Category: Facebook

I wrote a strong letter of rebuttal toward a fellow Christian worker, and I am very saddened to do it. He was arrogantly bragging upon his perceived five-fold gifts in an email to me, and declaring himself to be more superior than most Christian leaders as evidenced by His blessed apostleship, supernatural activities. What makes it even more sad, is the Holy Spirit laid it on my heart to share this on Facebook, because there are more faithful workers being led away from their walk with Christ daily. I pray that these words can stop the blind movement of even one of His cherished workers and bring them back to the Word of God.

Email begins:

I think we are in full agreement that the LORD God is moving key players into position for these End Times. I also believe that these chosen people are being graced with supernatural gifts to accomplish the tasks that God Wills, as necessary and for specific use.

What makes me nervous with your explanation, however, is that you talk about it, and I’m not seeing you prove it with His Word. Up to this point, I have been watching your ministry, and reading your words, to discern and consider your role in the various movements that are occurring now under the direction of our God and the wily countermoves of the devil.

This is what I know for certain. Those who are being equipped for the battle, those who are being raised up to bring His Will forward, those who are being placed in strategic spiritual minefields to clear the way for the lost to find their way toward Christ in these End Days aren’t talking about it. In fact, it is the quietness among His workers, the protection of the top secret things that we know and are preparing for that causes us to differ from our enemies. One part of that supernatural moving of God allows each of His True Workers to recognize the others who are faithful and trustworthy in His Kingdom.

Here is the biggest problem with the Internet; true workers for the LORD God are so busy trying to declare their authority, gifts and talents, to shut-up the naysayers and the laughing fools who challenge faithful work, that they stop doing the work of the Lord, and start playing into the agenda of carnal man. Part of that agenda includes causing the spiritual leaders to focus on proving themselves over and over and over, to write with words that sound heavenly and above the normal speak of man, and complicate the doctrine and points with an intelligent rendering that appears to go over the top of peoples heads, but makes the speaker a foolish toy to be manipulated and condemned.

So, my friend, let me put it in the simple words that I speak. Your doctrine as expressed in this letter is part of the movement of Satan to begin the establishment of his complete wicked rule. Your free use of terms that are recognized by me to have originated from specific movements by Lucifer, causes me to reject everything you say. And that makes me sad. Because I am not certain in my soul that you are doing the bidding of the devil. I have seen glimpses of light in some of the things you have shared, and I most certainly have considered the words you spoke while declaring a moving of the Holy Spirit. I have investigated your background, and have known for some time of the disdain of the general Christian community for you.

On the other hand, I am very familiar with these days, and know that many of His greatest workers are being placed in those same situations. You are a difficult one to weigh, my friend. I’ve made allowance for your grand speech patterns and polluted words that the devil sends my way often. I have chalked it up to the tremendous stresses each of the Faithful face daily in trying to accomplish the works God Wills with the assault of the wicked on the Internet trying to stop it at every turn.

Bluntly speaking, if you keep using the words that you are using today, if you continue to form your doctrine around the basis of these words you speak, you are going to be used in helping Satan establish his rule. You are not going to be aware of it, and in fact, you are going to feel empowered and powerful with many supernatural abilities given to you by the dark one, to delude you into thinking you are doing the things of God. The devil is going to blind you and manipulate you and cause you to reject anyone who tells you the truth. As I write this, I am praying that Jesus allows you to hear the words I am speaking, because truly, I am speaking to a friend in Christ, who desperately seeks to do His bidding, but has somehow become trapped in the enemies clutches.

It doesn’t have to be this way. I suspect that you took a wrong turn at a point when God had given you some great spiritual gifts, and the devil stepped in to teach you how to use them. Sometimes that happens, and is not as much your fault as it is the person who was tasked by God to ensure that you as a babe in Christ and new to the spiritual gifts would learn the correct way in welding them. I sure would be interested one day in learning the exact moment this happened to you, and would delight in making evil pay for trying to steal a lover of God away.

This is what you need to do. Start back at the beginning. Open your Bible and study. Build that foundation back up. See who God has placed in your path to help you get past the clutches of Satan, and move once again according to His Word.

Apparently, you are a valuable worker in His eyes, and even though you have been tricked, God has allowed you to continue to possess the skills in these confusing times. Apparently, you are valuable to me as a fellow worker and a Christian friend, to fight Satan where he has chosen to battle.

My friend, you are standing right there at a crossroads. If you choose the side of God, you may well feel depressed and little and unworthy as He reteaches you His Word and prevents you from using the gifts until you are skillful. If you choose the side of Satan, you will find your supernatural and five-fold gifts increasing in magnification, and you will feel lifted and empowered and as if you are standing in the midst of angels. But, it will be a delusion that is perpetuated upon you by the tricky evil one. Either way, you will be useful to one side or the other; it’s your choice.

I declare my love for you, I declare the same love that Jesus Christ has for you, and I will not shrink from the battle. While my inclination is to command the demons away from you, I am fearful that they will return sevenfold unless you return to the path God Wills in accordance with His Word.

It’s a tough place to be and you are going to have to choose the path. I wish I could say that there are very few who have been tricked in this manner; however, the truth is we are losing good Christian workers through this trickery on a daily basis. For that reason, I will be publishing my answer to you on Facebook with the personal info removed, and pray with my complete soul that hundreds of workers can recognize the trickery and come back to His Word. God’s Will be done.

Something was very different one Christmas. My family gathered around the piano to sing our traditional Christmas songs of joy and praise in celebration of our Christ’s birth, but this year familiar faces were gone. We were smaller in number than we had been in last year. A few of our missing family members chose to walk the paths of the world, and were separated by their choices from participating in our spiritual celebration. One went even further down the path of destruction, and embraced the wicked ways of a life in darkness. So our numbers were down, and our voices leaner and strained as we struggled to carry on with our praises to God, in the midst of loss and pain.

Suddenly, in the middle of one of the songs rejoicing at Christ’s birth, I felt the surge of His Holy Spirit move through our family congregation. Our music stopped instantaneously, as each of us literally absorbed His comfort and love, as He moved within us to heal the pains of loss.

It was one of those moments when time stands still. It was silent. There was no music, there was no talking, there was no praying nor was there any of the familiar outbursts of joy that we commonly displayed in His Presence. We were too pained, too scarred, too needing of His Touch, that each of us became enveloped in His Presence, without thought of our own or each other’s time or place.

What a wonderful Touch it was. What a wonderful Christmas gift we received that day. Just as Christian’s burdens dropped from his shoulders in Pilgrims progress, our burdens of pain were removed and replaced with an even greater love than we had experienced before. With His healing presence, He brought a new and deeper understanding of Christmas Praise, and I wanted to share it with you.

The Ark of the LORD God, the vessel that the actual presence of the LORD God inhabited had been removed from the Tabernacle in Jerusalem by forces against Israel. Eventually, King David was determined to bring the Ark back to the place it belonged inside Jerusalem.

When the opportunity and time was right, He took his priests and prepared them to deliver the most Holy Ark. As they moved the Ark, the oxen that pulled the cart shook, and the Ark began to fall. Uzzah, one of the cart drivers, and a very holy and faithful man, reached out to catch the Ark before it fell. The LORD God became very angry at Uzzah for touching the Holy Ark, and He smote him immediately, causing his death.

David was very upset and angry that the LORD God would punish Uzzah so severely when he was just trying to help. David could not figure out how to prevent the same thing from happening again, so he stopped the movement of the Ark, and left it in a house along the way.

After leaving it at the house of Obededom, he saw that great blessings of the LORD God were being bestowed upon Obededom. These blessings were so much greater than the risk of moving the Ark to Jerusalem, that David chose to try the task once again.

This time, as the Ark was moved, King David went before it, dancing and leaping for the LORD God. He put on the simplest of garments, and danced with a joy, and sang with a praise that could be heard by all. He danced and shouted and trumpeted with all his might, announcing to all the the Holy Presence of the LORD GOD, and His Holy Ark were entering the city of Jerusalem. There was no doubt left in any mind, that the holiest presence was arriving in the place He Willed.

And so the King of Israel danced. He was seen to be dancing in the most unroyal way by a very royal daughter of a former King. She chastised David, reminded him of his position, and reprimanded him for his unkingly dance through the streets of Jerusalem.

His reply left no doubt to his position:

David would dance and leap and shout and sing and joyfully announce the presence of the LORD God, in the midst of human error and human frailties. There would be no doubt to the LORD God in Heaven that David knew the holiness of His Presence. There would be no doubt to the people of the world that were watching the movement of God, that His Holiness was moving among them.

Our Christmas gathering, and our Christmas songs took on a deeper meaning. We were announcing the arrival of our precious and holy Jesus Christ. We began dancing and leaping and praising God, shouting and blowing our trumpets of His Arrival! It mattered not who was with us, nor how others interpreted our celebration. We were announcing our joy of Christ’s birth, and our anticipation of His return, as the Holiness of the LORD God moved among our gathering.

My feet are still dancing! Praise be to God!

While Facebook friends argue back and forth about things like the different laws the Jews serve and how Christians may or may not have to follow them, it becomes confusing, doesn’t it? Old Testament following Christians have a difficult road to walk and it weakens their relationship with Christ.

Why make your Christian journey so tough? The Lord Jesus Christ took His time to teach the Disciples and all of us through His Word that is captured in His Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:1–7:29; Luke 6:20–49; 11:33–36; 12:22–34).

Every standard Christ teaches in His Sermon on the Mount are the things of behavior you should be emulating to look like and walk like Christ. Every standard of His is our rules of behavior as Christians. My hopes are that you are teaching young Christians these standards every day. Your Lord Jesus Christ expects Christian leaders to be displaying these standards of behavior in their own walk with Him and teaching them to those that are learning to be a Christian.

Now here is a very deep mystery that hardly any Christians realize completely. If you follow all the standards recorded in the New Testament, you will be following God’s law perfectly! We do not follow the law specifically. We follow the ways of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ teaches us His standards, God’s standards, and His disciples pick up establishing and teaching standards where He left off when He left this earth. The Holy Spirit flows through each Christian so they can follow the standards of Christ.

So instead of focusing on the law, let us focus upon the standards of Christ, and try to meet each of them. We don’t have time or the spirit to follow Old Testament law. Christ’s standards reflect God’s law in a different light, one that ultimately loves others as themselves.

That is why I said it was confusing to me why Facebook friends argue among themselves whether to follow the Old Testament laws. It is of no importance to focus on the singular laws without the teaching of God placed upon them. That would be going backwards in our developed Christian faith.

The Commandments, statutes and ordinance of the LORD God given to the Jewish people were the beginning of forming a relationship with humans. There were no teachings, per se, given to them. The law was absolute and unforgiving. Either you obeyed all the laws (often confused by the Pharisees and the rabbis) and adhered to all the LORD God’s rules, or you were in disobedience to Him.

When the Lord Jesus Christ came, he taught the meaning of those laws of the Old Testament given by the LORD God to mankind. No longer a black/white, obey/disobey stringent representation of the laws, they became open to the teachings of Christ. Remember this teaching:

Matthew 5:27–28 (KJV 1900)

27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: 28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

We learn from Jesus that the Law said don’t commit adultery; but He added a new teaching, that adultery was more than just an affair with a married person. The Lord taught that with His coming to earth, He will teach the real meaning of the law, not just the absolutes. The real meaning of the law that the LORD God made was if you look lustfully upon a woman, you commit adultery with your heart! The standards have changed! Before it was the absolute law; now it became the fulfilled law with a need to fully understand not only the rule but also the reason, ways, and the consequences of breaking that law.

Have you ever heard that it is impossible for Jews to keep the Laws of the LORD God, thus they have no way to be obedient to Him? And that as Christians, we have it easy, because we have the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive all our sins and keep us in obedience to God?

It seems to me that sentiment is a bit backwards. The standards of the Lord Jesus Christ do not only support the Laws of the LORD God but are also more detailed and consider the things going on in the heart also. Are Christians supposed to obey the Laws of the LORD God spoken in the Old Testament? Followers of Jesus Christ not only obey the Laws spoken in the Old Testament, but they also must obey Christ’s standards of the heart also.

It is a narrower road we walk with Christ, not a wider one that the Jews walk upon.

Christians that don’t understand that they should focus on Christ’s teachings, rather than on the Old Testament laws, never reach the higher standards that the Lord Jesus Christ has set for His followers. And if a Christian does not reach those standards, then that Christian is not walking the way of Christ. Period.

Teachers of the Word of God know the things to be avoided through the study of His Word, and the many warnings to false teachers contained within it. We even prepared a worksheet for all our teachers in training so they would easily identify the characteristics of false teachers and consciously avoid their ways. Of course, when the LORD God chooses a person to become a Teacher of His Word, then that person’s character, ways and will are toward Him, and not inclined to be a false teacher. However, care must always be taken not to emulate even in the smallest way any characteristic known to be possessed by a false teacher.

There is more to being a teacher of the Word of God, than just avoiding these false characteristics. There is a practical approach to the systematic teaching of His Word, and there is a proven way that most spiritual teachers embrace as the pattern of their elders. The mature, experienced and successful teachers of God’s Word follow these things:

1. Speak the things that God has led you to teach and always from His Word. Avoid talking about familiar, popular, hip things, unless you are led to use them as an example to make His Word understood by the student. Do not speak as a friend or a peer. A teacher of God’s Word must be respected. Remember, honor is never shown among friends who are equal.

2. Lead the study always. Do not lose control of the places or things that the LORD God has moved you to teach that day. Be alert to conversations straying from the points, and guide them back to the main topics as soon as you can. A teacher of God’s Word is not concerned with a students self improvement ideas, nor a students desires for the lessons to go in a place other than where it is it is being led by God.

3. Stay consistent in your presentation of materials. When the students sit down for the purpose of learning, they should automatically know how the class will proceed. No learning can take place in a free for all, fun times setting. Classes must be structured and predictable, leaving no doubt in the students mind what is expected of him.

4. Know your material. The basic foundation of study that God has placed in your hands should be completely familiar to you. That basic foundation will always be the starting point for the Holy Spirit to guide you deeper to the places and things He wants taught on that day, to that student.

5. Have a spiritual partner assist you. When the Teacher of the LORD God is being moved by the Holy Spirit and delivering His deep mysteries, then all disruptions and interruptions must be avoided. It is vital that a spiritual partner help maintain the quiet learning essential when the soul of the person is receiving knowledge. Partners also help guide the students back to topic and bring questions and comments to the attention of the teacher when they go unnoticed. Most importantly, a spiritual partner keeps the Teacher correct. The partner listens closely for any straying from point or doctrine, and immediately speaks up in a respectful way if the Teacher loses the way.

6. Never take things personally. When a student has an emotional outburst of anger, sadness or even joy, then those emotions belong to the LORD God. If a teacher has properly presented the Word of God, then it is God who the student is having emotions with, and it is God who will deal with those emotions, using the teacher to comfort as He Wills.

7. Never reveal the personal things of your students to others. The very nature of the work of teacher requires example to be given, and most usually, that example come from earlier students actions and interactions. Develop a way of teaching examples without revealing personal information that is identifiable to any student that you have ever had in the past. Keep the secrets and deeply personal things of your students, secrets forever. Hold close the things of soul that are revealed in your presence, and never reveal them to another.

8. Recognize the total and complete responsibility that a Teacher of the Word of God assumes. It is a tough job being a Teacher of the Word of God. The Teacher exposes himself to a heavier judgment in the case he commits transgression in his teachings. A person should not even consider being a Teacher of the Word of God if he is not able to handle the Word perfectly, and able to control and restrain his natural and spiritual life. A Teacher of the Word of God is a dangerous profession and one that puts the Teacher at great risk of severe judgment if he does his job improperly. His focus of ministry must always be to turn a student’s life around when his steering is being violently shaken by the conflicts of the spiritual nature of righteousness and the natural nature of sin. A good Bible Teacher encourages a strong and steady walk with Jesus Christ, as the Truth of the Word of God is handled perfectly in accordance with His Will.

9. Most importantly, pray, and study, and walk the walk of Jesus Christ perfectly. A Teacher of the Word of God must be spiritually strong and keen to the Things of the LORD God, and ready to teach them as He Wills.

She came to Jesus Christ on 23 July 2006, bowed her knees in shame and repentance, requested the undeserved gift of grace by the LORD God, accepted the gift of shed blood by her Savior Jesus Christ to pay for her sinful nature, and at 8:00 p.m., entered into her death through the baptism of Jesus Christ. As she descended into the waters, her thoughts and control were focused on Him in faith, knowing that when she died, that death would come to the sin that controlled her body, and when she arose from the waters, she would be resurrected as a new believer and follower of Jesus Christ. When she was resurrected from the waters, we greeted a sister and new daughter in Christ with hugs and tears, and then had a great celebration on that really good day!

But when no one was looking, I snuck away to a quiet place, and shamefully reflected on my own human frailties, and shivered to think how things could have been so different if I had not followed my Christ’s instructions to the letter. How close I came to failing Jesus Christ, her and myself! How important it is for Christians to do as their told, and not how they feel! How little I am for my discomforted spirit and how great our LORD God is in his provisions to the faithful! And how great and faithful a little old lady, who lay on her death bed, with a fragile and searching soul held firmly in her hands, bringing the gift of one more soul to Jesus Christ at her last breath.

When I met her last year she was horrible. She came from a place different from mine, and her focus was on things that were repulsive to me. She was carnal and loose with the ways of the world, with knowledge of dark things that a girl of twenty-two should never know. Her tough life reflected in her ways, and she was controlling and headstrong as a result. To avoid hurts from coming to her, she would manipulate people and times, to perform to her demands. And if her nature and ways were not bad enough for me to handle; it got even worse!

She loved one of my children, and he loved her, and they were married. The only thing in our favor was they lived clear across the United States, which spared the face to face conflict that was destined to come. But it got even worse!

She started writing letters demanding to be accepted as part of my family. She tested our faith daily, as letter after letter demanded our attention to her and her ways that she flaunted continuously in front of us. She had the advantage of holding our son’s heart, and she had the techniques of the worldly to ensure our compliance. Letter after letter we wrote of our faith and our lives. We told her that our world was different from hers, and explained in great detail over the months to come the ways that we lived, worked, walked and loved according to the Word of God. She took the same opportunity to explain in great detail in her return letters the way she lived, worked, walked and loved according to her worldly ways.

Our invitations to come up to our Kingdom resulted in hard-hearted invitations to come down to hers. Our conflicts even got
worse than this!

Soon her letters became more demanding and abrasive. She wrote us that she had a right to be accepted in our inner circle, and for us not to do so, reflected badly on our faithful walk with Jesus Christ. She began a campaign of spitefully using us and our faith to force us to go to places we did not want to go. At the height of all our troubles, we were left with no more words. We had written so many letters telling about our love for Jesus Christ, and His love for her. We had encouraged and pleaded and prayed and talked over and over and over to her about the things of spiritual life that she had never considered or known, and she rejected them with a stubborn forcefulness each time.

To make matters even worse, our son and her moved back home, and we were stuck in the face to face conflicts that had been brewing for so long. In desperation, we considered and measured all things, and determined we had no recourse but to search the Word of God, examine Jesus Christ’s teachings in the minutest details for a solution to this exasperating situation, and follow them to the exacting letter.

Matthew 5:43-48

“43 ¶ Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more [than others]? do not even the publicans so? 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Mt 5:43-48 AV)

And that’s what we did. We prayed and prayed and prayed for her and us, day after day. We even shared our dilemma with our friends, and asked for their prayers to be added to ours. Month after month we prayed. Our conflicts of natures were so great, that contact between us stopped. Soon a year had passed, and no solution or salvation was in sight to the problem with her.

One month she accepted a job at a nursing home close to where they were living. Her duties as a nurses assistance required her to perform the menial and back straining tasks of patient care, but apparently left time for her to have interactions with the patients from time to time.

And that is where Miss Virginia, the most wonderful and strong Christian I have ever known, entered her life. Miss Virginia was dying. She had a large family that would gather around her day after day, grow nervous at her continuous prayers and praise to God and leave, to return again and again to be there when she died.

Each day, after the family left Miss Virginia’s side, she would be summoned to her bed for their talk. Miss Virginia would tell her stories from long ago that were always sprinkled with faith and surety of the wonderful Grace of God. The faithful servant of Christ would delight her with stories that connected them to each other’s natural stubbornness, and their familiarity of relationship grew tight. They knew each other, and they understood each other, and they began to love each other.

She would hurry to work every day so she could hear more of Miss Virginia’s wonderful stories, and learn more about the Savior Jesus Christ, that Faithful Virginia loved so much. As the witness of Christian faith by Miss Virginia increased in the perfect timing of God, the lost and sinful girl began connecting her stories to our own letters of witness we had written to her over the year.

Suddenly, her blind eyes cleared, as the Spirit of God lingered and called her toward Him. She finally understood our words, Miss Virginia’s words, His Word, and saw it all come together in a great big ball of faith that was planted within her the moment her eyes could see. She was humbled and hungry, and eagerly ate the milk of faith as Miss Virginia gently guided her through the requirements of the Walk.

Soon after her eyes were opened, Miss Virginia began the final dying process. Her family gathered around her bed that night and said their goodbyes. Miss Virginia blessed each of them, then asked for her to come to her side for one last time. She entered into the quieted room, and the frail lady moved over in her bed to make room for her to be near. Miss Virginia grasped her hand, looked deep into her soul, and giggled. She asked what she was giggling about, and Miss Virginia whispered, “I’m gonna get to see Jesus Christ, before you!” The moment of delightful and intimate sharing was intensified as their hand grip tightened, and the Spirit of God washed through the room and enveloped her in His Truth and Love. At that very moment, Miss Virginia left her body and entered into her home prepared by Jesus Christ Himself, with a repentant sinner in hand and ready to accept Him as her personal Savior.

HOW SELFLESS AN ACT OF GREAT FAITH! Miss Virginia had brought a lost soul to the cross of Jesus Christ in the face of death itself, and her last breath was used to bring glory to Him! PRAISE BE TO GOD!

The next day, she came and testified of her great faith and praised God for His enduring love, and asked us to baptize her quickly, before she lost too much more time in serving Him and bringing glory to His Name, as she had been taught by a dying old woman who loved deeply enough to bring her to the One who loved us all!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all ye creatures here below. Praise Him above ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!

Amen.

You are welcome at Becker Bible Ministries, Inc.

What a dilemma you are struggling with! To be honest to yourself as the person that the LORD God created places you directly in the path of sin, but to deny your true self causes you to move closer to Him with only part of your self.

In my mind, holding back from having a complete relationship with the LORD God through Jesus Christ because you can only share a part of yourself is just as much of a sin as any of the sins of nature recorded in his Word.

First, you must be true to who you are if you seek to have a closer relationship with Jesus Christ and the LORD God. You must come to them with your complete mind, heart and soul. If you hold back a part of your self because it is judged a sin by man’s interpretations of the Word of God, then man is stopping you from moving closer to Him.

The farther away you are from Jesus Christ, the bigger the dilemma of your struggles become. Soon you find yourself on a path of loneliness and shame, with confusion to who you really are, your unworthiness to come to God, and the devil himself whispering words of judgment to you to prevent you from ever walking forward to Jesus.

There are many different kinds of homosexuality and heterosexuality in the world today.

1. The Nasties – Many sexual deviants attempt to destroy the innocent souls in liberal game playing that encourages a gay or straight lifestyle with sexual vulgarities that shock and horrify traditional society. Most usually, these movements of depravity are initiated by Lucifer as he uses the lust of people to move them toward wickedness. These types of homosexual and heterosexual activities are sinful and will be judged harshly by Jesus Christ, and the doer will indeed be punished for these nasty deeds.

2. The Abused – Innocent souls who have embraced their sexual preferences as a result of abuse in their childhood. These sexual preferences surely will not be weighed the same as the doers of wicked nasties, by Jesus Christ. I personally believe that the Abuser will be accountable to all sin that the abused has done as a direct result of that abuse.

3. The Born – Now we get to the classification that you seem to fit. You are what you are, and you’ve known for a long time. You are what Jesus Christ made. True homosexuals and heterosexuals are not sinners because of who they are! HOWEVER, many of the sexual acts of homosexuals and heterosexuals are sin, and these sins are listed briefly in his Word, and quite strongly in the hearts of those who love Jesus Christ.

My advice is to quit trying to make yourself perfect and sin free before you establish a close relationship with Jesus Christ. It isn’t going to work. Every one of us is too weak, too sinful, to ever make ourselves perfect and clean before we approach Him!

Come to Jesus Christ just how you are! He loves you just the way you are! He knows who you love, and he knows how you love, and he knows all of the dilemmas you are facing as you struggle with these issues. If he wants you to change, he will gently guide you to that change in His Time and in His Way.

As your relationship with Jesus Christ grows, he may change your thoughts and heart gently and steadily and move you toward the heterosexual world. He may ask you to give up your sexuality in this life in service to him, with promises of great reward for your dedicated sacrifice on the New Earth.

And this is important: He may keep your heart and mind and thoughts and spirit toward your love of the same-sex just the way you are right now, and give you teaching and guidelines in how to live righteously with who you are and continue to grow to His expectations.

There is a way for you to have a true and close relationship with Jesus Christ and still be you. The trick of it is giving Jesus Christ the control, and letting him lead you to the path he has chosen for you, with the loving relationship of people he has led your way that are walking the same path toward him.

Most importantly, keep walking toward Jesus Christ in spite of those who condemn you in their judgments. It is the sinners of great faith that Jesus Christ loves the most!

My developing ministry (Becker Bible Ministries, Inc.) is focused upon teaching the things of God to the unchurched. Unchurched Christians seem often rough around the edges, and most show through their looks or their behaviors why they are rejected by traditional Christians.

1. Some unchurched are victims of child abuse, and feel themselves so unworthy and so unclean, that they are unable to approach the cross of Christ. The average child abuse victim takes over three years of professional Christian counselling, and a few more years of witness of Christ before they are made whole enough to commit themselves completely to Christ.

Even harder for many of us in this ministry, is the offering of God’s Word to the child abusers and rapists; when they hear God’s salvation, they often rush to the cross, and claim God’s grace quickly. It is a difficult part to witness the ease that the sexual abusers come to Christ when the victims’ salvation is always in jeopardy because of the crimes of the abusers. But, to deny one group, is to deny all groups the total grace of God to offer sinners salvation and hope through Christ.

2. We have the usual outliers of society that do better without a lot of people and programs and institutions in their lives; seldom do they bathe, and always are they armed, and most of the time, willing to listen to the Word of God if the speaker can be trusted. In today’s climate of conservative politics, and a strong focus on the Constitution of the United States and the Amendments that allow the right of firearms, a clear path of these rights must be negotiated with Christ’s message inserted only after trust is gained. To jump quickly into the message of the Gospel usually results in an obstinate cuss walking away to practice shooting his targets once again before the End of the World as we know it comes to his dwelling places. But, when trust is built, these ornery ones turn into some of the greatest evangelists I have ever seen, because they have the ability to develop trust amongst large segments of society that are normally separate from traditional Christian churches.

3. The people rejected and hated by traditional Christianity (sexual deviants that cross normal practices) have tremendous difficulties coming to Christ, because their path is prevented. It is the only group of sinners that I am aware that are expected to drop their sins before they can belong to a Church. These deviant sinners are required to understand their sins, reject them, and commit to do them no more, BEFORE they have a relationship with Christ to help them according to the flawed thinking of misguided Christian congregants.

True Christian evangelism requires the bringing of Christ into a person’s life and the reliance upon the Baptism of the Holy Spirit to guide the new believer to deeper relationship with Him. Most Christian leaders are confident that once a relationship with Christ has been established, a strong-growing faith will eventually help the believer to remove the difficult sins. Sadly, in the current conservative church movement, this is denied them, and they are forced to find a path to Christ unsupported by conservative belief and only guided by the most liberal theologies that deny Scripture as inerrant. So much damage has been done by the conservative Christians to these groups of sinners, that it becomes increasingly difficult to even approach them.

Careful evangelism with the exegesis of the Bible should not even be discussing sins of the sexual nature any more than any other of a multitude of sins people are doing. At the point of beginning belief, we are to teach new believers the things of Christ that connect to sin, judgment, baptism, resurrection, and eternal life. Then we are to move on to the more difficult things contained within God’s Word, confident that the Holy Spirit will guide the sincere believer to His path (Hebrews 6:1-2). There is going to be a great deal of conservative believers that are going to have to answer to Christ as to why one group has been so ostracized from the congregation of Believers that restricted the growth of faith and relationship with Him.

These are just a few, of many examples of seeking Christians that we evangelize to. Each requires a great deal of effort and risk to ourselves in order to teach the things of Christ to the oppressed, rejected, persecuted, ornery, hated, and mentally ill. True evangelism does not happen quickly.

This is a wicked world, and those that are able to be evangelized bring a great deal of baggage with them. It is messy. Sometimes in the midst of the ministry, sincere efforts are attacked and shamed. Evangelists out in the middle of the field without the support of the traditional church get tired, accused, fought, and ridiculed. But, when one of the unlikely outliers comes to Christ with hope, and you can witness the saving grace of the Lord as the sins drop and righteousness seeps into their inner being, you are reminded that you were once just as bad, and now, just as blessed, because God gave us all a chance. Thanks be to God!

Matthew 5:5 (KJV 1900)
5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Now let’s reason this together. Throughout the New Testament teachings of Jesus Christ, He tells us over and over that this earth does not belong to us as Christians. He wants us to separate from the world, right? And we know that there will one day be a New Heaven and a New Earth. Reasoning this through is clearly speaking of the New Earth. The meek will be blessed by inheriting the earth.

So, when does the Lord want meekness? Right now, as we inhabit this sinful old earth. It’s not about being angelic and holy towards the earth people today. Secular people are aggressive and loud and political and opinionated and violent. Christians should be apart from this world. Not boisterous and having their views known throughout the world. Meek. Gentle. Mild.

I taught you that I will never be famous and lead hundreds of thousands of people. How do I know? Because meekness will never get me fame. I stay as gentle and mild as I can (difficult always), so I don’t lose the opportunity to teach those that God wants me to teach. Now, I am a strong Christian with the Power God dwelling within me and quite capable of defending myself, my family, and my Lord. But if I use that power and strength to gain the world’s attention, my days of teaching the Word of God to the Christians God has chosen is over. That is how I know I will NOT be famous on this earth.

And by the way, if you carry guns, knives, machetes aggressively, concealed or otherwise, you are not being meek. You are arming yourself to be powerful and overcome others. Yes, sometimes you must war, or defend your country, or your loved ones, and that is acceptable for righteousness’s sake. But posturing and attention-seeking with a weapon assumes you want power over others (or you are a coward), and that is not being meek. You run the risk of losing your inheritance of the New Earth if you become too powerful on this one.

Another problem with meekness that Christians have is their dress. If women are showing their bosoms, and wearing tight clothes, that is not meek; it is attention-seeking. If men wear tight pants and buy expensive clothing to take pictures to show their wealth or good looks, that is attention-seeking also. If believers dance with HOLINESS for the LORD God in worship inside a church setting, that can be meek, because it is done inside the church walls. But if that church opens its doors to invite the world within, and dance for entertainment’s sake with their dance moves emulating sex to possibly attract men or women, then that is attention-seeking.

I am meek as I do my job, I am promised by the Lord to inherit the New Earth. I will not have to be meek on the New Earth. I will live my life with my loved ones and do the ministry that the Lord directs with my full righteousness and personality. But today, I am meek, and do not gain the world’s attention. I will be blessed on the New Earth because I am going to inherit it. Does this make sense?

If the Lord has chosen a Christian for a specific work that requires him or her to gain the attention of the world, then whatever the Christian is equipped with should be used. There are times when the Lord does not want meekness to be defined with large works. However, in most cases, staying meek is the behavior that should be emulated in this world that does not belong to us.

Why do Protestants claim to go by scripture alone when we read in the Bible itself that we are to follow tradition and scripture? For example, in 2 Thessalonian 2:15, St Paul commands us to “stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.” So why not follow St Paul’s command?

Protestants often hang their hat on a couple of strong verses of warning in Scripture:

Matthew 15:1-9

“Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to [his] father or [his] mother, [It is] a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; And honour not his father or his mother, [he shall be free]. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. [Ye] hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with [their] lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching [for] doctrines the commandments of men.” (Matthew 15:1-9 KJV)

Colossians 2:4-8

“And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, [so] walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” (Colossians 2:4-8 KJV)

Most Protestants believe that Catholics have faulty doctrine, and that their traditions emulate that untruth. I don’t think most are against tradition, and in fact, many practice their own traditions in their own churches. However, when many Protestant believers criticize the Traditions of Catholicism, I think they are actually addressing the false doctrines that the Tradition hides in its pageantry and beauty.

So, instead of confronting the differences of belief, searching Scripture and finding common ground, some old-fogey Protestants attack the tradition and avoid the real issues that separate our fellowship. I think that many Protestants attack Catholic Traditions because, underneath the traditions lies doctrine that is false. If Protestants attack Catholic Traditions, then the area of their contention remains unaddressed; specifically, the conflicts concerning the Truth of God and the apparent misinterpretations that these Traditions reflect. On the other hand, many Catholics defend their Traditions, and are completely unaware of the confused doctrines that their traditions represent.

It goes both ways! and that’s what is wrong with tradition. When the focus is solely upon Tradition (whether it possesses Roman Catholic nature or Protestant nature), and the Word of God is neglected, misused and misinterpreted, both Protestants and Catholics get it wrong. However, if any Protestant thinks that tradition has no place in the worship of God, I personally believe they are missing out and subverting the expression of the holiness of God. On the other hand again, if any Catholic thinks that tradition is the complete worship of God, I personally believe they also are missing out by subverting His teachings and their ability to grow stronger toward Him.

If Tradition is based upon the Truth, IT’S VERY GOOD! If Tradition is based upon false teachings, IT’s VERY BAD! Our job, as Christians, is to make sure that everything we do is based and conforms upon His Word and glorifies Him!

Now to the crux of your question and its suggestion that all Protestants arbitrarily deem Catholic traditions as traditions of men, while not addressing the actual difference themselves. The answer is “Yes, sometimes.” There are SOME Protestants that do just that. I can only offer you that explanation for those Protestants that attack Tradition without explanation of the real reason for their disdain.

Some Protestants are like some Catholics; yearning to have a growing relationship with the LORD God through Jesus Christ, and experiencing life with as much flavor as God places in their life. Regrettably, others, on both sides of Christian belief, aren’t like that at all.

I don’t think that most Protestants are convinced that the present-day Roman Catholic Church is the established Church of Jesus Christ. Please recognize I am not a spokesman for all Protestants; however, I think this reflects their views somewhat. Protestants believe that the Roman Catholic Church was established to replace the falling Roman Empire; that this group became just as corrupted as the government it replaced, and as a result the spiritual things of God were corrupted within it.

Interestingly, the father of Protestantism, Martin Luther, accepted Roman-ruled religion, and tried to change the corruption from the inside-out. Apparently that was NOT the Will of God, because, instead, Luther was moved away from the established Roman rule, and started a movement that put Bibles in the people’s hand, gave them a right to approach the LORD God through Jesus Christ, and allowed them to walk with Him. Since then, regrettably, Protestants splintered off into so many different groups, some corrupted, some not. Many Protestant churches are now approaching the same levels of corruption that have been perpetrated upon believers by the powers that lead within the Roman Church.

So what do we, as believers, do?

We must first look to our God and our Savior. We must trust that Christ will Shepherd us and lead us through the complicated mess that religion has made. We have one guidebook, and that is His Word. For me personally, life is too complicated and religion too corrupted for me to be led by anyone but Him. I have personally chosen to use the Bible as the final authority on all things that I do, with the moving of the Holy Spirit as my guide.

For instance, I say that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is blessed among all women, because that is in the Bible. In my studies and worship, I have gone further in meeting Mary on a more personal contemplation, through the moving of the Holy Spirit. However, I cannot take it that next step and place her upon a pedestal equal with Christ, and as co-ruler of Heaven, because the Word of God does not reflect this as Truth, even though the Roman Catholic Traditions reflect this in their practices.

At some point, every Christian must decide where their line is. My line is resting firmly on the Word of God, and looking greatly forward to the day when I can participate fully in the pomp and circumstance in celebration of my Lord. But in these times, and in my life, I have no other choice but to draw my line between tradition and the Bible; the Bible is the only thing I know to be Truth completely. If I’m wrong, then when I meet my Lord, I imagine He will point out some of the areas in my life that could have received comfort from the “Tradition” that was given; however, he will not find fault with my belief because it is based upon God’s Truth.

Now you didn’t write me to hear my personal views, however, I don’t think you can understand a Protestant’s belief, unless it is personalized. While a Catholic believer practices his faith corporately, Protestant’s practice their faith personally. That’s why the nature of the arguments always escalate to ugliness among the uneducated and the impassioned. One side is talking from a supposed elevated position representing a big world of believers, while the other side speaks generally of one personal belief that usually becomes offended to just discuss these issues. In the end, we all lose out.

I’ve enjoyed our conversation. If you have any more Protestant questions, you can find this middle-of-the-road Protestant Catholic right here, ready to figure it out with you.

Thanks for sharing.