Memories Pizza Refuses To Cater Gay Wedding; Right or Wrong? A Christian Perspective.

You’ve already heard this story, right?  The story about the little pizza place that said they would refuse to cater a gay wedding based on religious grounds.  Well, I’ll just throw this right out there…. I do not agree with them.  There, I said it.  And now, of course, here are my thoughts and opinions on the matter.

The biggest questions I have are these:  Do the owner’s of Memories Pizza check the morality of everyone that walks through their door?  If they have catered other events, did they check with those people to insure they met all their religious standards?  Obviously, you can see where I’m going with this line of questioning.

The bottom line is this:  Just because you cater a gay wedding does not mean you agree with their sexual orientation, nor does it mean you have sinned if you do cater it.  And after all, Jesus ate with prostitutes and sinners!  And I suspect that if they offered him money, he took that too!

“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’  For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”  ~Matthew 9:10-13 (NIV)

I don’t agree with homosexuality, nor believe in gay marriage, but that doesn’t mean I would turn my back on them or even avoid them.   (If you’ve read any of my blogs, you already know that I have spoken at length about homosexuality, and have gay friends myself.  If you haven’t, you can check them out here and here.)  And if an occasion arose for me to minister to anyone at the wedding, I certainly would have!  But to turn them down outright just because the owners did not agree with them being gay or believe in a gay marriage was just wrong.

Now, that all being said, I will add one more thought to this whole thing;  I believe that any business should be able to turn anyone away for any reason.  I know most of you wouldn’t go as far as to agree with that and some might call me ‘racist’ just for saying it.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  I say that because when you enter a privately-owned business, that’s just it… you are inside an establishment owned by an individual(s) and it is private.  That individual(s) should have the right to choose not to serve someone for any reason.  If they choose to discriminate, I ASSURE YOU, they won’t be open long!  The local community will see to that.  But my point is that they should still HAVE THAT RIGHT.

Furthermore, we have discrimination still going on today.  It never left.  If this little pizza parlor in Indiana had been Muslim-owned, and they refused to cater due to their religious reasons, this story would never have been told.  Their refusal would have been happily accepted.  But the devil has seen to it that Christians are hated for, well…. just being Christian.  While Muslims, who also do NOT agree with homosexuality, are not held to the same standard as Christians.  According to the WikiIslam:  “The Islamic views on homosexuality are formed from the writings of the Qur’an and Prophet Muhammad‘s Sunnah. It is not only a sin, but a crime under Islamic law.”  The punishment is, most often, varying forms of death.  DEATH.  Death for being gay.  YES, that is the TRUTH of what Islamic Law says!  And yet Islam is accepted but Christianity is no longer tolerated, even though we Christians LOVE all sinners and wish none of them death.  Yes friends, that is the world today.

I got a little off on a tangent there, but I think I made all my points.  You’ve heard the saying widely spoken among Christians to “love the sinner and hate the sin.”  Well, that is still true today.  You can love someone and still disagree with their actions.  There is no reason to not have gay friends and love gay family members.  To be friends with or love a sinner doesn’t mean you agree with their actions.  And of course, remember that none of us are free from sin.  

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  ~Romans 3:23

What You Should Know About Ghosts, Aliens and Other Paranormal Phenomena…

Okay so I decided to make this a separate post rather than a part 2 of the previous one.  This one is all about ghosts, aliens and other paranormal phenomena.  The Lord put it on my heart to write about this after reading a recent news story about people fleeing a rented home because it was haunted.  I appear to be one of the few that actually believes them.  Not because I think they have ‘ghosts’, but because I know what’s really going on in the house.

Before I was born again, I was really interested in anything related to the paranormal, ghosts, aliens… anything unexplained.  When I was a child, a friend of my mother’s was a caretaker in a Civil War-area home in Hendersonville, Tennessee called “Hazel Path” that was haunted; I knew a lady once who claimed to have seen fairies tending to flowers in her yard and leprechauns dancing under her windows at night; and I’ve read true stories of people that claim to be abducted by aliens and all have implants similar in design that they believe are used by the aliens to keep track of them.  All of these things were great mysteries to me that I was really interested in solving.  Back then, I wanted to be the one who goes into a haunted house and sees a ghost and the one that sees an alien spacecraft.  Now that I am born again, I would never want to see either of those things.

So then what are all these stories of ghosts and aliens about?  Let’s tackle aliens first.  In Whitley Strieber’s book entitled “Communion”, he talks about his true story of alien abduction from his farm in upstate New York.  Now to be fair, he never says they are aliens but only calls them ‘visitors’.  But if you read his account of what happened, it was very clearly what we call ‘aliens’ that visited him and it is generally accepted as such by the UFO community.  However, the TRUTH is that he was under demonic attack.  The ‘aliens’ were demons.  In my talks with the Lord, he has confirmed this as well.

Everything aliens do is demonic in nature.  They are not friendly, happy, little blue or green men from a far away planet that only anal probe you and mutilate cows to ‘help us’.  I’ve read so many accounts that say the aliens are here to try to protect us from our own inevitable destruction.  And I’m sorry, but I just don’t see how looking up my anus will keep us from destroying ourselves.  It makes ZERO logical sense, although the UFO community seems to accept all of this.  I’ve also read tons of accounts of women who were pregnant and then abducted by aliens and the next day were no longer pregnant.  Some claim the aliens are harvesting their eggs and others claim the aliens showed them their alien-human hybrid babies.  If that doesn’t sound straight-up DEMONIC, I don’t know what does.

Chuck Missler is a man I greatly admire.  If you’ve never seen any of his lectures or read his books, you should really check them out.  He has a great lecture about the “Return of the Nephilim”.  I’m sure some of you who read your Bible have read about the Nephilim but never really knew what that was.  Well, he explains it in such great detail; you are nothing short of amazed at his findings.   He connects the dots between the Nephilim, the giants spoken of in the Bible and their connection to the ‘aliens’ seen in recent times.  And the more and more UFO sightings documented, he believes are signs of the ends times talked about in the Bible.  If you watch his lecture about it here on YouTube, he does make a compelling case that I believe any Christian couldn’t ignore.

Now, let’s move on and talk about ghosts.  Ghosts appear to come in all shapes, sizes and ages.  I’ve heard about nice ghosts, mean ghosts, helpful ghosts, and ghosts that are children or old men or even ghost dogs.  We already know that when you die, your soul immediately goes to be with the Lord.  The Lord has informed me (when I asked him directly on this matter) that ghosts are simply demons messing with you.  And why?  Because if you really think that your dead grandmother is still in your house, you are reluctant to tell her to ‘go in Jesus’ name’! because, well… after all, it’s grandma, right?

Here’s the best example I can give for a well-documented ghost story…The Bell Witch.  I was raised and lived around Nashville, Tennessee for 35 years.  The story of The Bell Witch is a very prominent ghost story where I’m from.  I’ve even been to Adams, Tennessee to see The Bell Witch Cave (where the ‘witch’ is said to haunt).  If you read the story about The Bell Witch, you’ve no doubt seen clear signs of demonic activity in this case.  The ‘witch’ starts with simple rapping on the walls of the Bell Family home, which escalates to growling.  People start hearing the stories of what’s happening in the home and The Bell Family and others start ‘communicating’ with the thing.  The ‘witch’ even said her name was Kate.  It laughs at them, ridicules them and basically, TORMENTS them.  President Andrew Jackson, who lived in his home in Hermitage, Tennessee at the time, even traveled to the Bell home and left saying he would never return.  All these people gave POWER to the demon by giving attention to it!  That is why it started with simple tapping and finally after months, it escalated to the ‘witch’ actually hitting people and then taking full credit for the death of John Bell.  All these people gave power to the demon and it increased in power.  That was no ghost… that was a straight-up DEMON.

I have watched true ghost story shows on television and they are all the same.  The ‘ghost’ makes people afraid, hurts them with scratches or welts or even tries to push someone down a flight of stairs.  The ‘ghost’ just generally makes life hellish for them.  ALL of these are DEMONS.    I’ve even seen shows where admitted Christians act as if it’s a ‘ghost’ in their home.  How can you be a Christian and not tell the thing ‘to leave in Jesus’ name!’  So instead, these people leave the ghosts alone and live with them in GREAT FEAR or they move out of FEAR, and let it be someone else’s problem.  The demons have figured out that if you think they are just ‘ghosts’ of innocent dead people, you’ll let them stay, and so all these people do just that.

One thing I want to mention about demons is that there are lots of different types.  There’s also evidence of demon hierarchy in the Bible but I won’t go into that here.  The point is that some may be powerful enough to come and go as they please, but there is also evidence that some get sort of get ‘stuck’ in a place, presumably waiting for a new person to come along that they can inhabit.

Case in point is a story told by Andrew Wommack.  In his book entitled “The Believer’s Authority”, he talks about his “grandmother’s room.”  He was 8 years old when she died, but he says that she ‘left behind some demons in the room’ because he saw things moving at night in the room and no one who moved into the room would stay longer than a few weeks.  The room was basically kept locked for 12 years.  Well, that is, until Andrew went into the room and he kicked those demons out.  It would seem that upon his grandmother’s death, the demons attached to her were left behind just waiting to get hold of the next unsuspecting person and they were literally ‘stuck’ in the room until then.

I have read countless reports of haunted buildings that appear to be chock full of ghosts.  Usually, these are old buildings that experienced a lot of death. Take for example, The Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky.  It was originally a hospital for tuberculosis patients, then later a geriatric facility, and it’s documented that over 60,000 people died in the building.  It is notoriously haunted.  So if that many people died there, then I would suspect that there are countless demons that were left behind to ‘haunt’ the facility.  But again, they are DEMONS and not ghosts that need our ‘investigation’ or our ‘communication’ with them.  Giving any attention to them only empowers them.

And one last point I want to make is that the non-Christian community is so quick to believe in fairies, elves, zombies, vampires, ghosts, aliens, and the like, but they just can’t believe in a supreme being that created the human race and LOVES US so much His only Son gave His life for us.  No, they can’t believe that because that would be crazy!  R-I-G-H-T.  Crazy.

In conclusion, the bottom line is that aliens, ghosts, fairies… whatever strange ‘creature’ you may encounter, it’s nothing more than a demon.  Don’t be afraid, don’t run away and tell someone you saw a fairy, don’t do anything but laugh in it’s face and tell it to ‘GO IN JESUS’ NAME!’

What Happens When We Die?

The Lord has been prodding me lately to write about ghosts, aliens and other unexplained or paranormal phenomena.  BUT, I realized that to write about ghosts in particular, I must first start by discussing what happens when you die.

So what do most people believe happens when you die?  From talking to my friends, family, etc. over the years, my experience has been that people tend to fall into three main categories; 1) those that have fear of dying because they have no idea what will happen to them, or just not sure what will happen, 2) those that believe they will be judged immediately and go to Heaven or hell, and 3) those that believe their souls will stay in their bodies while they rot in the ground until Jesus comes again.  This third belief is so popular that it is taught in many churches today and can be found on numerous Christian websites concerning death.  And not to offend anyone, but it is still wrong.

None of these beliefs have any basis in fact and frankly, are quite ludicrous.  Regarding those who believe they will be judged immediately, well…. We all know we have to wait until Judgment Day for that, so that’s not even worth expounding on.  Regarding those who believe their souls will stay in the ground with their bodies, well, that is the worst belief, in my opinion, because it doesn’t even make any logical sense!  What about those who were cremated and their ashes scattered?  What about those who died hundreds of years ago and their bodies, caskets and all have completely decomposed and gone?  What if someone dug up your corpse while excavating land and then destroyed the body rather than re-bury it elsewhere?  (I could come up with hypotheticals galore, but you get my point.)  And even if you want to be buried, what if your loved ones go against your wishes and cremate you?  Oh no!  You can’t get a glorified body if God can’t find your withered old corpse in the ground?!  If that’s not LUDICROUS THINKING, I don’t know what is.

There are many Bible passages that tell us very clearly what happens when we die.  NONE of these say your SOUL goes into the ground or stays with your dead body.  Rather, as the first quote tells us, when we die we go to be with the Lord (our souls).

“We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”  (2 Corinthians 5:8 KJV)

Paul, specifically says in this next quote, that when we depart from this life, we are with Christ:

“For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.”  (Philippians 1:23 KJV)

This is what is said regarding death when Jesus returns:

“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.  According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.  For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.  Therefore encourage one another with these words.”  (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 NIV)

 

The meaning of the passages is pretty clear;  Those who are still alive will be brought up to Heaven along with the dead, who will have received their glorified bodies, and all of us together will rise up to Heaven.  Don’t get lost on the phrase “sleep in death” or “fallen asleep”.  Just because our bodies are ‘sleeping’ does not mean our SOULS are sleeping.  There is always a possibility that the ‘sleep’ does refer to our souls, so it’s possible there is a sleep WITH THE LORD.  Since I have already shown instances that prove when you die, you are with Christ, I believe that the “sleep” referred to here is concerning our dead bodies and not our actual souls.

The point is that you don’t need to know all the exact particulars.  You just need to have FAITH in what you already know; when we depart from this life, we will be with Christ.  PERIOD

To be fair, the Bible is not very clear about what happens to those who don’t have a body in the ground.  But I fail to believe that God would just say, “Oh sorry you can’t come to Heaven because someone cremated you, or I can’t find your old dead body anymore.”  No, you will get a glorified body regardless of whether you have a withered old corpse still in the ground or not.  To believe anything else would be sheer stupidity, and the most High God is anything but stupid.

So the end result of all of these passages is the same:  When we die our SOULS go to be with the Lord.  Knowing that should give ALL CHRISTIANS PEACE over death… their own death and those of their loved ones.

I sometimes anger my husband because I know that this life we are living is temporary and I’m ready to die at any time (he’s not ready for me to go, hence why he gets angry).  It’s true.  I don’t fear death and would certainly LOVE to be with the Lord!  One day, we will have glorified bodies and live for eternity in the New Kingdom that will be established here on earth.  What happens in this lifetime will be nothing… a mere drop in the bucket… compared to eternity.  I don’t worry that I haven’t had children and won’t pass on any legacy;  I don’t worry that I haven’t done something great to be remembered by;  I don’t care about any of those things that everyone seems to worry about because NONE of that matters.

I work for the Lord.  This life, I live for Him.  I do what He tells me to do.  I try to speak the Word to all who will listen.  I strive for more knowledge in the Word.  And when my time comes for me to leave this earth, I will be happy and rejoice in the Lord.  For the moment, for this temporary lifetime here on earth, THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS.