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Did I back slide or am I bring to hard on myself?
I guess I am lucky to have a pastor like Justin even though he is more than my pastor we are best friends I know I can tell him anything and he wont judge me for my mistake he saus he is here to guide us in the right direction not to put us down anf judge us ir belittle us when we mess up . I guesd it kind of helps that he is just 2 years older than me. It makes it easier for me to go to him when I mess up. I even went to him when I first started going to church again and told him that I was bisexual at the time which ia not any longer he just said that's not his place to judge my lifestyle he said that God would forgive me for that to because he gorgives everybody . I guess t he reason why I am being so hard on myself is because that I grew up in the old fashioned church of God you know the type very religious if you wore pants if you were a woman and makeup or cut your hair wore jewlrey of any kind . Or slipped once up once you were going straight to hell and now I am to a pentecostal church where the pastor says if you fall get back up and brush yourself off and keep trying I guess the old fashioned beliefs when I was a kid made me want to give up. I am so blessed to have a friend and pastor like Kustin who says if you need me call me text me fb me no matter what time it Is he is just a phone call away.
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Want to answer more questions in the Miscellaneous category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Spirituality?
I am glad to hear this. You're mentioning the bi-sexual thing got me to thinking perhaps I might share this following perspective of mine.
There are well meaning people in all Christian faiths. I've been reading about the Amish lately. It's more obvious with them the fact that they live by the letter of the law, the rules and regulations of the church are so important that some major things Jesus taught are left out and ignored. The "law" of the church, or their interpretation of it is more important than what Jesus would do or say if He were here in person. Well, he is always there for you. The reason I bring this up is that some of the rules of a church are what cause heart ache and grief and unrest not only for new believers who are confused by it but also for older believers. So far, it would seem for you, the issue is the church's interpretations of what is okay and not okay in the sexuality arena and that is what is causing the unrest and wondering in your mind.
First we must understand that 21st century man is trying to take too literally what is written in the Bible on some subjects, and with out knowing what those words meant in that time, Bible times which might be quite different.
I have one good example. The commandment, Thou shalt not commit adultery is not what you'd think it means. Back then, for the people of those times, a wife was a husband's possession, he owned her. As something that belonged to him, it was considered 'stealing' if another man came to spend time with a married man's wife without his permission. It might be taking her away from running the house or being available to her husband. Now on the other hand, if the husband wanted to be a good host to someone and offer him his wife for the evening, that was considered okay because he was giving his permission. The wife didn't have a choice. In todays times, the woman does have a choice. So if a married couple decided to give each other permission to have a relationship for sexual reasons, outside the marriage, it is not adultery, as long as both are okay with it. If one is not, then the marriage vows should be followed. I have known bi-sexual women whose husbands are very understanding and have allowed the wife to have a relationship with another woman, one that developed naturally, a loving caring relationship. It also provides for a husband or wife to enter into polyamory, having another love relationship with another, for both the husband and the wife. In my studying I have determined that It's not a sin in God's eye's to do as we wish sexually, as long as we don't hurt ourselves or others and stay safe. God doesn't tempt us on purpose, and that being the case, He wouldn't create us with the sexuality we have, the urges, cravings desires and the love we feel just to play with us and then tell us we cannot have it. The idea of a man leaving parents to cleave to a wife was important for that time as children needed to be created for it was important for civilization to go on. So if too many people back then were not having kids, that had a great impact. Without the medical care and knowledge to stay safe from disease, and no way to determine paternity of a child if a woman had more than one partner, the easiest way to take care of those issues is teach people to only have a heterosexual marriage.
Think about some of the laws regarding food in Leviticus. God shared certain laws regarding what was okay to eat and what wasn't. Not because a particular item was bad to eat, but because as a loving God he wanted to protect people back then who didn't have the technology or understanding about germs in food or refrigeration methods.
So it's not that Pork isn't Kosher(safe to eat really) cus today we know how to do safe meat handling, freezing and refrigeration. It is no longer an issue. And yet the Jews cling to those beliefs as religiously as the Christians do to anything having to do with sexuality. I remember as a young married couple , my husband and I volunteered to be counselors at a youth group weekend. It was hot summer and there was a lake where we could go swimming. I wore my 2 piece bathing suit and later in the day my husband came and told me that church elders had approached him to tell his wife to cover up with a tee shirt and shorts to go swimming as I needed to be a good example for the young girls so that we don't tempt the boys. I was very angry. For many reasons. If all the Christian girls wore sackcloth and ashes for the rest of their lives and didn't look tempting to Christian men anymore, would that stop them from feeling tempted? And tempted at what? To have sex? No..if you really questioned the elders, the boys were not supposed to feel any strong sexual urges whenever he saw a pretty lady. Not that he wanted to bed every woman he saw, of course thats impossible, they didn't want men to ever get aroused to the point of having an arousal!! Hello people! Don't you know God created our bodies to respond that way, even females, and we are supposed to learn to excercise self control....but no way would they teach that. And so once adults and on their own the Christian kids were woefully unprepared for dealing with living in the real world. I know a couple who married, (I attended the wedding) who had never even held hands once or kissed. When it came time to kiss at the end of the ceremony the girl was so overcome with fear she began to cry and then fainted and hit the floor. tWO months later, gossip got around that the reason we didn't see them in church any more is that they got their marriage annuled cus they couldn't have sex, so fearful of their own desires and sexuality were they that marriage was never consummated. And now too embarrassed to face the church, they each began attending elsewhere.
So what I am trying to say to you, is that even though you may be a new Christian, Use that brain God gave you, learn to think and reason things out yourself and also ask God to show you what is unneccessary traditions and laws and what is important to follow. You must learn and determine this for yourself, rather than following what I say, what Pastor Justin or his elders say, even what the Bible says, but go with what God says to you. The Bible is right on about many things. My favorite stuff is where ever Jesus was talking or what he was doing....that is what I trust. And even then, he was talking in ways that people of that day would understand. If he came in flesh today and stood here teaching, I guarantee you that he would tell lots of his parables in much different ways, to what people of todays time can relate to.
There is a lot of good structure to the Christian faith, but like all beliefs, it isn't perfect either. God understands that. He knows that we can only do our personal best to follow Him by hearing what he personally has to say to us. Having it passed down to us to blindly believe that which came to us through well meaning people interpretations can take us off the right path or the path god meant for you to learn on. I grew up in church, I've seen and experienced it all. I was always treated as a 2nd rate citizen of the church when the elders had a problem with something. Each church group is different, depends who is in leadership at the time. So hopefully all goes smoothly for you.
If however, you try to follow what they are teaching you regarding your sexuality and trying to fit into that mold causes you more pain than happiness, you may want to relook at how crucial it is. Will the church still accept you if you have sex outside of marriage or follow bi-sexual tendencys? Will God accept you? Most Likely God will accept you no matter what because as I ad many others see it, our sexuality is what it is. It is not like we are making a choice to be something different from the 'norm'. It can be very traumatic to people to force themselves to be someone they are not and then get chastised, outcast for it. What the church and pastors believe in the end is not whats going to matter when you stand before God one day. Just what if a good majority of what is taught by the Christian church is false and they don't know it, they are innocent cus they are blindly following what they have been told. If that were so, do we tell God, I am sorry I was wrong, but I was just following what they told me to do? I am guessing he would ask, "Why didn't you come and ask me? You wasted an entire lifetime believing the wrong thing. It's not crucial, I don't hold it against you and I still love you. If peers pressured a teen to do something and said it was okay to do and would be alright, should the teen believe her peers or go to her parents who know a lot more and love and care about and want the best for her. They can save her alot of heart ache if peers weren't blindly trusted."
Thats what happens in church all the time. And many experience pain and heartache that God could have prevented for them. Nothing in these personal choices of what we eat, how we dress, what we are drawn to sexually is going to alter whether we go to Heaven or not.
The best thing you can do is begin exercising your spiritual muscle, that one that can hear from God and not take what anyone else, including me , has to say. You won't hear anything back at first but keep talking to God. It;ll feel like you just talking out loud to yourself for a while. But he's listening and answering and you're tuned in slightly off station like a radio and that gets fined tuned as you keep up the talking. Eventually thoughts will pop into your head that you know are not from you.
Here's one example from my life. At a church ladies retreat, they were doing an exercise to help us practice hearing from God. All we had to do was quiet our minds and sit and ask God, "Who do you have for me to share a word or scripture verse with?" I asked the question and got an immediate answer. Someones name popped into my mind. a lady I looked up to, she was prinicipal of the christian school and leader of the womens group in church and much revered by the elders of the church.
"Okay, so what scripture do you have for me to share?" "Not a scripture, but a word." "oKAY, so whats the word?" I asked God. "Simplicity". "But thats just one word. I was thinking more like a couple of sentences or something. I can't go and say one word!" "It's your choice. You asked what I'd like you to share. You don't have to do it, but that is it, just the one word, simplicity." I felt I would appear stupid, unable ot hear from God but with grumbling I decided I would obey, shaking as I was. LOL When I told the women I had a word from God and it was literally just one word, she didn't seem to think that was odd and asked what the word was. When I spoke the word, she became so excited, she said, wait here while I run to my room and get my prayer journal so you can see my entry for today.
When I saw it, in her prayer time that very morning, God had told her she had taken on too many responsibilities and needed to cut some out so she could do better on the others. She had to simplify her life.
See why she was excited? I was too now. My sharing that one word in obediance no matter that I was doubting myself and my ability to hear God right, was confirmation to me that I could hear right and confirmation to her that she had heard right. I still get chills thinking of this story.
Thats how clearly you want to be able to hear from God. So that if there is something He's askin you to do, even if no one else thinks its the best idea, you will do it because you beleive God told you. Even if you get it wrong some times in the learning, like a loving parent, He will not fault you for making mistakes sometimes, as long as you kept yourself open to learn and serve Him and become more like Him.
You are not attracted to going to this church by accident. Even your background with churches is part of what God had for you to experience for it all to help be part of what you needed to learn, something you needed to know, a defining point in your life that you would come to.
A defining moment in one's life comes about when a person realizes something about who they are and grows from it, accepts it, whether they are aware or not that God was part of making that happen. Some people are not open to learning and changing at all and it doesnt happen. But I believe this is your time because not only had you had flings with a couple old male friends but you have the bi-sexual issues as well. there is definitely something to learn here. It's for you to determine what path you will take from today on in this area of your life. You are at a crossroads and it's between you and God. No one else can make that decision for you, not even well meaning brothers and sisters in the Christian faith.
good luck. Sorry this was long but I felt prompted by God to share. Likely because you weren't going to hear this anywhere else.
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