Taxes for Jesus? ...

Not talking about tithes, they are an opportunity to share in the ministry of redemption with Jesus.  Tithes are asked of your increase (to remind you that you experience increase).  Tithes help you prioritize the value of what is important to you – hint: if money is what is important, you are missing quite a lot.  Then there are offerings.  Offerings are as the base of the word implies, an offer, of your treasure back to God from the free will choice of your heart.  You give to Him whatever you see fit to give.  You are not constrained to any limits of 10%, so no gift from you is too small, or too large.  It is only a reflection of your heart as you give it.  The joy you experience doing that, is a joy you alone can realize, and God alone can share as your heart shines open to Him.  Your gift is never made fun of.  It is never ridiculed.  It is never wasted.  It changes your heart each time you give it.  Repeated giving has a profound effect on you, and if it is accompanied by joy you feel from doing it, even more so.  If you would rather keep your treasure than give it, or giving it makes you angry, the sacrifice is not truly an offering.  Keep it.  Hold on to it; and realize the futility of trying to hold on to something as fleeting as treasure.  Give it; and learn to experience that giving is truly better than receiving, and far better than hoarding.  But tithes and offerings are not anywhere near the category of taxes.

Taxes are non-negotiable.  Taxes are certain (like the death they inevitably represent).  Taxes are imposed usually by governmental, or controlling entities interested in the preservation of power.  Taxes are not part of the system of government of heaven.  In heaven, people will long to find another way to give something more of themselves they have not thought to give already.  Ideas will be exercised full time in trying to give more, and make the lives of someone else in heaven, just a bit happier (as if that was possible).  No one will ask you to.  You will do it, because you cannot bear to do otherwise.  This is how God does it.  When you come in closer harmony with Him, it will rub off on you as well.  So in heaven, there is no need for even the concept of taxation.  But in this world, the devil is duly pleased with implementing as harsh a method of taxes as he can impose.  Taxes are never pleasant, usually wasted, utterly futile, and always too high.  So who could have imagined imposing a system of taxation in the name of Jesus?  Church leadership, that’s who. 

Matthew records an incident in his gospel to the Hebrews in chapter seventeen of just such a thing.  Let us take a second look at it and see what lessons may be hiding in these few verses.  Picking up in verse 24 it begins … “And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute?”  Ouch.  To begin, the Temple at Jerusalem was more than just the physical place idealized by the nation as the best place to worship God.  It was also a symbolic seat of power.  What should have been dedicated to God alone, had become corrupted by the politics of trying to run a nation.  Sound familiar?  We need only turn on any news outlet today, and see where the influence of protestant churches attempts to influence the policy of the USA.  Catholics as well, continue to look to influence policies in nations all across the world.  It would seem, Christianity, which should have been a thing left to the pure worship of Christ, has now also become a symbolic power of political influence.

And where there is politics, and where there is power of any kind, there must also be funding to keep it so.  Thus a system of taxation is imposed for the maintenance of the Temple (or at least in theory that what it might be used for).  But then, have you ever known any kind of tax to be used on the thing it is supposed to be used on?  And more likely, have you seen taxes seem to find there way into the pockets of those in power, be they in the church, or out of it.  Here in this system of taxation, yet again the Sanhedrin looks for a way to trip up Jesus.  If Jesus refuses to pay the tax; they will claim He does not care about the upkeep of the Temple.  If He pays it, then He shows humility or deference to the Temple, and by proxy, to them.

Since Capernaum was Peter’s home town, the tax masters approach Peter, hoping to embarrass him when Jesus refuses (or at least that is what they expected).  Matthew continues in verse 25 saying … “He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers?”  Jesus however, had a different lesson to teach.  Instead of focusing on making the tax they asked for, He poses an entirely different question, about ownership.  Jesus divides the audience for tax payers into two camps, the children of the King, and strangers to the King.  He then asks Peter who the King is likely to taxes from, His own children, or total strangers.  Look closely my brothers and sisters, Jesus is here putting you into a classification you might forget you belong to.

Matthew continues in verse 26 saying … “Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free.”  Peter responds what common sense calls for, a King would take taxes from strangers, never from His own kids.  Jesus then makes a very profound statement – Then are the children free.  You are not a stranger to your King, He calls you His child, and loves you so, and treats you so.  The children are provided for by the King.  The children eat because the King puts His food on their tables.  They wear the clothes the King has seen fit to dress them with (one day this will include a robe of righteousness none of us deserve, but all of us receive washed clean in the blood of our King).  The children need not concern themselves with how they survive, for the King takes care of ALL these worries.  It would stand to reason then, with our survival insured by our King, we are free to give of ourselves completely, without fear or regret.  To mirror for others what our King chooses to do in the great love of His kids.  Religious taxes are an anachronism we need not be bothered with.  However even free children must concern themselves with helping others come to Jesus to find freedom.

Matthew continues in verse 27 saying … “Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee.”  Jesus ultimately paid the tax (for all of us), not because He needed to, but because He was free to.  Jesus was more interested in trying to find a way to the tax master’s heart, than He was about making a principled stand on why He did not need to pay this tax.  So He creates a miracle, where money, gold that is, is found in a random fish Peter catches in his hometown Sea of Galilee shores.  I imagine something that had never been done before.  The tax masters bear witness to the miracles of Jesus, even though they never asked for a sign.  The tax was still unfair.  But Jesus paid it.  He did not argue, or raise arms, or hold a revolution.  He did not even try to make sure His next church would never be consumed with thinking about these kinds of things again.  He just went the extra mile.  Because He still craved for the soul of those assigned to collect the taxes, and those wicked enough to dream up that system.

Jesus does not check back up on this tax, to see if it was used rightly.  He knows it will likely never be used rightly.  He is intentionally giving funds to those intent on killing Him.  They may wind up converting this gold coin into several silver ones, that one day briefly line the pockets of Judas who will betray Him over it.  That gold coin may instead have found its way into Roman pockets, funding a spear that would one day pierce His side, or a cross He would one day hang upon.  Where His tax money went was STILL not His concern.  The life of the tax master was.  Life was more important than money.  A pathway to the heart more important that asserting His freedom not to pay.  He did what was not required, because His treasure is in hearts reconciled to Himself.  A silly gold coin was not going to get in the way of that.

And where are we today in how we value our money, and our gold?  Have our Christian churches decided we must defend ourselves, in effect, choosing to take on the role of the King, rather than trusting in the King to do what His love demands of Him.  Have we lost trust in our King, choosing to fight to live, rather than trust that our King has our eternal lives in His hands, and our earthly ones as well.  Have we told ourselves it is our “job” to “provide” for our families, and look to our King, only when we don’t believe we have enough money to get the job done.  We fight to hold on to our taxes, to keep as much as we can.  If not from our churches (and some treat tithes and offerings, not much different than taxation), then from our governments.  And we never once consider trying to find pathways to any heart outside of our own.  We develop a spirit of fighting to keep what is rightfully ours.  And in this spirit, we try to keep those other Christians who may disagree with our beliefs, away from us.  We reason we must fight the devil, and since they do not agree, they must be with the devil.  Yet all of us claim to follow Christ.  And there was no fight in Christ, to keep what was His, not even His life.  He gave all, to reach all, to reach me, and you.

Perhaps our churches today, could abandon ideas of influence and power, leaving behind the provinces of Satan.  Perhaps instead we could hone our skills in loving others, trying to give more of ourselves to others, to meeting needs anywhere and everywhere – without fear, or regret.  In this we would enter the provinces of Jesus, and find a King already there, working so hard already, now looking for those of us who are ready to join with Him, in the ministry of finding a pathway to hearts.  Even if that means we lose a few things along the way or give up what should not be required.  At the end of it all, the real treasure, is the treasure of souls.  Gold is nothing but pavement for city streets, worth nothing more than gravel is today.  But the feet that may one day walk on it, are priceless.

 

Broken Wedding Vows ...

There is a promise we intend to make only once.  There are vows we take before God and each other.  It is because of this that we call our promises sacred, and what we say, the very foundation of our honor.  To see our vows broken, is to see our humanity broken alongside them.  Should someone else betray their vow to us, that betrayal leaves a scar that seldom heals in full.  Its mark is carried with us, making us apprehensive to trust again, making us apprehensive to commit again.  In point of fact these are only words.  But the context of these words, the circumstances in which they are spoken, the witnesses to them … add up to a vow that becomes part of who we are.  And what happens to us when we are the one who breaks them?

Humans have no control.  We know we live at the whims of fate.  A tornado or extreme weather event could hit and radically change our perspective.  Cancer, AIDs, or heart disease can seem to come upon us out of the blue, and radically change our perspective.  Love itself can overwhelm us and make our lives something new, something entirely different.  So humanity must reduce its expectations of control to only the things we believe we can control, our words, and perhaps our actions.  We make promises.  We intend to keep them.  Should control not be lifted us, from circumstances that prevent it, we do keep them.  But if scripture teaches us anything, it teaches us that our promises founded in our strength are worth nothing.

This was to be the most painful lesson in the life of Peter.  It left a mark on him that colored his perspective, even many years later while recalling his gospel through his friend and transcriptionist John Mark.  Peter too had made a vow.  It was a vow taken before God, and a promise to God.  It was made in the company of witnesses, not just strangers mind you, but witnesses who lived with him day and night for a little more than three years.  These men knew Peter.  Jesus knew Peter.  And with this context, in a circumstance that was the most important setting he would ever face.  Peter made a vow.  It was more important that his wedding vow.  It was the most important one he would ever make, and strangely, it is the most important one you or I will ever make.

Peter begins his recollection to John Mark in his gospel picking up in chapter fourteen and verse 27 saying … “And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. [verse 28] But after that I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee.”  Jesus declares an ominous truth.  He prophesies again what is about to happen, not with conditions, but with clarity.  He predicts His own death, and He predicts it will happen beginning tonight.  He also predicts His own resurrection, and gives directions about where they will find Him once He is risen.  They can find Him again in Galilee, a place they remember fondly from mission work, and a home that offered them fishing on the sea there.  If Peter, like us, could have focused on the aftermath, on the reunion in Galilee perhaps all might have been well.  But he, like us, could not.

We see only the part of the text our minds are drawn too.  Peter is drawn to the circumstances Jesus’ prophecy will create.  That “all shall be offended” this night, and because of Him.  Jesus states in absolute clarity, that finally, the hopes of each one of the disciples that He would become the earthly king they surely thought would happen, will be dashed upon the rocks.  Each one of them will lose hope.  Each one of them will question their faith.  Did they really get it right?  After all, this Jesus will NOT be fulfilling the scriptures as defined by the leaders of the faith, or as hoped for in their own hearts.  This means the Jewish people will still be crucified.  This means the Jewish people will still be over taxed.  They will continue to suffer with not an ounce of relief.  How could a real Messiah allow that to happen, when He had the power to change it?

But to be offended by Him.  After all this time, to wind up offended by the Master he had left everything for, had left everything to follow.  No.  Not Peter.  His memory continues in verse 29 stating … “But Peter said unto him, Although all shall be offended, yet will not I.”  There it is.  There is boast of certainty.  There is the vow of a wedding.  There is the most sacred promise a human could make.  But the scary part, is that we make it too, almost exactly the same way, in almost exactly the same circumstances.  Peter says to his Lord, that while everyone else may get it wrong, he will not.  He declares that his brothers in Christ are not as mature as he is.  They may be offended, they may not understand scriptures as well as Peter, they may flee because of it.  But not Peter.  Not you or I.  We know more.  We know better.  We will stand with our God no matter what comes, or who is offended.  And we mean this vow too.

Jesus responds to his vow in verse 30 saying … “And Jesus saith unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this day, even in this night, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.”  Jesus does not condemn his arrogance.  Jesus does not judge him as unworthy, or forever damned, or forever separated from Him because of what will come.  Jesus calmly explains to Peter, and to us, what his vow is worth.  In this day, in fact even in this night (the next 12 hours for Peter), Peter will fail at his vow not only once, but three times.  There it is.  There is the reality of our vow not to sin, of our vow to follow God.  We make it.  Then our sins, our weakness, break the vow we make multiple times in the same day our words are uttered.  What good is a wedding vow?  What good is a promise we make to love God, when it can be broken by us in heart, mind, and mouth, multiple times in a single day?

How can the Lord take our promise seriously?  Why should He?  Our problem, was Peter’s problem, separated by more than 2,000 years and yet identical in nature.  We promise something based on the strength of our will.  We then find that strength is nothing.  We then find only a short passage of time, leads to a dulling of our commitments, and a lure or “need” to forego them.  We state in front of others that we will be a follower of Jesus, then find ourselves sinning against Jesus multiple times just a bit later.  It is not a onetime event.  We do it repeatedly.  We then beg for forgiveness.  And perhaps come to a point, where we think “God” made me this way.  So it’s His fault.  It’s His fault I fail, so He must know it, and accept me in spite of my failures.  Maybe my failures are OK with Him after all.  His grace then becomes cheap to us.

But a vow is not so easily discarded.  For with a vow comes pride in who we are.  If we are going to break it, at least give us the courtesy of not thinking our words are so cheap they can be done away with in a single day, and multiple times in that day.  So thought Peter as he responds in verse 31 saying … “But he spake the more vehemently, If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise. Likewise also said they all.”  Peter ups the ante.  He does not accept what Jesus is saying.  He disputes it.  He disputes truth, the Truth.  So he raises his voice, deepens his tone, and makes his commitment even more fiercely.  He now adds to his vow, that even unto death he will honor it.  He will follow his Lord unto death no matter what.  His words now sound in our ears, for haven’t we said the same things, if not to God, then to other Christians so that they will “know” how holy we are.

At this point, mob thinking takes over.  The other disciples are not going to be shamed into letting Peter make so vehement a declaration, so meaningful a wedding vow, and them remain silent.  They join Peter’s vow themselves.  They add their own voice to it.  And mimic the words of it.  So do we.  One of our friends declares their voice or promise to follow God, and so do we.  Particularly if it is a group of our friends.  We do not want to be left out in the cold, alone.  We want to be part of the “team”.  So we add our voices to whatever vow is offered, for better or for worse.  Our passion is weaker, but present. 

We either do not want to be outdone by another, or do not want to be the only guy afraid of commitment at all.  So we all make the vow.  And even more important than what words we will say to our spouse in our wedding, we are making our vow right to the face of God.  Whether in our prayers, or as Peter did in front of Jesus, we are vowing ourselves to Jesus Christ.  And how often does Jesus know the sad truth?  He knows it every time.  For so far, our records remain imperfect every time.  Human strength is worth nothing, yet we continue to rely upon it.  Constantly making and breaking vows to God, destroys us inside, it hardens us until we have no more words to speak, or intentions to underlie them.  These actions hollow us, as they did Peter.

We should not be making vows.  Counsel was given us to simply let our yes mean yes, and our no mean no.  That counsel was insurance against the pride that comes when a vow is made.  It is insurance against the linking of honor to vows.  For once vows have been broken over and over again, our honor is destroyed when it need not be.  Better to recognize we have no honor in the first place.  Our honor, like our strength is reflected through us by Jesus Christ.  Our promises have no strength or longevity, if not maintained by Jesus Christ.  Our faith, and its condition, its strength, is a product of how much we humble ourselves and submit to Jesus Christ.  Christ can do all things in me, is not a testament about how much I help Jesus accomplish His work.  It is a testament about how little I can do, effectively nothing, and how Jesus does all things through me, because I can do none of them.

It is our illusion of control that gives way to making a solemn vow before God.  But if our vows to God are broken with such regularity, then how can anything we promise each other in front of God stand any better chance?  We must ground our commitments in the will and love of God, or make no commitments at all.  We must not promise anything, but ground our language in the will and love of God.  To learn to submit our responses, and our intentions through Jesus, is to trust Jesus to run our lives, our marriages, and our salvation.  Our transformations do not occur because we will them, but because we submit to them. 

But if we needed any proof of this, the recollections of Peter would provide ample examples as the story continues …

 

Homosexuality in the Church ...

So what should be the church’s position on the acceptance of homosexual members in its midst?  Should we welcome them into the pews beside us, or attempt to keep them beyond our doors?  Should we allow them to participate in our worship or lead in a ministry, or keep them confined in the pews?  Should we accept them as spiritual leaders if they choose to serve, or restrict them from our pulpits until their lives reflect our ideals of what a pastor should be?  To date, the majority of Christian churches have ostracized the gay community if not by direct mandate, then through protests with hateful rhetoric that would imply gays are not welcome in the doors of the local sanctuary.  There are a few other Christian churches that have elected to completely embrace the gay community and declare that homosexuality is “no longer a problem” with God.  Is either correct?  What should be the position of the church with regards to members who do not comply with its ideals?

The predominant church bearing the name of Christ for many centuries was the Roman Catholic Christian church.  It had the widest membership and farthest reach for nearly a thousand years.  When the reformation began, the term Protestantism (or protest against various Catholic dogmas) arose and gained momentum.  But church discipline and traditions still mimicked its Catholic roots for centuries to come.  The early Catholic church viewed dis-fellowship (or in their vernacular excommunication) as being the most severe punishment it could inflict on its erring members.  Those who would not comply with the leadership of the Catholic Church were forced to remain outside its doors.  The thought being that only through the church could one obtain salvation and therefore excommunication essentially doomed a person to eternal hell.  This idea carried through into Protestant churches for a few centuries further.  Though Protestants do not believe that salvation is found exclusively inside a church, they do believe that Christian “standards” must be maintained; and traditionally those found to be in sin were sometimes asked to withdraw their membership from the church and go somewhere else.

Public sin, is an interesting concept.  While a pastor engages in an adulterous affair that nobody knows about, his sermons appear to be just fine.  But after his affair is discovered and revealed, his shame requires him to leave the pulpit and seek other employment, or at least another congregation.  Most traditional churches believe that a “leader” of the flock must live a life more righteous than a regular member.  But this implies a degree of relative salvation, that some of us are effectively more “holy” than others.  It implies we expect a higher degree or a higher level of perfection in our leaders than we do in ourselves.  Interesting given that scripture teaches we are ALL inundated with sin, that NO-ONE is holy outside of Christ, and that ALL of us are created equally.  Scripture does not describe a spiritual hierarchy within the church.  People in spiritual leadership positions are selected based on the gifts of the Spirit, and their own willingness to serve.

Some argue that the model of the first worship services in the sanctuary that was carried through the desert by Moses, then placed permanently in Jerusalem by David and Solomon, had a hierarchical system setup within it.  But this ignores some of the foundations of “why” this method of worship was established and how the hierarchy worked.  The Levites were selected for the priesthood because of all the twelve tribes who exited Egyptian slavery, only they chose to remain loyal to God when presented with the golden calf alternative for worship.  This loyalty on their part was rewarded by God by selecting their tribe for all the various roles associated with the worship of God.  Not all of them were selected to perform every single role in the sanctuary services.  Some performed the tasks of setting up and taking down the structures of the movable sanctuary.  Some performed music.  Some participated in the daily sacrifices.  And one priest was selected to be the high priest, to perform the tasks of entering the most holy place once a year, and to wear the breastplate, and carry the stones that God reflected His will through.  Only one priest was selected to perform the most sacred part of the first ministry.

The high priest was to represent the work of Christ.  The original worship services did not create an organizational hierarchy with the high priest on top, then the next layer of priest leadership, then the next layer and so on and so on.  When Christ Himself came to our world, He established Himself as the head of the church.  He did not delegate that the 12 should rule over the 70, and that the 70 should rule over the next layer and so on and so on.  He setup Himself as the head, all men are equal in His service, no one was set up over his brethren.  Those who wished to lead, would be the servants of all.  So if all are equal under Christ, even our leaders.  And if all are sinners, then why do we hold our leaders to a higher standard than we hold ourselves?

The true Christian church then is any association of believers who are willing to submit themselves to the true leader of our faith – Jesus Christ.  It is only in Christ that salvation is found, not in the buildings we dedicate to our worship services.  It is in Christ that we find truth, not from our own collective wisdom.  The ministry of Christ was to redeem man from his bondage to sin and evil.  In coming closer to Christ, we are transformed by His presence.  It is not our own actions that change us, it is our willingness to recognize that Christ alone can transform us from the pain we embrace to the perfection He intends.  It is an error to think that ostracizing a sinner somehow protects the church, or maintains its standards.  We all fall short of the standards of heaven.  And we all need the transformation Christ provides.  Church discipline then that centers on casting away those caught in sin, or known to be in sin, is merely the elitist classism you would expect to see in a typical high school, not in the ministry of Christ.  Where can the sick go but to the master physician.  To deny them this access for the purposes of preventing further corruption is to ignore the pressing needs of the patient and to disregard the obvious; the disease is already among the brethren.

There is a difference in attempting to excuse our shortcomings and living with the struggle to submit to Christ to see them removed.  We are none of us perfect yet.  But all of us are on that journey through our submission to Christ.  It may be years before Christ is able to perfect in me what must be changed.  The delay is not His fault.  It is exclusively my own stubbornness and unwillingness to submit.  But as I learn to let go, I free Him to fix in me what must be fixed.  And soon I realize that He is not just fixing what I thought was broken.  He is literally remaking every single part of me; because as it turns out, I am COMPLETELY broken.  I think wrong.  I reason wrong.  I want the wrong things.  I believe I need things that only cause me pain.  I do not know how to really love.  I am bathed in self-centered thinking.  I am an absolute mess.  It will take time to repair me.  The church then, serves as my hospital.  Getting together with other ill patients to talk about how good our Doctor really is, encourages us all.  We all benefit from this encounter.

I may be a liar, or an adulterer, or a murderer, or simply full of pride.  I could also be gay.  The fact that I am diseased with evil is NOT the question.  All that matters is whether I am seeking His perfection, or content in my own self-assured sense of holiness.  When I define perfection based on my own thinking, I tend to disregard what Christ thinks and advocate only what I want.  When I put self at the center of my religion, I begin to try to excuse my condition of evil, rather than to confront my own errant thinking on the matter.  When I put my own views of what is right and wrong, and what is good for me or not, ahead of submitting to Christ; I effectively tell Him … “never mind, I do not need Your help – I am fine on my own.”  This was the state of the Pharisees in the days of Christ.

Christ was content to be found in the company of hookers, tax collectors (cheats), low class, poor, down trodden, those plagued with contagious diseases, even the demon possessed.  Christ was not there with them to participate in their evil, but to free them from it.  They could not free themselves, and had been shunned by the pious who need no such conversions.  Christ had to enter their company in order to reach them.  He was welcomed by those in need.  And He was worshipped for taking from them, what they were unable to free themselves from.  Church in the days of Jesus, was measured in how close you could get to the Son of God.  To be near Him, was to be near the source of Love, and the source of Healing, and the end to pain.  To be freed from sin by Christ was not merely to be forgiven, but to be unbound to the former desires to commit those sins.  When Christ said … “go and sin no more.”  It was not an arbitrary edict for the lame man to rely on his own decisions and willpower and not make any more mistakes.  It was the gift of reform in the lame man’s heart that despite his new found physical abilities, his mind, his heart, his soul were to be henceforth freed from the chains of evil that had so previously consumed him.  This is the kind of freedom that Christ alone can bring.  Our churches are supposed to represent being close to Jesus.  It is the purpose of our getting together in the first place.  Proximity to Christ brings relief to the soul, not the glorification of our evil.

The definition of hell is separation from God.  Conversely the definition of bliss is proximity to our Lord and Savior.  Our churches should accept all manner of sinners into its ranks.  Not for the purposes of excusing our sin-sick diseases, or attempting to glorify the pain we live with, but for the purposes of allowing Christ to free us from it.  We should encourage each other in love.  How are we to do this, if we cast aside all we find in sin?  Gay people should be welcomed into our family of believers, NOT because they are gay, nor because we believe this condition is ideal, or OK with God.  Gay people should be welcomed into our family because our Lord, welcomes us into it.  If we are welcome to sit in our churches, take leadership roles despite our own shortcomings, or preach from pulpits – so should those who suffer from a bit different condition than our own.  We are equally struggling to allow God to completely change who we are.  This is not a gay thing.  This is a Christian phenomenon.  We are all seeking to have Christ completely remake us.  ALL of us.  Our journey’s will be different, our timelines will be varied, but our destinations are all centered in Christ.  ALL are welcome in His kingdom.  In His kingdom ALL of us will be former sinners of one variety or another.  Do you think it will matter in heaven that I am a former liar, and you are a former adulterer, and he is a former person with pride?  God will see us only us in the perfection which He intends and has wrought within us.

If we ALL give God the freedom to rule over even our own sexual desires and ideas, then we allow God to craft us into what He intends for each of us.  It is not our place to judge each other in this matter.  It is our place to accept His leadership individually.  Our Lord has more work to do reforming the corrupt hearts of adulterers in our churches than He does altering the lives of homosexuals.  In sheer numbers, there are more straight sexual issues to contend with than gay ones.  Christians live in shame for the sins they commit.  Few try to glorify them.  How many pastors have stood in the pulpits and advocated that we should all be unfaithful to our spouses?  None, or none that lasted very long.  Glorifying evil or trying to excuse evil, is blinding oneself to the pain that evil causes and merely prolonging the agony of evil.  Yet many pastors who have preached sermons on the value of fidelity in a marriage have been caught cheating in their own.  It is not intentional hypocrisy; it is human weakness and self-sufficiency that leads to these failings.

I would not expect a gay person to stand in the pulpit and try to justify his history, his choices, or his point in the process of perfection.  I would not expect him to give us a report on how far God has altered his thinking on his being gay as of this moment in time.  I do not ask pastors to tell us how far along they are in their struggles with sin and submission.  Nor do I volunteer this information about myself to any who seem to have an interest.  Instead, like the publican, I stand afar off, unwilling to lift even my eyes towards heaven, beating my own chest and joining in his prayer … “have mercy on me God as I am the sinner.”   It is no-one’s business to know where I am on my spiritual journey towards the perfection God intends for me; as it is none of my business where anyone else is either. 

I am content then to journey alongside of you, regardless of what it is you struggle with.  You may not think you suffer from a particular evil that I believe exists in your life.  But then, this too is the condition I find myself so often within.  Christ is patient with us both.  He reforms how I think, reveals what must be changed, and then does the work as I allow Him to.  He is patient with me in this process, tender and caring.  How can I be any less with my brothers, whether they be gay or straight or something else entirely.  Those who seek the perfection found in Christ are more than welcome in my home, at my table, in my pew, or in my pulpits.  I realize the truth of inspiration does not come from the person who is willing to serve, but from the God who inspires behind them.  We are vessels of truth to others when we serve God in humility and love without condition.  But we remain vessels not the source.  Christ alone is the unending source of love and truth and change.

It is time for Christians to quit condemning particular sins, and instead focus on the healing of all sins.  It is time for us to forsake the mediocrity of living with cherished evil habits and the pain that comes with them, and seek Christ to be freed from them entirely.  It is time to seek perfection, realizing that ALL must journey to this as well.  There is no time keeper.  There is no yard stick.  There are no standards we do not all fail to meet.  There is only Christ.  There is only the TOTAL transformation we must ALL be willing to embrace before perfection can be achieved.  It is difficult to realize the magnitude of giving literally everything about us over to Jesus, but when we embrace it, it is life altering. 

It is a process that begins here and will one day reach fulfillment.  For those alive to greet Him in the clouds, this process will reach fulfillment in our lifetimes.  For those who die before this perfection is fully achieved, they will be granted the total transformation in the twinkling of an eye at His second coming.  Praise God He is willing to save me, to save you, and to save those who are different from us both.  Praise God He welcomes all into His kingdom, and does the work of perfecting ALL of us from what we are today, to what He intends for each of us.  Our God desires ALL to come to Him.  We should echo His desires in our churches.