Another Revival

I’m going to review some fairly controversial topics today. If you have trouble with God moving outside your comfort zone, you may not want to read this article. I’m serious: be careful! This may push your buttons.

We’re going to (well, I’m going to) talk about homosexual Christians, LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender] Christians. And whatever other letters are used these days. We’re going to talk about what God is doing in this community.

This is a topic that’s going to trigger some folks. If you choose to comment, please comment on what I am actually saying, not (I repeat NOT) on what somebody else said at some other time and place. Our goal is to get OUT of the mess that religion has put us in and to see what God is doing.

The Bible is clear, Old Testament and New: the homosexual behavior going on in those cultures is sinful behavior. That's not what this is about. (Neither is this about the sinful behaviors of gossip or pride or gluttony or any of the other sins that are plaguing believers.)

This is about what God is doing.

One day, some years ago, I was with a small group, praying for some folks we knew that were stuck in homosexuality. It was one of those prayer sessions where you just know that God is hearing your prayers, even as he’s helping to shape them and encourage us in them. It was wonderful!

In the midst of that, I had a vision: I saw tens of thousands of people in the homosexual community were encountering Jesus. It was a huge movement, and God was in their midst. They were worshiping powerfully, and God was delighting in their praise. There were signs and wonders. Many were in tears, some because of His love, some because of their sin, but it wasn’t always the sin I was seeing that they were convicted of.

I began to praise God for that revival, for the many sons and daughters that were coming back to their Father, and as I did, the vision shifted and became even more real: suddenly I was in their midst as we were worshiping God. (Full disclosure: I am not gay.)

And then I realized: these people weren’t – or most of them weren’t – leaving their culture. Nearly all of them stayed in the homosexual community. And a very large number of them didn’t appear to repent of their homosexual ways as they encountered God.

Father began to gently instruct me in the midst of this vision:

1) When he calls people to himself, he does not call them to leave their culture. American Church Culture is not his goal. Relationship with Jesus is the goal. Hmm. OK. That’s true enough. American Church Culture is not God’s goal.

2) When he finally got ahold of my own life (after a longer fight than it frankly should have been), I was not sin-free. There were several sins that he took decades to put his finger on. In fact, He continued, “There are some things I haven’t pointed out to you even yet.” (Um... Yikes.)

But it’s true. If he didn’t point out– and by pointing out, give me grace to deal with – some of my sins for decades, why should I expect him to be less patient with his other sons and daughters?

3) And son, he said so very gently: these are my children, not yours. I am their Father, you are not. I am capable of raising My own children without your getting in their way. It was not (quite) a rebuke, but he was clear: he was not soliciting my opinion of how he fathers his children.

Since that experience, I’ve received reports that this is actually beginning to happen, that substantial numbers of people inside the LGBT community are discovering the Lover of their Souls!

I have received several credible testimonies from different people in different streams that describe to me a revival that is currently going on among the homosexual population. (At their request, and for their safety, I will not be releasing their identities. Some people do not respond well when God moves outside their box.)

These testimonies are from mature prophets and apostles, from people I know and trust, from mature believers who have been among some of these gatherings of gay believers – we might call them either church meetings or conferences – where the worship is powerful, where the Holy Spirit is present, where signs and wonders are in abundance, where Jesus is lifted up high. They have recognized God’s favor on the gatherings, and experienced His delight in them. Usually, it confused them the first few times, too.

I have met believers who are homosexuals, everywhere from your basic, timid churchgoers to flaming transsexuals proclaiming the gospel to their community. Some are content with their homosexuality; some want out but don’t know how; some are proud of their status, though these appear to be the primary ones who’ve taken the brunt of the church’s accusations.

I’ve said all this to arrive at this conclusion: God is moving powerfully in ways that we never expected. 

Maybe I shouldn’t speak for you: God is moving powerfully in ways that I never expected. And I have the strongest sense: Hold on to your hats, because God has more than this that he’s going to do that is way the heck outside of our box.

So how shall we respond to homosexuals that call themselves Christians?

That’s simple: we love them. Just like we’re called to love self-righteous people who call themselves Christians. Just like we're called to love everybody. We’re called to love.

We surely have no right to challenge the faith of either the gay community or the self-righteous community, or the hypocritical churchgoing community (or any other community). Frankly, we nearly always lack the right to challenge either their behavior or their culture. But we have the right to love them. We have the responsibility to love them.

I propose this: Let’s love one another, as Jesus commanded us, shall we? And let's trust our good Father to raise His children well.

And maybe we celebrate when people come to Jesus. He does.

So Many Rules!

I was thinking about the Old Covenant recently. Why were there so MANY laws and limitations?

I was reflecting that God had offered an AMAZING covenant relationship, very nearly the New Covenant way back then.

“‘Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. ‘And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.” [Exodus 19:5-6]
 

The people chickened out, rejected that covenant, and proposed another covenant.

Then they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” [Exodus 20:19]

It was described more clearly in Deuteronomy:

“Go yourself [Moses] and listen to what the LORD our God says. Then come and tell us everything he tells you, and we will listen and obey.” [Deuteronomy 5:27]

I read that as the establishment of both the priesthood (“Moses, you go talk to God for us!”) and the Law (“You tell us what God says, and we'll do that!”).

And immediately afterwards, there's a mountain of detailed rules and regulations.

My thought has been, “Why would God do that?”

And then I realized: the Law was never intended to be the vehicle for God to relate to people; it was the vehicle for the people to keep God at a safe distance.

So God spiked the punch.

God never intended for the Mosaic Law (“The Old Covenant”) to succeed at forming the relationship between God and man. God intended it to fail (it wasn’t his idea anyway), but in failing, to point to the New Covenant, which now needed to be delayed for a while, until the people were ready for it.

“The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” [Romans 5:20]

“So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.” [Galatians 3:24-25]

From that first moment on the mountain in Exodus, God was already planning to make his people ready for REAL covenant, for the New Covenant in Christ.

Dang, he’s amazing.

Growing Up With Jesus

 In John 7, there’s an interesting interaction between Jesus and his brothers:

Jesus' brothers said to him, "Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world." For even his own brothers did not believe in him. [John 7:3-5]
 

These are his adult brothers; they’ve lived with Jesus all of their lives, but they did not understand that he was more than just their big brother. It’s probably worth observing that these are his younger brothers, and younger brothers often are less than completely impressed with their big brothers, growing up, as they are, in his shadow.

More than that, as Jesus said to his neighbors, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home." [Mark 6:4] Not only did Jesus’ own brothers not believe in him, his hometown did not believe in him.
 
We know their names: “Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?” [Matthew 13:55, see also Mark 6:3]

Interestingly, at least two of these brothers became believers later, and even ended up writing books of the New Testament: James & Judas [aka Jude], so clearly they were leaders among the believers. In Acts 15, brother James even appears to leads the mother church in Jerusalem.

I observe that folks who have obstacles in their families to believing, once they have made it past those obstacles, often are pretty effective in their faith. Those who oppose the work of Jesus can often find themselves supporting and serving him when they are able to see more clearly.

I also observe that family was a big thing. We’re pretty sensitive about the topic of nepotism in the Church in the West, and I don’t think it applies to the first generation church. If nothing else, neither James nor Jude claimed anything special because of their relationship to their big brother. But it’s nice to see the change they went through over the years.

I Like Some Things That Some People Don't Enjoy

I like my coffee strong. A couple of times a week, I make a very large pot of “cold brew fork coffee.” One pot will last me a couple of days.

You probably understand the “cold brew” part. “Fork coffee” is coffee that will hold a fork upright in the cup. (Er… it’s a metaphor. It’s strong, but not that strong!)

I have friends who like more modest coffee. And I have other friends who drink “why bother” coffee: decaf with nonfat milk and maybe a sugar substitute. And I have friends who really enjoy <gasp!> tea! Oh my goodness.  

So yeah, I like something that other people – even people that I know and love – don’t actually enjoy participating in.

It’s amazing how that works, isn’t it? People are different. Who would have thought?

There’s another “brown brewed beverage” that I also enjoy. I had a pint of it the other evening, with a slice of pizza, with my sweetheart on our “date night.” I had an Oatmeal Stout. (It’s a kind of very dark beer.)   

It’s a rare thing to find a good beer in these days. So many people are content with corporate beer (Budweiser, Coors, etc), and most of the beer nerds in my college town prefer IPA’s (India Pale Ale: strong & bitter, so that it could endure the sailing trip from England to India, way back in the colonial days).

Interestingly, I’ve seen men’s Bible studies going on in the particular micro-brewpub that she and I favor: believers are becoming less afraid of being seen with a beer. Or maybe they like the “edgy” vibe of being seen with a high-end micro-brew? I don’t know.

I like meat. Well, most meat. I’m not actually a real fan of “organ meat,” whether liver, kidney, heart, or whatever. I’ve had some that was disgusting. I’ve had some that was actually pretty good, but it’s still not my favorite.

I have friends who absolutely love chicken gizzards. And friends who really like liver-and-onions. And we’re still friends, despite that.

I know some people that really love large, corporate worship services, both mega-church and conference-type big ol’ worship events. My preference is for small gatherings: six or eight is a large group for me, but one-on-one over a cup of a brown brewed beverage or another.

Yet again: the things that bring me life are not the same things that bring other people life. Or you could say that the things that my brothers & sisters love may not be the same things that I love.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think that people are different from each other.

For example – and I don’t know if you’re aware of this – there were a few holidays we just passed. There will be some more holidays this year! Did you know that some people have different thoughts and feelings about that holiday than other people do?

We’re talking believers here!! Some believers believe that the holiday belongs to the devil and they want nothing to do with it!

And other believers look at the holiday as an opportunity to reach people who are pretty much unreachable the rest of the year.

Look, there’s a really solid answer that we can all live by, as long as we’re actually going to let other people be responsible for their own life choices:

You Do You. Let Them Do Them.

If you like the events surrounding these holidays, and you can keep your heart in line with our King in the midst of them, then go have fun! I know a guy that was real tight with God and he partied with tax collectors and hookers and “sinners?” He took a lot of grief for it from the religious folks of his day, but the religious spirit pretty much always works that way.

If you don’t like parties, or don’t like holiday food, or the relevant holiday colors or sundry holiday accouterments, then don’t celebrate them. You follow God according to your conscience, not according to someone else’s.

You do you. Do whatever works for you. Be real. Be genuine. And maybe be respectful.

My mentor said it this way: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”

Cussing Out God

I feel the need to talk about a turning point I experienced a long time ago. I don’t remember having shared this before. Please be patient with me; it’s hard to talk about, and hard to write about. I find it kind of embarrassing for six or eleven reasons.

Many years ago, my bride and I joined a missions team planning to plant churches in a foreign country. In hindsight, I suspect we followed my spiritual ambition more than we followed Holy Spirit. Live and learn. But we have some remarkable memories of God’s faithfulness. (And did you know that the Amazon rainforest is really beautiful?)

There’s this aphorism in Christian culture: “Where God guides, he provides.” That’s true. But God does not necessarily provide where my ego and my ambition have guided me. Oh, we have stories of miraculous provision for ourselves and our children, but the mission – since it wasn’t a God-directed event – did not go well. It went down in flames.

We eventually made it home, tail between our legs, having spent every dime we had, having spent every relationship we had, completely destitute and desperately depressed. We had a place to live for a few weeks, but after that, unless God did yet another miracle, we’d be raising our flock of kids under a bridge somewhere.

The depression, the presence of very real failure, my inability to “get a job” like everybody told me to, it was all on my back, a heavy weight, for months, and eventually, for years.

Someone recognized I needed help, and made arrangements for me to see a therapist (a practice I completely support if you need it – and I needed it!!), but that didn’t go well at all.

The sign outside his office instructed me to wait in the lobby, but it turned out that he had no lobby, and I ended up unintentionally walking in on someone else’s session at a really intense moment, and I did that only 10 minutes after a homeless guy had walked in on the same session.

The therapist lost it, and as I retreated in shame, the Christian guy that was supposed to help me get out of my depression opened his door and shouted imprecations at me. Not very encouraging, actually.

I kind of lost it. I had risked everything on this adventure at obeying (what I thought was) what God had said, and I had failed miserably at being a missionary, failed miserably at being a Christian, failed miserably at being a provider for my family, and was currently failing miserably at life. I was making plans for the most discreet way to kill myself, and this guy that’s supposed to help me rages at me and angrily slams the door on me, literally.

So God and I had it out.

You know, when we talk about powerful interactions with the Almighty, they’re supposed to be uplifting and what-not. There’s a standard of how believers are supposed to behave in the presence of Majesty.

Yeah, not so much. This was ugly. God had (as I saw it) betrayed me yet again, and I was done with enduring. I let him have it.

I stomped out of the therapist’s office complex, and stormed around the block (around a whole lot of blocks, actually), shouting my rage at God. I used every four-letter word I knew and made up some new ones to accuse him with. I yelled at him at the top of my lungs, my face flushed, my eyes streaming, gesticulating wildly. I cussed him up one side and down the other. If I could have reached him, I would have beat him up (yeah, right!), I was that mad at him. I beat up the air in his direction.

It felt like hours, and in hindsight, I’m really surprised that nobody called the police. Or maybe they did, but the police were too scared to confront me. I’m not a small boy, and I was really wound up; I was not safe to approach. I kind of expected God to smite me, and I wasn’t opposed to that idea: he’d abandoned me and betrayed and left me hanging so badly already; smiting was the next logical step.

And through it all, he didn’t say a thing. He didn’t actually smite me. I kind of had the distant sense that I had his attention, but he just let me go on about my rage. In hindsight, I kind of felt like he was holding my hair so I could vomit freely and not get it all over me. He took none of my foul accusations personally.

But it turned out that the rage was the turning point in my depression. Oh, I still couldn’t get a job that would pay the bills, and I still needed literal miracles to feed and house my family, and those came as they were needed. But the rage and the depression and the hopelessness had their back broken in that tantrum. Interesting.

A couple of weeks later, I had an evening with a friend that had been hung out to dry as badly as I had been. We commiserated for a few hours, but as I left, I recall really clearly saying to God, “Lord, to whom shall I go? You have the words of life.” And I recall, with similar clarity, recognizing that I really believed it. It shocked me, actually.

That was a bunch of years ago. I’ve told God (and a few others) that I’m actually glad that whole seven-year season is in my past: I’m glad I’ve learned the lessons of His faithfulness, his patience, that I don’t know I could have learned any other way. And I’m equally glad that season is not in my present, or (I trust) in my future. I don’t ever want to go through that again. But I know Him so much better these days, and I trust him so much more now, as a result of that crisis, which kind of culminated in that tantrum.

So do I recommend to folks going through their own hell-and-high-water crisis that they follow my example and cuss God out? Oh, hell no! Don’t follow me. I’m not the role model for your crisis.

But I absolutely recommend that believers, whether in crisis or not, to be absolutely honest and open with God, even with the ugly bits. And I acknowledge that it sure might take something extraordinary to get at the ugly bits that we Christians are so good at hiding, even from ourselves. Yeah, that needs to get out. Clean out every bit of that stinky refrigerator called the subconscious! And get help if you need it.

Oh, and that therapist and I eventually made peace. It turned out that nobody had ever walked in on a session before that day, and this was a particularly fragile client. He was completely freaked out when we eventually did meet, but by then, I don’t know that I needed his services so badly: Father had held my hair and let me vomit, and now it was all out. I just needed help rinsing out my mouth and stumbling back to bed.