True Grit

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I’m a HUGE fan of John Wayne. My favourite of his movies is, without a doubt, “True Grit“. The rugged character, rough around the edges and more at home in the wasteland outback than in 19th Century “civilised” society.

Aside from having both eyes, I’m starting to feel like a Rooster Cogburn type.

This current spell in Wasteland is pushing my limits, but at the same time I’m finding myself beginning to become comfortable in the environment.

That’s a red flag in the biggest possible way.

The last place God wants us to be comfortable is a barren wasteland. In Wasteland, there’s nobody around to touch your life, and nobody who’s life can be reached. The Christian Walk is not an easy one, but it should place us firmly in the face of other people. Walking around in Wasteland is actually what the entire world is doing.

Let me just say that again:

Walking in Wasteland is what the WHOLE WORLD IS DOING.

There is a real danger in getting comfortable in Wasteland.

Conformity.

Just consider for a moment. In the story of Ordinary that I’m walking through right now, he begins his life in the land of Familiar. OK, that sounds like a description of where we are in the West. But he is “comfortable” there.

“Comfortable”.

It’s a dangerous situation. How long does it take for Wasteland to become “Familiar”?

Disturbingly, not long. We get to be so used to fighting the same fight over and over again that we lose sight of the Truth. We are more than conquerors.

Paul writes:

And do not be conformed to this world [any longer with its superficial values and customs], but be transformed and progressively changed [as you mature spiritually] by the renewing of your mind [focusing on godly values and ethical attitudes], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His plan and purpose for you].

Romans 12:2 (Amplified)

It’s heavy to read, but I love the Amplified translation because I don’t understand Greek, Aramaic or Ancient Hebrew, so it helps to get the full context of what was being said. I read an article a few days ago by an “educated” atheist who based that the Bible couldn’t be true because Jesus didn’t speak English, and there were so many differing accounts of His words (translations).

The lunacy of the argument was completely lost on the individual. The same person told me my argument about science being able to replicate the molecular structure and chemical composition of an acorn, yet on planting it would never become an oak tree was a terrible argument about evolution – because they thought I was saying an acorn had to evolve into an oak – not knowing it was the seed of an oak tree.

I didn’t know whether I was being “punked” or if they were in earnest.

This week I was accused of being a “liberal” theologian because I argued that Donald Trump might not be the best president the USA has ever had, and also that an individual in England born female who had been having hormone treatment to “become” male and insists on being called “he” now had given birth.

Granted, many Yanks who hear me talk of 45 might paint me “liberal”. If that means I reject the inhumanity, sexism, racism, fear-mongering, lying, backstabbing and betrayal he has brought to the office, then all I can say is “Thanks”. But if it means they think I dilute the Gospel and twist the words to make the message more palatable to the 21st Century listener, then they are in for a shock if they bother to get to know me.

It takes courage to stand up for unadulterated Christianity today.

This is a time when the pressure to conform to the pattern of this world has never been greater.

Paul had to deal with people living in a time when there was a brothel on every corner or a temple to a false god, or both. Some homes might have an altar to a Roman god, but many didn’t. Today, our altars sit in pride of place in most living rooms with their little false gods we worship beamed in directly, be it sports teams, singers, actors or televangelists. We sit waiting for St Arnie to say “I’ll be back”, or a crumb of wisdom to fall from the lips of St Jeremy or holy father Donald. Or we keep our deity in a special room attached to our home, lovingly taking it out to wash and wax it weekly so it looks good when we go to the social club we call “church” on a Sunday morning.

It’s nothing for us to sit for seven or eight hours a day in front of the altar, as it tells us who to adore, who to watch, what to wear and what to think. And then the clowns that buy into the message admonish Christians for being “brainwashed”.

I’m actually glad I’m brainwashed. Something needed to clean our the garbage that the world has dumped in there like an open sewer.

I looked at several translations of Romans 12:2 by the way. I could be wrong, but they all seem to indicate that the transformation of our minds is not something we do, but rather something God does in us – if we will let Him.

Another thing that has his me recently is this: Even Christians today can’t tell the difference between “meek” and “weak”. We have the world’s definition of “humble” drilled into us.

Now Numbers 12:3 says Moses was more humble than anyone else on the earth. We read that. We accept it.

But consider the human author for a moment.

Moses wrote it.

Humility in God’s eyes – if you look through the whole Bible – is not seeking to make yourself out to be more or less than God says you are. It means standing up for yourself sometimes. Jesus was humble. He never sought to be seen as anything more or less than He is.

So to be imitators of Christ – “Little Christs” or “Little Anointed Ones” is what “Christian” actually means – we must be prepared to be humble the way He was humble. Quit putting ourselves down. Stop making out we are less than we know God created us to be. It’s not Godly to be self-deprecating.

It insults our Creator.

Have the nerve to declare ourselves boldly to be exactly what God created us as.

That’s real Grit!

The Peril of People Pleasing

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So my journey through “The Dream Giver” is continuing.

I’m onto chapter 3 now, which tells of Ordinary’s encounter with the Borderland Bullies.

Sometimes when we move towards what we believe God has called us to do we encounter resistance. The resistance most often comes from people we know well, and who we love and respect. So we have a choice. Standing at the precipice of a choice that will change our lives, what do we do?

Around 20 years ago I had that choice.

I went to the first of several conferences where Andrew Wommack, Dave Duell, Wendell Parr, Don Francisco and some others were the central speakers and leaders. When I sat for five days in that atmosphere and watched people change, lives transform and saw miracle after miracle of healing it impacted me in a massive way. This, I thought to myself, is what Christianity is really supposed to look like.

I felt God’s presence in a more urgent way than I ever had done before. When I left, I knew I could never be the same again.

On getting home, I met up with some much loved (and sorely missed) friends from church. I shared what I’d seen that week, but there was one person missing. Marmaduke (not his real name) called and asked us to pick him up. When I got there, I could see there was something not right. His normally unstoppable smile was gone, and there was a great heaviness on his shoulders. A good friend of his who was not a Christian had been killed in an accident that day, leaving a widow and a young family.

The Spirit leaped inside me. Go and pray – Signs and Wonders Follow the Believer!

I immediately said to Marmaduke that I wanted to go and pray, and that I was absolutely certain we would see the man raised from the dead. And I mean ABSOLUTELY certain. I was more sure of it than I was that the car could carry all of us or that the sky was blue.

Marmaduke smiled and said to me “You don’t get it, Dave. She’s not a Christian either.”

I said “So what?” and he replied “What if you pray and nothing happens? It would destroy everything God’s been doing in that family.”

I thought for a moment, and then looked around the car. Everybody agreed with Marmaduke. Then came the crunch. “After all, why should it happen when one of us asks? We’re not ‘famous’ like that.”

I should have recognised the smell of brimstone. Or at least spotted the sulphur on the words. But I didn’t.

Deflated, I agreed that we weren’t “famous” Christians. That kind of thing was “beyond” us. God only really did that sort of thing for people who are “somebody” in the Kingdom.

I’d been formulating the idea for this ministry at the time as well. Blogs were still rare back then. In fact, most households still didn’t have satellite television and coped on only four channels. I was unusual in the church as I had satellite TV and a computer with internet access. I’d even registered eagleswingministries.org with a host – but had absolutely no clue about building a website, operating a blog or anything else that I’d need. All I had was a name and an idea.

But I wasn’t famous. So I didn’t renew the domain name, I let the idea for an internet presence fall away, and I stopped planning my book.

A year or so later I tried to re-register the domain, but it had been taken by another person so I gave up.

The bullies in my borderland had won that round.

Now at this point I need to say something critically important. Border-bullies often aren’t people who want to tear you down. Some are, but most are people who genuinely love us and want the very best for us. That’s why we listen to them.

Even Jesus had a border-bully.

Don’t believe me? Check it out:

 And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He spoke this word openly. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But when He had turned around and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

Mark 8:31-33 NKJV

Moments earlier, Peter had told Jesus he knew He was the Messiah. Jesus outlines exactly what that means, and Peter becomes a border-bully. Not because he doubted Jesus, but because he loved Him so much he couldn’t bear the idea of Him going to the Cross and dying that way. He missed the part where Jesus points out He would rise again because he got caught on the bit where his best friend dies the most horrific death imaginable.

In “Risen”, Clavius describes crucifixion to one of the disciples. He throws the nails onto the table with a clatter. They are driven through the wrist and the bones rub on them. Breathing is like sucking in air through a wet rag and you realise for the rest of your life you will never breathe easily again. Nails through the feet mean you have to choose between the agony of your lungs collapsing under your own weight and the pain in your wrists, and the equal agony of trying just for a moment to ease that main by taking your weight on your feet. Most take days to die. From the descriprepossessed giftions in the Gospels we know Jesus took around six hours to suffocate.

From man’s perspective.

What truly happened was that He chose the exact moment. He gave a cry, more like the roar of the Lion of Judah, and yielded up His Spirit.

And at that point Satan realised what had happened…

Now people have regularly criticised me in the past for “adult” language when I talk (although I think that gif is the first time I let something into the blog). I go through phases where I swear like a trooper, and times when I hardly ever swear.

Back to the story…

Jesus reached the Cross because He didn’t pay heed to the border-bully in Peter (note: it wasn’t actually Peter). As a result, we have a relationship with God.

Things changed for me. Around 2010 I did a search and found the domain name was available again, so I bought it. Almost immediately things began to go badly outside my vision.

The difference is that now I can recognise a border bully. I can resist them (usually).

But it’s hard. My biggest cheering section is undoubtedly my wife. But at the same time, she can also be the most aggressive at trying to stop me moving into what God has put in front of me.

The last 7 years have produced enough stuff to fill a three-book series to rival Lord of the Rings in length, so I’ll focus right now on where I am as I sit here today.

A year ago we knew we needed to move to England, but the doors kept closing. We were in a flat in Cape Town and doing better than we had for a while, but we both felt we needed the move. We had different reasons, but we both felt the same thing. So when by November we were moving out of the flat to move back in with my mum we had become a little dejected.

Actually, we had become very unhappy.

Then she got the call to say there was a job in Somerset – maybe.

So an interview was set up for January. It went well and she was offered the job the next day, start date ASAP. It took nearly four months thanks to paperwork and legal hoops, but now I sit here in England writing.

My vision seems so much more viable here than it did in Cape Town somehow, but there’s a stumbling block to stepping out into it. I know my wife would feel more settled if I went out and got a “normal” job with a boss and an office and a steady pay-check. It would take the pressure off her to “perform” at the job she’s in (although she loves it) and she’d be able to relax more.

But just the thought of that kind of existence weighs on my heart. I’m praying what the way forward is from here. I know what I feel God has called me to, but I find myself questioning the timing, the form of the next step and even if now I’m here if it is the right direction.

My wife’s issues about my direction and my vision actually help me though. In order to help her see God’s hand guiding me through the next few weeks and months I will have to be far more proactive in seeking His face and listening for His guidance for what the next steps are. I need to be like King David and place my battle-plan before Him and ask His guidance. Ironically, I used to do that all the time but I’ve gotten out of the habit.

The next few days & weeks are going to be challenging, but no more so than the last 32 years have been.

So from this chapter I’ve found and remembered a few things:

  • Often times the people who will give you most objection are the people in your immediate circle. Leaving your comfort zone will upset theirs as well
  • The people who really care about you are usually trying to look out for you to not get hurt as well as trying to avoid their own discomfort
  • Just because someone is a “border bully” doesn’t mean their objections are without merit. Use them to focus your vision
  • Not everyone can be swayed to support your dreams. It’s hard, but sometimes you have to leave those people behind

One final thing…

My greatest supporters have always been close friends, but people whose lives wouldn’t be turned completely upside down whether I follow God’s direction or not – so people who care about me but care more about being right with God. They are the best ones to look to for advice and to pray through stuff with.

 

The “Microwave” Ministry

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Slowly

The word has little relevance any more. We live in a fast-food society in the Western and pseudo-Western cultures of the world. Everything needs to be instant.

I lamented in a post several years ago (I can’t find the item now, but will link in comments if I do) about an experience I had at a drive-thru McDonalds where in complete earnest the young cashier apologised that I would have to wait “about a minute” for my food.

A minute. For this I got an apology. More recently I was offered a free drink because my order would be five minutes – and that was in a sit-in branch.

We are a people obsessed with instant gratification.

And it’s hit the Church as well. No sooner has someone converted than they are made a leader. And we wonder why so many churches are in crisis.

There is a brandy I read of where a whole pear in contained inside the botpomme_prisonniere_800x600no_boxtle. “Pomme Prisonniere” is expensive, last I saw it was about £100 a bottle so too rich for my pocket, but what struck me was the time and patience it takes to make.

The pear is selected just after the fruit sets. A bottle placed over the new fruit and secured in place. Then the fruit is nurtured carefully and allowed to grow to ripeness inside the bottle. At the time the fruit is ripe it is carefully cut from the tree, the bottle filled with good quality brandy, corked and prepared for distribution.

Aside from the time it takes to distil a fine brandy, the producers add months to the process by waiting for a pear to mature. Producers can lose 30% or more of their crop because the fruit may drop before it ripens or a contaminating agent manages to get into the bottle. Most places that produce this fine liqueur don’t produce much as a result, so the final product is justifiably high-priced.

Imagine the producer wants to make it for sale next week. It’s not possible.

I am privileged to live in a country that, while it seeks to be “Western” in its style, is still very much a developing country. South Africa’s neighbour to the North West, Namibia, is even more left in the past in many ways.

This, in many ways, is a good thing. Age is respected for the wisdom it brings. Character in the small communities is more important than personality. Sadly this isn’t reflected in the political scene in South Africa as the population 25 years after Apartheid is still stuck with a minority elite who hold the money and power, except now they are ethnically black instead of white, and the poverty the majority live in is in stark contrast to the opulence of the fat-cats at the top who feed off them.

I knew a man who worked for a company in Namibia that sold microwave ovens. He was sent to find out why in the smaller towns their stores hardly sold any. His quest returned with the simple answer in the form of a question: “Why do I need a microwave? I have my fire!”

Much cooking in this part of the world is done slowly in a black iron pot over a fire. Not much use for a microwave. I’ve come to appreciate this, and when I go on holiday I look for self-catering places that have a fireplace and iron pots available. The richness of a stew that has been allowed to cook for hours over a slow fire is something I’d never experienced in England, and something should I ever go back that I will continue to do myself.

Mutton has a deeper, richer flavour than lamb. But it takes longer to cook or it is tough. But it’s worth the wait because the meal is richer for the maturity.

So we look at the Church.

Jesus didn’t call the disciples on Monday and send them out on Tuesday. They walked and Jesus Israellived with Him for at least 3 years before the Crucifixion. I looked at a map of the Holy Land recently and realised just how much time they must have spent walking. Jesus’s ministry took Him from the far North to the far South of Israel.

We know He spoke of Tyre and Sidon in the far North of the country, and ministered around Galilee and South to Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.

That’s a long way to walk. The disciples weren’t marathon runners. A journey on foot of a hundred miles would take days at best, and the group travelled extensively.

Time consuming.

But Jesus probably didn’t walk in silence. He would have been talking and teaching the disciples the entire time. So much that the Gospels don’t directly record in detail because there would be so much to write down.

After Paul’s conversion he goes to be taught of Jesus for several years before he began his missionary journeys. If you’re determined, you can read all four Gospels in a day. But to truly know them takes a lifetime.

By the time I was 11 I knew the basic highlights of Jesus’s life, David and Goliath, Jericho’s walls, Daniel in the lions’ den etc, but I was no way ready to lead a church. In my 20s I sat as a member of the parish council in the church I attended. More prepared, but really I think looking back I was too young and headstrong. I offended many people, and was offended by them during my time in leadership there.

As I got older, my fire was tempered and became controlled. The result was the ability to preach effectively and not alienate people. Now I’m in my 40s and my fire is more explosive again, but with a different outlet – this one – for the words I’ve spent the last 30 years learning and fully expect to still be learning for decades to come.

My ministry of words has taken three decades to reach this point. I have much respect for those who have been able to learn the original languages of the Bible as it’s something I’ve never been able to do. Languages in my own alphabet are not something I’ve been able to master. Ancient Greek and Hebrew alphabets and their associated sounds have thus far been beyond me. But thankfully I have access to dozens of translations that I use to reference my learning. But it’s taken 30 years to appreciate that it takes 30 years.

There is a need for “relevance” in society that is a red herring in Christianity. Jesus talked of fishing and tax collectors and shepherds because his audience was made up of fishermen, tax collectors and shepherds as well as the Pharisees and Sadducees who looked down on them. But His stories are still relevant today.

I lost R100 (about $8) a few weeks ago. It doesn’t sound like much, but in a country where many earn less than R5000 ($400) in a month, and some even less than half that, it’s a lot of money. I turned out every pocket of every item of clothing I’d worn that week. I looked in every bag and under every chair at home and in the office. Eventually I found it fallen under the seat in the car, crumpled up and looking like a till receipt ready to be thrown away. Nobody can tell me the story of the lost coin has no relevance today.

A few years ago my dogs escaped when someone broke open the gate to my home. I spent hours going through the local township opposite my house looking for them. One came home on her own, one was hit by a van and spent time recovering – several weeks. His father sat guard over his broken body in the road and refused to leave him. Finally I found his sister far away from home, put her in the car and took her home. Don’t tell me the lost sheep isn’t relevant.

This country is paranoid about immigrants. At times it makes Donald Trump look tolerant (not often, but sometimes). Xenophobia, racism, sexism are part of daily life here. As an immigrant I regularly encounter it. I live daily as a member of a racial minority where the law is stacked in favour of the majority – at least theoretically.

The leaders need maturity, especially the Church. The necessary wisdom to be a moral compass can only come with time spent in the trenches of the Church. It’s impossible to be a good leader until you know how to follow.

This is obvious to most. But it gets overlooked because an individual is popular and they are promoted to positions of power they are simply not equipped to handle. bc346-sheepThe result is disastrous for followers. They produce borderline heretical teachings (both sides of the border) and like sheep the people follow, assuming that their “leader” knows what he’s talking about because they know the face.

It’s impossible for someone who hasn’t yet matured to impart maturity to others. Look at the secular dictators and pseudo-dictators “elected” in the last century, as well as the “popular” choices being offered come November in America. Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Peron, Mussolini, Mugabe and so many others were swept into power on a surge of popular opinion and given positions no sane people would offer such tyrants if they understood the facts. But their nations were so indoctrinated by fear that they let themselves be led into wars by these men because they were blinded by the rhetoric they spouted. They could all have been truly great leaders if they had been able to follow before they were handed power. Instead they had power get them drunk and paranoid.

6d3b6-shepherd-leading-sheepWhat we need in the Church now are real shepherds. Men and women who have sat and learned from experienced leaders from the past and have a sound foundation and understanding to build on. So many “mega-church” congregations have recently hit trouble because they were built on the personality of their founder instead of the teaching of Christ. The need is perhaps greater now than ever before for maturity in leadership. The strength to stand against popular secular opinion unflinchingly, teaching the Truth of the Gospel rather than pandering to popular opinion.

There’s a reason the Bible says God is unchanging.

It’s because man’s opinion isn’t.

Anyone who’s ever led a group in business knows the danger of “Group-think”. It’s the phenomenon where the group simply accepts without question what everyone in that group says simply because they are in that group. Cults are born when that happens in Church. Heretical teaching leads people away from God by simply not challenging one another. It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion. It seems impossible to stop and inevitable that it will happen.

The church I was a member of in Torquay a few years ago had wisdom over it. The individual home-groups were regularly shaken up, members moved around and the result was a solid foundation in a young church. In 3 years I was a member of about 7 cell groups. The shake-up was initially an irritation for me. I wanted stability as my dad had recently died and my world was a mess. It’s only looking back that I realise the changing was what kept me stable and gave me the strength to walk out of depression that almost killed me. Different people at different times in those 3 years spoke words into my life that guided my recovery, something I didn’t see at the time.

But everything hinges on maturity.

My wife tells me to not “druk die vrugte ryp“, or try to force the fruit to ripen. You can’t make the pear in the bottle ripen faster by poking it to make it soft. All you do is end up with rotten fruit.

Spiritually we try to microwave our ministry too often. Granted sometimes we miss the season by waiting, but seasons change and the chance comes round again because God’s promises are without repentance. It took me 20 years to do more than think about Eagle’s Wing Ministries, despite having the chance in the late 90s to step out and create an organisation. I was too afraid, partly, that I lacked the maturity needed to do what I’m doing now. I was nervous that I didn’t know enough about following to be able to lead.

Looking back, I think in some ways I was more equipped then than now to do this. I had a larger support system, more friends – real friends, not acquaintances – who were prepared to call me out if I was wrong, and financially in a significantly stronger place. Today I can count my real friends on one hand, and I don’t see them nearly as often as I’d like to. I rely on email and phone calls to keep me strong and on-track.

But I know more about following now than I did then.

I hope age is giving me maturity.

Openness

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There’s many examples of openness in the Gospels. Many of absolutes as well. Certain things that had been “sinful” behaviour in the Old Covenant were redeemed by Jesus’ actions in creating the New Covenant we commonly refer to as Christianity.

The problem is that what today is touted as “Christianity” is a far cry from what Peter preached on the day of Pentecost when thousands became Christians. It’s removed from the Grace shown to all and by all in that first century movement that terrified the Roman Empire.

The wake of the horrific shootings at the nightclub in Florida have caused an outpouring of “You are in our prayers” statements from denominations that would rail against the individuals lifestyle if they pitched up at the church on Sunday morning. The hypocrisy stinks.

But there’s elements in Christianity that always get pulled out by atheists and especially by “enlightened” ex-Christians when something like this happens.

So I want to be open.

There are certain things which had been considered sinful in the Old Covenant – the one the ex-Christians and Atheists love to quote – which are overturned by the New Covenant.

Lets look at Pork and Lobster. Both are declared “unclean” foods in the Old Testament in the same books that say homosexuality is a sin (I’ll come back to this in a moment, so bear with me). Jesus teaches that what enters a man through his mouth passes through his body and is expelled. Peter has a vision:

The next day, as they were on their way and were approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof of the house about the sixth hour (noon) to pray, but he became hungry and wanted something to eat. While the meal was being prepared he fell into a trance; and he saw the sky opened up, and an object like a great sheet descending, lowered by its four corners to the earth, and it contained all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air. A voice came to him, “Get up, Peter, kill and eat!” But Peter said, “Not at all, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common (unholy) and [ceremonially] unclean.” And the voice came to him a second time, “What God has cleansed and pronounced clean, no longer consider common (unholy).” This happened three times, and then immediately the object was taken up into heaven.

Acts 10:9-16 Amplified Translation

All kinds of animals, wild and domestic. Another translation includes reptiles in the description. Peter initially balks at the call, yet the voice is clear, God has made these things clean. So there goes the anti-bacon and anti-lobster crowd’s argument.

Paul refers to food and sex in 1 Corinthians:

 Everything is permissible for me, but not all things are beneficial. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything [and brought under its power, allowing it to control me]. Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food, but God will do away with both of them. The body is not intended for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body [to save, sanctify, and raise it again because of the sacrifice of the cross].

1 Corinthians 6:12-13 AMP

He goes on:

Run away from sexual immorality [in any form, whether thought or behavior, whether visual or written]. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the one who is sexually immoral sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is within you, whom you have [received as a gift] from God, and that you are not your own [property]? You were bought with a price [you were actually purchased with the precious blood of Jesus and made His own]. So then, honor and glorify God with your body.

1 Corinthians 6:18-20 AMP

The word used for “Run away from” literally means to “flee in terror”. Paul never held back in his letters. When he says our own righteousness without Christ is as “filthy rags” the 21st Century equivalent would be “used tampons”. This was not a man afraid to speak whole truth.

Yet he still stands by and says homosexuality is a sin.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Romans 1:24-32 NIV

There’s no room for interpretation here. Sexual immorality – ALL sexual immorality is repugnant to God, not only same-gender sex, but any sexual activity outside the bounds of Marriage. God created sex to be immensely pleasurable – and it is. We wouldn’t want it and do it so much if it wasn’t!

But as with everything in this world, the Enemy got hold and twisted the action. God doesn’t say accumulating wealth is sinful, He says greed and making that wealth accumulation is sin – because money and material possessions become your god. He doesn’t say sex is sinful, just the twisted, lust induced instead of the love-induced He designed.

A dear friend of mine who I love and care about immensely was badly hurt by the church. He was sick with an illness the church he moved to told him he should be able to overcome by prayer.

It’s not that simple. His wife had an amazing gift for worship. Within a few months of moving to this new church where they had been invited to be leaders in a Worship setting, they had been undermined and lambasted to the point that they left the church, hurt by the hypocrisy and judgemental attitudes of the leadership. Without a strong Christian support network round them their marriage failed and both he and his wife now actively campaign against Christianity.

God-haters. Arrogant and boastful. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

How does this post support the victims of the Orlando shootings?

I’m being open.

But many readers will only see hate and “homophobia” in my words.

I’m not afraid of homosexuals. I have a number of dear friends who know where I stand on the issue and love me back anyway.

You see, God doesn’t hate Homosexuals. Quite the opposite. He endured flogging, humiliation, torture and the most excruciating death imaginable for homosexuals just as much as he did for everyone else. When the woman caught in the act of adultery is brought before Him, Jesus doesn’t ask who she was with. He doesn’t care. It is not specified that it was a man, just that she was sexually involved with the other person.

She may have been with the wife, not the husband. Jesus doesn’t care because she is repentant. He cares about the hypocrites with the stones in their hands and murder in their hearts. He is the one person there who is Perfect and therefore eligible to throw the first stone. When He challenges the hypocrites, calling them out on their own sin, they all walk away, the thud, thud, thud of falling rocks as their guilt over their own sin overcomes them and they walk away leaving only Jesus and the woman.

He doesn’t ask her about the affair. He doesn’t ask her about her life. He asks if nobody condemned her. Then He tells her He doesn’t either, but to go and leave her sin behind.

Why do we get so worked up about homosexuality? Personally I’m way more bothered by the obvious greed and misogyny of Trump and Clinton clawing their way to gain power and wealth, yet nobody seems to call out those sins. Probably because they aren’t gay.

I can’t refer to myself as a “Conservative” Christian any more. The description understood by the World would likely get me lynched in many circles. “Conservative” christians would have a problem with my marriage – my wife and I have different levels of melanin in our skins. What a ludicrous reason to reject someone. It’s like saying “oh, your blood type is AB+? You’re not as good as me, I’m O-“. How pathetic a reason to launch hate at someone.

Be open enough to admit, please I invite the KKK to do this, that your hate is based on fear of someone who simply looks different than you. How pathetic you are for that attitude.

But Jesus did die for you as well, just not exclusively as you seem to think.

I love the joke where the KKK Grand Wizard dies and goes to the Pearly Gates where St Peter meets him and says “God wants a word with you. Your work has been noted and pointed out for special attention from the Lord, but there’s something you should know going in.” The Grand Wizard pulls himself up and says “What is it I should know?”. Peter responds “It’s about God… She’s Black…”

In “Boston Legal”, Alan Shore (played amazingly by James Spader) has to defend a family of White Supremacists, and despite despising their beliefs he does so – successfully. The family begin to sing “Michael Row The Boat Ashore” to thank him and he turns to them and says “You do know Michael was a gay Jew from Mexico I assume?” and walks out, leaving them shell-shocked, and the audience (in my house anyway) in stitches of laughter, the comedy making a very serious point – we’re all equal in God’s eyes.

The character’s open nature about himself and his flaws draws me to him in the same way another of Spader’s characters, Red Reddington in The Blacklist, draws me. They are very different men, but their common theme is that they recognise their own flaws.

So here are mine. I endure physical pain constantly. I found out why this week, I have a condition that has weakened my spine over the years (physically) and left me in constant pain as a result. Consequently I can be very short-tempered. People don’t get that. All they see is a bad tempered man weighing 200 pounds, often riding a motorcycle.

I carry emotional scars, more than I care to share today, but many which have been open wounds for decades. Raw nerves in my mind that trigger a short-temper when touched. Most of my friends have seen it and distanced themselves from me for a time, some of them years. It makes me lonely.

I have 3 people I consider close friends. They are all young women in their 20s. I get judged for this because I am a married man in my 40s. It bugs me more than I like to admit. My closest friend and I worked together for a while and had lunch together every day for a year. My family – especially my wife – knew about this and were cool with it. But I had comments made that were thinly veiled accusations of impropriety. Partly to bug them I pressed close and as a result this lady is my closest and most trusted friend. But I still wanted to show up the hypocrisy of the accusers.

I’m sarcastic and cynical, not qualities usually admitted to by Christian writers.

I find the practice in Africa, where I currently live, of referring to yourself as “Brother” or “Prophet”, “Apostle”, “Bishop”, “Pastor” or whatever before their name ridiculous. If you have to state it, you’re not living it right. I prefer people just call me David and be done with that. God will not call me by a title, but will recognise me by a testimony. Heck, I don’t even like to be “Mr”. I treat everyone the same. Some people are offended by this. Others are enthralled. Dignity and respect – but don’t take me for a fool because you interpret this as weakness.

So I try to be open

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I wish more Christians would, just for a moment. Maybe then there would be fewer ex-Christians.

Open