Let's Do What We Always Do...
Blame Someone Else
Founder of The Metropolitan Community Church (known as the first gay church), Troy Perry, admitted in his, 1991 book, Don't Be Afraid Anymore:
“I knew I would have few if any problems with the so-called
liberal churches. Liberal churches do not usually deeply
involve themselves with Scripture.”
What the PCUSA has done is what's called a "no-brainer". Perry may have written that in 1991, but he had his head wrapped around the concept back in the 1960's when he started his church. I also understand there are many members of the PCUSA who adhere to the teachings of the Bible. Its all good and well that many Bible believing Presbyterians USofA hold to the traditional faith, but that isn't the truly important issue. The problem is that the Church, the whole Church, has left a spiritual vacuum when it comes to matters of sexual immorality. "STOP DOING THAT, CAUSE THE BIBLE SAYS SO," is not an answer to anything. Jesus said, "The world will give you TROUBLE, but smile and be cheerful, I have OVERCOME the world." (BP's paraphrase). Screaming at people, even if its the truth, isn't God's way. I would know about that, now wouldn't I??? I've screamed at everyone for most of 5 years on Xanga.
I screamed at my fellow Christians, gay people, gay christians, and "struggling" Christians. Didn't work did it? You Christians didn't like my yelling at you, all it did was make you feel defensive, and that I was unloving and NOT doing things the way Christ would do them. You know what? YOU WERE RIGHT!! You didn't have the guts to call me on it, but YOU WERE THINKING IT!!! Guess what?? I started yelling at you for THAT very reason!! As a gay man I had Christians giving me 10 KINDS OF HELL, by thumping their Bibles at me. I DID THE SAME EXACT THING TO ALL OF YOU!! So let me ask all you Bible believing Christians?
Do You know how to bring LGBT people to the place the Bible speaks of in 1 Corinthians 6, "...and such were some of you..."??
I mean didn't all my yelling, blame laying, and meanness get you to learn all the things I wrote all those years?! Didn't you run right out and buy all those books I told you to read?! Didn't I guilt you into the service of the Lord toward LGBT people??? NO?? Well, maybe the Bible is right after all?? Maybe all my judgmental rants and raves weren't God's way?? Perhaps Romans 2:4, really is the truth??
"Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?"
See I knew all along that it is the kindness, the love, the goodness of God which leads people to repentance. But too many of my fellow Christians couldn't or wouldn't understand that. Well, all of my meanness, nastiness, and hatefulness failed;
FAILED!!!
I did it more and more and more, but it had no effect at all. No one jumped up, and got on the front lines, to lead LGBT people to Christ. See, it doesn't work on you Christians. It never worked, and cannot work with LGBT people, or anyone else. I simply tired myself out, raised my blood pressure, and stopped liking who I was on Xanga. So there we have it. Can we chalk this one up as "lesson learned"? I mean do you see now that the way I acted on the "Such were you" blog wasn't effective at all??? Oh, many of you loved that I was "kicking butt, and taking no prisoners!" The problem IS Jesus didn't, doesn't, and will never work that way. Jesus never, NEVER, "stood against" any sin. Jesus overcomes; defeats; utterly destroys sin. If we aren't overcoming sin, then we aren't serving God. I wasn't serving God when I gave all of you hell. Well, I wasn't directly serving God, by my direct action. I will have been serving God if all of you will look at what I was doing and see the error in it. If you can see the error of "standing up against" something then God will have been richly served indeed!
So how do we overcome the sin of sexual immorality? Its simple, its how God saved me, its how God saves everyone: "FAMILY"... That's it, that's all there is. Look at people and ask the Holy Spirit to work in and through you to draw people into his family. You may not want that person in the family, you may not want anything at all to do with them. Feelings are irrelevant. Just keep asking God, and interacting with the person in the simplest ways. Say "hi" and smile when you see them. Say "goodbye" and smile when they or you leave. That is how it begins...REALLY, I'm not joking, it is this simple. The key is to keep asking God to work in and through you to draw them into his family. God may never work through you to actually draw that person into the family. BUT!!! If you keep asking, DRUM ROLL PLEASE!, God will build in you a desperate desire for that person's salvation! How do I know it works that way?? I know because its exactly what happened to me as I prayed for hookers at the soup kitchen where I worked.
After 4 years I was so desperate I had to talk to them, interact with them, hold their hands and pray for them. My eyes were opened to God's great mercy, love, and kindness toward them. All I wanted was for God to save them, so they could stop hurting themselves. I didn't care how awful and sinful other religious people said they were. I simply wanted to see God save them, bring them into the family, and free them so they could have eternal life, and be free from slavery to what they HATED. And what did they HATE, sexual immorality. Oh, yes, at first they did say, "I'm doing it, cause I looooove sex!" But after a while they'd show contempt for men, and say little things about how men "used" them. It was never again about, "I love sex." It was always about men using them. Look, everyone loves sex, but everyone hates being used by other people. So, maybe some hookers did start out for the love of sex, but once they learned "sex" meant a guy "using" their bodies, as a garbage can, love is the last thing they felt.
It is this way with every form of sexual immorality. Lust is the root, and the only thing that can come from lust is "using". I don't have any doubt the first intent for many, maybe most immoral behavior is the pursuit of love or the love of sex. In the end they all find out they are using and being used. Love isn't the point, pursuit, or result. Its easy to overcome the lie of lust the world offers. All Christians have to do is offer what God offers with Jesus Christ, "For God so loved the world he gave his only Son..." Give the love of God, and the world can't hide behind lust for long. Because I asked God for "family", God gave me a heart for family. When I look at LGBT people, church people, prostitute people, and every other "sinner" I want God to make them family. Its impossible for me to condemn someone I want in the family. And when I want what God wants then God finds a way to draw them toward him. Don't ask how it happens, I don't know it just happens. I can't tell you how to do it, but God brought me to his promised, "...and such were some of you..." "I were", but now "I are" in the family of God! This is why I cannot be "such were you". I can only be "such are you" 
Yeah, I've always known the answer, but I wasn't going to tell you. I looked at hookers with condemnation in my thinking and actions, at first. God had to do a work in me to break all of that down. God had to show me that condemnation can't produce anything godly. And then God taught me the true answer to the problem of every kind of sexual immorality...
"FATHER I BEG YOU!! IN THE NAME OF JESUS!! WORK IN AND THROUGH ME TO DRAW THAT PERSON TOWARD YOUR FAMILY! OH! GOD!! I BEG YOU!! GOD PLEASE SAVE AND FREE AND BE MERCIFUL TO THEM!!"
You know that God has given you the taste of his heart, for lost people, when you start balling your eyes out, and blowing snot everywhere, whenever you pray for total strangers. And by "total strangers" I mean people you have looked at in the past and thought, "SINNER!"
So how bout it? Who do you prefer, "Such were you", or "Such are you"??? Go on... You can admit it ...I already know anyway, and so do you!!
I am forever, in Christ, SUCH ARE YOU!!
Lonnie
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