Christian fellowship is a great thing. And family is a great thing too. I am blessed to have good friends, and brothers who are Christ-minded servants. Last night, a missionary friend of mine who had been flying standby was going to have the pleasure of sleeping in the Atlanta airport. There were no plans made for him once he got there, and I couldn't get hold of him while he was on the plane. So, I called up my brothers who live in the Atlanta area, and they drove up to the airport (a good 45 minute to an hour drive), not sure if when they got there he would want to just stay there or come back with them or what...

Well, from the sounds of it, he was happy to sleep in a soft bed, not worrying about someone grabbing his stuff or anything - even if it was on a Lightning McQueen pillow! But, anyway, isn't it great to be a part of a bigger Family? To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved.

Now, if only they can get him out of Atlanta today...

Just a thought...

God's Longsuffering

You know, I've been meditating on God's longusffering. I seem to need to do that a lot! So, I was searching a well-known blog for whatever may have been said about the subject, and I came across this post. Sorry if you've read it before:

One of my personal favorite attributes of God is His longsuffering. If I were God (...hearing the collective sigh of relief that I am not!...), I would not put up with me and the things that I do.

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise [of His return] but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repenntance.

It is true that God does not desire anybody to go to Hell. He does not have pleasure in the death of the wicked. But some of the lost people in the world despise the riches of God's longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God, His patience and forbearance in pouring out His wrath on man, is meant to lead men to repentance (that is my paraphrase of Romans 2:4). Instead they just add wrath on top of wrath, adding more and more sin to their account.

But you know what, we as Christians are guilty of the same thing too often. We experience God's longsuffering when we do something wrong, and because He does not execute judgment right away, we deceive ourselves and think it's ok to get away with it. God's forbearance of judgment against us when we sin ought to be used for us to praise Him for it, rather than use it as a license to go deeper into sin.

1 Timothy 1:16: "...for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering..."

Just a thought...

Link here: http://hindsey.blogspot.com/2007/09/gods-longsuffering.html

Not "Us" and "Them" - Homosexuality part 7

1 Corinthians 10:12  Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.

This is my last planned post regarding the topic of homosexuality in this series. I do believe that this is an important topic to stand up for. If two lost people want to participate in homosexual acts, that is their problem with God. I would expect them to do such a thing, and since it is a sin, I will be against the practice of it - as I am against the practice of any other sin. But, the problem with this issue is that they insist that we recognize the sinful practice as being acceptable. What will happen some day when we say someone can't be a Sunday School teacher because they are openly gay? How will that law suit turn out in just a couple/few years from now? Let's stand up. But on to my thought for today...

Many times, we conservative Christians make a distinction between us and homosexuals. We make it an "us vs them" kind of thing. And, many times we see homosexuality as a disgusting thing that we despise, not just because it is a sin and God hates it, but we think that it is a despicable act and we gladly oppose it. We take the "high road" because it is not a sin with which we struggle, so therefore we can rail on it at will.

(Here's where I'll lose all my friendly readers.) I don't think you Conservative Christian Men really hate homosexuality as much as you say. I think the idea of disgusting relationships with another guy really grosses you out; that's true. But if there are two beautiful women involved... I think the sin all of a sudden isn't as disgusting to us. The temptation is a little different; the sin is the same.

What am I saying? Take heed lest you fall. One of the other things that struck out at me at the Gay Pride Parade this year was the number of heterosexual couples I saw sitting down and enjoying the parade. Why were they there?! I think I know the reason. Romans 1 talks about how when people start ignoring God, and change His glory into corruption like us men, that they then are turned over unto even more vile things. I believe the principle is that everyone is capable of participating in any sin. If lusts are never restrained, then the desires will grow stronger, and will need more to satisfy. At some point, the affection turns to homosexuality. It just becomes a way to, supposedly, satisfy a desire.

Really, Conservative Christian, let's not think that there is anything better in us than there is in the worst of sinners. God's grace working in us makes us whatever good that we are. Someday, we'll have a righteous hatred for sin like we should - when we are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. I can't imagine what that will be like!

Just a thought...

Unanswerable Signs - Homosexulity part 6

At the parade this year (and if you are just joining this series, you may want to look back at the past five posts to catch up) there were some signs that the "church people" marching in the parade were holding. Most of them, I'm sure, were directed towards those of us that were protesting the sin of the parade. These signs... I'm telling you... they were unanswerable! They cut to the heart, and I almost felt that I had to turn around and go home! I'll share them with you in the order I saw them:

"Jesus Is Love" "Jesus Loves Me" "Jesus Loves You" "Stand on the side of Love" - There we go. Right away they got me. I mean, Jesus is love. Since He is so loving, He would never tell someone to stop sinning. I mean, "Go and sin no more" wouldn't be in His vocabulary. He loves people so much that even though their sin will send them to Hell (because of His righteousness), He doesn't want to spoil their good time.
"Open and Welcoming" "If we run from one another, we run from Christ"- This church wanted everyone to know that they were welcome to come to their church. They would NEVER teach a message that if one that is called a brother is living in sin you should not fellowship with them (1 Cor 5:11, Rom 16:17, 2 Thes 3:6). I've said this before in comments, but anyone is welcome to come to my church. But if they can sit there and agree with the message - living in sin - then there's a problem with the message being given.
"Our faith is over 2000 years old. Our Thinking is not!" - Oh, I get it. What God called abomination more than 2000 years ago, is clearly not an abomination anymore. What Paul referred to as error, unnatural, vile, etc in Romans 1 was old thinking. If God were around today, He clearly wouldn't say that homosexuality is a sin anymore. Or, maybe I misunderstand. Maybe it is that if we think the Bible is true, that is the old thinking. Now we can know that what God said 2000 years ago is not true any more.
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - I knew it! God was just speaking to me the other day. He told me that it was alright for me to murder, as long as the victims were stupid. God clearly has added more to His word, so that the things that He hated, He no longer hates. He now likes sins - well, at least certain sins.
"We have Love, Truth and Pride in our pulpit!" "Pride In Our Pulpit" - (...cough... holding in laughter... ) Yeah! Love! We've got it in our pulpit. We love everyone! Truth! Yeah... I mean, truth for today, the way I want to see it! We've got truth - relatively! Pride! Yeah... uh... pride is good! We're proud! God doesn't hate a proud look any more. Pride doesn't come before destruction any more. God would never resist the proud!
"We're putting JESUS back in CHRIST.ianity" - After reading this sign, I kind of think that if God were around today, He would probably be walking in the parade with these people, glorifying this sin. Obviously this sign is enlightening everyone that Jesus had left so-called Christianity (I'm sure they're referring to fundamentalists and others that reject accepting homosexuality). So, here's to fixing all of those that are simply believing God's word. No, no, get away from that. Let's get back to Christ - ignore His word - get back to Him.
"Would Jesus Discriminate" - Seriously, would Jesus hold something against someone just because of what they're doing? I mean, other than that appointed day in which He will judge the world in righteousness (Acts 17:31).
"God loves you for you" - Yeah, God loves me for me. I mean He sent His Son to die for me because I was a good and righteous person. He loved me because my heart was clean. God loves me for me.
"God loves gay's there is no other way!" - Yeah, God doesn't even love heterosexual people!
"Presbyterian by choice, Gay by the grace of God" - This one really is my favorite. Presbyterians are Calvinist in their theology. Therefore any choice that man would make would be a sinful choice because of their totally depraved nature. Any good choice they make would be by the grace of God. Since this sign says Presbyterian by choice, contrasted with being gay by the grace of God, it must be that being Presbyterian was the sinful natural man choice, but being gay was the righteous choice given by the grace of God. I mean, the alternative is that they don't really know the theology of the denomination to which they claim to belong... but that couldn't be. I'm sure they're studied up on theology.
Anyway, just a couple of utterly absurd thoughts...

More Marchers - Homosexuality part 5

Well, carrying on the theme from last week, on the topic of the Gay Pride Parade, I wanted to mention one more group of marchers in the parade. This group showed up, I believe, 3 years ago or so. I could be wrong, but that's my recollection. This group of marchers in the parade are the so-called Christian churches. The ones that I noticed were:
Lake Avenue Baptist Church
Community Christian Church in Chili
First Universalist Church of Rochester
Unitarian Universalist Church of Canandaigua
Open Arms Metropolitan Community Church
Third Presbyterian Church
Downtown United Presbyterian Church
St. Luke & St. Simon Cyrene Episcopal Church

Now, I'd like to start this post by suggesting you read last Wednesday's comments. You can read the post too, if you haven't, but I had an anonymous commenter that went back and forth with me about being hard on the homosexuals and showing no grace. We discussed a little, and I want to clarify (as can be read in the comments too) that when the world participates in homosexuality, they are doing what the world is expected to do. However, when someone takes the name of Christ and insinuates that He is just as happy with somebody living in sin, which homosexuality is, as He is with someone trying to avoid sin, then I have a big problem with it.

You are HYPOCRITES which do such things. You say that God loves them, but fail to teach that God loves them through the Cross. The love of God was manifested by the Cross. The Cross is the punishment for our sin, which Jesus took in my place! You hypocrites go out and say, "God loves you. Your sin does not matter to Him. Jesus really died so that you can go ahead and live however you want, spit in His face, and just continue on in sin." Hypocrites! You teach people that they can live in sin, have no repentance towards it, and that God will take them to Heaven when they die. You are leading people straight to Hell when you teach that they can continue to disobey God and He is ok with it. You are making them twice as much the children of Hell as you are!

You look beautiful on the outside, claiming that God's love will triumph in the end, and you ignore the judgment and holiness of God. You teach people to say that they love God, but when God says, "If you love me, keep my commandments," you ignore it. Or, you teach man's commandments, and present them as being God's. You make God's holy word worthless!

You snakes! You children of the devil! You deceivers! You enemies of righteousness! Stop perverting the right ways of the Lord!

Philippians 3:17 Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. 18 (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: 19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)

Let me say one more time. When the lost world does its sin, that is what I expect them to do. They don't have the Holy Spirit to guide them. They are limited to their own selves to try to run their lives. Their flesh, like mine, is far too weak to do what is good. But when a pastor of a congregation of people, a congregation that calls itself a Chrisitan church, says that homosexuality is not a sin. When he or she says that God's word does not mean what it says (abomination, unnatural, error, vile), then he or she is the enemy of the cross of Christ. I will not stand with that person. I will not welcome them to teach or preach wherever I am.

Additional reading for this post: Matthew 23, Acts 13:10, Mark 7:13

Just a Thought...