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THE FREEDOM NOT TO LIKE
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 21, 2025 – One of the most annoying assumptions many non-Christians have about Christians is that they like everyone. And I mean everyone, including and especially the people who go out of their way to make themselves unlikeable. Christians, according to non-Christians, are supposed to like everyone in every situation at all times, with zero exceptions.
But what does Jesus say about that?
Jesus taught us that we’re to love our enemies and to treat others as we’d want to be treated, but he didn’t say anything about liking everyone. And why is that? Because you can’t mandate liking someone. You can’t force people to feel affection toward a certain person or group. You can mandate specific behaviors (like loving your enemies via prayers and blessings), but you can’t mandate feelings. And genuinely liking someone and wanting to spend time with that person is feelings-based behavior that can’t be forced or expected, even from born-again believers. God allows us to dislike people as an honest expression of our feelings toward them, but he still expects us to treat them as we would want to be treated, which essentially means don’t be mean-spirited. Don’t bully them. But don’t pretend to like them if you don’t. God hates hypocrisy.
The same assumption that non-Christians have about Christians liking everyone has also bled into the worldly church, where it’s assumed that because we’re in a church building attending a church event, we’re all one big happy family and the best of friends. Anyone who’s spent any time at all in a worldly church event knows this is woefully untrue. Despite most pastors’ ongoing efforts to make their flocks feel at ease and at home, some sheep will still rub you the wrong way (even physically; pervy old greeters posted at the church door, take note!). I have never more than fleetingly felt “at home” in a worldly church setting, though I don’t blame the pastors for that. It’s baked into the scenario that you’re not going to like everyone and not everyone is going to like you. Even in a church.
And that’s OK.
The Bible says so.
Jesus’ disciples were well-known for not always getting along with each other, especially the men with the women. Jesus had to step in to keep the peace between them on more than one occasion. And after Jesus’ ascension, the early Church members had numerous run-ins with each other, most famously Paul vs Barnabas and Paul vs “the saints in Jerusalem”. Paul didn’t have to like the people he disagreed with any more than they had to like him. Nowhere in the Bible does it say we have to like everyone without exception. We’re to bless and pray for those who purposely oppose us, but like them?
Naaah.
God gives us the freedom to like and dislike whoever we choose. He doesn’t mandate like.
In Heaven, though – Heaven is a whole different ball game. We’ll not only love everyone in Heaven, we’ll like them, too, and we won’t have to be mandated to do so. But that’s Heaven. Here on Earth, it’s more important to God that we do his will than that we pretend to like someone we don’t.
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.
SCREECHER PREACHER
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, February 29, 2024 – I had the misfortune a few years ago of attending a church service where the minister screamed the Word. He didn’t just raise his voice out of courtesy for the people sitting in the back row; he hollered himself hoarse. It was my first (and only) time attending that church, and I’d unwittingly taken a seat near the front. Everything was fine for the first half-hour or so, as the minister just made some general church announcements, led a few hymns, and did a reading from the Gospel. But when he started preaching, it quickly turned into screeching, and I felt like I was sitting next to a speaker that was turned up too high and couldn’t be turned down.
I had to get away from him, and fast.
As unobtrusively as possible, I shifted a few rows back. But the screeching continued and even seemed to go up an octave, so I scooted as quickly as I could to the far end of the room. Still no good. Desperate for relief, I stuck balled-up Kleenex in my ears and put earmuffs on, but the sound tsunami only increased. I found the only way I could tolerate the excruciating pitch of the minister’s tirade was to stand next to the door, and then to stand outside the door, and then to start walking… all the way down the street.
Ahhh – much better!
I found out later that the yelling I’d experienced during the church service is actually a style of preaching common in some southern US denominations. The ear-splitting, larynx-destroying delivery is an affectation to convey the impression of passion rather than actual passion itself. The purpose of this style of preaching, I’ve since learned, is to demonstrate zeal, emphasize the urgency of the Gospel, and wake people up to the fact that God means business. Well, as a born-again believer, I certainly know that God means business, but he’s never had to yell at me and split my eardrums to convey that message.
We do a disservice to God when we deliver his Word in such a way that it becomes physically painful to listen to it, especially when all that yelling and screaming is just for show. Spiritual discomfort we should aim for at times, when it’s called for, but never physical discomfort. My enduring memory from that church visit is how painful it was to be there, not how uplifting or convicting it was. I would much rather have left that place spiritually convicted in some way than aurally assaulted.
I recalled this experience today when I unwittingly clicked on a YouTube video featuring a minister who preached in the same assault-style method. I had to immediately hit the mute button and get him off my screen. Never again!
Here’s a funnier version of what I heard at that church. Frankly, I’d rather listen to the goat than the preacher.
Just a heads up, though – you might want to turn the volume waaaay down:
THE RAPTURE AND THE ASCENSION: PART 1 OF 2
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, February 29, 2024 – Since my dream last summer, I’ve been poring over feature-length movies, short movies, and other depictions of the alleged future event known as the the “pre-tribulation rapture”, or “rapture” for short. What I’ve found is that very little in these fictional presentations is scriptural, which should not be surprising, since the rapture itself is a modern invention that isn’t named in scripture. What is named is an event described as a “taking up” or an ascension. The ascension has already happened to several people (most famously to Jesus) and is prophesied to happen to many more.
There are major differences between the rapture and the ascension, mainly because they’re not the same phenomenon. Since its creation in the mid-1800s, the pre-tribulation rapture and its related mythology have led countless people, including born-again believers, into error. But what is it about the rapture that leaves so many so rapt?
First of all, the rapture gets a lot of press. Over the decades, untold millions have been poured into promoting and marketing the alleged future sudden disappearance of “true believers”. That’s why there are so many feature-length movies (we, the “afflicted and poor”, certainly aren’t bankrolling them!) as well as well-oiled TV and Internet evangelists stumping for the rapture at every turn. The trend has also infected church youth groups, with many of the short phone-filmed rapture videos written and performed by teenagers.
The second main reason for the rapture’s popularity is its formulaic “easy on the soul” mythology. In movies and short videos, the rapture is almost always presented the same way. The opening scenes portray a family or a group interacting amicably, with occasional squabbles. Some of the members are described as being “true believers”, while the rest are either unbelievers or backsliders. The true believers are shown urging and warning the others to repent and turn back to God, but their efforts are mocked or ignored. Then, out of the blue, the rapture occurs and the true believers disappear, leaving behind only their clothes and jewelry and whatever else they were wearing or carrying. Sometimes the left-behind clothes are neatly folded, sometimes they lay in a heap, and sometimes they remain rather comically strapped into the front seat of a car or lounging on a park bench.
The rest of the movie deals with the fallout of the rapture event on the people who are “left behind”. We learn how they feel about their dilemma and we see them struggling to adapt to the post-rapture reality. The so-called tribulation period has also been unleashed at the same time as the pre-tribulation rapture, bringing with it additional challenges (e.g., militarized world government, forced mark of the beast, etc.). Many of the left-behind believers respond to the ever-worsening situation by upping their game as Christians, while many more turn their back on Christianity altogether. Those who do turn back to God are persecuted and martyred.
A third reason why the rapture has caught the attention of Christians is that it offers hope beyond hope. Where scripture tells of a time when it will be too late to convert and be healed, those who believe in the rapture are assured that it’s never too late. The message here is: “Take your time; there’s always another bus” (even though in reality the final one’s long gone).
The ascension is nothing like the rapture. Rather than a one-off event, ascensions have occurred throughout history, with the final ascension set to take place at Jesus’ second coming. Also, instead of a disappearance, the ascension is a physical rising of a believer, body and soul, into the air. The rising is described in scripture as a “taking up”, so that whoever witnesses the ascension sees the ascending person literally rising up into the clouds. No clothes are reported to have been left behind after the ascensions, except for Elijah’s prayer mantle, which Elisha immediately claimed and put to good use.
Besides Jesus, other notable ascendees include Enoch and Elijah, as well as the two witnesses in the book of Revelation. There are also the holy angels described by Jesus as “ascending and descending” and the ascending and descending angels described by Jacob in one of his dreams. Additionally, random unnamed believers known only by their location (e.g., “in the field”) or activity (e.g., “grinding at the mill”) are likewise unexpectedly “taken”.
Paul describes the final ascension in some detail, explaining how the dead in Christ along with any remaining believers on Earth will be “caught up… to meet the Lord in the air” at Jesus’ second coming. Jesus mentions the same event in both Matthew and Mark, with his angels being sent to “gather together” the last believing stragglers from one end of heaven to the other. The use of the word “heaven” implies that the believers rise into the air with the angels, where Jesus is waiting for them in his glorified body.
The lists below highlight the main differences between the rapture and the ascension.
THE RAPTURE
- People disappear
- One- or two-time mass event
- Not in scripture
- Clothes left behind
- Heavily promoted
- Unknown until the 1800s
THE ASCENSION
- Taken up into the sky
- Multiple singular events and final mass event
- In scripture
- Clothes not left behind
- Not promoted
- Known since Enoch
Given these and other significant differences between the mythical rapture and the scriptural ascension, what is the point of pushing the rapture not only on Christians but also on the public in general? In other words, who created the pre-tribulation rapture mythology, why was it created, who benefits, who’s pushing it, and why are they pushing it now? And most importantly, why is all this especially relevant to us as born-again believers?
I explore these questions in detail in “THE RAPTURE AND THE ASCENSION: PART 2 OF 2”, posted here.
ON ATHEISM
CHARLO, New Brunswick, January 28, 2024 – If you open the door to Hell, don’t be surprised if the devil walks in and makes himself at home. Jesus’ focus was on the lost sheep of the house of Israel, not random people he happened upon in his travels. He never forced his views and opinions on anyone; those who came to hear him came of their own free will. We need to be reminded of this every so often. Standing on the street corner and shouting the “The End Is Nigh!” or handing out “God loves you!” flyers is not what Jesus taught us to do.
I was an atheist before I was born-again, so I know how utterly closed-minded (that is, spiritually deaf and blind) atheists are to Truth. They claim to be seeking the truth in their rejection of all things God, but what they’re actually seeking (although they don’t know it) is the truth according to Satan, which is of course the gospel of lies. Atheists and Satan are all about pride; both stake their claims with arrogance, and both disdain anyone who disagrees with their arguments, dismissing them as fools. But real Truth – God’s Truth – doesn’t need to be argued; it only needs to be presented, and those who genuinely love Truth will recognize it and immediately embrace it as such. Those who don’t love Truth will not accept it, no matter how clever or persuasive the argument.
We do God and Jesus a grave disservice when we argue God’s Truth. Arguing God’s Truth implies that God didn’t explain his Truth well enough in scripture so we have to make up for God’s shortcomings and oversights. I remember, as an atheist, editing the Ten Commandments for style and content (aiming for humor) and then faxing the marked-up copy to an ad agency, hoping for a job interview. What I got back was a stern rebuke commanding me never to contact them again. This is what happens when you try to one-up God.
I have never met a happy atheist, but I have met many a happy believer. “Happy believer” is so much a given, it’s basically a tautology, whereas “happy atheist” veers into the realm of the twilight zone. Snarky atheists abound, as do drug- and alcohol-addicted atheists, boastful atheists, cruel atheists, degenerative, debauched, and deranged atheists, depressed atheists, and suicidal atheists. But happy atheists? No. When I was an atheist, I sneered at the concept of happiness. I thought it a delusion for the weak-minded. I was certain that the strong needed to feel pain in order to be truly alive, which is why, I reasoned, all great writers and artists were of necessity suffering souls. Anything that fell short of this “necessary” state of (what I know now to be mostly self-induced) suffering was mere wretched contentment, as Nietzsche once phrased, derided, and dismissed it.
Happiness eludes the unbeliever because happiness, like all good things, comes from God. That’s not to say that atheists can’t every now and then perceive sensations that are akin to happiness, as I used to on rare occasion as an atheist, such as when walking through a fragrant forest or sitting on the edge of a cliff overlooking an ocean. But whatever the sensation was that I felt in those moments, it was fleeting and superficial and nothing compared to the deep steady joy that is my everyday reality as a believer. I don’t even drink alcohol anymore, not because I’m a teetotaling kill-joy but because alcohol just brings me down.
If I had one wish for atheists, I would wish for them to be made whole. To be made whole means to be healed, but a bone that has grown crooked first needs to be broken for it to be set straight. Now imagine if everything – mind, body, and soul – is crooked and in need of healing, in need of being set straight. Only God can affect such a monumental breaking and resetting, and that’s what I wish for atheists. I wish – no, I pray – that they be fully and properly broken, not caught and cushioned before they crash but permitted to crash hard. We Christians do people a grave disservice when we don’t allow them to crash; under the guise of helping them, we prolong their agony. Atheists in particular need to crash (as I well know and as I certainly did) because crashing is the only way to break their pride and make them whole again.
DOING GOD’S WORK? WHEN CHURCHES BURN
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, January 27, 2024 – Over the past few years, thousands of churches around the world have been vandalized or burned to the ground. In many cases, local governments have effectively fanned the flames by sympathizing with the vandals, labeling the destruction an understandable response to alleged historical crimes allegedly perpetrated by Christians. As horrendous as the burnings and desecrations may seem to us as believers, are the vandals actually doing God’s work?
Many if not all of the affected churches served as unofficial repositories for local historical artifacts, including those connected to ancient worship ceremonies that are not Christian. As we well know, worship of anything or anyone other than God is paganism, which is a polite term for demon worship. Some communities, prior to adopting Christianity, were steeped in demonism under the guise of “spirit worship” or other religions. Although they’ve since been coerced or persuaded into exchanging their talismans for crucifixes, their hearts have never fully been invested in “White Man’s religion”, especially in recent years. Tokens small and large of their former demon worshiping ways have been creeping back into their Christian rituals through a process known as religious syncretism.
We know what God thinks about religious syncretism. The Bible makes it abundantly clear. God didn’t like it back in the day when the children of Israel were doing it, and he doesn’t like it today when people who claim to be Christians do it. Nothing personal; it’s just that worship of demons and worship of God are not the same thing: one of these things just doesn’t belong. And using church buildings to store and/or display artifacts made for demon worship or to host celebrations or gatherings that invoke and glorify spirits other than God’s – well, God has a solution for that.
It’s called a flame.
And it burns things.
Sometimes to the ground.
If God allowed his desecrated temples in Jerusalem to be burned to the ground, why wouldn’t he also allow his desecrated churches to be burned?
I am not inviting, promoting, or celebrating the vandalizing of churches. I’m simply reporting their destruction as God gives me leave to do so. On the other hand, governments and their unofficial mouthpieces in media have all but condoned the attacks for political or cultural reasons, but we know, from evidence in scripture, that religious syncretism was likely the real catalyst for the burnings and also the reason why God permitted them to happen.
Jesus tells us that God is looking for people to worship him in spirit and in truth, not in a building. Buildings aren’t required to worship God. Paul said that the bodies of true believers form the worship temple, as God’s Holy Spirit resides in them. If this is the case (and it most certainly is), perhaps nothing of real value was lost in the church fires. What the destruction does indicate, however, is that Christianity is now approaching the same point of no return as Judaism once did, and if that thought doesn’t light a fire under you, I don’t know what will.
THE ONE-STEP PROGRAM
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, January 19, 2024 – A while back, I attended a Bible Study at a homeless shelter. I only went for a few sessions, as I quickly learned that the study was less about the Bible and more about persuading the participants to attend the 12-step addictions program meeting held in the same room as the Bible Study, but on different days.
I will say from the outset – full disclosure – that I am not a fan of the 12-step program. I’m definitely not a fan of it for Christians, but I’m also leery of it for non-believers. I think at its core it’s a cult that aims to suck you in for life and make you dependent on it. It also aims to get you to bring others into the cult. I do not buy their assertion that alcoholism or any other kind of addiction is a disease. I do not buy that a person who hasn’t had a drink in decades should still privately and publicly label him- or herself an alcoholic. I do not buy that you need to lean on “mentors” for support rather than God. And I definitely don’t buy that you refer to God as a “higher power” rather than God. Frankly, the whole program and the people who run it give me the creeps. I think the higher power they worship is not God.
As I said – full disclosure. I never mince my words for believers.
If you’re a Christian, you don’t need a 12-step program because you’ve got the one-step program, courtesy of Jesus. The one-step program is calling out to God for help, in Jesus’ name. If you sincerely call out to God for help, he will help you. That is his promise, graven in scripture and on your heart. But if you only half-heartedly call out for help or do so in a double-minded way, God won’t help you. That is also graven in scripture. If you call yourself a Christian but then run to other people for help, God will probably also not help you. And if you call yourself a Christian and then bypass the one-step program for the 12-step program, you no longer have a right to call yourself a Christian.
What is a Christian? A Christian is a born-again follower of Jesus. As a born-again follower of Jesus, a Christian does what Jesus taught, guided, instructed, and directed his followers to do. Jesus taught them to go directly to God for help, in his name. Jesus did not say to go to other people for help: He said to go directly to God.
I’m talking to Christians here. If you’re suffering from some kind of addiction or obsession or something that keeps popping up in your life that you know is not right, you run to God for help. You don’t run to a doctor or a counsellor or a friend or a spouse or a minister or a priest or a 12-step program mentor. You run to God in Jesus’ name. You 100% submit to God, and he will help you. Sure, you can run to a doctor or a counsellor or a 12-step program mentor or even Santa Claus, if you want to (you still have free will as a Christian), but the only help you’ll get from them is the help that they can provide, which is a far cry from the help God can give you.
When God helps, he heals miraculously, and the healing, when it comes, is instantaneous, full, and permanent. Almighty God “makes whole”, which is the very definition of healing. People who offer their help, whether informally or professionally, usually only treat the symptoms, and that over a long period of time, and only partially and temporarily, and at great emotional and financial cost.
I was healed by God. I cried out for help and God healed me. He didn’t make me perfect; he made me spiritually whole. At the same time, he put his Holy Spirit in me and I became a follower of Jesus. The whole thing happened in an instant but has remained my reality for nearly 25 years.
Again, God made me whole at my rebirth; he didn’t make me perfect. I still have temptations and tests to grapple with, but I run to God for help with those and he always helps me, fully, instantaneously, and permanently. So when I tell you to run to God in Jesus’ name, I’m not simply repeating what Jesus told us to do: I’m telling you from deep personal experience gained over a long period of time as a born-again believer.
Submit yourself 100% to God in Jesus’ name, and God will help you.
It takes only one step.
In Jesus’ name.
Amen.
ARE YOU HELPING FOR GOOD OR IN VAIN?
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, January 17, 2024 – Jesus spent his entire ministry helping people. In fact, helping people was the reason God sent him. As Jesus’ followers, we also have that same impulse baked into us to help people: It’s part of who and what we are as Christians: we can’t help but help. Certainly, helping people is a good thing in and of itself, but we need to remember that Jesus didn’t just go around randomly helping people for the sake of it; he waited for God to show him who he was to help and how he was to do it, and then he helped them.
I was reminded of this when I read an article the other day about a homeless encampment in suburban Halifax. The camp has been growing for months on an unused baseball diamond and has gained some notoriety through constant media coverage. The fall-out from all the publicity is that members of the general public – including some local churches – have started dropping off “donations” to the homeless at the camp. These are usually in the form of food, gift cards, clothing, tents, sleeping bags and other camping items, and personal care products. Some people also drop off cash.
The reason the camp was in the news on that particular day is that a drug dealer had set up camp (literally, in a trailer) next to the homeless encampment. Using the camp as his cover, he’d been plying his trade for months. When the dealer was arrested and his trailer seized, the police found hundreds of gift cards as well as unused winter clothing, sleeping bags, tents, and other items with street value. The police also found a large amount of cash.
While no witnesses have come forward to attest to the homeless people at the camp trading their donated goods for drugs, the evidence is overwhelming. Thinking they were helping the homeless, the people who’d dropped off donations were in fact only helping the drug trade and enabling the drug-addicted homeless to sink deeper into their own personal mire. In other words, they were making a bad situation worse.
What the general public chooses to do is their business, and I would never tell them who or how to help. It’s not my job to do that. But what Christians do or don’t do is very much my business. We’re here to help each other as much as we’re here to help non-Christians. Please allow me, then, to offer you a gentle reminder (for those who need it) about the importance of helping people the way Jesus helped them and the way God invites us to help them.
First and foremost – wait for God to show you who and how to help. If you wait for God to show you, he will also enable you, and the help you provide will be blessed. When your help is enabled and blessed by God, it won’t end up in the hands of a drug dealer. It won’t make the situation worse. If you wait for God to specifically tell you who needs the help and how you can help them, you will genuinely be blessing people.
Secondly but just as importantly, “don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing”. In other words, don’t make a big show of your help. Don’t blow a horn and announce your help. Just do it.
And thirdly, let people know you’re happy to help them in any way you’re able to help them, and then leave the offer with them. Don’t force your help on anyone or guilt them into thinking they need your help. Wait for them to come to you. If they come to you, God has brought them to you, and God will help you help them.
I worked for a major international Christian charity several years ago on a short-term contract, coordinating the charity’s volunteers at Christmas time. My office was on the main floor of the main building, so I got to see all the comings and goings of the charity’s interactions with the general public. A few weeks before Christmas, an elderly woman dropped off a garbage bag full of mittens and hats she’d knitted over the past year, intended for the homeless and needy (there was a homeless shelter attached to the main building). She’d brought her donations to the charity assuming that the charity would then dispense the items to people who could use them. This was a tradition for the woman, that she’d donate a garbage bag full of her labours every year just before Christmas. The charity staff made a big deal of thanking her for her donation and waved her out the door. Then one of the staff took the bag of mittens and hats upstairs.
A few weeks later, just after Christmas, I was rummaging through one of the storage rooms to find a pair of winter boots for someone at the hostel, when lo and behold I stumbled across dozens of dusty garbage bags full of handknit mittens and hats, moldering in the dampness. By the looks of it, none of the woman’s donations over the years had gone any farther than that storage room, and now they were no good to anyone.
One of the most sobering parables in the Bible is the one about the people who’d attended church and performed miracles and preached in Jesus’ name but who were shut out of Heaven because they’d done all these things on their own volition. When we rush to help people without God’s prompting and guidance and without God’s blessing, we aren’t helping them in any real way and are likely only making things worse. As Christians, our job is to help people, but we need to help them as God guides us, in his way and in his timing. When we rush to help people just for the sake of helping them, our efforts are not unlike those who claimed to preach in Jesus’ name but who preached in vain because God hadn’t sent them.
David’s advice to “wait on the Lord” (Psalm 27) is as applicable to helping people as it is to every other aspect of our lives.
THE QUESTION
“Do you need to pee?”
“No.”
“Pee anyway.”
This is how our family trips would start when I was a kid. It was like a ritual. Before we piled into the back seat of the car with Dad patiently waiting behind the wheel, my mother would stand at the front door and ask us The Question. We’d always say “no”, she’d always tell us to pee anyway, and then we’d race to the bathroom. One by one we’d take our turn, and we’d always manage to squeeze out at least a trickle. It never ceased to amaze us how our mother knew our urinary tract better than we did.
Now let’s put this in a spiritual context:
“Do you need to repent?”
“No.”
“Repent anyway.”
I’m wondering how many of you reading this will deny your need to repent. I’m wondering how many will deny that you might have even a trickle of a sin to squeeze out of you.
Repenting is not something you do just on special occasions. It’s not even something you do only when you feel the need to. Repenting is something you should be doing every day as a matter of course, the way you wash your face every day. You wash your face because it makes you feel clean and refreshed. You repent for the same reason.
Sin can creep into us unawares and hide in places we don’t think of looking. It can hide in unforgiveness and grudges, it can hide in coveting (that slightly strange old-fashioned word that just means wanting what we don’t need), it can hide in pride. Sin, like dust, can cling to anything. Did you know that dust even settles on walls and ceilings? I mean, who dusts their walls and ceilings? I actually know a man who vacuums his walls and ceilings because he well knows that dust can settle on them as easily as it can settle on furniture.
Sin can settle anywhere on a soul, and just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. My mother well knew that we always had at least a trickle of pee in us, just as God well knows that we always have at least a trickle of sin. You can deny it, but go ahead and repent and see for yourself.
You might be surprised at what comes out.
ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS
CHARLO, New Brunswick, January 9, 2024 – Beginnings are not always at the start, but they always come after an ending. There is a clear dividing line between ending and beginning. Spiritual rebirth doesn’t happen at physical birth; but if and when it does happen, it designates an ending of that soul’s cursed life and the beginning of its blessed one. The two lives don’t overlap. The parting of the Red Sea and the parting of the Jordan allowed for the mass movement of the children of Israel from an ending to a beginning, the narrow passage through each body of water not unlike a birth canal. The children of Israel were birthed into their new life in the wilderness at the parting of the Red Sea and then later birthed into their new life in the promised land at the parting of the River Jordan.
We were birthed into our new life at conversion. We left behind whoever and whatever we were to become whole new creatures – children of God. We’re not born children of God, we’re reborn children of God, and that by the power of God’s Holy Spirit. The ending of our old ungraced life powered by demons and the beginning of our new life of grace powered by God’s Spirit mark a definitive ending and beginning; there is no overlap. There can be no overlap, as God’s Spirit will not occupy the same soul that demons occupy and God’s Spirit can enter into a soul only once. If that soul loses grace, God’s Spirit will not re-enter it. The state of being after God’s Spirit has exited a soul Jesus describes as better not having been born at all. The exit of God’s Spirit from a soul is a definitive ending that is followed by the beginning of that soul’s eternal perdition, from which there is no escape and no end.
The Bible begins with a description of an earthly paradise and ends with a description of a heavenly one. The tree of life features prominently in both. In the beginning, the tree is guarded and prohibited; in the ending, it grows abundantly and is offered freely for the healing of the nations. If you’re reborn, you have eaten from the tree of life and have been healed.
You need to end what you are not in order to begin who you are. The world, from the time of our birth, molds us into something we were never meant to be. Note that I’m talking here about most people, not everyone. Most of us, for a time, allowed ourselves to be molded into what the world wanted us to be, not realizing that the world was under Satan. Very few escape the molding process. We called demonic influence “inspiration” and satanic-level rebellion “freedom”, not knowing any better, not knowing Truth. God knows this and doesn’t hold it against us. He allows for blaspheming of him and Jesus when we don’t know any better, but once we’re under his authority and graced with his Holy Spirit, we’re held to a higher standard that we dare not violate. Truth be told, we wouldn’t dream of violating it, because we know the Truth as God, and knowing God (as Jesus promised us) has made us free.
We love God with a fierceness we never thought ourselves capable of.
The ending of this life will lead to the beginning of the next that will have no end, whether in Heaven or the lake of fire. Every breath we take here – every word, every deed, every thought – moves us towards either Paradise or perdition. God doesn’t move us; we move ourselves. It is not enough to say: “We have Jesus as our savior”, any more than it was enough to say: “We have Abraham as our Father”. The fruit of our doings is either good or bad and we are judged on that – not on a description of what we hope our fruit might be, but on our actual fruit, with all its bruising and imperfection.
I want to hold God’s hand and protect him. I want to shield him from the cursing that spills so easily from the mouths of some people. When they’re around me, they curse more than usual and confess to doing so, not understanding why. If I told them why they wouldn’t believe me, so I just silently bless them as they blaspheme. This is the lot of God’s children. The same people who have no trouble respecting my earthly father have no trouble disrespecting my heavenly one.
I will end when it’s time and begin where I deserve. In the meantime, every second counts.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 