Trail Blazer Ministries
Base Camp for Life: A Spiritual Journey...

According to Alexa

12:57 PM
Alexa states trailblazerministries.blogspot.com is the 11,607,293rd most popular site on the net. Hmmm...Iggy's wordofmouthministries.blogspot.com site is 9,415,613st.
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Do You Love Gay People? - A Love Issue

1:38 PM

 

The comments are really revealing as to how blind and hateful some really are. Sadly many do not even realize how hateful their words are... when someone states:

We should love people the way God loves them; with truth, and pure love. There is gay people outthere who would be willing to change their lives and accept Jesus as their personal Savior. We as christians, cannot decide who will accept Jesus or who won't. Our duty is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with our own testimony, and with Love. I have known gay people who repented and now are living a normal life (according to God's purpose). Believe me, God can still change people's lives. Let's pray for all those beautiful people (including gay people) who need Jesus as their personal Savior. Amen.


Sadly this is one of the more "loving" comments posted on the site. Yet, when a gay person hears a Christian say the word "change" they hear us saying they must clean up their lives before they come to Jesus! That is NOT the Gospel... We are saved by Grace, straight or gay.

The hate just keeps on coming proving the video over and over again as right on, yet as you can see they are blind to their own hate. It is time to stop hating and start loving... Will you take a stand for Unconditional Love?

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Hell does not exist, according to John Shelby Spong

1:18 PM
"Salvation is enhancing your humanity rather than rescuing you from it"



Aristotle.

"It has been handed down in mythical form from earliest times to posterity, that there are gods, and that the divine (Deity) compasses all nature. All beside this has been added, after the mythical style, for the purpose of persuading the multitude, and for the interests of the laws, and the advantage of the state."
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Ted Haggard is in the news again...

12:49 PM
Wed Nov 4, 9:39 pm ET


Here is the AP article
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Ted Haggard, who was dismissed from the megachurch he founded after a man alleged a cash-for-sex relationship with him, plans to lead people in worship again.

The pastor told The Gazette he is holding a "prayer meeting" Nov. 12 in his living room in Colorado Springs but said it would also be correct to call it a church.

Haggard says he has no goals of building something like New Life Church, which began with about 25 people in his basement in 1985 and grew to thousands of members.

Haggard resigned from the church in 2006 after a Denver man said Haggard paid him for sex.

The gathering Nov. 12 will include music, an offering to New Life Church and a talk from Haggard about the power of prayer.



I wonder what Ted Haggard will say next, after his obvious hypocrisy. I'm not saying this out of despite, Ted Haggard should be loved and forgived. I hope he won't continue preaching against the lifestyle of gays and drug use. Ted has been humbled, so as Christians, let's love and forgive his holding him accountable to his words and actions.
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Prince of Peace – God of War Pacism vs Just War Theory

9:09 PM
Thanks to Nathan, for reminding me of this video. Ryan already posted this, but it's worth reposting.

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Phillips, Craig & Dean - When God Ran - Live What do you think?

6:35 PM
What do you guys think?



Almighty God, the great I am
Immovable rock, omnipotent, powerful, awesome Lord
Victorious warrior, commanding King of Kings
Mighty conqueror, and the only time
the only time I ever saw Him run

CHORUS:
Was when He ran to me, He took me in His arms
Held my head to His chest, said “My son’s come home again”
Lifted my face, wiped the tears from my eyes
With forgiveness in His voice He said,
“Son do you know I still love you?”
He caught me by surprise when God ran

The day I left home I knew I’d broken His heart
And I wondered then if things could ever be the same
Then one night I remembered His love for me
And down that dusty road ahead I could see
It was the only time – it was the only time I ever saw Him run

And then He ran to me, He took me in His arms
Held my head to His chest, said “My son’s come home again”
Lifted my face, wiped the tears from my eyes
With forgiveness in His voice He said,
“Son do you know I still love you?”
He caught me by surprise as He brought me to my knees
When God ran – I saw Him run to me

BRIDGE:
I was so ashamed, all alone and so far away
But now I know He’s been waiting for this day

I saw Him run to me, He took me in His arms
Held my head to His chest, said “My son’s come home again”
Lifted my face, wiped the tears from my eyes
With forgiveness in His voice I felt His love for me again

He ran to me, He took me in His arms
Held my head to His chest, said “My son’s come home again”
Lifted my face, wiped the tears from my eyes
With forgiveness in His voice He said, “Son”, He called me Son
He said, “Son do you know I still love you?”
He ran to me and then I ran to Him
When God ran
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What Exactly Does it Mean to Believe?

9:56 PM
Thanks to Nathan for this well thought out response to my question:

"I think I'm going to order this book; a Christian philosophy prof recommended this to me. I'm struggling with the question, "What do we really know?" I know some things, but some important things in Christianity, I'm questioning whether I really believe them to be intellectually honest with myself."


What exactly does it mean to believe? The word "belief" has evolved over the years. In the 14th Century with Chaucer it meant "beloved." In the 1st Century, it meant something completely different. In Life of Flavious Josephus, he writes about confronting a rebel during the Jewish / Roman War. Josephus wanted to convince this rebel to stop the futile attempts of attacking the Roman Empire and look for other ways to achieve his desired results. Josephus told the rebel to “Repent and believe in me”. In Greek that is, “metanoesein kai pistos emoi genesesthai”. This is precisely the same exact greek phrase that Jesus uses, which even the most skeptical Jesus scholars would admit.

Josephus isn't simply saying repent and believe in me as some sort of mental excercise. He's more or less saying turn away from your methods of violence and follow my way. However, as a member of the Jewish aristocracy, and a pawn of the Roman Empire, he obviously had an agenda. Jesus call to repentance was certainly more, but certainly not less. The mental exercise is needed to initiate the process, but can't be expected to remain fixed, and isn't so much the point as following the way of Jesus. Imagine if the rebel told Josephus that, yes, he believed (with our current concept of belief), but didn't follow. He surely would have been put to death by the Roman Empire. The Gospel is trans formative not affirmative.

Belief will evolve as well as your doubt. But in my opinion as well as Jewish tradition, doubt is a spiritual practice that comes from God. But the secret is to continue to doubt the doubt and never be satisfied, always be maladjusted with your conclusions. Always leave room for discussion and uncertainty.

I think that doubt keeps us from putting God into a box, making Him/Her an idol, or a Rorschach test in our image. The desert Christian mystics used to call God "Nothing" as the word "God" was/is essentially a placeholder for a name of the Ineffable Being. We have no words to define the Divine.

One thing that I've been mulling over lately is I'm quite tired of Christianity. I love Jesus, and search for God, but I see Christians pushing Christianity over Jesus, which is in my mind complete idolatry and heresy...although they would call me a heretic.

totally random, but I was reading on how to make a Halloween for Jaxin, and I took a complete rabbit trail and wound up reading about the Magi (the Three Kings...where we get our word "Magic" from). They weren't Christian or even Jewish. They were Zoroastrian astrologers. In fact the greek uses the same word to describe a sorcerer in Acts. Yet they blessed Jesus. How many churches, (even myself) would be humble enough to receive a blessing from a self described Wiccan?

Here is something that CS Lewis wrote in "Mere Christianity" which is where I'm at.

""The world does not consist of 100 percent Christians and 100 percent non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name: some of them are clergymen."
"There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand."
"There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points. Many of the good Pagans long before Christ’s birth may have been in this position. And always, of course, there are a great many people who are just confused in mind and have a lot of inconsistent beliefs all jumbled up together. Consequently, it is not much use trying to make judgments about Christians and non-Christians in the mass."

The world needs Jesus, and less of Christianity piling up mental sets of certainties. The Muslim world is realizing this. Recently at an Islamic conference, the leader was talking about how Islam is going through now (with Shia and Sunni) what Christians and Catholics went through during the 100 years war. They said the only way we will make it through this without blowing each other up is to follow the teachings of the Prophet Isa...(Jesus).

That was a long answer, but I say read the book, and let me know what you think. Never end the search, and never underestimate the strength of community in wrestling with the doubts. It's often tough to find a "safe" place to express the questions, but you always have a safe non-judgmental ear in me. I'd also be curious to hear where exactly, if you can pinpoint it, do your doubts lie?
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