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LIVING LIFE FEARLESSLY
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, June 14, 2021 – We are all made in God’s image.
No-one is made to be evil. We are all made to do good and want the good. That’s what it means to be made in God’s image.
However, with our free will, we make either good choices or bad choices, right ones or wrong ones. We then live the consequences of those choices, and they define us.
We are not born children of God; we are born creatures of God. We become children of God through spiritual rebirth.
Nor are any born children of Satan; they become children of Satan by their choices.
Scripture tells us that Jesus was raised in Nazareth and grew in favour there with God and man. He was popular in Nazareth as a boy and a young man. The Nazarenes liked him. When he was invited to read in the synagogue in Nazareth, it was because the rabbi and the elders liked him. Everyone in Nazareth liked him. He had no seeming enemies there.
And yet those same people, the ones he grew up with and grew in favor with, the ones who graciously invited him to read scripture in the synagogue, the ones who all liked him, turned on him in an instant and tried to kill him by running him off a cliff. How is this possible?
There are only two sides in the spiritual battle: you are either with God, in which case you have God’s Holy Spirit guiding you, or you are not with God, in which case you have the unholy spirits guiding you. There is no third side.
The day that Jesus came out as the Messiah in Nazareth and was then run out of town in an attempt to kill him, the masks slipped from the faces of the Nazarenes. The “I am virtuous” masks slipped, and the ugly reality of whose children the Nazarenes actually were became all too apparent. They may have been born God’s creatures, they may have had the appearance of being godly, but by their actions they showed themselves to be children of Satan.
The “I am virtuous” mask-wearers are all around the children of God all the time. There is no place on Earth where the children of Satan are not. As born-again believers, we live with that reality. We live with the reality not only that the children of Satan are all around us but that they can be guided and prompted by the unholy spirits to run us off a cliff at any time. This is not a comfortable reality for us to live with, but it is what it is.
Even so, Jesus said we are spiritually and physically protected within God’s Kingdom on Earth by God’s Holy Spirit. Just as Jesus easily passed through the Nazarene mob trying to kill him, we can easily pass through the “I am virtuous” ungodly mob that can turn at any time and tear us to pieces. As long as we remain within God’s Kingdom, we are protected. Only when it is time for us to go home will the physical protection be removed, as it was for Jesus, as it was for Stephen, as it was for Peter and James and Paul and for every other child of God throughout history, whether known to us or not. We are protected spiritually and physically within God’s Kingdom until it’s time to go home, and then the physical protection is removed.
This should be a comfort to us, to know that as children of God we’re fully protected by God’s Holy Spirit during our time on Earth. We need to live conscious of that reality and not let the children of Satan intimidate us. Jesus walked fearless throughout his ministry years, even with a bounty on his head. There wasn’t one time when he was afraid. His fearlessness was rooted in his trust in God and in the knowledge that he lived and moved within God’s Kingdom and so was protected spiritually and physically by God’s Holy Spirit. We likewise need to unconditionally trust God and his perfect protection so that we, too, can move fearlessly through the world until it’s time for us to go home.
OUT WITH THE OLD!
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, June 14, 2021 – I had a curt online exchange recently with someone who disagreed with my stand against protesting. The person stated that protesting was a biblical precedent (rule or guide) and so was a permitted Christian response to the world.
I disagreed, and I also based my argument on a biblical precedent.
Christians are to follow Jesus in everything they do. The New Testament is an amendment to the Old Testament. As with most amendments, the foundational document remains valid unless directly addressed and modified in the newer one.
And here’s my point – if Jesus told us a new way to respond that in some way opposes the Old Testament way, we are to follow Jesus. In other words, Jesus’ directives take precedence over Old Testament directives, so Jesus’ directives are our new biblical precedent.
So, for instance, we are no longer to exact an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth from our enemies, but to love them, and to bless and pray for them. Yes, an eye for an eye served as the biblical precedent up to the time of Jesus, but it is no longer valid. It has been amended.
The same goes for prepping. I put a few noses out of joint a few months ago when I questioned people’s prepping efforts. The only prepping we born-again believers should be do is girding our loins, reading our Bible, keeping our lamps well-oiled, and hanging with God. That should be the sole extent of our prepping. In this, we follow Jesus’ example.
From the start of his ministry, Jesus essentially lived on the run with his followers. He didn’t stockpile goods and weapons and hunker down until the worst had passed. He knew that would make him a sitting duck. So he was constantly on the move, working (preaching, teaching, and healing) as he went. Yes, Joseph in the Old Testament did what you might call prepping by stockpiling food and other supplies in Egypt against the coming famine, but that is Old Testament. In the New Testament, Jesus tells us that the guy who prepped and stockpiled and then sat back on his heels, congratulating himself for his efforts, was dead the next day. All his prepping was for nothing.
Prepping in New Testament times (that is, today) is a way of saying to God: “I don’t have faith that you’ll look after my needs, so I’m going to do what I think should be done without consulting you first. I’m going to buy enough food to last me for a long time, just like that guy in the New Testament who stockpiled his food and then died the next day”. That’s what food and supplies prepping says to God if you’re a born-again believer. It’s essentially coveting. And if you don’t want to stop coveting preps, you’re like the rich guy who got depressed when Jesus directed him to sell all his goods, give to the poor, and follow him. That is the New Testament precedent.
What it all comes down to is this: As born-again believers, we are to heed Jesus’ directives, which are New Testament amendments to the Old Testament. So if anything in the Old Testament conflicts with what Jesus did or told us to do, we do what Jesus did or told us to do. It’s as simple as that.
A REMINDER TO HONOR YOUR PARENTS
DARTMOUTH, Nova Scotia, June 11, 2021 – Why did God command us to love him but not to love our parents? Why are we instead commanded to honor them?
God made us in such a way that we would naturally want to love him. In other words, we have an inbuilt desire to love him. However, through misapplying our free will, we sometimes give the love that’s meant for God to people and things. This is why God included the Commandment to love him specifically, and to do so with all our heart and all our soul and all our might. If we keep this Commandment, we won’t stray off the “love path” (lol) and mistakenly give the love that we’ve been made to give to God to someone or something else.
Our parents are not God. No matter how hard they try to be good parents, they are all too human and all too prone to the flaws and faults of humans. While God does put into our parents’ hearts a certain measure of his love for us at our birth, that love is conditional and can fade with time. Many things can happen to negatively affect the love. God invites and enables parents to love their children and vice-versa, but his Commandment is for us to love him.
Rather than commanding us to love our parents, God commands us to honor them instead. In simplistic terms, we honor our parents by not speaking badly of them. If we have a grievance with them, we take it to God. We take it ONLY to God. In Genesis, one of Noah’s three sons exposed his father’s nakedness to his brothers, but Noah’s two other sons honored their father by walking backwards towards him as he lay drunk and asleep and covered his nakedness with a garment. They covered their father; they didn’t gawk at him or expose him or ridicule him or blame him for his mistake: They covered him. And for so doing, they were later blessed by Noah and by God. The son who exposed Noah was cursed.
While it seems relatively straight-forward, honoring our parents is one of the most frequently broken Commandments among Christians. I have heard countless professional preachers present themselves as survivors of child abuse and go into gory detail about their alcoholic mother and/or physically abusive father. Then they make things worse by inviting their listeners to share their own abuse experiences.
Most of us born-agains love our parents and have no problem keeping the Commandment to honor them. But for those who do have a difficult relationship with their mother and/or their father, honoring can still be done even in the absence of affection. All that is required is a respect for the role played by the parents (not respect for how well the role is played; respect for the role itself). And at the same time, we should always speak kindly of our parents, covering their mistakes like Noah’s two respectful sons covered his. Do this, and you’ll be blessed. Don’t do it, and you’ll be cursed, because you’ll be breaking a Commandment, and nothing good ever comes from willfully breaking God’s Commandments.
OF CATS AND WIND
DARTMOUTH, Nova Scotia, June 11, 2021 – Today is a windy day. When my cat was still on Earth in her earthly body (she’s in Heaven now, in her heavenly body), she was terrified of windy days – not because of the wind itself (I don’t think she knew what wind was at that time), but because of the way the bushes and trees would flail and lash at her and the leaves would chase her around the yard. I think she thought they were moving on their own volition and were on the attack.
So she refused to go outside on windy days.
Smart cat. ;D
Plants do move on their own volition (very very slowly), but that’s not what makes them flail and lash on occasion, nor is it what makes dead leaves blow around. The invisible wind does that.
When I was an atheist, I believed the forces that governed my life were external to me and beyond my control. I believed bad things happened to me not because of anything I did, but because systems were bad or people were bad. And so, to my mind, economic and political trees flailed and lashed at me, and people chased me around like leaves. I was as blind to the spiritual forces working in my life as my cat was to the wind blowing through the yard. But at least my cat had the excuse of not knowing science and the good sense to stay indoors on windy days; I had no excuse but spiritual blindness and the bad sense to constantly throw myself into the spiritual maelstrom. Being completely clueless as to why things were the way they were, I grew more and more confused and desperate every day.
You’re not born with spiritual blindness; you acquire it through sin and pride. Most of the world labors under some degree of spiritual blindness. In fact, metaphorically speaking, most of the world believes that dead leaves are attacking them, and trees and bushes are out to get them. Not knowing how God’s Holy Spirit and all the other holy and unholy spirits work in their lives, they attribute their misery and “bad luck” to influences like political systems or bad parents. Very few understand that the measure you mete out is the measure you get in return, mitigated by God’s mercy. Very few acknowledge that the Ten Commandments have been written on their hearts by God himself, and are as much a part of them as their DNA.
For the first 36 years of my life, I was like most people in the world, believing that trees and leaves were out to get me. Even worse, I always blamed my problems and failures on someone or something else. I never made the connection between my ungodly life choices and the misery that followed. God’s Ten Commandments were written on my heart just as deeply as they were on everyone else’s, but my spiritual blindness made me spiritually illiterate.
Atheism is a form of acquired spiritual illiteracy.
The only cure for spiritual blindness is, of course, Jesus Christ. You cannot come to God any other way but by Jesus. Like my cat taking shelter indoors on windy days, you can take shelter under the mighty hand of God as a follower of Jesus. And then you’ll be able to see the spiritual science. The spiritual winds will still blow and the elements will still lash at you, but at least you’ll know why: you’ll make the connection between the choices you make in life and the kind of life you get in return. From this knowledge, you can then learn to make better choices. You don’t need to see the wind to know it’s there, any more than you need to see God’s Law to know it’s there, because you can clearly see the impacts of both.
By the way, my cat in Heaven now knows what wind is. In fact, she knows a lot more about most things than I do. All of God’s creatures in Heaven are given a full measure of God’s Spirit. Someday, they’ll be teaching us the miraculous “science” of the heavenly realms, if and when we make it home.
JUST ONE CHURCH
DARTMOUTH, Nova Scotia, June 10, 2021 – Someone asked me today which church he should attend that isn’t “lame”. He wanted to know if there was anything better than Catholicism, because he’d had bad experiences at Catholic churches.
This is what I told him:
There is just one church – God’s.
And God’s Church is never lame.
God’s Church is the collective of born-again souls that are still in earthly bodies on Earth. It is founded and headed by Jesus, and all of the members are called and chosen and faithful. They don’t get to join God’s Church on their own volition; God calls and chooses them. As long as they remain faithful, they will remain in his Church.
That is God’s Church on Earth, and there is only one (and it is never lame). It meets 24/7; there is never a time when God’s Church is not in service, and everyone in it wants to be there. They cannot imagine wanting to be anywhere else on Earth other than in God’s Church.
Buildings and organizations that call themselves churches are not God’s Church. They are buildings and organizations that are at best social clubs and at worst cults. But they are not God’s Church.
When Jesus started God’s Church nearly 2000 years ago, he envisioned a time when buildings and organizations would be considered the church, and he warned his followers about it. He said that God is looking for people who will worship in spirit and in truth, not in buildings. Paul also warned us, saying that wolves in sheep’s clothing would try to prevent people from entering God’s Church by taking over the social club churches and cult churches and teaching the sheep lies. The wolves are in control of those churches now and have been for some time. Paul’s warnings were accurate. There is not one of the social club churches or cult churches that the wolves don’t control.
The only church that remains true to the teachings of Jesus Christ is God’s Church, and there is just one of those. It meets wherever true believers are, and it’s always in service, night and day.
That’s the church you should attend.
How you get into it is between you and God.
Ask him for help, and he’ll show you what to do.
A REMINDER TO KEEP THE 11TH COMMANDMENT
“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.”
DARTMOUTH, Nova Scotia, June 10, 2021 – Be very, very, very careful how you apply this scripture.
Jesus was kind to the unkind and even to the condemned.
Think of how kind he was to Judas Iscariot, even knowing all along that Judas would betray him and was therefore condemned for all eternity.
And think that he let Judas kiss him, even knowing that the kiss was a signal to arrest him.
Most people are messed up these days, and we know from scripture that most are condemned, having chosen the broad way. But we, as born-again believers, are still to love these people and be kind to them. Jesus’ directive to love and bless our enemies and to pray for them has the same weight as a Commandment, meaning that it’s non-negotiable.
Non-negotiable means there are no exceptions and no exemptions. It has to be done.
Let me be brutally frank: being unkind to people solely because they are unkind to you or are your spiritual enemy is a sin. Violating any of the Commandments is a sin, and Jesus’ directive to be kind to the unkind has the same weight as a Commandment. If you purposely and persistently sin and refuse to repent, you will lose your grace and join the condemned in the lake of fire.
You won’t be wanting to do that.
You can love your enemies and be kind to them from a distance. You can keep your distance from them, if that’s what you prefer and if that’s how God guides you. But you still need be kind to them according to Jesus’ directive, which he told us outright was another Commandment.
Your kindness may help diffuse a situation they’re going through. Your kindness may be the only kindness they’ve been shown in a long time. Your kindness may even inspire them to be kind to someone else.
Ultimately, your kindness may keep them from a worse eternal condemnation. This is the purpose of being kind to the unkind, of loving your enemies.
The spiritual directive to be kind in the face of unkindness is the highest calling of a born-again believer. It is ultimately what will separate the wheat from the chaff, the sheep from the goats.
When your enemy hungers, feed him.
When he thirsts, give him something to drink.
When he is naked, clothe him.
When he curses you, bless him.
You know the drill.
Being kind to the unkind is a non-negotiable Commandment and probably the most difficult of all to keep.
But keep it you must.
As with everything, ask God for help with this.
You cannot be kind to the unkind on your own steam.
Ask God for help.
And if you mess up, don’t beat yourself up about it. Make your amends, and do better next time.
ARE YOU COOL LIKE SATAN OR COOL LIKE JESUS?
DARTMOUTH, Nova Scotia, June 9, 2021 – Every once in a while, an ad for a TV show will pop up on my computer screen while I’m browsing the internet. The themes of the shows likely have to do with my online activity with this blog and my internet searches on all things God, so every now and then I’ll get an ad for a show about Satan. The actor playing that role (who in their right mind would play such a role??? But maybe I’ve answered my own question right there…) – the actor playing the role is classically good-looking in a bad-boy kind of way, and he’s usually shown wearing aviator shades. The “look” the creative producers are going for, I’d wager, is “cool”. I’ve never seen the show and have no intention of watching it, but that’s what I can figure from the ads that appear every now and then: “Satan is cool; watch this show about Satan being cool, and you’ll be cool, too!”
I’ve never really thought of Satan as being cool. When I was an atheist, I didn’t believe Satan existed any more than I believed God existed, so I didn’t spend any time thinking about Satan’s personality. Then, as soon as I was born-again, I knew that Satan was the last thing from cool. Slippery, yes; slimy, yes; to be avoided at all costs, yes; but cool, definitely not.
To the world, cool usually means a good-looking rebel who bucks the established order without breaking a sweat and wins all the goodies (including the good-looking mate) in the end. But this is not my version of cool. To me, cool implies fearlessness, a consistent and constant state where nothing ruffles you, where no amount of provocation sways you from your convictions. It also usually involves an attractiveness that is not necessarily based on looks but on charisma. I’ve known “cool” people who were not great-looking but strongly compelling. You overlooked their lack of looks (in fact, you didn’t even notice it) because their engaging personality made up for it.
Cool, in my books, also implies a quiet heroism based on doing the right thing and never backing down, regardless of the consequences. Someone who’s “cool” is also a quiet hero, someone who has your back, though you might not know it. Only later do you find out what was done for you, what was arranged behind the scenes, what deals were made and threats neutralized. All of this was done for you but never spoken about. Just done as a matter of course because that’s what cool people do, that’s what quiet heroes do, that’s what people who do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing do. That, to me, is a cool person.
So if you apply these character traits to Satan, you’ll see he’s the last thing from cool. But there is someone we know well and are getting to know better and better every day who does fit that description to a “T”.
His name is Jesus the Christ.
When he was in human form on Earth, Jesus was a cool guy in the truest sense of the word. Nothing fazed him. He never panicked. He could care less what people thought of him. And he feared only God. In fact, he looked at each and every situation not through the eyes of man but through the eyes of God. He saw the big picture but missed none of the details. He was incredibly strong in mind, body and spirit. He never caved to pressure or worried about public opinion.
At the same time, Jesus was intensely sympathetic, empathetic, sensitive, and passionate. He was no automaton and not in any way hard-hearted. Every choice he made, he explained why he was making it and he constantly made reference to scripture to back up his words.
We are to be like Jesus in everything we do. Not as cheap knock-offs, but as genuine followers remaining authentic to who we are (as God made us), while taking our cue from Jesus on how to respond to situations and people.
Being cool doesn’t mean you don’t occasionally lose your temper or cry (Jesus did both). It means that your response to a situation is warranted. We mourn with those who mourn, but we don’t wallow in tears of self-pity. We correct those who are teaching a false gospel (using forceful correction, if necessary), but we don’t get malicious with them. We occasionally have to overturn a few tables to get people’s attention, but we don’t resort to overturning tables on a daily basis. Like Jesus, we should do all things in good measure, and all according to what the situation calls for.
That’s being cool.
After he started his ministry work, Jesus was a rebel and an outcast from mainstream society, including mainstream religion. While the religious establishment continued to preach a doctrine of exclusionism, Jesus opened up God’s salvation to all people. While the religious establishment continued to preach an eye for an eye and hatred of one’s enemies, Jesus taught that we are to return unkindness with kindness and to love and bless our enemies. This new doctrine was incomprehensible to the religious establishment. It still is today.
The mainstream values of finding a job, getting married, having children, buying land, building a house, acquiring wealth and possessions, and dying at a ripe old age were also not part of the new doctrine preached by Jesus. Those he called to follow him left their jobs, spouses, children, land, houses, wealth and possessions to live a nomadic existence of itinerant preaching that was likely going to end in a gruesome death at a young age. All of this Jesus required of his followers because it was what God had required of him, and Jesus’ followers are to do everything that he does, using him as the example. And, like the doctrine of loving your enemies and turning the other cheek, this doctrine of living a nomadic existence as an itinerant preacher with no possessions beyond the clothes on your back is also incomprehensible to the religious establishment today. They think it doesn’t apply to them.
Being authentic to who we are as individuals while at the same time following Jesus’ example of how to respond to people and situations requires only one thing from us: putting God first. If we genuinely put God first in our lives, we will have no problem following Jesus in everything we do. When we’re called to ministry training, we will without a second thought walk away from our jobs, families, property and possessions, just like Jesus’ first disciples.
And most importantly, we will learn how to be cool, not as the world sees cool, but as Jesus was authentically cool during his time on Earth. Satan might have the appearance of cool, but he is all too aware of what awaits him when his time is up, and it terrifies him. Jesus has no such terror. He knew during his time on Earth the glory that awaited him in Heaven if he stuck to his allotted course, and it motivated and inspired him. Being terrified was never part of who Jesus was.
So – are you cool like Satan (that is, superficially cool, but underneath terrified) or are you cool like Jesus (authentically cool, and underneath still cool)?
I hope you’re cool like Jesus.
And just so you know, Jesus is just as cool now as he ever was. All the power and good looks he gained when he arrived in Heaven haven’t gone to his head. He’s still the same cool guy he was on Earth, only now he’s perfected and glorified, as we will be, too, if we stay our allotted course.
SUPERNATURAL SURVEILLANCE
DARTMOUTH, Nova Scotia, June 9, 2021 – Guess what?
God is watching you.
All the time.
He sees everything you do, and I mean everything.
Not only that, but he’s also listening to everything you say, and he’s reading your every thought.
Most Christians don’t know this. They think that God can only see them when they go into a church building or when they pray. They are unaware that God knows every intimate detail about them, that this knowledge is current in real time, and that God’s constant surveillance will continue for the rest of their days on Earth.
If you love God and follow Jesus, God’s constant surveillance is a comfort to you. Knowing that God sees and knows everything about you keeps you in line. Like a mother watching over her child, God watching over us is a safety feature of being human. I frankly wouldn’t have it any other way.
I think if more believers understood that God was watching them all the time, their behavior would radically change. If their mindset were “God can see me, God can hear me, God knows my thoughts”, they would adjust what they do, say, and think. Since we’re made in God’s image, our first impulse (our default) is to do good. We were made to do good. The only thing getting in our way of perpetually doing good is our free will and the temptations it opens us to. Being conscious of God’s constant presence is an excellent way to overcome those temptations.
As you read these words, God is reading them with you. He sees you reading them and knows your mindset. He even knows your state of health to the tiniest detail. There is nothing about you – down to the sub-molecular level – that God doesn’t know. You cannot in any way fool God.
You can, however, fool the devils. They are also watching you, though their vision of you is not as clear as God’s. They can see you and hear you, but they cannot read your thoughts. They can speak into your thoughts if you’re not born-again, but they cannot hear your thoughts. Being born-again provides you protection from “demon voices” through the protective power of God’s Holy Spirit that forms a spiritual firewall around you.
Because the devils don’t actually know your thoughts, you can fool them with your spoken and written words as well as with your actions. God is the only one who has access to your thoughts, so he knows what your real intentions are. But not the devils. You can fool them. Jesus says to be as wise as serpents. Just as the demonic serpents fool mankind, you can and must also fool them. They don’t need to know your thoughts and your plans. Only God needs to know those.
In teaching about the Kingdom, Jesus gave very few of his inner thoughts away to his disciples. Scripture says he did this because he knew what was in their hearts (that is, their thoughts) and also because they could not at the time bear it (that is, understand it or handle the knowledge wisely). Jesus knew the thoughts of others because God told him. God tells us the thoughts of others, too, when we need to know. That is one aspect of private revelation.
If we were more aware of God’s presence in our lives, our choices would likely be godlier. Similarly, if we were more aware of the presence of demonic spirits in our lives, our choices would also likewise be godlier. Having an awareness of constantly being under supernatural surveillance fundamentally changes how we act, speak, and think. Far from being an intrusion, constant surveillance by spiritual forces acts as a safety barrier around our free will. It keeps us from doing, saying, and thinking things that would literally come back to haunt us.
Knowing that God is the only one who can know our unexpressed thoughts is a comfort as well. Our mind is our ultimate safe-space; the world can know everything else about us in relatively intimate detail, even down to our DNA, but it cannot know our thoughts unless we choose to reveal them. Like Jesus, we should hide our thoughts on certain topics and reveal only what God advises. Keeping things just between us and God is another reason why Jesus taught us to pray in our “closets”, not publicly. By spiritual decree, the only one allowed to hear our prayers when we’re in our prayer closet is God, so make sure you take full advantage of that decree.
WHO IS YOUR MOTHER?
DARTMOUTH, Nova Scotia, June 6, 2021 – As was prophesied by Simeon, Jesus caused his mother a lot of heartache.
Jesus didn’t do this on purpose; it was a side-effect of choosing to do his Father’s will rather than the world’s.
We need to be like Jesus in everything we do.
After setting her son on the path to ministry work, Mary got caught up in her motherly instincts and tried to protect Jesus from his enemies (like Peter later did and was called “Satan” for his efforts). This put Mary in direct opposition to Jesus until his resurrection, at which time she turned and became his follower.
In fact, when Jesus asked “Who is my mother? Who are my brethren?… Those who do the will of my Father in Heaven are my brother, sister and mother”, it was in direct reference to Mary and his siblings. He didn’t say this to hurt his family but to show the primacy of the spiritual bond shared by those who do God’s will. Our spiritual brethren are closer to us in kinship than our blood relatives. That’s why ALL (not some, ALL) of the disciples left their blood families, including spouses and children, when they started to follow Jesus. The focus on the blood-relative family that dominates the worldly church is anti-Christ.
Again, we are to follow Jesus in everything we do. We are not to follow the world, even if it calls itself Christian.
It is highly likely that those of you who are genuinely born-again have no born-again blood relatives, or at least none who are still on Earth. Being born-again is a lonely state (or better said, being born-again is an alone state). It puts you in conflict not only with your blood relatives, but also with the world in general. Paul told us to get along as much as possible with everyone, and Jesus said to make friends of the children of mammon so we have a fall-back if we fail, and we’d be wise to follow their advice. But our closest friends cannot be people of the world. That includes members of our family, if they’re not born again.
In any case, if we’re genuine followers of Jesus, people of the world won’t want to be around us. They’ll find any excuse not to be around us. We make their skin crawl, even if we don’t mention God or Jesus. Don’t take it personally (never be offended); it’s a spiritual aversion, not a personal one. Only when they’re on a mission from the devil (and I’m not jesting here) will people of the world seek out our company. Welcome them with the same courtesy and kindness you would anyone else, but be careful not to fall into their trap. If you give into them, you will suffer for it, but so will they for leading you astray.
When Jesus was in his house in Capernaum, Mary came looking for him not to help with his ministry, but to take him home to Nazareth (you know, the place that ran him out of town and tried to kill him). She thought he’d lost his mind in claiming to be the Messiah, and didn’t want him to be arrested. She well knew the penalty for falsely claiming to be the Messiah was death, particularly since the religious powers-that-be at the time were closely aligned with the Roman occupiers and didn’t want to lose their comfortable status quo, even for the genuine King of the Jews.
Mary knew Jesus was special among humans, but she likely considered him to be another prophet, rather than “that Prophet” (as Moses called the Messiah). We shouldn’t fault Mary for this. In most (not all, most) mothers, the instinct to protect their children from harm overrides any other allegiance. Mary was trying to protect Jesus when she came to get him in Capernaum.
We are also guilty, to some extent, of wanting to override God’s Commandments and Jesus’ teachings when it comes to our own loved ones. We don’t want to hurt them. We want to protect them. We tend to see the short-term benefits rather than the long-term ones, the worldly consequences rather than the heavenly ones.
But being a follower of Jesus means that we likely have to turn our backs on our blood relatives, even to the point of not attending our own father’s funeral if it conflicts with God’s will. This is a hard pill for many people to swallow. Worldly Christians will outright refuse, and even born-agains will hesitate and mull it over and maybe ask God if there’s a way around it, a way to compromise that keeps their blood relatives and other loved ones from being hurt. Most times there isn’t: there is only God’s Way or the world’s way.
The parable of the wedding guests is a prime example of people who chose what appears to be good (the world’s way) over what is actually good (God’s Way). The invitees had any number of excuses why they could not attend the feast, all of which in the eyes of the world (and in the eyes of most Christians today) would have been reasonable, such as being on a honeymoon or recently having purchased land or other possessions that needed looking after. How can you argue with the reasonableness of those excuses? And yet Jesus did just that, showing how these people were condemned in God’s eyes for choosing what had value in the world rather than what had value in the Kingdom.
We need always to choose what has value in God’s eyes, even and especially when it conflicts with the world and our loved ones. Jesus didn’t cave to his mother’s pleas to go home to Nazareth; in fact, he dismissed them as inconsequential, just as the invited wedding guests should have dismissed their new wife as inconsequential or their new land as inconsequential, just as Matthew actually did dismiss his tax collector job as inconsequential and Peter his family and fishing business as inconsequential.
All that should matter to us, as born-again believers, is doing God’s will, not the world’s will, and not our family’s will. Yes, you may cause your family some measure of heartache, but the alternative is your eternal damnation. When it comes down to choosing between what pleases God and what pleases your family, always choose to please God, like Jesus did.
Be like Jesus in everything you do.
WHAT DOES YOUR PLACE IN HEAVEN LOOK LIKE?
DARTMOUTH, Nova Scotia, June 6, 2021 – My house in Heaven sits on hundreds of thousands of acres. Yes, that’s right – hundreds of thousands (it’s not a typo). We all get lots of space in Heaven, if that’s what we want.
It’s a small house (a cottage, really), just big enough for my furry little loved ones and I to eat and sleep and hang out, but with enough room for friends to visit, too. And you always get visitors in Heaven. Friends drop by every day, including (on occasion) The Big Guy and His Side-Kick.
I mean God and Jesus (lol).
They have a special room that’s just for them.
Inside the house are all my funny little keepsakes that I’ve loved and cherished over my lifetime. Most of them are no longer on Earth, or if they are, they’re no longer in my possession, but I remember them fondly and I used to mourn them. But now I know that all those things I lost or sold or broke or left behind are in Heaven waiting for me. All of them, and just as I remembered them. This makes me happy, thinking about that. I no longer mourn them, and it’s also easier to let other things go, knowing I’ll have them again someday, and that I’ll always have them from that point onward.
There are no good-byes in Heaven, and no breaking or losing anything. Everything is perfected and remains so for eternity.
Outside on my hundreds of thousands of acres are all the animals I’ve loved and wept over and eaten during my lifetime on Earth. They all get to spend their forever doing whatever makes them happy, and they all get along. No growling in Heaven. The ones I’ve eaten don’t know I’ve eaten them, and neither do I. They only remember the happy times they had on Earth, just like I only remember the happy times. No unhappy memories get into Heaven.
On my hundreds of thousands of acres are also some animals I’ve never actually seen during my time on Earth because they went extinct before I was born. And there are other animals I’ve never even heard of because they don’t exist in the fossil record. Lots of happy surprises in Heaven, for those who want them.
My land in Heaven is made up of all my favourite places and scenery on Earth, along with all my favorite flowers and trees and other plants. My favorite insects are waiting there for me, too. All of my favorite creatures are waiting for me.
Jesus says to store up your treasures in Heaven, and that’s what I’m doing. Storing up happy memories and beautiful scenes. My little slice of Heaven includes parts of the Grand Canyon, the Rockies and the Alps, a bit of the prairies, some forests and ocean cliffs, a stretch of rocky shore, and some coves and beaches. There are even a few islands dotting a handful of lakes. It’s all there waiting for me, all my beloved animals and plants and natural scenery, all in their own places but forming a seamless expanse as far as the eye can see.
In case you’re wondering, yes, I have neighbours in Heaven. We keep a neighbourly distance from each other. Travel options in Heaven are different than on Earth, so vast spaces can be crossed in an instant.
I’m telling you all this because there are so many lies being told on Earth about Heaven and what it looks like. It’s the devil’s job to downplay the wonders of Paradise (don’t get on his case about that; as I said, it’s his job), so we need to go to God directly and ask him ourselves.
Have you asked God yet what your place in Heaven looks like? Have you asked him to show you what’s waiting for you if you make it all the way home? If you haven’t asked God yet, you need to do it. God wants to show you. He’s waiting for you to ask him to show you, so ask him.
That’s how I know about my hundreds of thousands of acres. I asked God, and he showed me, and every day he shows me a little bit more. He’s not going to show me everything (that would ruin the surprise!), but just enough to boost my spirits and remind me what all the trials and tribulations on Earth are for, just enough to remind me what I’m fighting for.
People forget that; they forget that Heaven is the reward we’re striving for. We’re not fighting the good fight just for the sake of fighting; we’re fighting the good fight so we can go home again. I say “again”, because we were all created in Heaven. Our souls were formed in Heaven and we were reborn in the heavenly realms. Our yearning and love for God is in part a yearning and love for Home.
I hope you ask God today to show you what’s stored up in Heaven waiting for you. God wants to show you. He gets really excited when you ask him (the way people on Earth get excited when they’re planning a big surprise for someone they love), so go ahead – ask him. What you see will amaze you and give you the boost you need to keep going. Ask him every day, if you want. God is more than happy to show you. He loves you and he’s storing up everything on Earth that you love, just for you. It’s all waiting for you, if and when you make it Home.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 