“IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME; I THOUGHT I WAS DOING THE RIGHT THING”
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, March 13, 2024 – Of all God’s characteristics mentioned by name in the Bible, “practical” is glaringly absent. As are “logical”, “reasonable”, “expedient”, and similar terms. Those words are never used to describe God because God’s ways are waaaaay higher than ours, and what flies as an excuse with us doesn’t fly with God.
There’ll be lots of long line-ups on Judgement Day when all souls come before God to plead their cause. But the longest line-up by far will be the one for souls using the excuse “it seemed like a good idea at the time and I thought I was doing the right thing”. That line-up’s going to wrap around and around eternity at least a few times before merging on the far side of the judgement seat with the road to Hell paved with good intentions. I pray to God that I don’t see you in that line-up (and I pray to God that you don’t see me). We born-agains should know better than to act without first asking God for his guidance, because that excuse (thinking it was a good idea at the time and thinking we were doing the right thing) will not be acceptable on Judgement Day. Not for us.
I can imagine that Herod, if asked why he decreed that all children aged 2 years and under should be slaughtered, might say: “I thought I was doing the right thing”. Judas Iscariot might say the same if asked why he betrayed Jesus, or Nero if asked why he ordered Paul beheaded. Even Moses might declare that killing the Egyptian who was beating the Hebrew seemed like the right thing to do, maybe even the godly thing to do. Certainly Peter thought that attacking the soldier to defend Jesus at his arrest was the right thing to do – was it not logical, reasonable, expedient, and even expected that he should defend Jesus? To the world, yes. Only, Jesus didn’t see it that way, so he healed the wounded soldier and reminded his followers yet again that those who live by the sword die by the sword.
God’s ways are wonderous, miraculous, perfectly timed, and for most people mysterious. What seems a logical or practical way forward from our perspective is not God’s way. That’s why we always need to ask God for his guidance before we decide to do something, however righteous or godly we think that something might be. Years ago, I came into possession of some highly sensitive information I thought might be expedient to hand on to the person concerned. But on the day that I was preparing to relay the information, God stopped me in my tracks (literally; I nearly did a faceplant over my bike’s handlebars) and told me if I proceeded with my plans – however well-intentioned I thought them to be – I’d lose my grace.
As I mentioned, that was a long time ago, long before I got into the habit of going to God for guidance before planning anything. I no longer plan to do something and then afterwards, when everything’s ready to go, ask God’s blessing on my enterprise and expect to get it. That’s not how we’re to do things, as followers of Jesus, because that’s not how Jesus did things. Jesus said he always did that which pleased the Father, and the only way we’re going to do everything that pleases God is to go to God first for guidance and then to make plans based on that.
Think for a second of the times when things have blown up in your face as a born-again believer. I’m guessing that each of those times you were doing things that you hadn’t been guided by God to do. Now think of the times when God has specifically guided you to do something or to wait for his signal before acting. See the difference?
To me, it’s not a restriction but a great comfort to go to God for guidance in everything I do. I don’t feel that my freedom is in any way inhibited by so doing, any more than a paintbrush would feel restricted or inhibited in the hand of Michaelangelo or Monet. I’m grateful for the privilege of having learned to place myself into God’s hands and to let him guide me in ways that might seem impractical, illogical, or even foolish to the world. I’d rather be a fool in the eyes of the ungodly than to land in that long, long line-up that ends in Hell.
EVERYDAY JESUS
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, March 12, 2024 – I am not a fan of religion. I believe that organized religion, more than any other force on Earth (including sin and Satan) is the biggest barrier stopping people from seeking God. This should be ironic, that religion prevents people from finding God, but it’s actually been par for the course for thousands of years. Jesus also had issues with organized religion during his ministry years and likewise considered it to be the main stumbling block to genuine faith.
Even so, organized religion can still be used as a resource tool for genuine believers. It has good value in that regard and God permits it to continue mainly for that purpose. In my case, God encouraged me to attend mass every day for nearly three and a half years after I was reborn from atheism so that I could be in an environment where belief was accepted and I could hear God’s Word spoken and explained, albeit from a Catholic perspective. I was grateful at the time (and still am) that the doors to the various Catholic churches I attended were open for the scheduled services and that the priests did the job they were paid to do. But as I matured in my faith and reached the stage where I needed to be consciously developing a relationship with God as my Father and Jesus as my brother and best friend, God pulled back the veil cloaking Catholicism, and what I saw made me walk out, never to return.
Jesus used the synagogues and the temple for teaching purposes. He also took full advantage of the hospitality of the religious powers-that-be by accepting their invitations to dine, knowing full well that their motive for inviting him was less than charitable. But eating at their tables and using their religious buildings for his purposes didn’t blind Jesus to the problems inherent in organized religion and didn’t stop him from making the best of the situation and suggesting better ways forward than killing those who disagreed with you. He didn’t overlook the corruption and rot that had come to characterize Judaism; he stared it down and offered himself as a solution.
Faith, as we know, is far more than just reciting a list of beliefs and attending a service. Faith is life, as much as God is life and Jesus is life. I know for a sure fact that without my faith, I would be dead. My faith encompasses my belief in God and Jesus and everything they teach, but it also includes how I interact with people on a day-to-day basis when I’m not consciously thinking about God and Jesus. My faith informs those interactions, and charity guides them. That’s the goal, anyway.
When Jesus said that God was looking for people to worship him in spirit and in truth, he meant God was looking for genuine believers who were interested in the practical application of Jesus’ teachings, not hypocrites who relied on ritual to mask their lack of belief. Ritual has its place in faith when used sparingly (like in the changes to the ritual of the Passover meal that Jesus introduced), but it should never override faith or be equated with faith. Ritual should never be the centerpiece of faith. The centerpiece of faith should always be our one-on-one relationship with God and Jesus, which should not be contrived and preset but unfeigned and spontaneous, the way we are with anyone we love and who loves us in return.
What does the practical application of Jesus’ teachings look like? It can take many forms, but it definitely doesn’t look like religion. It looks like everyday life. It also doesn’t announce itself as the practical application of Jesus’ teachings: It simply responds to situations as Jesus did.
We born-again believers aren’t called to be religious; we’re called to follow Jesus, which means we’re called to make the same life choices Jesus did – everyday Jesus, not religious Jesus. There’s no such person as religious Jesus.
May you never let religion come between you and God.
ON KILLING AND HUMAN SACRIFICE
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, March 11, 2024 – When you fight in a war to kill “the enemy”, you strengthen the devil’s forces. Sure, you might temporarily stop, disarm, or even defeat your military foes, but in killing them, you give the victory to your spiritual enemies.
All wars are human sacrifice. The purpose of this form of sacrifice is not, as soldiers are told, to “die for your country” or for any other allegedly noble cause but to enable evil to grow. This is the sole purpose of war and violent revolutions: to increase the percentage of evil in the world.
Human sacrifice does not make things better for a nation. If it did, God would not only have allowed it but blessed and mandated it. Instead, he commanded us not to kill. Jesus said that if we are his followers, we will keep his Commandments and we will love our enemies. Loving our enemies does not involve killing them.
Yes, Jesus advised us to get a weapon when the time comes, but he didn’t say to use it with lethal force. Our weapons are for deterrence purposes only. I’m talking to Christians here, genuine Christians. Jesus never asked us to kill anyone in his name, though he did warn us that we might have to die in his name. If Jesus never asked us to kill in his name, then we are not to kill under any circumstance.
All wars are human sacrifice. All killings of humans are sacrifices, whether done rashly in the heat of the moment or coldly at the point of a needle. All killings are human sacrifice, and every human sacrifice expands Satan’s turf and makes the forces of evil stronger.
We need to consider this now and in the days to come, because God’s saints will be tempted to take up arms. But there’s no such thing as a “Christian soldier” who kills humans. It’s not God who’s calling us to kill in his name and it’s not God who’s tempting us to take up arms with the intent to kill: It’s the devil masquerading as righteousness. And as we know, the devil is very good at his masquerades, which means the temptation will be very strong.
All killings of humans are human sacrifice. This includes euthanasia and, of course, abortion. The purpose of all such killings is to increase the percentage of evil functioning in the world. Evil attends on the killer, following him home and taking root wherever he lives. Nothing improves in the life of a killer following the kill, not in the godly sense. There is no godly improvement in the life of a killer as long as he remains unrepentant.
Millions of Americans identify as Christians, but how many of them would kill in defense of their country, property, or family, or even kill in defense of their right to kill?
Every killing of a human by a human is human sacrifice. When you support the killing of humans or demand it as a right, you’re serving Satan.
God doesn’t demand human sacrifice; Satan does.
WHEN TIME’S UP
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, March 11, 2024 – Jesus once wondered aloud whether he’ll find faith on Earth when he returns. He also mentioned that if God didn’t shorten the final stage of the tribulation period, no-one would survive, but for the sake of his elect he’ll shorten it.
Our numbers are dwindling. Even as the official head count of the worldly church continues to increase, the remnant Church is shrinking day by day with every passing or falling away of a believer. No-one is rising to take their place. Scripture tells of a time when there’ll be silence in Heaven, which I interpret as a time of no more conversions. There may be false conversions (we’ve had those since the beginning), but no more genuine conversions, no more rebirths. God’s voice will no longer be heard by potential converts, so hardened hearts will no longer have the opportunity to soften: “If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your heart.” The opportunity to “seek the Lord while he may be found” will also have ended and no matter how desperate the pleas, they won’t be answered, just like the pleas of those drowning in the Flood waters went unanswered and the screams of those being massacred in Jerusalem were ignored.
When time’s up, it’s up.
There’s a doctrine of men that insists God will rescue anyone who calls on him right up to and including Jesus’ return. The sole intent of this false doctrine is to lull people into believing that there’ll always be more time to make things right between you and God, so that even if you miss the last bus tonight, you can catch one tomorrow morning. But what if there won’t be a bus tomorrow morning? What if there won’t even be any more buses tonight?
When the age of mercy ends and universal judgement begins, the sealing of God’s people will be complete and no more sheep can enter the fold. They’ll be able to exit, but they won’t be able to enter. And if they do exit, they can’t come back.
The book of Revelation tells of a time when there will only be the condemned who’ve taken the mark and the remnant who’ve been sealed. There is no third category of people mentioned, such as, for example, those who’ve refused the mark but haven’t (yet) been sealed. There are only the condemned and the remnant. Find me, if you will, that third category of people in the book of Revelation, because I’ve scoured the text and found no mention of them. There’s just the condemned and the remnant Church.
The purpose of the age of judgement is to determine each soul’s eternal reward. After the sealing, the age of mercy ends and the age of judgement begins. This is not the wrath (the wrath comes after the judgement, after Jesus has taken his Church Home and leaves only the condemned behind); it’s a time of determination. During the age of judgement, all souls on Earth will be tested to see where they belong in the eternal realm.
Being sealed doesn’t exempt you from being tested. Being sealed also doesn’t exempt you from falling into perdition. Being sealed marks you as God’s child, which affords you certain spiritual protections, though not necessarily physical ones. Scripture is clear that the age of judgement will be a time of all-out war against God’s children and that most will be martyred and some will fall.
We always like to believe there’ll be more time. Even Jesus thought there’d be more time for him to do his Father’s work, but when God gave the signal, he had to go. Our time, when it comes, might also come with the sense that it came too soon, that we need more time, that we still have work to do. But God knows best and his timing is perfect, and so like Jesus we’ll have to go.
In the meantime, also like Jesus, we need to devote each and every day to serving God and serving God only – not serving the world, thinking we’ll have the time to serve God later, not dividing our time between God and the world. No, we need to spend each day now serving God and God only, because tomorrow’s not a guarantee, and you will be held accountable (that is a guarantee) for every second you spent as a believer with your back turned to God.
The book of Revelation tells of a sealing and then a time of judgement that is also a time of testing and, for some, of falling away. How do we avoid falling away? By spending each and every day serving God and God only, like Jesus did.
There’s no other way.
URGENT!
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, March 8, 2024 – The Gospel message is not for the faint of heart or procrastinators. If you live your life in fear, clinging to the flotsam and jetsam of the world for support and treading water rather than swimming for heavenly shores, you’ll never make it Home. Because the Gospel message is about urgency, about letting go of the world and being ready to leave wherever you are and whatever you’re doing at a moment’s notice, even and especially when you least expect it.
God gave his people the feast of unleavened bread as a reminder of the urgency of doing his will. Urgency means keeping God’s commands whether you’re ready to keep them or not, whether you’ve added them to your schedule or not. The Hebrews had to leave Egypt so fast, their bread didn’t even have time to rise and they had to bake it and eat it unleavened. This is the purpose of keeping the feast of unleavened bread – as a tactile reminder of the urgency of doing God’s will. When God gives you his orders (which, by the way, you’re still free to disobey, though I strongly recommend against it), you don’t have time to sit around sipping tea and planning in minute detail how the orders should be carried out. Ask Noah how much time he had when God said “Go!” Sure, up until that point he had plenty of time when God was giving him the specifications for building the ark, but when go-time came, it was now or never for Noah.
Just like it’s now or never for us.
Jesus lived his ministry years as if he were under a state of emergency. He dropped all pretence of “business as usual”, immediately walking away from his carpentry business and home life in Nazareth when God gave the signal. He whittled his needs down to the bare minimum (food, water, warmth, and air) and spent each and every day serving God. Jesus didn’t just preach and teach the Gospel – he lived it. And in living it, he showed his followers how they likewise should live it.
The parable of the ten virgins and the oil in their lamps is for us. All ten had lamps, but only five had the forethought to fill their lamps with oil. The five that didn’t have oil tried to bum some from the other five, but the other five quite rightly refused to give them any, telling them to go buy what they needed, which they did. When they came back with their lamps freshly filled with the oil, fully expecting to be let into the wedding feast, they found the door shut. Yet even in the face of the closed and locked door, they still believed all they had to do was to call out and they would be let in. But it was too late for them. They’d slackened at the wrong time, and no amount of scrambling or pleading could make up for that.
All their last-ditch efforts were in vain.
The Gospel message is not for the faint of heart or for procrastinators. If you’re not living your life like Jesus did, like his disciples did, like Paul did – as if under a state of emergency – you’ll end up like the five virgins who got eternally locked out of the wedding feast.
The Gospel message is first and foremost one of urgency to serve God and to do his will day in and day out. If you’re not yet doing that, and if you don’t make up your mind to do it now – today – and for the rest of your days on Earth, you won’t make it Home.
“WHO IS TRUTH?”
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, March 7, 2024 – During Jesus’ trial, Pontius Pilate rather sardonically muttered as an aside: “What is truth?”, likely not expecting anyone to answer him let alone record his question for posterity. And yet here we are, nearly 2000 years later, not only repeating Pilate’s question but happy to finally set the poor man straight. (“Better late than never”, as my grandmother would say.)
First of all, Pilate’s remark needs rephrasing. He shouldn’t have asked “What is truth?” but “Who is Truth?”, and the answer to that question is, of course, “God”.
God is Truth. As believers, we’ve heard this countless times and (if we’re believers) wholeheartedly agree. But for unbelievers like Pilate, it’s simply a shrugging moment. So what if God is Truth?
We believers need to address their shrugs because a lot rides on God being Truth. God’s quality of being Truth works in tandem with all his other qualities, like being Loving, Just, Merciful, Good, Omniscient, Eternal, Unchanging, and so on. If God isn’t Truth, then he can’t be the wonderful qualities we’ve come to know about him. He would just be relative lies, the kind that social justice and the evil “DIE” trinity are based on.
Back when I was an atheist, I would have waved enthusiastic jazz hands at Pilate’s sardonic aside. But the instant I was born-again, I knew Truth, and knowing Truth, I also knew what wasn’t Truth. Jesus tells us that Truth is a Spirit – not a thing, but a living being – and that the Spirit of Truth inhabits believers. At my rebirth, God’s Spirit of Truth entered into me and I could see – really see – for the first time in my life. By “see”, I mean that I finally understood how the world works and why people do what they do. I could see what motivated them and what enticed them. I finally understood why things are the way they are, an understanding that had eluded me from the time I was old enough to wonder why things are the way they are.
My eureka moment of understanding has lasted now for nearly 25 years. In that time, I’ve come not only to know who Truth is, but to get to know him personally, one-on-one. Truth is my heavenly Father, the same Father Jesus spoke of during his ministry years, the same Father Jesus was referring to after his resurrection, when he told Mary Magdalene: “go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God”.
God is Truth. Because he is Truth, he is also all good things by virtue simply of being Who He Is. Jesus said that none are good but God. Since we know that is a factual statement (Jesus never lied to us), then we know of a certainty that God is good and that all good things come from God. We know of a certainty that the way things are is precisely as God’s Spirit of Truth shows them to be. My understanding of God’s Truth and God-as-Truth is not based on my own understanding but on God’s revelations through his written Word and his Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit has been with me now for nearly two and half decades since my rebirth, teaching me and revealing more and more of God to me as my capacity grows to receive him. By “capacity”, I mean faith. By “capacity”, I mean faithfulness.
The world is blind and deaf to God and his Spirit, as Jesus told us it would be. We who see and hear are blessed beyond measure, as this gift cannot be bought or bartered or sold, no, not for any price. The richest and most powerful people in the world, even if they pooled all their wealth and persuasion, still could not purchase the smallest measure of God’s Holy Spirit. The tiniest of slivers would still be unattainable to them, and yet we, the “afflicted and poor”, received a generous measure of God’s Spirit as a welcoming gift when we entered into God’s Kingdom at our rebirth.
Pilate knew Jesus didn’t deserve the death penalty, but his hands were tied and he had to give into the mob’s demands. If Pilate had known God to be the truth he’d so cynically dismissed, perhaps he would have stood his ground. Perhaps he would have taken Jesus and hidden him away, like Paul had been hidden away before being rescued. But had he done that, Pilate wouldn’t have fulfilled scripture. His blindness to Truth was part and parcel of prophecy, as is the world’s blindness, as was our own blindness, before we could see.
God is Truth. Thank God we know this now with every fiber of our being.
Thank God we see.
__________
“Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: For I tell you, that many prophets and kings desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them….”
Luke 10:23-24
__________
WILTED ROSES AND AN EMPTY CHOCOLATE BOX: A MEDITATION ON ROMANTIC LOVE
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, March 6, 2024 – God permits romantic love as a comfort to those who won’t receive his love. God also uses romantic love to test his children, to see where their loyalty lies. Jesus’ first order of business, after calling his disciples, was to have them leave their wives. This was a permanent separation. When the remnant of the children of Israel returned to Jerusalem after their Babylonian exile, they had to leave their non-Jewish spouses. This leave-taking was also permanent. Romantic love in and of itself isn’t evil, but the devil can use it as a conduit for evil, which is why we children of God are better off without it.
As a woman raised in Western tradition, I am as much a sucker as most other Western females for a happy ending that involves an impossibly handsome prince declaring his undying love and loyalty and sealing the deal with a ring. Only there is no such prince in reality, and the only one who can declare his undying love and mean it is God.
“I will never leave you or forsake you.”
Romantic love is different things to different people, but the core always involves replacing God with a person. You place your love in a person and look to that person to love you in return. And not just love you but be faithful and honest and perpetually attentive and sensitive to your every mood and whim. You set yourself up for a fall in romantic love by expecting a human to be what only God can be. And then when the beloved is revealed to be just that – a human with all the attendant flaws of a human – along come the hurt feelings and the accusations that may or may not resolve, and the ring on your finger turns into a dead weight dragging you down into the realm of compromise where even infidelity and abuse become more acceptable than being alone.
In the opening pages of Genesis, after Eve admits to her disobedience, God tells her that all her desire from that point onward will be to her husband and that he will rule over her. This is not a blessing; this is very much a curse. Eve was created as a “helpmeet” to Adam, to be his companion and equal; different, but equal. Adam and Eve enjoyed each other’s company but didn’t obsess over each other. Their loyalty was to God. This joining of equals whose focus is on God is no longer possible in a fallen (that is, cursed) world, which is why it is better for God’s children not to marry. Marriage in a fallen world, even between believers, will not only bring pain but will divert the spouses’ attention away from God and onto each other.
Jesus describes how some people become eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. He’s not talking here about physical alterations to the body but spiritual ones. Paul states that it’s best to remain as he was (unmarried and celibate), though he also admits that such a choice is not for everyone. What he’s saying is that not everyone is willing to give up romantic love for God’s love. What he’s saying is that not everyone is willing to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. If you love God like that, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and in so doing keep the first and what Jesus called the most important Commandment, you have no need for romantic love. You have no room for romantic love. You have no time for romantic love.
I wrote a few days ago about the difference between wants and needs. I add to these your emotional needs (also your spiritual needs), which are to love God and to receive his love in return. If you’re deprived of one or more of your physical needs for long enough, your body will die. If you’re deprived of one or both of your spiritual needs, your soul will die.
Romantic love is a diversion that shifts your focus from God to your romantic partner. As such, romantic love has no intrinsic spiritual value, but God allows it as a comfort for those who won’t receive his love. Romantic love is a God-replacement, but why would we, as born-again believers, want to replace God? Jesus said that those who are worthy of the Kingdom neither marry nor are given in marriage. Why would we, as followers of Jesus, ignore Jesus’ advice?
The pain of romantic love shows its vast inferiority to God’s love.
TALENTS
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, March 5, 2024 – Imagine if all God’s children took the talents God gave them and invested them solely in God’s Kingdom. Imagine if all God’s children took their wisdom or their intelligence or their athleticism or their creativity and gave it all to God so that he could redistribute those talents where they were needed most, to help those who need them most.
Imagine if all God’s children took the very best parts of themselves and gave them all back to God.
When you give the best that you have to the service of God’s Kingdom, God magnifies it, perfects it, focuses it, and invests it. So instead of one talent, you have ten, and instead of ten talents, you have a hundred, and those talents are dispersed and mixed and spread and massaged until they take root in the darkness and drive it away. God does more with your talents than you or the devil could possibly do, because he knows where those talents are needed most and because the devil is there, too, waiting in the wings. Oh, you’d better believe the devil is there, biding his time and waiting to catch your eye to give you The Offer™. Jesus isn’t the only one standing outside knocking; the devil is knocking, too, only he wants to pay you for your talents.
He wants you to expect payment.
Big payment.
He wants you to think that payment in exchange for your talents is your birthright.
But payment is the devil’s way of owning you.
“You cannot serve God and mammon.”
Giving the best of yourself to the service of God’s Kingdom means giving it without expecting payment. But why would you do that? Why would you give away for free what can make you money? When we financialize the talents God gives us to use in his service, we’re serving mammon, not God. It’s a very simple and very clear distinction.
Jesus never sold the Gospel. He never charged for his healings. He fed the thousands for free. He never begged or asked for donations. Paul likewise never charged for his service to God. None of the apostles did. They went without food and shelter rather than charge a fee. Their poverty was a test, as ours is for us.
Imagine if all God’s children took the very best part of themselves and gave it to God, like Jesus did, expecting nothing in return.
Imagine if everything we did was all and only for the glory of God.
WANTS AND NEEDS
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, March 4, 2024 – What are your needs? As a born-again believer, you have needs like everyone else, but what are they?
The answer might surprise you. Here are your needs: Enough food and water to keep you alive for the day, sufficient heat to keep your body warm, breathable air, and sufficient sleep. Jesus even did without the need for food and water for 40 days and nights, as did Moses when he was on Mount Sinai. Funny, that, how they could live so long without food or water when allegedly (according to scientists) you die within a few days without hydration. How did they manage to stay alive without water? Were they both fibbing about their fast?
What did Jesus himself say about needs? He said “seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and everything you need will be given to you”. He didn’t say that everything you want will be given to you (prosperity preachers, I’m talking to you!). He didn’t say everything that would be nice to have would be given to you. No, he said “everything you need”.
So again I ask you – what are your needs?
We need to know what our needs are and to be satisfied with having those satisfied, because if we don’t know what our needs are, the devil is going to tempt us into wanting more than we need, and that’s when the trouble starts.
Coveting is as much of an issue today as it was back in Moses’ day when the Command not to covet was given to us. To covet means to want something you don’t need. It’s a lot like greed. The devil is having a field day capitalizing on people’s covetousness, which is why you see so many obese people, so many divorced people, so many people in jail, and so many people in debt from mortgages, credit cards, and other loans. Sell people the idea that their wants are their needs and that they deserve whatever they want, and you’ll have a fat, lustful, indebted nation that’s overlain with a spirit of entitlement. Such a nation is actually just a slave to its debtors.
A slave is not free.
Born-again believers have no business enslaving themselves in any way, including through credit card or mortgage debt. If you have to borrow money to buy something, you don’t need it; you may want it, but you don’t need it. Let that be your rule of thumb when it comes to money.
Our needs, as followers of Jesus, are surprisingly few – food and water to last the day, temperature sufficient to keep our body warm, breathable air, and a good night’s sleep. One way or another, our needs will be provided so that we can focus solely on doing Kingdom work and serving God, not doing slave work and serving the devil. Our reward is in Heaven, not here. Let us for our time here be satisfied with having our needs satisfied and be grateful for that. The instant we want more than we need, we turn from God ever so slightly; if we act on that want, we turn from God even farther.
The world will tell you that your needs are nearly infinite, but Jesus will tell you that your needs are modest and few. The world wants you to endlessly covet and focus on making money, but Jesus invites you to focus entirely on the Kingdom, assuring you that in so doing your needs will be met.
Who will you heed?
MAYBE THEY MEANT GOLDEN ARCHES? DECONSTRUCTING THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM
CHARLO, New Brunswick, March 3, 2024 – Jesus never talked about it. He didn’t even mention it in passing. In fact, he never said a word about a golden age “heaven on earth” millennial kingdom that is allegedly supposed to be established at some point in the future. Don’t you think it’s odd that he never said anything about a golden age during his ministry years, either publicly or in private with his disciples? You would think he’d at least have given a general description of it. He certainly talked in great detail about God’s Kingdom – why didn’t he say anything about a millennial kingdom?
The reason Jesus never talked about it is because it’s a lie of the devil based on a misinterpretation of scripture. The devil’s very good at misinterpreting and misapplying God’s Word, as we know from Jesus’ tests in the wilderness. In Revelation 20, which for most people forms the sole scriptural basis for their understanding of the millennial kingdom, the prophet sees the souls – not the bodies, the souls – of the resurrected. Note also that some of these souls are those of beheaded believers. The prophet sees these beheaded saints in their glorified (that is, heavenly) bodies that are obviously no longer without heads (or at least we hope not). But why would glorified saints come back to live on Earth? Why, for that matter, would Jesus? What possible reason would any of them have to do that? Even more to the point, could they even do that?
According to scripture, God’s holy angels do on occasion come to Earth in their glorified bodies, but only for very brief visits, such as when the archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary or the angels to the shepherds. Glorified bodies are not well suited to time and space, which is why Jesus wasn’t fully glorified until his ascension. Even in their non-glorified forms, the holy angels never stay very long on Earth (I think their overnighter in Sodom with Lot’s family was their longest recorded stay here). So how are these resurrected saints in their glorified bodies going to manage to live hundreds of years on Earth, allegedly as priests, surrounded by a still very imperfect and fallen nature?
The answer is they’re not, and the so-called Earth-bound millennial golden age kingdom is a fairy tale based on a lie. Revelation 20 isn’t about a golden age; it describes God’s Kingdom on Earth, which is a spiritual realm founded by Jesus. It’s referred to as a “millennial” period not because it lasts a thousand years, but because it lasts a lengthy and indeterminate (only God knows how long) period of time. So far, it’s been nearly 2000 years and counting. From that realm, Jesus reigns over all souls, including the souls of his spiritual enemies, both mortal and immortal. Note that his enemies are not in the Kingdom, but he still has authority over them. Reigning as priests with Jesus are all the saints who’ve been resurrected in what is called the first resurrection, along with born-again believers who are still on Earth in their mortal bodies (that would be us!).
We know that true believers are resurrected because Jesus said they are and then he revealed two of them – Moses and Elijah – during the transfiguration. We’re told that Moses and Elijah appeared in shimmering white robes and their faces shone “like the sun”. In fact, the disciples found their appearance so overwhelming, their legs gave out from beneath them and the usually straight-talking Peter could only babble nonsensically. Scripture describes other people responding similarly to God’s holy angels. Whenever they appear in glory to us humans, the angels nearly always say “Fear not!” as an opener, as their presence seems to strike fear in us or to physically incapacitate us, or both. I can’t imagine that a kingdom where all the humans were perpetually fainting or on the verge of fainting would function very efficiently or would be considered a golden age.
Jesus didn’t talk about an earthly millennial kingdom because there’s never going to be one. Jesus’ focus was God’s Kingdom on Earth, which is the Church of true believers: He taught about it. He preached about it. You could even say he waxed poetic about it. God’s Kingdom on Earth formed the lion’s share of Jesus’ teachings, and rightly so: His followers needed to know how to live in the Kingdom after their rebirth.
Jesus, as Messiah and Lord, reigns over us now and has done so since his resurrection. He took his place at the right hand of God after his ascension, and we who are born-again are in his Kingdom. What does it mean to be in God’s Kingdom? It means we’re spiritually protected from our enemies, the same ones who were Jesus’ enemies during his time on Earth. These enemies have no power over us, thanks to Jesus’ sacrifice. More specifically, they have no power over us as long as we remain loyal to God. They may briefly have power over our bodies, as they did over Jesus’ body during his arrest and execution, but they have no power over our soul.
Do I believe that Jesus will return to Earth? Absolutely I believe that Jesus will return because he said he would. He said he would return in glory (that is, in his glorified body) and that he would send his holy angels to gather together the last of his believers to take them Home. He did not say he was coming back to set up an earthly kingdom; what he did say is “My Kingdom is not of this world”. He also reminded us that, as his followers, we we’ll have trouble in this world, but we should take heart because he’s overcome the world. Never once does he talk about a golden age.
The Kingdom of God has been up and running for the past nearly 2000 years and is the closest thing we’ll ever have to Heaven on Earth. So be very wary of wolves coming to you bearing good news of a future earthly golden age marketed as a messianic millennial kingdom, because if Jesus didn’t mention it, it ain’t gonna happen.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 