Jesus in a Gay Bar

If you check out the cool stuff over to the right, you'll see a link to AudioJunky's blog. Click on it and you'll discover someone who is extremely profound in his thinking and writing. In one of his blogs, he makes the following comment:

Does that mean we need to be going into the bars, clubs, porn shops, etc. No, but it means that we need to be sitting down and concentrating on how we can reach the people who's lives are ripped apart by these things instead of pointing out their sins.

Well before I say anything, let me state that this is not an argument and is not intended to be read with any sort of malice or malcontent. It is merely a statement of my opinion.

I truly believe that if Jesus were alive today you would see Him in some very unlikely places, such as gay bars, clubs, and crack houses. Look at His ministry and the crowd He was around. Prostitutes. Tax collectors. Thieves and whores. He very plainly said that healthy people dont need a doctor, sick people do. I wouldn't be surprised if people would expect to see Jesus at a church conference being held by one of America's Mega Churchporations. Well that's not the case. You would find Him in the alley, holding the hand of the dope fiend, telling him that He offers the bread of life.

Well we are called to do the same, are we not?

We are called to go into all the world and tell them all the wonderful news of His love for us and the sacrifice He made. At what point did we forget how He witnessed? Yeah ok, Jesus went to the temple and read from scripture. He spoke to the masses. He did of few of the things that Churchporations do now, but that wasn't His focus. His focus was on the sick.

Please dont think I'm saying this stuff as an excuse to go party like a rockstar or anything like that. I'm only saying that Christians need to get out there and get their fingernails dirty.

I do have more to say on this matter but I have to get to work.

Eustace

You may or may not know this, but the hit movie The Chronicles of Narnia is based off of a series of books written by the great theologian C. S. Lewis. It's a series of seven books that, if you look closely, you will see similarities to stories from the bible and all kinds of Christian undertones.

In the book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, we are introduced to a character named Eustace. He is the cousin of the four children in the first movie. The younger brother and sister, Edmund and Lucy, go to live with him for a while and could not be any more upset about it. Eustace is a jerk. He's the only child of a rich mother and father and is used to getting everything he wants. He has no consideration for anyone but himself.

Through a series of events, the three children find themselves in the magical land of Narnia once again and on a voyage to the end of the world. They are in a huge galleon with the king of Narnia and are travelling into uncharted territories in search of missing noblemen. On one particular island, the crew of the Dawn Treader are exploring in search of supplies to repair their ship, which was unfortunately attacked by a giant sea monster.

Eustace, being the jerk that he is, wanders off on his own, not wanting to do any work. He walks around in the jungle, mumbling and grumbling horrible things about his cousins, the king, and other various crew members. Before long he stumbles upon the edge of a small cliff and sees a small pond nearby. There is also a small cave, and a terrible dragon is making it's way outside towards the water. Eustace is terrified. He stays perfectly still and watches the dragon die a horrible death.
Eustace, still scared stiff, doesn't move for quite a while. He finally works up the nerve to descend the small cliff and make his way to the pool and cave. He enters the cave and is surprised to be met by more gold then he could ever imagine! He celebrates his new found wealth and ends up falling asleep on one of the piles of gold.

Without getting into the next scene, which is pretty suspensful, Eustace wakes up to discover he has turned into a dragon!
Eustace spends some time upset and angry and terrified at his new fate. He makes his way back to the camp only to be met with fear from his shipmates. As time goes on, Eustace realizes that he was turned into what he already was. He was a beast on the inside and the magic of the island made him a beast on the outside. He learns from the error of his mistakes and the crew begins to see a change in his character. He is helping gather supplies and does more then his share in repairing the ship.
Then the night comes where he meets Aslan.

He is wandering through the jungle and comes upon the pool once more. Standing near the pool is the mighty lion, Aslan, who represents Christt in the series. He tells Eustace to shed his skin. So Eustace does. He takes his massive claws and digs into his scales and peels off a layer of skin. Proud of himself, he looks to Aslan. Aslan looks back and says, "That is not enough. You must dig deeper."
So Eustace digs deeper. He digs till it hurts. And yet still Aslan says, "No. You must dig deeper."

He digs. Not enough. He digs deeper. Still not enough. Eustace can no longer take the pain. And yet still it is not deep enough.

Finally Aslan looks at him, love in his eyes, and tells him, "I will do it." His huge, imposing claws dig deeper than Eustace could ever possibly do or even imagine. He strips Eustace to the core. To the bone. Aslan then asks him to bathe himself in the pool. He submerges into the water and resurfaces as a human once again!
This is what we go through when we are transformed by the power of Christ. Every single one of us is a monster, through and through. When we meet Him, He wants us to be holy, just as He is. We try and we try and we try but we can never go deep enough. All of our efforts are like rags to Him. It is only through His hand that we can truely be transformed. He is the only One who has the means to transform us to the holy and perfect creation we were meant to be.

No One Like Him

God Is, without help.

Hence, He always is. "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. (Psalms 90.2, NKJV).

God never began and will never cease. He exists endlessly, always. "The number of His years is unsearchable" (Job 36:26, NASB).

Even so, let's try to search them. Let every speck of sand, from the Sahara to South Beach, represent a billion years of God's existence. With some super vacuum, suck and then blow all the particles into a mountain, and count how many you have. Multiply your total by a billion and listen as God reminds, "They don't represent a fraction of my existence."

From 3:16 by Max Lucado