HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 15, 2015 – The pope has spoken out in support of Islamic violence and against freedom of speech, declaring that insulting people’s faith should not be permitted, and that if religion is insulted, violence should be expected as a reasonable response. In this, as in nearly everything else he comments on, the pope is wrong.

God has asked us not to take his name in vain. Jesus has advised us to treat other people as we would like to be treated. But nowhere in the Bible does it say that ridiculing people’s beliefs is off-limits.

In fact, the very opposite is true. Jesus stood first and foremost for speaking the truth, regardless of the personal cost. He would never have glossed over the truth (in other words, lied) in order to spare someone’s feelings.

This is truth: the world’s organized religions are based on “doctrines of man” that are for the most part ridiculous lies. These lies need to be exposed as such, so that those who are confined and shackled by them can be set free to embrace the truth, as revealed by Jesus.

Thank God for freedom of speech. Those who wish to limit free speech wish to control us for their own purposes.

Never let them control you.

Give your free will solely and entirely to God.

Jesus fearlessly spoke out against those who pretended to speak with God’s authority but were in fact (like the pope) mouthpieces of the devil. Like Jesus, we must also speak out against lies.

God gave us the right to speak our minds freely (it falls under the auspice of free will), but the pope wants to one-up God by limiting our free speech. Don’t let him. Speak your mind freely and fearlessly, especially in matters concerning faith.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 14, 2015 – A little bird told me that no religion has a monopoly on stupidity… and then Islam said: “Hold my beer.” The latest manifestation of foolishness masquerading as religious dogma is an Islamic cleric’s fatwa issued against snowmen.

The ‘logic’ behind the fatwa is that making a snowman is like making a graven image, and Muslims are forbidden from making graven images.

Mind you, in the Commandments, Christians and Jews are also forbidden from making graven images, but to the best of my knowledge, no edict, papal or otherwise, has yet been issued advising Christians and Jews that making snowmen is the modern-day equivalent of forging a golden calf.

Considering that God, my Dad, is always the first to consult in issues of religious dogma (and everything else), I asked him what he thought.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, my sweet.”

“Can I make a snowman?”

“You can make as many snowmen as you like.”

“Will you get mad if I make them?”

“No. Why should I get mad?”

“Some guy said it was evil to make snowmen.”

“Sounds like some guy has too much time on his hands. Go make your snowmen. I’ll deal with the guy when the time’s right. In the meantime, pray for him.”

So there you have it. I’m off to make a snowman, with God’s blessings. If anyone’s offended by it, please take your concerns directly to God.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 14, 2015 – There is no marriage in heaven. Needless to add, there is also no sex in heaven, of either type (intercourse or gender). Jesus tells us we will be “like the angels”, who are neither male nor female, don’t marry, and do not reproduce.

This may come as a surprise to those who hope to be ‘reunited’ in heaven with their dearly departed spouse. They may indeed be reunited as adopted children of God (not as spouses), but having ‘marital relations’ will no longer be possible or even desirable. You just won’t want it or even miss it.

As a very close friend of mine once said: “There are no holes in heaven.” This means there is no sexual intercourse but also no defecation or urination, which should come as a vast relief to many.

You can still eat, though – and how you can eat! Your appetite will be perfectly tuned to your body’s needs. The food will always be your favourites, made with the finest and cleanest of ingredients. There are no pesticides or herbicides or fungicides or genetic modifications of any kind in heaven. Everything is clean, natural and perfect. No indigestion or heartburn or tummy-aches of any kind can happen in heaven because, as scripture tells us, there is no pain in heaven.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 13, 2015 – In the book of Acts, Peter and John are found rejoicing over their beatings, as they deemed it a noble thing to have been found worthy to suffer for the name. Jesus warned us that, as his followers, we will suffer persecution and be hated “without cause”, just as he was. Yet he also advised us to pray for our persecutors and for those who treat us badly. This loving of our enemies is only possible through the power of God’s spirit, as our usual first response is to give back what we get, an eye for an eye, or at the very least demand an apology and perhaps some financial restitution. Only by operating in God’s spirit can we have compassion on those who are hurting us, understanding that only those souls in pain can inflict pain on others. Souls in pain need help, not curses.

Loving our enemies by praying for those who are persecuting us is the way of God’s Kingdom, not of the world. As followers of Jesus, we will be persecuted and hated, but that should not affect our inner peace and joy, nor must that deter us from persevering in God’s will to the end and preaching the Good News.  Persecution is part and parcel of being a follower of Jesus. We’re not to fight back against it or oppose it, but rather to rejoice that, like the early followers, we’ve been deemed worthy to suffer for the name.

Chastisement and correction are also part and parcel of being a follower of Jesus. How, then, are we to distinguish between persecution and punishment so that we can respond accordingly? When we are persecuted for our beliefs – that is, treated unfairly, mocked, reviled, or even imprisoned or sentenced to death, as Jesus was – we know in our hearts that we have done nothing wrong. Far from being separated from God at these times, we feel even closer to him, even more suffused with his peace and joy. Thus fortified, disciples through the ages have been able to go to their deaths singing glory and praise to God, blessing their executioners and praying to God to forgive those who know not what they are doing, as Jesus taught by his example.

Chastisement and correction, on the other hand, evoke a deep-seated sense of remorse, of something being wrong, of a separation between us and God. This feeling of separation is by far the worst pain, as there is no life, joy or peace outside of living in God’s grace. Followers of Jesus learn (some of us taking longer than others!) to distinguish chastisement from persecution and to take the appropriate steps.

The first thing you do when you sense separation is to ask God what you did wrong, and he will unhesitatingly tell you. It is your responsibility to repent and to make restitution as counseled by God.  However, if you ignore the sense of separation or refuse to repent, you will remain separated and in danger of worse chastisement. Most if not all followers of Jesus cannot bear to live without the constant companionship of God’s spirit, so they’ll do whatever it takes to be close to God again.

Persecution, then, brings us a sense of being closer to God and strengthened by him, while chastisement brings us a sense of separation. This is how we can distinguish between persecution and punishment (chastisement). However, as followers of Jesus, we are not to try to avoid either persecution or chastisement, as both are permitted by God for the edification and perfection of our souls.

Tellingly, many self-proclaimed Christian organizations, in union with other religious organizations, condemn persecution and consider it something to be eradicated rather than celebrated. Their persecution watchdogs have chapters and informants the world over, technology ever at the ready to receive reports of the slightest slur that could be construed as an attack against their organization. When, to their barely constrained delight, one appears, the anti-persecution machinery rumbles into action, with tremulous cries of moral outrage and calls for immediate public apology, retraction, and monetary restitution.

But Christians are not the only religious organization to respond this way to perceived “persecution”, which is often not persecution at all but simply an astute pointing out of the inconsistencies and hypocrisy of the organization, including their own culpability in matters of persecution. Contrast this response to perceived persecution to Jesus’ silent endurance of the real thing – the trumped trial, the beatings, the mockery, the public execution by excruciating crucifixion, through all of which Jesus’ only words were of comfort to his followers and prayers of forgiveness for his tormentors. This is the “patience of saints” in action, and we, as Jesus’ followers, are called to respond to persecution as he did.

Jesus was an outcast and an outlaw who died the most ignominious of deaths. Before dying, he informed us that we, as his followers, should expect to be treated the same at the hands of unbelievers. Jesus prayed for us to be protected in the world, not to be removed from it. But when our hour has come, as it will for each one of us, death may hold sway over our bodies but not over our souls.

Unbelievers fear to be dishonored almost as much as they fear death. Their reputation in the world is of utmost importance to them, as is dying a “dignified” or “peaceful” death. Being crucified naked as a criminal would not be top on their list of ways to go, and yet we as followers of Jesus must anticipate that our deaths will be as ignoble as his was, and our reputation among unbelievers as maligned.

The Jewish religious establishment considered Jesus a dangerous madman and a blasphemer against all things sacred. That he was believed in by the masses mattered little to them, as they considered the masses ignorant and of no account. It was with members of the religious establishment that Judas Iscariot made his infamous deal to betray Jesus.

Keep in mind that the religious establishment was also the ruling class. They made and enforced the laws, as there was no ‘separation of church and state’.

Nothing has changed since Jesus’ day. His true followers are still persecuted by the religious and political establishment, most especially by those who masquerade as “Christians”. Sometimes the persecution is made public, as it was for the three centuries following Jesus’ crucifixion, and during the Inquisition, which spanned the years from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries. Most often, though, the persecution is more subtle and closer to home (again, as Jesus promised it would be).

We are to anticipate nothing but problems from unbelievers in the world, yet we are nevertheless to pray for those who mean us harm. This is a directive straight from God. As a former unbeliever myself, I can attest that I persecuted followers of Jesus by mocking and tormenting them emotionally. One such believer was my maternal grandmother, who looked after my sister and I during our school years while both of my parents were at work. I loathed my grandmother inexplicably. Even as a child as young as seven, I yelled at her, disobeyed her, mocked her, cursed at her, stole from her, and made her cry almost daily from the cruel things I’d say to her. But not once did she ever raise her voice at me or treat me badly. Neither, as I found out after her death, did she ever “tell on” me to my parents or to anyone else. She suffered silently, finding comfort in God alone.

In retrospect, I believe my grandmother knew that my behaviour towards her was demon-inspired, and all those times she retreated to her bedroom in tears after one of my horrendous verbal assaults, only to emerge a few minutes later, sniffling, to face yet another barrage from me – all those times, in the privacy of her bedroom, she was praying for me. I was raised an atheist and considered myself to be an atheist up until the moment of my rebirth. Whether or not she would have articulated it that way, my grandmother knew my problems were spiritual, and so she did what she knew she should do: she prayed for me.

At the reception for her held at the funeral home, I found out from some of my cousins that they had likewise treated my grandmother abominably. This surprised me, because she always spoke so glowingly of them, proudly displaying each of their successive school photos on her bedroom dresser and seeming to genuinely look forward to her visits with them. Yet there they were, miserably confessing how rude and disrespectful they’d always treated her, and yet how kindly she had always treated them in return.

Now, being a believer myself, I see my grandmother as the true spiritual matriarch of our family. A humble and poor widow though she was, always deferring to others, she showed us by her actions and by the way she treated others, how to live life as a disciple of Jesus. What she had to learn on earth – her soulwork – is not my soulwork, yet I can still learn from her the most important lesson of all: how to patiently and cheerfully endure in faith whatever comes my way. I have faith that my grandmother has gone to the rest that Jesus promised his followers, and that all her good works have gone with her. I have faith that she will rise on Judgement Day and take her place among the saints who will become, as Jesus promised us, “like the angels”. And while I miss her, I’m happy for her. More than anyone else in my family, she inspires me to be kind, to be cheerful, to be humble, to endure, and to fearlessly stand my ground as a follower of Jesus, no matter how badly anyone treats me because of it.

If she knew I had written this, she’d get flustered and lower her head, shaking it a bit, smiling, not really sure what to say. But her eyes would shine brightly, as they always did. Was she perfect? No, none of us are. Did she make mistakes? Of course, we all do (even Jesus did!). She used to say: Mistakes keep us humble. Did she consciously sin? Only God knows the answer to that. But if she did sin, I believe she worked it out with God well before her death, and that she died the happiest and wealthiest of women, rich in God’s wealth, not the world’s. Having put up with me as her grand-daughter, she’s earned her reward.

I believe that God puts a person of faith into every family as an example of how to live, and these believers are always treated badly by their relatives. This comprises the most common type of persecution nowadays, just as Jesus warned us would happen. Do not be offended by the attacks, but take strength from the persecution by leaning all the more heavily on God.

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

(Matthew 6:12-15)

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 13, 2015 – The desire to forgive those who hurt us does not come easy to most. Our tendency is to harbor resentment against people who’ve hurt us. What most of us don’t realize is that, in doing this, we’re only hurting ourselves.

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” – Jesus’ simple request aimed at God seems straightforward enough. Billions of Christians have repeated it throughout the centuries. But how many of us actually do it? How many of us actually choose to forgive those who’ve hurt us, so that God can forgive us?

We are freed from pain not when the person we’ve hurt forgives us but when we choose to forgive someone whose hurt us. That’s because when we choose to forgive someone, God forgives (and thus heals) us, just like Jesus asked him to do.

How will we know if we’ve truly forgiven someone? First and foremost, our pain will disappear, and in its place we will feel peace in our hearts and compassion towards the person we’ve forgiven. That’s the presence of God’s spirit with us, indicating that we have been healed.

Keep in mind that choosing to forgive someone who has abused you doesn’t mean that you put yourself back into a position to be abused again. Forgiving someone doesn’t mean they’re not guilty of hurting you; it just means that you’ve chosen not to think or speak badly of them.  If someone is chronically abusive towards you, stay away from that person. By putting yourself back into a position that allows your abuser to abuse you again, you become a co-conspirator in the abuse. That doesn’t make you a martyr; it just makes you part of the problem.

If a crime is committed against you, you should still follow the laws of the land (as long as they don’t contradict God’s laws) in reporting the crime. You can choose to forgive someone but still report that person to the police, if the crime warrants it.

Do we need to tell the person we’ve forgiven that they’ve been forgiven? Not at all; in fact, most people won’t want to hear that you’ve forgiven them, because most won’t believe they’ve done anything to be forgiven for. God knows you’ve made the choice to forgive, and that’s all (besides you) who really needs to know.

You cannot be hurt by someone unless you’ve first hurt someone. That is a law. You may not be hurt by the same person you’ve hurt, but if you want the pain to disappear, you still need to choose to forgive the person who hurt you. It sounds like a funny old system, but God makes it work.

You cannot pay your way out of forgiving someone (“I require mercy, not sacrifice”), nor can you pray your way out of forgiving someone. Asking God to forgive you is a waste of time; he’ll only forgive you when you’ve forgiven others. Confessing (that is, acknowledging) your sin is a good first step towards forgiveness, not absolution from it. You still must choose to forgive whoever has hurt you; otherwise, your sin (and your pain, which is the sign of your sin) will remain.

Forgiveness is actually one of my favorite topics because it’s how I was born again. Having chosen to forgive someone who was literally out to kill me, I was forgiven and healed by God. Needless to say, as an atheist, choosing to forgive my potential murderer wasn’t the first thing that came to my mind when I woke up every morning. But I did want the pain to stop. I wanted that more than anything else in the world. So when everything finally came to a head, God showed me that if I chose to forgive that one person, all my pain would disappear.

Very few people want to be told that the pain they feel is the pain they’ve earned. Most people would rather hear that they’re ‘victims’ who should be compensated for their suffering. I certainly used to believe I was a victim. Then God did me the favour of ingraining in my soul, at the instant of my rebirth, this eternal truth: The pain you feel is the pain you’ve earned. God doesn’t inflict pain on you; you inflict it on yourself by how you treat other people (including how you think about them).

You are not a victim. There was only one victim – Jesus. He is the only one who suffered pain he had not earned.

The best choice you will ever make is to choose to forgive.

“I require mercy, not sacrifice.”

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 11, 2015 – Jesus has always been a big fan of engaging with the world, or, as he phrases it, “being in the world”. While he sees the “concerns of this world” as being distinct from his mandate (“my kingdom is not of this world”) and warns us against becoming overly concerned about these concerns, he still emphasizes the importance of being involved in the world as a force for good, even while maintaining a healthy spiritual distance from it.

During his earthly ministry, Jesus never shied away from engaging with people or attending social events. He was also keenly aware of current events, although his interpretation of them was decidedly different from that of popular culture. For instance, he saw the fall of the towers not solely as a punishment to those they fell on, but as a warning that no-one is immune to bad consequences following bad actions.

As followers of Jesus, our job is to engage with the world in the same way and to the same extent as Jesus. We’re not to be monks or nuns, physically separating ourselves from the world by living in monasteries and convents, but spiritually we should live as monks and nuns. That means following the Ten Commandments to the letter with regards to how we interact with people, treating people as we would want to be treated, and loving our enemies in word and deed.

It is far more challenging to live in the world as a spiritual monk or nun than to live physically separated as a monk or nun. Temptation is all around us, all the time. We turn on a TV news channel and are tempted to become overwhelmed by world events. We walk by a store and are tempted to buy something we don’t need. We see males and females in various stages of undress on the street (i.e., wearing the latest fashions) and are sexually tempted. We see how people who speak the truth are murdered and their families threatened, and we’re tempted to remain silent rather than risk our lives or the lives of our loved ones.

God permits temptations for our spiritual development. They are lessons as well as tests. Most of us, most of the time, don’t do so well on them. But take heart – you’ll do better as you learn to recognize them both as tests and learning opportunities, not as traps or stumbling blocks. And also remember that you will never be tempted beyond your capacity to overcome the temptation WITH GOD’S HELP.

We are now in the testing time. Our job is to show that we want what God has to offer (earthly deprivations leading to heaven) more than the alternative (earthly titillations leading to hell). The way to do our job is to help people who sincerely ask us for help, even it if means we temporarily go without.

Remember the old lady who gave everything she had to live on as a temple offering, even though her offering was only a pittance? Jesus said she gave far more than those who monetarily gave more but kept the lion’s share of their money for themselves.  God values the sincerity of the giving, not the amount.

Speaking of sincerity – make sure that those asking you for help are sincere, and likewise make sure that your offer to help them is sincere; otherwise, you’re wasting your time. Panhandlers and professional charities are not examples of people sincerely asking for your help.

Take your time to find out who really needs help, and then help them. Keep in mind that financial help is the last thing most people need, even though they think it is the most important. The best help any of us can give is a kind word of encouragement at the right time to someone who really needs to hear it. We’ll know the right time because God will tell us.

Remember how Jesus first preached the “sermon on the mount”, spiritually feeding his flock before performing the miracle of the loaves and fishes and physically feeding them.

Spiritual food is far more important than physical food.

Spiritual shelter is far more important than physical shelter.

Spiritual health is far more important than physical health.

Jesus lived these truths, and so must we.

But most importantly – don’t preach to people who don’t want to hear it. Preaching at the wrong time is the spiritual equivalent of fingernails scraping across a chalkboard. Note that Jesus, in engaging with the world, only preached to those who came to him, whether along his journeys, at his home in Capernaum, or in the synagogues.

For those who don’t yet have ears to hear, a helping hand is better than a thousand words.

Ultimately, our aim in helping people is to show them how much God loves them and how they can come to know and love God the way Jesus knows and loves him, the way we know and love him. Our reward for carrying out this sincere mission of helping people is peace and joy now, and heaven later.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 11, 2015 – Not for your body’s health but for your soul’s well-being is why you’re here on Earth. God has given you this opportunity of time and space to fix whatever needs fixing in your soul, to accomplish whatever needs accomplishing, to finish whatever needs finishing so that you can join him in heaven. Each and every one of us has something different to accomplish, depending on what our souls require. That’s why we are not to compare ourselves with others (in John 21:20-23, Jesus reprimanded Peter for doing just that). Instead, we should simply follow God’s advice.

Keep in mind that God doesn’t need our help in anything (he is all-powerful and perfect), but we certainly need his help. It’s not the length of our life but the state of our soul at death that matters. Like Jesus, we’re not here to live a long and prosperous life, but to finish the mission that God sets before for us (if we choose to accept it) and get out as quickly as we can.

Life is a mission, not a party. The party comes AFTER the mission is accomplished.

God doesn’t need us, we need him. If he wanted to, God could accomplish everything in the twinkling of an eye (which is precisely how long a miracle takes), but he chooses instead to let us “help” him, in much the same way as, for instance, a father lets his toddler “help” him with a woodworking project using a plastic hammer and rubber nails, or a mother lets her child “help” bake a cake by letting him lick the bowl. Again, God doesn’t need our help, but he lets us work alongside him, not only showing us what to do but accomplishing it for us: God doesn’t need us, we need him.

God’s will for my life is not some arbitrary list of tasks he pulls from a hat, but the very things my soul requires in order to go to heaven. I cannot, without his help, know what my soul requires, and I cannot, without his help, fulfill my soul’s requirements. He has to both tell me what I require and strengthen me to do it. And so he does tell me, using words, terms and references that are completely tailored to my individual experience and capacity to understand. He knows me better than I know myself. He meets me where I am and lifts me up to where I need to be.

The gesture of lifting or raising up is central to who God is and what he does for us. We see this most clearly in Jesus’ healing ministry, where he constantly lifts up and raises those who are repentant and those who have faith in him.  From their humbled position of lying, sitting and kneeling, or bent over or lame, they come to fully upright positions of unrestricted movement. This upward motion of God’s healing grace culminates in Jesus’ resurrection and ascension.

We cannot know what God’s will is for us – our soulwork – unless he tells us. Just as God spoke personally, through his spirit, with Moses and the prophets, so God speaks personally, through his spirit, to all who are born-again followers of Jesus. He speaks mainly in words, not signs or symbols (Jesus is the Word, not the sign or symbol).  The voice of God’s spirit is discernible as long as we’re doing God’s will; if we stop doing it, we simply can’t hear him, and at that point are in danger of falling from grace.

I hope you never get there, but if you do find yourself separating from God, get back to him as quickly as you can. God is always – ALWAYS – waiting to help you. All you need to do is ask him with a sincere and honest heart.

Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father!

(Romans 8:15)

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 9, 2015 – Since the coming of the Kingdom on Earth, God has made himself accessible to all followers of Jesus. He is not a remote and hidden mystery, an entity to be communicated with only rarely and through another person ordained to the task. Rather, all who live with God’s spirit (meaning, all who are born again) and who in fact have become God’s foster children, can communicate with their Dad at any time. Consequently, I know God personally as my heavenly Father, my Dad, my Daddy. And he knows me, inside out, communicating with me using words, images and references from my personal history. He knows me better than I know myself; he alone knows what my soul needs, and he alone can provide it. In John 17, Jesus prays to God to give us the same relationship with God as he has with him: “that they may be one as we are….” God answered Jesus’ prayer, just as he always did.

Temples of worship are no longer required, as we born-agains are each of us a temple, and our souls are the tabernacle for God’s spirit. Under the New Covenant ushered in by Jesus, the Living God no longer dwells in buildings of stone and wood, but in the living flesh of his foster children. When God’s spirit comes to live with us, we embark upon the most intimate, loving, satisfying and profound relationship we’ll ever experience in our lives – a relationship with the creator of all things. Yet he comes to us as our Dad, and it’s his covenanted duty to do and be for us everything a good father must do and be.

So, he loves us like a father, he watches over us like a father, he indulges us like a father, he’s proud of us like a father, he guides us like a father, he defends us like a father, he tells us stories like a father, he amuses and entertains us like a father, he humors us like a father, he protects us like a father, he provides for us like a father, he corrects us like a father, he admonishes us like a father, and, if need be, he punishes us like a good father should.

He loves us more than anyone on Earth could possibly love us because his love is absolute, not conditional: it cannot change or die. Each and every one of us is the apple of God’s eye, and he wants only the best for all of us. Being his foster children, we are potentially his heirs, so that all that is his may some day be ours, if we choose to remain his children.

And it is still our choice while we are yet on Earth, in our Earthly bodies. We can still choose against God, with our God-given free will. Hopefully we won’t.

I am my Father’s daughter. My Father’s name is God Almighty. My Father has promised never to leave or forsake me, as long as I keep his commandments and walk in his way. Through his written and spoken Word, he teaches me how to do this: His written Word is the Holy Bible, and his spoken Word is that which he directly speaks to me and to my ‘brethren’ (other born-agains). I don’t need an interpreter or an intercessor to understand his written or spoken Word for, as he promised, he himself will teach me. He speaks to me in my own language, using words, images, nuances and juxtapositions unique to my own experience and at a level I can comprehend. My soul is as my fingerprint; there is only one in all creation. Likewise, my understanding of God is unique. This is how he becomes our ‘personal God’. If we do not know him uniquely and intimately – that is, personally – then we do not know him at all.

God my Dad knows me better than I know myself and he loves me more than I can comprehend. He fiercely protects me from my enemies and takes stumbling blocks out of my path. When he closes a door, he opens a window; when he shuts the window, he lifts up the roof and lets down a ladder for me to ascend. There is nothing my Dad will not do in his love for me, his foster child. And he wants more than anything else to adopt me so that I can go home to heaven, where my soul was created. But this will only happen if I follow his will and his will only, just as Jesus did.

I can only know his will by constantly consciously being in his presence (or, as Paul would say, praying without ceasing).  Consciously being in God’s presence means talking to him, listening to him, asking his advice (and following it), and letting his spirit permeate every iota of my being, all my thoughts, words and actions, all the time, not just for a few seconds on Sunday.

If I had the choice to live until the end of time in a beautiful, healthy, youthful body, rich, famous, well-connected and respected socially, with a loving and devoted husband, adoring children, a  supportive family, and lots of admirers and friends, but without knowing God as my Father

OR

to live for only one more day as I am – plain, middle-aged, poor, unknown, prone to bodily ills, with no social connections, no husband, no children, a wary family and no admirers or friends, but knowing God as my Father,

I would without hesitation choose that one day with God, because without him, without his spirit inside me, I’m not alive, I have nothing of value, even if I have everything the world tells me makes for happiness, everything the world lusts after and settles for. Only in loving God as my Father do I have everything and everyone I’ll ever need. Amen.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 9, 2015 – The advice is simple: Follow Jesus, worship God. I say “advice”, because God always lets you make your own choices. That’s free will. He sets before you life and death, and advises you to choose life. And so you are free to follow Jesus and worship God, and you are also free not to.

God respects your choice, but if you choose against him, he will continue to try to convince to change your mind, until your time is up (and God is the only one who makes that decision). Each choice has a consequence; whether positive or negative, God permits you to experience the consequences, hoping that the pain of the negative consequences will teach you to make choices that will lead to the peace and joy of the positive consequences.

God never forces you; he offers to guide you, but he never forces you. He gives you absolute, unconditional free will, no strings attached. The fact of the matter is that the only thing you truly own is your will – not your body, not your real estate or other ‘wealth’ holdings (if you have any), and not your soul. But your will is entirely your own to do with what you choose. It is on the basis of those choices that the ultimate fate of your soul is decided.

By his life and death, Jesus paid the debt of Original Sin for us and opened the door; it’s up to us whether or not we want to follow him through that door. This is the most important choice we’ll ever make in life: to accept God’s way of mercy (forgiveness) or to reject God’s way and persist in pride and revenge.

Keep in mind that God and Jesus are a package deal – you can’t have one without the other. You can’t say:  “Oh, I follow the Commandments and I’m a good person, but I don’t believe in Jesus”; or: “Oh, I believe in Jesus, but I think some of the Commandments are outdated”. God and Jesus are a package deal; you can’t accept one and deny the other, or you are really denying both.

Jesus said: I am the way, the truth, and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.

When you say yes to God’s way, you automatically become a follower of Jesus.

The two are a package deal.

Choosing or rejecting God’s way as exemplified by Jesus is the single most important choice you’ll ever make, and the decision is left entirely up to you. God doesn’t want automatons or slaves; he doesn’t want to force people into choosing him: he wants them to come to him of their own free will.

We have free will to choose, and God will respect our choice, even if we choose against him. Yet God’s counsel, even as he permits us our own choice, is that we choose his way: he sets before us life (his way, leading to him) and death (the devil’s way, leading to hell), and prompts us, entices us, counsels us, but never forces, coerces or tricks us to choose life.

Jesus told his disciples that those who died from that point in time onwards will “rest in their labours” only if they follow him and do God’s Commandments. Likewise, Moses, the prophets, Jesus and others speak of the Resurrection of the dead which will occur at the end of time, when all souls will come before God, who will judge them according to their works – that is, according to their free will choices. Some souls, though very few, will proceed to heaven, having made the right choices, while the rest will be banished to hell.

This is not a metaphor or a myth or a joke or an old-wives’ tale or a scary-monster story fabricated to keep people in line. God’s final judgment, based on the free will choices we make while yet on earth, and the subsequent reward of heaven for having made the right choices or the punishment of hell for having made the wrong choices, is as real as it gets, is more real than the reality that passes, is passing, in this world. It is true reality, as it is eternal, both the realities of heaven and the realities of hell.

We have a foretaste of those eternal realities right here on earth. As a self-professed atheist, prior to being born-again, I had a foretaste of hell in the perpetual, and perpetually worsening, emotional pain, fear, anxiety, confusion, dissatisfaction, insatiable bodily lusts and so on that were constant features of my life. Now, as a born-again follower of Jesus, I have a foretaste of heaven in my constant communion with God’s Spirit and the joy, peace and contentment  that brings.

There are only two options: to live in love or to die in fear. There is no third option.

You are either living in the will of God, who is Love, or dying in the bondage of Satan, who is fear. There is no alternative to these two options. If you’re not one, you’re the other.

If you say: I don’t believe in God or in Satan (or in love, for that matter), then you confirm you’re dying in fear, because all sin is bondage to death, and existing outside God’s will by denying him is sin.

You can only either be in love or in fear. There is no other option.

The spiritual states of love and fear are not opposites but absences — love is the absence of fear and fear is the absence of love. While on earth, in our mortal bodies, we can only experience varying degrees of either love or fear. Only after our bodily demise, as spirit beings, will be able to experience these spiritual states to their fullest – either perfect love, in heaven, or total fear, in hell.

The more you trust God and do his will, following Jesus, the greater the love.
The more you trust in yourself and do what you want, following Satan, the greater the fear.

Angels had free will once, but now, having made their choice either for God or against God, they have been “locked” into place. They all still serve God, but in different capacities, either as his holy angels or as his demons. Jesus says we’ll be “like the angels” upon resurrection.

Will those of us, then, who “endure to the end” become like God’s holy angels, living in perpetual joy and peace and pleasure? What an amazing thought!

And will those of us who don’t make it be forced to take our place among the ranks of the demons, in perpetual agony? What a sobering and horrifying thought. May none of you reading this end up there.

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say onto 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 to the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and 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 5:43-48)

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 8, 2015 – “Love your enemies” – there is perhaps no more compelling, confounding, and revolutionary directive in all of human history than this. How on earth can we love people who hate us, who are doing us harm, and are perhaps even trying to kill us?

The simple answer is that we cannot. Our gut-level response to people who hurt us is to become offended and to want to hurt them back. Human beings are not, on their own, capable of loving their enemies: the directive, therefore, in human terms, is absurd. But with God’s help, with his spirit working through us, we can not only love (that is, have compassion for and forgive) our enemies, but we can also pray for them, even, if need be, as they are killing us.

Our job, then, in loving our enemies is to choose to love our enemies. Through our free will choice of choosing to do what Jesus has instructed, God is able to accomplish the love. Without God’s help, it is impossible. In other words, it is God’s love working through us that  accomplishes the miracle of loving our enemies, but only if we will that God do it.