Gabba Gabba Hey!

I have been taking a beating so far in my view on what must be done to reach the gay community. It is heartbreaking to have a friend stab you in the back with false accusations of “embracing sin”… as it is frightening to have some come and encourage me as I know I may not fully agree with their view either. My only hope is to encourage all to a closer, loving, and intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.

There is so much baggage cast out against someone who is gay. I have already met parents with gay children who can hear what I am saying and are finding hope. They understand what I mean as they process the horrible isolation someone who faces same sex attraction must go through. They understand why their son or daughter does not come to church or see why Jesus would not accept them. And that is core to the issue. Acceptance. If one comes to understand he or she is accepted by God, great and wonderful things begin to happen. New Life begins and they change! Yet so often we stand in the door to heaven and keep thinking we are ushering in those Jesus is drawing to Himself, yet instead we are blocking those Jesus drew out. We set on them a higher standard than God set on us. Often we just do not see this yet; there is a type of favoritism in the church that needs to be driven out.

You see this is the issue... when we look at proving one side or the other we either have tempers raised and accusations tossed out... or we have the attempt to legitimize sin (Again I define sin as anything that comes between you and a close intimate, growing, relationship with God.)

Instead, the focus of our faith is and should NOT be sin, but Jesus. For no one can change someone else. I can take a bottle of booze from a drunk but then he is a sober drunk... I never changed them. Instead, we clean the outside of the cup but Jesus cleans the inside. Therefore, it is the same with anything that could come between a person and their relationship with God. When we focus on Jesus, then we no longer see sin! For Jesus was the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world... yours and mine. We then can see a beloved brother or sister that Jesus died for and gave new life to.

Therefore, it is in no way the acceptance or embracing of sin... it is the embracing of Jesus for all His Resurrected Life that is imparted to us. It is embracing the abundant Life. It is letting all we are that is not Christ fall away and God become all in all of you as a person.

If this is heresy then burn me at the stake. All I am saying is if we focus on sin, it should be our OWN. Yet, even with ourselves, we should face Jesus and not our sin for only Jesus takes sin away. If we are facing our sin we are not facing Jesus, it is like when we face the sun.... We do not see our shadow, but if we turn away from the sun, then we see a distorted view of our self in the shadow.

Even to tell someone he or she is a sinner is futile most the time. A person can rationalize their position and sere their conscience. Only the Holy Spirit can convict a person to change. Only God can corner someone with a question that can only be truthfully answered. If we try then we are making someone settle for less than the inner workings of the Holy Spirit…

We can walk with someone through his or her struggles and pain, his or her joy and success and accept the person unconditionally with the same love God accepted us. So all I can say to those who feel outside is something that was coined by the Ramones. "Gabba Gabba we accept you! One of us!"

To those of you who understand what I am saying or even if you do not, pray for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BBfybCPkjA

Interview with Adele Sakler: Gay Christians

Reposting this interview as it is this month's iggytalks show.

This was a fun interview. Adele Sakler is funny witty and this interview could have gone on for hours. We cover many things from fear of gay people, to how we can move beyond focusing on "sin" and focus on Jesus.

Download this episode (71 min)

November 17th World Prayer for Uganda

I recieved this on Facebook.com and thought I would pass it along.

Hello Everyone,

Thank you all for continuing to spread the message that regardless of one's theological belief system, this legislation is wrong. Dr. Warren Throckmorton and I (Andrew Marin - author of Love is an Orientation) are assembling a day of prayer.

Dr. Throckmorton and I know that there are many of you in this group who are not religious, and we are not asking you to do something you are not comfortable with. But for those who do have a faith tradition we ask that on Tuesday November 17th, you take at least 30 minutes to pray for the following:

1. That this legislation be thrown out

2. For protection and peace for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters living in this oppression in Uganda and around the world

3. That the Ugandan Church realize this legislation is not morally or Scripturally correct - as there has been disturbing news recently coming from some of my contacts in Uganda and Parliment that the Ugandan Church is starting to make official statements in favor of this bill. I will be posting those as soon as they are official.

The world will feel this impact! I know that on the evening of November 17th I have a large group gathering in Chicago that will be focusing our time in prayer for the aformentioned three requests. This Facebook group has members located all over the world, and we have a unique opportunity to gather throughout the globe to lift these injustices to our Creator to make a divine impact. If your belief urges you to do so, please join us in this day of prayer. Thank you.

Much love,

Andrew Marin

Dr. Warren Throckmorton

Related post

Do You Love Gay People? - A Love Issue

The comments are really revealing as to how blind and hateful some really are. Sadly many do not even realize how hateful their words are... when someone states:

We should love people the way God loves them; with truth, and pure love. There is gay people outthere who would be willing to change their lives and accept Jesus as their personal Savior. We as christians, cannot decide who will accept Jesus or who won't. Our duty is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with our own testimony, and with Love. I have known gay people who repented and now are living a normal life (according to God's purpose). Believe me, God can still change people's lives. Let's pray for all those beautiful people (including gay people) who need Jesus as their personal Savior. Amen.

Sadly this is one of the more "loving" comments posted on the site. Yet, when a gay person hears a Christian say the word "change" they hear us saying they must clean up their lives before they come to Jesus! That is NOT the Gospel... We are saved by Grace, straight or gay.

The hate just keeps on coming proving the video over and over again as right on, yet as you can see they are blind to their own hate. It is time to stop hating and start loving... Will you take a stand for Unconditional Love?

John Piper answers: Was Jesus tempted with homosexuality?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWivqRMVkHg

I was a bit amused at John Piper's ability to answer this rather easy question. Though he sort of gives an answer it misses the point as to be tempted is not the same as sinning. One can be tempted, but it is the acting upon the temptation that it becomes sin. Jesus was tempted on three levels by the devil.

Luke 4: 1. Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, 2. where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. 3. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread." 4. Jesus answered, "It is written: `Man does not live on bread alone.' " 5. The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6. And he said to him, "I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7. So if you worship me, it will all be yours." 8. Jesus answered, "It is written: `Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.'" 9. The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down from here. 10. For it is written: "`He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully;11. they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.' " 12. Jesus answered, "It says: `Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' " 13. When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time. 14. Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.

1. Body = Turn the stones into bread

2. Mind = Throw yourself down from this steeple as God said He would send angles to protect you.

3. Spirit = Worship me (the Devil) and all the world is yours.

Each point was a test for Jesus. He had fasted and was hungry. Test God to see if He is real and will be faithful to His word and finally, worship the devil in exchange for all the world. The would cover about all temptations I can think of. Bodily pleasures, mentally believing one is too smart to believe in God, and worshiping the creation instead of the Creator.

Yet, the verse in question would not neceistate Jesus to be tempted to participate in homosexual acts.; Hebrews 4: 15. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. 16. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

The humorous part though is that Piper seemed to miss or at least in his attempt to explained was not clear in his explanation that one sins because of one own evil desires. Now he stated that, but temptation works like this.

If I was walking through a restaurant and saw the tips left on a the tables for the waitress and thought for a second, "No one would know if I took it." and then took I was tempted then following my evil desires committed the sin of theft. Yet if I had the same scenario, and I did not take the money I was tempted but did not sin as I did not take the money. Though Jesus would say I committed the sin in my heart... which to me is the idea of recognizing that the potential for me to think and take the money is there.

Now a person may also walk through the room and see the money and not even have the thought cross their mind to take it. To me, I see that Jesus was like that. If He was "tempted" as we were, I do not think He struggled as we do to morally decide to act or not. Instead all the things that tempt us were present for Jesus to see and partake of, including homosexuality, yet, Jesus would not have giving the temptation a thought but only did as His Father told Him to do.

Piper was compassionate in his answer, but seemed to miss this as a simple question. It seemed to rather perplex him, which in turn perplexes me that a man held in such high regard as a theologian, could not easily answer a rather simplistic question on temptation.

FIRST LOOK: Andrew Marin - Loving Your Gay Neighbor Pt 1

God Hates Shrimp!

Jon Trott recently wrote about how Fred Phelps and co. came to Chicago and do their hate based protest. Unfortunately there was an issue where it seems "God Hates Fags" Fred Phelps changed their date of protest so many showed up to do an anti-protest a few days before. Jon was the only one that was able to attend and hold signs to counter the hate protest. I want to thank Jon for being there when so many could not be.

Now in the comments was something that really made me laugh... and I hope that it will make us think about our attitudes toward others.

God hates Shrimp!

(Yes I changed this post a bit. The first sentence just read wrong to me and sounded like Jon had invited Fred P to come to Chicago, he most definitely did not!)

If this famliy came to your church...

A Pregnant Man?

If this family came to your church...

"Despite the fact that my belly is growing with a new life inside me, I am stable and confident being the man that I am.

“To Nancy, I am her husband carrying our child - I am so lucky to have such a loving, supportive wife.

“I will be my daughter’s father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family.”

UnChristian

UnChristian

I received a copy of the book by Dave Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons a while ago and was pretty excited to read it. I am sometimes a sucker for data and graphs and such as I expected from a book by the Barna research group.

As I read through it though, it seemed as if it was old material. What I mean is this is the data to back up what many of us have already been stating and have witnessed.

The “Christian” Church has become in many ways unchristian.

Now, what does that mean? It does not mean we all have forsaken doctrines and such, rather it means that though we still hold many things that are true and of great value, somehow we have given off some very unchristian messages.

We are perceived by people as:
Anti homosexual
Judgmental
Hypocritical
Sheltered
Too political
Too focused on getting people saved

Now on the surface each of these may not sound that bad to some. Yet, remember this is what people think of “Christians”. My question is, when asked, this is their reply instead of “People that love Jesus and love others.”

Are we just a people that hate gays? Is that what some view sums up being a Christian? I hope not. Yet it does seem that many of us are missing the boat.

Are we to be known for what we are against or Who we are for?

It was a hard read as at times I wanted to yell, “THIS IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT!”

Funny thing is that I read another review where the author stated the real issue was that the “Emergents” were corrupting the church… I guess they missed the chapter on judgmentalism…

I recommend the book. It has in it some quite differing viewpoints on how and what we need to do to change others perceptions of Christians… like Brian McLaren and Charles Colson which some might say are polar opposites so it should appeal to a wide variety of people. Other contributors included are Rick Warren, Jim Wallis, Chris Seay, John Stott and a few others.

For more info on the book, you can check out their website.

To hear an interview with one of the authors check out the Steve Brown Etc. show.

A Letter from a gay man changed by Jesus Christ

Scot McKnight posted this letter from a man who was gay and a Christian. He talks of his struggles yet as you read it you will see that as he was lead by the Holy Spirit, he was lead out of the gay lifestyle. This is a message of hope that is in Christ.

I might add this is not the fruit of "emerging" though he recommends a Rob Bell book, it is solely the victory of Jesus Christ in a person's life as lead by the Holy Spirit.

Here is part of the letter...

"I came back into “church fellowship” through a man I met at a gay bar. He was actively gay at the time, separated, with one child, and deeply committed to his own walk with Christ. He and I never had sex. After several years, he became celibate and continued Christian outreach to gays. I was part of that outreach and had become celibate myself. I felt the Lord calling me to celibacy, at least for a time, after the painful breakup of the two “long term” relationships."

You can read the whole letter here

Be Blessed,
iggy

How Will You respond to Homosexuality

This is a great article about how we should respond to the homosexual who knocks on your church door.

Be blessed,
iggy

One night while she was co-hosting The 700 Club, Sheila Walsh felt led to pray for homosexuals. Honoring the Holy Spirit’s prompting, she thanked God for His love for homosexuals and His desire for a relationship with them. She then invited all homosexual viewers to pray with her for salvation. When Sheila finished praying she encouraged those who had prayed with her to go to a church in their area, tell the pastor that they had asked Jesus into their heart, and say, “Sheila Walsh sent me.”

Sheila later received a letter from a gay man who had been watching the broadcast. He had asked Jesus into his heart, gone to a local church, met with the pastor, shared that he was gay and about the broadcast he saw. The pastor responded, “We don’t have room for fags in this church.” In his letter, the man shared that he was grateful to her, but that being a part of “The Church” was just not possible.

I have heard and told this story many times, but I still cringe when I think of that honest, broken, searching man who poured out his heart only to be rebuked by a pastor with a reckless tongue and un-Christlike heart. I wish I knew where to find him so I could share that all pastors and churches are not like that one and that God is not like the pastor he spoke with. Read more here (Sorry for forgetting the link)