Allow Gays in Church
Are gays and lesbians welcomed into your church and accepted as members of your congregation? Do you welcome them into your small select community of christian worship or do you reject them and cast them out as sinners?
I remember a statement that was once issued from the pulpit in the charismatic church that I attended.
"We want to start some communities in the church. A support group for gays and lesbians. Sorry, let me change that. A support group for ex gays and ex lesbians. Practising gays are not welcome."
I still remember thinking, " How can you ever become a ex gay without Jesus, through the church, to help you."
So many churches that I know of reject the gays, lesbians and other sinners right out of their close and select little communities. "They are sinners you know, and they are going straight to the pits of hell. I want nothing to do with them."
Years ago, in the same church mentioned above, a guest preacher was invited to preach at a yearly conference. The preacher, whose name I will not mention, was one of the most down to earth and incredible preachers that I have ever heard preaching.
He spoke on how his own spirit filled church was filled with gays, lesbians, and sinners of every class, and how every single person was welcomed into his church without criticism or judgement and each and every soul was loved regardless of what they were involved in.
Now is that not how you would picture Jesus to be. Jesus rejected the upright and "righteous" people of the time and chose instead to spend his time in the company of tax collectors and other sinners.
Needless to say, that preacher was almost run out of town and every word that he preached was rejected by the church. Where was Jesus.
If you are expected to be washed and cleansed of all sin before you enter a church, how will anyone ever get to enter a church and meet with Jesus. If you expect a gay person to repent and give up his ways before he can come into your church to meet the living Jesus, then chances are he will never get to meet Jesus and accept Jesus into his life.
Were you free from all sin in your life before you first entered into your church and met Jesus? No - I did not think so.
Are you free from all sin in your life now - even though you have already been a christian for a long time? Again No!
Well if you are not free from sin, why do you expect a Gay or Lesbian or any other sinner to be free from their sin before they can enter your community? Is it perhaps that you consider that their sin is worse than your sin? As far as I am concerned sin is sin and there is no variation between sins. There is no single sin that is better than another sin. Sin is sin and in order to cleanse yourself of sin you have to go before Jesus, repent and be washed clean by His Blood.
Jesus does the changing .
Jesus loves you enough to accept you as you are, but loves you too much to leave you as you are.
When you come to Jesus and give your life to Him, crying Jesus help me please, Jesus opens his arms out to you and embraces you. He accepts you as you are, forgives you and washes you clean with His Blood. Slowly but surely He begins the process of changing you, your life and your passions. It is not an overnight or instant process. It takes time. He is the potter and you are the clay. Slowly you are molded into what He wants you to be.
In the case of gays and lesbians who are often some of the most hurting people in the world and who need the loving embrace of Jesus more than most, why do we reject them further and cast them out, expecting them to remove the sin from their lives immediately whilst we readily accept the fact that Jesus is still working in our own lives and has not yet completed the task of removing all the sin in our own life.
Take the log out of your own eye before you remove the splinter from your neighbours eye.
Before you judge and reject someone according to their "sin" and cast them out of your select community, simply ask yourself what Jesus would do if that person was standing in front of Him. Would He cast them out, or would He open His arms to them and love them. Sure I know that you are not Jesus, but then can you really claim to be a follower of Christ if you do not accept His ways and teachings.
Open your hearts and love someone today. Show them how the love of Jesus shines through you and help them to change their life simply by being accepted by someone like you. Your accepting someone for who they are could be the biggest thing that ever happened in their life and could make the real difference that will alter their lives forever.
God Bless
Blessings and Curses
May God's Blessing be upon you
Blessings and curses are old testament matters that have no real relevance in today's times - WRONG! Blessings and curses have as much power over your life today as they did in the old testament times.
If I had to stand before a packed church on a Sunday morning and ask the congregation if they are blessed, I am sure that at least 99% or more would put up their hands and say that they are blessed.
If I again ask the same congregation if curses exist in todays times, I would estimate from past experience that the huge majority would deny that curses even exist anymore and the rest would say that they have no power in todays times.
However, many Christians do not even understand the word "Blessed" and when asked exactly what it means to be blessed, you are likely to be met with blank stares and very confused faces. If you use the simple standards, as set out in Deuteronomy 28, to determine if you are blessed or cursed, you will find that at least 90% or more of the congregation that said that they were blessed, suddenly finds that they may not be walking in as many blessings as they thought that they were, and that it is indeed possible that they may in fact have a curse or two hanging over their life that they were totally unaware of.
Blessings.
The word "Blessed" is best defined as "To be Envied." If you are not envied by all around you, then the chances are that you are not walking in God's full blessings. Let me say right now that blessings have nothing to do with being rich. I know many rich people with whom I would never ever trade places with and whom I do not envy at all.
Riches have never brought happines into anyones life. Mostly, new riches starts to breed greed and the desire for even more riches. Money becomes an obsession in life instead of it being a means to obtain what you need in life. Money in itself is not evil, but the love of money is the root of all evil. When your love for money overtakes your love of God, you are in the clutches of the devil.
The first section of Deuteronomy 28 gives us clear instruction on how to walk in the blessings of God and what they are :-
" Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth.
And these blessings will come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God." Verses 3 to 14 continue to list the blessings. Take these verses, modify them to todays terms ( ie cattle increases refers to increases in your investments etc), and see if you have the full blessings of God in your life.
Although these are Old Testament scriptures, they stand true to today and unless you are walking in the commandments of God and in full and total obedience to Him, you can not receive the full blessings of God.
Curses.
There are many curses that exist in the Old Testament. These are curses that are directly from God and do not even involve satan or witchcraft or black magic.
Briefly, Malachi describes that you are cursed if you do not tithe. Zaccariah describes the curse that rests upon the liar and the thief. However, all of these sub - curses can be summarised by the main curse found in Deuteronomy 28:15
"But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:" Verses 16 to 68 continue to describe the curses that can come upon you if you are disobedient to God's word.
When reading these verses it is important to understand that times have changed dramatically and so you do need to modernise the scriptures slightly to adjust for modern times. There were no bank accounts and investments in those days so where it talks about your increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks, in modern times it would refer to the performance of your investments, etc.
Jesus came and set us free from the curse.
I have had many argue with me that curses have no relevance in todays world because Jesus took all curses upon himself when He hung on the tree. Jesus also took all sickness upon himself as well and yet many christians are dying daily from sickness.
Curses still have the ability to affect you today as much as they affected the Old Testament people in the past. If you are disobedient to God and do not obey His commandments, then you nullify the works of Jesus and the curses are able to rest on your life and affect you. As much as Jesus loves you and wants you to walk in total freedom from curses, the curses will remain in your life until you identify the curse and the cause of the curse, repent and turn back to obedience to God.
Are there other curses that can affect us?
Sure - there are many powerful curses that can affect your life today. Possibly the most powerful is the word curse. A word curse is a something that is spoken into your life usually by someone who is in position of authority over you. This can be a parent, a teacher etc, who says something like " You are stupid". You then accept these words as factual in your life and go through life being controlled by these words and believing that you are stupid.
Parents and teachers, as well as bosses, have to be extremely careful with their words that they speak over those whom they have authority over. Take care to confess only positive things over those whom you have authority over, knowing that your words can impact into their lives in a good way, or a negative way that can virtually make or ruin the rest of their life.
My brother was highly intelligent and very good with figures, but right the way through his life he was told that he was stupid with his hands. As a result, even though he was fully capable and able to tackle odd jobs around the house, he always believed that his efforts were useless and that he was never able to do anything good with his hands.
"What you believe with your heart and confess with your mouth shall come to pass."
Is it possible to break free from a curse?
Absolutely. In order to break free from a curse, you do need to first identify the cause of the curse in your life. If your problems are as a result of a word that has been spoken over your life, you must begin to reject that word and cast it out.
"Lord, I do not accept that word that was spoken into my life. I cast it out of my life in the name of Jesus and it shall have no power over me or my family."
If you have been disobedient to the word of God :-
" Father, I come to you in the name of Jesus. Forgive me for my transgressions. I turn away from them today and choose to follow your commandments carefully from this day forward. I break the curse that has resulted in my life in the name of Jesus."
Should you not know Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, then simply say "God help me please".
Miracle Baby
Caitlin holding Dylan.
On the 11 th February 2010 at 11h11 and 11 seconds, a new baby is brought into the world. Welcome to Dylan Botha born at Saint Mary's hospital in Springs South Africa. Dylan is a healthy baby boy born with a weight of 2.680 kg.
What is different about this baby. Well simply put, this is another miracle baby.
My daughter, Candy, was already the mother of a fairly healthy girl of 4 years of age. Her child, Caitlin was a miracle in herself as gynaecologists could not understand how she could have possibly fallen pregnant due to extremely low hormone levels. However, she fell pregnant and Caitlin Botha was born on 21/01/2005.
Due to an anorexic history, my daughter Candy had major problems with her womanly functions and after the first child was born, she battled to try and fall pregnant. This continued for 4 years and the Gynaecologist basically wrote it off as being impossible for her to fall pregnant again. However, with God all things are possible.
In late March 2009, Candy approached me about weight gain that was worrying her. She had gained a fair amount of weight and having previously been anorexic, this was a danger that could throw her back into full anorexia again. I suggested that she join a program called Weight Loss God's Way by Dr Frank Smoot, which is an online christian weight loss program that does not concentrate on diet, but concentrates on building self esteem and relationship with God, which then causes weight loss as a "Side Effect".
I knew when I recommended this program that it would build her self confidence and self image, and yes, she would lose some weight but would not be thrown back into her anorexic ways. Well Candice joined the program and within 2 weeks I had an ecstatic visit from Candice again.
"I have lost 5 kilo's already and I did not even diet," she remarked exitedly. I went through what she had done and so far all she had been doing was to read and study the material from the course. She had not tried to lose weight or followed any diet. In fact she had continued life as normal and had continued to eat exactly what she was eating before. And yet she lost 5 Kg's (11 pounds) in a mere 2 weeks.
I was excited for her and was greatful to Dr Frank's weight loss course for being a safe way for my daughter to lose weight without risking throwing her back into anorexic ways.
Approximately 2 weeks passed and I had another ecstatic visit from Candy.
"You will never guess what, " she said. " I am pregnant again."
Coincidence, no I do not think so. How does someone who the doctors placed permanently on the contraceptive pill due to hormone problems, and who the doctors stated could not fall pregnant again, suddenly fall pregnant. I attribute it to a total miracle which started along with the change in thinking brought about through Dr Frank's Weight loss God's Way program.
Well the month's passed and as pregnant Candy progressed, it was almost impossible to tell that she was pregnant from her stomach. At full term she was smaller in size than a normal woman of under 4 months pregnant. Yet the Gynaecologist was totally happy with her weight and so there were no alarm bells.
On the 11/02/2010 Candy was schedeuled to deliver by Caesaerean. She was called into theatre at 10H00 but due to incorrect prepping, she had to wait and was eventually brought in again at 11h00. The time of birth was recorded as being 11h11. The attending paediatrician later stated that she could not believe the timing and so when she say the 11 minutes past 11 she decided to watch the seconds and guess what, the baby came out at exactly 11 seconds after 11h11 on the 11th February.
The miracle baby, Dylan Botha, is extremely healthy and an amazing 2.680 kg's considering the size of mom in pregnancy. Mother is in perfect health and all went well.
I give God all the Glory for this beautiful miracle and thank Dr Frank for his incredible Weight loss God's Way program which was the catalyst that God used to create this miracle.
Choose Love
When Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness, one of the temptations was that of the promise of riches. Mathew 4:8 to 10 describes how the devil took Jesus onto a high pinnacle and showed Him all the kingdoms of the earth and promised them to Jesus if Jesus would Just fall down and worship the devil.
This is a story about a young lady who had a full and eventful life. The young lady was beautiful, smart and full of the love of life. She loved adventure and so shortly after leaving school and working to make some money, she started to set out to explore the wondeful world of travel.
On her various travles to exotic parts of the world this young lady met and soon courted some extremely wealthy men who all wished to take and posses her. there were extravagant gifts lavished on her and many a overseas trip as a companion, and of course there were countless proposals from these extrremely wealthy men. Accepting any one of the many proposals would have seen this young lady being advanced from a normal middle class person to one of the elite of the world. Money would never be a problem to her again in her life if she would accept just one of these many proposals, but at each proposal she politely refused.
Time progressed and soon the young lady met a particular very average man with whom she soon fell in love with. The man was also very middle class and did not posses any fortune or even a promising carreer that would bring some hope of a prosperous future. However the lady was in love and for her true love was more important than all the riches of the world.
The couple were soon married and had to survive the hardships of a new marriage and new family additions on a fairly low income.
After a few years the couple had a lucky break and saw the husband changing careers and soon the riches started to flow in. Now once again, prosperity has found this lady who turned away from prosperity in search of love.
The story shows that when we look for love, all sorts of blessings will follow. When you turn to Jesus, you need to come to Him in search of love, expecting love and nothing else. His kind heart will reward you accordingly and you may soon find that you are showered with riches.
First Love
Is your first love for Jesus still burning bright, or has the fire cooled down and the ambers lost their glow. Jesus is your first love, He is the Alpha and Omega, and therefore should be first and last. He is to be the first love in your life that shines bright and continues to burn fiercely all your life through.
Revelations 2:2 to 4. "I know your works, your labour, your patience, and that you can not bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them to be liars. And you have perservered and have patience, and have laboured for My name's sake and have not become weary. Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love."
This is the message to the church of Ephesus. They are well commended for all their works and characteristics, and yet they are charged with having lost the burning first love that Jesus commands should be foremost in our lives.
Jesus commanded us that the greatest commandment of all time is to love the Lord God with all of our hearts. The second greatest is that we love our neighbour as we love ourselves. If you do not have the love of Jesus burning bright within your hearts, then anything else that you may do is of no real value. You can perform great and wonderful miracles, work 24/7 to spread the gospel, have extreme patience and endure all the trials, but if you do not have the light of love shining through you, it is of no avail.
Timothy says that we are to stir up the gift of God which is in you (2Timothy 1:6). We are to stir up the fire that is within us so that the love of Jesus shines bright from within and so that all who see us will be witness to the fact that we are as madly in love with Jesus as we were the first day that we accepted Jesus into our lives.
Faith isn’t Faith
If you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move. Matthew17:20
What is faith? Faith is the most difficult part of our Christain walk. It is learning to believe in Christ with all your heart and all your mind.
When you have other options open and other plans to fall back on - it is not faith.
When last did you see someone walking around a city like Jericho - 7 times, just believing in absolute and blind faith that the walls will fall down. Nowadays, the TV camera's and press will all be there to show the rest of the world just how crazy you have become. Of course the medics will also be there and you will be sent for physciatric evaluation.
Yet this is the type of faith that Jesus requires of us. Often the crazier it sounds, the more likely it is that Jesus is behind it.
I pray that your faith would rise and become greater than the size of a mustard seed. Remember that all things are possible to him who believes.
Love is Greatest.
Love is the greatest gift that Jesus has given to us, for without the love of Jesus coming down to us as the perfect and greatest gift from God, it would be impossible for us to enter the kingdom of heaven or to receive forgiveness of our sins.
"And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love," 1 Corinthians 13:13. Jesus came and delivered these gifts to us, to abide in us - or to live in us. We are to be filled with faith, hope and love, but the best and greatest of all of these is love. We are to grow the fruits of the Spirit into our lives, and a quick look at the fruits of the Spirit reveal that these are all characteristics of true love. We are filled with His love and we are to let His live shine out from us as a light of love to the world. The love that is within us is greater than any faith that we may walk in.
If you are filled with faith and there is nothing that you are unable to believe for, even that you cast mountains into the sea, but yet you have not the love of Jesus shining through you, then you are nothing (1 Corinthians 13:2). If you spend all your time going out to feed the poor and sending money to feed the poor, but yet you do not have love, then you are nothing (Verse 3). Should you be highly spiritual and the greatest in the speaking of tongues and have not love, then you are nothing(Verse1).
In Matthew 22: 37 to 38, Jesus says that the greatest of all the commandments is that you Love God with all your heart and that the second is that you love your neighbour as yourself. There is a scripture in Matthew 9:13 that is sadly seldom used in sermons, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice." Mercy comes from the heart and is a product of love, whereas sacrifice tends to come from the brain and not the soul. Jesus requires that as the mercy of the Father was shown to us, by sending us the perfect gift of love, so too are we to show mercy to others around us in the form of His love shining through us.
Go out and let the light of love shine from within you into all the darkness that is around you.
Alpha and Omega
"And He said to me, It is done! I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and He shall be My son." Revelations 21: 6 to 7.
The scripture above is deserving to have an entire book written about it, and not just a small article, and so I will briefly cover just a few small highlights of the scripture. "It is Done!" There is so much that has been done. Jesus has come to earth, conquered death and Hades, and has returned to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father. The work of Jesus on earth has been completed and all authority has now been given to the believer. Also the new heaven and the new earth has been created and now sits in waiting for the time that the Father has allocated for it.
"I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End," God is the Beginning of all things and through Him were all things created. He created the heavens and the earth and all life contained within it. When we accept Jesus as Lord of our lives, we are made a new creation. God is our beginning in life. Without God there is nothing. God is also the End, and He is able to destroy or put an end to all things which He created. At the end of our own lives on earth, we will come face to face with God and all His Glory.
"I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to Him who thirsts." Jesus is the fountain of the water of life and all who come to Jesus, thirsty, will draw from the fountain and will never thirst again. Rivers of life shall flow from them.
"He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be His God and he shall be My son." Who is he who overcomes, but he who confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Jesus is the way to the Father and unless you have received Jesus into your life as your personal Lord and Saviour, and have drank from the fountain of the water of life, which is the love of Jesus, you shall by no means enter the kingdom of God and experience the new heaven and new earth as revealed in Revelations 21.
Law of Liberty
James 2:12, "So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty," and James 1:25, " But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does."
James refers to the law of liberty. What exactly is the law of liberty? We all understand that liberty is defined as the quality or state of being free. However a law is usually something that binds us or prevents us from doing something. Why then is there a contradiction in this statement of the "Law" of "Liberty". You are being bound into freedom.
In order to fully understand the concept of this scripture, we have to start looking elsewhere in the bible. 2Corinthians 3:17, " Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty." Wherever Jesus is, there is total freedom and people are set free from that which holds them captive. When we invite Jesus into our lives, we become bonded to Him in love, and we are therefore bound to Him in freedom.
Galations 5:1, " Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." Christ came and set us free both from the law of moses, and the works of darkness that were in our lives and which held us captive. We are to fully understand the freedom that we have attained through Christ and we are to stand and remain in that freedom, resisting the calling that sin offers to us.
So what then is the law of liberty? The law of liberty is the freedom that we obtain from sin and the works of darkness when we turn from the world and accept Jesus into our lives. At the moment that we accept Jesus as Lord and saviour, we are immediately set free from the laws that held us captive and are released from the jail of sin, and are able to walk in total freedom.
James says that we are to speak and do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. This refers to the fact that although we are set free from the law of sin, many choose to cast aside the freedom that they received through the love of Jesus, and return to the captivity to which they are accustomed to being in, and to give their lives back over to sin. We are to accept that we have been set free totally and that sin has no power over us, or any authority over us. The law that Christ has made, is that we are to be free. The devil has to respect this law, and therefore has no rights over us, and he has to flee from before us.
If you have been set free, then you are to confess your freedom, walk in your freedom, and enjoy the freedom that Jesus has given to you. Above all walk in the perfect love of Jesus, remaining in relationship with Him.
Greater is He
"You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world," 1 John 4:4 .
"For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world - our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God," 1 John 5:4 to 5.
The promise has been made to you, through the scriptures above. You have the power within you to overcome all that the world will throw at you, because greater is He who is in you than He who is in the world. You are a child of God and Jesus lives within you through the Holy Spirit that fills you. You became a child of God on the day that you accepted Jesus into your life and started to confess that He is the Son of the living God. Please note the emphasis on the word you, because it is you that needs to take up the power. No one else can do it for you.
Jesus came to this earth and overcame all the powers, principalities, rulers and authorities, and spiritual wickedness in high places. Jesus then gave us the use of His name and the Holy Spirit within us, to carry this victory through. We have the greatest and most powerful name to use, and when the demons hear the name of Jesus they tremble and flee. As a child of God you have the authority to use the name of Jesus and the power behind the name.
Matthew 16:19 ,"And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." This is one of the most powerful scriptures. All authority has been given to you and you control the keys to to the kingdom of heaven. You have immediate access to the heavenlies through Jesus that lives inside of you through His Holy Spirit. Greater is He who lives inside of you, and through Him that lives inside of you, you have the power to overcome the world. You are more than a conqueror through Christ that lives inside you.
Take the authority that has been given to you, lay hold of it in your mind, renew your mind and your thinking to realise that the power of Jesus is within you, and then go out into the world in all the power and authority that has already been given to you, and start to overcome the world. Greater is he that is in you than he who is in the world.
Categories
- announcements (6)
- baptism (3)
- Bible Teachings (74)
- Cancer (6)
- faith (30)
- love jesus (60)
- power of jesus (31)
- Relationship with God. (40)
- Uncategorized (3)
Love Jesus Posts
- Too Much God For Me
- The bridge of faith
- Taking Control Of Yourself
- Bring Your Child up in the Ways of The Lord
- New Move of God
- Lose Weight God’s Way
- Your Past – Your Future.
- Allow Gays in Church
- Blessings and Curses
- Miracle Baby
- Blonde Joke
- Name of Jesus
- Victory in Jesus
- Message for 2010
- Happy New Year 2010
Christian Weight Loss
Older posts
Google Ads
Blogroll
- Arthritis Pain Relief
- Christian Weight Loss
- Houses For Sale in Springs
- Lingerie
- Phen375
- Phen375 review
- Provailen
- Rubedo
- Safe Diet Pills
- Weight loss