COM Newsletter - November 2020
INSPIRATIONAL THOUGHT
A couple of months ago, I was gifted a book entitled Lessons on Faith by A.T. Jones & E.J. Waggoner. It was very fitting as these past few months have been teaching me (us) to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). Here’s one of my highlights thus far:
“Let us believe the Lord. He speaks forgiveness. He speaks a clean heart. He speaks holiness; He creates it. Let Him create it in you. Stop being an evolutionist and let that creative word work for you, let that creative energy work in you, that which the word pronounces …You believe He made the worlds when He spoke, that light came by His word when He spoke, and that the leper was “immediately” cleansed when he spoke, but with yourself you think considerable time must elapse between the time when the word is spoken and the fact is accomplished. O, why will you be an evolutionist? Creation, creation that is the thing…Let not a moment pass between the word of God spoken to you and the accomplishment of the thing in you.” (pages 62-63)
Wrestling with this new concept of seeing God do rapid work, it made sense why it was hard for me to grasp God’s cleansing and forgiving power over my life. Most times, we’re not taught that God desires to give us “immediate gratification”, but learning of His creative ways speaks otherwise. Our first introduction to God is Creator - the Creator who spoke and it was immediately created. No space of time elapsed to accomplish what He spoke, but at that present moment. And like now, our Creator desires to do that same thing within us. To cleanse us, now. To free us, now. To heal us, now. Though we are familiar with the story of creation, how many of us truly understand Him as the Creator of then and now?
SPECIAL MESSAGE
Q&A
Question: My son says he's gay. He was married, an academy teacher, an amazingly talented tenor soloist, has his master's degree [from a prominent Christian university], and has now quit it all saying he doesn't believe in a God who condones murder as stated in the Bible. Therefore, the Bible is not true, either. Now where's the argument for him?
Reply: I have not found any place in the Bible where God condones murder. But I have seen where God Himself, who is perfectly just as well as merciful, has ordered the carrying out of His judgments after much, much patient longsuffering toward the rebellious sinner. We do not have His perfect wisdom and understanding, and that's why He tells us not to judge one another. But He certainly is qualified to judge, for all His judgments are righteous.
We find that 1 John 4:8 tells us that "God is love." And we, as His children, must trust that all He does is through the heart and eyes of love. We may have many questions as to why He has executed His judgments toward some people, even races of people, but we have this assurance found in the second commandment that He visits "the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate [Him]" (Exodus 20:5).
This is why he told Abraham that his children could not inherit the land of Canaan for 400 years, or four generations, because the cup of the Amorites was not yet full, the cup of their iniquity. But after Israel came out of Egypt, the patience of the Lord had reached its limit, four generations, and He ordered Israel to destroy the entire race of the Amorites. It's really no different than the lake of fire at the end of the millennium. When God acts, it is out of love and mercy as well as perfect justice. We must trust Him in all this.
I hope that is helpful to you. But what I have found to be true in so many instances with gay people, having been one myself for many years, is that guilt will cause one to go to great lengths to justify and rationalize away his own bad behavior. The Bible refers to them as those who wrest the Scriptures (wrestle with them, twist them, distort them), to their own destruction.
God's perfect justice toward the wicked does not justify for one instant our own bad choices and behavior. We are self-deluded and deceived if we go that route. As our Creator, God knows best what is good for His children when it comes to sexual behavior as with any other issue. He's the one who created us with the capacity to enjoy intimacy. But along with that gift came an instruction book. If the gift is abused, there will be consequences that will cause great grief for God as well as the disobedient child. God takes no delight in the wages or consequences of our sins. He is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). But the natural result of disconnecting from God, the Source of life, is ultimately the loss of that life—death.
Again, I hope my insights prove to be helpful to you and your son.
Keep looking up.
Victor
Q&A text taken from:
TESTIMONY
As we’re officially 2 months away from closing another year, I’m sure many of us did not know 2020 would turn out as such. Despite the ups and downs, the laughs and tears, I thank God that He is constant. With a lot of things not going as planned, I’ve been learning to abide in Christ. Since I’m home more than usual, my sweetest moments have come through prayer and fasting. Having the opportunity to simply bend my knees and pray has become my biggest highlight during this pandemic.
This may seem elementary, but to me, it’s a big win. In my past, during extremely stressful times, my stress outlets were tied to being sexually active or taking something to numb my mind. Through discipline and His strength, I’ve come to find new strength before His presence. I wouldn’t bore you with my current stressors in life, but there’s something about being able to tap into divine transformative power, at any given time. To some, 2020 is the worst year, yet somehow, even with the passings of loved ones, I choose to look at it otherwise - another chapter to my full story.
While November is well known for Thanksgiving in USA, I’m sure this pandemic has taught you to not wait until Thanksgiving to say thank you. My biggest gratitude has been the random moments throughout my day to simply kneel down & pray. As a favorite song of mine says,
You are peace to a restless soul
Peace when my thoughts wage war
Peace to the anxious heart
That's who You are, that's who You are
You are peace when my fear takes hold
Peace when I feel enclosed
I’m thankful that with something so easy and accessible, my troubled mind can be renewed and soothed.
By Kezia Chisholm
SPECIAL MESSAGE
Please consider making a donation to our ministry to help spread the message of God’s love and redemption! Kindly visit our website www.comingoutministries.org and select the Donate button, or you may send a check or money order directly to
‘Coming Out’ Ministries at PO Box 107, Tilly, AR 72679.
May God bless you for your support!