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HAPPY CARITAS DAY!
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 14, 2015 – When I was in university, I had to read excerpts from the Bible for a comparative literature assignment. I was an atheist at the time and hated the Bible or anything that spoke of God in a positive way. I thought believers were idiots and I had zero patience for them.
The assignment specifically required me to read passages from Paul’s letter about faith, hope and charity. As an atheist, I had a difficult time reading the New Testament because all the words ran together and I couldn’t make head or tails of what was being said. Trying to read the New Testament for this assignment was no different; none of the words made any sense to me. It was as if they were written in a foreign language that I had no knowledge of.
In discussing the assignment in class, my professor talked about “caritas”, or charity, as a type of love that was distinct from other forms of love. He was a kind man and a diligent instructor, and I can still see him struggling to convey a meaning that can only be understood by people who are born again. I doubt whether he, at the time, was born again, or even if anyone in the class believed in God. I certainly didn’t understand what my professor meant by “caritas”, but I dutifully picked up enough of his explanation to regurgitate it on the exam and get a pass for the course.
Caritas is often translated as “charity”. It means self-less love, the kind that God gives us. God loves us selflessly, even arrogant university students who spit venom at the sound of his name. He gives of himself without expecting anything in return. As an atheist, I could not fathom a type of love that wasn’t feelings-based and wasn’t meant to be reciprocated on some level; to me, love without palpitations and weak knees just wasn’t love. Sure, I understood that my parents and grandparents loved me without palpitations and weak knees, but that was different. I was expected at least to show my respect to them, so in this they got something in return for their love.
But to love expecting nothing in return – what kind of fool would do that? My atheistic mindset had no place for such as concept. To me, the notion of caritas made the idea of God all the more far-fetched.
Muddying the waters even more was my personal experience of the charity industry. I saw charities as seedy organizations whose sole purpose was to separate people from their time, energy, and money. How could these organizations truly be called ‘charities’ if they gave tax receipts for monetary expressions of love? Wasn’t real charity supposed to be done selflessly and without expecting anything in return?
Despite his best efforts, my professor could not bring me to an understanding of Paul’s concept of charity, nor make me grasp why Paul considered charity to be the highest virtue. It was only after I was born again and able to read the New Testament that I started to get a feeling for what Paul meant.
Jesus said to give freely without expecting anything in return, to love your enemies, and to treat other people as you want to be treated. He also tells us to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. This is the caritas that Paul was talking about – being kind to people without expecting to be treated kindly in return, and giving freely to those in need without expecting anything in return (including a tax receipt or even a thank-you). And to do it all sincerely, and with a smile in your heart.
To Jesus and Paul, charity simply meant to love as God loves. No palpitations or weak knees are required. Caritas is initiated in us by an act of our will, not a feeling. It is an act that is done for no other reason than that it is the right thing to do; no personal gain is involved. This is the selflessness that my professor struggled to convey all those years ago.
When we say “yes” to caritas, God loves through us. The simple nod of our will gives God permission to work through us so that we can, in fact, love as God loves: fully and selflessly. In saying “yes”, we feel God’s love flow through us, and we know there is no greater love.
HAPPY CARITAS DAY, EVERYONE!
GET THEE BEHIND ME, CHANGE!
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, July 6, 2025 – During his ministry years, Jesus had a tumultuous relationship with Peter. Even while granting him heavy responsibilities, Jesus submitted “the Rock” to numerous public chastisements. In one of the more extreme confrontations, Jesus calls Peter “Satan” and lambasts him for thinking as man thinks, not as God thinks. This outburst must have been confusing for Peter and for the other disciples, as Peter had simply been pledging to protect Jesus when Jesus explained what was waiting for him in Jerusalem. And vowing to protect people is good, isn’t it?
Not when it’s against God’s plan.
We born-agains all have a bit of Peter in us, wanting earnestly to serve God and follow Jesus and yet occasionally taking on the role of Satan without realizing it. I doubt that Peter was aware that he was acting like Satan when he offered to protect Jesus, just as we’re not away that we’re acting like Satan when we want to, for instance, make the world a better place.
“Change!” is the new rallying cry of political parties, governments, youth-oriented organizations and much of the globalized masses, and with it comes the pledge to “make the world a better place”. But do we really mean when we say we want to make the world a better place?
What we’re implying is that the world could be better than it is. Surely there’s nothing wrong with that statement. We’re all working on improving ourselves, so why not improve the world, too?
Working to improve yourself is one thing; it implies a decision of your own will to work on yourself. It implies an action that you choose, followed by a consequence that’s specific to you. To get better consequences for yourself, you choose to do better actions. However, when you impose this mode of thinking on the world, you attempt to override the consequences of other people’s actions. What you’re in effect saying is: The consequences of other people’s actions are not suitable. But what you’re really saying is: God’s justice is flawed and therefore God’s justice is imperfect and needs to be changed.
As born-agains, we know that God’s justice is perfect. We know that we live in “the best of all possible worlds” because God gives us exactly the consequences to our actions that we’ve earned. If anything, he mitigates (lessens) the consequences we suffer out of love for us, to the extent that mitigation is warranted (e.g., we are unaware that what we are doing is wrong, or we do something out of a “blind rage” or in an extreme emotional state). God’s mitigation (or mercy) is reflected in the most civilized of the world’s courts, and it should also be reflected in us.
God’s justice is perfect. If we accept this statement as self-evident, then we necessarily have to see the rallying cry for “Change!” as a howl from the pit of hell. God never changes; his truth and justice are as perfect today as they have ever been or will ever be.
God
Does
Not
Change.
As the old adage goes, you can’t improve on perfection. If God’s justice is perfect, then the only way to make this profoundly flawed world a better place is to make better choices yourself, and in that way improve your own outcomes. But when you try to change or mitigate the consequences of other people, you simply shift the earned outcome to another circumstance. They get what’s coming to them sooner or later, one way or another.
A clear example of “shifting outcomes to another circumstance” is the evolvement of disease. The proponents of modern Western medicine like to gloat that numerous diseases have been eradicated through medical interventions, but what they don’t add is that in eradicating certain diseases, others have either become more virulent or more widespread. Bacteria-caused diseases and conditions are getting harder and harder to treat due to the evolvement of bacteria that is now resistant to antibiotics. At the same time as Western medicine is claiming higher “survival rates” of cancer victims, more and more people are contracting the disease than ever before. People are living longer (allegedly, although Methuselah might not agree with that assumption) through improved health care and sanitary conditions, but their quality of life is questionable, given that most older adults experience multiple diseases and conditions, which only increase as they grow older. Is it really an improvement to live to the age of 90, if you spend the last decade of your life confined to a bed in a long-term care institute?
Whenever you hear the rallying cry “Change!”, you need to add “…the more things stay the same” and “Get thee behind me, Satan!”. God’s justice is perfect; it cannot be improved. The only change you can make is in yourself. You cannot impose change on others; if you try, all you do is shift consequences to another circumstance.
Peter wanted to protect Jesus, but Jesus needed to undergo the arrest, torture and crucifixion in order to fulfill scripture as the Messiah. I’m not saying to ignore the beaten-up guy along the side of the road like the priest and Levite did in the Good Samaritan parable. What I’m saying is to wait for God to show you who to help and when to help them. These people will come to you, trusting that you can help them. God will have sent them. This is how Jesus healed: he could only help those who came to him and who trusted him to help them. The people of Nazareth didn’t trust him and therefore were not healed.
Wait for God to show you who and when to help. Rather than blindly following the world’s Satanic cry of “Change!”, wait for God, like Jesus did.
And in the meantime, make better choices.
MILLENNIALISM AND OTHER LIES
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 8, 2015 – The Bible is an open book for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear.
If you want to know anything about God, including what he has in store for us, all you have to do is ask him. He’ll tell you, and then he’ll show you supporting passages in scripture to back up what he said.
Having rejected mainstream Christianity as a belief system built on doctrines of devils, I don’t waste a lot of time poring over its contrived nonsense. But every so often God points something out that he then suggests I should point out to others. One such item is Millennialism.
Millennialism is the notion that Jesus will return to Earth at his second coming and reign here for a thousand years. The thousand year time-frame may be literal or figurative, but the actual reign of Jesus in a physical body, on planet Earth, is an indisputable part of Millennialism. Even those who reject Millennialism (e.g., Catholic Amillennialists) still believe that God’s Kingdom will physically be set up on Earth as a geo-political entity after Jesus’ second coming.
Consider that this ‘notion’ developed and spread even though Jesus himself declared to his disciples nearly 2,000 years ago that his kingdom had already arrived, that it is not of this world, and that he would return in grand style with his holy angels just long enough to gather together the few believers that were remaining on Earth, and then leave everyone else behind to “mourn”.
Not once did Jesus make any mention of putting down roots here after his second coming.
To find out more about Millennialism, I did a quick google search. I wish I hadn’t. Some things you just can’t unsee. Suffice to say, it’s all nonsense piled on nonsense infused with outright lies and topped off with a large dollop of crap. I’m ashamed of those who’ve bought this stupidity, and I’m even more ashamed of those who’ve created and spread it.
I do have a sneaking suspicion, though, as to just who is behind this crazy little thing called Millennialism. It’s that same certain someone who benefits from people being duped. (You know who I mean.) But what could he possibly gain from getting people to hope and pray to live in a Golden Age on Earth?
Imagine if that same certain someone could convince not only Christians but also adherents of other religions to believe in a coming Golden Age where there would be peace on Earth under a benevolent ruler. Imagine if you could find a common thread connecting all religions to this one theme, and imagine if all religions agreed that all religions agree on this one point and this one point only.
Imagine!
This is how the devil works, and this is how the world works. We’ve been warned that the devil will send a strong delusion that will fool not only false believers and unbelievers, but even some of God’s own children (meaning us).
Muslims are waiting for their messiah leader who will come after an age of widespread turmoil, unite the world, and usher in an age of peace.
Jews are waiting for their messiah leader who will come after an age of widespread turmoil, unite the world, and usher in an age of peace.
Millennialism Christians are waiting for Jesus to return after an age of widespread turmoil, unite the world, and usher in an age of peace.
I don’t know about you, but I see a pattern developing here. Buddhists and Hindus are also waiting for a messiah-like leader who will – yes, you guessed it – come after an age of widespread turmoil, unite the world, and usher in an age of peace.
In fact, it seems that every organized religion on this planet promotes the coming of a messiah-life figure to put things right after everything goes terribly wrong. This should not be surprising to us, since Jesus tells us that many will come saying they are the Christ, but they will be false Christs and false prophets. He warned us nearly 2,000 years ago not to be taken in by their deceptions that will come in the form of ‘miracles’ and doctrines of devils (like Millennialism).
The alleged basis for Millennialism is Revelation 20. But when I read Revelation 20, I see a description of a God’s spiritual kingdom on Earth, not a geo-political realm. I see a description of a spiritual realm that is very much in power here today, not in some hazy future. The passage describes God’s church, of which I am a card-carrying member. Jesus said that his kingdom had already arrived, is not of this world, and is eternal. He meant that his kingdom was not a geo-political structure confined by time and space. Jesus never intended to set up an earthly kingdom. Anyone who truly knows God and truly knows Jesus knows that.
Bluntly put – every form of Millennialism, including Amillennialism, is a lie. When Jesus returns, it will only be long enough to rescue whatever followers are remaining here and to show himself as the true Messiah. Scripture says that everyone will see him and everyone will know who he is. There will be no doubt and no need for persuasion or explanation: Everyone will just know. And then his faithful followers will leave with him, and everyone else will be left behind to face the final destruction of planet Earth, as foretold in Daniel’s visions.
On the cross, Jesus said: It is done. He didn’t say: “Well, that’s all for now, folks. But I’ll be back for more fun and games after everything’s been polluted and destroyed, and most of God’s creatures are extinct. Can’t wait!” What possible motivation would Jesus have to set up a physical kingdom on Earth when he already has a spiritual kingdom here and a perfect home in Heaven where he reigns at God’s right hand? It’s illogical for him to set up physical kingdom on Earth. And it’s redundant. And it plain just doesn’t make sense. Add to that it’s ascriptural, and you’ve got the makings of a true heresy.
So, Millennialists are living a lie, and Jews who deny that Jesus is the Messiah are also living a lie, because, well, Jesus IS the Messiah. Jews who pin their messianic hopes on anyone other than Jesus are just setting themselves up for a fall. They are deceived. Muslims who believe that Jesus will co-rule with their long-awaited messiah are likewise deceived. As explained above, Jesus won’t be hanging around long enough to share a throne, let alone attend committee meetings. And regardless of what the Koran says, Jesus is not Islamic.
I don’t know Buddhism or Hinduism well enough to go into any detail as to why their messianic hopes are also false, but it doesn’t make me any less certain that they are, for the same reason that the Millennialism Christians’ Jews’ and Muslims’ hopes are false. You don’t have to throw yourself face-first into a steaming pile of manure to know that it’s manure; it’s sufficient just to stand within smelling range. The Buddhist and Hindu messiahs have more than a whiff of the Millennialist, Jewish and Muslim messiahs about them, and for that reason alone do not pass the smell test.
Ultimately, the devil’s game is to deceive us so that those who are on their way to receiving the truth will turn away and get lost, and those who already have the truth will lose it (as the devil did). The messianic deception is the devil’s final and most heinous trick – and how important it must be if he’s been working on it since before Jesus was even born! In fact, you can say the whole of human history has been a behind-the-scenes arranging and rearranging of events and circumstances, all leading up to the enthroning of what Paul called the “man of perdition” or what we know will be the false Christ or ‘Antichrist’. Supporters of Millennialism have had a hand in his crowning, as have Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, etc., as well as those working towards the establishment of the global police state known as the New World Order.
We cannot stop the false messiah from coming, but we can be aware that he is a false messiah and do what we can to make others aware of it. Like Jesus, all we can do is tell the truth. It’s up to others whether or not they want to receive it.
WHEN THE GOOD NEWS IS BAD NEWS
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 6, 2015 – We know from scripture that the devils speak the truth as well as lies. Demons were among the first to ‘out’ Jesus as the Messiah, and he had a devil of a time shutting them up. Paul and Peter later had the same problem, with a demon-oppressed fortune-telling slave-girl following them around and declaring: “These men are the servants of the most high God, which show us the way to salvation” (Acts 16:17).
What should be a good thing – declaring Jesus as the Messiah, and his way as God’s way – turns into a bad thing when it’s spoken at the wrong time to the wrong people. Rather than promote to the general public that he was God’s Christ, Jesus requested the people he healed not to reveal who he was. You would think that hiding rather than proclaiming who he was would be the opposite of Jesus’ mission, but in this, as in everything else Jesus did, there was a method to his perceived madness.
Jesus often mentioned that the Jews were out to kill him. He meant the Jews in positions of power in Israel, not the everyday-Joe Jews. The Jews in power wanted to kill him because if the everyday-Joe Jews saw Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah, their established power and authority under Roman rule would be threatened. The establishment Jews had the most to lose both in Jesus being the Messiah (eternal damnation) and in Jesus being seen as the Messiah (worldly loss of power), so the best way to rid themselves of this all-round threat was to get rid of Jesus.
Knowing this, Jesus avoided traveling and preaching in some areas. So when the demons ‘outed’ him by speaking through demon-oppressed people and taunting him with “we know who you are”, Jesus told them to be quiet before casting them out. Paul and Peter did the same thing to the demon who spoke through the fortune-telling slave girl. In these cases, the demons were speaking the truth, but at a time and place that put Jesus’ and the apostles’ lives at risk. The truth, when spoken by demons, is always bad news.
Obama has a way of saying things about Christianity that casts Jesus in a bad light and therefore threatens those who follow him. Obama’s latest attack on Christians was launched at the National Prayer Breakfast a few days ago. At the breakfast, Obama stated that Christians should “get off of their high horse” about how brutal the Muslim religion is, considering how brutal the Crusades and Inquisition were, both of which, Obama declared, were carried out “in the name of Christ”.
Obama is speaking the truth in saying that the Crusades and the Inquisition were brutal and were carried out in the name of Christ (meaning, under the banner of Christianity). However, in pointing out atrocities that were carried out in Christ’s name, Obama puts Christians in the same boat as Muslim fanatics who are carrying out mass murders and other atrocities today. In equating Christians with Muslim fanatics, and Muslim fanatics with terrorists, Obama condemns both Christians and Muslim fanatics for the same crimes and thereby implies that these groups are equally dangerous and thus equally enemies of the free world.
This is how demons speak the truth – with the intent to harm, not to help, and their target is almost always followers of Jesus. Yes, the Crusades and the Inquisition were horrendous, and yes, they were carried out in the name of Christ, but Obama’s dredging up of past crimes against humanity serves as a means of deflecting from current atrocities carried out by so-called “extremists”. Obama’s statement is also only “truthful” if taken at face value, considering that the Inquisition was carried out first and foremost to find and ‘convert’ to Roman Catholicism genuine followers of Jesus who refused to submit to the pope. That it was carried out under the banner of Christianity doesn’t mean it was a Christian act.
It should not be surprising that Obama would defend Islam and attack Christianity, given his Muslim upbringing. It should also not be surprising that Obama would attack Christianity, given that the world is under Satan and the POTUS is one of Satan’s chief spokespersons. Islam is a fanatical ideology whose founder was a murderer who encouraged and sanctioned murder. The Koran is filled with exhortations to kill and torture ‘infidels’, meaning all those who refuse to submit to Islam. In contrast, Christianity is an open invitation to live your life by faith by following the example of its founder, Jesus, who never committed murder and always counseled his followers against murdering anyone. The New Testament is filled with exhortations to “love your enemies” and do good to them. The two ideologies – Christianity and Islam – could not be further apart, either in word or deed.
Yes, horrendous acts were committed long ago in the name of Christ, but these acts were carried out by demon-inspired people who did not know God, did not know Jesus, and did not know the New Testament. The horrendous acts being carried out today in the name of Islam use the Koran as an instruction manual for those deeds and bear Mohammad’s seal of approval. The demon speaking through Obama at the Prayer Breakfast may have been speaking the truth, but its intention was not to enlighten, as truth should; rather, the demon’s aim was to deflect blame from the guilty and, in so doing, condemn the innocent.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/02/05/obama-at-prayer-event-christians-did-terrible-things-too/
LET THEM BAKE CAKE
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 4, 2015 – This is not the first time it’s happened, and likely it won’t be the last: An Oregon baker who identifies as ‘Christian’ has refused to bake a cake for a couple who identify as ‘lesbian’.
The two women took the Christian to court, and now the Christian has to pay them $150,000 in damages.
O, woe is me! What’s a Christian in modern-day America to do? Attacked on all sides by the heathen, and now being undermined by court decisions!
Was the baker right in refusing to bake the cake for the lesbians on the grounds that it violates his religious beliefs? Or, more accurately – was the Christian right in refusing to serve a non-Christian? Because that’s what it boils down to: a Christian refusing to serve a non-Christian.
What does God say about this?
Jesus says that his followers have come to serve, not to be served.
Paul says that we are to do all things as unto God.
The baker has a job to do: that job is to bake cakes. The job is not to bake cakes only for people who identify as Christians but for all people who walk through the door of his bakery.
Let’s role-play here for a moment. We’re all bakers working in a small family-run bakery. We love our job and we’re good at it. In fact we’re so good at it, we have the reputation for being the best bakers in town.
Then one day, two women stroll hand-in-hand into our shop. Gleefully, they announce that they’re lesbians, they’re getting married to each other, and they want us to bake their wedding cake. Now, we suspect they’ve targeted our bakery as being owned and operated by Christians, and we also suspect that they think we’ll refuse to bake their cake, thereby finding grounds to sue us and walk away with a court-ordered pay-out. But SEEING THE WOMEN AS OUR EQUALS AND AS EQUALLY LOVED BY GOD AS JESUS IS LOVED, we thank them for choosing our bakery for their special occasion, we diligently take their order, and we promise them we’ll bake them the best cake they’ve ever had. And then, as they turn to leave, we wish them a wonderful day, just as we wish all our customers a wonderful day, and we let them know that if they need anything else to go along with their wedding cake, we’d be more than happy to provide it.
The two women look slightly stunned as they make their way out the door. They stop holding hands, and the last we see of them, they’re walking slowly down the sidewalk, deep in thought.
Meanwhile, we thank God for trusting us enough to send us these women, and pray that they make the kinds of choices in their lives that will bring them to know and love God the way we do. We don’t tell the women we’re praying for them; we don’t tell anyone we’re praying for them: we just do it.
Then the phone rings. It’s one of the women. She says they’ve decided to go with another baker for their wedding cake. We thank her for letting us know, and wish her all the best.
Every day, every one of us ‘serves’ people who are not born-again. Bakers should be no different. The so-called Christian baker was not acting very Christian in refusing to bake the cake on “religious grounds”. Even worse, he lost a God-given opportunity to demonstrate what it really means to be a follower of Jesus. The best we can take from this sorry tale is to learn from the Oregon baker’s mistake and not make the same mistake ourselves.
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
(Matthew 5:44-48)
TURN TURN TURN!
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 3, 2015 – Twenty years ago, if someone had told me that I would one day be hosting a blog for born-again followers of Jesus, I would have laughed in his or her face. Then I would have let loose with a few choice curse words, and then a few more, and a few more, until the trickle turned into a stream and the stream into a flood and the flood into a tidal wave of hate. I hated anything that had to do with God, and even just hearing his or Jesus’ name would set me off into the emotional equivalent of a grand mal seizure. This extreme response was, of course, due to the legion of demons who’d taken up residence in and around me. On the day I was born again, I read the New Testament for the first time, and when I got to the verse: “And seven devils were driven out of Mary Magdalene”, God said to me: That’s what happened to you, only there were a lot more than seven.
God has a great sense of humor, which shouldn’t be surprising considering that he created both our sense of humor and our ability to appreciate it. Here I was, just newly born-again and brought weeping back to the fold, and there God was, cracking jokes to make me feel more at ease, more at home. This quality of God’s is what I remember most from my first few days as a newborn-again. God wasn’t “up there” or “out there somewhere”, pointing his finger at me and calling me evil, he was right here with me, cuddling me in the crook of his arm and telling me jokes.
I mention this because we (and by “we”, I really mean “I”) – we have a tendency sometimes to look at people who’ve done horrible deeds and curse them for the evil that obviously is working through them. I’m ashamed to admit it, but there it is. Some might argue that it’s a natural “human” response to shun and recoil from people who do horrible things, but such a response can and should be overcome in us born-agains. Jesus talks about the servant who couldn’t repay his debts, so his master forgave him those debts, only to have the servant turn around and start beating on his own servant and demand he immediately repay him. As the noted atheist writer Samuel Clemens (alias Mark Twain) once commented: “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me; it’s the parts that I do understand.” If you’re genuinely born again, God forgave you a lot to get you to that amazing state of grace that you’re in. The least we (I!) can do is to treat other people as God treated us.
I read in the news today that a captured soldier was burned alive. The same political contingent that burned the soldier to death also beheaded a journalist a few days ago. These are without doubt horrendous acts of savagery. Regardless of who is actually behind them, the acts themselves are condemnable. What we need to be careful of, when condemning these acts, is not also to condemn their doers or to consider them beyond God’s help and mercy.
My personal pre-born-again history would likely make your toes curl, and not in a good way. I’m not going to recount my deeds of woe and horror because they’re over and done with. Suffice to say I was pretty bad, and again, not in a “good bad” way. Although I (thank God) stopped short of burning someone to death or hacking their head off, I might have, had I continued along the road I was on.
And yet here I am, hosting a blog page for born-agains.
If I can turn, anyone can turn.
Seriously.
Paul, as a Pharisee, viciously persecuted and even executed early followers of Jesus. And yet that same Paul, once he’d turned, became a powerful witness to Jesus as the Messiah. I look around at the people I know and the people I read about (including whoever burned that poor guy alive today), and I think: Who’s the Paul among them? Who’s going to turn some day and become a powerful witness?
That potential to turn and to witness for Jesus is in everyone. And strangely, it’s those who we think are least likely to turn that actually end up turning into the biggest “Jesus freaks”. If there’d been a category in my high school yearbook for “the girl least likely to become a born-again follower of Jesus”, I would have won that award hands down.
As bad as I was, I still wasn’t beyond God’s help and mercy, and neither was Paul, and neither is that person who lit the match under that human bonfire today. We need to remember this.
I need to remember this.
GOD’S SURVEILLANCE STATE
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 2, 2015 – You are being electronically monitored nearly everywhere you go. And if you’re not actively being monitored, the technology is within viewing, hearing and implantation range, set up and ready to roll. All it requires is to be installed and activated. Communications grids that enable instantaneous global communication also serve as tracking systems. Yet these monitoring and tracking systems, however impressive, pervasive and invasive, are nothing compared to God’s surveillance state.
God, being God, designed and engineered the first and best of all possible surveillance, protection and alarm systems. This combined system (better described as a state) is perfect. And it works without unsightly wires, cameras, microphones or other cumbersome hardware that can easily be compromised or break down. Through his state, God knows exactly where you are at all times and exactly what you’re doing and saying and seeing. Plus, as an added bonus (and one that the world’s surveillance systems designers can only dream of) – GOD ALSO KNOWS ALL YOUR THOUGHTS. There’s nothing and nowhere you can hide from God.
But wait – there’s more! God not only knows everything about you in the here and now, he also knows exactly where you’ve been and exactly what you’ve done, said, seen, and thought THROUGHOUT YOUR ENTIRE LIFE thus far.
And if you’re not sold yet on how God’s surveillance state blows the world’s surveillance systems completely out of the water, this oughtta clinch it – as incredible as it sounds, God knows everything YOU HAVE YET TO DO, SAY, SEE AND THINK!
So there you have it: God knows everything about you, past, present and future.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Most born-agains don’t spend a lot of time thinking about God’s surveillance state. That’s part of the built-in mechanism, I guess, to keep us from being paranoid about it and to allow us to exercise our free will, well, freely. And when we do think about God’s surveillance state, it isn’t with fear or reproach. We love God as our Dad and appreciate that he watches over us as a good Dad would and should. We’re glad that he knows everything about us because his intimate knowledge of us, together with his perfect justice system and his unconditional love, helps to keep us on the straight and narrow road to heaven. We also appreciate and feel safe knowing that God is protecting us all the time.
Ultimately, God created his surveillance state for our benefit. It isn’t about spying on us in order to catch us so that he can punish us; it’s about teaching, guiding and protecting us, all for the sole purpose of helping us.
The world’s surveillance systems, on the other hand, are all about the opposite. Although sold to a gullible public as being the technological equivalent of sliced bread, these systems exist for the sole purpose of intimidating and punishing us. And what are we being punished for? Committing crimes, of course – ‘crimes’ like speaking openly about what the world’s powers (who are, not surprisingly, also the initiators and supporters of this technology) are doing behind the scenes politically, financially, scientifically, and so on. How ironic, that the same Earthly powers whose technology is trained on us night and day are the very same powers that are making it a crime to know and report on what they’re really up to.
Scripture tells us about these kinds of powers – the ones that operate in secrecy where they think their dark deeds will not be known. They’ve been operating “behind the scenes” since the beginning of human history. Intensely paranoid themselves (a guilty conscience will do that to you), they want us likewise to be paranoid: It’s their natural state of being. They don’t hide their electronic snooping but instead reframe it as a benign means to enable enhanced communication, target consumer products, and protect us from the latest contrived boogey-man (like, for instance, ‘terrorists’). And if we’re not aware that they’re potentially everywhere that a camera or microphone is (i.e., your smartphone, your laptop, etc.), they’ll send agent ‘messengers’ like ‘Edward Snowden’ and give him blanket mainstream media coverage for months and months, just to make sure that you are aware that you’re being watched and listened to, indoors and out, 24/7. After all – a paranoid populace is an easily controlled populace. We can see the truth of that in how easily controlled by Satan the ultra-paranoid powers-that-be are.
Jesus says the world is under Satan except for those who are in God’s kingdom. Jesus also tells us to shout the truth from the rooftops, and that we’re not to fear those who have power over our body and possessions but not over our will. If you live in fear of the world’s punishment, you’re fearing the wrong thing. Big Brother might be watching you through your computer, but God is watching Big Brother, and God’s got your back.
God’s surveillance state is perfect. It is based on love for us and respect for our free will, and it operates solely for our benefit.
In contrast, the world’s surveillance systems are deeply flawed. They are based on disdain for us and disrespect of our rights, and they operate solely to our detriment.
Yes, the world is under Satan, but thank God we don’t have to be. Never be paranoid and never be afraid to speak the truth, regardless of the Earthly consequences. We all have to die for something; it might as well be for the truth.
HOW’S YOUR SOUL?
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 1, 2015 – Just before I was born again, God did me the very great privilege of showing me my soul. Mind you, at the time, I had no idea it was my soul because I was an atheist. I won’t go into detail about what I saw, but let’s just say that it was enough to finally break me. And broken, I was shortly thereafter and very tenderly put back together again by God.
Oscar Wilde wrote a book about seeing the state of one’s soul. In it, a vain young man, exhilarated by the power and privilege that his youthful beauty conferred on him, makes a wish that he could keep his good looks for the rest of his life and that a newly painted portrait of him would instead bear the marks of aging. The young man’s wish comes true, but instead of only bearing the marks of aging, the portrait also shows the man’s sins. As the portrait starts to age and turn ugly, the young man covers it and hides it in the attic so that no-one will see his secret shame. I recommend reading the book. The 1945 film (you can see it on YouTube) is also worth watching.
We spend a lot of time worrying about our physical health, including our appearance. In fact, it becomes a source of pride for some of us. There’s nothing wrong with taking care of our body; it is, after all, the vessel of God’s Holy Spirit and we’re expected to look after it properly so that we can do the work we need to do. But when our physical health becomes more important to us than our spiritual health, then it’s a problem.
Whenever I hear the wail of an ambulance siren, I think: Imagine if a siren went off every time someone’s soul was in mortal danger? Imagine if, when someone was just about to make that final fatal choice condemning him or her to an eternity of pain, a siren went off, piercing and wailing, so that everyone within hearing range would rush in prayer to help?
Imagine, too, if well in advance of that siren going off, we were able to get people to think about their soul? Imagine, if instead of talking about the weather or physical aches and pains, we started off casual conversations with “How’s your soul?” Imagine if soul talk became as common a communication starter as weather talk or sports talk or money talk?
The health of our soul should be our clear priority, not our physical or financial health. As born-agains, we have the very great privilege of being able, at any time and any place, to know the exact state of our soul, and we should take advantage of that by making frequent spot-checks. We should be checking our soul’s health with the same diligence as the world is told to check blood pressure, blood sugar, BMI, tooth decay, bank balance, stock reports, engine oil, and so on. Some people are afraid to get check-ups for fear of what they might find. Don’t be that person.
As an atheist, I was never asked “How’s your soul?” Mind you, I didn’t believe I had a soul, so had someone actually asked me, a whole different conversation would have ensued, during which the exact health of my soul would have become glaringly and appallingly evident to anyone within viewing, hearing, and spitting range. Think “pea soup scene” in “The Exorcist”. Then you have an idea of how I would have responded to any inquiries about my soul.
Still, such an inquiry should have been made, regardless of the unpleasantness of the anticipated response. In the movie, the mother didn’t back away from her hideously afflicted child, and neither did the priests. As born-agains, we take on these fearless and caring roles, just like Jesus did. We are priests and mothers at large. We love and tend to needs, even as we’re cursed for it.
People need to hear the words “How’s your soul”. They may not want to hear those words, but they need to hear them. They need to be reminded that they have a soul and that the health of their soul should take priority over all other concerns.
So, how’s your soul?
THE BLAND LEADING THE BLIND
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 31, 2015 – One of the most frustrating experiences a born-again will encounter is trying to talk sense to a self-professed Christian who is not born again. Jesus felt the same way about most of Jews of his day, and referred to them as “the blind leading the blind”. His advice to his followers was just to let these people fall into the ditch, if that’s where their blindness led them.
And yet, these same self-professed “Christians” dominate online discussion boards and forums today, spreading their half-baked lies to non-Christians who have no way of knowing they’re lies.
One of their pet topics (and my pet peeves) is that you only need to “believe in Jesus” (whatever that means) and you’ll be “saved” (again, whatever that means). Furthermore, they claim that nearly everyone will get to heaven (except, say, Hitler) because Jesus did all the work for us, and all you have to do is proclaim “I’m with Jesus!” and God will let you through the pearly gates.
Nothing could be more wrong.
Jesus railed at the Jews who assumed that they had a guaranteed ticket to heaven based on having Abraham as their Father (meaning, based on being Jewish). He also told the parable about how people were shocked when they found out they hadn’t made it to heaven, because after all they’d eaten at the Lord’s table and even performed miracles. They’d figured just showing up once a week for Church services and being able to channel some ‘greater power’ was proof positive that their name was on the guest list at the post-Judgment Day wedding feast.
I’ve gone over this in previous blog entries, but it bears repeating. Over and over and over again, I see that so many people who consider themselves Christians have a profoundly lax notion of what it takes to make it to heaven. They’ve lowered the bar so far now that, according to them, you don’t even have to identify as a Christian to make it to heaven. You just have to exist.
The arguments today align with the arguments in Jesus’ time and are based on someone else having done all the work for you, so you’re off the hook and good to go. Contrast this do-nothingness (usually referred to as “having faith”) with Paul throwing himself body and soul into several grueling years of non-stop evangelizing that ended only because he was executed. Paul based his approach on Jesus’ own extreme dedication and work ethic, which Jesus summed up as “those who endure to the end will be saved”.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t see a whole lot of endurance going on in the rank and file of today’s Christians. I see a lot of assumptions, presumptions, fake faith and unquestioning embracing of what Jesus would have called doctrines of devils. The book of Revelation clearly says that we’ll be judged by our works. Jesus says we’ll be judged by every word we speak and that those who endure to the end will be saved. This makes it pretty clear (at least to me) that even though I’m born again, I’m not yet ‘saved’ (because I haven’t yet reached “the end”). Nor do I have a guaranteed ticket to heaven, if I’m to be judged by my works and my words. The judging comes AFTER the works and words are done, not during the speaking and doing of them. So where did this notion of getting to heaven just by ‘existing’ as a self-professed Christian come from?
Ignorance.
Spiritual and intellectual laziness.
Choosing to believe lies instead of consulting scripture or talking to God.
I have no politeness when it comes to people who misrepresent God’s truth because they’re too lazy to learn what the Bible actually says. It was people like these who turned me off Christianity when I was an atheist. They came across as such hypocrites. These are the people God referred to as being “lukewarm” church members, the ones he’s going to spew out of his mouth. He then warns them to repent, and hopefully they’re listening.
After dealing with these types online and in real life, I now understand why Jesus advised his followers just to ignore them. It was for the sake of his own sanity that he stopped beating his head against that particular wall. Those who truly want to know the truth will eventually come to know it, while those who are happy with being told ‘sweet little lies’ will likely never know the truth, and that’s their choice. And that’s life.
In the meantime, keep Jesus always as your example of how to live and die. There is no such thing as a retired minister of God or a retired follower of Jesus. Born-agains keep doing God’s will and God’s work until they’ve breathed their last, just like Jesus and Paul. I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine NOT wanting to do God’s will and God’s work until the very end. What else is there to do?
HELLO…. MY NAME IS
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 31, 2015 – One of the great mysteries in the New Testament is why the disciples didn’t recognize Jesus after the resurrection. Being the curious type, I dug around a bit online and found that the question tends generally to be avoided, but when it does come up, the scripted responses more or less go like this:
- Mary Magdalene didn’t recognize Jesus (mistaking him for the gardener) because it was too dark to see properly, he was possibly standing some distance from her, and her vision was obscured by her tears;
- the disciples fishing on their boat didn’t recognize Jesus because he was too far away (on the shore) to see him properly;
- the disciples on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognize Jesus because they were “supernaturally” (not my term) kept from seeing his real features; and
- the disciples at home didn’t recognize him for the same reason.
I don’t buy any of these explanations. This is Jesus we’re talking about, not some casual acquaintance. Most of the disciples had spent every day of the past three years with him – eating with him, walking with him, sitting with him, listening to him. They knew his voice as well as they knew their own; they knew how he stood, how he walked, how he moved his hands and gestured with his body when he spoke. They knew his smell (we all have our own unique scent) and the special tone he used with each of them. They knew him as well as it was possible to know another human being, and on top of it all, they loved him intensely. They were consumed with grief over his death, and he was constantly on their mind.
So, with regards to the first and second points, even if it was pitch black, Mary would have recognized Jesus by his voice, if his voice were the same. And even if they were some distance from him, the disciples fishing would have recognized Jesus by his voice (if it were the same voice) or at least by his form, his height, his way of standing, moving, etc., if these characteristics were the same. Or did all of the disciples all of a sudden get myopic and hard of hearing?
When people I love pass away, I sometimes think I see them in the distance or hear their voice the next aisle over at the supermarket. Of course, it’s never them, but I rush to see if it is anyway. That’s quite a common phenomenon – to hear the voice of your lost loved one in the voice of stranger, or to see a stranger from behind and think it’s someone you used to know. I mention this, because I believe that when you’re grieving, you’re more likely to think that a stranger is your lost loved one than that your lost loved one is a stranger.
As for the third and fourth points, which are based on “supernatural” intervention, there is definitely something to that, but not in the way it is argued. Scripture says that the disciples’ eyes were “holden” so they could not see it was Jesus. Some people argue that this means that Jesus, post-crucifixion and pre-ascension, looked just like he always had, but the disciples couldn’t see him because God had blinded their physical senses. I would argue that quite the opposite is true – that Jesus did NOT look like he had looked before, and that the knowledge that this ‘stranger’ who didn’t look like Jesus was in fact Jesus was “holden” from the disciples on a spiritual level, not a physical one. Thus, their eventual recognition of Jesus was a spiritual recognition, not a physical one.
I have had personal experience with my eyes being “holden”. For three and a half years after I was born again (out of atheism), I was heavily invested in Catholicism. In fact, I was so heavily invested (as a lector, committee member, twice-daily mass attendee, etc.) and spent so much time in the church building, I was given a key to come and go as I pleased. I loved being in the building because I thought God lived there (that’s what Catholics are told to believe), and as a born-again, I always wanted to be where God was.
After three and a half years of intense involvement with Catholicism (even to the point of considering becoming a nun), I had what you might call a spiritual breakdown. Even though I was doing everything I was supposed to do as a “good Catholic”, I had lost my love and compassion for people that had been the chief characteristic of my early rebirth days. Even worse, I felt I was moving further and further away from Jesus and God. As blinded as I was by Catholic doctrines, I still knew enough to know that this was not the way things were supposed to be. So, down on my face I went, bawling my eyes out and begging God to take out of my life anything that was keeping me from doing his holy will.
I know now that God hears the cries of your heart, not the words of your mouth. Despite the stiltedness of my pre-packaged prayer, God heard my heart loud and clear that day. And a week later, he delivered.
I was sitting in church just after Sunday mass. It was about 11 in the morning, the sun streamed idyllically through the stained glass windows, and the air smelled like birthday cake from the newly extinguished candles on the altar. I loved that smell, and I loved the prettiness and coziness of being in what I thought was my Father’s house. I never wanted to leave.
Then, in the midst of my reverie, something happened that I can only describe as scales falling from my eyes. For the first time, I saw what kind of a place I was really in. It wasn’t God’s house. It was a pagan (demon) temple, and those statues that I had been told were angels and saints were actually idols that people were bowing down before and praying to (that I had bowed down before and prayed to). And the worst of it all was the crucifix – the life-size depiction of Jesus’ mangled corpse hanging like an inverted centrepiece over the altar. This was not a place where God was worshiped; this was a place where something quite the opposite was being worshiped. The coziness I felt turned to a chill. I wanted to get out of that place immediately, and did so. I never went back.
This is one of my experiences when my eyes were “holden” from the truth until I was ready, in my heart, to receive it. The candlesticks didn’t suddenly turn into writhing snakes or the statues into leering devils – no, not at all. Physically, the candlesticks and statues remained exactly the same both before and after my revelation. What had changed was how I saw them, not how they looked.
In the same way, the disciples’ eyes were “holden”. Jesus appeared as someone who didn’t look or sound or walk like Jesus, and the disciples couldn’t see that this person was Jesus because they were looking at him with the eyes of their head, not the eyes of their soul. When their hearts were open to receiving the knowledge, then they could ‘see’ that this person who looked like a stranger was, indeed, Jesus.
As with everything else in the Bible, if you want something clarified, just ask God. It’s not God’s goal to make his Word unknowable to you as some great mystery. On the contrary, he wants to reveal everything and to make it understandable even to a small child.
The truth of the matter is that Jesus wasn’t recognized by the disciples because he didn’t look like the Jesus they had known. They weren’t being prevented from seeing him as he was; they were being prevented from knowing who he was. It wasn’t the fault of darkness or distance (or even myopia): Jesus simply looked different.
In fact, Jesus states outright why he was unrecognizable – he told Mary that he had not yet ascended and for this reason she should not touch him. We know that our bodies will be ‘perfected’ when we go to heaven. Paul says they will be changed. Our Earthly bodies are flawed, while our heavenly bodies are perfect. When the disciples saw him post-crucifixion and pre-ascension, Jesus’ body was undergoing the process of being perfected. Jesus looks vastly different in heaven than he did on Earth, as will we. When Mary saw him at his empty tomb, he was still morphing into his perfect body. Keep in mind that Jesus told us that, in heaven, we would be “like the angels”, who are renowned for their physical beauty and are also genderless (neither male nor female). My guess is that the resurrected Jesus who Mary saw in the graveyard that morning was quite good-looking, whereas before his resurrection, Jesus was not, according to scripture, physically attractive.
Another key reason why Jesus didn’t look the same after his resurrection is that God works by faith, not by the witness of our senses. If Jesus had looked the same after his resurrection as he did before, people would not have to believe by faith that he was the Messiah. Remember how Jesus praised Peter for knowing by faith that he was sent by God? This is how we’re all to know that Jesus is who he said he was – by faith, through God’s spirit, not by the witness of our eyes.
Keep in mind, too, that the person we know as “Jesus” is not simply an animated body (although I did find one entry online entitled: “Was Jesus a Zombie?”). No, Jesus is not a zombie. He is first and foremost a spirit that cleaves to God’s spirit, as were all the prophets before him, and as are all true believers since his resurrection. This spiritual essence of Jesus (and of us) remains the same, regardless of what vessel it’s in. So, through the eyes of faith, we can know that Jesus is the Messiah and can recognize Jesus no matter what form he takes, just as we can recognize God’s spirit in other born-again believers.
Yet another (and a very practical) reason why Jesus did not appear in the same body is that it might have sparked a manhunt for him and put his followers at risk. If the authorities thought he hadn’t actually died on the cross, they might have tried to hunt him down so they could kill him once and for all. Everyone Jesus knew would have been suspected of harboring him as a fugitive, and it just wouldn’t have been Jesus’ style to put those he loved in harm’s way.
In contrast to his pre-ascension appearances, Jesus tells us that everyone will see him and know who he is when he returns at the end of time. There won’t be any mystery about it; no-one will need to announce who he is; God will give everyone the knowledge and everyone will see him at the same time. He won’t come wearing a tag that reads “Hello, my name is Jesus”. People will simply know he’s Jesus. It will be a spiritual recognition rather than a physical one. By the way, this is also how Jesus’ followers will not be deceived by the “man of perdition” who says he’s Jesus, but isn’t. They will rely on their spiritual senses, not their physical ones.
I would like to add here that while I am vehemently against Catholicism, I’m not against Catholics. I WAS a Catholic. I was baptized as a Roman Catholic when I was three weeks old, which is why I “returned to the fold” after I was born again. I thought I belonged there, I thought Catholics were my brothers and sisters, and God in his infinite wisdom let me believe it for a while, for his and my purposes. Allowing me to get to know Catholicism from an inside rather than an outside perspective enabled me to better understand how people could be so deceived by “doctrines of man”, since I myself had also been deceived.
Again – I’m not against Catholics; I’m against their belief system, just as I’m against the Islamic belief system (not against Muslims) and against the Judaic belief system (not against Jews). For the record, I’m against all organized religious systems of belief. So, I’m not a ‘Catholic-basher’, I’m a Catholicism-basher, or just an all-round general religion-basher. This is a very important distinction: I don’t hate people, I hate the lies they believe. When Jesus railed against the Sadducees and Pharisees, he wasn’t bashing people; he was bashing their belief system so that they might be jolted into questioning the ‘doctrines of man’ they had been taught (and in some cases forced) to believe, and, by questioning their beliefs, become open to receiving the truth. Like Jesus, we must also bash those erroneous belief systems so that those who want to know the truth may be freed.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 