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PUTTING THE HAPPINESS CART BEFORE THE DOING-GOD’S-WILL HORSE
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 19, 2019 – No other age in Western history has been as obsessed with finding happiness as our current one.
And is it just a coincidence that no other age in Western history has been as estranged from God as our current one?
Most people today (including Christians) believe that happiness is a human right, and so they spend all of their time and money pursuing things they think will make them happy.
But if that to-do list of things doesn’t include “doing God’s will”, their efforts will be in vain. They’ll just be putting the happiness cart before the doing-God’s-will horse, which will get them nowhere fast. (more…)
JUDAS IS CARROTS
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 19, 2019 – When I first started reading the Bible 20 years ago, it struck me as odd that the disciples didn’t know who Jesus was referring to when he said that one of them would betray him. It seems that Judas Iscariot’s wicked ways had flown under the radar of everyone except Jesus. How was that possible? How could the disciples, who had some level of discernment, not see Satan’s very apprentice living and moving among them? (more…)
ARE YOU LOW LIKE JOHN THE BAPTIST OR HIGH LIKE JESUS?
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, September 29, 2019 – The relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus goes much deeper than mere blood. They were cousins, but we only hear of them interacting in the womb, at Jesus’ baptism, and then shortly before John’s beheading. We can assume that, as cousins, they spent time together growing up and then later, as young men, probably passionately debated scriptures, with Jesus (the younger by a few months) likely besting his older cousin at every turn. At Jesus’ baptism at the River Jordan, John is obviously in awe of his younger cousin and openly considers himself to be so low as to not even to be worthy to put Jesus’ sandals on his feet. When John tells Jesus that he should be the one getting baptized, Jesus gently chides him to go ahead with the baptism in order to fulfill scripture. We catch there a glimpse of the younger cousin again schooling his older cousin.
Jesus calls John the greatest of those born of women, but then also calls him lowest in the kingdom (that is, born of the Spirit). What did Jesus mean by that? It almost sounds like an insult, just as John sending his disciples to Jesus to ask if he were actually “the one” sounds like an insult. Did the cousins have a falling-out that is not recorded in scripture? (more…)
GRAB YOUR WHIPS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BECAUSE YOU STILL CANNOT SERVE GOD AND MAMMON
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, September 18, 2019 – Have you lost your way?
Christianity has lost its way, just as assuredly as the Jews in Jesus’ day had lost their way.
Most Christians use Old Testament measures to gauge prosperity – wealth, health, and longevity – even though Jesus was poor, famished, and died young.
Most Christians also point to the importance of having strong family ties, even though Jesus told us that our worst enemies will be those under our own roof, and that your real family are those who do the will of God, whether they’re related to you by blood or marriage or not.
There’s a profound disconnect between what is being sold to us as Christianity and what Jesus demonstrated as Christianity.
These disconnects are temptations, and we need to see them as such. (more…)
“HOW CAN I KNOW IF I’M BORN AGAIN?”
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, September 17, 2019 – Have you ever heard someone ask: “How can I know if I’m born-again?” To me, that’s a strange question that I would turn on its head and reframe as: “How can you NOT know if you’re born-again!” When a soul undergoes spiritual rebirth (is healed, is made whole), it’s such a revolution that there is zero doubt what has taken place. It affects every part of your being, and the impression it makes on you is so primal and so deeply entrenched that you’re more certain of your rebirth than you are of your name and date of birth. (more…)
LOOK BACK WITH LOVE
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, August 22, 2019 – Being born again is a definitive marker in a person’s history. It is that “moment outside of time” when the spirits of the world are cast out and God’s spirit enters in. The entrance of God’s spirit into a soul means that the soul has come to life, as there is no life outside of God.
You literally become a new person not by your own hand but by God’s.
But this new person still lives in the world, with all its decay, filth, and problems. Even worse, the possibility to go back to one’s “old ways” is constantly a temptation not because the old ways are better than God’s ways but because they’re familiar and habitual. Familiarity and habit are strong temptations, if they’re against God. When you become born again, you need to establish new God-centered familiarities and habits, but that takes time. (more…)
FORSAKING ALL
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, August 19, 2019 – I have spent the past couple of days reading online blog postings and listening to audio recordings of what Jesus meant when he called his disciples to forsake all. This is a major sticking point for many people, and their interpretation of that particular scripture can be very telling. (more…)
CHRISTIANS AND HALLOWE’EN
NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario, October 31, 2018 – When I was a kid in the 1970s, I did the trick-or-treating thing every Hallowe’en, along with all the other kids in my neighborhood. For many of us, it was the highlight of the fall season and second only to Christmas on the annual excitement scale. Other than for our masks, our costumes were mostly hand-made by us and pretty low-tech (two hangers taped together at the hooks were angel wings; an upside-down ice-cream container with a rayon scarf trailing from it was Maid Marion’s headpiece; a big cardboard box with holes cut out for the arms was a TV set, etc.), but we didn’t care how ridiculous we looked because, for most of us, Hallowe’en was all about the free chips, candy and chocolate bars. The costumes were just a means to that end.
We saw our neighborhood homes as dispensers of the free treats we so craved (and considered our birthright on that one amazing night), and for that reason all the houses we intended to hit were considered friendly turf. We didn’t anticipate having any problems when we stomped up the steps with our pillowcases bulging with loot; we didn’t expect to be challenged when we shouted “TRICK OR TREAT!”; we just expected to be given free grub, and we’d be on our way.
But there was this one house in our subdivision that gave me the creeps. Every Hallowe’en, I would go there only because the older kids I was trick-or-treating with would go there, but it bothered me. It was the only house I wanted to get away from as quickly as I could. I don’t even remember whether they gave good treats or not; I just remember that I thought the place and the people in it were creepy.
Here’s why: (more…)
BUS STOP VIRGINS
NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario, October 5, 2018 – I was on a local bus yesterday, heading into Niagara Falls.
After the driver had stopped to pick up some passengers and was pulling away from the curb, four young women (college students, I think) came running towards the bus, waving their arms and yelling for the driver to stop. The driver shook his head, stepped on the gas, and merged into traffic.
The last I saw of the women, they were standing at the stop, shaking their heads in frustration and staring at their phones.
It reminded me of Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish virgins.
I think it goes something like this: (more…)
JOY IN SERVING GOD
NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario, October 4, 2018 – Someone asked me today why his life was going so miserably when he had invested everything he had into what he saw as doing God’s will. He attended Bible college, he prayed “three times a day”, he gave to charities, he lived soberly and chastely – and yet, he felt no joy and no connection with God, and now he even feels suicidal and wants to throw it all in.
This strikes at the heart of what it means to be “Christian”. Jesus dealt with this same issue with some of his early followers, as have other prophets over the millennia. Why give everything up for God when all you seem to get back is poverty and abuse? (more…)
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 