Going with it when God closes one door - and opens another

Two things today.

First, I'm sure you've had times in your life when things shifted in focus, in time requirements for various tasks, work load, and so on. In the last several months I've had such a shift, and it's only gotten bigger. I've been fighting to keep doing all the old things, in addition to the new, but - of course - it's just not working. In fact, it's been one of those times I've been praying for extra strength - only to finally realize God's not giving it to me because I'm trying to spend what strength I have on things He doesn't have me assigned to :-)

That's a common problem among those who are, or who actually aren't but still do consider themselves, "ministers". Because we buy into the human version of Jesus - instead of Jesus - and the human version of what makes "church" and what we and "church" are supposed to do - instead of Jesus' - we wear ourselves into the ground trying to get God's blessing on our own mountains of garbage and ridiculous self-portraits, instead of actually getting down to what God's assigned us to do. We're like school teachers who spend 90% of our time raising funds to open a bar across the street that we're going to call "We love teaching children!", and then we fall into burnout or cynicism - even while we continue trying to build the bar anyway - when it's hard to make it happen. 

What I'm going through lately isn't that bad - though it was bad years ago when I still hadn't realized what a crock of stuff what our "Christian" culture calls "ministry" is, with all its church- and career- building and maintenance being put forth as foundational to "the work of God".

After I did realize what a crock that was, suddenly things got easier. Suddenly things were truly blessed, as evidenced not by the numbers of people I could get to sit in the pews I'd bought for fake Christians to sit their comfortable butts in each Sunday, but by the seeds of Jesus Christ I was dropping in people's lives, and by the Holy Spirit healing that was returning wounded people back to Jesus (instead of the fake "Church" that hurt them).

What God can do is really amazing, when we stop sucking on our own ego-juices, and start drinking from His (real) water of life. That's the blessing we get to really see, when we realize that this life truly is about GOD's plan - and not ours. 

That being said, this "phase" of my life involves working 40+ hours a week helping emotionally and physically disadvantaged people in food, shelter, and - when possible - love and reality. People tell me I'm "really good" at it, and can do "unbelievable" things with these people, but what they don't know is that it's only "easy" because God's doing the work, and I'm just following along, being His hands, being His feet. Also what people don't know is that every pain I've suffered and survived in my earlier life, God helped me survive then, and God uses today to make me "safe" and "someone who understands" with these disadvantaged folks who need safety and someone to understand them.

God truly is amazing, in using all things to the good of those who love Him :-)

God also has put me in a position now to share His Good News - His REAL Good News - with even more local people who've been turned away or walked away from Jesus because of the evil choices and lives of "Good Religious People". God started me doing that years ago with wounded Gay people online, and then grew what He had me doing to include wounded straight people online. Then He began putting a few more people locally who needed that kind of help. All training me for more and more, apparently, because now it's wounded people all over the place. And now, what would have been too hard for me before is "easy", because God has trained me to get out of His way and let Him do it. Please, Lord, don't ever let me forget that lesson!

I'm wondering about YOUR life today, and how it fits in God's plan. Are you wasting the talents God's given you maintaining fake Christian church temples He has no plan for? Are you throwing away the strength He's providing you on creating or maintaining denominational garbage, even though that fits your plan, but not His? Are you hanging back, thinking your "Christian" duty is to throw some bucks in a collection plate each Sunday and sing some songs so you can go home feeling all "in touch with Jesus", even though you're actually just jiving on your own brain chemicals and ignoring the real work of helping your coworkers, neighbors, and friends see the real Jesus? Whether you consider yourself a "minister" or not, where is your ministry in God's plan?

Where, starting today, can you get out of God's way and start going with His plan, instead of ignoring His plan and going with one of your own that feeds your ego and feel-goods? I promise you that going God's (real) way isn't always pleasant or easy (in fact, sometimes it's ugly and takes everything you've got) - but it is always do-able and ultimately refreshing, when we let God provide the strength and wisdom we need. 

For myself, what this means for this blog is that I'm going to continue to be here. But I'm going to be doing less organized study and more just sharing what's going on in my life, your life, and the world (when that can be done with complete privacy for those who aren't me, that is). And I'm going to do that when I have something along those lines to share, and not on any forced schedule (and again, I'll only share when doing so maintains people's complete privacy). I've worked with a lot of people online in the last several years - thousands, actually, who were searching for healing or seeking the real Jesus (even if they didn't realize yet that's what they were after). That will continue, but I can't do online ministry full time anymore with the more-than-full-time demands God's face-to-face work now makes of me.

I will still be here online. I will still answer every email I get. Each of you continues to be just as important to me as you were before. But when I'm posting here on this blog it will be to share what's going on in our lives, rather than creating something "official". That's it :-)

Continue to take care, letting God do the miracle of growing and making you part of His (real) plan as we get closer and closer to the really hard times Jesus said would come before He comes back. There are literally millions of good people out there who need to come to or back to the real Jesus Christ - a few of them are in your own life, right now, and God's got work for you to do! Are you loving them? Are you laughing with them? Are you crying with them? Are you helping to heal them?

In His love,

Lynne
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This article written by Lynne at http://NoJunkJustJesus.blogspot.com/. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

Are you so smart you're stupid?

We're continuing on with our chronological walk through the Gospels, seeking – and finding – the (real) Jesus Christ, as He presented Himself to us (and not in the ways He's misrepresented even today by those who most loudly call themselves "Christian").

As always, you can find all our previous posts in this series, going through the Gospels chronologically to find the real Jesus, here.

And as always you'll find the scriptures for today are here.
(Note that you can change the human-translation version on this scripture page, as suits you. I have NO theological or other tie to the online-bible site I use for this blog – it just lists many human translations to choose from, including the NASB, KJV, The Message, and the NRSV, which are the ones mentioned by those I chat and email with.)

This week's scripture should be a warning to those who discount Jesus' ability to do miracles beyond what we normally expect from the standard "physics" of this world – and that's almost all of what calls itself "Liberal" or "Progressive" Christianity today. It also gives warning to those "Good Religious People" we've come to see so often in the Bible now, as well. 

In this week's scripture, two guys who are blind are following Jesus (and we assume the crowd of disciples, God-seekers, gawkers, etc also following Him), hollering out for help. Note that they call Jesus "Son of David", which meant they understood Him to be the Messiah promised to Israel (and the world).

They followed Him all the way into somebody's home (or other indoor place), still clamoring for Him heal their blindness supernaturally. They aren't asking Him for a pill, or a better doctor, or a good hospital, after all. They've heard from others that He can raise the recently-dead, throw demons out of people, heal disabilities, and more – and they want the same kind of miracle for themselves.

Jesus gives them what they want – but He first asks them if they truly believe He can do it.

If these men had been like many "Liberal" or "Progressive" Christians, though, they would have had to tell Him something like, "Well, Lord, since I'm a modern-believer, with science and reason at my disposal, I've risen above superstition and mythology. No, I don't believe you've actually done anything supernatural. But I do give you greatest honor as an awesome teacher whose teachings inspire me to live a loving, moral life. I also appreciate the lessons to be learned from the metaphorical or figurative 'miracle' stories told about you by well-meaning but backward human beings who lived in a pre-science culture. I suppose if my blindness is actually being caused by some psychosomatic distress, then you might be able to 'cure' it with what's really a spiritual 'sugar pill'. But if my blindness isn't purely psychosomatic, like I'm sure the so-called 'demon possession' of the guy behind me is, then, no, Lord. I know better than to believe you can cure me."

And, since Jesus healed the blind men in our scripture to the extent they believed He could, the literal-miracle-rejecting "Liberal"/"Progressive" Christian would get – what? Nothing.

Now, does this mean that every time someone prays for a blind person (or anyone with any kind of illness, disability, trouble, etc) Jesus will automatically heal them? No. The Bible itself shows us that Jesus walked all over Israel, and only a tiny number of the many, many who suffered there received healing. We might be tempted to say that people get healing depending on how close they are to Jesus Himself or to His praying-people, but the Bible never shows us 100% healing even of every believing-person. Timothy, for example, had gut and other problems that apparently were accepted as just a part of life to deal with. Paul, for another example, had some kind of ailment God simply wouldn't heal because otherwise Paul risked becoming as worthless to God as most "ministers" are today.

The Bible does show us that God acts supernaturally in this world when it works for His plan. Jesus acted supernaturally (in healing and more) 2,000 years ago – just as He does today – when that supernatural action illustrates God's power, His nature, or His intentions for our future, or when that supernatural action freed a "trapped" worker who was unable to continue working towards God's plan as s/he was. So, even if we do have big ailments or disabilities and don't get healing in this life, we know God has the power to heal, and that our healing will come – when Jesus returns for us, if not before.

If, that is, we are willing to believe He can and will.

• Nothing in the Bible says science or reason should be thrown out - but everything in the Bible says that God isn't limited by anything we can understand. Are you able to appreciate and use science and reason in ways that benefit yourself and others, without denying that God can act outside the rules He created for this world when He created it? 
• Have you had times of refusing miracles in your life because it didn't seem "reasonable" to expect them? What would it take for you to open up to God's ability to show His power, nature, and future intentions through your life, as fits His plan for the world? 
• Since even Timothy and Paul (who were great workers of wonders in Jesus' Name) had ailments and other physical problems that were apparently never healed while they lived on this earth - and yet never believed that meant Jesus couldn't do supernatural things or that God didn't love them beyond measure anyway, why do we?

The scripture story today ends as they often do – with the Good Religious People accusing Jesus of using demonic power to accomplish what doesn't elevate and sanctify their way of being "godly". If you've been following along in our study, you can easily shake your head and say, "Same stuff, different day!" And truly, Good Religious People never change. Through the Old Testament, the New Testament, the centuries since, and even today, they proclaim themselves as God's People even as they reject living the way God has said His people must live. They also claim to be the one's He's using in His plan, even as they act against Him at work in the world when it doesn't please their own religiosity. An easy example today is the Holy Spirit action in the lives of Gay people today, as God heals more and more of them of the spiritually alienating and deeply wounding false-witness and intentional Bible-mistranslation Good Religious People have bludgeoned them with. Just as God called the Gentiles, even when it torqued off the Jews, God calls Gay people, even when it torques off straight people. And witnessing God at work, all Good Religious People today can do is screech "Satan's power at work! Satan's power at work!"

They truly never change.

• What lessons has the Bible taught you so far about Good Religious People and the mistakes they make (intentional and otherwise)?
• What dangers do we face when we do follow along with or let ourselves be guided by Good Religious People? 
• Have Good Religious People spiritually injured you or someone you love? Are you more able now to understand their attack as part of Satan's work, and not God's? What help can you find today to get you the additional spiritual healing you still need, so you're no longer a trapped and inured worker who can't help in God's plan?

Until next week, and in His love!

Lynne
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This article written by Lynne at http://NoJunkJustJesus.blogspot.com/. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

To hell with anyone who blocks your way to Jesus

A few posts away (I'm feeling much better with my allergies, btw – thanks for your prayers!) but now we're back to exploring who Jesus really is, outside how He's been so long defined by what most loudly calls itself "The Church".

As always, you can find all our previous posts in this series, going through the Gospels chronologically to find the real Jesus, here.

And as always you'll find the scriptures for today are here. (Note that you can change the human-translation version on this scripture page, as suits you. I have NO theological or other tie to the online-bible site I use for this blog – it just lists many human translations to choose from, including the NASB, KJV, The Message, and the NRSV, which are the ones mentioned by those I chat and email with.)

So far, we've seen from the Bible itself, without having to do any kind of monkey-plays or pompous theological arguments, that, despite how Jesus is interpreted even today by "Good Religious People" and Big-Words Theologians:

• Jesus was always on the side of those who were abused, mistreated, and oppressed – never on the side of those who do the abusing, mistreating, and oppressing. 
• Jesus was always on the side of the spiritual rejects and the sinners – and never on the side of those who make sure others know they are spiritual rejects, or the side of the Good Religious People. 
• Jesus requires His followers to be so strong they refuse to do violence or hurt back, even if attacked to death – not so weak they worship violence, war, and domination. 
• Jesus warned us repeatedly that most of those who claim to be His people will be spiritual liars and cheats, fooling even themselves all the way to hell – and He commands us to realize their error and not get caught up in it ourselves. 
• Jesus never presented anything of God as requiring a seminary education or a "pastor" to understand (study, yes, using our brains, yes – but "church" related stuff? No). In fact, the Bible shows us that to truly understand what Jesus means has always required NOT having human theological ideas in the way of God's simple message. Jesus (and others in the Old and New Testament) show us again and again that – despite our belief that more theological ideas and degrees and titles means more understanding of Jesus – more theological ideas and degrees and titles means LESS understanding of the real Jesus. 
• And more!

This week, our chronological Bible tells us about Jesus illustrating that death isn't how we usually imagine death at all, and, healing a woman who was sick in more ways that we can even imagine today. What do you learn about Jesus from these stories? Here's what I see:

When people – even people who normally refuse to believe in God – are desperate and hurting, there is always that tendency to turn to God and plead for help. The Bible doesn't tell us if Jairus and his family already believed in Jesus. Yet we can see that, even if he wasn't yet a believer, Jairus was desperate enough to reach out to Jesus – and isn't that how many of us come or come back to Jesus in the first place? 

• Have you reached out to God in desperation even in times you didn't believe in Him? What happened? How (or did) it change your relationship with Him? 
• The Bible doesn't tell us if Jairus came to Jesus for help because he believed He was a miracle worker, or if he actually understood He was God. If Jairus got through this whole event and only ever understood Jesus as a worker of supernatural things, he would have missed completely that God is on his side even through death. Have you or others you care about understood that Jesus could do supernatural things, but missed that Jesus is also God on your side?

Jairus thought he was going to lose his little girl – and, in fact, before he got Jesus back to her, she did, in fact, die. The people telling Jairus that his daughter was now actually dead told him not to bother Jesus any longer. "Death", they would have told us, "is the end. Miracle healings might happen here and there. But death is never undone."

• What are the things you believe are just the end – never to be undone? Does God have power even other those things? In what circumstances might He change them?

On the news that his daughter was dead, Jesus told Jairus not to be afraid, but to believe, instead. After we've lost someone to death, we might understand the fear of having to live the rest of one's life without this loved one. We might also understand the fear that comes from being reminded of our own mortality. Jesus, though, offered comfort in belief. Like He could have also said, "No need to fear death – the answer to death is standing right here. So just trust that answer to apply, even now!"

• Many of us have heard that the antidote to fear is to believe – but what does that look like in your own life? Does it mean letting go your natural fear of death? Does it mean giving over your worries over money or job? What are all the ways Jesus' comforting command to believe instead of fear might or does impact your own life?

When Jesus told the gathered crowd of mourning that the little girl wasn't dead but asleep, they laughed at Him. And I'd have to say that if some guy I'd never seen before walked into a funeral and told everyone there that the only person in the room not breathing any longer was just asleep and not dead at all, laughter would be the nicest reaction I might have. Yet I can't imagine how my reaction would change if the dead person suddenly woke up and got something to eat!

• The Bible tells us that even Satan and those who work for him can do miracles at times, so it's not always safe to assume that because something miraculous is happening that means it's from God. What specific things can or do you do in your own life to keep from being fooled into following after lying signs and false wonders?

This scripture passage also talks about a woman Jesus healed while on his way to Jairus' daughter. If we don't know enough about the ancient Mosaic Law the Jews lived under, we won't realize that this woman's problems were threefold. Not only was this woman's health terrible (she's been having menstrual bleeding for twelve solid years), and not only had she wiped out her financial resources trying unsuccessfully to get healing from medical doctors, but also according to the religious law she lived under she was "unclean" because of her bleeding. All men and women were made religiously unclean at certain times and under certain circumstances (check out Leviticus 15, for example). If this woman had been having normal periods, she could have gotten "clean" again after a certain passage of time without bleeding. Since she never stopped bleeding, though, she never had that opportunity. That meant she wasn't allowed to touch anyone or anything, or they too would become "unclean" and also have to undergo purification time and rituals to keep from spreading "uncleanness" even further. Imagine living your life sick as a dog, being wiped out financially by doctors, and not being allowed to touch anything (not a person, not even the railings on the city bus) without possibly enraging people so much they might kill you for it. Now imagine living that way for twelve, long years, with no end in sight.

Until this miracle-guy shows up.

• Since the Bible shows us that Good Religious People of all kinds have always followed or ignored parts of the law God gave them however they wished, should we be at all surprised that Good Religious People today also pompously bellow one part of God's law but explain away and hide others? For example, Good Religious People like to quote the Mosaic Law as if it condemns Gay people – but they explain away the parts that condemn their failure to follow the rest of the Mosaic Law (like men and women both needing to do ritual purification after having any kind of voluntary or involuntary "discharges"). What does that tell you about whether you should be getting your information about what God wants from you from Good Religious People? 
• For centuries, "Christians" have been telling women they were "unclean" because they have periods, even telling them at some times in history that they wouldn't go to heaven if they died while on their periods! Yet all these centuries, no one ever told a man he couldn't get into heaven if he died while having a "nocturnal emission", or that men weren't fit for ministry because they become unclean by nocturnal emissions. Since so much human B.S. has always coated what most loudly calls itself "The Church", should we be surprised when that same "Church" continues today to trumpet its own highly intellectual and theologically "proven" versions of B.S. regarding God's supposed condemnation of Gay people, God's supposed support of war, God's supposed shoving women into the back of the church, and so on? 
• Most Gay Christians can empathize with the woman in this scripture, having been exiled as "unclean" in a different way from their communities and being unable to perform any "purification" that would make them OK in the bigoted eyes of their straight spiritual "fellows". But others can also relate – even if their only "uncleanness" is a refusal to play the shallow Sunday-Dress-Up required to attend most "churches" even today. In what ways can you empathize with the woman in this scripture? But in what ways are you more like those who condemned or looked down on her, refusing to give her the basics of human touch and love because you didn't want to be "unclean" yourself?

One thing that can be said of this woman: she had guts. Unlike many who might undergo even less than she had, and who might have just given up and died, she clung to life. She clung to hope. She kept trying, and trying, and trying, even when trying just seemed to bury her deeper into trouble. This is yet another time when the New Testament Bible broke tradition by showing us strong women in a culture that ignored and even attacked strong woman.

• Whether you are male or female, do you have this woman's guts in the face of trial and pain? Is she a great example to you, when you need to see that it is possible to keep going and keep trying even when all seems to have failed?

This woman not only had guts – she had gall. Maybe that gall, that bold, shameless behavior, was also born of desperation. Doesn't matter. This woman pressed her unclean self not only through a crowd, immediately "polluting" everyone she touched (who then immediately polluted everyone they touched, who then immediately polluted everyone they touched, and so on) – which could have started a riot and gotten her stoned – but she also crept up on Jesus, intending to touch Him in a way He wouldn't notice, even though it would also make HIM ritually unclean. All that in hope of being rid of her sickness and isolating shame.

• Have you had this kind of gall with God? Have you ever pushed your way to Him, and to hell with anyone who gets in your way? If not – why not?

The woman felt herself instantly healed upon touching the edge of Jesus' cloak. Imagine her elation – and then imagine it turning instantly to horror when Jesus turned around and demanded to know who had touched Him. She knew she'd just made Him ritually unclean – even healed, the religious law she lived under still required time to pass and a ritual to be performed before she would no longer be "polluting" others. She must have believed her life at great risk when He and the crowd figured out what she'd done. All she could do was what all people in those days did when confronted by the power of one or more people who could hurt or kill if they only just chose to do so: terrified, she fell on her face and confessed, hoping for mercy in even the tiniest form.

But the violence – rage, fists, rocks – she could expect in her religious culture didn't come. Instead, Jesus congratulated her on her faith in His ability to heal her, and sent her off in peace, free from more suffering.

• The Good Religious People of that day often stoned "unclean" women who touched others. In the centuries of what most loudly calls itself "Christianity", Good Religious People have burned people at the stake and otherwise tortured and murdered them, taught them to feel shame over who they are, and made war in "God's" name against people who weren't like them in one way or another. Not one bit of that is like Jesus anywhere in the Bible. Yet we too often continue being fooled by this false "Christianity". Why? 
• Imagine being Gay and with shameless gall pressing through a crowd of "Christian" bigots to get to Jesus, sure that He can heal the hurt false Christians have done to your heart. Imagine fearing Jesus will turn on you like false "Christians" have – only to find He instead congratulates you for your faith and sends you off in His peace. Now read Revelation 3:7-13 and know that that's exactly what you're going to hear from Jesus, in the End.

Today we got to see Jesus' power at work – not just in healing death and sickness, but also in reorienting our religious thinking so that we can see past the religious nonsense we live under and even pass on to our children, thinking we're doing them a good thing.

• What ways do you need to reorient your thinking about Jesus? Is Jesus like the supporter of war, supporter of sexism, supporter of homophobia, supporter of economic oppression, and so on that "The Church" has reinterpreted Him as all these centuries? 
• Was Jesus at all prevented from being who He really is by all the Good Religious People and their dumb ideas while He moved around, doing His work? Why should we assume, then, that we can't find the real-Jesus today because "The Church" has done so much Bible-twisting over the centuries? 
• What needs to change in your life this week? What can Jesus heal for you today, that you never imagined could be gotten rid of before?

Take care until next week!

In His love,

Lynne

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This article written by Lynne at http://NoJunkJustJesus.blogspot.com/. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

Keep to the real-Jesus-lit path – the wolves don't go there

Ok, this is our last post about the "Sermon on the Mount", before we continue on with the rest of the (chronological) Gospels and the real Jesus (not the one "The Church" has always remade in its own image).

As always, you can find all our previous posts in this series, going through the Gospels chronologically to find the real Jesus, here.

And as always you'll find the scriptures for today are here. (Note that you can change the translation version on this scripture page as suits you. I default to the NASB to get the more literal translation, but do use the one that works for you).

Judge, and you'll be judged – right?

This week, our scripture tells us Jesus tells us not to judge unless we want to be judged by the same standard. And this has got to be one of the most reworked passages in the Bible, by both "conservatives" and "liberals/progressives" alike.

Most of us have been the butt of conservative judgment. Our hair is wrong, or our sexual orientation is wrong, or who we vote for is wrong, or our refusal to support war is wrong, or – oh, we could just name just about anything and it would fall into some version of conservative "Christian" judgment. And since Jesus says if we judge we get judged by the same standard, can't you just see conservatives arriving before God's judgment seat, and hearing God say to them, "Sorry – you're going to hell because you wore your hair short. Sorry – you're going to hell because you never stopped being straight. Sorry – you're going to hell because you voted republican. Sorry – you're..." That's how ridiculous God wants us to understand our deciding if someone else merits hell or not really is. WE don't get to decide who truly merits hell and who doesn't – and thank God for that! All we have to do to understand what a mercy that is, is to look around us at our current "justice" system. Rest assured, when Jesus comes back, the angels will NOT be beating people up because of their race, or lying to get them convicted to score political points for having a "tough-on-crime" record, and Jesus will certainly not be sending people to the gas chamber because His lunch isn't sitting well and it's making Him crabby.

So, NO judging!

But we also have to be careful about going too far the other way – which is the mistake liberal and progressive "Christians" love just as much to make. In the Bible, we're told not to decide who gets to heaven and who doesn't, but elsewhere in the Bible (including in a passage we're going to talk about in a moment) we're warned we are required to discern, figure out, and learn what's (really) godly versus what isn't, and to act on what we've figured out. What's the difference, then, between judging and discerning?

It's like this:

• If you are The Judge, you decide someone's guilt, and you send them to punishment. You're the final-say, and everyone acts on what you say with no questions asked.

• If you're The Discerner, you take a look-see at the things someone's heart leads them to do or say, and you decide if those things match having the Holy Spirit in one's heart or not. If they don't match, then you don't do or say those things yourself, and if the circumstances make sense to do so, you find a Holy-Spirit-inspired way to say, "That's just not right!" That's what the Old Testament prophets did, and that's what the New Testament disciples did. But we always eave it to God to make the final-say about everyone (including you!)

So, for example, we can easily discern that going to war is wrong, because in no case has war been caused or justified by Holy-Spirit-led hearts, and in no case has it ever produced anything but evil in the lives of those who commit it and those who suffer the consequences of having war made upon them. And if our hearts are Holy-Spirit-led, we'll also know that we can't go along with proclamations that some or another war is "for God" or "justified" scripturally. But should we decide that those who commit the sin of war should burn in hell forever? No way! Only God gets to decide that, because only God will know, in the end, if that war-sin was repented of.

So, recognize the sin, and act or speak against it (or just turn away from participating in it or pretending it's "ok") – but don't ever decide that those committing the sin should go to hell.

• Jesus points out that we are too often in love with pointing out other people's little sins, while ignoring our own huge sins – but He doesn't tell us to ignore other people's sins. Instead, He tells us to clean up our own act first, and then go out to help others clean up theirs. So consider "Christians" who believe the mistranslations and out-of-context interpretations of the Bible that (claim) God condemns Gay people. These "Christians" (other) sins include child molestation (and protecting child molesters instead of children), spouse abuse, war, cheating the poor, oppressing those who are weaker than they are, teaching a false-Gospel, making people think poorly of Jesus, and more. So discern: are they acting from Holy-Spirit-led hearts, since they don't really bother cleaning up their own act before going out to supposedly clean up others? Are they people we should even be listening to, if we're wanting to hear and follow the real Jesus?

• Jesus also tells us not to hand over our good stuff to those who will only treat it like trash or even hurt us with it. If you are Gay, then, do you hand over how you understand yourself and your relationship with God to those who treat you like trash or who use your sexual orientation to hurt you? If you are straight, do you hand over how you feel about yourself and who you're supposed to be in Jesus Christ to those who twist your want to follow Christ faithfully into what benefits their own version of religious "Christianity"? What can you start doing today to change that?

Ask! Seek! Knock! (No! Really!)

Jesus then tells us then a bit about our relationship with God. He tells us that God knows how to take care of us, and not hurt us, even better than the most loving parent does. When we ask, Jesus says, God gives us what we need. When we go looking, God makes sure we find. When we ask to be with Him, He opens the door.

But this isn't about getting fancy cars and huge homes - despite what the God-is-a-vending-machine crowd would like you to believe. It actually relates to what Jesus has talked about previously: God wants us to be perfectly-good to everyone, just like He's perfectly-good to us – giving even though we don't deserve it, helping us find Him even when we don't deserve it, opening all of heaven to us, even though we don't deserve it. Our being just as loving and patient and healing as God, Jesus says, sums up the entire meaning and intent of the Old Covenant Law. It sums up God's entire way! 

• The Bible (including the New Testament) tells us that God's (real) People have often gone hungry, or been without cover for their bodies, or been beaten and even killed for standing for or being about God's real way, and so on - so we know that Jesus isn't talking here about having a cushy, easy, materially wealthy life with all the friends, family, and happiness we could ever want. No, that's the fake-dream modern western society (especially but not only in the USA) promotes as The Only Truth. And it's an illusion that has destroyed and disturbed many people's faith in God, when He doesn't "deliver" like Pizza Hut, Walmart, or Mercedes Benz. How has the illusion of material-goodness-as-part-of-God's-plan-for-this-world impacted your own life? How can you untie that knot, so it's not messing with your relationship with God any longer?

Keep to the real-Jesus-lit path – the wolves don't go there

In the next passage of scripture, Jesus warns us there's a wide path of living, so easy to find and so easy to stay on. It leads to a wide gate anyone can get through easily, but it's worked by people who claim to represent God and do His work, but whose actions and living only call and help people through a false-Gospel life leading to ultimate destruction and pain. We can tell we're on this path when our inner selves and the hearts of the people we fellowship with are about messing around sexually, making things as or more important than God, hating others, being jealous, being envious, being me-first, being drunk or drugged, creating or belonging to in-groups, and so on (check out this scripture, for example).

Jesus tells us a lot of Good Religious People are going to walk this wide path, get through the wide gate, and then realize they're in hell. Then they'll protest to Jesus, "How can I be here? All my life I prayed long and loud for You. I fed people in Your Name. I told people about You night and day. I even did miracles for You. Don't You know me?" And Jesus – who was never fooled by their false "Christianity" and their Jesus-on-the-outside-Satan-on-the-inside lives – will simply say, "Nope. Never was fooled by your religious evil. Go where you belong – where you chose to end up!"

But Jesus also says there's a narrow path, one that leads to a narrow gate. And on the other side of the narrow gate is eternity with God and all the good things that God is. Few people choose to go down this narrow road. But we'll know we're on it when our inner lives and hearts bear real-Jesus-fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (again, check this scripture out). Those are the things we should see in the hearts of those human beings we fellowship with, too, because those things mean they are on the narrow path, too – they, too, are actually doing what Jesus says to do!

And doing what Jesus says to do means we're on a strong foundation – one that no storm of this world or any other world can blow, drown, or shove us off of. But not doing what Jesus says? Not doing what Jesus says gives us no foundation at all, and it's going to take almost nothing at all to wipe us out completely.

• It's not hard to recognize the world in the description of the wide path. It's also not hard to see how paths of hate, God-rejecting, and so on can only lead to hell. What we're taught not to recognize, though, is how much a part of the same wide path Good Religious Living is, as well. But we really only need to be willing to see it – to discern the wrong of Good Religious People who are just as likely to molest children, cheat on their spouses, abuse the poor and minorities, commit war, etc., as those Good Religious People look down on as "sinners" - and all because they have their idea of "What the best Jesus would be" in their hearts, and not the real Jesus. What part of your life is still caught in the thinking of Good Religious People, believing that the "wide path" isn't chock-full of Good Religious People on their way to hell? What do you need to discern further, to clear your heart of their influence?

• Being on the "narrow path" requires no "church" membership or attendance, no religious programs, no tithing, no kneeling on alters, no seminary training, no crackers or wine/grape juice, no "clergy", no "denominations", nothing. But it does require that we set those things aside and open our hearts to Jesus, allowing the real Holy Spirit to heal, guide, and teach us more and more, each day. Does your life prove you are on the wide path, or the narrow path, today? What will you need to let go of to get to the real Jesus?

Some final thoughts this week:

Jesus' entire "Sermon on the Mount" has been about telling us not only what Good Religious People think they do right but actually do completely wrong – but also how God requires us to do better than they do, if we want to choose heaven instead of their hell. In just this "Sermon on the Mount" alone, Jesus has talked about:

• who and what God really values,
• who truly gets rewarded by God,
• who really follows God's way,
• how we should handle our anger,
• how we should keep our commitments to those who depend on us,
• where we should keep our sexual impulses,
• what keeping our word should mean,
• how we should treat those who hurt us and those who are different than we are,
• which religious works or good deeds God rewards – and which He doesn't,
• how to pray so God knows we mean it,
• who we should forgive and why,
• what we should value – and not value – of the things in this world,
• the either-or choice we must make between loving God or loving the world,
• why we should trust God to get us what we really need,
• why we shouldn't act as God in deciding the eternal fate of others,
• why we should be more concerned with our own sin than others' sins,
• how we shouldn't make ourselves or our faith vulnerable to people who will only disrespect or hurt one or both,
• how we should trust God to answer our call to Him, and how He will help us find Him and life with Him forever,
• how dangerous it is to go the world's way (including the Good Religious Way), instead of Jesus' way,
• how worthless it is to assume that doing God's work means we're earning God's reward,
• why only Jesus is a proper foundation for our lives, if we intend to weather every storm.

The Bible tells us that the crowds listening to His "Sermon" that day were completely blown away by Jesus, because they could tell He was the real-deal – and not just another pretty sack of crapola, like their Good Religious Leaders were. They could feel the power of His truth all the way to their insides. No spouting off memorized religious education and scripture verses from this Guy!

Are you feeling the power of Jesus' truth today? Are you at least beginning to recognize the huge difference between Jesus and the Good Religious People who have for so many centuries claimed falsely to know and represent Him (just as He said they would)?

Are you asking? Are you seeking? Are you ready to find? God is. Right now. Start, or start all over again. It's time!

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This article written by Lynne at http://NoJunkJustJesus.blogspot.com/. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

Who is Jesus to your life?

Ok, back at it (and hopefully my work schedule cooperates so I'm able to make my weekly posts again!).

We'd been going through the Gospels, and I'd like to keep at that (taking some detours in subject matter here and there, as comes up). The last posts were here.

Our scriptures for this post are here.

If we aren't always wondering about who Jesus is and what He thinks of different people in this world, and what that means in our own lives, we should. The apostle John gives us some good insights here, for as is often the case, Jesus interacts in the Gospels with a lot of different kinds of people in a very short time.


In these scriptures, for example, we see Jesus interacting with:

• Family
• Party-goers
• Underdogs
• People who make their living from religion
• Religious leaders
• People who don't want others to know they're interested in Jesus
• "Good Religious People"
• Human scum

What can we see about Him from these interactions? Consider the following, thinking about where you might fit in and how Jesus might see or interact with you when you're at work, socializing, worshiping, etc. As I've said before, wipe the religious slime out of your eyes and really take a fresh look at who Jesus is, from who He demonstrates Himself to be (and not as you've been taught to see Him by other human beings):

Well, first of all we see Him at a party, celebrating with people in His social circle. What does that tell us about the idea that Christians are supposed to be dour and stiff all the time. 

We also see Him interacting with His mother, asking questions (as He often did others, as well) that test our insight and willingness to go along with His greater wisdom. What does this tell us about how Jesus teaches us and how He expects us to learn?

We see Him interacting with servants - the underdogs of the Jewish world - and in ways that are more than respectful. In fact, these servant underdogs are the only one's of the household who get to see and know exactly what Jesus did, in His miracle of turning the water they brought Him into wine for the guests. This is just as we saw when Jesus was born, and God announced His birth to filthy shepherds and pagans - but not to the "Good Religious People" and their "clergy". What does this say about God's expectations of what different kinds of people will go along with or be pleased about, or how God orders things, in this world?

We see Jesus discovering people making a living God didn't sanction from His temple system (in fact, the only approved way for anyone to make a living in God's religion was to be born in the Levite tribe of Israel, those who worked as priests in the Jewish temple proscribed by the Mosaic Law). We see Jesus getting angry at them and chasing them and their doo-dads out - not because they were ripping people off and such (as some claim), but because they'd figured out how to make people's reverence and want for God into a money-maker.What does that say about our Christian-consumer culture and our books, tapes, "love offerings", and "tithes" that so many have figured out how to sell, and so many of us want so much to buy?

Then He met some religious leaders from the temple, angry that He'd upset their profit-machine. He didn't speak plainly to them. He didn't just explain what they were doing wrong, did He? In fact, He gave them a prophecy, a riddle - something that no one could figure out yet (not even His disciples until after it had happened).When it would later come true, the disciples would remember what He said, understand it, and have an even stronger faith because of it. Do you think the religious leaders later remembered what He'd said? If so, do you think it caused them to believe?

Later another religious leader came secretly to Jesus - in those days, of course, no one visited anyone at night unless they were trying to hide their visit. Nicodemus wanted God's truth, and he sensed it in Jesus - but he wasn't willing to risk losing his religious position and community standing to get it. Jesus still interacted with him, taught him, but He also pointed out ignorant of God's real truth Nicodemus was, despite all his religious expertise. Since God isn't impressed by all the religious scholarship human beings can come up with, and has to teach the "experts" as much as or more than us, why are we so impressed by them? Why do we allow our lives to fall into their spiritual ignorance?

Finally, we see Jesus doing something completely immoral and totally confusing (according to the cultural standards of that time and place): He not only speaks to a woman, He speaks to her when alone with her, and He speaks to her as someone with brains, and He treats her with the same dignity and respect He treats everyone with even those she's "obviously" a "slut" and even though she's from a despised minority. What does it say about Jesus that He didn't give a hoot about the lines human prejudices draw all over the place, defining this person as "ok with God and us" and that person as "not ok with God and us"? What does that say about Jesus in your life?

What does all this say about Jesus Christ - and therefore, about God?

• Does Jesus care more about the theoretical and scholarship we come up with, or with how our day-to-day lives are going?
• Does this show Jesus running around eager to condemn people, or does it show Him hoping to teach and grow us closer to God's truth?
• If we get more involved in our "godly" religious practices and positions than with God Himself right in front of us, are we more or less likely to get plain, easy answers from God? Are we even likely to see God when He's right in front of us?
• If you're Gay, or female, or part of some other grouping that others despise, does that affect how God sees you, or what God expects of you?

Throwing out your religious belief and understandings, what does the Bible say to you about Jesus in your life?

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This article written by Lynne at No Junk. Just Jesus. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

Those &*%#@ Christians!

I'm continuing to get daily to prayer and information requests, as well as to direct emails from folks wanting to chat about things, even though I've not gotten back full time to (any of my) blogs (though, if things work out in the next few weeks, I hope to change that then).

Still, I got an email today from a strong-in-the-Lord brother who has been confronting people who use the Bible and religion to misrepresent Jesus and hurt other people. He requested prayer and healing over that little bit of nagging resentment we all struggle against whenever we've been confronted by someone else's insistence upon being evil, low, divisive, hurtful, etc. And for all of us, of course, sometimes that "little bit of nagging resentment" turns into an ocean of return-hate. What do we do about any of that?

Here's part of my answer to our brother (the parts that aren't personal in any way), listing my thoughts this morning. What are your thoughts on this issue? What are some other ways you deal with these kinds of things?

We ALL have to struggle with these things now and again, and it gets easier as we get more practice seeing these things Jesus' way. Here are my suggestions of things to consider when struggling with this temptation to be angry, resentful, or bitter towards someone who truly does deserve our anger, resentment, and bitterness according to the world and our flesh!

* Corrie ten Boom: she went thru a Nazi death camp and lost almost her entire family (including a sister who was with her in the camp), and had to struggle a lot to over come anger and hate during and after the war. Her books and MP3s of her talks can be very inspiring and healing, and always point us to the fact that even when dealing with evil it's only through Jesus that we can forgive and see things His way.

* Paul of Tarsus: consider who Paul was, and the incredible damage he did to people's lives, before he was confronted by Jesus. Consider that many others just like him moved among God's people in those days, and that most never turned from their evil - but that any Jesus-followers who turned away from hope that Paul and those like him could still also repent of their religiousity and surrender their hearts to Jesus were just wrong. Consider also that no follower of Jesus EVER did or could turn Paul's heart to repentance and hope in the true Lord - Jesus Christ Himself alone could do that. Such matters require our humility, our willingness to admit that only the Lord heals and calls - not us. So we do what we're called to do, and leave the results to the Lord.

* The best use of your efforts: I used to debate "Christians" all the time who had religious demons of hate and division in their hearts, thinking perhaps I could help them see a better light -- that is, until once when God told me, "If they don't listen to Me, why would they listen to you?" Truly, if God isn't at work on and in their hearts, there's no hope whatsoever that anything you can say or do will accomplish what they won't let God do. So what's the better perspective? This: what about all those people on the site (or in your local life) that are silently reading (or seeing/hearing) what you're saying? Never forget that for every person who's wanting to debate just to exercise their own demons and wear you out and get you into their world of anger and evil - there may be another person, or 100 other people, or a thousand, or more, whose hearts just might be hungry for a more true way of seeing Jesus and understanding God's way. For myself, I speak or deal publicly with evil-choosers only when doing so might be of some benefit to those who may currently be within the realm of evil but wanting out (in a small or large way). And in those times, even as I "speak" to the evil-chooser, I actually direct all my attention and efforts and words to the rest of the crowd. We're called to be wise stewards, not casting our pearls of Jesus-wisdom before spiritual-swine or spending our Holy-Spirit-energy on evil-choosing-dogs.

* What the New Testament tells us: what does the NT tell us to do with "Christians" who cause hurt, bad feelings, and teach wrong things? It tells us to try a few times to explain how they're wrong, but if they persist, we are told to remove our attention and lives from the dark cloud of their attention and lives. We forgive them, again and again - yes. But according to the NT we also recognize the truth of the damage they can and do cause, and we do not get caught up in their spiritual ugliness by trying to get them out of it (which requires God to open their hearts and minds).

* God's plan: Finally, ponder things like this in God's Bigger Picture. Jesus told us that God doesn't let His angels just go out and destroy the evil people we see around us, because if He did some good people would be destroyed, as well - and all of the Bible tells us that God's not willing to lose even one person who will turn from world-evil to Jesus-good. That person in your life who's being so wrong today (and tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, and so on) MIGHT just eventually find the real Jesus, confronting him/her on the road to doing even more wrong, and be set right. Without that willingness to understand what's happening in the world from God's perspective, it's just too easy to end up bitter or angry, but also hopeless, out of faith, and so on. 

Where does the Holy Spirit lead your thoughts, today?

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This article written by Lynne at No Junk. Just Jesus. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

God means it for good

Ugh. Fighting springtime allergies right now, and by now they're trying to add in bronchitis. What a drag. But I'm taking (healthy) medicines, and getting extra rest, and thinking a lot about sickness and other kinds of suffering that creeps through this world.

What I've had the last few days is nothing. But it doesn't feel like nothing. It feels like my body isn't functioning correctly, even though in my mind I know my lungs and the rest are doing exactly what God programmed them to do, trying to isolate and get rid of what they see as harm or potential harm. But anyone who's had allergies knows the day-ruining groggy-head, and the sinus stuff, and the itching, and so on that's part of that. And it feels horrible. Anyone who's had the chest crap that follows sometimes, making it hard to breathe and sleep, knows how bad that feels, too.

Yet it's all nothing.

I have some awesome joys in my life. Truly awesome. But I've also had some huge pain. Nothing like some have had, to be sure. When I look at some people's lives, I'm amazed at how far suffering can go in this world – and how much of it human beings can survive through emotionally, physically, and spiritually. But many folks, when they hear about my life, say they're amazed at what I've suffered and survived, too.

And that reminds me, when I forget, not to disrespect one of the biggest teachers in my life.

Pain.

Pain is certainly nothing we'd normally invite in. It's an enemy. It's an animal that sweats poison and spits fire. But if we accept God's help with pain, it can make us stronger even as it makes us gentler. It can teach us. It can open our hearts in ways we'd never known was possible.

Pain can actually make us better people.

Of course, pain makes many people worse. I grew up with and around people who let pain make them bitter, angry, selfish, violent, self-destructive, and intentionally ignorant of others' (even their children's) pain. In some cases, it made them drunks and drug users. In other cases, it made them religious legalists, or crazy people. And all of that was exactly what pain invited me to make of my life, as well. For many years I did – and for many years I smeared pain through others' lives, just like it had been splashed over mine.

I can name the day that I used to think God changed all that. I have to say "used to think" because by now I realize that God's hand was in my whole life, long, long before I ever realized it. He was there when I was:

• a kid in a house of raging crazies, and He kept me from falling so far over the edge that I couldn't come back;
• a teen full of rage and self-hate, and He kept me from blowing out my brains – or someone else's; 
• a young adult arrogantly denying His existence, and calling Him every filthy name I could imagine and viciously belittling and attacking those who believed in Him because I hated Him so much, and He kept me from loving the darkness too much; 
• an adult stupidly making myself a religious legalist, making up and following body, mind, and spiritual disciplines I mistakenly thought would give my life meaning, and perhaps take away my pain, and He kept me from selling myself to the devil.

Now I understand what I hurt too bad to get before: God has always been there even before my life started, seeing and working with potential I never knew I had, inviting me to be the better person I can always (still) learn to be. I know He's forever been in your life, too. That's just how He works.

But what about pain? Why is it here? Why do we have to feel it, deal with it, suffer under it?

I can't answer that – today. But I know some day soon we'll all know why. There won't be a question left for any of us, that day.

Until then, I just go with what I've learned – from the Bible, from the Holy Spirit, from my own learned life experience. Like,

Oftentimes we have pain because we've made crappy choices.

I've certainly made buckets of them, in my almost-50 years. I'm certain to make buckets more, before the Lord calls me home. Some of our bad choices we didn't make on purpose. I certainly didn't decide to be such a messed up young person that I was wanting to hurt people, for example. But I was responsible for the damage I did cause, anyway. We all are. We did it, we make up for it, we change (and change, and change, and change, as needed) and we move on. And hopefully we get ourselves pointed in that direction we'd actually like to go finally, instead of just floating along on some B.S. wind.

Pain is always a signal that something's wrong.

God programmed us to feel pain. And it wasn't a bad thing to do. Imagine being one of those rare people who can't feel pain, and now imagine resting your hand on a hot stove and not realizing it until you smell your own flesh on fire.

Pain means something needs to be different. We need to move our hand, or see something differently, or escape a bad situation, or seek out healing, or grieve and then let go of a loss, or learn to help what we can and accept our own human limitations. Too often we blame the pain -- but the pain is just the obvious, stated. Pain tells us, "Whoa! Are you seeing this?" That's why drugging it with alcohol or meth or religion or bitterness doesn't fix anything: doing that just treats the symptom, and not what the symptom is trying to warn us about.

Pain is an opportunity to understand – and help – someone else's suffering, as well.

If you've ever paid any attention to your pain, you know how it likes to invite self-centeredness. Enough pain, and all we can think about is our hand, or our head, or our heart, or our messed up life. Even a little bit of pain, and all we want to think about is how bad it hurts, and "why won't it go away?"

But pain has a bigger lesson than that.

Everyone's got pain. But since pain is such a selfish ass, lots of people never get to know that someone else actually cares that they hurt, or can even imagine what their hurt must feel like. That means not only can pain be intensely isolating, but the added awareness that "I hurt, and nobody gives a *(#*%" just waters the fungus until our whole consciousness is rotten with it. That's when we start hurting ourselves or others with our words, our actions, our choices.

But what do you have, if you've had big pain? Well, you have first-hand knowledge. You've walked the territory. You're a Pain Tribe member. Given half a heart, you can even reach out – in a little way, or a big way – to someone else who's wearing the same badge, and even if you don't say a word, you can speak their language. And that's all it takes to drain (even just a little bit) of that extra "..and nobody gives a *(#*%" pain someone else is feeling.

The best part is, we don't have to be psychologists, or "clergy", or even have our own lives all together. We just need to have and be ourselves, and be willing to care about someone else who hurts in a way we can empathize with.

Pain can make us better people than people who've never had pain will ever be.

Those who make the most of their lives for themselves and others are those who've come through pain and turned it back on itself, so that their pain becomes a force for good in the world.

One example: one of my many deep pains in my earlier life was believing God hated me for being Gay. Feeling rejected, condemned, valueless, and unable to change made me crazy with grief and anger for many years. When I finally allowed God to heal me of that (something He'd been trying to do for my whole life, I realized later), that pain transformed into a deep passion for helping others who had also been lied to about what God thinks of them, and who also longed for that Jesus-connection they thought they couldn't have. Then, for several years (long before such things became common on the internet, as they are today) I ran a website that received over a hundred thousand visitors (both Gay and straight) who were looking for (or just stumbled upon) the info I'd put up about what the Bible really says about Gay people and God's loving acceptance of them just as they are. During that time, I also personally counseled almost a thousand people who needed or wanted more than a quick note and some Bible studies.

And what can I say about all that? That I did something great? NO WAY. I don't give half a cent for anything I did, or that anyone even remember my name (in fact, I'd prefer you forget me and just remember Jesus!) What I do want to shout about is how "Christians" prejudiced against Gay people meant my previous pain for bad – but God turned it into something good and healing. And, when Bible-based Gay healing resources became common on the internet, my passion moved on to helping others I could also relate to: people who aren't happy being atheists; people convinced they're garbage; people so emotionally damaged they can't believe their life can ever be happy, fun, and joy-filled; and more. And I know God is doing the same and more through the lives of other people whose pain He's made into something better. I know, because I've benefited and continue to benefit from what God's given them to do, say, and be, as well.

Does any of this mean I'm perfect, or have some great stuff to share that others can't live without? Absolutely not. I'm no hero. I'm no saint. I'm no Jesus.

What I am is another human being who, through accepting what Jesus Christ had to offer, has watched her life turn from dark, bleak hurricane to loved blue skies – and who's gotten oriented enough to be able to share directions to the good place I was helped to find, with others. I can't fix anything – and sometimes all I have is a willingness to sit with someone else's pain, and share a laugh, and offer a hand up.

But I can do that now. 

Because my pain made me strong. 

Because compared to Jesus, my pain is nothing.

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This article written by Lynne at No Junk. Just Jesus. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

Q: "Can Gay people really become straight?"

Can Gay people really become straight? Only in the imaginations of those who hate Gay people.

And whether it comes from junk-science sources (which are "dishonest and misleading", "unethical" and without real evidence that they work), or junk-Christian sources (which impose human bigotries over the top of God's creation, and proclaim that's what God wanted all along), it's the human idea that Gay people should be different than who and what God created them to be, that needs to change.

Indeed, once the faked and unethical "studies" and mistranslations of the Bible are thrown out, of those who claim to have been "healed" or "brought out" of being Gay, we consistently only ever see:

• Bisexual people who have simply decided to not act on one part of their sexual orientation, and,
• Gay people who have just decided not to be sexually active, but continue the rest of their lives to have the same emotional and biological same-sex orientation they've always had.

Problem with these "cures" is that:

• Bisexual people are like people who are ambidextrous. And just as someone who's ambidextrous can decide to just not use their left hand anymore -- and yet still not be a right-hand-only person -- just so with a bisexual person, who can decide not to act on their attraction for the same sex -- but that doesn't make them into a opposite-sex-only person. No matter how they decide to act on how God created them, or what human-created-ideas about themselves they choose to believe, these folks remain bisexual -- and not same-sex-only people "changed" into opposite-sex-only people.

• People -- both Gay and straight -- decide all the time not to act on their sexual orientations. For example, we see Gay and straight people alike who are single and stay celibate, wanting to wait for a covenanted relationship, or who are married to someone who is out of town or sick or something, and so they wait and remain celibate until their spouse is home or healthy again. We also see Gay and straight people who join certain religious orders and give up any sexual expression for nearly their whole lives. Indeed, all people -- Gay, straight, bisexual -- decide at various times in their lives to not act on their God-given sexual nature -- but that never makes a Gay person straight any more than it makes a straight person Gay.

So, what does all that come down to? This:

Anything "ex-Gay" is simply a lie:

• To oneself, imagining either that one has made God happy by undoing what God created to be, or that one has made God unhappy by being unable to undo what He created to be;
• To Gay people, who are taught by Gay-hating bigots (who represent God as much as the Jesus-killing Pharisees did 2,000 years ago) that the only way they can be spiritually, emotionally, and even physically safe and healthy is to reject the One who stands on their side, and not on the side of those who hate and hurt them; and,
• To straight people, who -- like white people a hundred years ago, many men and most well-off people even today -- get to believe themselves "superior" in God's eyes and in the natural world, as if all of God's creation revolves around what they do with their genitals (or skin color, or gender, or wealth, or...), and who live a spiritual arrogance that hardens their hearts and sets them against God.

And here's the thing that's always the thing, no matter what the topic being pushed at you is:

What do the lives of those telling you "the thing" look like?

We're not talking "are they perfect" here -- because obviously no one is perfect but God, and even the most God-loving and God-pleasing saints have and will sin (just ask David and Paul). No, we're talking here about what the fruit of their hearts are. We're talking about how much good they help God do versus how much damage their human sin-natures do.

In this case, what do the lives of those (we'll just talk about the leadership, here, but this will apply to most of their followers, as well) who promote the "Ex-Gay" thing look like?

Well, we've already seen that they use junk science to promote their hated of Gay people. That's called "unethical" in the human world, but God just calls that "lying". 

And, they tell people that Gays are "sick", "child molesters", and so on, even though there's absolutely nothing beyond their puny little ways of imagining those they hate that "proves" any of that. And God calls that "bearing false witness". 

And, they use Bibles that have been falsely translated and passages that are taken out of their historical, religious, linguistic, and cultural contexts to "prove" God said things that God never said at all. (In fact, they use these same re-makes of God's scripture to "prove" God likes all kinds of things He doesn't really like -- things like war, and oppressing of people based on their race or sex, and taking advantage of and stealing from the poor, and so on.) And God calls that "distorting" the scriptures. 

More, they promote and live legalism, a false (though always very popular) version of Christianity that believes that changing the outside of a person so it's disciplined and looks righteous means the inside is changed and now godly (while true Christianity changes the inside of a person first and completely through Holy Spirit -- not human -- action, and then the outside changes, becoming more and more like the real Jesus). It was legalists that tortured and murdered Jesus, and they are condemned not only by Jesus but also in the letters of Paul and other New Testament writers. God says legalists lie when they say they know God, and are "rebellious", "lawless", "disobedient", "unfit for any good work", "empty talkers and deceivers", people who upset families, and teachers of false Christianity for their own gain.

We could go on -- but what do you say? If an unrepentant serial rapist teaches that you can only become more "moral" or "godly" if you pretend to be someone of a different race, would you become depressed and even suicidal if your skin color never changes?

How about someone who's a lifelong drug abuser, someone whose heart doesn't care how much s/he is hurting self and family? Would you hurt in your heart and hide from the world because that druggie told you God hates you because you like orange juice? 

Maybe if someone has become rich by stealing poor farmers' lands and paying workers starvation wages? Should you stay up nights worrying or start living a trash life because this rich guy says his wealth is "proof" that God loves people like him/her more than you?

I'm thinking you wouldn't fall for any of that. I'm thinking you'd either ignore those people, or tell them to buzz off (or even call the cops) if they kept getting in your face. 

Those who try to tell you that being Gay is wrong, or sick, or immoral, or against God and Bible are themselves people who are spiritually wrong, sick, immoral, and against both God and Bible. And Jesus and others in the Bible say that no one should listen to or follow them. Pray for them? Yes. Love them despite their anti-God living? Yes. Help them see the real Jesus and escape the trap of their false religion? Yes. 

But listen to or follow? NO. 

God created you Gay for the same reason He created some people left-handed, and some people brown, and some people female. Because it made Him happy to do so. Because the whole of His creation proves that He loves variety, and that He demonstrates His power and glory in a universe that shows unimaginable diversity of things and life, from all the way down to the submicroscopic to all the way up the meta-universe level. God is an artist like no other. 

And who He made you to be, is not only a gift to you, and your friends, and your family -- but also to Himself. 

Enjoy.

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This article written by Lynne at No Junk. Just Jesus. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

3 great things about the End Times

It's amazing how much "stuff" is out there these days proclaiming the End Times right around the corner, isn't it? And everywhere it's all about how terrifying they will be. I mean, just cast an eye over these Google images for "End Times"! Not a smiling face in the bunch... (until you get to the parodies, that is). And we just hear more and more specific dates for when Jesus is coming back -- as if millions of Christians all around the world just stopped taking their Savior seriously (oh, wait... most Christians stopped doing that about 1,900 years ago).

Of course, all those terrifying images are supposed to scare the non-Christians. They're supposed to make them understand just how desperately they need to be just like the people who put out all those scary images of shrieking babies and so on. Unfortunately, it's not really working because most non-Christians associate shrieking babies with Christian war-lovers and right-wing Christian family abuse.

In fact, all these freaky End Times warnings really do is:

• scare the Christian people who put them out, 
• embarrass the Christian people who want to pretend there won't be an End Times,
• make non-Christians believe they have to be against Jesus to be good people, and 
• just generally put a real bummer on everyone's spirit. 

Blah.

Now, there really will be an End Times. And beyond saying they really will be the most horrendous time ever seen on planet Earth, pretty much everything else about them (like, when did/will they start, how will they play out, and so on) is entirely, lovingly debatable even by good Christian people who really know their Bibles and history (despite what we're constantly told by those of Christian Corporate Media).

Still, despite differences of opinion about how the End Times are or will play out, I find three great things we Christians should always remember (and be telling our non-Christian friends and neighbors) about the End Times:

Great Thing # 1 - Jesus and the Bible are far more interested in making sure we know how to make it to and through the End Times, than with specifics on what's going to happen and when.

God wants as many people as possible to make it to heaven. But He knows too that no way could we human beings ever really understand the full depth of what's going to happen, even if He told us every last detail in vivid color. We'd still argue about it, and confuse it, and re-imagine it, and re-translate it, and so on (especially if we have theology degrees or church positions). I mean, He can't even tell us something simple like "turn the other cheek" without us turning it into something else entirely! 

So, just like we don't explain to our kids the how's and why's and histories of, for example, making ourselves presentable to the world each morning, but instead just give them directions like "Brush your teeth", "Wash your face", "Comb your hair", and "Put your school clothes on" -- in the same way God gives us the directions we need to make ourselves presentable for His heaven.

Jesus tells us about the End Times, for example:

• Don't get tricked or discouraged by what only looks like and pretends to be Christianity (most people will become false Christians, or they will either never choose or will choose to leave the real Jesus because they confuse Him with False Christianity).
• Don't be afraid when big bad things start to happen (that's just part of the whole plan, and Jesus will make sure you're off-planet before He starts its big "remodel").
• Don't worry about being persecuted -- expect it even, if you're still among those hanging on to the real Jesus (No matter how it happens, if it happens, just go with what the Holy Spirit puts in your heart, and keep hanging on to Jesus).
• Keep sharing the Gospel and caring for other people until Jesus comes (stay focused on what's really important, and don't start getting lost in worry, boredom, time-wasting, or sense indulgence and be caught spiritually napping when He arrives).
• Don't try to figure out when Jesus is coming back (God's doing this by how He counts time, not by how you do).
• Everyone will know it when Jesus comes back (so don't chase after reports of where He supposedly is, or fear you've missed it somehow).
• When you see Jesus coming in the clouds, stand up tall and lift up your head! -- this is the best day of your life on this planet!

And that's a lot more human-friendly than if God had said: "Work out exactly what every single cryptic End Times prophecy means before I get back!"

Great Thing # 2 -- just like there are overwhelming and scary labor pains in birth, but then the miracle of new life for a baby, there will be overwhelming and scary labor pains for the End Times, but then New Life for us and the earth.

The Bible says after Jesus comes and rights everything, because the earth itself will finally be completely filled with knowledge of the Lord, even the animals that previously ate other animals will now only eat plants, and peacefully right alongside those animals they used to prey upon. Imagine! Lions eating straw alongside cows. Little children playing quite safety right next to cobra nests. Packs of wolves napping next to little lambs. The earth itself will finally be set right, once again.

The Bible also says that after Jesus makes everything right again, God will wipe every tear from our eye. It says there will never again be death, mourning, crying, or pain. Even more, every brokenness in our bodies will be erased, our bodies made new just like Jesus' resurrected and glorified body was.

When it's time for God to rip the devil-bandaid off the world, just hang in there, knowing that soon and very soon, you are going to see the King -- and then expect only the joy you've earned by toughing it out!

Now, I fully understand the need to let people know there are scary things in store for those who continue to enjoy evil and insist on doing things their own way (instead of God's way). But that's only the subplot to a much larger story.

Jesus didn't come to die an agonized death on the Cross so that human beings could be scared of going to hell, did He? Of course not. He died on the Cross because God loves every person on this planet, no matter what they've already done, no matter what they will do in the future, no matter what they think or ever will think of Him.

Jesus came and died an agonized death on the Cross so that every person who chooses to can be freed from the Roach Motel of sin the devil has placed around this world.

And that's what needs to be shared with ourselves, our friends, our families, our neighbors, and even strangers on the street:

"Friend, there's something really bad coming not too far in the future. And Someone Really Big would like nothing better than for you to know how to avoid it..."

 So, here's Great Thing # 3 about the End Times -- you.

Remember that part of what Jesus said about not being tricked into believing in False Christianity (and make no mistake -- even people who hate False Christianity believe in it, or they wouldn't confuse it with the real thing)? Remember that most people are going to be tricked? The # 3 great thing about the End Times is that you have a chance not only to not be tricked yourself, but to also help others either not be tricked, or get un-tricked, before it's too late.

So, while you are modeling the real Jesus for people who don't know the real Jesus, leaving soul-safe tracts laying around on park benches or bus seats so people can read and think about the Lord privately, helping Gays and straights understand what God really thinks about them, and so on, you can be doing the work God has assigned each of us to do, in preparation for His coming again. 

What are some ways you are already doing God's work to plant seeds of understanding for others regarding the real Jesus, and the real Scripture as God gave it to us? What are some new ways you might be able to help out? Is there someone who needs prayer? A hug? A friendly ear? A fresh look at Scripture?

What can you do to make things great for others, regarding the End Times?

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This article written by Lynne at No Junk. Just Jesus. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.