I tend to look for a more effective way of communicating concepts than the garden-variety way of describing things. Or I enjoy describing things that keep people from the rote “amen” and “preach”.
The religious spirit is no different.
There are a bunch of ways people have described the religious spirit, but I personally like the following description.
The religious spirit, which parallels the Redemptive Gift of Teacher as the root stronghold in your gift of Teacher individual, group, community, state, nation, or organization, is the spirit of “one thing”.
Do anything or anything except the one thing you are supposed to be doing?
Engaging in a flurry of activity, even devotional activity…just do not engage with the one thing G-d wants you to do.
There is a tie-in to this concept. The Philistine Curse….which in a nutshell is, one thing short of a full package. The one missing item that leads to a life-giving package, which is usually missing because we choose to do without the One Thing we need to engage in.
And the way that curse is broken is usually with the One Weird and “does-not-make-a-lick-of-sense” solution or tool.
For Samson and Shamgar they beat the Philistines with Ass Jawbones and Oxgoads. The strange or unusual. And usually along the way, you end up looking or feeling pretty foolish doing whatever you are doing on the way to disempowering the Philistine Curse, O Teacher, since this is the third of the Seven Curses.
That is, regardless of all the other descriptions you can layer on top of the religious spirits and regardless of thr comparisons to the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the rituals that are dry and full of dead man’s bones, the religious spirit will busy you doing a bunch of crap that is not His best for you.
Just some thoughts here as I head to bed, gang.
So if you struggle with the one thing, find out from the King if there is one thing you should be engaging…
Benisons…..
Tag: Third Day
Cafeteria Masculinity and Femininity, LGBT Confusion, AND Kingdom Eunuchs in Matthew 19:12
What follows promises to be short and sweet. Whether you take offense is a personal choice, and something you might have to work out. I do not claim to answer every point any community asks, but there will be a couple of issues that I will point out, as they flow through this topic
First, it would appear sexuality, male and female, was created on the Third Day with the introduction of the plants and dry land, and that reproduction and the spread of creation requires male and female interacting one with another.
Now, the exceptions aside where gender switch happens in biology, which happen to be a gross minority, and understanding that many of those switches occur in order to create a male/female binary, most of creation by a wide margin requires both parts interacting one with another.
G-d created them male and female, and G-d intended that generation and multiplication happen across the board. This is His design, and well beyond any counterflowing viewpoints.
Second, while conversing with my wife about the transgender issue, and following a conversation with a brother who came out of the transgender arena and back to relatively healthy masculinity, something occurred to me that this brother helped bring to light.
Those who adapt different sexual identity from how they were designed mostly do so with a pick-and-choose system. There is rarely consistency of any sort. That is, trans people generally seem to execute a cafeteria masculinity or femininity.
And the L-rd has made us for more than merely to pick and choose. He did not intend for us to walk in confusion.
Third, I had a conversation with a pastor friend of mine, and he postulated the following question, in light of Matthew 19:12, which reads:
“For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”
Matthew 19:12 ESV
What if we get used to either marriage or sexual deviance as the only two acceptable options, when there might be a third option that few are willing to entertain? Namely, the calling to a life of eunuchhood.
And what if we are forcing people to choose between this (marriage) and that (deviance) when their real expression should be celebacy?
It is an interesting concept to consider.
I do not think healthy and close same-sex friendships are a bad thing. As a Redemptive Gift of Mercy, I have a few of those that I would consider close friends, maybe some intimate.
What I have an issue with is….
…when we think that closeness and intimacy and physical touch means we were meant to embrace a solution that violates all kinds of principles that have been clearly laid-down and later uncontested in the canon of Scripture.
And when He gives principles, and law, and statutes, He does not do it to be a killjoy, but to protect us and to keep us from destruction and from paths that are dead-ends and will keep us from walking out the greater purpose for which we were created.
Gang, being taken into a place of frustration because we think marriage or deviance are the only two acceptable and G-d-ordained possibilities, and we force people into relationships rather than permit them to entertain a lifetime of singleness can rob us of some fine treasures the Father wants to express.
G-d did not make us to solve one problem by creating twelve others.
And perhaps we would do well by letting and celebrating G-d’s design in expressions that are other than the norm and that do not violate cause and effect.
I have seen much destruction when we present or we allow the culture and the SOTA (Spirit of the Age) to teach us and our children what helathy relational expression looks like.
And lest we forget, a man or a woman will reap what they sow. His design for relationships is for relationships where the possibility of multiplication and fruitfulness is a real possibility. Engaging in sexual relationship structures that guarantee both a lifetime of frustration and zero chance for multiplication was never his intent.
For those who wish to pick this apart by marshalling the argument of barrenness (“well, barren people are not able to have kids. Are you condemning them as well?”), then you missed the point and the nuance of what I am saying.
For the barren couple, the possibility of childbirth is very real, and repeatedly we have seen throughout Scripture the L-rd speaking about and dealing with barrenness.
So, no, I am not going to insert the barrenness red herring into this discussion.
What I am saying, is that when our expressions of sexuality violate the fairly-clear cause-and-effect relationships pertaining to human sexuality that the L-rd gave us, we find ourselves in a dangerous place.
And when we fail to recognize or we purposefully neglect other of His principles, such as the principles pertaining to eunuchs in Matthew 19, we will likely increase the chances of our frustration.
Perennial frustration and powerlessness and futility are not the portion of the child of G-d. Seasons where we have a bit of testing and refining and difficulty are. But G-d did not create us and destine us for permanent powerlessness.
So, as you consider masculinity and femininity, be sure to embrace ALL of that which pertains to you, and I implore you to deeply consider whether or not you are allowing woundedness, deception, offense, or buy-in of a cultural system to chart the course of your relational expression.
Those legal/moral passages in Scripture, regardless of the testament in which they are found have a purpose, and they form a fence and boundary markers and building blocks that protect us and with which we can build.
So, build well and defend well what He has given to your charge.
Be blessed, gang.