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Y’AIN’T NUTHIN’ IF Y’AIN’T GOT SOUL
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, April 15, 2025 – Years ago, I used to fly back and forth between New York City and Amsterdam on People’s Airline ($99 one way; byob, baby!). Every now and then when I arrived back in New York, I would pass groups of men sitting on the floor in the arrivals area. The first few times I saw them, I didn’t really think twice about it; New York being New York, there was never a shortage of oddities to behold. But one time my curiosity got the better of me, so I asked a passing flight attendant why the men were sitting there. What he told me has stuck with me all these years: He said they were waiting for their souls to arrive.
Being an atheist at the time, I didn’t believe in souls, so I laughed it off as ridiculous. The attendant explained further that sometimes they’d sit there for days until they were certain their souls had caught up with them. What I didn’t realize, in glancing at these men in passing, is that they would become one of those scenes that would haunt me for the rest of my life: I can still see them sitting motionless on the cold hard floor, not talking or eating, their heads bowed, waiting.
Just waiting.
As a born-again believer, I do now unquestioningly believe in souls, and I think about those men and what their days-long silent protest at the airport hoped to accomplish. I hesitate to say they didn’t achieve their goal. I understand how jet lag can disorient you well beyond normal fatigue, but they must have understood jet lag, too, and could distinguish between it and a tardy soul. Surely it wasn’t just jet lag that drove them to do what they did?
I’ve tried researching this phenomenon online and have come up empty. Nothing’s been uploaded to the internet about people who wait at the airport for their souls to arrive. Could the flight attendant have been pulling my leg? Or was this an Olde Worlde tradition that has since passed into oblivion? It reminds me of the stories of North American natives who, back in the day, would refuse to have their pictures taken, as they equated picture-taking with soul-stealing.
Somewhat related in spirit if not in mode is a guy I know in Germany who knows a guy who won’t travel farther in a day than he can comfortably walk (~20 miles). If he goes on a 60-mile journey by car or train, he does it over three days, stopping every 20 miles to spend the night at a local hotel. He’s quite religious about this. I used to laugh at him, but now I think he might be onto something.
What about you? Does any of this resonate with you? Do you think we’re moving around too much and too fast, lured by cheap travel options and the pressure to do more and go farther in less time? How is this affecting your soul? As the Bible attests, we used to measure distance by how far people could walk in a day, but now we peg distance to car travel time. “Just five minutes to the mall!” really means a two-hour walk, and usually along a busy highway. When we frame travel distance by car rather than by foot, what affect does it have on our perception of time? Does it bias us against taking the more leisurely travel options or against taking the scenic route? And if it does bias our decisions, what are we missing out on? How are we hurting our souls in the process?
Did those “crazy” guys sitting on the floor at the airport actually have it right?
A soul is a terrible thing to abuse. If we’re discombobulating our souls by our travel modes, we need to radically consider slowing things down.
HOLY NIGHT
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, April 12, 2025 – If we follow God’s directive for the timing of the Passover (which we need to do as born-again believers), it starts tonight. That means the act of remembrance that Jesus directed us to do in remembrance of him should be done tonight, without fail. When Constantine corralled a group of elites into creating a religion called “Roman Catholicism” in the early 300s AD, he purposely changed the timing of the Passover so that it wouldn’t coincide with the timing of the real Passover, or what he snidely referred to as “the Jews’ Passover”. He didn’t want Catholicism to reflect anything done by the Jews. And so Constantine purposely changed the timing that Jesus asked us to perform the act of remembrance, and it is this changed timing – fake timing – that most Christians adhere to today.
As born-again believers, we need to do exactly what Jesus directed us to do, and what he directed us to do was to keep the Passover as God directed, not as Constantine directed. We need to keep the so-called Jews’ Passover, and that starts tonight.
We keep the Passover because Jesus directed us to keep it, but he also directed us to keep it in a very specific way. We’re to offer up unleavened bread as a token of Jesus’ sacrificial body and wine as a token of Jesus’ atoning blood. How we choose to keep the Passover beyond that is up to us, but it must, by a directive straight from Jesus (who got it straight from God), include the act of remembrance that Jesus showed us. And it must happen on the first night of the Jews’ Passover.
As born-again believers, we’re holy by virtue of the presence of God’s Holy Spirit with us, a Spirit given to us by God at our rebirth that signifies our spiritual adoption by God. When God gave us his Spirit, we became his children. The abiding presence of God’s Holy Spirit with us separates us from everyone else, the way it separated the children of Israel from the heathens around them during their final days in Egypt and their 40 years of wandering in the desert.
We are holy by the presence of God’s Holy Spirit with us, but tonight is the holiest of holies as far as nights go, because tonight we do as Jesus directed: we do it exactly at the time he directed, and we do it exactly in the way he directed. Nowhere else in the gospels does Jesus give us a directive that is so specific in its timing and content. And because the directive is time- and content-specific, it needs to be done exactly as written.
We need to keep the Passover tonight in remembrance of Jesus, as he directed us to do, and we also need to keep it in remembrance of the first Passover, when God, as he’d promised, “passed over” the children of Israel, leaving them unharmed while killing the first-born of every other human and beast in Egypt, sparing none.
This is a profoundly holy night, by directive of both God and Jesus, and it must be kept as such.
PASSOVER 2025: THE FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD AND A CALL TO FASTING
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, April 10, 2025 – Here’s your annual heads-up that Passover is coming soon (it starts at sundown on Saturday, April 12th), followed by the weeklong Feast of Unleavened Bread. So if you haven’t yet thought about what you’re going to eat as a bread substitute next week (anything with a leavening agent is a no-no), now’s the time to brainstorm.
You can even make your own unleavened bread with just flour, water, and salt:
How you choose to commemorate the Passover ritual on Saturday night is up to you, but commemorating it how Jesus showed us to commemorate it in the gospels is a good start.
And for those of you who feel called to do it, fasting to mark the time that Jesus was taken away from us (this year, commemorated from mid-afternoon Sunday to early morning Tuesday) will be greatly blessed by God. When the scribes and Pharisees ask Jesus:
“Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees; but thine eat and drink?”
Jesus tells them:
“Can ye make the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them?
But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.” (Luke 5:33-35)
This is a 40-hour fast over three days to commemorate “those days” that Jesus was taken away from us, from the time of his death mid-afternoon on the first day of the Passover (this year, it falls on Sunday, April 13th) to the time he was seen resurrected by Mary early in the morning on the third day (this year, it falls on Tuesday, April 15th). This is not a reenactment of the crucifixion and resurrection; it’s a commemoration. How deep you want to go for your fast (zero food/water; water only; unleavened bread and water; soup, juice, and water; etc.) is up to you.
Forty hours is not a long fast, but again, this call to fasting is meant only for those who feel called to do it. There’s no obligation, keeping in mind that any fasting not done free-willingly has no spiritual value, whereas fasting done free-willingly is mightily blessed by God.
May your Passover be mightily blessed!
ONE OF A CITY
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 20, 2025 – We born-again believers are the rarest of rare breeds. Even though, as Jesus promises, God will give his Holy Spirit to anyone who asks in sincerity and in truth, most people – including self-identifying Christians – have given God’s offer a hard pass. Sure, they want the peace and the joy that come with being a card-carrying member of the prophesied remnant (who wouldn’t?), but they don’t want the persecutions. They don’t want the afflictions. They don’t want the poverty. They don’t want to give up all the things they would naturally and without effort give up as a believer.
And they don’t want the whispers.
Jesus well knew those whispers, even from his own family. On one occasion, his mother and sisters came to ‘rescue’ him in Capernaum as if he were suffering a mental illness episode, and his brother James goaded him for not publicly revealing himself as a prophet. First-born males at that time were traditionally afforded a position of honor, respect, and privilege within the family, but Jesus, from these two brief glimpses into his home life, appeared to have foregone the familial deference. He had instead become an object of pity and ridicule, foreshadowing what we all experience as born-again believers amidst unbelievers.
Tie me to a stake and burn me, but I would never not want to be born-again, I would never not want God’s Spirit in me, no matter the cost. There is no temptation or threat that would make me turn my back on God and deny Jesus and return to the earthly hell of living without God’s Spirit. I’ve done my time as an atheist, and I’m forever done with it. Offer me all the wealth and power in the world, and that still wouldn’t be enough. Offer me beauty sufficient to launch ships and bring down nations, and even that wouldn’t turn my head. I already have all the wealth and power that has any value, through the abiding presence of God’s Holy Spirit, and I’m holding out for the promised perfected beauty that comes with my place in Heaven and lasts not for a time or a lifetime, but forever.
There is no temptation and no threat that would make me not want to be born-again. And I know I’m not alone in knowing this. I know that you, my brothers and sisters reading this, feel the same. I know that your grounding in God is not skin deep, is not for upvotes and likes, is not just for the time being until (what appears to be) a better offer comes along or the price of being a Jesus follower becomes too high or too inconvenient. I’ve seen the superficial believers fall away to other beliefs as easily as someone picks the pie rather than the pudding in a cafeteria line-up. But we don’t pick God; he picks us. We are the pie in the cafeteria line-up, the apple pie, the apple pie of God’s eye.
You will not know what it means to be truly alive until you’re born-again. We are one of a city, two of a family, as rare as hen’s teeth and for many just as mythical: “Who are these born-again believers that you speak of? Bring them to me! I wish to examine them!” The curious and curiouser approach me cautiously, as you would a rare bird borne by a storm far from its native habitat. They’re afraid to startle me into flight and so weigh their every word. We talk about the weather. We talk about the past. We talk about the weather again while they search my face for clues to a mystery they’re certain I must be hiding. I watch them searching, though I hide nothing. They cannot see what they cannot see.
It’s not my doing. It’s God’s.
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There is no threat or temptation that would make me not want to be born-again. I have thrown down this gauntlet. I have stated my position: It will not change.
“Jesus is King!” God is my everything.
I patiently await your response.
IT BEGINS WITH FORGIVENESS
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, December 30, 2024 – It begins with forgiveness – not with the getting of it but the giving of it. That’s why it’s called ‘forgive’, not ‘forget’. You get forgiveness by giving forgiveness and only by giving it. This is a great and simple mystery that even a child can understand.
We, as born-again believers, start with forgiveness, but we don’t stop there. We dare not stop there. We don’t forgive and then later forget to forgive and let the grudges build. The worst thing we can do is let the grudges build. You’ll know they’re building because the siren song of temptation will grow louder and louder even as the Word grows fainter and fainter. That’s how you’ll know there’s unforgiveness in your heart that needs to be gone right away.
Never delay forgiving. Never say “Well, he had that coming, and maybe I’ll think about forgiving him, and maybe I’ll do it tomorrow.” I know you’d never say that, but I’m just reminding you how silly it would be even to think it, let alone say it (let alone do it [let alone teach it!]). When I say “silly”, I mean foolish, and in fact I actually mean fatal, and that in the spiritual sense: Fatal in the spiritual sense. You should never harbour any unforgiveness toward anyone for any reason, because if you do, you’re in danger of losing God’s Spirit and therefore God’s protection, in which case you’ll end up like Judas Iscariot just as fast as he ended up like that.
The world claims that “big” crimes such as murder and treason are the only ones worthy of death, but we know that these pale in comparison to the harbouring of unforgiveness. Murder and treason are birthed in unforgiveness. God can only forgive us if we forgive others first. Did you know that “forgive” is another word for “love”? Forgiveness is love in action. When you choose to forgive, you’re acting like God, you’re loving like God, and you’re being perfect like God. Jesus told us we need to be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect, just as he told us that we need to forgive before God can forgive us.
But if, against our better judgement, we let unforgiveness build in our heart, we’ll eventually get to the point where we can no longer be forgiven. We’ll have crossed the spiritual Rubicon of the unforgiveable sin, and there’s no going back. It’s a one-way trip. We’ll be stuck on the other side with Judas Iscariot and the fallen angels and everyone who’s ever had and lost God’s Spirit, ultimately to be joined by all those who never had God’s Spirit at all. This is a dreadful place to be and there’s no escaping it because there’s no forgiveness there. No matter how much you beg or plead or cry or wail, there’s no escape: There’s only damnation.
We begin with forgiveness and end with forgiveness and continue with forgiveness all the way from our beginning to our end. There is no time and no occasion when we don’t forgive. You’re reading this because you need to be reminded. We all need to be reminded every now and then, sometimes every day, sometimes all day. We begin with forgiveness, continue with forgiveness, and end with forgiveness. Everything flows from forgiveness.
And then we get to go home.
WHEN ONE MAN’S MESSIAH IS ANOTHER MAN’S ANTI-CHRIST
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, December 17, 2024 – They want us to believe that God is with them and that everything they do has his seal of approval, that their slaughtering comes from God and is his will. But if it did come from God, it would be like the whole Egyptian army drowned in the Red Sea or the destruction of Sodom. It would come in an instant, like spiritual rebirth. It would not drag on for years and take casualties on both sides.
When the devil does things, they’re grossly, almost comically, imperfect. He will say it’s God doing it, but you’ll know it’s the devil by its imperfection, by its awkwardness, by its drawn-out-ed-ness. When God does it, it’s done in an instant, whereas when the devil does it, it lingers. It waxes. It wanes. It never seems fully done even when he tells you it is. Even when he insists it is done and that he has achieved the unachievable. Surely God must be with this people to have achieved such an achievement!
But God does not leave you with lingering doubts, if you’re a believer. When God does something, you know it’s God who’s done it, if you’re a believer. You also know when the devil is doing something pretending to be God. This is the privilege of a believer, to know the difference. This is also the responsibility of a believer, to know the difference.
What we see unfolding before us is prophecy indeed, but not the prophecy they perceive. It’s a shame when one man’s messiah is another man’s anti-Christ, but so it goes in the realm of the Cains. If God has his hand in anything that is unfolding awkwardly and drawn-out-ed-ly before us, it is only to make an end of those who insist on calling themselves by his name but are not his. There are many now who insist on calling themselves by his name but are not his. From all sides, they call themselves by his name, but there is only one name that is above all names, and that name they either mock or spit on or reduce to a sidekick.
We stand and watch prophecy unfold. It’s a shame when one man’s messiah is another man’s anti-Christ, but so it goes. You can’t stop prophecy. They will rob, cheat, and steal and claim they have God’s authority to do so. They will slaughter and claim the same, but we know where their authority really comes from. We know who guides them.
We know what’s in their books.
When the real Messiah comes, he will come in an instant and be covered in glory, not in the blood of billions.
GOD’S HOLY ANGELS
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, November 27, 2024 – Earlier this fall, God had me attend church services again, and to my credit I at least didn’t storm out like the last time God sent me. This time, he mostly had me sit at the back and talk to him (pray) and read the Bible. Sometimes he moved me closer towards the front and told me to listen to the minister for a while. In one of my listening sessions, a minister mused about whether he’d ever seen an angel.
This got me thinking about my own encounters with God’s holy angels and about what Jesus says about angels – namely, that we’ll be like them if and when we make it to Heaven. And then I started thinking about all the times in the Bible where angels appear, and the circumstances of their appearances, and whether they appear as humans or in glory. This got me digging deeper into each of the angelic appearances in scripture, and before I knew it, God had me writing this article.
We know from scripture that we’re not to call on angels or to worship them. We’re also not to pray to them or obsess over them or be unduly curious about them. But we should be knowledgeable about them, since, as Jesus promised, we’re going to be like them if we make it to Heaven. This and this only (what Jesus said) is what drives me to want to know about angels. Note that I’m talking here about God’s holy angels; the fallen ones are not our concern.
Below is a list of the main characteristics of God’s holy angels. All this information comes either from scripture, from my own or others’ personal experience with angels, and from God and Jesus teaching me about them.
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SUBMISSIVE TO GOD: God’s holy angels are 100% submissive to God. Their complete submission to God means that God’s Spirit can work powerfully through them. God directs them, is the source of their supernatural strength, and enables them to perform miracles. During our time on Earth, we likewise learn to let God direct us, be the source of our strength, and enable us to perform miracles. In fact, you could say that since our rebirth, everything we’ve done revolves around learning how to be more and more submissive to God. This is how we’re preparing to be “like the angels”.
ANGELIC BODIES: God’s holy angels can appear to us in their glorified (heavenly) form or in human (earthly) form. The specific form they take depends on their mission and the message God wants to convey. Interestingly, holy angels never appear as females, whether in glory or in human form, despite their popularization in modern culture primarily as females. When in human form, holy angels always appear as males. When in heavenly form, they are neither male nor female but appear to have more the characteristics of a male due to their imposing size, lack of breasts, and obvious strength. God’s holy angels in their glorified forms are breathtakingly beautiful, whereas in human form, they can be quite ordinary looking. By ordinary, I don’t mean unattractive, I just mean they don’t have attention-getting looks. That’s because they don’t want to draw attention to themselves. That’s not why they’re here. They’re also relatively low-key in manner when they’re in human form, at least the angels I’ve encountered are. In their glorified form, the angels are anything but low-key.
BFFs: If you’re born-again, God’s holy angels are your friends. This doesn’t mean you can call on them or hang out with them on a whim; it just means they’re not your adversaries. When God or Jesus sends them to you, they come to help you by doing precisely what they’ve been instructed to do. Only if you make it to Heaven will the angels be your friends in the fullest sense of the word, and forever. It’s comforting to think that we already have angel friends waiting for us in Heaven.
NOT ON CALL: Despite being our friends, God’s holy angels will never come to us if we call on them. They are not at our beck and call. They do not take orders from us. They only do what God or Jesus expressly sends them to do. Fallen entities, on the other hand, are eager to take orders from us, but they do so with the intention of eventually turning the circumstances against us. At no time and in no way will demons do anything for our ultimate benefit. Their mission is to tempt and spiritually destroy us, not help us. Do not ever call on angels. Do not pray to them, do not worship them, do not adulate them. If you call on angels, you’ll get demons. NEVER CALL ON ANGELS. I cannot stress that enough.
ENTERTAINING ANGELS: When God’s holy angels appear to us in human form, we won’t know at the time that we’re interacting with (or as the Bible puts it, “entertaining”) angels. This knowledge will be supernaturally withheld from us. Only afterwards will God (sometimes) let us know that we had an angel encounter. We can see this in Abraham’s interactions with the “men” who were on their way to Sodom, just before its destruction.
I’ve had interactions with angels a few times (that I know of) since my rebirth. You can ask God to let you know if someone you’ve encountered was an angel, and he’ll tell you, if he thinks you need to know. Interestingly, I’ve been mistaken for an angel on a few occasions, just by sitting silently at the back of a room or a church and praying. The people who mistook me for an angel were very disappointed to find out afterwards that I was only human.
INTERVENERS: God sends his holy angels to assist people on Earth, including sending them to intervene in situations or try to prevent people from falling for a temptation. I’ve had this happen a few times, where a “man” seemingly randomly showed up and interjected himself into a conversation or confrontation I was having, and then quickly disappeared. Again, at the time, I had no idea that the intervening stranger was an angel; it was only afterwards that God revealed it to me. I remember one instance in particular, where the angel was pleading with me to soften my harsh treatment of someone, and I can still see the deep sadness in his eyes when I refused to back down. I remember wondering at the time why a stranger would be so invested in the argument I was having (it didn’t appear to have anything to do with him) and I wished afterwards that I’d listened to him. But I didn’t listen to him, and I paid the price spiritually.
HIGHLY INTELLIGENT: Angels get all their power from God through his Holy Spirit, so they have an enormous breadth of knowledge and depth of wisdom that humans cannot rival. Even AI is hard-pressed to keep up with God’s holy angels and in fact can’t, as whatever God knows, his angels can be informed of, and God knows everything, past, present, and future. Still, there are some limits to the knowledge granted by God to his holy angels. For instance, the angels don’t know exactly when the tribulation will start or the world will end. Only God knows that.
NOW YOU SEE ‘EM, NOW YOU DON’T: God’s holy angels have an uncanny habit of showing up suddenly and just as suddenly disappearing. They do this whether they’re in their glorified or human form. They don’t send you their calling card and let you know they’re on their way; they’re just there and then not. It’s a good habit for us to emulate, being exactly where we need to be when we’re needed, and not being in the way when we’re not. This is a habit we can only form by being fully submissive to God and doing exactly as he says when he says to do it.
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These are some of the main characteristics of God’s holy angels. There are many more, of course, some of which I know but most of which I assume I don’t. As I mentioned above, I only know what scripture informs me, what God and Jesus tell me, what I learned from encounters with angels myself, and what I’ve learned from other people’s encounters. Have you learned anything about holy angels that God’s given you the go-ahead to share with us? If so, let us know in the comments below!
THE PREACHER
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, November 27, 2024 – The greatest preacher I ever knew never stood before any congregation. She didn’t have a YouTube channel or a TV show, and she never solicited donations. She had no degree nominals after her name, not having attended Bible college or even high school. I think she only went as far as Grade 7.
I never saw her with a Bible in hand, yet I know she had a Bible – a big heavy expensive leather-bound one with glossy pictures. She kept it on a table next to her bed. But more important than having a Bible, this preacher knew and loved God as her Father and Jesus as her Lord and Savior. She was unshakeable in her faith, though she never said as much. She never said: “I believe.” She never said: “I’ve accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior.” She never said: “My faith is strong enough to move mountains.” She didn’t have to say those things because she preached them by her deeds and showed firsthand what loving your neighbours and your enemies looks like in real life. She didn’t preach the Gospel in words; she didn’t have to. She preached the Gospel by living it.
Of those of us who were blessed to know the preacher, we all knew she was a believer. She never hid her faith in God from anyone. But not all of us (at the time) shared her beliefs, and some of us mocked her for them. Truth be told, some of us tormented her for them, but she never returned fire with fire. She never told us we would burn in hellfire for all eternity, though certainly that was in the cards for us and would have been justly earned. She never tried to scare us into believing or warn us into believing or bribe us into believing or harass us into believing. The preacher simply lived her beliefs so that she and the Gospel were one and the same, like Jesus and the Gospel were one and the same and like all true believers eventually are one and the same with the Gospel, if they stay the course. I rejected the Gospel at the time, and so I rejected the preacher.
And yet, when I was born again, this preacher is the first person I told, because I knew that she was the only person who would not only genuinely care what had happened to me but would also understand what had happened. She’d only known me up to that point as an atheist but had never tried to force-feed me God’s Word. And then she knew me as a believer, and we became friends.
The greatest preacher I ever knew was my grandmother, my mother’s mother. I learned from her what sharing the Gospel with unbelievers means, and it almost never involves words. Here’s what it involves: Patience. Giving without expecting anything in return. Loving without expecting to be loved in return. Being kind to the unkind and gracious to the rude. Being ever-thoughtful and ever-cheerful. Keeping silent in the face of attacks, even biting your tongue if necessary. Speaking only kindly of the unkind and holding nothing against anyone. Being patient, and again being patient. And never ever giving up hope, no matter how bleak the prognosis.
If you look closely at these characteristics, you’ll see how they align perfectly with the Gospel message. The greatest preacher I ever knew preached the Word without saying a word about the Word.
This is how we need to preach.
ONE BLESSED CHANCE: ON REINCARNATION AND GENERATIONAL DEMONS
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, November 24, 2024 – I got into a discussion the other day about reincarnation and generational demons. By “discussion”, I mean that I talked and they listened. I don’t think they believed me, but they still needed to hear what I had to say. I explained that generational demons attend on families that are not protected by God’s Holy Spirit – that is, families that are not right with God and not living godly lives.
I also explained that there is no reincarnation, and that what people mistakenly believe to be returned souls are just the same demons that used to attend on the now deceased family member; those same demons then attend on the newest member of the same family, leading people to assume that their loved one has been reincarnated. However, it’s the demons who manifest certain character traits and relay certain memories and details that people mistake as evidence of a soul’s return.
Historically, the notion of reincarnation was devised by demons and took root in ungodly (“heathen”) cultures that worshiped demons. These same ungodly cultures are perpetuating the deception even today and spreading it around the world through “secret societies” and mass migration.
Again – there is no reincarnation, just demon migration. In families, this takes the form of generational demonic infestation, oppression, and even possession. Generational chain migration of demons from one family member to another can only be stopped by genuine spiritual rebirth, which exorcises the demons and makes way for God’s Holy Spirit to indwell the reborn soul. There is no other way to escape the demons. Note that this only happens in individuals, not in families as a group. As much as you love your family and want them to come to the Lord, you cannot protect them from the consequences of their choices, and if their choice is to reject God or to only half embrace the Lord while still yearning for the world, you cannot protect them from the demons that are the rewards of these choices.
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If we start with the understanding that what I wrote above is true and that this is the only time we have, this, here and now, not death and then another go-round in another body. If we start with the understanding that we have only one go-round and one go-round only, and then the Judgement – if we start there, knowing just how high the stakes are, what are we doing in our daily lives to reflect that understanding?
During his ministry years, Jesus lived his life as if he fully understood that he had only one go-round and one only. He was 100% committed to doing God’s will. We’re told that even as a child he lived that way, wanting to be about his Father’s business though he was yet too young and it was yet not time. And when it was time, he walked away from everything and everyone and went into the desert with just the clothes on his back. For 40 days and 40 nights, he stayed alive by grace and faith alone, only to be rewarded with mockery from the devil.
He never comes, that old serpent, when you’re ready for him. He never comes when you’ve got your spiritual dukes up and you’re well fed and rested and rarin’ for a fight. That’s not when the devil comes. He comes when you’re hungry and exhausted, when you can hardly keep your eyes open or put one foot in front of the other. He catches you unaware, when he’s the last thing you’re expecting. He’s the knock on the door at 3 in the morning. That’s when he comes. That’s when he tests and tempts you.
Maybe Jesus expected the devil to show up when he did or maybe God kept that knowledge from Jesus as part of his test. When the devil makes his cameos with me, it’s always when I least need it or expect it – the element of surprise – so I’m guessing that’s the devil’s schtick, showing up when you’re having a bad hair day spiritually.
Knowing that there’s only one go-round, how you handle the devil’s God-sanctioned tests and temptations is critically important. You need to be low-key and cool as a cucumber, like Jesus was, not shouting and waving crucifixes around and splashing “holy” water on yourself like cheap cologne. Even if the devil does leave you alone after all these antics, you’ll just have to deal with him some other way, so why bother? What do you really achieve by chasing the devil away?
In his temptations in the desert, Jesus didn’t try to chase the devil away. The devil left on his own volition after Jesus successfully stood his ground in the Word. You can drive the devil away with trinkets and splashes, but he’ll just come back, and with reinforcement. If you really want to drive the devil away, you calmly stand in God’s Word, like Jesus did in his desert temptations and in all his temptations during his ministry years. Seeing you calmly standing in God’s Word, the devil will know he’s wasting his time and so will leave you alone, at least for a season.
If we start with the understanding that this here and now is all we’ve got and that no other option but Heaven is acceptable to us, then our orientation should be entirely on God, like it was for Jesus. Our orientation should not be on the world, not even partially on the world, and our only interactions with the world should be done by considering how those interactions will further our progress toward Heaven. If they impede our progress, we shouldn’t do them.
God will never ask us to do anything that will impede our Homeward progress. He’s not trying to trip us up; on the contrary, he’s doing everything in his power (and in keeping with the terms of his agreement with the devil) – he’s doing everything in his power to bring us Home, not inflict another go-round on Earth on us. One is enough. You might even say that one is more than enough, but that’s not God’s fault, that’s ours, and thank God he’s given us this one blessed chance and equipped us with everything we need to get it right.
One and done.
So let’s get this over with and get Home.
FINDING GOD IN THE INDIVIDUAL
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, November 22, 2024 – Every so often, there’s a move somewhere within Christianity to get back to basics. A flurry of spiritual housecleaning ensues that sweeps away doctrines that have proven to be man-made rather than God-given, resulting in a recentering and refocusing on God rather than on family, work, society, and/or self. These collective purifications typically happen within a denomination that then splinters off to form another denomination, which then devises a whole new creed and set of doctrines, and the flawed process of religiosity sprouts a shiny new branch.
The drive to return to the purity of belief that Jesus showed during his ministry years is admirable and true. There’s nothing wrong in the desire to do that, and in fact it needs to be done, and daily. The problem is in its execution, as it’s almost always approached collectively rather than on an individual basis.
My relationship with God and Jesus is as an individual. When I go to them in prayer, when I talk to them daily, I speak to them as me, Charlotte, an individual, not a collective, and they know me and interact with me as an individual, not a collective. During his time on Earth, Jesus had a relationship with God that was acutely and supremely individualistic. No-one before or since has had such a relationship with God. It was unique and as perfect as you can get while still being in a mortal body. The relationship Jesus had with God formed the basis of his beliefs, which he then shared with us.
Jesus expressed his faith as an individual, not a collective. There is no consensus model in Jesus’ expressed beliefs. He didn’t change them so as not to offend anyone or get arrested. He believed what he knew to be true because it came directly from God.
The beliefs he shared with us, the commands he left with us, and the directives he gave to us all came from God, who also doesn’t operate on a consensus model. The periodic remodeling of denominations by tearing down spiritual wallpaper and painting it over in another shade – all of these efforts have failed over the centuries because they were corrupted by collective input and conferencing. We cannot come to the pure expression of our belief by pooling our desires and experiences. All we get when we do that is a composite Frankenstein monster that is as flawed in its doctrine as it is in its expression.
Rather than once every few years or decades, born-again believers need to work every day to return to the purity of belief and faith expressed by Jesus during his ministry years. We need to work every day to refocus and recenter ourselves on God. It is an act of constant revival, to put God first and to love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. We need to espouse no doctrines beyond the certitude of Jesus’ messiahship and the necessity to hold to the Ten Commandments, and we need to practice no rituals other than to fall asleep with God on our mind every night and wake up with him on our mind every morning, awaiting instructions on what to do that day. And once a year, at Passover, we need to raise a glass and share a morsel in memory of Jesus, as he directed us to do. Anything beyond this comes from the devil, who himself is a huge fan of doctrine and rituals, because he knows how easily they can draw our focus away from God.
I know I will never find purity of spiritual expression in a collective experience like a church service or a group prayer session or a Bible study because there are just too many egos involved, too much input with questionable motives. We are reborn as individuals, we grow at our own pace spiritually as individuals, and we will at some point stand before God as individuals, answerable as individuals for our own words, thoughts, and actions during our time on Earth. There is no consensus model in God’s Judgement. While it’s not wrong to want to be around other believers, it is wrong when our focus shifts to appease other believers (or people who say they’re believers) at the cost of turning away from God, if only ever so slightly.
Our revivals and refocusing on God need to be daily, not once in a blue moon, and they need to be done as individuals. This is the only way to reach the purity of faith and expression that Jesus experienced during his ministry years and which we should all be striving for as Jesus’ followers. Even though he lived in a group setting, Jesus had a father-son relationship with God, and he invited and enabled us through rebirth to have the same intimate one-to-one relationship that he had. We can never achieve such a relationship in a collective setting, any more than we can use consensus to arrive at genuine, true, God-given doctrine.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 