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baptism, being born again, church, ecstasy, homosexuality, justification, Lord Jesus Christ, love, sanctification, sin, spiritual power, the new self
Jesus Love Graphics and Comments
(Photo taken from http://www.coolchaser.com)
Today I want to focus on a group of men and women who really struggle with feeling what others don’t feel. Some people tell them that it is okay to feel that way (the liberal Christians) and some people often remind them that they are not the way God wants them to be (the conservative Christians).
As you might have already guessed it, I am speaking of homosexuals, respectively of all people who do not fit the picture of being “straight”. Actually, I do not want to canvass whether homosexuality is a sin or not because I think there has already been written that much about it. Rather, I want to point to the fact that all of us are being loved by God just the way He created us and that God alone can set us free from feeling any kind of condemnation as for our natural tendencies when He grants us access to the experience of His ecstatic spiritual love, i.e., AGAPE which includes EROS – that’s for sure.
Basically, there is no bigger or smaller sin since “death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom 5:12 – ESV). So, initially we have all been born in sinful flesh and are thus spiritually dead (except for Jesus, of course) and we are not able nor willing to reach out for God’s hand unless He reveals Himself to us.
Comparing two Scriptures that deal with homosexuality in the New Testament, we can see that there is a temporal gap between the condemning verses in Romans 1:26-27 and the retrospective view of Paul (esp. in 1 Cor 6:11) which indicated that there must have happened something extraordinary in between.
“For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.” (Rom 1:26-27 ESV)
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Cor 6:9-11 – ESV)
The list of sinners mentioned in the second Scripture is not conclusively regulated since there are Scriptures that list other sins as well, for instance, “sorcery,…, jealousy, fits of anger,…orgies” (Gal 5:20-21 – ESV) etc.
One of the greatest sins committed by the Church, to me, is the fact that the institution on the whole [RC’s, Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians – yes, all denominations plus non-denominational churches] failed to see what many homosexuals clearly realized when they had read all those things Jesus ever said on earth (the four Gospels, so to speak). I mean the fact that Jesus NEVER spoke about homosexuality.
Why? Let me explain it further below after some other thoughts before. 😉
Of course, we ought to know the trajectory beginning in the Old Testament (Gen 19), continuing in the New Testament through many letters, resulting in Rev 22:14-15 which says,
“Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.” (Rev 22:14-15 – ESV)
Can we see a connection between 1 Cor 6:11 which says, “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” and Rev 22:14-15?
Actually, the gap between having been given up by God “in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves” (Rom 1:24 – ESV) and the sanctified state described in 1 Cor 6:11 can be filled – EXCLUSIVELY – with God’s spiritual work IN a believer through
(1) water baptism (“you were washed”)
(2) justification (“you were justified”) and
(3) sanctification (“you were sanctified”)
Do we see that it is alone God’s work to wash, to sanctify, and to justify the ungodly? It is plain to see when we look at the passive voice here, “you WERE washed, you WERE sanctified, you WERE justified” (1 Cor 6:11 – ESV).
[Emphasis added]
But what did the visible church do all the time? They still exclude homosexuals from being a full-fledged member of the church because – hold on tight – the church (particularly the RCC) thinks she were holy in herself, that is, that the Holy Spirit would automatically indwell her on the whole.
What a lie Satan could spread over the centuries. All churches, whether they exclude or include homosexuals, as we can see it in our times, have missed the point of spreading the true Gospel – the Gospel of Christian freedom through receiving the Holy Spirit in our hearts who alone gives birth to a new creation which is pleasing in the eyes of God.
This new spiritual being is a member of the invisible church in the invisible kingdom of God. If you want to get there, it is simply a matter of asking God to indwell us – no more or less. Since Jesus promised,
“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Lk 11:13 – ESV)
Therefore, I would like to tell my homosexual friends that I have come to know over the years and decades,
God loves you just the way you are. It is not necessary that you go on trying to change yourself since you cannot do it. Have trust that His love revealed to you will satisfy your every desire on a way higher level than you could ever imagine!
Oops, I almost forgot to explain why Jesus never spoke about homosexuality and various other sins to sinners who came to Him. In fact, He only offended the religious hypocrites, that is, the scribes and the Pharisees by revealing their evil heart. All men and women naturally have the same evil hearts, but sinners who want to be saved know about it, while hypocrites boast in keeping their often man-made religious rules and churchly tradition.
God did not leave His glory in order to condemn sinners and to call righteous people – quite the contrary, for it is written,
“When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Mk 2:17 – KJV)
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” (Jn 3:16-18 – ESV)
Thus, unbelief is the only reason that there will be people who perish. However, our God who is LOVE is always willing to give all He has to YOU!
Amen.
Entering the Promised Land 
Susanne, you bring up an interesting point. But what exactly is sin? It is interesting to watch “Christians” categorize sin. There are “normal” sins, (getting drunk, lying, cheating, steeling, dancing, smoking, not paying your tithes, missing church on Sunday, etc.) but then there are the REALLY BIG sins of homosexuality, adultery, mass murder, Islamic terrorism, attacking America, being a liberal, etc. Then there are the sins that are listed in the Bible that they like to ignore or call something else like gluttony, gossip, back biting, hating and self-righteousness.
Yet the Bible says that “ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” So just what is “sin” in the eyes of God? It is falling short (the old English meaning of the word “sin”). Falling short of what? God has ONE measuring stick that we will all be compared to, His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ died and carried all our “sins” to the cross and dealt with them there. BUT that is NOT the whole gospel! The Good news is that He makes available to us a NEW Life… HIS Life to abide in us! He first deals with the offense of “sins” and then the Father desires to put a NEW life within us which we receive by faith. The very LIFE of His Son!!! He does this by taking out of us (if we will let Him) our stoney, sin-prone hearts and putting in us a NEW heart (see Hebrews ch. 8), He then writes HIS commandments on our New heart (see Hebrews 7:12-19 and John 13:34). Then He puts HIS Spirit within us (See Ezek. 36:26-27)! And that is not all, He gives us an new mind and transforms us by giving us the mind of Christ (see 1 Cor. 2:16 and Romans 12:1-2) ! THIS IS the NEW Covenant, not some new list of rules we have to keep! Law is an outwardly imposed conformity proned to failure, but Jesus came that we might have Life and have it more abundantly. Why does God do all this? So He can have MANY sons and daughters who are walking just as Jesus does, only doing those things they see their Father doing and speaking only those things they hear Him saying with all things in them being motivated by the love of God.
John wrote, “If any says he has no sin he is a liar.” Yet Christians tend to join churches that have rules that they can abide with and look good in and NOT think of themselves as hypocrites. The live a lie. Why? Because ALL of us are falling short of the glory of the Son. But some of us are being transformed in an ongoing work as we yield the members of our bodies to the indwelling Spirit of Christ and not to the lusts of our flesh. So, we will fall from time to time even in this process, but there is no condemnation from God for those who are IN Christ Jesus. The real question is not is homosexuality a sin, but rather, “are WE IN Christ Jesus or are we still in the world?” If we are IN Christ we are a NEW creation and HE is our righteousness and the things of THIS world grow strangely dim and soon loose all their appeal for we have our eyes fixed on Him who loves us and died and rose again that we might have NEWNESS of Life IN Him.
“And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:15-19 NIV)
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Sorry, Michael, but I could not help grinning as I read in your distinction of sins that being a liberal were a REALLY BIG sin (grin). Yup, for conservatives, this is most certainly true! 🙂
And yes, your explanation of the whole gospel has been bery enlightening. Thank you!!
Maybe one could also say, “Everyone who lives outside of Christ is regarded by God as a sinner that needs to be saved yet. But once inside of Christ’s Spirit, God does not see him as a fleshly sinner any longer and the true saint will come to light, more and more, yet all through God’s power alone.”
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Eph 2:8-10 ESV)
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Yes, Susanne, I thank Him every day for the life changing power of His great grace toward and in us!!! There is no doubt in my mind that in my flesh dwells NO good thing so there is little to be proud of and lots to be thankful for… IN Christ Jesus.
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I like it. I have also been told worry is a sin.
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Fred,
For some people everything is a sin, even laughing out loud. We need to be cautious to whom we listen. Let our hearts tell us what God sees as sin and what not.
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it really does not matter what you are sexually–or religiously or whatever–if Jesus Christ by experience is not your sin bearer then you are due to suffer Gods wrath–and if he is your savior then he is your lord–and then as a birthed child of God with his spirit being inside of you whatever needs straightening out about your lifestyle you can bet he will be working on you–he is your daddy and you are his child–otherwise if Jesus Christ is not your very own sin bearer then just go on and do your thing–but please not on me.
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Thank you for commenting, Kenneth.
Honestly, I struggled a bit with understanding your last sentence, in particular, “…otherwise if Jesus Christ is not your very own sin bearer then just go on and do your thing–but please not on me.”
Could you, please, clarify what you meant here? 😉
[Emphasis mine]
Blessings,
Susanne
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Many times I hear something, and God will start me on a slightly different pursuit. As I read your post, I was challenged with the scriptural meaning of removing of sin. I have commonly thought of forgiveness of sin, as a verbal thing. However, the Holy Spirit began bringing to my mind the fact that Abraham was called to leave his country. The rich young ruler was called to give his wealth to the poor, etc. Jesus on healing some people said, “Go and sin no more”. I’m trying to communicate that in scripture sin forgiveness was many times sin removal. I believe that this is God’s way. I pray that we learn God’s way and walk in it.
Your statement that eros is in agape was a new thought to my mind. What do you base that on?
Love and appreciation,
Pat Orr
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Thanks so much for your inspiring response, my dear Pat, and for your honest question that gives me the chance to elaborate on it a bit more than in my article above.
God’s Love (agape) is often referred to as “knowing God” in the Bible, for example here.
“And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (Jn 17:3 ESV)
“…we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.” (1 Cor 8:1-3 ESV)
[Emphasis added]
As for the meaning of the word know, i.e., becoming ONE (in an erotic sense), I’d like to point to one of Michael’s replies on his blog where he aptly explained it yesterday to a sister (cf. http://awildernessvoice.wordpress.com/2014/08/06/two-or-three-intimacy-in-christ/comment-page-1/#comment-1597).
Indeed, Pat, the Church always had her theologians who knew the meaning of the Greek word γινώσκω (ginōskō) as becoming one in the flesh. That is no mystery in itself. The mystery begins when we experience that God’s love exceedingly transcends all our hopes and imagination. Jesus was as the first human being on earth already ONE with His Father – in the Spirit.
Our human spirit is not only “the mind”. Our spirit is also deeply connected to our soul AND our body. Therefore, when God makes us ONE with Himself by pouring Christ’s Spirit into our hearts, we may experience that God’s love not only satisfies our souls, but also our bodies, in a way that makes us, finally, independent from any sexual desire regarding the flesh. However, it is not so that God would free us by taking away what every human being might need, instead, He gives us something better than this because ONENESS in the spirit includes the WHOLE BEING (body, mind, and soul).
Now we may assume why Jesus was not married, and the apostle Paul, and others later, i.e., those mystics who founded monasteries and could easily live a celibate life as their every desire was fulfilled by God Himself.
Alas, esp. the RCC made a rule out of something which was God-given, and forced priests to live such a life, too. No wonder that they mostly failed unless they KNEW God. As for homosexuals, it is the same today. Whether we look to the liberals who say that it is okay to live a homosexual life or to the conservatives who try to “change” homosexuals by condemning their desire of which they cannot be freed unless they have experienced Christ’s love themselves – all these attempts are still fleshly. It is either to live a licentious life or to crush people with the law. Nothing of these things will ever work. Only God’s Spirit can fulfill our EVERY desire, for it is written,
“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Ps 37:4 ESV)
“[…] O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” (Ps 63:2 ESV)
[The bride says] “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me.” (Songs 7:10 ESV)
By the way, Martin Luther translated the word “desire” (in Ps 37:4) with “lust” [ „Lust“ in German] which could make the true nature of our intimate love relationship with God a bit more clearly, too.
Thank you, again, for your carefully considered comment, my dear sister. Very much appreciated!! 🙂
Love,
Susanne
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Thank you, Susanne, for your response. I have a better understanding with your reply. I consider myself as a child might who is waiting to wear a certain garment when he or she grows into it. I desire for my born again spirit to fill all of me with Him.
Love,
Pat
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You are so welcome, Pat. May all your wishes be fulfilled by Him.
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Susanne, Amen to that! Man’s religions and being burdened down by them seem to go hand in hand, but Jesus came that we might have LIFE! His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Getting free of a religious mindset and falling in love with Jesus is the key and HE wants us to do just that. He has provided us with everything we need to walk in the freedom of His love.
“But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry which is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for a second. For he finds fault with them when he says: “The days will come, says the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they did not continue in my covenant, and so I paid no heed to them, says the Lord. This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach every one his fellow or every one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” In speaking of a new covenant he treats the first as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.”
(Hebrews 8:6-13 RSVA)
Thank the Lord for making us new creatures under a NEW Covenant that is totally different from the old one in that everything is based on what Jesus has done for us and what His Spirit IS doing in our new hearts, filled with HIS love!
“A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.” (Ezekiel 36:26-27 RSVA)
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Yes and amen to these Scriptures and to all you said, Michael!
I love particularly what you wrote here,
“Getting free of a religious mindset and falling in love with Jesus is the key and HE wants us to do just that. He has provided us with everything we need to walk in the freedom of His love.”
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I do have a question about double mindedness. I have been accused of such and even accused my self of it. Would double mindedness cause a person to parish?
Also I have seen the love of GOD in a true believer change a man from gay to straight and even a transgender to a non transgender.
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I don’t believe that double-mindedness is the reason to perish, Fred.
There are only three verses in the Bible that speak of being “double-minded” (Ps 119:113; Jamess 1:8 and James 4:8). Looking for a definition on the net, I saw that some understand double-mindedness as trying to serve God and this world(‘s god) at the same time. No one can serve two masters who want the opposite of the other, right?
However, I don’t think you need to worry here! We are not what others tell us we are, we are what God transforms us into, that is, into the image of His beloved Son.
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I always thought it was praying and having doubts about that thing you are praying for. I have had many prays answered and others not. I have also had when praying for something I get what I need and not what I wanted, which seems normal. Any way thanks.
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Fred, have you ever met one believer who never had doubts? Those who claim to never have had any doubts are those in who I would never trust, to be honest. True and doubtless faith is received at the end of the journey when we have been transformed into His image – completely. We need the faith OF Christ since our old self does not trust God at all. It is always suspicious of Him and rather trusts in what is reasonable and already known.
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That puts my mind at ease as I have had doubts while praying. I usually feel bad about it. Guess I do not have to feel so bad about it. Today I had some doubts while praying and not long ago I did actually get an answer to the prayer any way. 🙂 That was awesome.
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Ha! Thank God He answered your prayer, Fred! 🙂
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Fred, it is all dependent on the status of our hearts. “Where a man’s treasure is, there his heart will be.” Is Jesus the love of your life?
“”Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (verse 8) and “Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the sons of God” (verse 9). Once again the inner first, followed by the outer — the two matching sides of Christian experience, so that the inner is proved to be real because it has an outward counterpart. Those who are at peace with God seek to bring peace to men. Purity of heart is a basic kingdom possession. The children of God are those who have been ‘sprinkled’ from an evil conscience (Hebrews 10:22), that is, they possess a basic reality of purity of heart which is granted to them through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The double-minded man need expect nothing from God (James 1:8). The man who is looking at God with one eye and at the world with the other eye, the man who is mouthing professions of faith but not living in the obedience of faith, lacks singleness and purity of heart. Without holiness, says the Scripture, no man shall see the Lord. This holiness is the progressive experience of the believer as he is changed by looking away to the Lord, changed from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18). Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. They have a purity which is granted to them by the blood of Christ, which weds them to God and makes them acceptable to His presence with open vision of Himself.” ~
J. Alec Motyer ( http://www.austin-sparks.net/mags/ttm05-2.html )
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I sure hope he is but some times I feel I do not love him enough.
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Fred, on my own, I cannot love God at all. It is enough to know He loves us and to wait on Him until He pours His love into our hearts so that we can love Him back, so to say (see Rom 5:5).
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