WHO SHOULD WE PRAY FOR?
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, October 15, 2026 – Prayer, as we know, is the most powerful force in the universe. Through prayer, we give God permission to unleash whatever remedy needs to be applied to whatever circumstance. The more heartfelt the prayer, the more effective the prayer, because God can work more powerfully through sincerity.
We know these things to be true. We know them to be true because we’ve lived them, are living them. We all, as bornagain believers, were once sincerely prayed for, even now as we sincerely pray for others.
And there’s the rub. Who are these “others” that we should be praying for?
If you listen to most pastors and preachers and ministers and priests, the answer would be “everyone”. We should be praying for everyone we know, even if we know them only by name. And not just everyone we know, but whole nations and entire peoples. We should be like the automatic weapons of prayer, the kind that are banned in most countries for their indiscriminate, unapologetic overkill. This, if you listen to most pastors and preachers and ministers and priests, is how we should be praying, purposely aiming wide so as to hit at least one target with our spiritual spray.
But is this how Jesus prayed? And is it how he taught us to pray?
In John’s gospel, Jesus prayed for us on his last night in his human body. His prayer set the gold standard for how we should pray. We already know from his earlier teachings on prayer that we’re to avoid using what he called “vain repetitions” (like, for instance, the formulaic Our Father or Hail Mary), which now sadly make up the lion’s share of so-called Christian prayers. We already know we’re to go into our “closet”, that is, our spiritual safe space, so that prayer is private conversation between us and God, or between us and fellow believers and God. We already know that God already knows what we’re going to ask him in prayer even before our words reach our lips (or our mind’s lips), because God knows everything, including what we’re going to think and do before we think and do it.
Prayer isn’t a performance, though sometimes it can be done among fellow believers. Neither is it a recitation of set phrases, because that’s not how you talk to your Father (or how your Father talks to you). We already know this because Jesus taught us and because we live it as bornagain believers.
But in the gold-standard prayer that he prayed on his final night in a human body, just before his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane (which was another example of a gold-standard prayer), Jesus explicitly stated who we should and should not be praying for. Let’s start with the ones Jesus taught us not to pray for.
In brief, the world: We’re not to pray for the world. By “the world”, Jesus meant those who reject him because they reject Truth. People who don’t value Truth or have never searched for the Truth (and by “Truth” I mean God’s unchanging Truth, not the many “truths” that change daily according to agenda-driving propaganda and public opinion) are children of the devil and are content to remain so. In some cases, they may call themselves Christians, but when the proverbial push comes to shove, they’ll side with whomever or whatever allows them to continue to remain within the world’s systems, even if it means denying Jesus and the One who sent him. This is the world, and we’re not to pray for it. Those who’ve embraced the world have already chosen their god, and God respects their free-will choice. He doesn’t agree with their choice, but he respects their right to choose and so won’t intervene, even at the behest of his children.
If not for the world, then who are we to pray for?
Let’s let Jesus himself remind us:
I have manifested thy name [Father] unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word…. [F]or I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them…. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me…. I pray not that thou shouldst take then out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil…. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which should believe on me through their word.
So there you have it: we’re not pray for the world like indiscriminate automatic prayer weapons but to target only those who are God’s. And, just as importantly, we’re not to pray for God’s people to be taken out of the world, but to be protected while they’re in the world. These two prayer directives—to pray only for those who are God’s and to pray for their protection—should be our sole guide on who (and who not) to pray for.
I confess that as a newbornagain believer, and even into my more mature years, I prayed for everyone I thought needed prayers. That was a lot of people at times, and it was exhausting. And then God started to nudge me this and way and that in my prayers, sometimes outright advising me not to pray for a specific person. This startled me at first, because I thought (that is, I’d been taught by most pastors and preachers and ministers and priests) that I should pray for everyone who appears to need prayers or who asks for prayers.
And so, taking my cue from God, I started to go to God for his go-ahead before praying for someone. I still do, and I recommend that you do likewise. As Jesus taught us, we’re to pray for those who are God’s in this world and we’re to pray for their protection. We don’t pray for everyone who comes to mind or for everyone who asks for our prayers; we’re to pray only for those God gives us the go-ahead to pray for.
This directive isn’t meant to be spiritually miserly (Jesus certainly wasn’t spiritually miserly) or to curtail your prayer life. It’s a directive that comes from Jesus and therefore directly from God, and it’s recorded in scripture. There is no higher authority on who to pray for.
Ignore it at your peril.
STRANGE WOLVES
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, October 7, 2026 – There is a strange kind of convert that is growing in number and will continue to grow in number as sin increases. Note that I didn’t say “a strange kind of bornagain believer”, but a strange kind of convert. Conversion, as I noted a few articles back, doesn’t always come from spiritual rebirth and isn’t always from God. In fact, most conversions are the unregenerated kind, which means a change has taken place in the convert, but only skin deep. The soul remains in sin.
I have made no secret from the start that my ministry is solely for those who are bornagain. There’s a reason for this. First, because God has specified that I minister only to his children, and secondly because my experience is specifically that of a child of God. I can’t get into the headspace of someone who has approached God and then stopped short of actual rebirth. These people are a mystery to me. And being a mystery to me, I can’t minister to them. Anything I’d have to give them they wouldn’t receive because they’re not open to receiving it. Were they open to receiving it, they wouldn’t have stopped short in the first place. They would have fully submitted to God.
But even stranger than converts who choose to remain on the doorstep of God’s temple are the ones who pretend to be converts. There is, as the saying goes, a special place in Hell for those souls. They are similar to the wolves that Jesus and Paul warned us about millennia ago, but where they differ is in number and depravity. Where previously the sheep far outnumbered the wolves, the opposite is now happening: The wolves are starting to outnumber the sheep. And if that weren’t bad enough, the newer wolves are more ravening than the older ones. Not content merely to sow fear and confusion and to lead the weaker sheep astray, these new wolves are in it for the kill.
I have seen through the eyes of the Spirit how these wolves operate. They announce their conversions with great fanfare and are immediately welcomed into the fold. They then proceed to stand at the very front, pushing the sheep and even other wolves aside, keeping the focus on themselves. They have a vile backstory of conversion from satanism (witchcraft, occultism, demon worship, etc.) and take great pleasure in providing the gory details of those dark arts. That’s how you’ll know them—by the pleasure they take in providing the gory details and how detailed those gory details are.
Genuinely reborn converts are repulsed by their sins—even by the memory of their sins—and don’t want to revisit them let alone pore over them, let alone parade them in front of others. We know that God has forgiven us our sins just as we’ve forgiven those who sinned against us, and that in forgiving us God no longer mentions our sins, any more than we’re to mention the sins of those who sinned against us. It’s all been blotted out. All of it. And being blotted out, it’s repulsive to us even to think of our sins (or sins done to us). God makes it repulsive so that we don’t do it. It’s part of our healing. Even unregenerated converts stuck at the doorstep of God’s temple don’t like to think of their unrepentant sins, as it stirs up their guilt and makes them extremely uncomfortable.
So when people who claim to be converts constantly recite the litany of their sins in gory detail, they’re not sheep, they’re wolves. If they were sheep, they wouldn’t be able to do it. It wouldn’t even come to their mind to do it. But these wolves are so proud of their unrepentant sins, they not only recite them at the least invitation, they provide so much detail that they are in effect summoning the very entities they claim to be rid of. Their testimonies are call-outs to specific powers. So when you listen to these wolves giving their testimony, you are participating in an occult ritual. You are sinning against God.
I hope that last line shocked you. It was meant to shock you. I warned you that the new wolves are depraved. They lure you into sin simply by giving what they call their testimony. It is truly diabolical both in its depravity and its guile. They have no shame, these wolves, and they are ravenous so far beyond what we’ve experienced from other wolves as to be an entirely different species, which is in fact what they are.
As we move deeper and deeper into the end times, the demons released onto the earth will be more and more diabolical. That is, they’ll be stronger and more beguiling, and motivated by an acute sense of urgency, knowing their time is short. The weaker sheep have no chance against these powerful spirits and are easily falling prey to them, as per the prophesied falling away. But we bornagain believers are also contending with them, and we dare not treat them with kid gloves.
How, then, do we interact with them?
First and foremost, we don’t. If you’re in a situation where they’re holding court (in a church or a meeting, or when watching a video, etc.), remove yourself from that situation immediately. As I stated earlier, their testimony is a form of occult ritual. You do not want to participate in it. And don’t try to out-wolf them by attempting to disrupt the ritual by, for instance, calling them out for summoning their brethren demons. The weaker sheep are enthralled by these wolves and will vigorously defend them while turning on you. God doesn’t want you disrupting the rituals; he wants you to be aware of them and far removed from them. It doesn’t matter if your leave-taking is outright rude. Just get out and don’t go back, shaking the dust from the bottom of your feet like Jesus advised his disciples to do in villages that wouldn’t hear the Gospel. Where those wolves hold sway, the sheep are already gone.
Secondly, don’t seek them out with the intention of either chastising them or changing them in some way. If they’re here, God has permitted them to be here. Don’t go against God.
And finally, keep in mind that you, as a bornagain believer, are a particular target of these wolves. They will home in on your compassion, your desire to “help”, your need to serve God. They will home in on these impulses and use them against you to gain access to you spiritually and little by little wear you down. Don’t let them. Steer clear of them. They are not your concern. If God permits them to roam freely, then freely they will roam.
Still, and by all means, warn the sheep and each other about these wolves, but don’t try to stop them in their course. They can do only what they’re permitted to do by God, and you cannot undo God’s permission. Your strength—our strength—is in giving warning ahead of time, which you can do something like this: “Beware of people who say they are converted but show by their testimony not to be. They will confess their past sins in such intimate detail, it will read like a ‘how-to’ guide in satanism. Don’t listen to them. Don’t argue with them. Walk away from them and warn others about them. They are not real converts. They are wolves.”
You deal with these wolves not by confronting them but by exposing them in advance so that they lose their powers of seduction and persistency. You cannot seduce someone who won’t listen to you, no matter how persistent you are.
LAMENT
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, October 10, 2026 – It wasn’t God’s will; it was God’s permission. God permitted it to happen; he never wanted it to happen. It was never his will. You can never convince me that what happened to all those people all those years ago was God’s will.
But they do that, those people; they mix up God’s will and God’s permission. They’re always mixing it up, muddying the waters (some of them on purpose). They point to people in pain and say: “See that? That’s God’s will”, but they’re wrong. God is good and only good. In the Gospels, Jesus tells a man: “Don’t call me good. Only God is good.” He could just as well have said: “God is only good.” It means the same thing.
I remember, as a newbornagain, being attacked by one of the mixed-up people who tried to convince me that God was evil. I can still see her standing there at the party, a drink in one hand and a “Gotcha!” sneer across her face. “It’s in your Bible”, she said with barely contained glee. “God made evil. That means he is evil. Look it up.” I was too young then spiritually to know how to refute her. I could only stand there in silence, repulsed by her sly smile and the obvious pleasure she took in shocking me. Mixed-up people can be like that sometimes. Not all of them, but some. They take particular pleasure in bullying Christians, not seeming to know that the evil they wrongly attribute to God is working through them instead.
And yet those same bullies will then turn around and lament: “Look at our suffering!”, so over-the-top dramatic they become caricatures. Decades pass, and still the lament. “Look at our suffering – JUST LOOK AT IT!” But we have looked, all of us, looked and looked – in plays, in books, in movies; in painstakingly accurate museum exhibits, in annual solemnities. We’ve looked and looked until we could look no more and then were threatened if we dared look away. Yet not once in all the drama did I hear the lament: “We had it coming. We deserved it. It was our fault.” Not once did I hear a call to repentance. Only blame and self-pity, and again self-pity, and a constant worrying of the open running wound so that it never heals.
You cannot lead a soul to repentance. If God is good and only good (which we know from scripture that he is), then any punishment he permits cannot be evil. They mix up God’s will and God’s permission just as surely as they mix up good and evil, and they do so because they won’t accept punishment. They refuse to suffer.
I would rather suffer the world’s injustice than reject God’s justice. I would rather be falsely accused by the world and suffer for it than to attribute to God anything but good. How can anyone who knows God attribute to him anything but good? You can’t know God and attribute to him anything but good.
In the end, they’ve become a cautionary tale, the mixed-up people. We’re to suffer them and learn from their mistakes. And what are we to learn? To accept our suffering. Accept it and endure it, not try to avoid it and/or blame it on others or on God. There is no peace in refusing to accept what you’ve earned.
We are purified in the fires of affliction if we allow ourselves to be. We’ve stoked the flames with our sin. Better to go through those fires now and be healed than to wait for the flames that never go out.
NEARER, MY GOD
… And then, every once in a while, the world does something like this:
CONVERSION OR REBIRTH?
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, September 12, 2026 – As many of you know, I was reborn from atheism. No-one preached to me; I didn’t struggle with giving up vices or wondering whether one doctrine was superior to another: I simply submitted to God not even knowing it was God I was submitting to, and he healed me. By “healed”, I mean he exorcised all the demons that were in me and replaced them with his Holy Spirit.
I was reborn before I knew I was reborn. I was a believer even before I knew what I believed. My belief didn’t result from indoctrination but from the sudden inrush of God’s Holy Spirit into my soul, where it’s been ever since. I was a believer the instant I was reborn; I was reborn and instantly believed. The two—rebirth and belief—are inseparable, as belief expresses the presence of God’s Holy Spirit in a soul. Without that abiding presence, there is no God-given belief, only a desire to believe or an “I think I believe” or a belief that waxes and wanes with life’s circumstances.
I mention this because the two terms “rebirth” and “conversion” are often used interchangeably, including by me. Yet what is meant by these terms can be something entirely different. Rebirth is what I touched on above, whereas conversion can mean rebirth or it can mean a change—sudden or gradual—from one state to another, from one frame of mind to another, from one lifestyle to another, without God’s violent intervention. In conversions without rebirth, alcoholics embrace sobriety, Lotharios swear off women, and party girls vow chastity, all while subsuming their newfound “righteous living” under a Christian framework. These and similar changes, though commendable, are self-imposed and self-directed rather than God-imposed and God-directed, which means they’re difficult to sustain and typically end in failure, even with ongoing support from a congregation or other helping hand.
A massive portion of the worldly church is made up of such converts. Unfortunately, they struggle with their faith as much as with their day-to-day lives. Not having God and Jesus as their counsellors, they lean on friends, mentors, spouses, colleagues, doctors, life coaches, etc., gaining a form of worldly wisdom but not the wisdom that comes from above. They share the same desires and problems as the world, and they respond to those desires and problems in the same way as the world. Eventually, usually during a crisis (like the death of a child or other major loss), some converts relapse and leave Christianity altogether.
On the other hand, some non-reborn converts harden in place and neither grow nor shrink, like the scribes and Pharisees, lawyers and Sadducees mentioned in scripture. They either build ministries themselves or become ministers and priests in established Christian strongholds, wholly devoted to their denominations and creeds rather than to God and his Word. They serve “the church” instead of serving God and approach their faith as a job rather than a relationship with God and Jesus through God’s Holy Spirit. And while they may be faithful in doing their job—some are enormously faithful in their jobs—they have little joy in the doing of it and are constantly battling temptation.
I do not mean to belittle anyone here, including myself. I’m merely pointing out the difference between conversion that results from rebirth and conversion that does not. As I mentioned at the outset, the terms “rebirth” and “conversion” are used interchangeably, which can lead to confusion. A convert who is not reborn lowers his or her chances of remaining a Christian, whereas a convert who is reborn dare not lose the presence of God’s Holy Spirit, because there’s no way to get it back, and the exit of God’s Spirit from a soul guarantees eternal damnation.
The stakes are infinitely higher for a reborn convert than for a non-reborn convert, just as life circumstances and source of belief are entirely different. At his ascension, Jesus warned his disciples not to be “witnesses” of the Gospel until they’d received God’s Holy Spirit, which they then did ten days later at Pentecost. Rebirth conversion is sudden, violent, glorious, ecstatic, and undeniably real. It also lasts a lifetime, except in very rare cases. Non-rebirth conversions are nothing like that and often end in failure or greatly diminished faith.
Rebirth is conversion, but conversion is not always rebirth. As bornagain believers, we need to be acutely aware of these differences when we interact with the worldly church and with the world.
WHY PARABLES?
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, September 12, 2026 – Why did Jesus teach in parables? Why did he not, like the Old Testament prophets, just blast out a “thus saith the Lord” and then proceed to proclaim precisely whatever was on his (and God’s) mind? As bornagain believers, we sit at Jesus’ feet (or on God’s lap) and are taught in plain speech, but for those who are not God’s children—that is, for those who have ears to hear but hear not, and eyes to see, but see not—other teaching methods are required. Parables fit the bill perfectly.
First and foremost, though, it needs to be stated that Jesus taught in parables because it was prophesied that the Messiah would teach in parables. Teaching in parables was one of the sure-fire signs of the Messiah. And so, being the Messiah, Jesus could therefore not not teach in parables. In other words, it would have been impossible for him not to teach in parables and still be the Messiah.
Secondly, teaching in parables was a way of getting the Gospel message across to the spiritually deaf and blind, who would otherwise be unable to receive it. God withheld spiritual hearing and sight from these people, but they still needed to learn right from wrong (or, for some who would later convert, to learn about the Kingdom). Parables helped to override spiritual disabilities.
Then there were those who, from the get-go, wanted nothing to do with God. This was a whole different level of spiritual blindness and deafness. Parables “hid” the presence of God in engaging stories, much like puréed broccoli can be “hidden” in spaghetti sauce to get kids to eat their veggies. The broccoli by itself they might outright reject, but the spaghetti sauce with the hidden broccoli – YUM! Similarly, talking about God under another guise can draw in the spiritually challenged without them even knowing they’re learning about God. They just think they’re eating spaghetti! ;D
Additionally, among the spiritually deaf and blind in Jesus’ day were those who deemed the Gospel “hate speech” (blasphemy) and a direct attack on the governing authorities. Teaching in parables afforded Jesus protection from arrest, and so he candy-coated his message for public consumption. Even so, he was banned from public discourse in many parts of Judea, and he accordingly avoided those areas. But in private discourse among his disciples and other close followers, Jesus dispensed with the coating, serving the Gospel straight up with detailed explanations, like he still does for us today.
Finally, the parables, being story-oriented, paint a vivid picture using strong and recognizable characters doing relatable things. We recognize the characters in our lives and even relate to some. If we aren’t the father of the prodigal son, we’re the prodigal son; if we aren’t the father or the prodigal son, we’re likely the resentful older brother. If we aren’t the father, the prodigal son or the older brother, we probably know people just like them. Being able to recognize these characters in our own lives helps to personalize the message, which then helps us to relate to the parable, making it easier to recall, retell, and absorb.
Whether because it was prophesied, or because it worked around spiritual challenges, or because it afforded a level of protection from authorities, or because it was just a handy way to tell a good story, teaching in parables was God’s chosen way for Jesus to preach the Word in public. Following Jesus’ example, we should still be preaching parables in public today, serving up “plain broccoli” for believers only.
LAST SECOND: ON THE WOMAN CAUGHT IN ADULTERY
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, September 9, 2026 – One of my favourite parts of John’s gospel is the section at the start of Chapter 8 about the woman caught in adultery. In those verses, we see how Jesus dealt with her compared to how the scribes and Pharisees wanted her dealt with. You can read the verses here.
First of all, you can tell by the triumphant tone of the scribes and Pharisees that they thought the whole issue was a slam-dunk. Not only was the Commandment rock-solid that adultery was forbidden, but Jewish law stated that those who committed that sin were to be stoned to death. The woman had been caught in the act, presumably by more than one witness, and had said nothing in her own defence, which indicated that she had acknowledged her guilt. Although the verses don’t describe the woman, you can imagine the disheveled state of her hair and clothing, her tear-streaked face that she tried unsuccessfully to hide as she was dragged (paraded) through the streets. You can imagine her agonizing shame at the jeers and leers that were thrown at her, possibly even by people who knew her and/or her family. You can imagine that for the woman caught “in the very act”, this was likely the very worst moment of her life.
Enter Jesus. As was his habit, he’d been teaching in the temple, using the loose dirt on the ground as a chalkboard and his finger as chalk. He likely heard the commotion caused by the vigilantes long before he saw them, and once he did see them, he knew exactly what they were up to: They had come to tempt him.
In response, Jesus immediately steeled himself to deal with his tempters by opening an emergency prayer line to God.
After the scribes and Pharisees had presented the woman to Jesus and described her sin, Jesus appeared to ignore them. Scripture states that he leaned down and continued to finger-write on the ground as if they weren’t even there. The verse literally states that he acted “as if he heard them not”, which indicates that he not only probably hadn’t said a word to them yet, but he hadn’t reacted to them in any way.
You can imagine the accusers’ barely suppressed outrage at Jesus’ unexpected silence. You can imagine the restless quiet of the mob that had followed the posse to the temple. Perhaps the only sounds for the better part of a minute were the woman’s muffled sobs punctured by the occasional “Stone her!”… until Jesus finally emerged from his deep huddle with God, rose to his feet, and stated calmly: “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.”
They hadn’t expected this. They hadn’t expected their “gotcha!” moment to be thrown back in their faces. By publicly presenting the woman to Jesus, they had publicly deferred to his authority, meaning that they had to accept whatever he decreed. And what he decreed was that whoever was sinless among them—and only whoever was sinless—should begin the stoning.
Now, the scribes and Pharisees were a lot of things, but ignorant of the law was not one of them. They knew that if they presented themselves as sinless, they’d be guilty of blasphemy. The tables had been turned; the hunters were now prey. Knowing this, they had no choice but to withdraw themselves, which they did, leaving Jesus more or less alone with the woman.
The magnitude of God’s mercy is evident in the few words Jesus then exchanged with her. Jesus knew (because he knew people’s hearts) that the woman was deeply remorseful for what she’d done. He also knew that she was grateful to him for rescuing her. But sin is sin, and even when it’s resolved through God’s mercy, a finger of warning must be raised. This Jesus did by telling her not to sin again.
If I were a betting person, I’d bet that Jesus stared the woman straight in the face when he gave her the warning. I’d bet that the look in his eyes and the timbre of his voice stayed with her for the rest of her days, so that if she for even a brief moment so much as entertained a sinful thought, she’d see those eyes again and hear that voice. He gave her a second – but only a second – chance. If she sinned again, there’d be no more chances and no more mercy.
Ironically, Jesus himself could have initiated the stoning of the woman caught in adultery, since he was in fact the only one among them who was sinless. But he chose instead, under God’s guidance, to give the woman a second chance underscored by a final warning. This was mercy, yes, but not limitless mercy, not the “tolerant of sin” type of pseudo mercy that has become characteristic of so-called Christian dealings with the world. We are never to be tolerant of sin – NEVER – but we should also always be ready to extend mercy to the genuinely penitent when God indicates we should do so. We’ll know who are genuinely penitent because God will let us know, like he let Jesus know when he was seemingly off in his own little world, writing in the dirt.
Spiritually, we have all been that woman caught in adultery, in the very act. Had we not been, we wouldn’t be born again. We’ve all been given our second chance—our rebirth is our second chance—along with the warning not to sin again. Many of us have unwittingly come close to that precipice, only to be hauled back at the last second.
May we always be hauled back.
LAZARUS IN THE BALLROOM
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, September 2, 2026 – I had the opportunity recently to join a “by invitation only mind-body-soul recharge retreat” that promised I’d achieve my “best possible me” if I’d only fork over $42,000 for a six-week program. I’m not sure how I got on the invitation list, but the information session was free and offered refreshments, so I was in (at least for the refreshments). I arrived at the hotel ballroom to find a lavish spread hovered over by an army of such impeccably groomed and impeccably professional servers that I thought at first they might not be real. By “not real” I mean I thought they might be the latest version of those made-in-China A.I. humanoid robots I’d been reading about (I’m still kind of thinking they were). Munching a handful of tiny round crustless sandwiches and wondering how the heck I ended up there, I settled into a cushy banquet chair to listen to the sales pitch.
There were at least a hundred of us in the ballroom, not counting the maybe-robots and the “team” giving the presentation. Most of the invitees were carefully coifed women of a certain age and of a certain wealth, and most had that slightly bored air of females who’d never had to worry a day in their lives about money or men or really anything at all. Again, I’m not sure how I got on the invitation list (woman of a certain age, check; woman of a certain wealth, uncheck), but there I was sitting among them like the “before” to their “after” version of a Stepford wife. Still, someone must have thought I’d want to become my best possible me enough to send me an e-vite.
Or they’d sent it to the wrong email address.
During the course of the presentation, it was confirmed that the $42,000 price tag for the six-week program was in American dollars, not Canadian, and that the price did not include transportation to and from the retreat (a tropical island halfway around the world), additional recommended onsite amenities, and other out-of-pocket expenses. The unofficial total hovered around $100 grand (CAD), leaving me fully out of contention. I sighed, shook my head, downed the last of my last tiny sandwich, and prepared to leave. A program mentor (one of several stationed strategically around the room like butlers) who’d been monitoring the attendees for just such a reaction, glided discretely over to me. “There are grants”, he breathed deep into my ear, “that you can apply for to cover your costs. We can talk about it later….” I sensed rather than saw his lingering smile as he leaned into me from behind. His aftershave smelled edible and his tone had the kind of measured seductiveness that came from years of practice. I wagered he’d whispered that tone into many an ear after first perfecting it to his satisfaction on a recording device in front of a mirror.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted. Who wouldn’t want to be their best possible mind-body-soul me while there was still time for such a thing to matter, and all for free? I looked at the servers. I looked at the “team”. I even snuck a quick peek at my mentor-butler, erect and alert as a sentry. What exactly was I being offered, and by whom?
When the presentation moved onto the Q & A portion, I ran what I knew so far about the program through the what-did-Jesus-do filter that I run all my considerations through. Did Jesus, during his ministry years, want to be his “best possible me”? I believe he did. Would he have paid strangers big bucks to help him achieve that? Not a chance. What if the fees were waived? I’m listening….
But Jesus did in fact do an approximately six-week mind-body-soul retreat, just before he started his ministry, though no swanky sales presentation preceded it and it didn’t cost a dime. He knew even before God’s Spirit drove him into the wilderness that he’d be facing 40 grueling days and nights of cold, thirst, hunger, isolation, and sleeping rough, all topped off with temptations so satanically personalized that nearly everyone falls for them 100% of the time. But he also knew that through it all he would be watched over and protected not only by a host of heavenly angels, but also by God himself, none of whom (I’m pretty sure) he suspected might be A.I. robots.
I’m happy to report that I ultimately resisted the ballroom temptation. Not that I don’t want to be my best possible me; of course I do. I just didn’t want to be the version they wanted to sell me. I didn’t want to “unlock my financial freedom”. I didn’t want to “maintain a youthful appearance”. I didn’t want to “captivate every room I walked into”. And I didn’t want “guaranteed success” no matter what I did. And why didn’t I want those things that seemingly everyone else in the world wants? Because I’m happily bornagain, which means I’m happy with whatever God gives me, happy to look my age, happy to be a wallflower (unless God himself shines a spotlight on me), and happy with only the success I’ve earned, not “success” that’s “guaranteed” simply for existing.
I admit that I was initially curious about whether I could be a child of God and still go on such a worldly retreat, but while I was mulling it over, God reminded me of Lazarus – the poor one covered in sores, not the other one Jesus raised from the dead. Jesus described the poor Lazarus as patiently enduring all the crap dumped on him during his time here on Earth, after which he was richly rewarded in Heaven, while the rich guy, who knew Lazarus only as a wretched lump lying outside his front gate, dined sumptuously (on tiny round crustless sandwiches?) before ending up someplace decidedly hotter than Heaven.
I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to burn for all eternity. Mind you, I also didn’t at first want to be Lazarus (I mean, who jumps at the opportunity to be destitute and covered in sores?). But if I have to choose between the two based on their eternal rewards (and we all have to make that choice, just like Jesus did in the wilderness), it’s Lazarus or bust.
Our time here is short. What we make of it is up to us. But if we choose options that are outside the will of God (that is, outside our best spiritual interests), we compromise our hereafter as well as our here and now. Being the best possible me in the eyes of the world is not the same as being the best possible me in the eyes of God. The two versions can sometimes not be farther apart.
We need reminding of this every now and then. And when we do, it usually comes in the strangest of places.
GREATER THAN MONEY
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, August 31, 2026 – Prior to starting his ministry, Jesus worked as a carpenter. By “worked”, I mean he offered his services in exchange for payment. Jesus either accepted money or bartered for the amount he’d negotiated for his carpentry services. There’s nothing in scripture that would indicate he’d done otherwise.
But when he started his ministry, his payment terms changed drastically. He no longer negotiated or demanded any payment at all for the ministry services he offered, whether healing, teaching, preaching, or just performing random miracles along the way. He did everything for free. There’s nothing in scripture that would indicate he did otherwise.
Still, Jesus needed money for his daily needs. We all need money for our daily needs. But what we don’t need is to charge a fee in exchange for our ministry services.
I’ve already stated here in this blog and elsewhere that anyone who charges a fee to preach is not bornagain. Ditto for people who charge a fee for praying, healing, teaching about the Kingdom, or otherwise providing information on spiritual development, including counseling. “Pay for pray” is a worldly (i.e., unregenerated) church phenomenon, as is demanding and accepting payment for preaching. The worldly church gets paid for this kind of work and does so with God’s permission (as Jesus said, they have their reward).
But we, as bornagain believers, must never request payment for doing God’s work because it’s not us doing the work: it’s God, by his Spirit, working through us. We must never ask for donations. We must never ask for an honorarium. We must never ask for payment for preaching and teaching the Word. Never. Not once. Not under any circumstance.
Don’t you dare.
Because if you ask for money for doing what you’ve received from God for free, God will take it from you in other ways, and with interest. You’ll end up much poorer financially and spiritually than you would have been had you not demanded payment. The worldly church, yes, gets paid in worldly ways, but God arranges for his children to be paid in different ways, and always more than enough.
You won’t have to ask; it will be offered.
Consider Jesus. He never charged anything for his ministry services, and yet he always had more than enough for his needs. People donated their money and resources without him having to ask. And on the rare occasion when his needs unexpectedly exceeded the norm and it appeared that he was going to come up short, God would provide a timely miracle, like placing the gold coin in the fish’s mouth so that Jesus could pay the tribute tax (with money to spare), or multiplying a handful of loaves and fishes so that Jesus could feed a multitude (with basketsful to spare).
I know, without your having to tell me, that God has provided you with more than one timely miracle since your rebirth. I know, because he’s done it for me, too. He does it for all his children, even without them having to ask him for help. In fact, the most substantial financial and other gifts I’ve received since my rebirth came out of the blue from sources I either didn’t previously know or didn’t suspect would want to help me. This is how God works, and it is an enormous blessing for us but even more so for the people who provide for us at God’s (usually anonymous) prompting.
Money is a worldly construct. As such, it has no place in God’s Kingdom. No genuine bornagain believers will accept payment for preaching and teaching the Word. If they did so in error, they’ll still suffer for it and will hopefully learn from their suffering not to do it again, knowing that the worst kind of suffering is separation from God. If you’re genuinely bornagain, demanding payment for doing God’s work will very swiftly separate you from God in the same way as purposely sinning will, and none of us want that. None of us want to be even a handsbreadth away from our heavenly Father. For us, separation from God is the worst state imaginable, much worse than an empty purse or a gnawing stomach. And if after doing God’s work we still end up broke and starving, it will only be to test us and will soon pass.
We know from the example set by Jesus that God provides for his children. From the start of his ministry, Jesus did his Father’s work diligently and for free, and so must we. No exceptions. As Jesus reminds us, you cannot serve God and mammon. The God we serve is greater than money. We don’t honor him by refusing to accept unsolicited donations (we must always accept those; never let pride stop you, as unsolicited donations are God-prompted and will bless the donor more than us). We honor God by refusing to demand payment for ministry services. In this as in all things, Jesus—not the worldly church—is our example.
The God we serve is greater than money.
The Good Lord provides.
ON HELPING THE UNHELPABLE
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, August 25, 2026 –As bornagain believers, we sometimes can’t help ourselves from helping. But God doesn’t always want us to help. Sometimes our desire to help gets in the way of God’s justice. This is a hard spiritual truth that most of us had to learn the hard way. Peter learned it the hard way when he declared that he’d die rather than let Jesus be killed, and Jesus called him Satan for his efforts. We definitely don’t want to be called Satan by Jesus. And we definitely don’t want to get in the way of God’s justice.
There are many reasons why God shut Noah and his family into the ark. It wasn’t just because it was time for them to be shut in. It wasn’t just because God didn’t want them to be traumatized by witnessing the flood. And it wasn’t just because God didn’t want them to try to rescue those who were not supposed to be rescued. But this last reason—preventing Noah and his family from rescuing those who were not meant to be rescued—is likely the main one. Because after they were shut into the ark and the waters were unleashed, Noah and his family would have heard the terrified screams of people crying out for help; they would have heard people pounding on the side of the ark, begging to be let in; they would have heard the pitiable and haunting moans of children and animals just before they drowned. They would have heard all these things, and being the kind souls they were, Noah and his family have wanted to help. (I would wager that Noah’s wife would especially have wanted to help). But God didn’t want them to help, so he not only shut them into the ark before the waters rose, he supernaturally sealed the door so that they couldn’t leave, so that they couldn’t try to help the unhelpable.
The ark’s design also prevented anyone from scaling the vessel to gain unlawful entry.
(God thinks of everything!)
In the past, I have been guilty of attempting to help the unhelpable. Of course, my efforts failed spectacularly, which is a very painful way to learn what must be learned. So now when I see people who look like they could use some help, I ask God first whether or not I should help, and if God says “Yes”, I do, but if God says “No”, I don’t. I don’t quibble and I don’t argue. I don’t try to wheel and deal. I accept God’s word as final and get on with my day.
When people choose evil and earn the rewards of their choice, you not only have to respect their right to choose, you also have to respect their due reward for having chosen evil. You especially have to respect their due reward, because if you don’t respect it and try to override it with misdirected “help”, you’ll learn the hard way that you should not have tried to interfere with God’s justice. The people you’re trying to help will not be helped in any real way, and you’ll suffer the consequences of going against God. In so doing, you’ll essentially become the “Satan” that Jesus accused Peter of being.
Helping people can be a spiritual minefield. The only way to safely negotiate it is to ask God’s guidance whenever you feel the urge to lend a helping hand. Not everyone is on God’s list to be helped, and not everyone is on God’s list to be helped by you. You can learn this the hard way (not recommended), or you can save yourself the suffering and wait for God’s go-ahead.
In this, as in everything else, be like Jesus, who only ever did what God showed him to do. Many people today are beyond our help and many more are trending that way. We need to respect people’s right to choose evil, if that’s what they want, just as we’re to respect their due rewards for having chosen evil.
You can’t pray away God’s justice. Pray instead for God’s guidance and for God’s will to be done.
