God is not dead, nor doth He Sleep

The year was 1863, the American Civil War was raging, his son had been wounded, and the ringing church Christmas bells seemed to be mocking the whole scene. In the midst of the darkness of that hour, Henry W. Longfellow picked up his pen and felt the need to write immortal words. He wrote:

I heard the bells on Christmas day

Their old familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet the words repeat

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along the unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head:

"There is no peace on earth," I said,

"For had is strong, and mocks the song,

Of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep;

"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,

With peace on earth, good will to men."

Till ringing, singing on its way

The world revolved from night to day

A voice, a chime, a chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good will to men!

In the Book of Revelation we are told of an anti-G0d spiritual system that has been and continues to be responsible for evil in this world. And we are forced to acknowledge that there is no peace on earth. Like Longfellow, we bow our heads in despair at what we see - poverty, hatred, corruption, violence, drugs, immorality, godlessness... - but like Longfellow, we need not keep our heads bowed. He reminded us that "God is not dead: nor doth He sleep; The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, With peace on earth, good will to men." And that was the message given to the apostle John. And in that same message we find courage for the day and a song for the night. If you read through the Book of Revelation we are told that:

• The harlot is not going to win (chapters 17,18)


• The Antichrist and False Prophet are not going to win (chapter 19)


• Satan is not going to win (chapter 20)


• There will be a new heaven and a new earth (chapters 21,22)

God will be with us, and there will be no tears, no death, no sorrow, no crying, and no pain. Only believers are going to win.

At Christ's coming the world is going to revolve from night to day.

The Lord Jesus Christ is coming soon.

Every believer should take note and live accordingly, not asleep, but fully alert, for unlike past generations, the fulfillment of prophetic ingredients required for the second coming are today's headlines!

God's love for sinners

Let’s always remember the fact that homosexuals, like all of us sinners, are the objects of God's love. The Bible says, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Jesus Christ "is the atoning sacrifice for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (I John 2:2). The Christian who shares God's love for lost sinners will seek to reach the homosexual with the gospel of Christ, which "is the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believes" (Romans 1:16).

As a Christian I should hate all sin but I can find no justification for hating any sinner. The homosexual is a precious soul for whom Christ died. We Christians can show him the best way of life by pointing him to Christ. Our Lord said, "Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). We are obligated to take the good news of the gospel to all. Let us continue to seek God for wisdom in doing so.

Why is it so hard to get the Lost to see the Love of God?

In Romans 1:29 – 31, Paul reveals the reason it is so hard for sinners to accept God’s love, their hard-heartedness toward God:
Such is the spiritual state of so many in our world today.

I’ll take a moment to address something which may come up… You may have noticed that many scriptures deal with homosexual actions. We are ALL born inclined toward sin; to lie and to steal, to be self-centered and selfish, to hate and to covet. We must not do these thing. It’s no mystery why such things are so much easier than love and respect or why people so often emphasize that relationships are such “hard work.”

Let’s face it: Sin is easy.
For those sinning sexually, is it easier for them to just act on their impulses? Excluding pressure from society, yeah, it’s going to be easier for a homosexual to live out his desires then to say, “No”. The same, of course, goes for heterosexual men and women. ((It is also no mystery why so few people marry as virgins these days.))

In Ephesians 2:3, Paul says that we are all “by nature children of wrath,” and he even ties that right to living “in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.”
God demands chastity, and He has prohibitions against fornication (sexual actions outside of marriage, and don’t fool yourself into thinking this only applies to inter-course).

Sexuality, as is made clear throughout the Scriptures, is only acceptable to God within the bonds of marriage. And marriage, as defined by creation (Adam and Eve), is something which only exists between a man and a woman. What this means is that a homosexual person is forbidden by Scriptures to both engage in sexuality outside of marriage and to marry. Given the severity with which homosexuality is treated in the Scriptures, I hope you can see just how lost our society is becoming as homosexuality (and/or bisexuality) not only becomes ever more en vogue but as marriage is redefined to include gay unions as "true marriage".

So what is a homosexual to do, then, if they cannot live out the desires they feel within, whether he or she believes they were born with them or whether they developed later in life?
They must do the same thing the liar, the murder, the hateful, the idolater, the sexually immoral, and the drunkard must do:
Repent, turn away from sin and turn to God.
They must repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand, and they will encounter the King as a merciful Savior and Redeemer.

God is more than able to give homosexuals a new nature, to remove from them the unnatural affections and to replace them with godly desires. He is able to give them strength to resist temptations.

I’m not saying the process will be easy; indeed, everyone from myself to the great apostle Paul struggles with sin, even after having experienced transforming grace. No one’s saying the termination of homosexual inclinations will be immediate.
Perhaps you’ll be able to refrain from ever again acting upon homosexual tendencies, but the tendencies will still be there. Then the goal is to refrain from acting, to refrain from even lusting after another person (whether of the same sex or different, actually), lest you commit adultery in your heart.

While it may not seem right, or fair, to have the feelings and be forbidden to act upon them, all I can offer is that the eternal reward for obedience is unbelievably worth it.

Cravings

When you are hungry have you ever gone to the refrigerator, opened the door and just stared. Nothing seemed appetizing. Nothing grabbed you as the thing that would satisfy your cravings. Sometimes we just don't know what we want.

We usually know when we are hungry, but we don't always know what it is that will really satisfy. This is true in our souls cravings as well, I believe. We haven't taken the time to gain an understanding of that which truly fulfills us. Appetites, cravings, likes and dislikes develop over time for different reasons.

When I was 8 years old, I had a birthday party with friends. My parents bought pizza for all the boys and we went bowling. The thing I remember the most about that birthday is that I threw up that pizza. And do you know I didn't eat pizza for years afterwards. Even today, a plain cheese pizza can be a thing of fear. Why? Because I associate it with being sick on my birthday! I never crave cheese pizza. My appetite was shaped by that one fateful day. I have a clear memory about why I don't like pizza, but each of us has hundreds of other appetites and cravings that we don't have any idea how they got shaped.

Our parents, our cultures, our exposures, our experiences, all take a part in shaping our likes and dislikes. But is that it? Are we just products of our environments? Or are we created to be a certain way? Are we born a certain way and there is nothing we can do to change that?
We live in an age where individual preference and choice reign supreme! Individualism seems to be celebrated at every turn. By marketing products with the prefex i, Apple has made themselves rich! The iPhone, iPod, iMac, iPad, will be found on most family Christmas lists for one individual or another. Let's not forget though, that if we wish to live a fulfilling, meaningful life, the quality of our relationships matters more than our standard of living and what new gadget we possess.

What is it that we really crave? I believe that we long to be loved and to love. Dale S. Kuehne, in his book, Sex and the iWorld, says, " Without being connected to the love God has for us, we cannot properly love others, we cannot be who we were created to be, and we become other than who we are meant to be. Our life becomes the quest to fill the hole in our heart. We often try to fill it by allowing our appetites to guide us. We gorge ourselves with food, sex, alcohol, and drugs, but none provide more than a fleeting gratification. We also try to fill the hole with work and the accumulation of things, but that doesn't work either. We grow bored and unfulfilled with each of these because none of them can satisfy our deepest longings. We have a sense that there ought to be more, but we cannot seem to find it no matter what we try."
So, are you connected to the love God has for you? Do you crave, or hunger after Him? Do you even understand your cravings? Do they lead you toward or away from the Love of God? Take some time and really think about these things today. You might be surprised at the answers you discover.

Is Love All we need?

Is love the final standard for right and wrong?

There are those who believe that any loving relationship between two consenting adults is enough to make it right in God's eyes. However, I believe that God's Word teaches that love between two men or two women is not enough to justify a homosexual relationship. Why do I believe this way? Well, first, the Bible actually teaches us that Love is not enough. Love can easily interfere with God's plan for an individual. In the Old Testament we can see that God actually asks a father to be willing to make a sacrifice of the son he loved deeply. Abraham and Isaac's dramatic testing on Mt. Moriah, found in Genesis chapter 22, illustrates an important point. Love, for anyone, no matter how legitimate the relationship, becomes sin when it surpasses our love for God.

Also, we can see that in the New Testament, Jesus warns His followers about this same issue. In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 14:26&33, Jesus speaks very bluntly about loving relationships getting in the way for those who want to follow after Him and be His disciple. "If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father, and mother and wife and children and brother and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."..."So, therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple."

Love is not enough to justify a relationship. A married man can fall deeply in love with a woman other than his wife; that will never justify adultery. Likewise, love between two men or women cannot justify a homosexual relationship. Sex is a glorious gift from God - meant to be offered back to Him either in heterosexual marriage, for procreation, union and mutual delight or in celibacy for undivided devotion to Christ. It is a given that all 1st century orthodox Jews would have held to this same standard. Why? Because they lived guided by God's Word, the Scriptures.

People who justify homosexuality because Jesus said nothing directly about homosexuality in the gospels are using a misleading and illogical argument because Scripture teaches us that Jesus kept all the Law and affirmed all the Law and the Prophets teachings (Matt. 5:17-19). Undoubtedly, this would have included the affirmation of committed, monogamous male-female marriage and an unwavering condemnation of homosexual behavior.

After all, Jesus is the one who quotes from the book of Genesis when He says in Matthew 19 that, "Have you not read that He who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? so they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate."

How have we gotten so far off course in our culture, and now in many churches?
Read Romans 1:24-32 for a complete explanation.

I will not be posting a blog next Monday as I am taking a break, I will return the following week to continue to look more closely at the Word of God and how it can clear up much of the confusion around us if we read it and apply it to our everyday lives.

All Have Sinned...

I believe that Jesus did not come to condemn anyone, but to redeem and free any particular form of bondage in which people find themselves. I would echo the Biblical message of compassion, forgiveness and redemption for individuals, but believe that, as a Christian, I must stand firm in moral opposition to anything that legitimizes sin and instructs children and youth in behavior that is unbiblical and harmful. However, let me say that, I also stand firm against any form of evil; including prejudice, bigotry, and violence.

My message here is to try to effectively communicate a message of liberation from sin, all sins, including sexual sins, and to convey support and understanding for those facing the reality of the power of sin to hold them in it's grip. Homosexual tendencies are just one of many disorders that Christ offers to heal. Redemption for all who have sinned is the process by which sin's power is broken, and the individual is freed to know and experience true identity as discovered in Christ, His Word and His Church.

When I was a kid I experienced a few broken bones. One broken arm comes to mind when I think about the process of healing. That day my father faithfully drove me to the hospital to get it fixed and because of the kind of break I had, before any healing could take place, some major correction must be made! My father firmly held my upper arm and the doctor grabbed my wrist and they both PULLED!!! The result was good, but the pain was NOT! The broken bone was set, a cast was applied and the miracle of healing could begin. Those two men were committed to my health and growth, NOT my comfort. If they had not intervened, I would have been handicapped for life.
I believe God is committed to our health and growth too, not our comfort. Just because it would feel better not to have to talk about sexual sins, doesn't mean we shouldn't. God's Word is full of very blunt statements which we should hear, absorb and allow to make us healthy and whole. It is my hope that this blog may help to equip you to carry out this healing partnership with the Great Physician, Jesus Christ.

Read the following Scriptures and ask the Spirit of God to grant you His wisdom:
1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Romans 12:2; Galatians 5:16-25; 1 Peter 2:24; Romans 15:1-2; Galatians 6:1-2; Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26-27.

Thank God that He is available to transform the life of all persons, including you and me!

What is Sin anyway?

I thought I should share this amazing quote with you, just so you can ponder it with me as we proceed with this blogging.

The question that is often posed about same-sex-attractions is, "Is it a sin?"
The answer to that is so well defined by what Bill Johnson wrote:

IS THIS A SIN?
"It's easy to latch onto a rating system or some set of rules that will make it clear what we will and won't do as a Christian. But no rating system can replace a heart that wants to please God. If we're to honor God with our choices, we must be willing to carefully scrutinize and evaluate how what we do attests to our love for and obedience to God. We must be willing to wrestle with our standards and often refuse to engage in behaviors that others think is permissible, if not God's permissive will.

When he was in college, the famous evangelist John Wesley wrote a letter to his mother asking her to give him a clear description of sin. Sounds like he wanted a list of do's and don'ts. But Mrs. Wesley didn't give John what he wanted. She gave him something much better.

In response, she wrote:
"Take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may seem to be in itself. It doesn't matter how others feel about it; or how popular it is, or how seemingly innocent it appears. If it hardens your heart toward God, if it obscures your awareness of the ugliness of sin and the holiness of God, if it takes the edge off your spiritual hunger, then it's sin."(Taken from "Not Even a Hint: Guarding your heart against lust," by Joshua Harris, Multnomah, 2003).

Amazing wisdom shared from mother to son. What do you think about it?

Honestly, I am so humbled by it, it makes me want to get real still and listen to the Spirit of God as He gently, yet truthfully, searches over my soul. It's kind of like going to the skin doctor to see if there are any irregular freckles. You hope the doctor doesn't find any, but if he does you let him cut them right out of your hide! And you are really glad he saved you from the horrors ahead if it was left un-checked and grew into cancer and killed you.

Sorry for the word picture, but sometimes that's what it takes for me to grasp a deep concept.

Confusion in the Church

Thirty years ago, the pro-gay viewpoint was embraced only in a few isolated congregations. Since then, however, many denominations have changed their traditional viewpoint on the subject of homosexuality. In a table discussion recently at my church, we were challenged to pray for one another because each of us is facing a culture which is increasingly pro-gay. So, I thought I would begin blogging about this in an attempt to provide a Biblical response.

There have been several trends over the past 100 years which made today's debate over homosexuality inevitable. During the twentieth century, a growing number of churches began to drift away from the traditional view of the Word of God. The Bible's ideas were increasingly seen as dated and no longer applicable to our time and culture.

An individuals personal experiences rose to a higher place of authority than the Scriptures. What modern science said, or what my own experiences told me, became the most important criteria on which to evaluate moral issues.

Laying a foundation: In today's debate within the church, arguments about homosexuality usually center around a few isolated biblical verses. Often overlooked is the foundational teaching on human sexuality, as presented in the first chapter of Genesis: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Gen. 1:27). Immediately after their creation, God commanded Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and increase in number" by means of sexual procreation (v. 28).

The Word of God reveals that any alteration of this pattern is a distortion of God's original plan. When sex occurs between men and women without a lifelong comitment (fornacation or adultery), or between two men or two women (homosexual "marriage"), or one man and multiple "wives" (polygamy), these acts are outside of God's perfect plan (His will).

It takes Faith:Anyone who is willing to base their life on Faith in God, not on feelings, knows that our faith will be tested; temptations, trials, and tribulations will come.It all comes down to WHO you will trust. Hebrews 11 tells us; "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old received divine approval. By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear".

I look at it this way, if God made it, it's His. He owns it. Since He owns it, He gets to make the rules. If I am willing to accept His authority as my God, I am willing to let His word be the guide for my life. I know that my feelings, one way or another, could really get me confused. After all, sometimes I feel a certain way because I didn't get enough sleep, or have had too much caffine, or got cut off in traffic,...you get the drift. So, which do you choose to live by...If it feels good, do it...or...Do you think God has a right to make rules about our lives?

I'll be on this topic for a while I think...you might want to read about the "born that way" theory in this article