken father drunk and rape him.  Each young woman has a child.  One child is named Moab, and from him came the Moabites.  The other child born to Lot and one of his daughters is named Ben-Ammi, and is the father of the Ammonites.

When Joshua leads the Israelites into the land God promised  Israel, the Moabites and Ammonites are two of Israel’s enemies which cause horrific problems for centuries.   How could such evil come from a man as righteous as Lot??

Lot stood for righteousness, but standing for righteousness and/or standing against evil doesn’t defeat evil.   Jesus tells us, “In this world you will have trouble.   But take heart!  I have overcome the world.”   John 16:33.    The problem for Lot is he didn’t have Jesus to overcome the world.  All Lot could do was try to stand, and he did stand.  But standing against evil didn’t change Lot’s lot in life.   Remember Jesus taught that if  what he preached to Israel had been preached in Sodom and Gomorrah the two cities would not only have been saved from destruction in Abraham and Lot’s day, but the cities would remain even to Jesus’ own day.

What the world needs is a Church with a savior that overcomes the world.   If Jesus doesn’t overcome the world in and through the Church, then the world will overcome the Church.   The sad and horrible thing about the culture overcoming the righteous is that if the world overcomes the righteous, then the evil will arise out of our own houses to consume us.   If all  Christians can muster is a stand against sin then the same terrible lot left to Lot will also be our lot as well.

No more politics.  No more laws made by mere men, like DOMA (Defense Of Marriage Act), which cannot change hearts, and cannot overcome the sin.   Let us repent of stooping to use “flesh” weapons!   The world’s weapons are special interest activism, the creation of endless laws, marching and unrest in the streets.   Feminist activists, LGBT activists and pro-abortion activists  use flesh weapons.  Let the Church turn from empty activism which cannot change hearts or set people free from enslavement to sin!   Let us cry out to God and plead for grace and truth!  Let us cry out to God for true Holy Spirit revival,  and let us plead for God to revive the Church first and foremost.   Either Christ will overcome the world in and through us, or the world will overcome us, by infecting our own households with it’s terrible and great evil.

Been hanging out at church.

i’m STRUGGLING!

I’m not doing too well.  That is really a relative admission.  I can be going along very well, and then I have a day or even a week that goes bad.  I’m so flippin tired, and when I’m tired  my attitude always goes wrong.   Even as I say that I’ve got some good things going on.

Wolf Bit:  My friend Shawn has been having a terrible time with a wolf who’d been in leadership, at the church he pastors.   The things this guy did and said were truly awful.   Just when I don’t think anything evil people do in the name of God can shock me, and BAM someone kicks the evil up a notch.  Honestly this is one of the things I’m most down about.   Why does God throw us to wolves?  I know that isn’t precisely true.  All God does is good, but you have to be insane to be in ministry.   I don’t have any delusions that all who claim to be believers actually love God or  want to serve his purposes, ends, and ways.  I have to admit I’ve been pushing away from God’s call, and he has been pushing back at me.  I’m tempted to say that God is pushing back way to hard, but I am a bear when I start kicking against God.  When I kick I aim to harm.   Now what was I saying about wolves and evil.  When I kick at God I am probably the match for any wolf.   I’m no more loving of God than Shawn’s wolf was loving of him.

I’m looking for a way out.  I don’t care about power, I don’t want to lead, I don’t want to tell the  Church to “get on the hook.”   I worked on the book today, but the more work I put in the more I see the rightness and necessity of God’s call and the message.   I’ve been calling the both the call and the message, “THE VALUE ADDED TOUR.”   Sounds like the name of a rock band’s tour, but there”s no band and there won’t be a cheering crowd.   But giving value is what Jesus came to do.  Jesus came to restore the broken relationship between humans and God.   God literally takes our brokenness and worthlessness and drops it on Jesus hanging on a cross.   And God takes the worth, perfection, beauty, and love of Christ and offers it to us.   What God offers should be enough for believers, but we’ve lost sight and settled for so much less.   So many of us, especially American believers, have sold ourselves the delusion that we live in, or have the right to demand that America is a Christian nation.  I know we never meant to do it, but our religious version of the “American dream,” is just as idolatrous as the American heathen’s version of the American dream.   I know that reads like an attack but it isn’t.  What we need is a Holy Spirit revival in the Church.    I’m not the Holy Spirit so I’d rather not be thrown to the wolves.

In the past I’ve been able to hold God and his call off, but the more I write this book the more I realize how real and important the call and the message are.   Before the book I could simply chalk up the thoughts as just something going on in my own mind, but when I  see the words written on the page I am suddenly terrified.  The message is so clear, and so powerful.   I know with absolute certainty:  I am dog food; wolf fodder; the mouse  wearing the vest made of Little Friskies.   That doesn’t have anything to do with God, his call, or the message.  There have always been wolves, Jesus promised they’d come.  But Jesus only mentions wolves once, but he talks about the kingdom, the good news, salvation, life, hope, peace and eternal relationship with God.   “This then is eternal life: to know the one true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”   (John 16:3).    My butt may be made of doggie biscuits, but the message and call lead to greater and deeper relationships with God.  Even in my deepest fears and doubts I know that God cannot fail to overcome the world.  I’d much prefer a call to hookers and homos, but my call is to the most terrible pack of wolves in the world: religious wolves.   I just hope I don’t loose too much of my keister.

I turned 50 on December 31, 2013.  I’ve tried writing about it, but the posts get too long.   There is a lot to say with 50 years under your belt.

I guess I’m a little depressed.  Not because of turning 50.  I actually like being 50.  I’m just in God’s refining fire right now.   The work I’m doing right now is simply awful, but God has many purposes with it.  One purpose, for the job, is to ensure I don’t ever try to return to it, or jobs like it.   When God wants to make sure I don’t return to something there is a long drawn out burn time.   When things get too hot I like to run back to what feels safe.  The problem is what feels safe to me isn’t ever really safe.  What feels safe is settling for less than God.

Of course what God wants isn’t safe.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer very eloquently said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”   God is not at all safe.  Again I’ll hand the keyboard to Bonhoeffer:   “Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God’s will.”   OUCH!

We like to focus on what we see as the “good for me” portions of the Bible.   We like to make the Bible tell us, “Wealth and health show how much God loves us!”  But Jesus never teaches us such things.   Jesus, instead promises us,  ”In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart I have overcome the world,” John 16:33.    Wealth, health, and youth are what the world desires, and much of the Church in America has hopped on the world’s bandwagon.    Honestly how can anyone argue that God hasn’t greatly blessed the healthy, wealthy, and young?   But Jesus tells us, “But take heart for I have overcome the world.”   Jesus desires to overcome what the world values and promotes.  Rather than embracing the way the world measures what is important, we need Jesus to overcome the world in us, and through us.

Jesus commands us, “A new command I give you:  Love one another.   As I have loved you, you must love one another.   By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you love one another,”  John 13:34.   Some will say to me, “Well God can bless us with health, wealth  and we can still love one another.”   That would all be good, but the truth is, we don’t love as Christ commands.  What is more Jesus promises us he has overcome the world.  To overcome the world means he has destroyed the world’s ways, systems, desires, sins, and power to enslave and destroy human beings.   Health, wealth, and youth are the world’s desires, and God sent his only Son, to overcome what the world loves, values, and promotes.   Jesus came to save us from health, wealth, and youth.   Jesus came to give us true wealth, health and life.   “Now this is eternal life: That they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent,” John 17:3.   Jesus has come to give us relationship with God, and so that we may have relationship with our fellow humans.   In God’ economy wealth and health is measured in relationship with him, and the humans Jesus came to love and die for.    Better to live a short, sickly life with the promise of eternal  relationship with God than to live rich, die old, and lose your immortal soul.

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it is the path to death’s house.”  Proverbs 14: 12.   Honestly, there is nothing more dangerous or mean than a Christian who has convinced him/herself  that God blesses with things.   God’s blessings are rich relationships and an eternity with him.

Don’t know what the next years will bring to me, but I hope the pursuit of God in relationship will become all consuming!!

The Real Problem With Anti-gay Comments from Duck Dynasty’s Daddy Phil

First, why is Phil Robertson in GQ Magazine?  Anyone take a look at how Phil dresses and grooms (or more accurately, ‘doesn’t’ groom) himself?   I’ve been reading GQ for many years and ‘Redneck Sheik’ has never been acceptable for GQ, so why now?  It just goes to show you that GQ is more likely to appeal to guys who are, well, into other guys sexually.  Sure there are the few guys who really are ‘Metrosexuals’, but I’ve always believed, and have seen ample evidence, that for many the prefixes, “Metro” and “homo” are more likely to be interchangable.   But before opening that can of worms further, let’s get to the point…

Is Phil Robertson being true to the gospel of Jesus Christ or is he simply another in a long line of hateful religious jerks?   Technically, Phil is absolutely right.  Homosexuality is called a sin in the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments.   Telling the truth about sin is one things, but we’re told in John’s gospel the law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  (John 1:17).   Am I just bantering semantics here or is there something really different between what God brings through Moses, and what Christ brings when he comes on the world scene as the God/man?

It isn’t simply a matter of semantics there is a vast difference between the Law of Moses, and the “…law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus…” (Romans 8:2).   With the Law of Moses comes death.  The only answer the law gives for sin is death.   In Leviticus 18:22 we’re given perhaps the most damning of all pronouncements against homosexuality in the Bible.   “You shall not lie with mankind as with woman kind: it is abomination.”  (Leviticus 18:22, KJV).   The proscribed punish for breaking the law spelled out in Leviticus 18:22 and again in Leviticus 20:13, is death.   “Do not pass ‘GO’, do not collect $200, go straight to Hell.”  All the law can do, through Moses, is kill.  The Holy Spirit, through St. Paul, explains it to us… “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Simply put, “No one, having sinned, can expect good from the Law of Moses.

Now if we stop at the Law of Moses then Phil Robertson’s comments would be perfectly acceptable.   Well, Phil’s comment would actually be wrong, because all his comments do is  cause God’s judgment to come upon Phil.  Phil by merely pointing out the sin of homosexuality condemns himself.   Phil is calling out sin, by pointing to the Law of Moses, but we know that Phil is a sinner himself.  Phil even admits he was a sinner, before coming to Jesus Christ for salvation.   Was Phil saved by keeping the Law of Moses?   He was not saved by through the Law of Moses.   Phil plainly confesses that he is a sinner, and alluded to Jesus Christ being his savior.   The problem with, or for, Phil is that he’s a hypocrite.  He points to the Law of Moses when speaking of the sins of LGBT persons while at the same time saying he was saved by Jesus Christ.   Either we all live (and die) the law, or when offered, we accept salvation and the lordship of Jesus Christ.  Christ followers can’t have it both ways.   We go with the law or we go with grace and truth.   There cannot be grace and truth, through Jesus Christ, for Phil, while Phil pulls out the law on LGBT persons.   If Phil gets grace and truth, then so do LGBT persons.

Now someone will say to me, “Yes, but Phil is only pointing out the truth, that God condemns homosexuality.”   That sounds good and proper, but in the end it doesn’t work.  First, let me reiterate, the Law of Moses only has one answer for sin: DEATH.   Where is the grace in the Law of Moses?   There is no grace in the law.   Second, we’re told in John 1 that in addition to grace Jesus brings truth.   Now  many will argue that the Law of Moses is truth.   How can anyone argue that the Law God gave Moses isn’t truth?    The Law is for law breakers, that’s why God gave the law through Moses.  The Law of Moses is sent not to task humans, but to show humans that they are past, present and future law breakers, and completely enslaved to sin, without hope of ever being anything else.

The grace and truth of Jesus Christ are the new law, The Law of the Spirit of Life.   The grace and truth of Jesus Christ is eternal life, eternal freedom, and eternal relationship with the triune God, and his born again children.  These children are born of the same Spirit who created Jesus’ body in Mary’s womb.  (Jesus has always existed as the second person of the God head, but only as spirit with the rest of the God head).

What does this new law mean for me, a person guilty of abomination, according to Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13.   The Law of Moses means death to me, but bring the grace and truth of Jesus Christ to this  life ending law and suddenly what once gave death becomes something new.   Before God drew me to his Son, and the Holy Spirit convicted me of sin, righteousness, and the judgment to come, I was a hopeless and helpless lawbreaker.    But when God found me, and by his prevenient grace enabled me to make the first freewill choice I’d ever truly made in my life.  When I’d accepted God’s forgiveness and grace by faith, then God made me born again, transforming me from a dead lawbreaking slave to a new spiritual creation in the likeness and image of Christ Jesus.  The truth of God in Jesus Christ always frees; the truth of God in Christ always brings eternal life; the truth of God in Jesus Christ always brings eternal relationship with God and his new creation children, the  Church.

When I was a dead slave to sin, what we might call a zombie today I was an object of destruction.  I treated other men as objects of my lust, and objects to be used sexually.  I also accepted that  I was a thing to be lusted for and used sexually.  And like mere objects we were meant to be thrown away after being used up.   With the salvation and Lordship of Jesus Christ, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2).    In Christ The Holy Spirit has made me alive to God.  In Christ I am not a thing of lust, I am a beautiful humanized creation enabled to love and serve God.  I am free to turn away from lust and the abomination I’d created with my sexual immorality.   No longer does Leviticus 18:22 give me death.  Leviticus 18:22 is now a continual reminder that God has made me free, that God has overcome me, my sin, my sin nature, and the power of the world to conform me to the life of a slave to sin.   There is no death in Leviticus 18:22 for me, now there is the joy of being made new, clean, and free by God.

I cannot agree with Phil Robertson, Duck Commander, or not.  Papa Phil isn’t telling the truth of God in Christ.  For the truth of God in Christ is freedom from sin, not judgment and eternal punishment.  Anyone who gives the Law of Moses without the truth and grace of Jesus Christ, is not telling the truth at all.   When we give law, but not grace and truth we  cover the face of Christ; we bury the truth under a pile of rules none of us can keep; when we give law we deny the slave the face of the merciful, loving, and gracious master who frees slaves and then adopts them into the very family of the only true God.    The Law condemns but the grace and truth of Jesus Christ always brings life, hope, peace, and eternal relationship with God.

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!!