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A CALL TO SPIRITUAL ARMS: PREPARING FOR PASSOVER
MEADOWVILLE, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, February 25, 2022 – When I started this blog several years ago, it was not my intention to form a ministry. This was never meant to be an outreach or evangelical site. It was just intended to be a place where born-again believers could touch base, see their views reflected, get some guidance, and maybe get a spiritual spanking, if one was warranted. There are few places like that left in the world, even online, and even fewer among those spaces designated as Christian.
My intentions for this blog have not changed over the years. This is still not a ministry and still not an outreach or evangelical site. If anything, I work hard to push people away by constantly challenging them. It’s more a boot camp than anything else and I’m the drill sergeant. I play the role willingly and well. That’s why God put me here.
If you’re not DAILY examining your conscience before God, comparing your thoughts and actions with those of Jesus and adjusting them accordingly, then you’re falling short of your duties as a born-again believer and you’re getting spiritually flabby. Those who are spiritually flabby won’t make it home. I don’t care what your worldly pastor or some donation-grubbing, feel-good “Christian” on YouTube tells you – being born-again is not a guaranteed ticket to Heaven. Being born-again is a pass that gets you into the Kingdom and a blank check that pays for the services of God’s Holy Spirit to guide and protect you as you make your way through the temptations of this world. But born-again believers can still lose their grace. That is scriptural. “Once saved, always saved” is a lie to keep you spiritually flabby.
In the Bible, every major transition to a higher spiritual state is preceded by a fast or some form of significant separation from the world that lasts 40 days and 40 nights. We see it with Noah during the flood. We see it with Moses on Mount Sinai. We see it with Jesus in the wilderness and again after his resurrection, when he appeared to his followers off and on for 40 days and nights before his ascension. The 40-day-and-night time span is clearly important in God’s economy, so we need to pay attention to it. We should be constantly striving to evolve to a higher spiritual level by following ever closer behind Jesus and drawing ever closer to God.
Over the next seven weeks leading up to Passover, we have the opportunity to do a 40-day fast of some kind. How you choose to fast is between you and God, but I strongly suggest that you do it. A reminder is in order here that Jesus says God requires mercy not sacrifice, and that Isaiah 58 gives a very clear explanation of the kind of fast required by God and the rewards that come from doing it. Again, I’m not telling you how to fast (that’s between you and God); I’m just saying that you should fast in the weeks leading up to Passover.
For us born-again believers, Passover is the annual commemoration and celebration of our freedom from physical, political and spiritual slavery. It also commemorates and celebrates our reconciliation with God. Through Moses, God told us we should always celebrate Passover while we’re on Earth, and through Jesus, God showed us the new way to do it – with wine and bread, rather than with blood and a slaughtered lamb.
We should be constantly challenging ourselves as born-again believers. We should never be satisfied to remain where we are spiritually; we should always be striving to be better than we were yesterday, with our ultimate goal to “be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect”. No, we’ll never attain that goal while we’re in our imperfect bodies, but we still need to strive for it to our dying breath.
To do this, we need to be constantly comparing ourselves with Jesus, not with the world. Our standard should be Jesus, not the world. If we have problems, we turn to God, not to the world. If we need guidance and healing, we look to God, not to the world. If we’re angry and frustrated, we go to God, not to the world. Jesus always went to God, and we need to do that, too. But we can’t do it if we’re too attached to the world and its ways. The world has a way of coming between us and God. We need to prevent that from happening.
Separating ourselves from the world through a 40-day fast is a good way to refocus everything on God.
You have your marching orders.
Passover starts at sundown on April 15th, 2022.
A HIGHER STANDARD
MEADOWVILLE, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, February 25, 2022 – As born-again believers, we’re held to a higher standard.
We can’t compare our thoughts and actions with those of people who are in the world. We need to compare our thoughts and actions with those of Jesus. How do we know Jesus’ thoughts and actions? We can read about them in the Gospel. That’s why we continually need to learn from the Gospel, so we’ll know the right way to act and and the right way to direct our thoughts in any given situation, especially in emergencies.
Note that being held to a higher standard doesn’t mean we hold ourselves to be better than those who are held to a lower standard. In no way does being held to a higher standard mean that we’re somehow “better” or that God loves us more. It just means that God expects more from us, in the same way that parents expect more from their eldest than from the baby of the family.
We need to remember this when we feel drawn – tempted – into issues that are affecting the world, such as war or mass protests. We need to look to Jesus for guidance in these issues, not to the media or the government. The guidance provided by Jesus is much different than that provided by the media or government. In most cases, it’s the opposite.
We also need to remember that the Commandments have no asterisks next to them denoting exceptions to the rule, and that they haven’t changed in meaning or content since they were first given to Moses thousands of years ago. The guidance provided by the Ten Commandments remains valid to this day. So we continually need to read and learn from those, too, and to remind ourselves of them whenever temptation comes our way.
War and the loyalties demanded by war are temptations.
We are to love our neighbours and our enemies without exception. There is no exception to that rule. We love and pray for our neighbours and our enemies equally and without distinction. That is our job as born-again believers. In John’s vision of the Kingdom in the book of Revelation, people of all nations and races and tongues stand before and serve God TOGETHER as one.
We are not the world.
We are the Kingdom.
And the Kingdom is ruled by different laws than the world.
Please remember that in the days and weeks to come.
Love all, without distinction.
That is our Commandment.
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27 But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,
28 Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.
29 And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.
30 Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.
31 And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.
32 For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.
33 And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.
34 And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.
36 Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.
37 Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:
38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
(Luke 6:27-38)
SOMETIMES VICTORY LOOKS LIKE DEFEAT
MEADOWVILLE, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, February 22, 2022 – Just before he finished the work that God had sent him to do, Jesus told his disciples that he would soon be arrested, beaten, and killed. The disciples immediately went into a war huddle, vowing they would never let such a thing happen to Jesus, even if it meant they would have to die with him. To their shock and confusion, Jesus was angry with their response and accused them of thinking as man thinks, not as God thinks.
We, as born-again believers, need to think as God thinks. The thought of Jesus getting arrested and killed was unimaginable to the disciples, not only because Jesus was their leader and they loved him, but because it would mean Jesus’ defeat. There was no way they were going to let Jesus be defeated. They knew that if he went down, they all went down, and they weren’t going to let that happen without a fight. They’d sacrificed too much too long to fail.
This is how man thinks – you fight your way out of a bad situation. You fight with your fists or you fight with your sword or you fight with your money or you fight with whatever you have at hand, but you put up a fight. Jesus didn’t want his disciples to fight. He wanted them to stand down and let happen what needed to happen. He wanted them to put their ego and testosterone and weaponry aside and let God do what God needed to do. He wanted them to stay out of it.
Thankfully, when it came time for Jesus’ arrest, most of them did stay out of it, not because they took Jesus’ advice to “think as God thinks”, but because they were terrified for their own physical safety. They were afraid that what was happening to Jesus would also happen to them. That Jesus was actually in the final stretch of a race that he was winning by leaps and bounds was the last thing that occurred to any of them at the time. They saw in Jesus’ arrest his defeat, and in his defeat they saw theirs, and their real (rather than hypothetical) response to their perceived failure wasn’t to fight, but to run and hide.
Sometimes victory looks like defeat.
Our job as born-again believers isn’t to fight physical battles, but spiritual ones. We know that God and all those who side with him ultimately win the war, so what happens to us in between – which battles we win or lose – doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we stay the course and remain true to God, regardless of the witness of our eyes. To think as God thinks is to see beyond what is in front of us: to see by faith, as Jesus did all through his life, and especially in the hours of his crucifixion.
We know how it all ends. We know God and we know Jesus, not as our enemies or as a spiritual concept that is ‘out there somewhere’ – we know God and Jesus as our Father and our brother, respectively, who are always with us. This deeply personal relationship we have with both of them is inseparable from who we are as born-again believers and is all we need to be victorious in our daily battles, regardless of what happens to us physically. We don’t need to use physical weapons because we are weapons. Scripture says that Jesus rides into battle wielding a sharp sword that comes from his mouth. As Jesus’ followers, we have that same sword coming out of our mouths. We just need to remember to use it.
When you take up physical weapons with the intention of using them, you’re fighting as man fights, not as God fights. When you protest the way of the world and the unfolding of God’s justice on Earth, you’re thinking as man thinks, not as God thinks. We need to fight as God fights – with the sword of God’s Word – and to think as God thinks, through the witness of our faith.
Sometimes victory looks like defeat, but only because you’re viewing it with your eyes.
A CALL TO REPENTANCE: THE SERMON THAT SHOULD BE HEARD IN THE CHURCHES OF EVERY FORMER CHRISTIAN NATION
“I have set before you life and death… choose life.”
MEADOWVILLE, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, February 13, 2022 – When a nation turns from God, and instead of repenting, rebels; when a nation chooses death instead of life, and yet still demands the reward of freedom that comes with choosing life; when a nation cries in its anthem for God to keep its land “glorious and free”, and yet opposes God by supporting laws that kill the unborn, the sick, and the aged: then God has no choice but to give that nation its reward not according to its cries and demands, but its due.
God is giving that rebellious nation not what it wants, but what it has earned.
All formerly Christian nations are now reaping the rewards of choosing death, even while the people of those nations take to the streets and demand the rewards of choosing life.
Instead of repentance, there’s rebellion. Instead of understanding, there’s confusion. Instead of turning back to God and choosing to live in accordance with the Gospel, there’s a doubling down of sin and pride and the tabling of further demands.
But these rebellions now taking place across former Christendom are nothing new. They’ve been seen before, in heavenly places, when a third of God’s angels refused to accept God’s rule and rebelled. I don’t think I need to remind you that their reward for rebellion was a fall from grace followed by eternal damnation.
We who call ourselves Christians are supposed to be children of God. We who call ourselves Christians are supposed to be followers of Jesus. Children of God and followers of Jesus need to set the good example and show guidance to others, not fall in lockstep with the rebellious, many of whom don’t even believe that God exists.
As Christians, we need to lead the call for repentance in former Christian nations, not in an effort to bring those nations back to what they were previously (that will never happen), but to call forth any among them who still love God and still choose life. We need to remind those few, through the call to repentance, that rebellion against the way things are in the world – including restrictions on freedoms – is rebellion against God’s justice as it plays out in the world. We need to remind those few that God’s justice is perfect, and that to rebel against it is to rebel against God. We also need to remind those few what the rewards are for rebelling against God.
And we need to remind them what the rewards are for doing God’s will.
I hope I am preaching to the choir here, but I know there are some hearing this sermon who will reject its message and will continue to embrace rebellion. Those same people will also continue to call themselves Christians, even as they trail behind Satan, waving banners cursing their neighbour and doing the will of the Father of Lies. Some will do these things conscious that they’re rebelling against God, while others will do it blindly, lost in confusion.
But for those very few of you who understand that the way forward is through repentance, not rebellion – your job is to lead the way. Even if you’re the only one – lead the way. Stand separate from those who rebel. Repent and pray for those who have been blinded and have gone astray. It is the job of the Church to pray for those who are in the Church as well as for those who have gone astray. I see in the protests in former Christian nations only rebellion against God’s justice and curses against those who are administering it. These things should not be done by Christians.
This is a call to repentance to all those who choose life. The fall from grace of former Christian nations is nothing new, and neither is their rebellion against the rewards for choosing death. Scripture tells us that such falls from grace have happened before, but scripture also teaches us that the way forward is always to stand separate from the rebellious and to repent.
Stand separate, repent, and preach repentance, and you will receive the reward of repentance, which is freedom.
Run with the mob, rebel, and preach rebellion, and you will receive the reward of rebellion, which is slavery.
The choice, as always, is yours, but the right choice – the one that leads to life – is to stand separate, repent, and preach repentance.
May you always choose life.
Amen.
ON THE LAW, THE LAWS OF THE LAND, AND GUARANTEED RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS
MEADOWVILLE, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, February 11, 2022 – As a Christian, I know that the Ten Commandments are the Law for me. The Commandments tell me what I can and cannot do, and they comfort me.
At the same time, as a Canadian, I also know that I have rights and freedoms that are guaranteed to me under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom. The Charter is part of the Canadian Constitution and is the highest law of the land. No Canadian law is higher, and no Canadian law can supersede my rights and freedoms as a Canadian. Even under a state of emergency, my rights and freedoms remain intact. They cannot be nullified by any temporary directive or order. That is my guaranteed right as a Canadian.
I mention this because Paul knew his rights and freedoms as a Roman citizen. He was first and foremost a follower and apostle of Jesus, but he was also a Roman citizen. The rights afforded him as a Roman citizen gave him special protections by the Roman soldiers who helped him escape from the posse of temple elders who were planning to kill him. Being a Roman citizen also enabled Paul to live a life of relative freedom and comfort in Rome during the years he was awaiting trial.
While we’re yet in the world, we need to know what our rights and freedoms are in whatever country we are a citizen or resident. And not only do we need to know those rights and freedoms – we need to claim them, we need to assert them, and we need to stand on them, like Paul did. If we don’t know our rights, we can easily be misled by threats and coercion, or by the ignorance or malignance of people in positions of authority over us.
Case in point: Several years ago, I rented an apartment in Nova Scotia that was heated by electricity. The landlord told me, when I signed the lease, that the electricity bill was a certain amount per month on average. When it came time for me to move into the apartment, I called the power company to have the electricity account changed to my name. I also asked, out of curiosity, what the average power bill was. I was SHOCKED (pun intended lol) to hear that it was three times the amount I’d been told by the landlord.
When I got off the phone, I prayed. I knew there was no way I could afford the apartment with the power bill that high, and the apartment just wasn’t worth the high cost anyway. So I asked God to help me find a way out of the lease that wouldn’t involve me simply walking away from it.
He immediately had me go online to a website that had a verbatim copy of the Residential Tenancies Act, which are the laws governing landlord and tenant relations in Nova Scotia. I had never read the Act before. Once on that website, God guided me to the very clause that would get me out of the lease. I remember staring at it for a few minutes and thinking: “This can’t be real, I must be misunderstanding it”. So I called the government department responsible for landlord tenant issues and asked them to confirm whether the clause would in fact get me out of the lease. The woman I spoke with confirmed that it would. She herself had to consult with a colleague to make sure her interpretation of the clause was correct, because, as she confided, she’d been working at the department for over 20 years, and no-one had ever, to her knowledge, used that clause to get out of a lease.
I called the landlord and informed him that I was moving out (I’d never actually moved in) and told him why and on what grounds. The landlord then consulted with his lawyer about what I’d told him, and he was informed by his lawyer that the reason was sound and irrefutable. The lawyer also advised him to give me back all my money and to let me go. To the landlord’s credit, he did, and that was that.
Laws are made for a reason. God cherishes laws, and he wants us also to cherish them and to use them to our benefit. The Ten Commandments are there for our guidance and comfort, just as the laws of the land are there for our protection. Like Paul, we need to know the laws of the land pertaining to our rights, we need to claim them, we need to assert them, and we need to stand on them. For me, whether it’s the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the Residential Tenancies Act – these laws have been put there by God for my protection as much as the Commandments have been put there for my guidance and comfort.
God wants me, as his child, to take full advantage of every right and freedom afforded me as a Canadian. But it is my responsibility to learn about my rights under the various laws of the land, and then to assert them. No-one is going to do that for me; I have to do it for myself.
I invite you now to acquaint (or reacquaint) yourself with the laws of whatever land you’re living in. I’m going to post a link to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms below, for any Canadians who are reading this. As with the Commandments, we are responsible not only for knowing the laws, but for informing others about them. Informing others about them is as important as informing ourselves.
Remember – the rights afforded Canadian citizens under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms cannot by nullified under any circumstance, including a state of emergency.
May God bless you for reading this, and may you be blessed for keeping informed of – AND ASSERTING – your rightful freedoms. Just as God helped me to use a little-known law to get out of a deceitful lease, he will use his Law and the laws of the land to help all of his children thrive in the Kingdom and survive in the world. That’s his job as our Father.
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The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: http://www.charter.ofrightsandfreedoms.ca/
GOD’S JUDGEMENT ON FORMER CHRISTIAN NATIONS
MEADOWVILLE, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, February 7, 2022 – A judgement is falling on former Christian nations.
It has come in the form of loss of freedoms and serves as a warning of worse to come if those nations don’t return to their Christian roots. A nation’s level of freedom reflects that nation’s godliness. Considering the current state of the world, it’s no wonder there are now few if any nations that we can honestly call free.
Canada, for example, is in the grips of near civil war for the first time in its history, but also for the first time in its history, only a minority of Canadians identify as Christian, while the majority voice their support for the mass murder of their fellow Canadians through abortion and euthanasia. Abortion has been legal in Canada for some time, and euthanasia was legalized in 2016. What’s changed over the past few years is the majority’s vocal support for these abominations. Murder-on-demand (i.e., abortion and euthanasia) has also become progressively easier to access as a free “healthcare service”.
Do you think a nation in which the vast majority of the population supports the mass murder of its most vulnerable deserves the same degree of freedom as a nation that deplores the mass murder of its people? Because I don’t in any way believe that an ungodly nation – which is what Canada has become in more ways than can be mentioned here – I don’t believe that an ungodly nation deserves the same degree of freedom as a godly one.
Like all formerly Christian nations, Canada has become a stronghold of the ungodly and is now reaping the rewards of that ungodliness through loss of freedoms, as well as through a crumbling economy, out-of-control immigration, appalling political leadership, and a state of near civil war. All formerly Christian nations are more or less in the same broken condition.
A nation where the majority has outright rejected God and his Messiah deserves very little freedom, and that appears to be what Canada has brought on itself. A nation’s leadership isn’t imposed on a people; a nation’s leadership is earned. So if the people of Canada are unhappy with their leaders, they have only themselves to blame.
I believe that scripture backs me up when I say that such a judgement has been seen before by those who strayed too far from God’s laws. The children of Israel also suffered the same warning judgments a few times in their history before God permanently cut them off. Christians are not yet at the point of being permanently cut off, but they’re definitely nearing it. They’re more at the stage where they’re about to be marched off to spiritual Babylon while their nation is plundered and destroyed.
I am not against a people’s cry for freedom – that cry rings loud and clear in my own heart – but freedom can’t reign where sin runs rampant, and sin is running rampant in former Christian nations. The only way out of this devolving situation is for the majority of the population to turn back to God, but I don’t see that happening any time soon, if ever. This is a dismal prognosis and an honest one.
The sole remedy is for the few remaining Christians to separate themselves, if not physically then at least spiritually, from those nations so that they don’t share in the judgement that is coming on all Christendom.
THE LABOUR OF LOVE
MEADOWVILLE, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, February 6, 2022 – What I find about most Christians is that they love the love. They love the love part of being a Christian – giving charity and helping those they think need their help. They love doing that. They love talking about it and they love planning it. They love the love.
But the labour is another thing altogether. Jesus said we should pray to God to send labourers to help with the harvest, because labourers are what we need. And labouring is where most of those who love the love call in sick.
Labour is hard work. There’s no way around that. It’s tedious, it’s physically demanding, it feels like it goes on forever, and it often seems futile. But you do it because it’s your job description, not because you love it.
You do it because it’s your job description.
In the Gospels, most of Jesus’ followers fell away when it got to the point of labouring. They loved the love, but they didn’t love the labour that went with it. So when things got hard and demanding and seemingly futile, they wandered off to look for another love.
Jesus talks about this in his parable of the seeds. Which seed are you? Do you love only the love, but then quit when the labouring begins? Or do you love until the love part becomes too hard because you have to forgive the unforgivable?
We born-agains have the most rigorous of job descriptions. We’re not only expected to love, we’re also expected to labour. And even more so, we’re expected to love as we labour. As difficult and as tedious and as seemingly unrewarding as it is, we need to love even as we labour. This is our high calling as born-again believers, and this is our job description.
Jesus did it. Jesus loved as he laboured. He never gave up, no matter how tired he was or how hopeless it looked. He didn’t give up when most of his followers fell away, and he didn’t give up when even his closest disciples deserted him. He kept on loving and he kept on labouring. He didn’t change his strategy or his tactics: He kept on loving, and he kept on labouring, right up to his last breath.
Jesus is our model: Paul isn’t our model, the disciples aren’t our models, Ezekiel isn’t our model, Moses isn’t our model – Jesus is our model. If you love only the love part of being a Christian, then you’re like the Pharisees, who love only those who love them. Loving is the easy part. It’s easy to love when those you love love you back.
Loving those who spit in your face while you’re feeding and clothing them is what separates the wheat from the chaff.
THE CALL TO RADICAL LOVE
MEADOWVILLE, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, February 6, 2022 – As born-again believers, we’re called to love radically.
But what does that mean?
Jesus summed it up as loving our enemies, which means to pray for them and bless them and treat them as we would want to be treated, regardless of the circumstances.
Regardless of the circumstances.
It sounds so simple, but it’s actually the hardest thing in the world to do.
Lucky for us, Jesus showed us how to do it. Instead of berating Judas when he knew Judas was betraying him, Jesus embraced him and spoke kindly to him. Instead of cursing the people who were tormenting and ridiculing him at his crucifixion, Jesus prayed to God to forgive them. These are examples of radical love, and Jesus provided these examples to us so that we would follow them, regardless of the circumstances.
Regardless of the circumstances.
Stephen followed Jesus’ example of radical love when he prayed for the men stoning him to death. Peter and John also followed Jesus’ example by praying for their guards when they were in prison, and by choosing to remain imprisoned when they had the opportunity to escape (as they knew their escape would mean a death sentence for the guards).
We, as followers of Jesus, have an excellent opportunity right now to love radically by praying for those who support the taking away of our civil rights. We shouldn’t curse or oppose those people; we should pray for them and treat them kindly. This is what Jesus taught us to do, so this what we should do.
If we, as God’s children, don’t pray for them, who will?
Protesting is not prayer. Blasting horns at all hours of the day and night is not treating others as you’d want to be treated. That is the world’s way of dealing with things, but it shouldn’t be our way. We are called to love radically and to follow Jesus. When we instead follow the world by protesting, we are joining forces with the descendants of Barabbas. We are not loving our enemies when we protest; we are hating them and blaming them for our problems.
The only call to arms we should be responding to is the call to extend our arms in prayer and to spiritually embrace those who hate us. This is the radical love that born-again believers are called to practice every day, regardless of the circumstances. We are not called to protest, we are not called to point fingers of blame, we are not called to join forces with those who hate their enemies – we’re called to love our enemies radically, against our first gut instinct, and by the power of God’s Holy Spirit.
This is our mission as born-again followers of Jesus. This is our calling. If you’re having trouble doing it, you need to repent, get down on your face, and pray.
ENEMIES AND FRIENDS
MEADOWVILLE, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, January 22, 2022 – Jesus tells his followers to love their enemies, and as born-again followers of Jesus, we do what he tells us to do: We love our enemies.
We pray for them, bless them, and do good to them, regardless of what they do to us.
But in loving our enemies, we must also stay aware that they are our enemies. They are not our friends. Enemies can’t and shouldn’t be trusted. Enemies can’t and shouldn’t be entrusted with anything of value. They are enemies.
Yes, we can spend time with them and interact with them, showing them love, but all the while we should still remain aware that they are our enemies. We need constantly to be on our guard.
If, on the other hand, our enemies turn and become followers of Jesus, as witnessed by genuine spiritual rebirth, then they’ve become our friends. We were once enemies of Jesus, but when we were born-again, we became his friends. We need to extend the same friendship to our enemies who turn. We need to test them first to see if they are genuinely turned (as Paul was tested by the disciples), but if we find them to be so, then we need to embrace them as friends the way Jesus has embraced us. No ifs, ands, or buts.
At the same time, don’t be fooled. Many people claim to turn to Jesus, only to be found later to have turned to something other than Jesus, some other Jesus-like gospel that is not Jesus. Most of these people take on leadership positions in the worldly denominational church. They are the gatekeepers Jesus describes as not entering the Kingdom and preventing others from entering, as fishing for converts only to make them more fit for hell than they are themselves. During the time of Jesus’ ministry, the leadership of the synagogues and temple was like this. Today, the leadership of all denominational churches is like this. No exceptions.
When you’re a born-again believer, your enemies – both seen and unseen – are all around you all the time. Your friends – both seen and unseen – are also all around you, and they’re closer to you than your enemies, even if they’re physically far away, and even if you don’t know who they are. They form a spiritual force field around you that cannot be breached. Think of David (when he was on the run from Saul) and his band of outcasts who protected him with their lives. In this case, we are all David while at the same time being all his outcasts. We are both David and those who protected him. However, unlike David and his men, we don’t use physical weapons to protect each other; we use spiritual ones. We pray for each other, just as we pray for our enemies. Our prayers contribute to our protection, because our prayers give God permission to intervene supernaturally over and above what he would normally do.
The more we pray and bless others, whether friend or foe, the more we receive prayers and are blessed in return. It’s a beautiful thing. Never be swayed by those who try to get you to hate anyone for any reason, or you will lose your blessings. We love and bless and pray for our enemies, we love and bless and pray for our friends. This is how we aim to be perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect, as Jesus advised us to be. Don’t let anyone persuade you to be otherwise.
WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL BOOT CAMP!
MEADOWVILLE, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, January 14, 2022 – When you tell God that you want to give him everything you’ve got, watch out! He’ll test you to see if you actually mean what you say, and if he finds that you do – watch out even more! Jesus, at the start of his ministry, was driven into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights, and not in a chauffeured limousine. No, he arrived on foot, tired and hungry and dirty, but he would have to suffer 40 more days and nights of that. There was no 5-star hotel waiting for him. (There wasn’t even a Motel 6!) And just when he thought he couldn’t take any more – when he was at his absolute physical weakest and likely feeling as if he was nearing the point of death – the devil himself would pay him a visit.
When you tell God you want to give him everything – watch out!
In scripture, we see the same thing happening to others. David fled for his life and lived on the run with a death warrant on his head until Saul died. Moses lived in exile for 40 years. One prophet after the other was imprisoned and tortured and slaughtered. The same happened to many of Jesus’ disciples and early followers, especially Paul.
It continues to this day.
When you tell God that you want to give him everything you’ve got, you enter into a form of spiritual boot camp where your mettle is tested to find the weaknesses and to purge what doesn’t belong. You’re essentially being made fit for ministry leadership. This process can go on for a long time and is rarely physically enjoyable. Jesus wasn’t partying out in the desert; David was partying when he was on the run. And you won’t be partying, either, in your spiritual boot camp. In fact, you might at first be wondering what you did wrong to bring so much hardship on yourself.
The good news in all this is that God has a tight hold on you while you’re going through the boot camp process. His Spirit is with you every step of the way, guiding and comforting you. David wrote some of his best psalms while he was on the run, and none of them were about despair. On the contrary, David wrote about his love for God and of his certain knowledge of God’s protection. Rather than grow weaker under suffering, David’s faith in God only grew stronger and stronger and stronger.
And this, I believe, is the main reason for the suffering. Ministry leadership requires unshakeable faith, and the best way to build your faith is by getting into a position where you have to rely on God for all your needs. If you rely on yourself or others, there’s no faith-building process involved. In fact, relying on yourself and others weakens your faith in God. In the desert with no food, water or shelter, Jesus had to trust God implicitly that he wasn’t going to die under those circumstances. Likewise David, while living on the run and constantly under threat of death, had to rely on God to guide his steps and keep him from being caught by his enemies. Sometimes this even required him to pretend he was insane or to make allegiances with enemies other than Saul’s people. These were things that David would never have done on his devices or when he was still in Saul’s good graces.
The suffering brought on by spiritual boot camp is not an end in itself. It does, however, serve to purge from you whatever doesn’t belong in a ministry leadership role, and it forces you to rely 100% on God for all your needs, which builds your faith exponentially. At the same time, in your straitened circumstances, you’ll see clearer. This clarity of vision is a great gift. And if you endure to the end of the process, you’ll be rewarded a thousand-fold for whatever it is you suffered or gave up.
How do I know this? Because scripture tells us. When they emerged victorious from their respective spiritual boot camps, prophets became great prophets, David became king, and Jesus became the Messiah.
What will you become?
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 