I have a confession to make.

I am not who I believe I should be.  I am not who I want to be.  I am not who my wife thinks I ought to be.  But most of all, I am not who God made me to be.

I say all that to simply admit that I do make mistakes; mistakes in actions, in reactions, in words and in deeds.  I have to admit that it is even possible that my opinions and conclusions may be wrong sometimes.  But thankfully I usually try to admit that I could be wrong about those.  I am loud, passionate, and overbearing sometimes in my attitude and delivery.  I am human.  For that I apologize.

I have also been challenged more this past year about what it means to be Christlike than ever before.  I in turn have grown uncomfortable in my role in the mission Jesus left with us all.  I have tried to take the lazy way out and tell myself that my job was to discern and instruct, to study and to share.  But I realize that is not enough.  The time I spend trying to herd others onto the path I see, instead of taking the first steps onto that path myself, is wasteful.  And if there is one thing I know, it is that time is running out.

Our goal is to be a disciple and our mission is to go and make disciples.  Discipleship at its simplest is to become like the Master.  A lot of us are already working on the goal, including myself, but not so much on the mission.  It does seem that the vast majority of even steady, faithful, church goers are not ready to take those first steps.  I have been hesitant myself for too long and it grieves me more each day.  I know that the frustration that is building in me is starting to come out in ways that do the vision a disservice.  And it is not very Christlike at the same time.

I know that changes must come if the Kingdom is going to advance.  Changes in the way we have been looking at the mission.  Changes in the way we look at Church, denominational institutions, and leadership.  Changes in the way we present the love of Jesus to the world.  Changes in the way we relate to all of those around us.  Changes in the way we see ourselves as citizens of the Kingdom of God.  Changes in our worldly nationalistic pride.  Changes in our tacit acceptance of our own evil agendas.  Changes in our hate filled grandiloquence towards those that we see as beneath us good Christians.  Changes that have to be realized and actualized if we are to show our Father we really are on board with Him.

I have desperately tried to relay this, just waiting for someone to take those first steps. What I did not see was that maybe I need to take them.  There are about to be changes in my life.  I am going to step up and step out.  I just have to remind myself the first steps are the hardest.

Love you all

I am a gay (defined as: showing or characterized by cheerfulness and lighthearted excitement; merry.) open theist.

There, I have said it.  I have been writing from this frame of mind ever since I started this blog but have been hesitant to label myself.  The open theist label, that is.  The reason for this is mainly that I hate labels.  They never really justify anyone’s beliefs totally.  I constantly hear people refer to themselves as three point Calvinists or four point Calvinists.  What does this really mean?  If you are a Calvinist, then you are, right?  And most Arminians really do not even know who they are or what it means.

Open theism is the same way.  There are many proponents of this view and none of them agree on all the intricacies of this theological worldview.  That is one of the reasons I hate labels; they are never really accurate in describing anyone’s total belief system.   Another, and even more valid reason is, that once you label yourself, most dismiss your views, thoughts, discussions and relevance out of hand.  I have seen many people ostracized and labeled as heretical from the start once they say they are an open theist.  And many times by people that do not even know what it means.

I believe this viewpoint is biblically sound, addresses almost all the problems I ever had as an atheist, and actually reflects the way we all live as Christians already.  We just can’t seem to let go of some of the eisegesis of scripture that has come before us.  We ask questions like: who are we to question the early church fathers, those greats of traditional scriptural thought.  Well, have you ever thought about the fact that not all of those agreed with each other.  If they had I would be one of the first to give what they have said credence.  My own denomination has had loads of changes over the last one hundred years of doctrine but some are still so dogmatic about their own current beliefs to the point that they argue that they cannot be wrong and any who oppose them are therefore, heretical.

Open theism really boils down to an argument about God’s omniscience.  Does God live outside and above time?  Does God know every free will choice we will ever make in the future?  Is the future something that exists already to even be known or is it just something that unfolds as choices are made and therefore becomes the present?

I simply do not see how free will exists if God already knows all the choice in front of me as facts.  I am okay and actually believe He does know all of my future choices as possibilities.  A great book to introduce you to this whole concept is “God of the Possible: A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God” by Greg Boyd.  But the discussion has to go deeper than just do I or anyone else have free will, even in this viewpoint.  I keep being bombarded with the question about Peter’s free will and whether God allowed, foresaw or actually made Peter deny Christ.  I believe I have answered this but I do realize that just maybe it was too spread out among the posts and comments to ascertain.

So here is part of what I believe about our free will and I believe it answers any question about Peter’s free will.

For God to truly have loving relationships with His creation He had to make us with free will.  Our choices are our own.  Peter’s choices were His own.  But a major choice he made was to follow Jesus.  I believe part of the whole concept of servant hood to God is that we come to a place where we turn our free will over to Him and allow His will to take over.  Peter was on that path.  He stood and declared that he would never fall in following our Lord but our Lord knew him better than he knew himself.  He knew that there was still a pride issue Peter had to overcome to be the man that God wanted him to be.

So the simple answer is that yes, I believe God possibly, and take note I said possibly, caused Peter to deny Jesus.  This is not a big problem to me because it is actually where we all are supposed to be.  We are supposed to make a free will choice to follow God and part of this, a major part, is giving Him our free will. Is this not what we are doing when we ask Him to direct and lead us as we live for Him?  Peter had already come to this place and God used this opportunity for his growth.

The argument against my belief of this issue is pointed toward making me out to say that I do not even believe in free will.  That is not the case.  But the last thing about this is that no matter what, God is God and can and has suspended our free will on many occasions.  Look at Pharaoh, look at Jonah, look at Job, look at all the people destroyed in the Old Testament, look at your own life where God got you to do something you really did not want to do.  All of these examples do not in any way mean that free will does not exist.

If this does not answer the endless questions about my belief concerning Peter and his denial, then I am incapable of answering what I believe.  If that is the case, I am sorry.

I pray we all use our free will choice to turn our free will over to Jesus.

Love you all

And in case you are wondering, the opening statement was not only to get your attention and to generate Google hits, I am cheerful, excited and merry (gay) because open theism truly does answer more of the unanswerable questions that skeptics have.  The mission field is wide open.  Let’s go.

It simply amazes me that when someone asks questions that do not align with the majority, that majority turns and instead of engaging oftentimes abandons the discussion.  I have watched a few come to this blog and enter the conversations and quietly go their own way.  Maybe they are engaging in the more profitable and important area of Facebook farming or maybe they just want to be around those that believe exactly like they do.  I still love you.

Some have entered the conversation only long enough to let me know I am either not saved or that I am purposefully causing division.  Hit and run commenter’s that I have begged to come back.  I think they probably do this every where they go.  And then there are those that have come occasionally, left some good comments but have now decided the conversation is getting too rough, too offensive or whatever else they may think.  I still love you also.

I hate this.  I want to have some conversations that lead to a better understanding of who God is so that we can abandon the rather unfruitful way we have been reaching out to those outside the Kingdom and become more effective.  I know that some think that these conversations are more divisive than helpful and I expect no less.  Some will never question what they have been told to believe and some will only come around very, very slowly.

But if we are not growing, we are dying.  And we are supposed to be living, and engaging the enemy everywhere he is and chasing him back behind those gates which we let him escape from to begin with.  This is what I and this blog are about.  I hate to lose readers and even more, commenter’s.  But I will not abandon what I feel led to do here.

Confrontation is not always fun but when error is so easily tossed around in the Kingdom of God then it must be confronted.  Who am I to do this?  I am just a man; fallible, imperfect, very much capable of making mistakes, but still willing to posit my understanding of Kingdom and God issues and allow the discussions, the ridicule, the harassment, and the offensive words to come as they will.  You can’t hurt me with words or by holding your words back.  God is with me in this even though some do not see it and think this has nothing to do with God.

If no one ever stood up to wrong theology, wrong doctrine, wrong attitudes, just where would we be today.  I am not saying everything is wrong that you or anyone else believes, but at least have the courage to hear another side sometimes.  Everyone is a heretic in someone’s eyes.  I am chief among them.

But I am only concerned with what God thinks.  As long as I am trying my very best to know Him more and advance the Kingdom, I believe I am okay.  That is all any of us have to remember.  We all have a part to play, a battle to engage, a mission to fulfill; and they are not all alike.  For any willing to keep on furthering the discussions here, I am deeply grateful.  For all who have left or are leaving, thanks and God bless you.

I still and will keep on loving you all

The last few discussions have been awesome and for some, possibly tedious.  Some people I know have also relayed to me the thought that it seems a little divisive also.  Hence the last post for explanation.

This week will be simpler, I think.  But it will possibly provide opportunity for a lot of discussion, I hope.  I do not want a bunch of cut and paste biblical proof texting on this though.  We all have bibles and I am sure we know most of the scripture that tell us how we are to be saved.  Here goes.

What do you believe a real Christian looks like?

What are the beliefs that you think must be necessary for someone to really be a Christian?

Do you think there is any room for your thoughts to be wrong?

Please share your thoughts and not what your denomination or favorite theologian says.  Thanks for participating.

Love you all