XANGA IS DYING

I started blogging on Xanga in November, 2005.  It has always been my favorite place to post blogs.  Now, sadly, it is dying.  I do not like Facebook, I do not like Tumbler.  I am playing around with a WordPress blog, but I don't find it very user friendly.  I suppose I shall miss how completely user friendly Xanga has always been.  Xanga had a plethora of problems, and they were a pain in the neck at times, but they were also sort of endearing at the same time.  If Xanga takes the big dirt nap, I'm going to be very sad.  I certainly criticized Xanga on many occasions, but it doesn't mean I didn't love the old girl.  

I'm prepared to move on, but it will be a trail of tears leading me back to this site, and maybe to others.  Nothing will ever be the same if Xanga dies, but that is how life works isn't it?

MISSING THE POINT:

The State of Christianity Today

 

Early in my Christian walk I tried to express to my fellow Christians what it was like to deal with Christians when I self-identified as gay.  I came up with a little parable to better explain my experiences.

---

Imagine a beautiful lake surrounded by gently rolling green hills and edged all about with forest.  About 50 yards from shore there appears to be a man drowning.  Fortunately there is a little rowboat manned by two men, just to the left and just out of reach of the drowning man.  One is at the boat's oars and the other is truly an odd sight to behold.  The second man is attempting to stand at the front of the little boat, but what's really odd is the manner of the man's dress.  The man attempting to stand in the boat is dressed from head to foot in high church garb, and he's carrying a rather ornate, but impractical looking, shepherd's crook.  This "bishopy" looking fellow is wearing the high cone hat with tails, the long bejeweled outer robes, and there is a wide bejeweled church sash looking thing hanging about his neck and running half way down the front of his high church vestments.  He's wearing little white gloves and in one hand he has what appears to be a small anchor.  The high church, "bishopy" looking man is speaking to the drowning man.  He says, warmly and with feeling, "Dear brother! We want you to know that we, our church, desire to stand with you in complete solidarity."  The "bishopy" looking chap is struggling to maintain emotional composure, and even takes a moment to wipe away a small tear from his eye.  He clears his tight throat a little, and says with a husky voice, "So that you may always know we support you completely, we have made this sculpture of an anchor for you."   The high churchy man says, ceremoniously, "We give you this anchor to remind you, always, to stay anchored in who you think you are, and that we are with you in this your choice to drown yourself."  The bishopy man and his oarsman smile, then offer small applause.  Finally, with a wave of the "bishopy" chap's gloved hand, the fellow at the oars begins to pull at those oars and away they glide toward shore.
 
Off to the right of our little scene is a pier which juts from the land out onto the lake.  Still the drowning man is about 50 yards from this pier to his right.  At the end of this pier is another rather odd sight to behold.  At the end of the pier is a man wearing a navy blue suit, sporting a well oiled crew cut, and in one of his hands is a coffee table Bible.  (I mean the Bible is the size of a coffee table...King James Version, of course!).  The man starts shouting out to the drowning man, "HEY!!!  HEY YOU, DROWNING MAN!!!  STOP THAT DROWNING!!!  DON'T YOU KNOW THAT IF YOU DROWN YOU'LL BURN IN HELL?!?!?  Immediately after shouting at the drowning man, the Bible toating man then hurls a rock at the man in the water.  After throwing the rock the man yells, even louder, at the drowning man, "HEY!!!  WHY DON'T YOU COME OVER HERE AND LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT JESUS?!?!?"  The second shout is followed by another stone sent rocketing toward the head of the drowning man.   Then shouting a third time, "HEY, DUDE!!!   I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME!!!  "IF YOU WOULD JUST STOP DROWNING LONG ENOUGH JESUS CAN SET YOU FREE AND THEN YOU CAN BE LIKE ME!!!  Our religious zealot throws a new volley of rocks at the head of our drowning man, but soon decides to leave, grumbling about how the drowning man treated him.  "Jesus said people would hate and persecute me, because I am a Christian."
 
Further from the shore of the lake is a man sitting with his wife on the fence which runs around the lake.  The man says to his wife, "Say, do you think that guy is swimming, or do you think he might be drowning?"   His wife squints up her eyes, uses her hand as a visor to block the glare of the sun and says, "I don't know, he's too far away for me to really tell what he's doing."   The husband hunches into a Rodin's "The Thinker" kind of pose and considers the matter.  Finally he says "Maybe we should call 911 for the guy."  The wife quickly responds, "Honey, you're a good man, but we're to far away to really know what is going on over there.  I'm afraid we might embarrass the man if he isn't really drowning."  Then the wife continued sagely, "Judge not, lest you be judged..."  And finally the wife said, "We don't know enough to make a real decision, so let's just enjoy our day out, and let that person in the water enjoy their day out at the lake."

---

 
What do you suppose happened to the man drowning in the lake?  He drowned, of course.  The man was accepted and loved right where he was.  The man was condemned for where he was, and the man was ignored where he was, because "Who are we to say the guy is drowning, maybe he's doing some new kind of water exercise; it's best not to judge."

What I needed from Christians was for one of them to dive into my situation.  What I needed was someone to believe God rather than what their feelings, or the feelings of others told them.  I was drowning and everyone judged my situation.  No one judged my situation from a place of understanding or experience, everyone judged my situation from their own person feelings about where and what I was.  Granted there were lots of drowning people around me who kept telling everyone we were fine, we were just born to drown, as it were, and,  "Leave us alone or you're judgmental and hateful!"  God clearly sees the world drowning in sin, and he expects those who call themselves Christians/Christ followers to ask him for eyes to see the way he sees.  God looks on the inside, and knows drowning when he sees it.  It isn't a bad thing not to jump to judgment, but walk closer  to the situation and judge from up close.  It isn't a bad thing to hold to God's righteous standard, but move closer and learn that though the lost may have done a swan dive into the deep end, of their own free will, they now need saving.  All the right knowledge in the world about lifesaving are pointless and useless, if no one dives into to actually save the drowning person.  It is good to accept people where they are, but God has something much better for them.  Don't offer a person help to keep drowning.  God loves us where we are, but he saves us from drowning in our own sins.
 
Jesus came to a world which hated, reviled, and ultimately murdered him.  Jesus didn't come to condemn or confirm sinners in their sins.  Jesus came to find and save what was lost.   What Jesus did is overcome the world, and anyone truly born again; born of God's own Spirit; given a new born spirit called the "divine seed" which literally means "sperm of God", will be conformed to the image and likeness of Jesus Christ.  Jesus came to find and save, and that is the same thing Christ followers will do.  It's isn't optional it is hardwired into our new spiritual DNA.  Jesus dove into a drowning world, and started pulling drowning people to eternal life, freedom, and safety.  That is the Christian's birthright and the Christian's call.  You can't belong to Christ and love people til they drown.  You can't belong to Christ and condemn them from drowning.  And you can't belong to Christ sitting on a fence with no opinion on sin when God tells us exactly what he thinks of sin.

No one dove into the water to save the dying man.  Everyone did what was right in his own mind, but Jesus dove in to rescue.  We are warned again and again by Christ and the apostles he appointed and empowered to do and speak for him.

^"To the Jews who had believed him, 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.”

John 8:31-32

Believing means doing.  Belief in Jesus Christ is always a 3 part matter.  1) Do what Jesus says. 2) This makes us true disciples, and as we do more and more what Jesus teaches the more we become his true disciples.  3) As we practice Jesus' teaching, becoming more and more his disciples, then the truth sets us free.  Being and doing go hand in hand. 

 ^"For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

Ephesians 2:10

Obeying God is simply what believers in Jesus Christ do, it is what we are new born to do.  God has already gone before and prepared our way for us.  We can dive in with absolute confidence that God is with us, and though we do not know what to do, God does.  When we need the knowledge he gives us the knowledge we need.  

Think about Moses parting the Red Sea.  We like to see things the way Cecil B. Demille saw Moses.  We imagine Moses standing on a rock ledge jutting out over the sea, and Moses grandly gesturing for the sea to part.  The truth is God commanded Moses to start walking toward the sea.  Moses grand gesture was to walk straight into the sea.  Many have said the sea probably parted about the time the water was licking at Moses' bottom lip. 

That's it!  That's what I'm talkin' bout!!

"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."

James 1:22

There is no way around it.  We will either go with our own thinking about things, or we will obey God, and do what Jesus teaches.  We will either find reasons not to dive into a drowning world, or we will be like Jesus Christ, and dive, without knowing anything more than he has called us to obedience.  We may call ourselves by which ever religious sounding term we choose, but the Bible is utterly clear about what a Christian is to do.  To merely listen to right teaching without right action is self-deception.

 

 “If you love me, keep my commands."

John 14:15

No one says it better than Jesus!  Stop doing what you think is right, and then stamping God's name on it.  If the sinner drowns, but you've excused yourself and didn't dive in, then expect the righteous judgment of God condemning you for not being like Christ.  You're going to have to be like Moses and get wet.  4 times Moses gave God good reasons why he, Moses, was the wrong guy to send to Pharaoh demanding the freedom of the Hebrew Slaves.  God didn't become angry with Moses, but carefully explained to him that he would be there to get Moses out of trouble.  The fifth time Moses came clean and asked God to send some other savior to Egypt.  When Moses asked God to find someone else to send to Egypt, we are told, "God's anger burned against Moses."   Seriously, honestly, do you, Christian/Christ follower believe God will withhold his anger if you make excuses, and then refuse to obey his commands?  So, okay, be self-serving if you must.  If you're not motivated by empathy and compassion for the drowning man, then dive in to save your own skin.  Dive in to reach a drowning world because you fear God, and his condemnation for your disobedience. 

The point has never been the sin of the world, the point has always been that Jesus overcomes the sin of the world.  If you have the cure, then the point is to offer the cure.  If the world rejects the cure then you're off the hook.  But if you offer everything including acceptance of sin, condemnation, or nothing at all, that is NOT offering Jesus' overcoming the world.  God has the answer simply give that answer.  But you're going to have to dive in to give that answer up close and personal, just the way Jesus did.  From God's point of view we shouldn't worried about our "rights" in this world, we should be focused on our responsibilities to serve God and his kingdom, just exactly the way Jesus did.

"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

GET THE POINT?? Now go ye, and do likewise!

THE DIFFERENCE

Simply Put:The Difference Is I Am Different

All of my life I have had the sense I was walking with one foot up on a curb and one foot down on the road.  Ever walked with one foot stepping up on the curb while the other is down on the road?  You walk long enough one foot on the curb and one foot off, and you're back, hips, knees, ankles, and feet will begin to hurt.  The action of walking on such an uneven path is jarring and punishing to the whole body.  It isn't shocking why you'll only ever see children walking with one foot up on the curb and one foot off.  Adults have learned that one foot on the curb and one foot off the curb gets you nothing but pain.  Find a smooth and level path, and not only can you walk with comfort, but you'll find you can run as well.  The way of least resistance is the path all of us find, but that path, if followed to it's end is the road to destruction.   Were I not different I would have died with many of my friends in the late 80's and early 90's who died of AIDS.  I was gay.  Yes I "was" gay, as in, "I once was, but now I am not."   What is the difference between me and the majority of gay people?  I didn't merely settle for what I "felt" to be true about myself.  I wanted cold, hard, concrete facts to support what my feelings told me.  Feelings are often wrong.  My feelings about others had been wrong.  Perhaps the problem wasn't anything to do with anything in the world and the problem might just be with my gay feelings.  Maybe my feelings were broken.  I set off on a ten year odyssey to discover if I was really born gay.  I had no idea the education I'd receive, but it isn't the education I could ever have expected.  My educational journey is one of those experiences which is worth $1 million, but if someone had offered me a million dollars to go on the journey I'd never have taken it.

 

I simply wanted to know if my homosexuality was biologically determined.  After that ten year educational journey I would learn that human sexuality isn't hardwired.  In humans the biology of sexuality works the way biology works for the development of spoken language.  Biology dictates that humans may learn a spoken language.  Biology does not dictate the language we will speak;  biology doesn't dictate that we speak Tamil, English, or Swahili.  Biology only grants the ability.  Biology dictates that we may develop sexuality, but biology CANNOT dictate the language, or more precisely, biology cannot dictate orientation.  It's just the facts folks.  No one is born gay, and just as important; no one is born straight.

 

I'm different, plain and simple.  And would you like to know what sets me apart from the gay people you know?  I didn't choose my gay feelings.  I want to make that absolutely 100% clear:  I DID NOT CHOOSE MY GAY FEELINGS.  But, unlike all the gay people I have known I made the choice to challenge and change those feelings.  God never reached down and took my feelings away.  When my thinking started changing then my actions started changing, and the more I challenged and changed my thinking and my behavior started changing then my feelings started changing.  I didn't do it by myself, God really did all the work I simply did my little part.  I chose to change the way I thought, and changed thoughts brought about changed behavior, and as behavior changed then feelings changed as well.  I didn't choose my gay feelings those were largely the result of what had been done to me.  I didn't even think I had to right to decide anything for myself.  Because my father, basically handed me over to the cruel mental torture my uncle gleefully meted out to me, I settled for feelings which continued my abuse by my own hands.  I was well trained by my abusers, and continued to believe I didn't have a say, didn't have a right, to have my own need for love and belonging.  Others chose to heap cruelty upon me, and I became convinced I was worthless,  no one could love me, and I had no place in this world.  I always lived with the notion that I was an object to be used, and nothing I felt or wanted mattered.  I didn't pull away from people because I feared rejection.  I pulled away from people, because I didn't want to burden them with my loathsome presence.  If I could do something for someone then I could enjoy their companionship for awhile.  It would never last of course.  I never could figure out how to know when my usefulness ended, so I spent most of the time just keeping my distance.  I honestly never minded being used.  When I say that I really mean it.  I never minded being used, it was what I was for after all. 

The Summer of my 8th year I took swimming lessons at the public pool in my town.  One day a boy a couple years older than me stole something from another swim student.  I confronted the boy, telling him, "Stealing is wrong, you can't steal."  He closed the distance between us, glared at me for a moment, and then he spit in my face.  I won't say it was a lot of fun, being spit on, but I fully understood why he spit on me.  I knew from my uncle that spitting on someone was a bad insult, but  I did not feel insulted.  The boy had the right to react the way he did.  I'd upset him.  If he hadn't stolen I would never have bothered him.  If he had chosen to throw me in the pool instead of stealing, I'd have been completely okay with that.  I was merely an object to be used as anyone liked.  I wasn't a real boy, couldn't have anything real, and that included relationships.  I would never have chosen to feel gay, but being an object certainly lead me to those feelings.  There was a real living, needy, empty souled boy, but he'd been completely locked away, and the empty thing was left behind.  No love could penetrate, and that is the way it was supposed to be.  I had been convinced by my users/abusers I was a thing for their use and abuse.  The need for belonging and loving never goes away, but you can't expect those things; you don't have even the right to expect those things.  I was locked away in a cold empty dark cage inside.  I didn't believe anyone could or would love me, accept me, or want anything to do with me, unless I was some use.  So I settled for something much less than love, acceptance, and belonging.  I settled for intense sexual feelings; the merest crumbs of human kindness.  Homosexuality was a good fit for me, because no one would ever have to get the real me.  I could have sex with guys, and enjoy, vicariously "maleness".  The ironic thing is some of these boys were more girl than a lot of girls I knew.  Still I settled.   I didn't think that what I was doing was using those boys.  I didn't think about it, because subjectively I was an object.  What can an object do, but objectify others?   Every time I had sex I was merely using the other person, and I was being used.  This was my life.

When Christ came to find me, he offered me something I'd never had...worth.   He didn't reach into his pocket and pull out a pricing gun and raise my price a couple of dollars.  Jesus offered me his own value.  He took all my worthlessness, and gave me all his worth.  I didn't deserve it, but Jesus never asked or demanded I be worth it.  All Jesus wanted was to free me so I could be in relationship with him.   The difference between me and other gay people?  I chose to accept all Christ offered, and that included freedom from me, my prison, my worthlessness, my state of being a thing to be used and abused.  I chose to believe Christ over any of my own feelings.   The difference between me and others who are or have been same-sex attracted is I let Jesus into the dark, and allowed him to lead me out.  It was a long and difficult thing.  It is very difficult to become someone when all you've ever been is some thing.  There were many times I wanted to turn back, because I still didn't have any evidence I was someone.  God doesn't give up, and I'm thankful for that.  God keeps at it until he gets into us and gets us out of that darkness.  It is easier to settle, but God never allows his children to settle.  As my thinking has changed my actions have changed.  As my thinking changes and my actions change, then my feelings change as well.  The gay feelings never went away I simply grew out from under them.  Homosexuality isn't a state of being.  Homosexuality is a blockage to freedom, life, wholeness, and someoneness. 

 

I am completely different, because I will only settle for Christ.

 

LYRICS FULL OF CHRISTMAS' REASON

"Welcome To Our World"

By Chris Rice

Tears are falling, hearts are breaking
How we need to hear from God
You've been promised, we've been waiting

Welcome Holy Child
Welcome Holy Child

Hope that you don't mind our manger
How I wish we would have known
But long-awaited Holy Stranger
Make Yourself at home
Please make Yourself at home
Bring Your peace into our violence
Bid our hungry souls be filled
Word now breaking Heaven's silence

Welcome to our world
Welcome to our world

Fragile finger sent to heal us
Tender brow prepared for thorn
Tiny heart whose blood will save us
Unto us is born
Unto us is born
So wrap our injured flesh around You
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sin and make us holy

Perfect Son of God
Perfect Son of God
Welcome to our world

Welcome To Our World is among my favorite Christmas' Reason songs.  I have it downloaded on my iPod.  When it begins my attention is arrested.  Such a simple song with simple lyrics, but they catch my breath, and steal tears from my eyes.  I think, "What a foolish God to send his beloved Son; all his wealth into the world which hates him!"  A baby!  God sends a fragile, helpless, human baby.  We could understand if God sent a mighty Son, clothed in celestial armor, flanked by legions upon legions of heaven's warrior angels.  But a baby?!?!

Chris Rice says of his song:

"It deals with the reality that God invaded our planet and became one of us, which is just astounding to me. I wrote about God coming to our world in a naïve way, knowing that it's not ours anyway, it's His. The thoughts that went through my head were about how tiny He was and how He came into the world just like the rest of us do. How much did He know at that point? When He was human flesh, was He aware at all that He was really God, or did He just accept all the limitations and start from scratch? I thought of that progression, and about the fact that He took on what He did so that we would be able to find God and be found by God."

 

God doesn't see the way we see, for God to send his salvation through a mere baby is what makes sense.  God doesn't send a super human.  God sends Jesus as clothed like mere humans.  All of us are merely human.  We have literature, comic books, movies, music, games, all kinds of things devoted to super heroes.  But for all our delusions of grandeur we are, all of us, merely human.  God, as odd as it must seem, foolish even, desires to work with what he is given.  So Father sends all his wealth; his very heart into the skin of a mere human being.  And God doesn't just send Jesus as any human.  Jesus as a human is the weakest and the worst. 

 

Who has believed our message
    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Isaiah 53:1-3

This, God tells us, centuries before, he sends us Jesus.  This savior is, well...how shall we say it?  Underwhelming.  Not only is Jesus a mere human, he's a human none of us would pick first for the football team, the debate team, the lead of the school play, the Homecoming king, or senior class president.  Today we'd say of Jesus, "Looks like God scraped the bottom of the barrel."  God sends us what is weak, foolish, ugly, and worthless.  God doesn't send us what we think we need, he sends us his Son in the image and likeness of what we truly are.  God doesn't accommodate what we most want to be, he meets us exactly where we are.  God is absolutely truthful about humanity with how he presents his Son of Man.  Jesus is the savior of the world, but as a man he is the least of men.
 
Why does the Almighty present us the least of men?  We think of Jesus sacrifice upon a Roman cross for the sins of the world, but Jesus' whole life is a sacrifice.  The prefect is in a human wrapper even the broken, sinful, dying race of man look down upon him.  The perfect is forced to endure all that even the worst despise.  The cross for Jesus is not something which merely ends his life, it is the whole of his life experience.  There is a method to God's seeming madness.  God's plan is to take the weakness of all humanity coupled with the almighty power of his Holy Spirit.  This is why Jesus comes as he does, so that the very least of us humans can, when made new born by, filled with, indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit live and serve God in the image and likeness of Jesus.  In Christ we are not mere humans with a new coat of paint, or cleaned up with spiritual Clorox bleach.  In Christ we are made completely new in spirit; born literally of God's own Spirit.  In us God places a great treasure in jars of clay, which is not of human kind.

the oath he swore to our father Abraham:

to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
    and to enable us to serve him without fear
 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

Luke 1:73-75

Its the last last part of Rice's song which always leads me to tears...

Fragile finger sent to heal us
Tender brow prepared for thorn
Tiny heart whose blood will save us
Unto us is born
Unto us is born
So wrap our injured flesh around You
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sin and make us holy

Perfect Son of God
Perfect Son of God
Welcome to our world

Yes LORD, welcome into our broken flesh, welcome to being the least, welcome to ugly, welcome to disdain, welcome to a scourge, and welcome to nails on an old rugged cross.  Perfect Son of God, welcome to our world...

...And Thank you for overcoming our world! 

Jesus, You are Christmas' Reason!

NOT SHOCKING Part 1

BUT STILL SAD 

"Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?"...

"...You are not your own; you were bought at a price."

I went visiting the "ex-gay" side of a blog sites Groups.  Of course there's very little "ex-", but a whole lot of gay.  Not shocking, not for me anyway, I knew that was the direction things were going.  You put a bunch of professed, "ex-gay" people together and you get "ex-ex-gay" people.   That surprises people, when they learn that "ex-gay" people struggling together doesn't work.  I'm surprised anyone could honestly be shocked "ex-gay" people can't help each other successfully.  Take a bunch of people who have no real understanding of healthy and life giving relationships, put them together, and you expect they learn how to relate in a godly way in relationship???   Talk about the stuff of fairy tales!!  It's the blind leading the blind.   In order to get truly "ex-d" out of gay, it takes a group of people made new born by God's own Spirit; a people infilled by the Holy Spirit constantly; people devoted to one another as community and family.  I think we used to call this group, "The Church of Jesus Christ."  That was the group God called to reach the sexually and relationally broken, including LGBT people.  Instead the Church has attempted to foist her call and God's purposes upon ill equipped groups like Exodus International.  Critics of Exodus International, as it turns out, were right in some of their criticisms.   Exodus got it wrong, because they allowed the Church to force them to become something they never should have become.   In the beginning Exodus was intended to be an advisory group to help churches reach and minister to people wishing to escape homosexuality.  The churches didn't want to be advised they wanted Exodus to take the aspiring "ex-gay" off their hands.  Exodus quickly became a dumping ground for the church's unwanted gay problem.   Do you know what happens when you get a bunch of religious people struggling against homosexuality, who come together to help one another "struggle" against their lusts?   You get a dating service for religious gay people.  The discerning gay person knows Exodus conferences are a literal smorgasbord for the sexual appetite.   Exodus is speed dating gay style.

  

In his exceptional book, Homosexuality And The Politics Of Truth, Dr. Jeffrey Satinover says that homosexuality is akin to Narcissistic Personality Disorder.   For me it made total sense.  Homosexuality is kind of the flip side of Narcissism.  instead of thinking too highly of themselves the homosexual has a very low opinion of himself.  In 2008 Sweden's twin registry, the largest in the world, was used to see if researchers could find a reason why some pairs of twins were both gay, but other pairs had only one gay twin.  Because of the, still too small, sample size the study isn't conclusive.  Still it seems the findings supported the earliest thinking about homosexuality; that homosexuality flows from trauma.   The Sweden Twin study showed that around 75% of the twins, in which one twin was gay and the other straight, the gay twin had endured some form of trauma(s) the other twin had not.   The trauma didn't have to be sexual in nature in order to be considered for the study.   We know trauma has adverse effects on adult humans.  Think of women traumatized by rape or spousal abuse.  One of my best friends, a wonderful Christian lady, who spent most of her life in abusive relationships, said, on the eve of her approaching marriage to a wonderful Christian man, "It didn't feel like love."  She was so accustomed to the drama and trauma, that when real relation; real love found her it didn't "feel" right.   It actually took my friend a little while for things to "feel" right.  She committed to the changes she needed to make in herself, trusted God to guide and enable her change, and then simply dove right in, never looking back.  Believe it or not the Bible actually addresses the matter.

"One who is full loathes honey from the comb,
    but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet."

Proverbs 27:7

Scripture uses the most fascinating ways of telling the spiritual side of matters.  "Bitter", in Scripture most often means "poisonous".   Start the trauma in a person's life at a very early age, and by the time they reach puberty bitter/poison is not just their normal fare, but the preferred, all day everyday meal.  The United States Military used to have a term which actually became an official military term: F*U*B*A*R.  You've probably heard f.u.b.a.r., but did you know what it really means?  This is how it breaks down:  "F"***ed. "U"p. "B"eyond. "A"ll. "R"ecognition. 

When the Bible speaks of sexual immorality it says some very unusual things.

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

"A man is reduced to a crust of bread???"  Putting one's penis in a woman (or man for that matter), not your wife makes you into a  pastry??   Actually it isn't that far off from the understanding God lead me to in my walk to freedom from sexual immorality.   Trauma makes people feel "different"; "broken"; "dirty"; "separated"; "abnormal".   relationships aren't the safe and life giving places they once were, or never were to begin with.  Then there is the biggest secret no sexually broken person ever wants to face.  "I am worthless, dirty, hated, and worthless."  People settle for less than God gives, not because they are modern and happening.  People don't settle for homosexuality, or hooking up, or internet pron, or hooking, or stripping, because they highly value themselves.  The very center of the problem; the heart of it is, "No one could or would ever love me, so I'll take whatever I can get."   Sexually broken people start having relationships in their own minds rather than even attempting real relationships.  I know a great many people would say things like, "I know a lot of LGBT people, some are my closest friends, and they have great relationships, are happy and well adjusted adults."  No one is ever going to let you in on the secret, we didn't talk about it even among ourselves, so why would you honestly think anyone would let an outsider in.  As always its the dirty little secrets that keep us enslaved.   If  our secrets were known we could be set free, but nothing in our past will ever allow for that.

Honestly until I ministered to hookers I never saw my own struggle with sexual brokenness clearly.   When I first started meeting hookers they all pretty much said the same things, "I love my job, because I love sex and I love money."   But after you spend some time around hookers you start hearing stories about how bad men really are.   Funny, if you like having sex and earning money from these men, why do you hate them so much?   That's when we learn what is really going on underneath.  I think most of us could agree that we like money and sex, but the ugly secret of hooking is, "Absolutely NO ONE wants to be used, especially hookers." 

      

THE NANNY STATE:

America's slavery, the Church's opportunity

 The New Colossus

By Emma Lazarus, 1883

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

~ Statue of Liberty Poem

 

"What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ."

~The Holy Spirit through St. Paul

The Nanny State is at it again!  This time it's LSU which used a picture of a well known group of LSU fans called "The Painted Posse".   The group paint their faces and bare trunks for LSU games.
 

"In reproducing the photo for a campuswide email, LSU made the decision to airbrush out the crosses on the students' chests. See, The Painted Posse is a group of Christian-centered Tiger fans, and, well, someone somewhere inside LSU decided not to mix football and religion. (Which is a bit surprising, considering that in the SEC, football IS religion.)"  (LINK)

You may not be able to see it, but on their left shoulders the guys have crosses painted there

Someone at LSU airbrushed the crosses out of the photo before using in an LSU email.

"The school, in a statement, indicated that it was not trying to censor any views, but rather to avoid the appearance of endorsing one. "We don't want to imply we are making any religious or political statements, so we air-brushed it out," the school said in a statement to Fox News. "Only one of the students, who didn't appreciate it, actually contacted us about it. So next time, we'll just choose a different photo."

Bad LSU censors!!  Someone call the Supreme Court!  Someone call Glenn Beck!  Someone call Jerry Falwell!   Oh, wait, Jerry Falwell is dead...er...em...okay, some one call Pat Robertson.  Robertson is only dead from the neck up.   Wow what will we do when Glenn Beck and the conservatives on the Supreme Court are dead??  YIKES!!   Oh I know there will always be some one who will step up to take their places.   There will always be someone who will take up the never ending culture war...  There is simply too much at stake here to stand idly by doing nothing.   So! "Once more unto the breach, dear friends!  ONCE MORE;" 
 

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."

~ C.S. Lewis

I've always liked that quote.  But what Lewis says here is a double edged sword.  Is it right to force a non-Christian nation to accept the constraints of Christianity?  Frankly, the argument Christians have every right to impose, what they view as righteous laws, on others has largely been based on the claim the founding fathers meant to found a Christian nation.   Since the founders meant to create a nation built on the bedrock of Judeo-Christian beliefs it's not merely a strongly heartfelt position held, but an inalienable right.  "...Christians have the right to rule their own country," as Jerry Falwell put it.  The first major problem with this belief is Christ is a king, and he has a kingdom he tells us plainly is not of this world.   Of course the argument then shifts from one of the intent of creating a Christian nation to now speaking of a nation founded upon Christian principles.   A Christian nation and a nation founded upon Judeo-Christian principles are vastly different things.   The Christian nation is a kingdom ruled by Christ Jesus, and it is not of this world.  A nation following certain principles doesn't require Christ at all.  In fact a nation founded upon Judeo-Christian principles doesn't follow a Christ centered model.  The model for a nation built upon  Judeo-Christian principles follows more a Moses centered model of ruling.  A nation is given a set of standards which are codified into legal responsibilities for the nation's citizens.   The law of Moses, if broken, carried the most dire of punishments, death and/or being cut off from among the people; what we'd call today 'excommunication'.   Forcing compliance works with the Moses model, but it doesn't work with the Jesus model.   Jesus makes it clear that the keeping of laws is no way to become a citizen in his kingdom.

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. 

"The who sins is a slave..."  The religious leaders listening to Jesus teach this wouldn't have problem with what Jesus is teaching.  After all Jesus is teaching what they themselves believe.   At that time one of the most common form of slavery was basically indentured service.  A person who could not support himself could find someone who would care for his needs, train him in a useful trade.   The slave would then work off the debt owed to his master, and upon completion of the service would be freed from slavery.  This kind of slavery was the Roman world's version of welfare.  We all know, none of us is perfect, even the religious leaders knew they weren't perfect, but they thought their efforts to keep the Mosaic laws and their continuous reaching for perfection in practice kept them in good stead with God.   Jesus turns the tables on them when he goes onto say, "...Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever."  OUCH!  Jesus tells them, you don't get it.  "Your relationship to Abraham doesn't make you a son in God's house.  Even if an indentured slave could pay the full monetary worth of his slavery, or even a 100x his indebtedness, he would not be a member of the family.  Adoption is the only way for a slave to become a part of the family he served as slave.   It doesn't matter how hard the religious leaders worked to pay off their debts to God, they would always have the status of "not a member of the family."   Paying one's sin debt to God by keeping laws changes nothing for the slave to sin.  The only thing which changes the slave is adoption into the family.

 

No matter the intent of the religious leaders of his day, they could do nothing about their status as slaves.  All members of Christ's kingdom are adopted sons/daughters from among a world enslaved to sin.  Christianity isn't a national treasure, Christianity is the adoption by God in his family.  God achieves this adoption by paying off the slaves debt by enslaving his only Son to a Roman cross and finally to the grave.   God then offers adoption, through his resurrected Son, into his eternal family.   Christianity isn't something any human founder or citizen of any nation in the world, can bestow.  Christianity is God's alone to bestow. 

  

In this election season, when we pick our leaders, vote your conscience, but do not say, in any part of your being, "I am doing this because this is a Christian nation, and we need to take it back for Christ."   If Christ wanted this nation he'd have already taken it. 

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

So what's a Christian to do about this "Nanny State"?   There are so many burdens upon the state, and the children it cares for, like slavery to sin, so extend a little grace.  Stop tying up heavy loads which you drop on men's shoulders, you know religious rules and laws against, say gay marriage, though you will not lift a finger to help them find freedom in Christ.  Keeping laws against gay marriage or even abortion won't change the status of slaves.  Remember you are not of this world, just as Christ is not of this world.  Remember that you are adopted Children of the living God, and the freedom of Christ can't be taken away, even by the most powerful "Nanny State" on the earth.  Seek first to serve God's kingdom and purposes, and then he can show you how best to engage a world enslaved to sin, and the body politic (also enslaved to sin, by the way).

Good, but not God's statute of liberty

God's statute of liberty: Perfect!

 

 

IT MAY BE MY DESTINY, BUT I STILL DON'T HAVE TO LIKE IT!

 "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", 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 have always known the answer I would receive.  I knew because 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 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.  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??