Home » Born-again Christian (Page 74)
Category Archives: Born-again Christian
A TALE OF TWO CHURCHES
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 14, 2019 – If you’ve been a born-again believer for any length of time, you’ll have personally experienced what I call the “split personality” or “tale of two churches” characteristic of Christianity. I’m not talking about the Catholic/Protestant divide or the countless denominations that have since arisen because of that divide; I’m talking about God’s Church and the worldly church.
These are the two Christian churches co-existing today. I could call them the “real” church and the “fake” church, but that would be a misrepresentation, as both churches are real. I know, because, even as a born-again believer and card-carrying member of God’s Church, I actively participated in worldly churches.
I don’t anymore.
Here’s why. (more…)
DIVORCE AND LIVING SINGLE (AND CELIBATE)
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 13, 2019 – This is going to be a relatively short one because Jesus has said everything that needs to be said about divorce and living single, and what he says is very clear. It just bears repeating, as some Christians appear to have forgotten or ignored it. (more…)
NO, A CHRISTIAN CANNOT HAVE A DEMON
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 13, 2019 – There’s an ongoing joke in academic circles that you only have to be one lesson ahead of your students to be a successful teacher. Many “teachers” live this joke as their reality, to the detriment of their students.
In Christianity, preachers are the teachers, and most of them are not even one lesson ahead. In fact, they’re so far behind many of their “students”, they should be fired.
This is the sad reality that Christianity finds itself in today and one of the main reasons why so many people who are not actually Christians call themselves Christians: The teachers have no idea what they’re talking about and are leading people astray.
When Nicodemus came to Jesus at night to learn from him, Jesus called him out for not knowing his stuff and yet still professing to be a teacher of Israel. Church pulpits are full of Nicodemuses who need to be called out for their ignorance and either shamed into learning sound doctrine or driven from the temple (with whips, if necessary).
I mention this today because there is a growing belief within Christianity that Christians can have a demon – ranging from some form of oppression all the way up to full possession. This is so much nonsense that I wouldn’t waste two seconds on it if it weren’t for the fact that people are being taught this lie as if it were God’s truth and encouraged to consider demonic manifestations in their own lives as being of no greater consequence than fruit flies in the kitchen, and just as unavoidable. (more…)
SPIRITUAL REBIRTH: Dr. God’s spiritual pain-killer
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 12, 2019 – I’ve spent a lot of time around Christians over the past 20 years since my rebirth from atheism, and the one common feature I’ve noticed is how messed up most of them are. They are burdened by any number of problems, whether health problems, relationship problems, or financial problems. If they have children, their kids are (as my grandmother used to say) “holy terrors”; if they’re married, the marriage is on the rocks; if they have a house or car, they’re money pits always in need of repairs; and if they’re working, they hate their boss, their job, or both.
On the surface, though, everything is wine and roses. It’s as if Christians feel the need to project a sense that that they have it all together, even if behind the scenes they’re falling apart.
This is not the way to live your life on Earth or the way to get home to Heaven. Having no joy and no peace and stumbling from one crisis to another will lead you the opposite way of Heaven and make you very miserable along the way. I lived that kind of life as an atheist, and I see the same heaviness, joylessness, anxiety, confusion and PAIN that I felt as an unbeliever reflected in believers.
How can that be? How can people who claim to have faith in God and be followers of Jesus have lives that are so messed up and so full of pain? (more…)
SPIRITUAL REBIRTH: The only way to salvation
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 12, 2019 – If spiritual rebirth is the most important and necessary change that humans can undergo while on Earth, why do we rarely – if ever – hear anything about it in the churches?
Why are people excited about births and sad about deaths and giddy about marriages and depressed about break-ups and divorces, while spiritual rebirth – conversion – is absent from their emotional radar?
Why do so few people who identify as Christian (including pastors) even know what spiritual rebirth means?
The answer is: the worldly church. The worldly church is to blame for misinterpreting spiritual rebirth and for downplaying the importance of conversion as a necessary step to becoming a Christian. The worldly church has become the blind leading the blind, just like the synagogues in Jesus’ day. How can the worldly church teach about spiritual rebirth if it has no idea what it means? (more…)
THE PAIN YOU FEEL IS THE PAIN YOU’VE EARNED
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 9, 2019 – In the instant before I was born again, during what I now call “the moment outside of time”, God imprinted on my soul this one simple truth: The pain you feel is the pain you’ve earned. It was reminder of the “cause and effect” principle that I’d ignored or pretended didn’t exist up to that point in my earthly life, but its impression on me was indelible from then onward. Now, whenever things go a bit south in my life, I immediately remind myself: “The pain you feel is the pain you’ve earned”, and I do whatever is necessary to bring my thinking and doing back in line with God’s will.
Most Christian pastors side-step the principle of cause and effect when teaching their flock, instead referring to God as “a Great Mystery” who works in ways that we cannot possibly fathom. Granted, we can’t know God’s mind perfectly (we just don’t have that capability in our current form), but we can very definitely know the principles he has established for us to live by (more…)
BE OFFENDED IN NOTHING
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 6, 2019 – For Jesus, very few things, if any, are worse than being a hypocrite. Making a public show of being holy while in private being anything but is just about as low as anyone can go, even lower than consciously choosing to be a sinner. Jesus accused nearly all of the religious leadership of being hypocrites, a charge which they not only resented but became the basis for their hatred of Jesus. People hate hearing the truth about themselves if that truth is unflattering (yes, those pants do make you look fat because you ARE fat). But rather than consider whether what Jesus said about them had any validity, the hypocrites outright rejected being called hypocrites and then outright rejected Jesus and his salvation.
Christians are called not to be hypocrites. We are also called not to be offended by what is done or said to us. Certainly, lies shouldn’t offend us, but neither should truths. We should be beyond bristling at hearing unflattering truths because those truths, however uncomfortable and no matter the source, are what we need to hear: they are a form of lesson. (more…)
PENNIES FROM HEAVEN
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 6, 2019 – So I’m sitting on a bus in North Charleston, and a young man gets on. After a minute of rummaging through his dozen or so pockets up and down the legs of his droopy pants, he comes up empty-handed: No money for the fare. As I sit watching him, God tells me to take the $5 in my purse and pay his fare. My initial gut response is “NO WAY!”, since the fare is only $2 and putting in a $5 is the kind of excess that blows my very tight budget and messes with my daughter-of-two-accountants’ head. God tells me again to pay his fare (more insistent this time), letting me know that I’ll get it back, so I get up and give the driver my $5 bill. The young man, who’d been on the verge of being kicked off the bus, has now secured a seat and a transfer to get wherever he’s going. He gives me a smile and a thanks, and I sit down and enjoy the rest of the ride.
When the bus arrives at its final destination in Charleston, I hop off and cross the street to get a connecting bus. As I’m crossing, a $5 bill gently blows across my path. I reach down and pick it up. Then God says “See? I told you I’d give it back to you.” (more…)
I’M A LITTLE TEAPOT
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 5, 2019 – I travel a lot. There are a few things that always go with me on my travels, like my hairdryer and my kettle. My hairdryer I use for any number of purposes, such as to heat a cold room or melt cheese on my sandwich or – very occasionally – to dry my hair, but my kettle I just use as a kettle.
Like most of my belongings, my kettle has seen better days. But while it still works, it will be put to work.
This morning, my trusty old kettle stopped working. After five years of nearly daily labor, it just stopped. I unplugged it and plugged it back in, but it was still stubbornly still. No gurgle and pop-pop-pop to indicate it was on its way to a boil. No heat. No steam rising.
Nothing. (more…)
URGENCY!
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 5, 2019 – After Jesus launched his ministry, he was filled with a constant sense of urgency in his mission. He even worked on the Sabbath, which was such a big no-no to the Jewish powers-that-be that they got in his face about it. But Jesus pointed out that if an animal belonging to one of them fell into a ditch, surely they’d break the Sabbath to rescue it, and by that same token people who’ve fallen into spiritual ditches and have been suffering there for years also need immediate rescue, even on a Sabbath. The Jewish ptb didn’t have the same sense of urgency to help people that Jesus had and it showed in their superficial application of God’s laws, so when Jesus told them that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, they considered it to be heresy rather than God’s truth.
Maybe not you, but most Christians today have lost their sense of urgency when it comes to hauling people up out of spiritual holes. Jesus never took time off other than to eat and sleep. His focus was 100% on his ministry work because he had a sense of urgency that this work was all that mattered. If we as Jesus’ followers are supposed to model him in all ways, why do we not have a sense of urgency to get the message out to repent and believe the gospel? (more…)
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 