BEGIN 05/20/09 #3cccJournal2TwittBook MUST READ FIRST: http://intro.3circles.net #book #tcot #teaparty #sgp #fb #twurch Pages: 0456-0498

#3cccJournal2TwittBook MAY 1974: In February, after a very cold, snowy winter I hitchhiked to Halifax. Spring was just around the 0456

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..corner and I needed seeds to plant another garden. I found work as a waiter and salad preparer at Sanpaka 0457

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..Natural Foods Restaurant. I had to stop seeing and having sex with Donna Carpenter. Even after I got saved I 0458

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..continued to visit but after a few times I began to wonder if I was doing the right thing. That thought never 0459

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..occurred to me before I became a Christian. Sex between two willing partners was something that seemed natural 0460

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..and normal. But as I continue to read the bible and see the examples of commitment, as I start to think about 0461

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..the idea of a wife and starting a family, I realize that I’m making choices that lock me into situations 0462

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..incompatible with my future goals. But more than that, the Holy Spirit has been doing its work, revealing the 0463

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..light of God within me. I believe this is where my conviction of fornication as sin was born (sin being wrong 0464

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..actions, attitudes or behavior). Yes, I read about fornication being a sin in the bible but I had read those 0465

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..passages about fornication many times and still never saw I was doing anything wrong. Ultimately my conviction 0466

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..as to what was right or wrong had to spring forth from that inner place we all call “conscience”. However, 0467

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..conscience is an imperfect faculty, usually more reflective of one’s cultural upbringing. But for some of us, 0468

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..for those who touch the heart of God through their own suffering and humility, the conscience can be 0469

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..transformed, renewed, yes, even “born-again”. That’s what I believe happened to me in this instance. How else 0470

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..can I explain that prior to my conversion I held all sorts of beliefs that only six months later I no longer 0471

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..hold? In the old testament it preaches that a woman found in adultery must be stoned to death, but my inner 0472

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..conscience tells me that is wrong. By Jesus’ own words and actions it is revealed that he did not believe in, 0473

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..follow, or teach that law, even though he grew up in a culture that did teach it as God’s law. Could it be 0474

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..that Jesus, being so close to God, had a renewed conscience that saw thru the religious and cultural clutter 0475

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..created by the religious men of his day? It’s certainly recorded that he called the learned and very religious 0476

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..Pharisees, hypocrites and vipers. I believe this biblical law of stoning adulterous women was created by 0477

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..religious men like the Pharisees, then written down in scripture as God’s law. The proof for me is found in 0478

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..the words of Jesus, who said, “Let him who has no sin cast the first stone”, whereupon no one stoned her. 0479

#3cccJournal2TwittBook Jesus’ solution was simple: “I do not condemn you; go and sin no more”. If every word of the bible is God’s word 0480

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..and cannot be questioned or disobeyed, then how is it that Jesus disobeyed this law? To get around this 0481

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..problem, Christians say God made that law for that time and people, but God sent his Son, Jesus, to give us a 0482

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..new law, the law of love. But why would God tell his people to follow a law he knew to be less perfect then 0483

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..the Law of Love? To me this is simply intellectual dishonesty. Even though I’m a very young Christian I see 0484

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..example after example of such intellectual hypocrisy. Does anyone really believe that God told the Israelites 0485

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..to commit cultural genocide by killing every man woman and child of the lands they were to take as their own? 0486

#3cccJournal2TwittBook And yet the vast majority of born-again Christians say they believe this because it’s in the Bible and the Bible 0487

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..is God’s word. I’ve seen and felt the power of God because I was born-again of God’s Spirit. I KNOW, beyond 0488

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..any shadow of doubt, that Christ lives in me and has transformed me because I see the fruits of the Spirit 0489

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..being manifest through me on a daily basis. So it matters not to me when I discover scriptural contradictions. 0490

#3cccJournal2TwittBook Nor does it matter that the Bible claims God ordered his people to commit genocide. My faith rests on the Spirit 0491

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..of the Living God, which transforms hearts and minds and heals bodies. The bible is my guidebook, not my God! 0492

#3cccJournal2TwittBook Well, as I was about to say before I digressed, last winter during a visit to Donna’s, I was in bed reading the 0493

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..bible while Donna was showering. I was looking forward to our usual great night of sex. But I kept coming 0494

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..across the word “fornication”. So I got a dictionary and looked it up.  Suddenly I realized that sex without 0495

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..commitment is just that, fornication. I began to pray. When Donna came out of the shower I shared what I had 0496

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..learned and told her, “I want to keep seeing you, but the Holy Spirit has convinced me that when we do, we 0497

#3cccJournal2TwittBook ..should hold off on the sex until we figure whether or not we want to be seriously committed to one another”. 0498

END 05/20/09 #3cccJournal2TwittBook MEET AUTHOR: http://MeetTheAuthor.3circles.net #book #tcot #teaparty #sgp #fb #twurch Pages: 0456-0498