Gays and Jesus - A Different Christian View Point

Back when AIDs was still a plague that was killing all it touched, I was wrapped up in trying to learn how to deal with my own issues brought on by my still existent TBI, and what was said about AIDs didn't effect me, and was not part of my world.  After all, I have always been heterosexual and I am still married to the same awesome women I married in 1979.

Not my monkeys, not my circus, so to speak.

Then my wife and daughter took me to see Rent right off Broadway in New York City.

I have learned much since then about my own prejudice, institutional prejudice, societal pressure, about my own discernment of the scriptural text and most importantly what the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of God, wants me to do and understand.

All of that, however, was not enough for me to write this blog entry, until my recent family trip to watch my nephew receive his baccalaureate from the University of Oregon in biology.

Caveat Lector - The Truth Shall Set you Free, but it will Hurt.

We arrived in Eugene Oregon at 6:30 in the morning and went straight to bed, after 12 hours of traveling.  When we woke up, this was the view from the porch.  Pretty awesome that the home my sister had rented was in such a fantastic setting.

It was a Sunday early afternoon, and we were in a house with 5 females and 12 males, all pretty much relaxing all over the place.  The numbers of people would also fluctuate radically during the day, as friends of the family and the graduate came by to enjoy the company and the celebration of my nephew's accomplishment.  It was, even for me, a paranoid anti social person due to TBI, a joyous time.

We went shopping as a team, went to Starbucks as a team, came home and cooked and ate as a team, or at least what passes for a team in the Northwest, where personal freedom of action is not just a nice concept, but a reality of every day life.

After dinner, it started to get cold, so the groups got tighter and the fire on the porch was ignited. As it turns out, one of the genes from my nephew's other side of the family was music, so many of the people there were musicians. And then, most of the older attendees, and by older I mean old enough to remember JFK, rather than remember who he was, were sitting around the fire swapping stories of my sisters' (Both of my sisters live in the northwest and were there) and my life, since none of them had ever met me (the friends that is - I knew my sisters).

Off hand, one of them said, "I would have died from aids way back then if Robin had not been there."

Alarm bells rang in my head, but not at first from the "I would have died" part, but from the AIDs part.  That meant that they were probably gay.  Wait a minute,  I was already informed that they were gay, and was taking a low profile on my faith, because the gay community, as a rule, pretty much distrusts Conservative White Christians.  Me.  They distrust me I thought, so I avoided any apologetics for the first day of our trip.

Yet, even so, it had not really occurred to me that people I knew actually had AIDS.  

I stupidly said, as it sank in, "Then you must have seen many of your friends die?"  I meant it as sensitive, and fortunately they took it that way, but in retrospect, it was loss of impulse control, as the real fact that these were gay men, looking around, most of them were gay men, that had AIDs.

I then heard stories of just how my sister had "saved" them, and it was those stories that prompted this video.

I heard story after story of personal encounters with who I know as God, but they called "Higher Being" or "Spiritual Encounter."  Everything they said was in line with scripture and had the feel of genuine encounter with the Spirit of God.

Everything they were told in their encounters showed the Love of the Lord.

This did not confuse me because of the assumption that they were an abomination, according to a tight and blind reading of the scripture, but it did confuse me because of the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives, as they did not profess to know Jesus.  To be sure, I was jealous.  

But, the Power of the Love of the Lord overwhelmed me non the less.  I have felt this a couple of times in my life. At Church on Christmas Day a few years ago; when my daughter accepted the Lord, though at the time I had not; when I was baptised for the 3rd time; When I decided to give up on using TBI as a crutch and a few times when my wife ran "Run to Homebase" for others with TBI. I'm prone to emotional events, but these events were not emotional but rather total life altering extra vision, on your knees noticing the Power of God spiritual. I recognize the Spirit of the Lord when it moves now, and this was one of those events.

Suddenly I saw God working in these people, and in one of their encounters with the Holy Spirit, God told them they "were ok, just they way they were."

I could give you dozens of reason why many read the "clobber" phrases in the bible as a condemnation of homosexuality, but I won't.  That's the wisdom of man, rather than the wisdom of God.  I will just say this.  Love the Lord your God and Love your neighbor as your self.  Love is an action, and it does not have condemnation or judgement in it.  Condemnation is God's job, not ours. We are called to the Gospel of Jesus, the Christ.  That is Love in spite of Sin, to obliterate condemnation.  Do that. Just Love people.

Be the Little Christ that Christian means, rather than the little demon in other people's lives.

So I crossed the line that day.  Before Monday June 15, 2015, I supported Gay Rights, because I "thought" and my biblical research supported Gay Rights.  I had long ago stopped saying "life style choice," because I am a physicist, and science has shown without doubt it is not choice.  Just like it has shown that the earth is not the center of creation and that African Americans are NOT inferior to anyone.  All of these bigoted choices have at one time or the other been supported through selective and gymnastic interruptions of the Bible. I had already crossed that line, but on Monday, I crossed another line.  I felt that I had been called to stop living in the shadows, performing random acts of love. I had been called to make a stand.

This scarred the heck out of me. I had not idea what I could do, or what would happen.

Then the rest of the story happened. Anne and I spent the rest of the week at my sister Robin's house in Seattle Washington. I told her what some of her friends had said about her work with them.

She then told me a little more about what she had done in the last few decades.  She called the early years of HIV a plague, and if you remember, 100% of those with HIV were supposed to die, and most actually did.  She and her colleagues created a group, I believe it was Team Quest, in Portland Oregon, and it's purpose was to create protocols that would keep the gay community with HIV alive, against all odds, until medication was invented that would keep them alive.  Fortunately, that day has come, which was also news to me.  However, keeping people alive against a virus that is 100% fatal seems like a fools quest.  It was not.  They not only keep people alive, but they are one of the primary reasons that people are not afraid to be tested for HIV in the northwest.  They provided the love, the care, the concern and the counselling that was necessary and never before done for a community that was being obliterated by a plague and shunned by the people of God.  They became God's hands. The were Love.  There is far more to the extent to which Robin personally went, but this is enough to see the Love.  Love is sacrifice, and it only come from God.

So, this is my call.  To bring God, though Love, to this community.  They already are more spiritual than I.  Many have talked directly to God. But our bigotry, our hate, our fear has caused them to turn for the Lord, and approach him from a different angle.  How can we let that stand.  Salvation and Love is the gift of God to all people, and we are called to be bring the gospel of Love and Forgiveness, not the gospel of Hate.  Examine what you believe, about the gay community, then ask yourself, what would Jesus do.  I can't see him with posters saying he hated gays.  I can't see him trying to get the Romans to execute, disenfranchise and destroy them.  I can't see him not selling them cake.

I can see him walking into their community, as he did with leapers, who were believe to be sinners in their time, and Loving them, touching them, feeding them.

We have been playing for the other team.  Stop it.  Be Gods light, not the darkness.

What's So Good About It?

What's So Good About Good Friday?

My whole life I have wondered about that. recently, since my acceptance of my salvation, I have accepted the generally given explanation with an ill feeling of incompleteness.

I was told that it was called Good Friday because when Jesus died, all of our sins were forgiven. 

1 John 1:7 (NIV) "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

That is indeed good.  So I bought in, and I taught it, yet it was never really a good explanation for me.  The other side of the equation always stuck in my throat.  What about who killed him.  in Acts 4:25 (NIV) we read, "You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: ‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed one.' Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen."

Pretty clear here that Paul wants us to see that it was not the Romans, the Jewish people, or even the Jewish leaders that were the reason that Jesus died, but rather, it was the will of God that his son should be sacrificed.  And why is that?  Because of my sins.  God is both Good and Just, so we can not be in communion with the father, unless a sacrifice is made, and this was the sacrifice.  

We were the hammer that drove the nails into the flesh of the living son of God.  We killed him.  I killed him.

What's so good about that?

So I kept looking for the reason.  Then it hit me when I was reading Jesus Did It Anyway, The Paradoxical Commandments for Christians by Kent M. Keith.

And there it was.  The name Good Friday has nothing to do with what we did to Jesus, but rather what Jesus did, as we were nailing him to the cross.

Look at what we did to him first:

1) We stripped him, and put a scarlet robe on him, so we could mock the king,
2) We spit on him,
3) We beat him,
4) We nailed him to the cross.
Matthew 27:27-31 (ESV) "Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters,and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him."
This was his response, while this was all happening:

1) He asked God to forgive those who were killing him,
2) He Hooked up his family and friends to take care of each other,
3) He told a criminal next to him, who showed faith and asked for forgiveness that he was going to heaven that very night
John 19:26-27 (ESV) "When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

Luke 23:42-43 (ESV) And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Luke 23:34 And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments.

That's whats Good about Good Friday.  We have a game plan, a map, and template for what we are to do to and for each other when it hits the fan, and the fan breaks.  Love each other anyway.  Just like Jesus did for us, as we used the hammer to kill him.  He loved us anyway.  We love them anyway.

Day 8 - How Much Does He Love You? - Daily Inspirational Verses from Real Life

Used by Permission:  www.GoodJobNotes.com

Galatians 2:20 - (NIV1984)
"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Sometimes I wonder how Peter could deny Jesus at all, much less three times.  I often ask myself how much easier faith would be if we lived in the time of Jesus, and saw him and his signs and wonders.  

If Peter only knew how much He was loved by Jesus, he never would have betrayed him, I say to myself.

It's not true though.  We have much more the Peter had, even though he had the living Jesus.  We have the entire story, and we know exactly how much Jesus loved us.  We know he died for us and we know of his Resurrection.  We know it all because we have the bible and 2000 years of witness.  Peter had none of that.

We know without any doubt that our sins have been washed clean, removed, and all the guilt that goes with knowing your are a sinner is also gone.  Clean.  Live with God Forever.  We know that.

Yet, there is even more good news.  We have been crucified with Christ.  The Price has been paid forever and for all sin in us.  With the Crucifixion comes the Resurrection, if it is with Christ. We get the Resurrection too. Just to make sure we get it, we are told that Jesus LIVES IN US ...  wow.

How would you behave if You know how much Jesus Loved You?

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For information on be certain of your Status with God, overcoming your actions that keep you from God, and allowing you to accept his free gift of eternal life, Click Here.

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My God Rocks, even though I am a Stone

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One of my facebook friends recently put up a few pictures that pointed out that one of the World Trade Center buildings was blown up by the CIA or perhaps the SEC, since they both had space rented in that building, and no plane hit it.  His claim was that it just fell down all by itself, and that was enough for him to post the picture.

Cool.  I love the fact that in the US, people can say pretty much whatever they want.  Free Speech is protected.  Yet, I saw two things that were really wrong with this particular way of being different, because he could.

1) I have enough physics, maybe 100 credit hours if I counted undergrad and grad school, to know that the engineering reason that was given was probably accurate, and enough statistics and thermodynamics to know that the easiest solution is almost always the right solution, so I kinda blow that type of claim off.

2) He published it on September 11.  On the day we are recognizing the 3000 who died, the heroes who helped, the thousands who are sick and dying now because they were first responders.  I commented on his post, and suggested that the 11th was probably not the right day to bring out conspiracy theories, and suggested it was akin to blaming Micky Mouse for being the shooter on the overpass in Dallas who shot JFK, so Disney would not have a problem with a liberal.

My first thought though, was for the relatives of those who died, and the first responders who are still dying. I made the caustic Mickey Mouse remark, because I am a fool, but my heart was in the right place.  His response was other worldly rude.  I answered that the reason I would not have made the remark that day, given that we live in the USA and can make any remarks whenever we want, was common courtesy.  I thought that would end the argument.

I was wrong. I pulled the tigers tail with the Mickey Mouse remark, and there is no going back. He went nuts again. I bit my tongue, and ignored it, and moved on. I had made a big enough mess already, given that everyone on the planet who knows me, knows that I stand for Christ. At that moment, I was more like that guy in California, making fun of Islam. I was within my rights as an American, but I was not within the Holy Spirit. (How do I know this? 1 Peter 2:1-3 "So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good." (ESV) - I was full of malice and by acting on it, I was full of hypocrisy and asking at that point if "indeed you (I) had tated that the Lord is good," would have been a fair question.)

If you are not walking with the Lord, then who are you walking with.  There are only two sided.  You are either of God, or of the enemy.  I was walking with enemy, and I acted it out.  Errrr.

So why did I start this note with Psalm 22:22? "I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you."

Because our God Rocks. I was clearly wrong. I gave a very bad witness of our Lord. I behaved as the Enemy of God would have me behave, and I did it in a public forum. And God has already forgiven me, and Loves me anyway. (Psalm 103:12 (esv) "as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us."& 1 Timothy 1:15-16 (ESV)"The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.")

SO I TELL YOU, OUR GOD ROCKS!  I WILL BE DIFFERENT, AND TELL THE WORLD THAT I AM A SINNER, AND MY GOD LOVES ME, AS I LEARN TO BE THE MAN THAT CHRIST JESUS WANTS ME TO BE.  MY GOD ROCKS, AND HE LOVES YOU TOO.

I Didn't Do It, or the 12 Points to Fight off Rumors and Accusations

Psalm 26 - A Psalm of David (NLT)

Old Faithful 
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1 "Declare me innocent, O Lord, for I have acted with integrity; I have trusted in the Lord without wavering."

Point 1: If you are being accused or hounded by people (or a victim of rumors), and you didn't do it, Tell God.  If you can't,  then your heart probably thinks you are guilty.

If you believe that the Bible is accurate, inerrant, and the Word of God, you can trust it.  If you do not believe that, then reading this probably will only make you more confused.  Let me put it this way; if you trust the bible, then this will be awesome.  If you think the bible lies, then go play angry birds, cause this will make you angry.


So we start with David, who is innocent.  That is what the Bible says, but of what is he innocent?  


According to Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible, it is likely that David wrote this psalm when he was being chased by Saul. If you remember, Saul was the Supreme Judge or King of Israel at the time. So David could submit himself to Saul for judgement or to God. But what was he being Judged for? 

It can not be for his sinless behavior toward God, since David knew he sinned and we know that no one is righteous before God. For example, Psalm 51:3:(NKJV) "For I acknowledge my transgressions, And my sin is always before me."

So that only leaves the "sins" against Saul, for which he was being pursued, harassed, and killed if he were caught. Even when his men suggested he kill Saul, he would not kill God's anointed. 1 Samuel 24:6-7 "And he said to his men, “The LORD forbid that I should do this thing to my master, the LORD’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the LORD.” So David restrained his servants with these words, and did not allow them to rise against Saul. And Saul got up from the cave and went on his way."

I don't know about you, but I have been pursued by friends and companies alike who accused me of doing all sorts of things from lying through stealing.  They were wrong, did not understand what was really going on, looked at things through their own perspective without asking enough questions, and launched to verbal, emotional and at time legal redress.  I have felt like this many times, and in the last 5 years, during the worst of it, I have begun to behave like David.  I try not to attack them with word or deed.  In fact, I try to honor their vision, rather than my own, under the verse above - that they, like me, are God's.  Not easy.  Especially since my injury magnifies stress to the point of illness, but David was looking at death, not illness, and yet he followed the Lord.  So will I.

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2 Put me on trial, Lord, and cross-examine me. Test my motives and
my heart.

Point 2: If you believe in your cause strongly enough to appeal to the Lord. Ask him to judge you NOW. If you are right, he is the most powerful advocate against whom no one can stand.  If you are wrong, fixing it now will help your life immeasurably. 

There is no Jury with God.  He knows everything.  Everything.  This is how strong David felt about his actions toward Saul and God.  There is only one penalty for transgressing against the Lord, and he just asked for it to be invoked for sins against Saul, if he had committed any. Wow. That's faith.

3 For I am always aware of your unfailing love, and I have lived according to your truth.

Point 3: If you defense is "I have not sinned against God," you have already lost.  If your defense is "I didn't do it, and I am following you Truth and Love," you are right! 

What's his defense?  Not, "I never harmed Saul," though that is true. Rather, he says, I know you love me and I live my your word.  Try me on my behavior and my faith.  No wonder God says he is close to the heart of God.  Again, Wow!


I have learned in the last 6 weeks that I must live in the world, so I will be judged by the people in it.  That hurts.  I am hard to understand, and very few really care.  Their lives are hard too, and they are trying to pay their bills, climb their mountains, enjoy their lives and what I am doing really does not matter all that much to them.  They don't care that my Mother in Law almost died from Lyme disease 8 weeks ago, and we have spent the whole of the summer helping her.  They don't know that I don't get paid at all, since I am as messed up mentally as you can be and not be in a hospital.  Not their concern.  So some of them judge me harshly.  Can't change that.  But I have learned to appeal to the Lord. At the end of the day, it is in his court, not the worlds, and David did it too.

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4 I do not spend time with liars or go along with hypocrites.

Point 4:  It really does matter who you call friend.

It really does matter who you hang out with.  I spend time with hypocrites and liars all the time.  I live in the world.  I am one of them.  Yet, I go to those who Love the Lord for advice and friendship.  The others are the mission field we walk in.  Jesus showed us how.  He commanded us to go. Mark 16:15 (NLT) "And then He told them, "Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone."

So, hang with those who belong to Christ, but go into the world. 

The Heart of Darkness
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5 I hate the gatherings of those who do evil, and I refuse to join in with the wicked.

Point 5:  Evil Feels Wrong.  If you do not Feel the wrongness, you need to get closer to God.

I have begun to feel evil now.  Scares me.  I can tell if I am in the wrong place with the wrong people.  It is not always their language, their activity or even their attitude.  It is more like something is missing.  You can feel the absence of the Lord.  I leave when I feel that.  It scares me.


When we visited China, we went to an active Buddhist Temple. Painted wooden statues everywhere.  I though it would not bother me, but when we say people prostrate before wood, it made me ill.  Evil is real.

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6 I wash my hands to declare my innocence. I come to your altar, O Lord,

Point 6:  Before you come before the Lord with your grievance, make sure you are clean of sin.

He washes his hands to remove sin before he comes before the Lord.  This is not arrogance, like saying, "hey, you.  You know I am clean."  Rather, he knows he is NOT CLEAN before the Lord, only before Saul.  He never forgets he is a sinner, even when pleading the unjust treatment he is getting from God's own king.

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7 singing a song of thanksgiving and telling of all your wonders.

Point 7:  Be Thankful, and tell people about it.  God is NOT private.

Oddly, that is what I am doing with this article right now.  I feel I am being unjustly treated.  My wife is being harrased for doing what normal people could never do.  Our mistakes are being viewed as either stupidity or immorality. I am tired of the weight that I have to see her carry. It has always been so. 


I don't know when I turned the corner, but Anne has always been around the other side.  She can't wait to go to church, to pray before we eat, to pray just because she can.  That is new to me.  I have learned to see the wonders of the Lord within the darkness of the world.  Praise the Lord.

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8 I love your sanctuary, Lord, the place where your glorious presence dwells.

Point 8:  Remember whose you are!

Think about this for a second.  Where is the Lord's sanctuary NOW?
.....

.....

Your Body.  Love yourself and take care of your body, because it is where the glorious presence of the the Lord dwells.

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9 Don’t let me suffer the fate of sinners. Don’t condemn me along with murderers.

Point 9:  Be Sure of Yourself!

David is being bold.  He is telling the Lord not to equate what is happening with Saul with Sin. Two things strike me about this, that I have never noticed before.  First, he must believe in himself quite a lot if he makes a statement that bold to the God of everything.  Second, he is talking like that to God, and God says it is Good. ... 

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10 Their hands are dirty with evil schemes, and they constantly take bribes.

Point 10:  Express your outrage at you, a follower of Christ, being treated like those who do not follow.

He draws a line in the sand about his moral behavior with people.  He points out that God's anointed is not playing fair, and is not treating him or others as he should.  David is outraged that Saul can get away with it, when he, David, follows the Lord.

He is proving Point 9.

11 But I am not like that; I live with integrity. So redeem me and show me mercy.

Point 11:  Ask for Mercy.

He states, with certainty, he is not like that.  So he asks for the Grace of God to sustain him, and rescue him.  

Point 12 Now I stand on solid ground, and I will publicly praise the Lord.

Point 12: Again, Tell People about how Awesome the Lord is!

And when he is done, does he wait for something to change, like Saul to die or send a message?  NO.  He gets us, stand up, and not only praises the Lord, but does it in front of others.  That takes faith. He dives right into the rest of his life with the faith that God will not let him falter.  Click Diving In, for more on how I have dived into my life since I have learned the truth of God's word.