3 No Nos in America

I am writing this post in response to something I heard in a sermon.

If you live in America today and consider yourself a Christian there are many things that people who are not Christian think you should not get involved in. Some believe that Christians are intolerant and self-righteous when they take a stand on things. They say Christians are hypocrites when they sin and in many cases they are. I believe these things are come from a misunderstanding of what a Christian is. In the next paragraph is my definition of a Christian or at least how I understand my relationship to God.

A Christian is a follower of the one who is known in history as Jesus of Nazareth and the one they believe is the Christ the savior of the world. They believe He was the son of God and that through His death they are forgiven and through His resurrection they have hope of being raised from the dead some time in the future.

The story of Jesus is not a new one because there have been many such stories about life, death and resurrection but none of the other stories involve the Creator coming to stand in man's place for the sins they have committed. There is no God like that in all of the other stories.

A follower of Jesus is one who knows they are not perfect and that they will still commit sin in some way even after accepting Jesus as their savior. They see the sins of others through that lens and so a true follower of Jesus does not make judgment of others even though they may voice opposition to their sin. A true Follower of Jesus is tolerant of other people even though they may not be tolerant of their behavior. They know that they are not that much different than them. A true follower of Jesus knows that they stand equally before the Creator God and Judge of the world but that because they have accepted the sacrifice of Jesus when it comes to sentencing He shows to the Judge His wounds to show that the debt has been paid in full. A true follower of Jesus knows that they are no more righteous than anyone else and they know that any righteousness granted to them is given by the Creator.

What are the Three No Nos in America? They are three areas of life that other people say Christians have no right to voice an opinion on. The three areas are:

1) Criticism of the religion of Evolution. Make no mistake about it Evolution is a religion. It is the belief that man is subject to no one and that nature is the God of the universe. If one who believes they are really educated who just apply the ability to think freely that God gave them they would have to admit it takes more faith to believe life just spontaneously came into being. I believe that anyone who believes in Evolution is being purposely ignorant of nature because they do not want to acknowledge the possibility of a Creator because they would have to then submit to that God.

2) Criticism of the Homosexual life style and the belief that people involved in those life styles were not born that way and can choose to change.

3) Criticism of Abortion. Believing that abortion is the taking of a human life is offensive to some because they assume that it is a condemnation of the person who has had an abortion. It never ceases to amaze me that the very people who are against the death penalty in America are the biggest supporters of abortion. Check out the abortion facts and Rick's Pro-Life Blog.

I am going to state my beliefs about the 3 No Nos.

1) Evolution has been shoved down the throats of young school children as fact. It is a LIE!

2) The Homosexual life style is wrong and people involved in it are living a LIE!

3) Getting an Abortion is the ending a human life and it is all based on a LIE!

Those who really know me would probably say that I am pretty tolerant of others and accepting of them. Even though I believe the world has been lied to about the 3 No Nos I believe that God desires to heal the wounds caused by the belief in them. I am in no way better than people who believe evolution is fact, that homosexual life styles are natural and that having an abortion is nothing more than removing tissue matter from a woman's body. The only thing I have going for me that they currently do not and that is Jesus will step between me and the Judge when my judgment day comes.

Usually I encourage people to leave a comment about how they were encouraged by a post but this time I invite any criticism one might have concerning this post. Just be aware that as a follower of Jesus I am set in my ways because you see God asks us to conform His standards not the worlds. Giving in to the 3 No Nos is the world's standard and I will not conform to it.

Homosexuality, Judgement and You

Homosexuality is a Sin but......

Before I go further let me share an experience I had when I was 18 years old.  It was 1968 and I was traveling to my first duty station, the USS Kitty Hawk, and had to stay overnight at an Air Force base in California.  I checked in and one of the sergeants that checked me in told the other that he was going to show me the town.  He told me to get my gear stored and meet him in the hallway which I did.  

Being the young guy from the midwest that I was I thought how neat it was that someone who was above me would want to take the time to show me a good time before I headed for my duty station off the coast of Vietnam.

Once we arrived in the small town outside of the base he first stopped and got a motel room and told me that if we had any drinks we probably should not drive back to the base.  That seemed wise to me.  We went up to the room that had two beds and he told me he needed to shower before we headed out for a few drinks.  When he returned from taking a shower he had a towel around his waist.  The details of what happened I will leave out but he more or less pulled rank on me and in a gentle way sexually molested me.  

This man sinned against me by forcing me to do something I did not want to do.  His actions affected how I related to other men for the next 30 years.   I was 48 before I truly trusted another man with friendship or felt safe alone with another guy.  Now you might say this man's sin was using his authority over me in a wrong way not homosexuality.  I believe God says that it was both.

Let's look at what the God's Word, the Bible, has to say about homosexuality.

Lev. 18:22, "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination."1 

Lev. 20:13, "If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltness is upon them" 

1 Cor. 6:9-10, "Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God." 

Rom. 1:26-28, "For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. 28And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper."

I believe it is celar that God sees this behavior is sin and having said that let's look at some other sins God equally hates.

Proverbs 6: 16-19 Here are six things God hates,  and one more that he loathes with a passion: 
eyes that are arrogant, a tongue that lies, hands that murder the innocent, a heart that hatches evil plots, feet that race down a wicked track, a mouth that lies under oath, a troublemaker in the family.

Galatians 5: 19-21 It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. 

This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.

Matthew 5

Murder
 21-22"You're familiar with the command to the ancients, 'Do not murder.' I'm telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother 'idiot!' and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell 'stupid!' at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill. 

 23-24"This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God. 

 25-26"Or say you're out on the street and an old enemy accosts you. Don't lose a minute. Make the first move; make things right with him. After all, if you leave the first move to him, knowing his track record, you're likely to end up in court, maybe even jail. If that happens, you won't get out without a stiff fine. 

Adultery and Divorce
 27-28"You know the next commandment pretty well, too: 'Don't go to bed with another's spouse.' But don't think you've preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt. 

 29-30"Let's not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here's what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile. And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly. Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump. 

 31-32"Remember the Scripture that says, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him do it legally, giving her divorce papers and her legal rights'? Too many of you are using that as a cover for selfishness and whim, pretending to be righteous just because you are 'legal.' Please, no more pretending. If you divorce your wife, you're responsible for making her an adulteress (unless she has already made herself that by sexual promiscuity). And if you marry such a divorced adulteress, you're automatically an adulterer yourself. You can't use legal cover to mask a moral failure. 

Empty Promises 
 33-37"And don't say anything you don't mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, 'I'll pray for you,' and never doing it, or saying, 'God be with you,' and not meaning it. You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true. Just say 'yes' and 'no.' When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong.

I think it is clear from all of these scriptures that homosexuality is a sin just as slander, unjuust anger, divorce,  gossip, pride, arrogance, lying, pornography, lust, covetness, greed, and many other actions that you and I might have.   My point is when you judge another's sin and we should we first must examin our own sins and repent of them.  But more than that it is our responsibility to focus on ourselves and let the Holy Spirit take care of others.

I encourage you to reach out to those you know are struggling with sin and allow the Holy Spirit to convict them as you love them.

What happened then could make me who I am today

All of the events of my youth have had a direct impact on who I am today but I do not have to allow those events to control who I am to be.

For years I did not realize how much my mom abandoning me when I was 2 1/2 affected me and shaped my attitude towards women. Oh, I was a good husband, always coming home after a hard day's work, avoiding cheating and a good father. But... I was missing something. I did not know how to share my feelings or be intimate. Guys intimate is different than being sexual. I had no problem with sex but I just did not know how to share anything deeper than a grunt.

My first two marriages ended after 6 years not because I did something wrong but because I failed to give them what they needed, my heart. When I got married to my current wife, Kat, I began the process of changing that but it took me several years to move beyond the wounds of my mom leaving.

For years I allowed the actions of two teachers keep me from excelling. I knew that if I achieved success I would have to stand in front of people and the thought kept bringing back my 2nd and 5th grade experiences. I just could not risk having people laugh at me. When I was 38 I decided that I needed to change this so I joined some other men in a spokesman club. I spent 8 years learning how to write and give speeches. Today I still feel fear when I speak in front of people but I use that fear to do the best I can with what I have.

For years the sexual molesting I experienced by a man who I was suppose to trust when I was 18 kept me from developing friendships with other men. Later as a father I let this experience affect my relationship with my son when he shared with me that he was homosexual.

When I was 38 I decided to allow a guy into my life. Tom was pretty safe he was a quadriplegic so he could not molest me. Then a couple of years later I allowed Jim into my life. When I was 52 I decided to begin a men's small group and what I thought would be a low key group ended up with two homosexual and a transgender men in the group. It was a real struggle for me not to allow my past experience to control my relationship with these men. Thank God He delivered me from the fears and anger I had towards them.

Today I am still trying to building my relationship with my son but he is being held back by his hatred and anger at me for my actions.

Here is the bottom line guys. We all have experienced things that shape our attitudes and beliefs. We can either choose to allow those things to make us who we are or we can take control of them and turn them over to God and let Him make us who He wants us to be.

My brother is a artist and my son a graphic designer. I am a pot and like one of my brother's paintings or my sons creations as God shapes me into a more perfect vessel.

What is God doing in you? What is keeping you from doing the ministry He has called you to do?

I encourage you to share it here and then leave it here. Let God replace it with more of what He has for you.

My 18th year

My senior year in High School was very eventful. For the first time in my efforts at playing football I made the starting line-up. I was one of the smallest guys on our team but I played like I was much bigger. At the end of the football season my team mates choose me as one of the captains of our team.

I would have made the starting team in basketball too except I let my girlfriend talk me out of playing. She did not like the other girls cheering for me. My nickname was Co-Co, short for Clark bar, and she did not like hearing the girls cheering Co-Co or me running up into the cheerleaders area. Not that I always did that on purpose but I have to admit it was quite fun to do.

Later in the spring I did play on our golf team and we went to the state tournament and if I remember right Tom Watson of Kansas City played in that tourney. We did not place but we had lots of fun.

I was still shy but I was one of the most popular guys in our school. It seemed almost everyone knew who Larry Clark or Co-Co was. As a side note I went to my 40th school reunion and was voted the most changed person in our class. No one could put there finger on why I won that award but I believe it is because I was no longer that shy backward person they knew back then.

One spring evening my girlfriend and I were out on a date and we were laying under a tree in the park. As usual we started kissing and kind of getting out of control when I stopped and told her that I wanted to stop being sexually involved. I talked of how she could get pregnant and how that would ruin all of her plans for college and that I would leaving for the Navy soon. She started crying and asked if I still loved her. To make the story short we had sex and that night she got pregnant. That failure on my part to stand firm as a man changed our lives. She did not go to college until years later and I left soon after we got married for the Navy and Vietnam.

The next thing that year that affected my life and who I would become happened on my way to Vietnam. I had to spend one night at an Air Force base in California before I left for the Philippians. An Air Force Sargent offered to show me the town. Once in town he rented a Motel room and told me he needed to shower before we went to a local bar. After showering he sexually molested me.

I would let this one event keep me from having male friends until I broke free from that fear at age 41 and found healing for the wounds caused by it at age 52.

Guys we all have wounds resulting from others taking advantage of us or hurting us. It helps me to talk about my wounds and I encourage you to share yours here. I have the comment section set-up so you can be Anonymous. If I can help in anyway please contact me privately.