LGBT what?

In light of the Supreme Court's decision to legitimize homosexual intercourse the following article is submitted to address some concerns with the entire LGBT approach to life.

The following article is intended for a Christian audience only. It is written in straight forward language that doesn't mince words or seek political correctness. If you are not a believer in Christ the following article will likely infuriate you. Consider yourself warned!...

L - living with a confused identity due to not seeing herself in Christ.
G - living with a deep-set sadness that nothing but Christ alone can resolve.
B - living with a double mindedness resulting in severe instability.
T - living with a need for "trans"formation through the regenerating work of Christ.

We are living in a day where some people have lost so much personal hope in life meaning that they are desperately seeking it in one of the most unhealthy of personal life choices imaginable, namely the Gay lifestyle and especially homosexual intercourse.

There is practically nothing more damaging to the human psyche, as created by Christ according to a very intricate blueprint, than to engage sexually with anyone of the same sex. It does more damage to brain function than just about anything else one can do. I can only account for this by acknowledging that the Grand Designer of the human psyche only designed the brain's blueprint to handle sex in the context of marriage and that with someone of the opposite sex. All forms of sexual expression outside this design messes with the brain's imprinting circuits that can cause permanent dysfunction in human relationships, to say nothing of the vulnerability to all kinds of diseases.

It has nothing to do with God hating the LGBT community. Nothing could be further than divine reality. God loves everyone, no matter how deviant their life choices. In fact, it is quite the opposite. I am certain God, because of the work of Christ at the cross, looks mercifully, compassionately, and graciously towards those who choose to venture into the dangerous waters of same sex sexual relationships. After all, He better than anyone, knows just how devastating it will be to their human personality, and loving mankind as He does it has to stir the deepest of His concerns and sorrow for those who give in to these temptations.

Make no mistake about it, no one who ventures down the path of same sex intercourse will ever return to normal brain function again. It seems to permanently imprint circuits in the brain that will create more distress and confusion than just about any other life choice possible. The neurotransmitters of their brain establish synaptic connections that become permanent tissue imprintings. Sinful behavior doesn't just create an ethereal cloud of confused thinking in the brain that can be blown out by logical or spiritual argumentation. The actual tissues of their brain have information logged on to them that only change when sufficient truth that is embraced consistently confronts the errors previously believed. Then, and only then, will a person begin to experience a renewed ability to think clearly again. I believe only Jesus can affect such a transformational miracle in the tissues of the brain.

What amazes me most is how effective the devil has been at getting non-Gays to buy into the notion that Tolerance for such a destructive lifestyle is a "good" thing. Your average liberal thinking unbeliever will blindly think they are just being compassionate towards the Gays to support their deviant lifestyle, while thinking they themselves would be horrible and judgmental if they rejected it. They can't even begin to comprehend they are signing their close friend's death certificate when they vote to support Gay agenda.

Here's another way of looking at how wrong the Gay movement is. Man was designed most especially to experience spiritual intimacy with God. Anyone who emphasizes sexual intimacy over spiritual intimacy proves they've gone astray. Now compound that by pursuing sexual deviant intimacy and now you are not only off course...you have wandered into a barren and destructive wasteland. We were designed for One Lover...Jesus Christ. The marriages we experience on earth will either enhance and train us for our eternal marriage to Him or they will distract us from that and detract from it. A strong human marriage should daily increase the affection and appreciation we have for Him. If it doesn't then we are worshiping our mate more than Him. Why does the Lord most oppose homosexual love? Because we were first and foremost designed for intimacy with someone entirely "other" than ourselves. To a man a woman is entirely other than himself. To a woman a man is entirely other than herself. To a human Jesus is entirely other, unique, amazing, and awesome. Homosexuality emphasizes "sameness"..."same sex relationships" rather than "other sex relationships." We weren't made for "same sex" we were made for "other spiritual intimacy." The bible defines our marriage to Him in terms of bride to bridegroom, not bride to bride or groom to groom. All mankind is viewed as a woman and He is portrayed as the ultimate man. The principle of "other" is at the core of what marriage is all about. He is entirely other, more special, more wonderful, more unique, separate, holy, transcendent and heavenly. The devil knows that if he can get mankind to either accept homosexuality or engage in homosexuality he has effectively cut them off from intimacy with God. You will never find a Gay person who would define his or her relationship with Jesus Christ as the most important relationship they have. They will never describe the meaning of their life as first and foremost being about Jesus, loving Jesus, knowing Jesus, walking intimately with Him, walking pure before Him, inviting Him to search the deepest parts of them for even the slightest impurity that could distract them from Him. This would never be their life focus because they know they have embraced the deepest of life's impurities when they engaged in homosexual behavior. This is the greatest tragedy of the Gay movement...it essentially cuts them off from truly knowing intimacy with the Heavenly One. Nothing could be worse for any human being. Spiritual intimacy with God is possible for these but only via deep repentance.

One of the most clear evidences of the permanent damage this behavior creates, in some - not all Gays, is the loss of ability to think logically and rationally about those who reject these lifestyles. Currently in our culture there is a huge discussion of whether a Christian cake maker or caterer should have to provide their services for a marriage ceremony that promotes a Gay lifestyle...their involvement ending up being a tacit support of something that is destructive to the couple engaging in such behavior. To be supportive of such a destructive choice would virtually force the business owner to support a destruction they would never want to see take place. Their decision should only be based on compassion and never on condemnation. What the caterer or the cake maker should in essence being saying, by their refusal to assist is "Look, I'm unwilling to help you destroy yourself, any more than I would help you commit suicide or any other destructive life choice." Those involved in Gay life don't realize it but their behavior often renders them virtually incapable of understanding the concerns of Christians and the Lord Himself.

We are never going to win the war of changing our culture by refusing to help those who are already engaging in this lifestyle, but at least we won't be contributing towards their further self destructive behavior. The only thing that will turn the tide of these things is the redemptive conversion and regeneration of the lost. In most cases this will be best accomplished in those who have not permanently damaged their psyches by involvement in Gay life but even in the case of the Gay their ONLY hope for some form of restored normal thinking would come through salvation.

Sooo, don't expect the Gay community to understand the Christian position on refusal to provide tacit approval to their lifestyle through catering their weddings or providing cakes for their weddings. In many instances they just aren't going to get it. Their brains have been permanently altered in such a way that they won't be able to get it. They will just hate you for your position and there won't be anything you can do about that hatred. It is a pure blind rage. You can't reason with them, you need not try to explain your position. Just expect they will hate you and move on to the real issue - their need for salvation in Christ. Fortunately such insane hatred doesn't characterize all Gay people, but in some cases it does and with those we expect harsh denunciation. And, one more comment here...if you are a follower of Christ you MUST not buy into the whole "Tolerance" thing.The worst thing you can do for the Gays is to support their delusion. If you love people and especially if you love Gay people you absolutely have to hold a compassionate biblical view of their unbiblical behavior and communicate that you will not support the Gay agenda in any form but you also will never hate Gay people.

We are not seeing a genuine "human rights" issue in the Gay movement. We are seeing the enemy of man's soul creating a smoke screen of delusion in world cultures towards convincing people to support an approach to life that is absolutely destructive to them and world culture. Their cries for human rights is not equal to "women's rights,"or "black's rights." Those were genuine rights that were being violated. Those rights issues are as different as night and day. No one is born needing homosexual sexual behavior. There may be a genetic predisposition towards a homosexual orientation (we will never know this for certain from a pure biological basis) but having an orientation does not necessitate an active sexualization of that orientation. It is the sexualization that creates the personal destruction to the one engaging, not the orientation. There is no necessity on any world culture to create an entirely new human tax and benefits classification for those who have an orientation towards the same sex. There could be all kinds of reasons why two women may prefer deep friendship with each other rather than with men, and so also for two men, but to say that this requires culture to codify such affinity with tax and other social benefits is to go way too far towards accepting the sexualization of such orientations.

On a political level it is very important to put pressure on your elected officials to stop providing additional legal support for their destructive behaviors. Once again, don't anticipate they will do anything else but vilify anyone who does this. Mike Pense of Indiana is just a recent case. He's simply attempting to help believers not be forced into business activities that would violate their bible based consciences. Of course the Gays will hate this. Our officials just have to stand their ground and refuse to cave into their illogical behavior. Liberalism is a mental disorder. It is the logical outcome of rejecting divine standards for life and is especially the logical outcome for those engaging in mind altering practices like Gay sexual behavior. There is no other reasonable explanation for liberal thinking. You simply cannot reject God's ways and expect that nothing adverse will come of it in your psyche. It ruins a person. They begin to lose all ability to comprehend or accept biblical standards for life. The Bible explains it very simply: THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH.

What death is it talking about as relates to the Gay lifestyle? I submit it is probably death on all kinds of levels:
- Emotional death
- Psychological death
- Relational death
- Physical death
- Rational thinking death
- Spiritual death

Look, we are not primarily battling with human beings. We are battling with forces of darkness that hate these people. We don't hate them. We love them! We look on them with ultimate compassion. They have either wittingly or unwittingly practiced behaviors that have royally messed with their heads. They are locked in to messed up thinking because of it. It breaks my heart to see it, but it doesn't cause me to want my legislators to enact laws that further bind them to their self destructive practices, or help our culture move towards practices that will enslave the nation. If legislators don't stand up to it and if corporations who fear loss of patronage don't stand up to it our culture is going to completely collapse on itself just as the Roman empire did. We're likely not very far from it. The exponential growth of moral depravity is moving so rapidly that one wonders if our country can survive even one more generation of it.

Daily we need to be praying for the greatest revival the world has ever seen. Nothing short of this will save this country and nothing short of this will deliver those bound in homosexual sin.

May God send us revival...

Your brother in the journey...
Tom Sparks

Where do our Problems come from?

Keys to overcoming Disappointment while avoiding the wrong Solutions

James 4:1  What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, 

that your passions are at war within you? 4:2  You desire and do not have, so you 

murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because 

you do not ask. 

James wasn’t a psychologist and he didn’t live in our day, so let me put his words in a modern vernacular that will communicate with us a little better:

        What causes our relational conflicts and what causes us to emotionally struggle with others?

Isn’t it that you have self centered emotional longings that aren’t being met?

You long to be known and cared for in ways you don’t even know how to articulate,

so you hurt others in an attempt to get what you feel you need.

You long for emotional connection and can’t quite achieve it,

so you argue, manipulate, vent, and fight with others in an attempt to achieve your

felt needs, but

you are looking in the wrong places, asking it from the wrong people, and

expecting miracles from those who can’t give them.

We live in a day where people struggle with all kinds of addictions, marital conflicts, family conflicts, road rage, perceived racial insensitivity, religious ideologies that pit one religion against another. Why? Why such incredibly complex and consistent struggles?

I believe it comes down to the “One Third Principle.” What is the “One Third Principle?” It is this...all human beings look to other human beings for Three Thirds of what they emotionally need and never are humans capable, even amongst those who are incredibly loving and perceptive, to provide another human being more than Two Thirds of what they feel they need emotionally. This creates an inner desperation, fear, anxiety, and anger that ultimately finds its way into the relationships we all live with and causes all of the problems we experience.

When we look for this illusive “One Third” that no human can give, from other humans, and stubbornly demand it from others, our environment, or even ourselves, we set ourselves up for huge disappointment and from that disappointment we strike out in all kinds of unhealthy ways.

So what is our problem anyway? Why do we do this? And...is there any way to gain this illusive additional one third we all so tenaciously seek after? The answer is both “Yes” and “No.” I can tell you where this last One Third resides, and I can tell you that it will absolutely complete you in the most exquisite and fulfilling of ways, but at the most I can only tantalize you with it...I can’t actually deliver it to you and it won’t fully come to you in this life.

What and where is this final One Third found? Only in Christ Jesus. He alone holds the final One Third, and He never allows any human being to provide this final One Third for anyone else because if He did they would worship the source of this final One Third instead of Him and this would be the ultimate bad for humans in this world. He alone can fill this One Third but He never does it completely in this life. At most He will tell you that He is the final One Third, and that He will fill it in eternity, but He NEVER fills it in this life. The hope we experience when we connect to the reality that He alone is the final One Third is what we must cling to to get us through this life successfully and into His presence in eternity to one day experience the final third.

When we connect to and accept this reality we begin to control our expectations from others, from our environment, and from ourselves. We know we must not look to them to fill us up. We know He alone can fill this emotional void and we accept that we must live with a certain measure of emotional hunger in this life that will only be satisfied in the next life. My wife is wonderful at spousal level in helping with two thirds of this need, but when I expect her to read my mind and know what I need in that final Third place then I’ve required of her a godlikeness that is beyond her ability, and my expectation that she meet this is unreasonable and unattainable by her. This is very often where marriage conflicts come from...we are looking to our spouse to meet the needs that only God can meet, or a level of spiritual knowledge of what we most need at any given moment that would require a supernatural impartation to receive. Such revelation can happen but we can’t expect this from our spouses...such expectation would be unreasonable and a setup for marital conflict.

If our spouse could fill this we’d worship them. If our children could fill this we’d create such an emotional dependency upon them that it would enslave them to us and they would never be able to create their own families or future. If our world could fill this we’d demand that it continually do so in an ever increasing manner. This is where drug abuse resides. We have emotional longings that are so deep and so intense, and no human has been successful at meeting those needs...in fact, they in many cases, through their insensitivities and their own needs, have only increased our felt need and driven us towards the things that enslave us as we pursue emotional fulfillment. Drugs, sex, money, food, power, and entertainment are such deceptive “One Third” promisers, and we all too often look to them to fill this final One Third. It ruins us, it ruins our relationships, it creates expectations that can not be legitimately satisfied, and we become enslaved to the very things that had promised to heal us.

So, why did God leave this “One Third” need within us, even after we are saved? Why doesn’t He fill this final One Third for us so we don’t become addicted, damage our significant relationships, and ruin our lives? It seems to us, as Christians, that this should be His highest priority, but obviously it isn’t. How so? It is evident that it isn’t by how many failed marriages we hear of among believers, how many addicted Christians we know, how many angry, sad, anxious, and worried followers of Christ we encounter and hear of. If this final One Third were universally met by God through the saving process we’d all know it. We’d all experience it. We’d all rest quietly in it, but we don’t. It doesn’t happen in this life.

So, why doesn’t this final One Third get filled by Christ here and now? If it could help us avoid so many of life’s problems it seems it would be His highest priority to provide this for us. How could such a need be unmet by One who claims to have it, to know us, and to love us? Why wouldn’t He set as His highest priority to provide this for us? It is a mystery for sure, but as near as I can tell it is tied up in the choices Adam and Eve made in the Garden and the resultant nature of the adversarial world we entered. The world is not friendly to this final One Third need. It exploits it, frustrates, uses it to ruin us, but it doesn’t truly help us with it.

Marriages are ruined by it, our health is ruined by it, our happiness is denied, and we live with a multitude of anxieties, fears, and angers because this world so exploits this One Third.

So, is there a place we can come to rest in, that will provide us a measure of resolve for this? Can we learn to look to Him for “something” as relates to this One Third hunger? I believe there is. I believe Paul references it in Romans 8 -

Romans 8:22  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 

8:23  And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 

8:24  For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 

8:25  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 

8:26  Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 

Herein lie the answers. We must live in the “Hope” of the fulfillment of this One Third. We must ASK for this Hope, ask and ask and ask, and refuse to look for it anywhere else but in Him. This is what James, in the reference at the beginning of this article, was trying to tell us. If we refuse to look for it in the wrong places we’ll find it in Him and all the rest of our relationships will experience peace. We, as Christians, above all other human beings, know Who can fill this place, Who will fill this place, and when it will be filled. We, above all others, can know that it will one day be filled and that if we hang on, hang in, and keep believing, that one day we will fully experience all three thirds being fully and completely satisfied in Him. In this life?...No...In the next life?...Yes...absolutely Yes. This hope is guaranteed, and it is also guaranteed that we won’t experience the fullness of it in this life. Our joy can be derived from “knowing” that we will one day experience completion of joy. It can hold us, sustain us, encourage us, and restrain us if we let it. If we will stop demanding of others and other things that they fill this void then we can learn to wait for it, knowing that it will surely come.

Through this waiting period we are promised the Holy Spirit who fully comprehends, appreciates, and cares for how great a struggle living without this final One Third really is. He will communicate His compassion, assure you that it will one day be fulfilled, and He will strengthen you to hold on in the hope that will be fulfilled in eternity, but He will not completely fill this final One Third in this life. At times it will feel like He has because He can cause this Hope to rise so intensely that it almost feels like the Hope has become a reality, but such times of intense awareness are fleeting in this life, and soon it will subside and we will freshly experience our longings once again and He does not continuously provide such intense awarenesses for us. We live in anticipation...not in final reality.

When we finally settle into this reality and stop demanding of others and our environment to provide this for us we find our relationships improve, our health improves, we find success in life, we enjoy others far more, our conflicts resolve, and we walk in a peace that previously eluded us. It is a wonderful thing to know “where” to look for this hope and to know it is not another earthly human, experience, or event. It isn’t here folks. It just isn’t, and the more tenaciously and demandingly we look for it here the more we will drive it from us and ruin all of our potentially meaningful relationships.

Marriages can heal, addictions can resolve, angers can settle, anxiety can lift, fear can melt, and joy can replace all of them once we stop expecting the wrong sources to fill this final One Third. Each of these can help with the first Two Thirds, but they can never provide the final and all powerful and ultimately meaningful One Third. Only Jesus can, and He will give us the hope for it now and the reality of it later.

May God help us to live in this hope and stop demanding its fulfillment from others and from Him now. They can’t give it and He won’t give it. It is most essentially an eschatological hope...a future hope...a heavenly home hope. It will come...wait for it...it may feel like it has delayed, but in the end we will discover it was right on time.

Hab 2:2  And the LORD answered me: "Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, 

so he may run who reads it. 

2:3  For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. 

The final One Third awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end–it will not lie. At times it will seem to be excruciatingly slow but it will surely come and it won’t tauntingly delay. It will come at the precise and perfect and most needed moment. Wait for it...

I hope this explanation helps you. I know it has helped me. We all want someone to “know” our deepest felt needs and to be there for us. It grieves us so deeply when those we expect this from those who just can’t, won’t, or don’t meet it. If we would learn to let this longing lead us to the right place it would solve so many life problems and conflicts. I’m here to tell you that if we don’t walk in the truths contained in this article we run the risk of looking for the solution in the wrong places resulting in our demise. May God help us to find and rest in our hope in Him alone for the final Third.

Your brother in the journey...
Tom Sparks

Where is the Church Heading?

Maintaining both biblical standards and biblical grace
A fresh look at the role of leadership in guiding - not controlling - the flock into holiness

We are living in a unique time in Church history. There has never been lower Church attendance in recent US history than right now, and here are some staggering facts - in just the last two and one half years 7.5 million people have left the Church and no longer attend worship services. The number of people who associated with the Christian religion in 1983 was 93%, in 2014 it was only 79%. In 1983 53% of people attended worship services and in 2014 only 43%. And, lest you think this automatically means that all those leaving the Institutional Church have left God too, in 1983 54% said they pray daily and in 2014 57% say they do. This as reported by Arthel Neville from Fox News 3/23/2015. In other words believers are still praying but they are disillusioned with the traditional Church. Certainly many of those who have left have done so because the conservative bible believing Church has refused to cave in and support the Gay agenda and the doctrine of Tolerance, and some have left due to bitterness of experience in their Church, but if you believe this accounts for all of those who have left then you simply aren't in touch with the facts. Because of this pastors are being forced to rethink their approach to Church in the hopes of discovering keys that might lead to folks returning to their folds.

I believe that what people want at their deepest spiritual levels is more of Jesus and less of man centered focuses in the Church. Leaders tend to either swing from too much control to too much liberty because they fail to draw the people most essentially to Him. When Church is too much about law or too much about grace then on either side of the swing of this pendulum it has failed to center the people in Christ. Church was designed by Christ to be a place where people came together to know Him, share their experience with Him in their daily lives, to encourage others to come to know Him more, and walk more intimately with Him. Over time it has become about all kinds of other things, and in doing so it misses its truest commission to draw all men to Him. In this vacuum sin will always fill the gaps and as a result when ministers emphasize any doctrine or idea or program rather than emphasizing Jesus ultimately they are leaving their people exposed to the lure of sin and they don't even know this is what is happening. The discussion of Sin, Grace, and Law, in imbalances will leave the people more vulnerable to sin because of being less drawn to Jesus.

Years ago I traveled throughout the northwest United States, Canada, Malaysia, Australia, and Singapore trying to help pastors recognize their concept of Church leadership was unbiblical in many aspects...chiefly their concept of control and Church standards of behavior. Often this was very hard for them to digest. To them...the Church was theirs, they had absolute authority over the lives of those who called their Church home, and they believed that if they didn’t adequately control the lives of their flocks they’d have to stand before Christ and explain why they didn’t. This was a failure to comprehend the true meaning of Hebrews 13:17.

Hebrews 13:17  Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

More accurate translation: "Obey (as a result of being convinced and confident in the correctness and spirit of what is being counseled or taught ) your leaders (who are esteemed due to manifesting a gentle non-coercive servant's heart), and be submissive  (yield to the servant authority of those over you in the Lord, as unto the Lord ), for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.”

I always knew the excessive requirements for submission was little more than a ruse to control people towards securing their authoritative significance and increasing their financial security, but they couldn’t see it. Their eyes were too blinded to the mixed motives of their own hearts. They had been trained in and had handed down to them a concept of authoritarian oversight of their Churches and they weren’t going to have it any other way. My words were little more than akin to clanging pots and pans together from the pulpits of their leadership conferences. It’s interesting that now, in 2015, many leaders are recognizing that with the development of world cultures towards favoring less control, less legalism, and more tolerance, if they don’t take a fresh look at pastoral authority they are going to lose their entire Church. Their tension is...how do we honor the Lord’s righteousness with respect for the privacy of the priesthood of each believer? How do we warn our flocks of the dangers of sin without using a manipulating fear or heavy handed control methods?

At the end of the day there isn’t anything we as leaders can do to insure that our flocks won’t sin. No amount of fear or control can guarantee adherence to biblical standards of behavior. If it isn’t intimate relationship with Jesus that creates personal holiness then no amount of heavy handed leadership will create it.

Now, as time has gone by and millions of believers have left their churches, they are desperately reconsidering their approach and are beginning to teach more grace, less control, and a friendlier God. Grace to believe they are loved even if they aren’t perfect, less control over the people’s practices, beliefs, behaviors, and Church attendance, and a friendlier God than the One they had preached as being austere, harsh, controlling and fearful.

Don't misunderstand me...God is to be feared or revered as the awesome and mighty God He is, but in Christ He has far more effective means of securing obedience than just fear and coercion. They have realized their message was never biblical in the first place. But, is it too late for the millions who have left disillusioned? And, in our rush to secure numbers in our pews have we swung the pendulum too far to the other side of law that we are virtually guilty of encouraging sin because of over emphasizing grace with a failure to discuss the consequences of sin?

It is now popular to talk about more grace, less control, and a far friendlier God than we ever had preached 20 years ago. But, in so doing we risk swinging the pendulum so far to the opposite end of things that our message becomes equally errant.

Don’t misunderstand me...I’m pleased more grace, less control, and a kinder God are being taught. This is good and long overdue. But, if we give an inaccurate view of grace and sin on the nicer side of theology we run the risk of indirectly encouraging the body of Christ to embrace the doctrine of “Tolerance” the devil has been seeding every world culture with. There has become a massive acceptance of the Gay lifestyle, recreational Marijuana, sex before marriage, and an incredible appetite for materialism and hedonism among believers, and this should be more alarming to us than it seems to be. It seems almost daily I hear of the growth of the "Tolerance" movement...tolerance towards all kinds of practices the bible couldn't be clearer on its opposition to. It amazes me that so many within the Christian faith would buy into such abominations. I expect mainline Christianity to do this...they've proven they are sold out to worldliness in so many ways, but to hear that Evangelical/Bible believing Christians are going for it shakes me to the core.

Don't misunderstand me...I believe Jesus loves everyone within the LGBT community...He loves the whole world...but loving people and approving lifestyles are and always have been two very different things. For Jesus to support lifestyles that are perversions would be to have Him support the destruction of the human personality...how would that be loving? My heart goes out to the LGBT community but I'm not about to accept or tolerate a behavior that has proven to be so destructive to the human psyche. So, why are Evangelicals falling prey to this abomination? I think it all comes back to a flawed concept of Church and Church Leadership. Young evangelicals have been wounded by a false concept of Church and they want nothing to do with it, sooo, in a knee-jerk reaction to it they are emotionally open to an approach to morality that stands in clear opposition to what they consider to be religious bigotry. Such a reaction is indeed unwarranted, sad, and destructive, but I feel their pain and long for them to come out of false religious systems yet maintain firm commitments to true biblical principles of godliness in Christ.

Let’s be clear on things. First, God “in Christ” after the cross has opened His arms in an unprecedented way that was never imagined in the Old Testament. Having come to Christ there is absolutely nothing you can do that would convince Him to “unsave” you no matter how ugly your behavior is. He is gracious, kind, full of blessings, and merciful beyond imagination. He loves us and nothing is going to change that. BUT...if the following truths don’t find their way through the pulpits and mouths of God’s teachers the body of Christ is going to suffer the greatest deceptions since the beginning of time. Here is truth that MUST be clearly communicated to the entire body of Christ: While it is not the responsibility of pastors to control, fix, manipulate or fear trip the people of God, it is their responsibility to articulately explain the righteousness of God, how God has created His universe and the human psyche. While there may be no sin you can do that will make God love you any less than He does He has woven into the Universe and your Psyche realities of consequence. There are "real" wages that sin pays and they don't make a person psychologically healthier.

If we fail to realize there are consequences for sin that have nothing to do with God being mad at us we are going to espouse a tolerant and nice God to our own destruction. He may be nice but if we sin in the face of His niceness we will experience the entire Universe opposing us and our Psyches collapsing. God may not send us to Hell for lying, cheating, lusting, stealing, worrying, hating, or controlling but we will experience a huge personal toll for having done so. Nobody escapes the wages of sin, nobody escapes unscathed who wilfully participates in these things. Loss of joy, loss of peace, emotional collapse, relationship deterioration, emotional and physical addictions, etc will ALWAYS attend wilful sin and God being nice, amiable, kind, merciful, and forgiving will never change this fact. We need to hear Him saying to us “Look...you are forgiven in Christ and I’m always going to love you, but sin will ruin your lives if you continue in it, and that ruination will have nothing to do with Me rejecting you, punishing you, not forgiving you, or unsaving you.” Sin is a reproach to any people (Proverbs 14:34) and tolerance of it will always destroy, piece by piece, the life of anyone who indulges in it.

I’m even convinced that God does very little “first hand” disciplining of His children, and I'm well aware of Hebrews 12:6. But, if you think through Hebrews 12 you will notice it is "loving discipline" rather than "harsh/punishing" discipline . Why? Because it seems He has woven into the fabric of our psyches and the universe principles of destruction that develop incrementally in the life of anyone who flirts with sin. He generally doesn’t need to personally discipline us...sin will discipline us of its own. Don’t waste your time putting a grim, harsh, or manipulative image on God. He is “for you” even if you sin. But, sin isn’t as amiable...it will destroy you if you yield to its temptations. Sin will begin to work out its wages (Romans 6:23) in every aspect of our lives if we yield to it. It is the paymaster for every indulgence. No one escapes its wages. To yield to sin is to invite a developmental destruction into our lives. I’m not saying God is personally soft on sin. I’m sure He hates it as much as He ever has, and the death of Christ hasn’t changed that, but because of what Christ did He is freer to embrace us with a warmth of love, affection, and forgiveness than could ever have been experienced in the Old Testament. His heart is lavishly warm towards us and His deepest desires are that we embrace Him, His grace, His wisdom, and His strength to avoid sin and walk closely with Him.

So, while it is important for Church leadership to quit controlling, start preaching grace, leave room for the Holy Spirit to lead, guide, and mature His Church, we must be clear that this does not leave room for the expression of the flesh. Fleshliness is a killer! Sin is a killer! Tolerance of cultural sins is not a virtue...it is stupid, blind, and destructive.

The Bible is incredibly clear on the black sins of the flesh. From these we must completely remove ourselves. When it comes to the gray areas of sin each believer must be given room to sort those out in their relationship with God, and no Church should ever be allowed to dictate acceptance in their folds based on adhering to a pastor’s particular set of pet peeves of things he thinks should be considered black sins when the bible doesn’t indicate them clearly as being so.

You see...God is pretty smart...as obvious as that should be...and He knew He could have provided a grocery list of all the things that would ever surface in the history of mankind and in every world culture that He didn’t like...things that might hurt His people, but He didn’t. So why didn’t He? Because He wanted His people to learn to never take away the rights and responsibilities of the people to come to Him in deep relationship to discover what He thinks about any given gray area in life. To be sure there are truly gray areas. Not everything is black or white. As hard as that is to fathom for people like myself who would like life to be as simple as a reduction of all life’s moral decisions to pure blacks and white, much is truly gray and in those gray areas we must always encourage the body of Christ to walk intimately with the Lord to discover His leading in those areas. Freedom in Christ mandates this. To take this away from the body of Christ is to stilt their growth, kill their relationship with Christ, and teach them that all of life can be reduced to simple black and whites.

When Church leaders define a set of black and white Church standards of acceptance that they have no business in defining they merely reveal how insecure they are, how fearful they are that they will not be able to successfully control the body of Christ into doing what will make them feel significant and secure in their leadership rolls. They may tell themselves they do what they do to honor Christ but He knows the true reality...it has far more to do with them than about Him. It has far more to do with wanting something from their ministry that no one ought ever to seek from another human being. Church history is full of this kind of ugly manipulation. Our day is no exception to the history of this ugliness. Whether we look at the Inquisition, the Catholic system of control and domination, or the modern Evangelical Church with an overbearing Senior Pastor, a set of standards for acceptance in a given local Church, and the manipulative error of tithe teaching, it all partakes of the same root system of error. It is much more about leaders than it is about Jesus.

It is high time that we preach Christ as He is...preach of the true nature of Church...let grace have its day among believers, and learn to walk intimately with Jesus. The earth is reeling under the weight of millennia of errors in these areas. Believers have “had it” with it all and have voted with their feet and their pocket books. They won’t fund it, they won’t tolerate it, and they won’t submit to it, and this has absolutely nothing to do with being unsubmissive, irreverent, disobedient, rebellious or sinful. They just aren’t going to sit back any longer and encourage a form of leadership and Church that is more about man’s agenda than it is about Christ. They will either see Jesus or they won’t see anything in the Church. They will either be brought to His feet to hear from Him or they won’t be brought anywhere. They’re done with it and they won’t have it any longer...but neither should they going to become a liberated fleshly sinful bunch of people, who in expressing their freedom choose to liberally sin. Absolutely not. It is time for a Fierce Faith to emerge. One that won’t tolerate Church leadership manipulation and also won’t tolerate personal sin.

It is true that Jesus loves these leaders and teachers who lead and teach in false ways, and we would never deny that reality. It is true Jesus will love us even if we bury ourselves under a great weight of sin, but neither of these approaches must be allowed to prevail in the Church any longer. The way we no longer allow them is to come out of them ourselves. In so doing we lead by influence and example rather than by dictatorial control.

The world, without realizing it, is looking for a people who love the lost fiercely while fiercely hating sin. They know their sin is destroying them, but having found no reality in the Church has emboldened them to cast off the restraint even they know they need. The world has watched us over the centuries rip them off by religious practices and standards that have absolutely nothing to do with God and they are sick of it. They are running head long into unrestrained pursuit of sin partially because they have found no spiritual reality in the Church and are emboldened to destroy themselves in their rebellion. If the Church doesn’t recognize and repent for having pressured them into this direction we will have failed our commission to reveal Jesus for Who He really is and the Church for what it really is.

Let us come away from false religious systems and false tolerance of sin. Let us become the people of God we were called to be so as to truly honor Christ and present to the world an honest approach to Christ and His Church.

Your brother in the journey...
Tom Sparks

The Impact of Security & Significance Issues

How are we affected by Security & Significance Issues?

Over the years, working in Church ministry and just observing my own life, I've sensed a growing awareness of the impact of Security & Significance issues in both my personal life and the development of the broader Church. In this article I would like to explore some of those impacts and look forward to any comments you'd like to add.

How many of our life choices, ministry approaches, and leadership postures stem from a failure to recognize the impact of what took place in the Garden of Eden as relates to personality development and life motives?  I think many of us fail to recognize just how affected we really are.

Prior to the Fall in the Garden Adam & Eve were at rest with themselves, their environment, and God, but after the Fall significant change took place in them that affected how they and the rest of us view these areas of existence. We were more significantly damaged than we often recognize.

Before the Fall Security: Both of them were completely secure in terms of provision and confident hope.

Before the Fall Significance: Both them were at rest with their sense of personal value and worth apart from performance.

After the Fall Security: Both they and the rest of developing mankind have always been fearful of how they will carve out financial and personal life hope security in a world that feels hostile to us at all times.

After the Fall Significance: Both they and the rest of developing mankind have always been uncertain as to what makes us truly valuable, our sense of self worth, and how we will develop our personal destiny in a way that makes us feel good about ourselves.

Whether we are talking about these issues on a personal level or the development of families, tribes, clans, or nations, these issues have had a profound affect on all levels of life, and if we are to live as successfully as God intends for us to then we are going to have to look deeply into the way the Fall has affected each of our lives in terms of security and significance, because these issues frame most of the motives for everything we do in life.

Where do the fears you wrestle with come from? Do you even know? How do they affect your relationships, your personal peace, the directions you take in life?

If we allow false security and significance issues to rule our lives we will be hurt and will hurt others at every turn of our lives. If we find our security and significance in Christ alone we will walk in His peace and experience healing towards wholeness in Him increasing continually.

How do we relate to life and others? Do we seek to carve out security for ourselves in ways that sacrifice personal peace and wound others in our pursuit for security? Do we develop principles of success that are more about us and what we want or feel we need than what honors Christ and blesses others? I'm not suggesting we become doormats or to live as if God doesn't desire to bless us, because these are errant approaches to life and don't comport to divine realities. But, when we pursue our own security at the expense of others we are forsaking the way of love and pursuing selfish goals that will never bring us peace or personal life satisfaction. We will continually live with a sense of being "ill at ease" in those deep inner motivational places within us. This is no way to live, and yet it characterizes so many people.

How do we handle significance issues? Am I co-dependent and "need" others to affirm my self worth and allow myself to compromise the way of love just so as to gain someone else's approval? Am I hamstrung in relationships so much so that unless I can control people or events in a way that I perceive will strengthen my significance I fear great personal loss? How many of my decisions revolve around doing things that compromise the way of love towards others in favor of enhancing my personal position at the expense of others? 

I'm not suggesting that it is commensurate with love to embrace disdain for my sense of needs or ignore my need for provision of both tangible and intangible things, but when the fulfillment of my needs so takes precedence over that which is best for others and disdains what is best for them then I know I am manipulating my life experience and others so as to achieve my goals in ways that violate true love and end up damaging myself and those I relate to.

True security and significance is always important to the Lord. He wants us to find security and significance in Him first and foremost. When I have faith that He loves me and cares for me and desires to bless my life I'm less inclined to allow others to use me as a doormat so as to gain their approval (co-dependency) or to manipulate them so as to get out of life what I most feel I need. Faith in Christ always turns me towards the way of love both in terms of trusting Him to love and care for me as well as trusting Him to treat others in love knowing that they were never really my source for security and significance anyway. He alone is my source.

When Jesus tells us "I came that you may have life and have it abundantly," and "Whom the Son sets free is free indeed," no where are these truths more powerful than in giving us life and setting us free from the fears connected with security and significance issues. When I no longer look to you to provide me with these things I'm free. When I know and trust that He will meet these needs suddenly abundant life begins to stream into my life. In terms of Quantum physics, as woven into the universe by the Lord, I firmly believe the universe turns its head our direction when we begin to get resolve in these areas. I believe the entire universe is tuned to meet our truest needs in Christ when we look to Him for security and significance rather than to others. There are resources woven into the universe which will begin to pour into our lives the things we most need when we cease looking to the wrong sources for life and begin to focus our faith in Christ to meet these deepest of needs.

Money will come, doors of opportunity will open, relationships will be enhanced, as we gain new resolves in these areas. We will cease being victims and begin to become overcomers. Bitterness and resentment will lift from our lives, when we recognize that people are not our source...Jesus is. It is a wonderful thing to life shift away from being a victim to being an overcomer. Life outside the Garden is scary enough, we don't need to make it worse for ourselves by a thinking that sees all of life and people as threats to our best interest and feel pressured to force life and people to conform to an approach that makes us feel safe. Once again, I'm not suggesting we posture ourselves in clearly unsafe ways before people, but I am suggesting that we not allow ourselves to believe that we need to get others to do things for us that we should be looking to the Lord for. The kind of fears that are attached to such manipulation are very unhealthy for us.

Where can we make practical application of these principles?

Government - do we look to our government to make us safe and secure, to guarantee us opportunities to find significance? Do we feel like victims to an overbearing government intrusion into our lives to the point where our peace is gone because we don't believe we can do much of anything to stop their over-reach? Do we really believe it is the job of government to bring financial prosperity into our lives? Do we find ourselves maligning our government officials because of our anxiety that they aren't doing what we wish for them to do? We all too often tend to look to them to provide for us what we should only be looking to Jesus for. I'm not saying we shouldn't vote, or protest, or make our voices heard, but at the end of the day our sense of security is not to be based in whether we feel we were successful at turning them to support what we are passionate about.

Marriage - do we look to our spouse to make us safe and secure, to believe that it is their responsibility to so provide for us emotionally, intellectually, financially and physically in ways that enhance our security and significance that when we can't achieve our goals we are either tempted to become co-dependent upon them for this (resulting in very unhealthy relational choices including abuse) or to manipulate them towards this by threats, unhealthy emotional outbursts, or unfaithfulness? My spouse is not my source for my truest needs. This doesn't mean I allow them to abuse me or over reachingly use me,  or that I don't work consistently towards a great marriage experience, but I also don't tell them or myself that my happiness in marriage is entirely dependent on my spouse meeting my deepest needs in these areas.

Family - do we tell ourselves we "need" our children to behave in such a way, or respect us as we feel we are due, or to do things that enhance our significance in the eyes of others based on their performance? Do our kids need to perform in any particular way for us so that we feel we are good parents, have done a good job, or make us feel good about ourselves? These are family killing motives and our children can sense these motives even if they can't articulate doing so. It warps their developing sense of security and significance and prepares them to either reject you or become co-dependent upon you for their sense of worth and then later to do so with others.

Church - do we as Church leaders tell ourselves it is our job to control our flock, to cause them to grow in Christ, to evangelize and bring people into the Church, to obey the standards we'd like exemplified in our Church, submit to our leadership and do as they are told, give a sufficient amount of money to pay our salaries or fund our projects, etc., etc.? These are prescriptions for abusive control and manipulation and will ultimately lead to legalism, abuse of power, and confusion in the body of Christ. Leaders are called to "influence" rather than "control," and when they miss this distinction they make their callings very difficult, wound the Church, and dishonor the headship of Christ. Leaders must learn to find their security and significance in Christ rather than using money manipulating messages or false approaches to controlling their congregations. When they settle that Jesus is the Head of His Church and not them, then they let control leave their ministry and focus on loving the flock, leading by example, caring, serving, and growing in grace. If we have exhausted these approaches and still our congregations dishonor the Lord there is nothing left for us to do but pray, and if we resort to any form of manipulation, performance orientation, or fear mongering we have violated the way of love and will not be happy with the results. The role of being a CEO type senior pastor is a miserable one and fraught with all kinds of conflict and trouble. Far better to walk in Servant leadership without forcing titles, positions, or respect for them.

These principles are so critical to life happiness. The happiest people aren't those who successfully manipulate life to give them what they want...the happiest people are those whose expectations are not that this life, this world, or people will provide our deepest needs, but that only Jesus is capable of and willing to do this for us.

And, when it comes to trusting Jesus to meet these deepest of needs we must be very careful that our expectations of what He should do for us don't violate our trust that He will always do what is best for us. This is where anger with God often develops... We think God should have done this or that for us, and because He didn't we feel insecure and insignificant and as if we'd better take care of ourselves because we surely can't trust Him to. This is such a prescription for failure and ultimate disaster. No, He is our source, and our faith must rest in Him to decide how and when to meet our needs for security and significance. To be angry with God is truly illogical in the sense that if He is God and if He is a good God and if He is a powerful and wise and good God how could He possibly be any of these things and then fail to meet our truest needs? If He truly fails us where He shouldn't then He is none of these things and then we are without any hope in this world. Better that we look exclusively to Him and trust that He can never fail us in these areas than to make a completely illogical conclusion that He should have done something for us that He didn't do. I need to conclude that if He didn't do something I hoped He would that it is because He knows all of the variables involved in giving me what I want and that giving it would have been worse for me than if He didn't grant it. Trust just makes sense...any other position will cost you your only hope for peace outside of the Garden.

Life outside the Garden is never going to be easy. Life outside the Garden continually reminds us we are vulnerable and fearful of that vulnerability, but as we learn to lean on Jesus for everything we discover that our sense of Security and Significance is always increasing and with it a deep peace of safety and joy begins to fill our lives.

So, how do you relate to these things? How do you see yourself as struggling with issues of security and significance? Where have you been wounded by others due to looking to them for these things? Where have you struggled in life with personal decisions that missed alignment with these things? If you'd like to share your thoughts on these things this a forum of opportunity - feel welcome...

Your brother in the journey...
Tom Sparks