Category Archives: Faith

Sexuality and the Church

April 5, 2013 By in Church, Grace, Homosexuality, Predatory Leaders, Sex Abuse 8 Comments

I often have people send me links to articles and blogs, and here are several that deal with different aspects of sexuality in the Church.

Being Gay at Jerry Falwell’s University, by Brandon Ambrosino

A very candid personal story of a man who struggled over his homosexuality, yet found friendship as the Christian community at a leading conservative university expressed love and grace while remaining faithful to their Biblical convictions.

You Cannot Heal What You Cannot Talk About, by Survivor Girl

Survivor Girl is a frequent commenter here, and this is her very personal story about sexual predation in the church. Please, read this. When a leader uses his position and spiritual gifts to prey on women in the church, it is not an affair, it is sexual abuse. This article will help you understand how sexual predators groom their victims, and also provides links to good resources for dealing with these issues.

Predators in the Pulpit, by Susan McKenzie

Another first person account of sexual predation and grooming in our churches. This too provides good background on how this happens, so we can be on guard and protect others.

Sexual Sin is a Corporate Affair, by Harry Schaumburg

“When we take the gospel seriously we not only correctly understand the nature of sexual immorality, we must become proactive in taking corporate responsibility for the sexual maturity and sexual problems within our local church.”

~ Jim

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Resurrection Sunday

March 31, 2013 By in Conversion, Faith, Postmodern, Sovereignty 8 Comments

Forty-eight years young in the Lord!

On Resurrection Sunday in 1965, when only eight years old, I had a deep, deep conversion experience as I totally surrendered to the Lord.

It was in an old-line Pentecostal church that met in the pastor’s home.

I’m told that my tears of repentance on that worn wooden floor made permanent stains.

grace

Wow, how time has passed.

My years of service to Jesus have been – and continue to be – a wonderful adventure. Even during some tough times, I never once regretted belonging to Christ – my King and my Redeemer.

Through it all, I’ve always felt His hand on my life. He blessed me with a solid foundation from Godly parents and mature teachers, which has served me well over the years.

In an age of cheap grace, crazy doctrines, postmodern spiritual angst and “deconstruction,” that foundation yet stands firm.

For those willing to surrender their sensibilities to the Living Word, in submission to His written Word, He offers the same assurance.

Really, it’s just not that complicated.

But it does mean letting go of your own foolishness and impulse to define Jesus – and what ultimately is right, real and true – on your own terms.

My life is a living testimony to His sovereign Lordship, and His passion is my very life.

I invite you to also surrender …

And find life.

~ Jim Wright

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Self-Control

March 30, 2013 By in Faith, Fruit, Grace, Love 4 Comments

The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Gal 5:22-23 NIV

Self-control is the last fruit of the spirit. In life no one wants to be last. Somehow last implies that you don’t measure up, didn’t try hard enough or couldn’t quite do it. However, I don’t think being at the end of the list of fruit puts self-control in that same category.
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I think self-control is like the parenthesis in math. For example, with (3+2) x (8+2) the math inside the parenthesis has to be completed first. You would get a totally different answer if the parentheses were missing from the equation.

In a sense love and self-control are like the parenthesis. They help group the other fruit. 1 Corinthians 13, the front parenthesis, reminds us that without love we can do nothing. Self-control comprises the back parenthesis.

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Storing Up Riches?

March 25, 2013 By in Faith, Grace, Gratitude, Life, Peace 7 Comments

walking_with_JesusYesterday, as some folks in our fellowship prayed for me, I had one of those rare times when I heard the Lord very directly speak to my inner man.

He said I had laid up many treasures in heaven from a life spend serving Him and His people.

He let me know I could begin a new season of life, in transition toward my life to come, with the settled peace of His pleasure and honor.

Then He asked, however, if I was willing to spend those treasures, over whatever remaining time He chooses to give me, by investing them in others?

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The Cult of Giftedness

March 19, 2013 By in Abuse, Judgment, Predatory Leaders, Sin Leave a comment

Steubenville and the Misplaced Sympathy for Jane Doe’s Rapists, by Megan Carpentier.

This article addresses a disturbing phenomenon: In America, we have a cultish worship of those who are charming, gifted and inspiring. They are given every benefit of the doubt, and then some.

So it always goes… sympathy and excuses by some for the gifted predator, shame for his “wayward” victim.

As an aside:

Thanks for bearing with us as we take a week or so to focus on these issues. In the Body of Christ, we should be better than this. Unfortunately, we often aren’t.

Frank Viola: Feed the Need

March 13, 2013 By in Frank Viola, Postmodern, Predatory Leaders, Repentance, Sex Abuse 1 Comment

Sorry, Frank Viola, but when your “revelation” of Jesus looks a lot like your own sensibilities, I’m not impressed.

And when “deeper life” merely reinforces your own postmodern proclivities, I’m likewise not impressed.

Nor do I find a persistent failure to be a functional part of any healthy, local fellowship – despite all your books and blogs on organic church – to be a virtue.

Really, didn’t you get the memo? Postmodernism and existential angst just ain’t that compelling or counter-cultural anymore.

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Gentleness

March 12, 2013 By in Compassion, Courage, Fruit, Struggles 2 Comments

The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness… Gal 5:22-23 NIV

Webster lists the characteristics of gentleness as being soft, meek, passive, mild, delicate, kind and docile. In Psalm 18:35 David says that the Lord’s “gentleness has made me great.” This seems to be a contradiction. How could the characteristics of gentleness, as defined by Webster, make someone great? Perhaps the Lord’s definition of gentleness implies much more.lion and the lamb 2

I believe that the Lord wants us to be gentle, but His gentleness is not a wishy-washy docility. Gentleness has a hidden core of strength and this core is what makes someone great. Gentleness’ strength runs deep, like the molten lava in a volcanic magma chamber. Tremendous heat transforms hard rock into a flexible, moving force.

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Beyond Scripture? (Part 3)

March 5, 2013 By in Bible, Frank Viola, Grace, Grace Movement, Sovereignty, Truth 6 Comments

The low view of God in the Old Testament, found among those touting a so-called “Christocentric hermeneutic”, comes from too high a view of themselves.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

They often take personal offense at how God dealt with humanity in the Old Testament – including His sometimes fierce display of holiness and punishment of sin and rebellion.

So they make God in the Old Testament an aberration. They substitute their own perceptions of Christ – rooted in their post-modern sensibilities – for the totality of Scripture, and make their resulting “Christology” higher revelation than God’s own external Word of Scripture.

They have joined Adam and Eve in choosing the moral autonomy of deciding for themselves what is right and wrong, and have the further hubris of then imposing it on God Himself.

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Coming Together

March 5, 2013 By in Faith 2 Comments
Miguel Labrador

Miguel Labrador

In mid-March, Miguel Labrador will be with several of the fellowships and ministries relating to each other here in Virginia.

We will meet in living rooms, around dining room tables, and even with brothers in the jail to talk about the things of God as we work among ourselves to encourage and strengthen the different churches.

I think this is going to be a significant step for us, especially as some of our key people with a mission orientation come together for intentional, trans-fellowship discussions and to hear what Miguel has to teach us from his own work in the cloud forest region of Ecuador.

Faithfulness

March 4, 2013 By in Faith, Fruit, Obedience, Struggles 3 Comments

The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness… Gal 5:22 NIV

Faith is a seed the Lord plants in us. Faithfulness is the fruit that develops over the seasons of our life. The fruit of faithfulness requires a long growing season. There is no way to expedite the process.

tortoise and the hareIn the fable of The Tortoise and the Hare, the tortoise demonstrates faithfulness. He keeps on doing what he needs to do, without any fanfare or dramatics. Steadfast, loyal, conscientious, all describe a person who has allowed faithfulness to become ingrained in their life.

Often, the people who are the most faithful receive the least acclaim.

In the Bible, Joseph exemplifies faithfulness. After he was sold to Potiphar, he conscientiously served him and the Lord blessed Potiphar’s household because of Joseph. Joseph did not grumble and complain because he was in Egypt away from his family.  He faithfully served in the place the Lord had him.

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Letting Go

March 3, 2013 By in Bondage, Confession, Forgiveness, Repentance Leave a comment

For most Christians, the greatest struggle is not resisting sin but in being willing to let go of our hurts. More than sin, we allow our hurts to define us, and find it difficult to leave the familiarity of our pain for the unfamiliarity of a truly new life in Christ. Even among Christians, few risk the grace of confession, forgiveness and repentance to become whole and complete in Him.

Really, it’s not that difficult…

Here’s a story of one man’s journey: Getting to Simple.

Goodness

February 21, 2013 By in Brokenness, Courage, Fruit, Struggles 3 Comments

god is goodThe fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness… Gal 5:22 NIV

When reading fairy tales or watching movies, good usually triumphs over evil by the end of the story. Often in real life, our desire is for the happily ever after fairy tale ending. But even in movies or fairy tales, the hero or heroine has to overcome many obstacles before they achieve goodness.

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Tyranny and Murder by Presidential Decree

February 6, 2013 By in Absolutes, Obama, Postmodern, Relativism, Tyranny, Virtue 6 Comments

In America, we’ve lost the right to be born, the right to practice our faith without government dictate or penalty, the right to proclaim moral sanity in the public square, and now the right to due process of law against a president who thinks he literally can pull the trigger and execute fellow citizens at his whim.

Who's Next?

Who’s Next?

In a bizarre “legal memo”, President Obama has asserted that he can target and assassinate Americans – at will – simply on his belief that they are subversives.

The memo’s specific focus is Americans who President Obama has unilaterally concluded are affiliated with al-Qaida (not that this makes it right), but its rationale and justification can now be applied to anyone else who he likewise concludes is a non-combatant subversive.

America was once a great nation, ruled by law under a Constitution that was consciously written to embody a Judeo-Christian worldview.

The bedrock of our constitutional republic – rooted in Biblical principles articulated by men like James Madison and his mentor John Witherspoon – was the liberty to pursue virtue by imposing checks and balances against the evil of unrestrained government power.

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