REPENTANCE AND BELIEF
CHARLO, New Brunswick, September 27, 2023 – Repentance is critically important for us Christians. The sincerity of our repentance determines the strength of our belief, which then impacts everything we do. Without sincere and full repentance, there can be no or only superficial “learned” belief and therefore no genuine witness to others and no one-on-one personal relationship with God and Jesus.
And without a one-on-one personal relationship with God and Jesus, there’s no chance at Heaven.
During the time of Jesus’ ministry, the people of Nazareth, including Jesus’ own blood relatives, did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Scripture tells us that Jesus, when he visited Nazareth during his ministry rounds, was unable to perform any miracles there because of the people’s “unbelief”. But what was the cause of their unbelief? What stopped them from seeing Jesus for who and what he was?
Belief is an inner knowing that cannot be easily explained beyond saying that it just is. Belief cannot be easily explained because it’s seated in the soul, which itself can’t be measured, at least not with the crude instruments we have on Earth. Belief is not something we’re born with; it comes to us courtesy of God’s Holy Spirit. Without the presence of the Holy Spirit in our soul, we can have knowledge of things, but we can’t truly believe. And without truly believing God’s Word, we’re constantly in danger of falling away.
Repentance is the key to believing in the Gospel. I know an angry young atheist who’s all but memorized the book of Revelation. He can quote circles around me when it comes to scripture, but he questions everything he quotes and he believes none of it. That’s not to denigrate knowledge for the sake of knowledge, but knowledge is not something most people would stake their lives on. Knowledge tends to change and be replaced with something else as new facts emerge, whereas belief remains constant, unchanging, and unshakeable in those whose belief comes not by their own power but by the power of God’s Holy Spirit.
Both Jesus and John the Baptist preached the essentiality of repentance, and both of their ministries were grounded in repentance. So what is repentance and why is it so important for belief?
WHAT IS REPENTANCE?
When we repent, we not only acknowledge our sins and failures, we also acknowledge our weaknesses and our need for help. At the same time, we pledge both within ourselves and to God not to do the sinful behavior ever again and we ask God to forgive and absolve us of our sins. That is generally what is understood by most Christians as being repentance.
So far, so good, but that’s only half of the repentance equation. The other half is equally as important but rarely gets much coverage.
Here is the other half of the repentance equation: Along with acknowledging our sins and weaknesses and asking God for help and forgiveness, we just as importantly need to forgive those who’ve sinned against us, which means we not only need to forgive them, but we also need to forgive them whatever sins they’ve sinned against us. This is the half of the repentance equation that most Christians miss and so remain for all intents and purposes unrepentant, even after they think they’ve repented. Being unrepentant, these Christians still have a hard heart (an unforgiving heart is a hard heart), and God’s Spirit cannot and will not work through a hard heart.
Without full and sincere “both sides of the equation” repentance, there can be only superficial belief that is based on knowledge, not on God’s revelation through his Spirit. There can be knowledge but not belief. You cannot learn belief; like grace, belief is a gift that comes from God. You cannot on your own steam increase your belief just by trying to believe harder. Many have attempted this impossible task and all have failed. Your belief can only be established by the power of God, not by your own efforts. But the one thing that you can do on our own steam is to repent sincerely and fully.
When Jesus told us to “REPENT, AND BELIEVE THE GOSPEL!”, he was advising us to repent, while letting us know that belief would come as a natural outcome of the repentance. Repenting was something that we needed to choose to do, but belief would follow as a consequence. In other words, belief requires no effort on our part. Jesus wasn’t urging us to believe, he was urging us to repent. Belief would then follow as surely as day follows night.
This is the main reason why so many Christians don’t really believe the Gospel. They have knowledge of God’s Word, but they don’t really believe God’s Word because they haven’t sincerely and fully repented. Not having sincerely and fully repented, their heart is still hard and God’s Spirit cannot come into them. They remain supernaturally spiritually deaf and blind, as foretold by Isaiah.
Again, repentance is not only acknowledging your own sin and weakness and asking for God’s help and forgiveness, it’s choosing to forgive those who’ve sinned against you as well as choosing to forgive the sins they’ve sinned against you. If you only acknowledge your own sin and weakness and ask for God’s help and forgiveness but refuse to forgive those who have sinned against you, you haven’t repented. You’ve only done half of what you need to do to repent. And if you only do half of what you need to do to repent, your heart will remain hard and your belief in the Gospel will remain superficial and perilous.
So I guess the reason why the Nazarenes, including Jesus’ blood relatives, didn’t believe that Jesus was the Messiah was because they had hard hearts, which made them supernaturally spiritually deaf and blind. They all needed to repent, and to do so fully and sincerely.
How about you? Is your repentance full and sincere, or are you missing out on the second half of the repentance equation? If you haven’t yet repented in the way that you need to repent in order to truly believe the Gospel, maybe you should take Jesus’ advice and do so now. You shouldn’t have to work at believing – you might have to occasionally work at repenting, as it sometimes takes us some degree of discipline to drag ourselves before God and admit we were wrong, but no effort should be required to believe. If we fully and sincerely repent, belief in the Gospel just happens, thanks to God.
“The time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye and believe the gospel!“
Mark 1:15
TEAM BARBIE, MEET TEAM KLAUS BARBIE
CHARLO, New Brunswick, September 27, 2023 – Yes, they went there.
Of all the stupid things a less than intellectually stellar progressive political party could do, Trudeau’s Liberals not only invited an actual real live WW2 Nazi into the holy of holies of Canada’s temple of government (House of Commons), but they also gave him not one but two standing ovations for being a “war hero”.
Oy vey….
Hey, Canada – The Onion called; they want their satire back!
Except this isn’t satire. It actually happened.
I wrote a few weeks ago about how Canada is under God’s holy chastisement. When a nation is under chastisement, events occur that affect large portions of the population and are so outside the norm (and occasionally also jaw-droppingly ludicrous), they can have no other explanation than that God is trying to get that nation’s attention. He’s saying: This is what you’ve brought on yourselves and this is what you’re going to continue to get – and more and worse – if you don’t turn back to me. The point of chastisement is to shock the people of the nation out of their everyday complacency so that they stop whatever they’re doing and deeply examine their lives in what used to be called an act of soul searching.
For some, their soul searching leads them back to God.
It’s important to remember that chastisement, whether of an individual or a nation, is earned rewards. God doesn’t permit individuals or nations to suffer more than what they’ve brought on themselves through their thoughts and actions. Since their installment eight years ago, Canada’s ruling Liberal party has become notorious for passing federal laws that oppose God’s laws, such as MAD (Medical Assistance in Dying), which permits nearly everyone who asks to receive medical assistance to kill themselves. Trudeau’s Liberals have also positioned Canada as one of the most (if not the most) sexually “liberal” and gender-confused countries on the planet, granting Canadians not only a pride month (June) but an entire “pride season”.
In fact, just a few days prior to coming out as a proud member of Team Klaus Barbie, Trudeau had tweeted against a nation-wide march mostly by concerned parents who were demanding that sexual indoctrination in schools be curbed. This was essentially a collective cry by the parents for the right to retain authority over the raising of their own children. True to his colors, Trudeau sided against the parents, framing the school/child sexual ideology alliance as a “human rights” issue.
A few days later, Trudeau liberally and literally (and apparently unbeknownst to him) hosted a Nazi.
And he did so for all the world to see, because the liberal and literal hosting of a 98-year-old WW2 Nazi in Canada’s secular holy of holies was done as part of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s latest fund-raising tour to extract more money and promises for the now apparently endless Ukrainian war. As such, all the world’s media eyes were on Zelenskyy and by extension on Trudeau and his government when the entire House rose in unison to give the Nazi his standing ovations.
It was, not surprisingly, a Canadian Jewish group that first raised the alarm about a Nazi being feted in Canada’s House of Commons. The alarm was made public less than 24 hours after the event, and from there it steamrolled into a global media storm of outrage and mockery the likes of which Canada has never before suffered.
God’s chastisement takes many forms, one of which is very public humiliation. How could the entire pool of Canada’s lawmakers not know that someone fighting against Russia in Ukraine during WW2 must have been a Nazi? Every child in the Western world should have learned that in grade school. Russia was one of the three major players in the Allied forces (the other two being the US and the UK) and contributed significantly to the Allied victory. As soon as the elderly Nazi was publicly introduced as having fought against the Russians in WW2, Canada’s politicians should have realized whose side he had fought on. But no. Thanks to an education system that famously sides with teachers over parents and prioritizes gender confusion over historical (and biological) facts, none of the “best and brightest” from Canada’s political class was seemingly aware of their egregious faux pas.
The world has since been made aware of it, though, and Team Klaus Barbie will never live this down. In a feeble attempt to atone, they’ve since pressured Anthony Rota, the Speaker of the House, to resign and formally requested that all mention of the Nazi’s visit and salute be stricken from the House’s record. However, their request to formally sweep their humiliation under the rug has thus far been denied.
As for the 98-year-old Nazi himself, he’ll likely be extradited to Poland to stand charges for war crimes. Poland has formally filed an extradition request with Canada. God is giving Yaroslav Hunka one last chance to come clean, as up to this point he has stood defiantly proud of his participation in the Nazi atrocities. Let us pray for Mr. Hunka that he takes advantage of this opportunity and turns back to God before it’s too late for him.
Let us pray the same for Team Klaus Barbie and all the lost sheep in Canada, before God’s holy chastisement turns into God’s final judgement on that nation.
ARE YOU RUNNING THE RACE TO WIN, OR ARE YOU AIMING FOR A PARTICIPATION TROPHY?
CHARLO, New Brunswick, September 24, 2023 – Paul urged us to run the race to win. He didn’t say we’re fine just being in the race – he said we need to win it.
But what does it mean to run a race to win? Or rather, what does it require of us to run a race with the sole intention of winning?
I’m not an athlete, but I have spent time around athletes, and what I learned about them is this: They are single-minded and totally focused on sports. Everything they do, say, and think is somehow connected to sports, especially their chosen sport or the one they particularly excel at. A former professional hockey player once told me he’d sacrificed his body to hockey, and I believe him because he openly bears the facial scars to prove it, along with several missing teeth, a broken nose, fractured bones, bum knees, and sloped shoulders from stickhandling from the time he was old enough to hold a hockey stick. But he doesn’t regret it and doesn’t resent it and he wouldn’t have lived his life any other way. He’s retired now, but when he’s not playing “old-timer” hockey, he’s coaching kids’ teams at a local arena or hunched over in the bleachers somewhere, intently watching a game. At home, his TV is always on the sports channel, and he raised his kids to likewise worship hockey.
And yes, I did say that his kids were raised to worship hockey, because that’s what it is when something is so all-encompassing – it’s a form of worship.
So when Paul tells us to run the race to win, he means we have to be like an athlete who devotes everything he has, body and soul, to his sport. Such devotion becomes a form of perpetual worship that is inseparable from the worshiper. Whether on the track or off, a runner is still a runner. He lives his life with racing in mind, weighing whether or not to do this or that according to whether or not doing this or that will positively or negatively affect his racing abilities.
This should be the same for us, as Christians – whether in a church building or not, a Christian should still be a Christian. Being a Christian is not something we do haphazardly for an hour or two on the weekend and then go off and live our “real life” the rest of the week. Being a Christian is a full-time occupation that includes mandatory overtime and always being on call. We don’t get any time off. There’s no such thing as being a part-time Christian or taking a holiday from being a Christian. You’re either all-in for God and Jesus or you’re not a Christian at all.
And yes, I did say that you’re either all-in for God and Jesus or you’re not a Christian at all.
Being all-in means God and Jesus are always on your mind or not far from it. Everything you do and think is done and thought somehow in relation to God’s Kingdom. You don’t do or think things that you know are against God and his Kingdom, unless you do so unknowingly (bearing in mind that temptations rarely come labeled as temptations, and being a Christian can be a steep learning curve for some).
But I’m not saying that if you’re not all-in for God and Jesus you should just give up and drop out of the race. I’m just reminding you that you need to be all-in for God and Jesus, the way the athlete I described above is all-in for hockey. Reminding you to be all-in for God and Jesus is a reminder, not a rebuke.
It’s a reminder, not a rebuke.
It’s a reminder for you, if you’re a Christian, to keep running – to get on the track and stay on the track and run with everything you’ve got. If you’re a Christian, you’re in the race by default. We’re all in the race. I’m in the race, and I’m running to win. I’m not going to say: “That’s far enough, I’ve done enough, I can stop now” and then count on getting a participation trophy on Judgement Day. There are no participation trophies for this race. We either run it all the way to the finish line or we don’t win.
This is a peculiar kind of race, though. It’s not about how fast we run it but that we stay on the course and don’t give up. We win it not because we’re the first across the finish line but because we cross the finish line. Each of us is racing against ourselves, and the race starts when we give our lives to God and Jesus and ends when we finish our time on Earth.
So I ask you again: Are you running the race to win, or are you still aiming for the participation trophy that Satan’s ministers promised you’d get just for showing up on Sundays?
I hope you’re running the race to win.
I pray you’re running the race to win.
“Run the race to win!”
Amen.
SOUL CANCER AND THE MINISTERS OF SATAN
CHARLO, New Brunswick, September 24, 2023 – If money were cancer, how much would you want?
God asked me that a few days ago when I was mulling over how much money I didn’t have. My answer, of course, was that I wouldn’t want very much, if any.
I got my wish.
*****
Ministers of Satan have infiltrated every sizeable Christian organization in the world. In fact, most of these organizations were founded by Satan’s ministers. The smaller independent churches, street ministries, and YouTube ministries don’t work directly for Satan but still do his dirty work. You’ll know them by how they ask for money – that they ask for money – for preaching God’s Word.
“You cannot serve God and mammon.”
Jesus faced the same problem back in the day. The synagogues and the temple were fully infiltrated by ministers of Satan. Had they not been, they wouldn’t have opposed Jesus, and Jesus would have chosen his disciples from their ranks. But he didn’t take even one of them as a disciple. He chose instead common labourers and tax collectors and ladies of the night, people who had no connection whatsoever with organized religion. He chose what was despised not only by the religious rank and file but also by society in general.
Jesus himself was despised for his background, trade, and appearance. He was especially despised for his poverty. When he emerged from his forty-day fast in the desert, he had nothing but the clothes on his back. Everything he had from that point onward was given to him, not because he asked people for it but because God’s Spirit worked through people to want to give it to him. This process of God’s Spirit working through people to give free-willingly also occurred during the building of the tabernacle in the wilderness, when the children of Israel gave their jewelry and other precious belongings without being guilted or commanded to do so. The same free-will process occurred during the building of the second temple after the 70-year exile in Babylon. Free-will donations were the source of all Jesus’ wealth and sustenance during his ministry years. God provided for him, either through other people or through miraculous events like the gold coin in the fish’s mouth. Jesus never begged and he never requested donations.
This is one of the main ways to discern who are truly sent by God – they will never ask for money for preaching and teaching God’s Word. They won’t guilt you into giving. They won’t tempt you into giving. They know God will provide for them because he’s promised he will, and he does. Knowing that God will somehow provide for them, God’s true ministers have no need to ask for donations or for tithing. They also understand that “freely ye have received, freely give” are not just words on a page but a directive with the weight of a command. We have received God’s grace and Spirit for free; we didn’t pay for them. Whatever we’ve learned by virtue of having receiving God’s grace and Spirit, we therefore have no business in selling.
God is not for sale.
The extent of Satan’s infiltration in the worldly church is now more or less complete. It is impossible for Satan to infiltrate God’s Kingdom on Earth, but he’s taken charge of the worldly church. This should not be surprising to us, since Jesus did tell us that the world is under Satan. The synagogues and the temple were also under the control of Satan in Jesus’ day.
These are hard truths that most Christians reject. They will defend their worldly pastors in their worldly churches and continue to prop them up with weekly donations and other funding streams. If you tell those Christians they’re providing Satan with pocket change, they’ll shrug and curse you and maybe even up the amount they’re giving. Still, scriptural truth remains scriptural truth: You cannot serve God and mammon. Anyone who expects money in exchange for teaching God’s Word is not sent by God. We have received God’s Spirit without cost, we should share it without cost, even if we ourselves have to pay to share it. God will reimburse us.
Satan’s ministers sell God’s Word, whether overtly or through expectation, whereas God’s ministers teach God’s Word for free. These are critically important distinctions and guidances. Those who work for Satan charge for their services, and their earnings are their reward (their only reward). Those who work for God don’t charge for their services, but God provides for their needs and their reward is in Heaven.
*****
So now I ask you what God asked me: If money were cancer, how much would you want?
HOW GOD USES SECRET SOCIETIES FOR HIS PURPOSES
CHARLO, New Brunswick, September 15, 2023 – I have spent the past few months researching the interconnecting web of “secret societies” that undergird most of Canada’s private and public institutions, and it has been very eye-opening. This information should be taught in schools, not hidden in plain sight and accessible only to those who escape the brainwashing confines of mainstream media and public education.
If you knew your university was founded and run by Satanists, would attend it?
If you knew your favourite international charity funnelled most people’s donations to a slush fund for real estate investments outside your country, would you continue to donate to it?
All universities and colleges in Canada were founded by secret societies, and, though largely publicly funded through provincial taxes, these institutions continue to be havens for society members through teaching appointments, professorships, and positions of authority. Every university president in Canada is a member of a secret society.
Large institutional charities are much the same – founded by secret society members and administered by them. Donations, once in the hands of these charities, can be used at the charity’s discretion, even if the donor specifies that the donation be directed towards a particular cause.
As followers of Jesus, we know that the world is under Satan. We also know (because Jesus told us in scripture) that Jesus has overcome the world, meaning that Satan is under his command. Satan no longer has free will but must do exactly what God and Jesus tell him to do. The same goes for all the fallen angels and other fallen entities who knowingly and with full intent participated in the rebellion in Heaven. They have been judged but are permitted to continue operating in the world for the time being, not as free agents but as deliverers of temptation and of God’s justice. In other words, they do God’s dirty work, the rewards of God’s justice being bad as well as good. Satan and his minions deliver the bad rewards.
That being said, the secret societies in Canada all worship Satan, even the ones that claim to worship God. Sadly, many of the “lower” initiates in these organizations have no idea what they are worshiping, as they have been brought into the demonic fold by flattery and promises of preferential treatment in their study and careers if they adhere to the society’s rules. The societies routinely scour high schools and university campuses for promising young recruits, looking for a particular combination of intellectual capability, moral weakness, willingness to follow orders, and blind ambition. It is this latter characteristic that usually hooks the unsuspecting initiate, who then enters into the fold deeper and deeper until he feels unable to extricate himself.
The societies also avail themselves of the children of members, especially the first-born. These recruits are often promised by the parents as a contractual agreement upon entering into a higher degree within a particular order. Higher degrees of initiation mean increased preferential treatment in career initiatives, which always translates to more money, more power, and more prestige, along with heavier and much darker obligations.
Law enforcement, doctors, lawyers, bankers, and industry leaders also have their own secret societies and “colleges”, so there is no point in going to one of these so-called trusted and respected members of society to voice your concern over secret societies. You would be like a chicken going to a wolf to complain about a fox.
So, what to do? How do we live among these avowed Satanists masquerading as respectable and successful society overlords? Do we out them? Do we shun them? Do we overlook their sordid involvement in these societies and pretend we don’t know?
Obviously, we do none of the above. Jesus tells us to be as wise as serpents but as gentle as doves. He also tells us to love our enemies. People involved in the occult through these secret societies are our spiritual enemies. However, we’re to pray for them, not out them. Let them know that there is hope and there is escape, regardless of the vows they’ve been pressured to make. They can always come over to the good side – God’s side – if they, like anyone else, are willing to repent and “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God”, as followers of Jesus.
It’s important to remember that God makes the best of everything, even evil. Secret societies serve the purpose of imposing a broad order on society and providing institutionalized charity, including health care and education. If they weren’t operational, general society would be a mish-mash of competing interests along family and tribal lines and would be highly unstable and violent. It would be mob rule rather than the rule of law and order. Secret societies keep the worst of the psychopaths under control.
Obviously, I’m not a fan of secret Satan-worshiping societies and I would never join one (not that they would have me lol ;D), but I do see their purpose, which is God’s purpose for societal order. God makes the best of the bad situation of personal ambition at all costs (which is the basis for these secret societies and the ongoing grist for their mills) by mandating that the secret society members be obligated to perform charitable works, especially towards the poor. They have to perform these good works or they lose their standing within the societies.
From this, we can see how God not only uses but actually instituted secret societies for his purposes. Therefore, we, as followers of Jesus, are obligated not to “out” secret society members or harass them in any way, but to pray for them. You don’t condemn them, you pray for them.
If you suspect that some people you know personally are in a secret society, pray for them. It may be that your prayers help to bring one or more of these misguided souls back to God.
A VERY PUBLIC PRIVATE MESSAGE TO ONE WHO KNEW ME AS AN ATHEIST
CAUSAPSCAL, Quebec, September 13, 2023 – I know you drop by here occasionally to see what I’m up to, what I’ve made of myself, how I’ve changed or haven’t changed over the years. I know you’re partly curious and partly repulsed at what I’ve become, and you try to explain it by convincing yourself that I’ve gone a bit crazy, though I seem harmless enough.
And (strangely) happy enough.
Still, a religious nut is a religious nut, to be avoided at all costs.
I take your silence in stride and I don’t hold it against you. I would be far less charitable if the situation were reversed and you were writing these words and I were reading them. I would be downright and unapologetically nasty. I’m sure you remember how I used to bash religious nuts like me, though maybe you don’t remember because I didn’t really give them the time of day. To me, religious nuts weren’t worth thinking about let alone talking about. I dismissed them out of hand. They weren’t even worth a jeer.
And yet here I am today. I’ve become the thing I despised the most, and it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me and continues to be the best thing that ever happened to me, 24 years later.
Twenty-four years is a long time to be functionally crazy, or rather crazy and still a functional member of society. You would think that if I were actually crazy, I wouldn’t have been able to be a functional member of society for so long. I still run my own business, still look after my own household, still travel more or less perpetually, dealing with all the issues that come with constant travel, and through it all I remain a believer with two feet firmly on the ground.
That’s the part of me you don’t recall ever seeing – a calm Charlotte, an unflappable Charlotte, a Charlotte in control. I always seemed to be in crisis mode as an atheist. Something was always crashing down around me, and I was responding with my usual histrionics. It was non-stop high drama, but not the good kind. Not the inspirational kind. It was the dark kind. The constant thoughts of suicide kind. The acting out in violence kind. The losing it kind.
In hindsight, I know exactly what was wrong with me, though at the time I couldn’t articulate it. I couldn’t articulate it because I was an atheist who scoffed at all things God. And so I blindly raged, and you got caught in my crossfire.
I apologize for that.
We all do stupid things when we’re young, but when we get older and keep on doing them, that indicates a much deeper problem. You can’t blame youthful folly when you’re no longer a youth. But I mostly got away with being crazy as an atheist because nearly everyone around me was likewise crazy (I’m not including you in that; I’m just saying), and so we didn’t see our craziness as craziness but as life as an adult. We attributed our depression and confusion and constant upheavals to being adults, just as we attributed our alcohol dependence to being adults. We were adults with adult problems who dealt with them the way adults do: by drinking. We drank every day and didn’t think anything of it. It was normal for us. We were adults, and adults drank their problems away.
That’s another thing you wouldn’t remember about me – a sober Charlotte. You wouldn’t remember because the Charlotte you knew was perpetually inebriated. I didn’t stop drinking because I “got religion”; I stopped drinking because alcohol wasn’t doing anything for me anymore. It wasn’t making me feel good and it wasn’t relaxing me, it was just giving me a headache and making me feel numb. So I stopped drinking and I haven’t had a drink in years.
I stopped smoking, too, in case you’re wondering, though if you recall, I never really smoked, just puffed. I stopped puffing cigarettes from one day to the next, so I guess I wasn’t really addicted to them.
I’m thinking that all these changes, all these True Confessions, are making me look pretty boring in your eyes – I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I read the Bible, I’m a religious nut. And yet in these words – in the very fact that I’m writing them to you in this very public way – you still see the Charlotte you once knew. That’s because I am the same Charlotte you once knew. My personality hasn’t changed. Everything that irked you about me is still there. I still laugh too loud and usually at inappropriate moments. I’m still argumentative. I’m still always right. I’m still at times fiercely private and at other times wildly exhibitionist. I’m still unpredictable and do my own thing. I’m still hard to control.
Yet amidst all those personality quirks, a few more have been added that that weren’t there when you knew me. Think of me as “Charlotte Plus” (or Charlotte+). For instance, there’s the conciliatory Charlotte, the one who chooses to forgive rather than to hold a grudge. Imagine not holding anything against anyone! Well, you don’t have to imagine it, because I’m living it. It’s my lived reality now, and it’s very freeing and calming. There’s also the live-and-let-live Charlotte who’s not neck-deep in everyone’s business like she used to be. My new mantra is “it’s not my business”, and I leave it alone. Like not holding a grudge against anyone, not getting into other people’s business is also very freeing and calming. It’s not that I’ve stopped caring about things or people, but that I’ve recognized that I don’t have the inalienable right to know everything about everyone all the time, or to dictate my terms and opinions to everyone (unless, of course, they ask or are voluntarily reading my blog). As much as I’m always right (and I still am! lol), I don’t push my rightness uninvited on everyone like I used to. It’s not my business to interfere and dictate. I let it be.
Some other character plusses have also been added to the Charlotte you used to know, but those are the main ones. I don’t think they make me crazy, but you may beg to differ and that’s your prerogative (see? conciliatory! :D). Part of you came here out of curiosity, maybe wanting to confirm what you suspected (terminal religious nut disease; presumably incurable), while part of you doesn’t really know why you’re here or even why you’ve read this far.
But I’m glad you came and I’m glad you’re still reading.
In any case, I don’t care if people think I’m crazy. They can think whatever they want, and they’re welcome to think it. We all have a right to hold and express our own opinion (there’s that newfangled conciliatory Charlotte again!), however arse-backwards it may be (and there’s the old Charlotte!). I used to hold the opinion that God didn’t exist and that anyone who believed in him was an idiot, and so I lived my life accordingly, and you know firsthand what a disaster that was. Now I believe that God exists and I live my life accordingly, and it’s a pretty good life. In fact, it’s awesome in the truest sense of the word. I’m not rich, but I always have enough. I never really know what I’ll be doing tomorrow or where I’ll lay my head at night, but I take each day in stride and look forward to the next. I say my prayers at bedtime and fall asleep happy and content. And I attribute all of these improvements (and you have to admit, they are improvements) to being born again.
I wrote an article a while back about how my personality didn’t change when I was born again. The core of who I was remained the same; what changed were my values, and they changed 180 degrees in an instant. That’s called a miracle. It can’t be explained by science. Maybe science would theorize that I went crazy, but the past 24 years of my being a functioning member of society would essentially prove that theory wrong.
I’m going to leave you with that. Again, I’m glad you dropped by. If you want to drop me a line, please do. If you don’t want to, that’s OK, too.
I wasn’t going to tell you, but you’re in my prayers, whether you want to be there or not.
NO, JESUS LIKELY ISN’T COMING BACK ANY TIME SOON. HERE’S WHY.
CHARLO, New Brunswick, September 10, 2023 – A good percentage of professing Christians, particularly American evangelicals, have jumped on the “Jesus is coming back soon!” bandwagon. They declare themselves “rapture-ready” and eager to join Jesus in the clouds as soon as he makes his appearance.
The only problem is that Jesus is likely not coming back any time soon. And for good reason. Christianity still makes up the lion’s share of believers in America (close to 65% of the population). The percentage of believers is mostly lower in other parts of former Christendom, but still hovers just above or below the 50% mark. While these percentages are low compared to 100 years ago, when nearly 100% of people in Christian nations claimed to be Christian, they still represent nearly one-third of the world’s population.
That’s good right?
I think it’s good.
But the people longing for Jesus to come back soon might not agree with me. Because, you see, as long as nearly one-third of the people on Earth claim to be Christian, Jesus likely won’t come back.
In Luke’s gospel, Jesus says: When the son of man returns, will he find faith on Earth? This is a rhetorical question that implies Jesus won’t find any faith (or not much faith) when he comes back in his glorified flesh. But surely among the more than 2 billion souls in the world today who count themselves Christian, there must be some who actually have what Jesus calls “faith”. I mean, even if only 1 per cent of the 2 billion has the kind of faith that gets Jesus’ seal of approval, that would still be 20 million souls. Ten per cent would be 200 million. Would Jesus dismiss 20-200 million souls as negligible? That’s a rhetorical question, too, and the answer is also clearly “no”.
So here’s the conundrum: People want Jesus to come back soon, but in order for him to come back, the scripture about the radical lack of faith needs to be fulfilled. Remember that Paul also talked about a “falling away” that would happen before believers would be “caught up in the cloud” with Jesus. If the generational trend of ~10% fewer believers with each successive generation continues, it will be at least another 100 years before the Christian percentage of even America’s population reaches what could reasonably be called critical or negligible numbers. Meanwhile, Christianity is actually expanding elsewhere in the world and is the Number One religion that people of other belief systems convert to, if and when they do convert.
Mind you, a lot of things can happen to reduce the number of believers faster than the current trend indicates. War, famine, disease, natural disasters, etc., could put an unanticipated dent in the Christian population. So could outlawing Christianity, which is not as farfetched as it sounds. Several countries in the world today forbid Christian evangelizing or church attendance, and murmurings about the Bible being “hate speech” are growing louder and louder in parts of former Christendom, perhaps leading to a point where the Bible is outlawed altogether in those areas. Not to mention that artificial intelligence has proposed rewriting the Bible to be more “inclusive” (I’m guessing the rewriting has already been done) and China has produced a version of scripture that’s been sanitized for communist sensibilities. None of this bodes well for the long-term outlook on faith as modeled by Jesus, even if in the short-term there is a slight bump in numbers before the long, inevitable, and prophesied decline.
But such a decline is still decades away if we go by the percentages and numbers and trends as they present themselves today. Again, there could be “rapid intensification” (to borrow a meteorological term) of the decline in Christianity or there could be a slowing down of the decline. Lots of factors in play here. What is known, however, is that scripture cannot be undone, and that Jesus prophesied a near total absence of faith and Paul a radical reduction in faith as an unmistakable sign that would occur prior to Jesus’ return. With our 2-billion-plus self-professed Christians, we are obviously nowhere near that state of being, and I say THANK GOD FOR THAT, as a world bereft of believers will be so spiritually toxic, it will literally unleash Hell on Earth. Things might seem bad now in comparison to what they were a few decades ago, but they’re nowhere near as bad as Noah’s day or Lot’s day. They’re not yet Hell on Earth. Not yet, anyway.
So the Good News is that there’s still time for people to hear God’s Word and convert, and still time for those who have strayed off the path to get back on it. The bad news, for some, is that Jesus is very likely not coming back any time soon. Certainly, we need to remember that we can’t know the exact time when he’ll come back and that he told us outright he’d come when we least expect him, so anything’s possible in that regard. However, he also told us to watch for certain signs, one of the chief ones being a catastrophic decline in faith to the point of seeming non-existence. We are not there yet. We will get there some day (although I promise you, none of us will want to be on Earth when that happens, things will be so bad for believers), but we’re not there yet.
Thank God, we’re not there yet.
TALKING TO DEAD PEOPLE
CHARLO, New Brunswick, September 5, 2023 – Do not talk to dead people: God forbids it in the Old Testament. If you have something to say to a loved one who’s passed on, take it to God and Jesus. When you’re at the grave of a loved one, tell God and Jesus whatever it is you want to tell your loved one. But do not talk directly to the deceased. That’s how you open doors to malevolent spirits, no matter how well-intentioned you are or how protected you think you are by God’s Holy Spirit.
Graveyards have earned a reputation over the centuries for being places haunted by evil entities. This is a well-deserved reputation, as evil entities are in fact being unwittingly summoned when people go to graveyards to talk to their deceased loved ones. There are no haunted places, only haunted people. Do not become a target of evil spirits by summoning them when you talk to dead people. Direct your communications only to God and Jesus.
Demons are always hanging around, waiting for you to slip up. If you try to communicate with someone who’s passed on, it becomes a major opportunity for the demons to pretend they’re the person you’re trying to reach. DO NOT TALK TO DEAD PEOPLE, including “saints”. Do not pray to “saints” and do not pray to angels (even the holy ones). Your prayers should only be directed to God and Jesus. DO NOT TALK TO DEMONS OR OTHER FALLEN SPIRITS, other than, during an exorcism, to ask their name and then tell them to leave. The only communications you should be making in prayer are to God and Jesus, no-one else.
Please remember that.
TALKING TO COUNSELLORS
As born-again believers, we know that God and Jesus are with us 24/7, thanks to the intervention of God’s Holy Spirit. No-one on Earth is better at listening or giving advice and guidance than God and Jesus. If you’re a born-again believer, there is no reason whatsoever for you to go to a guidance counsellor or a marriage counsellor or a financial counsellor or any other kind of counsellor. None. No reason. It’s an insult to God and Jesus when you by-pass them and go to a worldly counsellor.
How can a person help you more than God and Jesus can help you? Whatever problem you have, whatever advice you need, there’s no-one better to ask than God and Jesus. No-one can give you a sense of relief and peace like God and Jesus can. And best of all, their advice and counselling are FREE. They never charge a cent. And you never have to make an appointment – they’re available whenever you need them.
Let unbelievers go to worldly counsellors (God made worldly counsellors for the sake of unbelievers), but born-again believers have no cause to use their services. Any problem you have, take it to God and Jesus. Whatever your issue, take it to God and Jesus. They’re always waiting and willing and happy to hear from you.
TALKING TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY
It’s tempting for us to unburden ourselves to family and friends, including our Christian family. But we need to be very, very careful about who we choose to unburden to and very, very selective about what we choose to reveal. Scripture tells us that even our closest friends and family members, including spouses, could end up being our worst enemies, and not necessarily from anything they do intentionally. What they mean for our good may be contrary to what God wants for us. Think of Jesus’ mother coming to take him home when he was healing people in Capernaum. Mary thought she was doing the right thing – the motherly thing – by protecting Jesus, but she was in fact doing the opposite by trying to stop Jesus’ ministry.
We can never fully trust anyone in a mortal body, even those who claim to be born-again, as their inspiration may not always come from God and their intentions, despite their smooth words, may not always be noble. Scripture tells us that Jesus never unburdened himself to any of his disciples. If he had a problem, he took it to God. If he had a concern, he took it to God. If he had a suspicion, he took it to God. He played his spiritual cards very close to his chest when it came to his disciples and everyone else except for his Heavenly Father. Revelations from God Jesus only revealed when God gave him the go-ahead to do so.
As born-again believers, we’re surrounded by enemies 24/7 – spiritual ones as well as flesh-covered ones. Even those who claim to have our best interests at heart and to be on our side should be held at arm’s length and never fully confided in, never fully trusted. God we can trust, Jesus we can trust, but everyone else, no. Not being perfected, everyone else is fully capable of betrayal, everyone else is still able to choose against God, everyone else is still able to fall and take us down with them.
I want this thought to disturb you. I want the thought that you can only trust God and Jesus to so deeply disturb you that it takes root in your heart and you mull it over until it becomes part of you, until it becomes your default position. I want you to hold this disturbing thought up against scripture to see if you find support for it there. ****SPOILER ALERT**** You will find support. All throughout scripture, you’ll find warnings not to trust people. Some of the warnings will be overt and some will be revealed in sordid tales with sordid outcomes detailing the fatal consequences of unwisely trusting people. You must learn not to trust people. As a born-again believer, not trusting people must be your default.
Jesus sacrificed himself so that we could have a close relationship with him and with God through God’s Holy Spirit. There’s no-one else we truly need to lean on during the rest of our time on Earth, and no-one else we should trust.
BUDDY WITH THE CROSS ON WHEELS
CHARLO, New Brunswick, September 5, 2023 – So there’s this guy who’s been dragging around a 55-lb wooden cross on wheels for the past several decades. He’s travelled all over the world with his crosses (he’s onto his third) and claims to have influenced countless people to turn back to God. Hmmm, I thought. Shades of Isaiah walking barefoot and naked for three years or John the Baptist wandering in the wilderness. Could we have a real live witness on our hands?
So I took the bait and clicked on his website. After a quick scan of the main page, what to my wondering eyes should appear but an ad for a self-published book about what the Holy Spirit had taught this holy-roller during his travels. The book also offers tips on how to evangelize. All I had to do was cough up $20 CAD and I could save myself the trouble of buying 40 years worth of running shoes, not to mention 40 years worth of aching muscles and hand blisters – the cross doesn’t carry itself, ya know!
Dang! Warm and fuzzy false prophet nearly fooled me again.
I am not against Christians making money. Jesus told us we should pray to God to give us our daily bread, which means praying for the means to pay for it. Paul made and repaired tents for his daily bread and encouraged us to work for enough $$$ to earn ours. I’m not against Christians earning money. In the world we need money, not much, but at least some.
What I’m against is Christians monetizing God’s Holy Spirit. That’s what I’m against, because Jesus taught us: “Freely ye receive; freely ye give”. Buddy with the cross on wheels should not be selling a book about what God taught him during his travels and he definitely shouldn’t be charging people for “tips” on how to preach the Word. If he wants to sell a book, he could sell one about the best kind of shoes to wear when dragging a cross across continents; he could sell a book about the different kinds of people he’s encountered or the places he’s stayed or the experiences he’s had along the way. Heck, he could even sell t-shirts or travel mugs or a miniature action figure of himself carrying a cross on wheels – anything but put a price tag on revelations from God.
Revelations from God should NEVER be monetized.
If he were genuinely sent by God, he’d know this. He wouldn’t have to be told.
I despise people selling what Jesus says should be shared for free. I despise it the way Jesus despised the moneychangers setting up shop in the temple. The Number One trait of a false prophet is asking for donations or charging money for what should be free. Every false prophet does it. Jesus says you cannot serve God and mammon. By asking for money for what should be freely shared, false prophets out themselves by clearly showing who they serve.
If Paul could take time from his preaching duties to make tents, we can likewise find a few hours here and there to carry out some menial chore that will earn us what we need to keep body and soul together while we devote the rest of our time to God’s work. Jesus never begged or solicited donations and neither should we. Anyone who asks for money in God’s name is a false prophet.
Zero exceptions.
At the same time, those who are genuinely sent by God should without hesitation and with gratitude accept any monetary gift offered them free-willingly, knowing that such gifts come from God and will bless the giver more than the receiver. We should never get in the way of people’s blessings by refusing to accept gifts given to us free-willingly. Refusing monetary gifts offered to us free-willingly is a sign of pride. Never refuse such gifts.
But never solicit such gifts, either. Never make people feel obligated to pay for God’s Word in any way, not even during a church service. Mainstream religion is the worst of the worst of the false prophets. Were those organizations genuinely sent by God, they wouldn’t need to ritualistically apportion part of the service to “giving” and “offerings”, because God would prompt people to give without being asked.
I hate the world. I hate how it operates, and I hate how religion monetizes God and Jesus. The only thing of value on this Earth, besides souls, is the revelation of God’s Truth. For it to be reduced to $20 CAD is to me loathsome, no matter how warm and fuzzy the story of the person who’s charging it.
So I was wrong about the cross-on-wheels guy being like a modern day Isaiah or John the Baptist, but I wasn’t wrong about someone like the cross-on-wheels guy being in the Bible. He’s in there, all right. He’s one of the many false prophets.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 