When I started this blog several years ago, it was not my intention to form a ministry. This was never meant to be an outreach or evangelical site. It was just intended to be a place where born-again believers could touch base, see their views reflected, get some guidance, and maybe get a spiritual spanking, if one was warranted. There are few places like that left in the world, even online, and even fewer among those spaces designated as Christian.

My intentions for this blog have not changed over the years. This is still not a ministry and still not an outreach or evangelical site. If anything, I work hard to push people away by constantly challenging them. It’s more a boot camp than anything else and I’m the drill sergeant. I play the role willingly and well. That’s why God put me here.

If you’re not DAILY examining your conscience before God, comparing your thoughts and actions with those of Jesus and adjusting them accordingly, then you’re falling short of your duties as a born-again believer and you’re getting spiritually flabby. Those who are spiritually flabby won’t make it home. I don’t care what your worldly pastor or some donation-grubbing, feel-good “Christian” on YouTube tells you – being born-again is not a guaranteed ticket to Heaven. Being born-again is a pass that gets you into the Kingdom and a blank check that pays for the services of God’s Holy Spirit to guide and protect you as you make your way through the temptations of this world. But born-again believers can still lose their grace. That is scriptural. “Once saved, always saved” is a lie to keep you spiritually flabby.

In the Bible, every major transition to a higher spiritual state is preceded by a fast or some form of significant separation from the world that lasts 40 days and 40 nights. We see it with Noah during the flood. We see it with Moses on Mount Sinai. We see it with Jesus in the wilderness and again after his resurrection, when he appeared to his followers off and on for 40 days and nights before his ascension. The 40-day-and-night time span is clearly important in God’s economy, so we need to pay attention to it. We should be constantly striving to evolve to a higher spiritual level by following ever closer behind Jesus and drawing ever closer to God.

Over the next seven weeks leading up to Passover, we have the opportunity to do a 40-day fast of some kind. How you choose to fast is between you and God, but I strongly suggest that you do it. A reminder is in order here that Jesus says God requires mercy not sacrifice, and that Isaiah 58 gives a very clear explanation of the kind of fast required by God and the rewards that come from doing it. Again, I’m not telling you how to fast (that’s between you and God); I’m just saying that you should fast in the weeks leading up to Passover.

For us born-again believers, Passover is the annual commemoration and celebration of our freedom from physical, political and spiritual slavery. It also commemorates and celebrates our reconciliation with God. Through Moses, God told us we should always celebrate Passover while we’re on Earth, and through Jesus, God showed us the new way to do it – with wine and bread, rather than with blood and a slaughtered lamb.

We should be constantly challenging ourselves as born-again believers. We should never be satisfied to remain where we are spiritually; we should always be striving to be better than we were yesterday, with our ultimate goal to “be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect”. No, we’ll never attain that goal while we’re in our imperfect bodies, but we still need to strive for it to our dying breath.

To do this, we need to be constantly comparing ourselves with Jesus, not with the world. Our standard should be Jesus, not the world. If we have problems, we turn to God, not to the world. If we need guidance and healing, we look to God, not to the world. If we’re angry and frustrated, we go to God, not to the world. Jesus always went to God, and we need to do that, too. But we can’t do it if we’re too attached to the world and its ways. The world has a way of coming between us and God. We need to prevent that from happening.

Separating ourselves from the world through a 40-day fast is a good way to refocus everything on God.

You have your marching orders.

Passover starts at sundown on April 15^th, 2022.