47 YEAR OLD AND A BIKE

I Raced A Chipmunk...

And The Chipmunk Won!!!

I aired up my tires and hit the road this morning about 6:30.  The sun was just coming up, so it was cool and still.   I love riding in the morning.  Pollen counts are also down in the early morning.  I'm still suffering with my allergies, but I'm going to suffer anyway, so I'm going to ride.  I'm at the point now I get very disappointed if I miss my morning ride.  I crank up praise and worship music on my iPod, and ride like the wind!  Okay, maybe not like the wind.

Okay, maybe not even as fast as a slow puff of air from an old man with bad emphysema.  This morning not one, not two, but three chipmunks crossed the path of my speeding bicycle.  I was relieved when the first one made it by, but only by a hairs breadth.  When the second one crossed me, I was beginning to feel my age.  Still I was glad number two didn't get mangled in my spokes.  Number three, well number three was a little more interesting.  Number three didn't simply cross in front of my speeding bicycle he started across a little late.  Number three's trajectory was at an angle, but because he started running by the time my front wheel had already passed him, he had to run very hard to clear the front of my bike.  He did outrun my bike, but came the closest to death by a fat bald man on big silver bike.  I raced a chipmunk for a few feet, and the chipmunk won!  Denied the checkered flag by a rodent half the length of my own foot!!  I know how Charley Brown feels when he goes to kick the football and Lucy pulls it away!!!  OH THE AGONY OF DEFEAT!!!

There actually was a fourth chipmunk, but chipmunk number four started to cross in front of me, but jumped back into a sitting position until I passed.  Number four is the SMART chipmunk.  I tell you number four would have been road kill if he'd crossed me!  Three strikes and your out sucker!!  I intimidated and dominated number four!  Man and bike win the final engagement with little, furry, and so cute you wanna puke!!  That's right little dude, you don't want to mess with a man wearing shorts so tight he can sing a high C above C!!  It will not go well for you number four!!

OH THE AGONY!!

 

WHAT THE BOY WHO NAMES HIMSELF "ABLE" OUGHTA KNOW...

I was having coffee with my best friend this morning, and Al came up in conversation.  Al is a wonderful young man we both got to know when my best friend was youth pastor at the church we all attended.  Al like so many in the Church today struggles with his ability to be a Christian.  Al's newest idea is to rename himself "Able".   We're not talking about naming himself after the son of Adam and Eve who is murdered by his brother Cain.  

Al has taken the name Able, because, "its what he's always struggled with..."  So now Al is "Able".   This accursed thinking is perhaps the worst pile of poisonous teaching the Church has ever been fed.

   

We've been fed this nonsense that Christianity is God's plan for human self-improvement.   "If I just read the Bible, go to Church and Bible study enough then eventually I will change."  Its as if we get a box of "Holy Spirit Power Bars" or a "Holy Spirit Cleaning Kit" when God makes us born again, and we're expected to "fix" or "clean" ourselves up.   Sorry kids the Bible isn't a Holy Spirit inspired "self-help" program.  God doesn't want to fix up the broken you.  God wants to absolutely abolish you and me.  Why else would Jesus say,

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.  Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.  You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘Youmust be born again.’   The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” 

~ John 3:5-8

Notice please the last sentence, "So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."  The word "Spirit" is capitalized.  Jesus says we must be born of the Holy Spirit.  So if Al is born of God then how does he somehow become able??  Again what does the Bible teach about "able"?

 

"Therefore he [Jesus] is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them."

~ Hebrews 7:25

Gee it seems to me that Jesus believes he is "Able".  And he is able to save to the uttermost; completely; from start to finish.  If Jesus is able to do the work from beginning to end then ALL  the work of salvation is his to do.  If Jesus does 100% of the work of salvation, then what part of the work is left for us???  We are also told in 1 John 5:4,

..."for everyone born of God overcomes the world."

God thinks it is his "able" that makes us overcome the world, not our "able" with a Holy self-help or 12 step program.  This is what so many in the Church do.  Christians can't change themselves so instead they begin a program of sin management.   "Hi my name is Al and I'm an alcoholic; I'm a homosexual; I'm a wife beater," and etc., ad nausea.   God's plan is to make us born again, and then enable us to put off the old sin nature.  And how do we know this is God's real plan?...ha ha ha, cause he tells us, that's why.

 

"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;"

~ Ephesians 4:22

Well, there we have it, "Take off the old self..."  We get a picture of our sin nature as a garment.  I don't know if you've ever seen one of those really old top coats men used to wear decades ago.     See how the old coat is filled with our sinful ways.  All too many Christians think they get a "Holy Spirit cleaning kit", and if they simply pour on enough Holy Spirit "Comet Cleaner", or Holy Spirit "Shout Stain Remover" the stains will eventually come out of the old self.  So there they stand working away at the sin stains in their old self "overcoat".  All the while, Jesus is dousing the old self with gasoline.  Jesus, after covering the old self "overcoat" with gasoline, stands waiting with a match.  Just as soon as we take it off he's ready to burn it up.   Jesus is "Able", we are "Un-Able".  If you want to please God then put off the old sin nature.  Stop trying to clean up what God wants destroyed.  Accept God's power to make you born again, and throw away the old self "overcoat".  Stop trying to save what God himself won't even try to save.   Better to simply give up than blasphemously calling yourself "Able".  Are you God?  Has Father hung you on a cross to pay for the sins of the world??  If you are not Jesus then don't dare usurp what can only belong to Jesus.  Only Jesus is "able" to save to the uttermost.  We have God's word on the matter.

Blessings,

Lonnie

PCUSA TO BEGIN ORDAINING SEXUALLY ACTIVE LGBT PRIESTS

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

THE 47 YEAR OLD AND A BIKE...

Sticks And Stones CAN Break My Bones!!

 

This is my work week (I work 7 days straight and then have the next week off), so I ride every morning after I get home from work.  During my work week my I ride the same route.  My intent is to exercise and build stamina.  Then on my week off I can take more time and take longer rides.  This morning as I was riding along I saw sticks, chuckholes, and BEARS! OH MY!  Okay, not bears, but definitely sticks, limbs, rocks, chuckholes, broken pavement, huge gaping chasms...er...sorry my hyperbolic gland is acting up today.

Anyway I couldn't believe the size, variety, and placement of all the dangerous debris littering my entire path.  "How, as a kid, did I ever make it through so many hazards??"  Then I thought, "Huh, as a kid you weren't as worried about the stuff in the road."  As long as my tire didn't pop, it didn't matter too me.  Yeah, I was thrown a couple of times as a kid.  Bumps and bruises at 7 or 17 aren't what bumps and bruises are when you're 47.   

The bike I own, while not the most expensive, is still a fairly good sized investment.  My hide and its health are an even more sizable investment.  So sticks and stones could break my bones, and that's not coming from my hyperbolic gland.  I did hit a few but managed to dodge the big ones.  

My point is this:  As a kid on my bike was one of the few place I felt free and in control.  All I had to do was outrun one chasing dog and a couple of bullies to feel almost invincible.  On my bike I didn't "lose the forest for the tree."  Today I was focused on the bits of trees, and road, and doggy doo.  I don't want my adult bike experience to become a shadow of its former self.  

I'm not worried.  I simply want to be aware and guard against worry coming in and taking over.

Lonnie      

47 YEAR OLD AND A BIKE

Breathing

I was having problems with my ears aching long after riding.  I thought it was the sound of the wind rushing by.  Then I remembered from high school weight lifting, "breath in through your nose, and out through your mouth."  I started doing that and no more problems with the ears.  

The lousy weather has been keeping me from riding.  But this week I've got some promising days, or at the very least brief periods of rain.  I'm back in the saddle again and loving it.  After I build up some stamina, I'm planning on adding some exercises for my upper body.  I was thinking of swimming.  

Any ideas for upper body exercise would be appreciated.   I only ask that it not merely be "weight training".  I'll likely add some of that eventually, but honestly its so boring.  What I want are some more fun ways of exercising, so it keeps my interest.  I can't simply jog, or walk, or lift weights.  I'd be bored to tears.  I've always loved bike riding, so it was kind of a no brainer, once I  gave it thought.  

So let me in on the fun exercise low down; gimme the skinny on interesting way to work the old bod; slip me the 411 on some radical work'em outs...

Lonnie 

MY FORD EXPLORER IS DEAD

R.I.P.  Booger Green Beast

I knew there was something wrong with my front end.  I was doing a lot of bouncing.  I thought time for some shocks and I'll be good for another 80,000 miles.  I'd planned to drive the wheels off the thing.  Well, actually I almost did.  I drove the entire front end off it.  I was actually afraid I had a bigger problem, when I nearly lost complete control during a recent rain storm.   I was still telling myself the old girl just needed shocks when I took her in.  They even quoted me a price on them, and I told them to go ahead, relieved I was wrong about something worse.  Then the guys doing the work called, and said, upon closer inspection, the whole front end needed to be replaced, plus new shocks.  The total for everything would be about $2,000.   My old gas guzzling Explorer wasn't worth the money to fix her up.  So I went and got this:   A 2011 Ford Fusion.   I'll miss my beautiful V8, since I got the 4 cylinder version of the car.  33mpg is oh so much sweeter than 15mpg. 

I didn't have a great deal of time to think, but I did a lot of praying.  I couldn't wait, the old sled wasn't safe to drive anymore, and I needed another car to get to work on Sunday night.  So I stayed open to God's leading, and believe I got what I needed.    

LET THE DEAD BURY THEIR DEAD

When I read a post titled "Zombie Jesus Day Misses The Point" (click on the title to view the post), I thought, "Well, yeah, the world does miss the point."   How could the world not miss the point of Jesus?  If the world knew Jesus they could never have come up with Jesus and zombie in the same thought.   If the world didn't miss the point about Jesus they would be Christians.  Actually those who thought up Zombie Jesus Day just got it backwards.  Jesus is a live, the peoples of the world would be the zombies, from God's perspective anyway.   Before Father God drew me to his Son, and the Holy Spirit convicted me of sin, righteousness and the coming judgment I didn't, honestly, know I was dead.  I always knew something was wrong; something was missing.   Until God filled in the blanks for me I simply had no idea.

This post isn't about Zombie Jesus Day.  This post is about the world and Christ's kingdom.  Just after 11:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, May 1, 2011, we learned that Osama bin Laden has been killed.  "SCORE 1 FOR THE GOOD GUYS!!" Right?  Yes, certainly, for Americans the death of bin Laden is the long awaited vengeance for the 9/11 attacks on American soil.  So the American Government got their bad guy.   That is fine for Americans.  I am a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, born of God's own Spirit; new born a citizen of Christ's kingdoms.

 

As a citizen of the kingdom of God I sat here and wept.  Another beloved soul has escaped Christ's gift of eternal life of freedom from the penalty and rule of sin, and eternal joy in the presence of God.   I wept, because the Father touched my heart with a little insight of how he sees things.  Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem, not because they would kill him, but because the people of "His" city were not willing to be his.  I wept for bin Laden, because he was not willing to be Christ's.

 

Did the government of the United States do what it should do?  Sure, they sought out and killed an enemy which had killed American citizens, on American soil, who had not attacked bin Laden or his people.  This is what governments in the world do.  What is that to me?  I am a citizen of God's kingdom.  King Jesus doesn't behave in any way shape, form, or fashion, the way the rulers of the kingdoms of the world work.  My stance on the behaviors and practices of the world and its kingdoms, is exactly that of Jesus..."Let the dead bury their dead."   Jesus Christ has made me eternally alive in himself.   I am no longer "the dead", Jesus is addressing.  God has created a new eternal spirit in me, and calls me to be seated with Christ in heaven.  Just as God gave Jesus to the world as a love offering, so now God gives Jesus in and through me as a love offering.  What is it too me if one zombie attacks another zombie?  (I'm speaking figuratively here, just so you understand).  What do I have to do with what the dead do to the dead?   Who am I to judge the dead and what they do to the dead?   We are told this very thing by the Holy Spirit through our dear brother and apostle Paul.

 

"What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside."

~1 Corinthians 5:12-13

And of course my Lord and savior, Jesus of Nazareth, said it this way, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead." ~Matthew 18:22.  The living don't trouble themselves with the burial of the dead.  The dead and buried are beyond the salvation of Jesus.  They are judged by God.  My judgment of the walking dead is "Come to Jesus you who are worn out and beat to death.  Jesus will give you rest and life.  Here now, take Jesus' ways and works.  You will find rest, life, and strength in working with Christ in his work." (The Bad Penny paraphrase of Matthew 11:28-30).   Jesus says, "I have come to give you life, and life eternally."   I am a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.  I don't bury the dead, God through his Eternal Spirit in me, drags their rotten carcasses to Jesus (God's Anti-Zombie) so he may, hopefully, draw them out of death into eternal life.   The kingdoms of this world will do what kingdoms have always done, "The dead burying their dead."   I don't have a judgment, that belongs to my Father.  I have a commandment from my king, Lord, savior, and beloved brother, Jesus, "GO! And bring in the dead to me!   QUICK NOW, BEFORE THEY CAN BURY ANY MORE!!"   

Those are my thoughts on this matter.

Would you please share your thoughts, on the matter, or better yet, would you pray and ask God's thoughts on this matter?! Then share something with us.

Lonnie