Acts 1:8 (NIV)
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
CONSIDER THIS
I was so pleased to see this story come to my inbox this past week—particularly because of who sent it. Mike Cowart serves on the Seedbed Farm Team as our story connector. In that role, he is ever working to connect the stories of people like you with each other and more deeply with our awakening mission. He leads our Seed Team—those who give to the mission of Seedbed.
This may be a difficult entry for some as it delves into a painful dimension of life: broken sexuality. Please read with a desire to understand what is being conveyed. We are tightly bound these days in a right-wrong, good-bad matrix as relates to human sexuality and gender. As the followers of Jesus, we must find our way to a higher order of life: the level of grace and truth; of life and love. This way of Jesus does not ignore or somehow contravene what is right-wrong and good-bad—he transcends it by coming at it from a different place of origin; not from earth-bound thinking but heaven-birthed transformation.
Today we will share in that kind of story. Please resist the temptation to misinterpret or over-interpret the story. Let’s welcome grace, by faith, to transform us all together. It would, of course, be easier to simply stay away from these issues here. Because Jesus runs headlong into such complex situations as these, we follow him.
In my previous “religious life,” I was the number one gay basher. I screamed Bible verses to support my case. I was judgmental and considered “those people” to be on their way to hell without hope.
I was part of a men’s Bible study, and we met at Shoney’s every Friday morning. I’ll never forget the Friday that one of our guys brought a recording from the previous Sunday service at his church. They had given the entire service to a man for him to share his testimony of being delivered from a homosexual lifestyle.
As I listened to John’s story, I began to weep!
John had been raised in a family that never missed a church service. They were at church on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday night, and every night of a revival. They were devoutly “religious.” When John was eighteen, he told his family that he was gay and was immediately ostracized from the family.
He did go to family reunions because he would see Uncle Jack and Aunt Mary. He knew they loved him regardless. In fact, every reunion ended with them saying, “John, we love you and Jesus loves you just the way you are.”
After a few years of hearing Uncle Jack’s and Aunt Mary’s words, John was lying in bed and staring at the ceiling. He began to repeat their words over and over. Suddenly, the Holy Spirit moved John to accept the fact that Jesus did love him just the way he was. John fell to his knees beside his bed. He repented and was radically transformed.
Fortunately, John was part of a grace-filled church! After he shared his testimony on Sunday, he was asked to become involved in their youth ministry. He had a spiritual mentor and grew in his relationship with Jesus.
As I watched John’s story unfold, the Holy Spirit placed a man in my life, George, who also struggled with a same-sex attraction. He had been arrested several times for exposing himself. He was a public disgrace!
I felt called to become his “Uncle Jack,” and we met once per week. During the first few weeks, I listened to him repeatedly express his firm belief that God could never forgive him.
I’ll never forget the night he crumbled into my arms and wept for most of the hour. The Holy Spirit had convinced him that Jesus loved him just as he was. He confessed his sin, asked for forgiveness, and fell into the arms of Jesus! He became a vital part of our men’s ministry.
Due to his tobacco addiction, George was diagnosed with lung cancer. My hospital visits were praise gatherings. Eventually, George could not speak, but his eyes sparkled with the love of Jesus.
Today, John is a successful builder and serves on mission trips in the summer. George is in paradise with Jesus.
I’m so thankful that the Holy Spirit transformed me from being a basher to becoming a hugger!
Are you willing to become an Uncle Jack or Aunt Mary to a person who identifies as LGBTQ?
THE PRAYER
Father, we want to come before you today in the name of Jesus to pray for the increasing multitudes who are struggling and suffering with gender dysphoria, broken sexuality, confused identity, and who feel lost and alone. We speak Jesus over and into them, and yes over and into ourselves, who are equally in need of grace and mercy. We call forth the delivering grace of unflinching love. We renounce a spirit of condemnation and we repent from judgment. Fill us with the dangerous grace of Uncle Jack and Aunt Mary and even Jesus who never affirms sin yet embraces every sinner—just as we are. Praying in his name, amen.
THE QUESTION
Are you able to get beyond the right-wrong/good-bad level of analysis on these matters and onto the grace-truth-love-life level of the kingdom of Jesus? What if it means being so bold and unreserved in accepting others that they might misunderstand your acceptance of them as an affirmation of their sin? Are you willing to move beyond being God’s lawyer to becoming Jesus’s witness in the face of such complex challenges?
THE HYMN
Today let’s sing a song of grace. The name of the hymn is “Marvelous Grace of Our Loving Lord.” You may know it better as “Grace that is greater than all our sin.” It is hymn 558 in our Seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer’s Praise. And for those of you trying to order a hymnal—they are presently on backorder but replenishments are on the way. Order now as we fulfill in the order that requests are placed.
For the Awakening,
J.D. Walt
Sower-in-Chief
seedbed.com
P. S. PRAY FOR ME—I head to the UK today for Wildfires Festival
I have been invited by my friend, Pete Greig, one of the founders, to make a pilgrimage to this annual festival and bear witness to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Asbury University this past winter. Pray I will be blessed with the ministry of impartation—that we will experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in this nation filled with millions who know not the grace of God. Pray for the sparks to fly and the seeds to be sown for great awakening in Britain that could spread to the whole of Europe and beyond. The Festival runs Monday through Wednesday of next week.
P. P. S. Holy Spirit Stories Welcome
I would love it if you would send a story of faith from your life we might use on a Saturday in the future. We will be glad to attach your name or a pseudonym or anonymity—it’s up to you. It can be a story of coming to faith, a story of transformation, a story of healing, deliverance, suffering and sufficient grace, family reconciliation, prodigal returns, answered prayer, and so forth. A word count of 500–800 words works well. We can’t guarantee publication, but we assure you of our prayerful discernment. You can reply to this email with your story and it will come to me.
One Response
This Holy Spirit Story reveals how in Christ Jesus we CAN become new creatures, how we CAN “So from now on we regard no one from an earthly point of view” (2 Corinthians 5:16a). We can see sinners as Christ sees them, people in bondage to sin in need of deliverance that only faith in Christ can provide. It’s fallen human nature to compare ourselves to others so that we can overlook our own failings.