Home » Posts tagged 'Born-again Christian' (Page 10)
Tag Archives: Born-again Christian
ON FALSE CONVERSIONS AND REAL ONES
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, April 21, 2024 – As a born-again believer, I don’t hate lightly, but one of the few things that irk me on a visceral level (the way that Jesus was irked during his temple rampage) is false conversions. They make a mockery of the best and holiest experience on Earth, cheapening it and misrepresenting it, and in so doing blaspheming God.
Not surprising, the heaviest promoters of false conversions are the denominational churches.
I’ve written here and here (and throughout my blog) about the rebirth experience and about how you can know you’re genuinely reborn. For me, a former atheist, conversion was unsought, unexpected, instantaneous, thorough, and profound. I had zero doubt at the time that something monumental had happened to me – the fabled “sea-change” – and I’ve had zero doubt since. It’s never once occurred to me to question my rebirth.
My certainty in this regard contrasts sharply with the lingering doubts of many alleged converts, who are constantly running to their pastor or minister (or even random strangers on the internet) for assurance of their spiritual status. Unfortunately, they’re running to the wrong people, as most pastors and ministers are themselves unregenerate and therefore ignorant of what constitutes genuine rebirth. That’s not to say that those questioning their rebirth may not occasionally luck out, however, with certain random strangers on the internet, who will not hesitate to set them straight on what it means to be reborn. ;D
The Catholic church will tell you (like it told me) that you’re reborn at baptism. Well, I was one month old when I was baptised, and I can guarantee you that I wasn’t reborn at that time. Seven years later, clad in a red mini-dress and white fishnet stockings, I lined up at the front of my local Catholic church to receive first holy communion, and I can guarantee you that I wasn’t reborn at that time, either. Neither of those two “sacraments” appeared to have any positive effect on my soul. It seems that the more elaborate the ceremony, the less that actually transpires on a spiritual level.
Altar calls to “receive the free gift of the Holy Spirit” are another false declaration of rebirth. It’s disheartening how many people have been told they’re reborn simply from walking to the altar and being groped and mumbled over. Even when the alleged converts feel no different afterwards, they’re assured their salvation is a done deal and they’re on their way to Heaven. This level of spiritual fraud, if perpetrated knowingly, is a grievous sin. But most of the people misleading others are themselves misled. They simply don’t know any better and are a prime example of the blind leading the blind.
There’s no reason to be misled about what it means to be reborn because there are plenty of examples in the Bible. For instance, Jesus told Peter, “When you’re converted, strengthen your brethren”. Note that he didn’t say “If you’re converted”, he said “When you’re converted”, meaning that Jesus knew for a certainty that Peter would be converted – born again – and so he was, along with a roomful of others.
And how did that play out in real life? At a prayer session on Pentecost (ten days after Jesus’ ascension), Peter was “filled with the Holy Ghost” and immediately started preaching the Gospel boldly and in languages he hadn’t learned. He was so persuasive, that thousands of people joined the disciples, giving everything they had into the commonwealth of the group. A miraculous public healing followed soon afterwards. This caught the attention of the temple elders, who then accosted Peter and forbid him ever to preach in the name of Jesus again. Of course, the first thing Peter did upon his release was to preach in Jesus’ name, because that’s what you do when you’re reborn and ready for your spiritual close-up – you don’t shut up for anyone or anything until Jesus takes you Home.
Another scriptural example of genuine rebirth is Paul’s. On his way to Damascus to round up some of Jesus’ followers for execution, Paul saw a blinding light (so called because it actually blinded him) and then heard Jesus asking him why he was persecuting his Church. Paul then had to be led by hand to Damascus, where he cloistered himself, fasting and praying for three days and receiving visions from God. Then Ananias, being tasked by God to seek out Paul, laid his hands on him, and Paul received both his sight and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Shortly after that, he started boldly preaching the Gospel and continued to do so through hell and high water to his dying breath.
Note how these famous conversions are wildly different from each other. No two genuine rebirths are the same, because no two souls are the same. Even in mass conversions, such as the one that took place at Pentecost, rebirth will play out in different ways according to the person being reborn. Some will take time to process what happened to them and wait until their faith is stronger before being sent out by God to preach and teach the Gospel. Others might have the breadth of knowledge already but not the Spirit to inform and enliven it, so at their rebirth, they’re ready for immediate release to the public, like Peter was.
Me, I was reborn from atheism, so it took me years of learning about God and Jesus and deepening my faith in them before I was ready for public duty. I had a very steep learning curve, with lots of bumps and bruises along the way, but even in my “hidden years”, I never once doubted my rebirth. When you’re genuinely reborn, you don’t doubt it. I would sooner doubt my existence than doubt my rebirth.
Being filled with God’s Holy Spirit for the first time is the best experience a soul can have on Earth. Nothing comes close to it. It’s so amazing, you remember everything about it in minute detail as if it just happened yesterday. Your life is then divided between Before Conversion and After Conversion, you’ve changed so radically and instantaneously. Certainly, you remember your life (or what passed for a life) Before Conversion, but you don’t want to go back to it; not for a second. All you want is your After Conversion life and to live every second of it in the grace of God’s Holy Spirit.
I have it on Good Authority that the only experience that exceeds the amazingness of spiritual rebirth is a soul’s Homecoming in Heaven. I can’t imagine that level of euphoric bliss, but I hope some day to experience it for myself.
I hope you do, too.
THE TEMPTATION OF THE END-TIMES CULT
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, April 20, 2024 – Christian eschatology, or the study of end-times prophecies from a Christian perspective, is big business. Along with televangelists and internet prophets, an endless stream of movies, books, videos, conferences, workshops, etc., is spreading breathless predictions about when Jesus is or is not coming back, what he will or will not do when he gets here, and what the world may or may not be like when he arrives. All of this is being channeled (in the darkest sense) 24/7 into the psyches of those weak in faith and knowledge. Inundated with the propaganda, many have become obsessed with end-times prophecies to the point where it consumes their entire witness. They eat, sleep, and dream the end times, and then rush to YouTube to post a video about what they’ve dreamed.
But it wasn’t always like this. Relative to his other teachings, Jesus spent very little time on the end times, and for good reason: He knew the end times had an allure that would draw people away from learning sound doctrine and entice them instead into believing religious fairy tales, to the detriment of their soul.
The early Church likely wouldn’t recognize today’s end-times-obsessed believers as one of their own. Jesus’ first followers were consumed not with play-acting and spit-balling visions of the end but with surviving day by day: They were already living the nightmare of a world where their very existence made them targets of roaming death squads. Jesus’ warning that his followers would be outlaws wasn’t meant for a time two or three thousand years in the future but for the years and decades following his ascension. There was no need for the self-inflicted emotional distress that die-hard rapture-believers subject themselves to today; early Church members needed only to self-identify as followers of Jesus to experience the beast system up close and personal.
Yet even under constant threat of apprehension, torture, and execution, Jesus’ first followers still focused on spreading the Good News of the Kingdom of God. Had they not done so, we wouldn’t be here. The world would have long since ended like Sodom and Gomorrah, which is how it’s going to end after Jesus takes the last of his Holy Spirit-filled followers Home.
Certainly, the early Church eagerly awaited Jesus’ return, but they also took to heart Jesus’ teachings about putting their shoulder to the wheel so that when Jesus did come back, he’d find them labouring as he’d laboured, not pining away and play-acting end-times scenarios based on dubious interpretations of the book of Revelation.
In short, the end-times-obsessed movement is a cult that shares some elements with Christianity but has splintered into an entirely separate belief system that has nothing to do with God’s Church. Knowing this, we born-again believers need to avoid the temptation and allure of the end-times cult and instead labour as Jesus laboured – and as his genuine Church has likewise laboured – focusing on supporting and guiding each other with sound doctrine and bearing ever-joyful and truthful witness to the Good News of Jesus Christ.
RIGHTEOUS PAYBACK OR A TEST?
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, April 19, 2024 – When things get bad on an individual level, most people blame other people for their problems. Similarly, when things get bad on a regional or national level, most people tend to blame the government. Very few make the long torturous perp walk to the nearest mirror to place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the person staring back at them. In fact, most people bristle even at the insinuation that they might possibly be the author of their own misfortunes. For most people, it’s always someone else’s fault, but the inescapable truth is that it’s always – ALWAYS – our own fault.
There is never a time when we don’t get what we earn. Granted, God may be testing us, but his tests are meant to raise us higher than we’d otherwise aim for. God constantly spurs us to be better and better even than we think we can be, because he wants us to have the best possible life while we’re here on Earth and, more importantly, the best possible eternity when we get Home.
With hardship, you’ll know the difference between getting what you’ve earned (“the measure you mete is the measure you get in return”) and being tested, as payback and tests make very different spiritual impressions on your soul. When you get what’s coming to you, it hurts. If you’re not a believer, you’ll probably lash out and start finger-pointing; if you are a believer, hopefully you’ll humble yourself, repent, and endure whatever you’ve brought on yourself until your debt is fully paid.
Tests can also hurt, but they usually come out of the blue and when you least expect (or need) them. That’s one of their chief characteristics; think of Jesus being tempted to conjure bread after he hadn’t eaten for 40 days and nights or being tempted with untold wealth after he’d left everything behind and was living homeless, penniless, and on the brink of starvation. Our tests aren’t usually as dramatic, but besides being out of the blue and coming at a time when we least need them (when we’re weakened in some way), they’ll also come presenting a very persuasive alternative or counterargument to the godly way of dealing with the test. Think of the devil’s solutions to Jesus’ perceived problems in the wilderness or Job’s friends’ explanations and solutions for Job’s sufferings. These “persuasions” almost always are framed as generous and selfless offers of assistance and try to convince you that your suffering is unnecessary and wrong, and that you are in fact a victim of circumstances beyond your control.
But we are, none of us, victims. Once we accept that truth and own what comes to us, whether as righteous payback or a test, we’ll do just fine because then we’ll be leaning on God for guidance and support, not on our own understanding or on someone else’s perhaps well-meaning but still misguided and ultimately back-firing and back-sliding “help”.
I had to learn all this the hard way. But God is patient and lets us make our honest mistakes in our own time, knowing that if we beat ourselves up enough, we’ll eventually knock some sense into ourselves.
Now when hard times come (and they always do, sooner or later), I stop for minute to analyze whether I had this hardship coming to me, as righteous payback, or if it’s a test. That’s the first and most important thing to determine when hardship strikes. Certainly, in either case, you humble yourself under God and endure to the end, but tests are going to require a little bit more determined endurance, since, as I mentioned, they also come with very persuasive arguments against dealing with the hardship in a godly way. This is when we really need to know our God and to stand firm in him, even if it prolongs the hardship. There is never a time when we choose God’s way that he doesn’t help us carry our load. He’s just waiting for us to ask for his help.
What about you? Did you come into this world already knowing how to deal with hardship in a godly way, or did you have to take your knocks like the rest of us and learn the hard way? Our time here on Earth is not meant to be comfortable. We’re not here either for a good time or a long time, though the devil works hard to convince us otherwise. Our allotted time here on Earth is for purging the ungodliness in us and testing our progress, with brief respites to catch our breath before the next hardship arrives.
Yet God also blesses us out of the blue in the same way a father blesses his children, both good and bad, because he just likes to see us happy. God takes no pleasure in allowing us to suffer either righteous payback or tests, but they’re part of what it means to be human. We cannot wriggle out of them as long as we’re living in time and space in a human body.
Consider whatever hardship you’re facing now and determine whether it’s righteous payback or a test, and then proceed accordingly, and always and only with God’s guidance and help.
PASSOVER BREAD RECIPES FOR FOLLOWERS OF JESUS
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, April 17, 2024 – When God commanded the Israelites, through Moses, to observe the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread in perpetuity, he was talking to us. Jesus reminded his followers of this command at his final Passover meal with them and even added a special twist to it – raising a glass in remembrance of his sacrifice – to mark the end of the old covenant and the beginning of the new one.
Passover is a thoroughly Christian feast and needs to celebrated by those who are genuinely born-again. It should NEVER have been substituted with Easter.
We don’t ignore God’s commands once we’re made aware of them. We may be ignorant of them for a time, but once we know of them and still ignore them, it will be to our eternal detriment.
Even so, I don’t know why any genuine follower of Jesus, once made aware of God’s command to celebrate Passover, would not want to celebrate it. Passover is a joyous feast that marks two equally joyous occasions – the first one being God’s special protection of the Hebrews in Egypt when every first-born among the Egyptians was killed, and the second occasion being Jesus’ reminder to us that we shouldn’t mourn his (short-lived) death but instead be happy for him, because he was finally finishing what God had sent him to do (redeem us and save us from our sins!) and was triumphantly going Home.
Every year since I started celebrating the Passover supper in my own quirky little way (I don’t drink alcohol anymore, and I don’t like lamb and bitter herbs lol), God has blessed me more and more both during the Passover celebration and the week-long Feast of Unleavened Bread that follows it, as well as during the preparation for both feasts. Knowing my quirky tastes, God allows me substitutes for the lamb and the bitter herbs and the wine, but the unleavened bread needs to be unleavened bread. God doesn’t allow me any substitutes for that.
Not being a fan of the matzo (big dry hard tasteless crackers) that’s available at most grocery stores and delicatessens, I decided a few years ago to start making my own unleavened bread from scratch, using organic ingredients. It’s been a learning experience, to say the least, but I think I’m finally getting the hang of it. All it takes is a little flour, water, olive oil, and salt, a bit of mixing, kneading, and rolling of the dough, and then onto some parchment paper on a baking sheet it goes and into the bottom of the oven, on broil, for a few minutes each side. You have to tend the bread carefully, of course, so that it doesn’t burn, but it’s fun to watch it bake (and, oh, it smells so good!).
For those of you who learn better by visuals, I’ve included two recipes below on how to make classic traditional unleavened bread. One includes photos and shows how to make the baked (oven) version and the other is a video that shows how to make the skillet (stovetop) version. I like both of these breads, but if you prefer less grease, the oven method would be better for you. The videos include the recipe, which you can tweak to your needs and preferences (a little less or more olive oil, for instance).
It’s cool to think that this recipe is probably the exact same one followed by the women who prepared the bread that Jesus ate at his last Passover supper (and also the same recipe for the bread Moses ate at the very first Passover supper).
Enjoy!
Four Simple Ingredients for Unleavened Bread
- spring water
- sea salt
- organic flour
- organic olive oil
For detailed preparation instructions, see the video and link below!
STOVE-TOP (SKILLET) UNLEAVENED BREAD (RECIPE AND INSTRUCTIONS DIRECTLY BELOW)
BAKED UNLEAVENED BREAD (RECIPE AND INSTRUCTIONS DIRECTLY BELOW)
I HAD A RAPTURE DREAM: THE FINAL SOLUTION
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, April 17, 2024 – Not sure why all the “rapture dream” videos have been popping up in my YouTube feed lately, but there certainly is a bumper crop of them. The mass psychosis is reaching pandemic proportions among those who insist that “Jesus is coming back soon” to whisk them away before things become too nasty down here.
Never mind that Jesus warned his followers that they’d be classed as outlaws and would of necessity have to suffer the same persecutions that he did.
Never mind that Daniel prophesied that believers will “fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days”, or that the “king of fierce countenance… shall destroy the mighty and the holy people” and “shall wear out the saints of the most high”, or that John in Revelation prophesied of that same king that “it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them.”
Never mind scripture. The YouTube prophets have it all figured out, thanks to the guiding hand of the televangelists. No genuine believers, according to them, will have to suffer anything prophesied by Jesus, Daniel, John, or any of God’s prophets. Hallelujah and praise the Lord, amirite?
Only what we have here in reality is a spiritually invoked mind-worm that is infesting those who want to believe that God would never allow them to suffer the prophesied trials and indignities. Interestingly (and perhaps tellingly), all the people publicizing their rapture dream confessed to fervently wanting to have such a dream. Many of these dreams were also accompanied by a “presence” on or near the dreamer’s bed.
Here’s what we know about presences on or near beds while people are in a state of sleep or near-sleep – they’re well-documented as being demonic entities. And here’s what we know about demonic entities – they’re well able to mimic heavenly presences, as scripture tells us that Lucifer himself will appear as an angel of light.
As born-again believers, we know that a mass ascension will indeed take place because Jesus told us it would. His words are clearly recorded in scripture. But this ascension will occur only at the very end of time when Jesus comes back in glorified form with his holy angels, who will gather together the last of his faithful and take them Home. This event will be highly visible to everyone on Earth, not just to a chosen few, and all those not involved in the ascension will be simultaneously struck with the certain knowledge of who Jesus is and what they lost by rejecting him.
Any so-called rapture that will take place before this witnessed-by-all mass ascension will not be a supernatural event but very much a human-engineered one. It will involve the individual snatching away and abduction of pre-selected people (“snatching away” and “abduction” being the root meaning of the word “rapture”), likely leaving only their clothing behind as “evidence”. Of these abductees, most will be genuine believers, although some will be rapture believers, and a few will be wolves in sheep’s clothing who are in on the scheme. It will be the final solution meant to rid the world of evangelizing Christians once and for all, as after this event is publicized as the rapture among rapture-pushing denominations and they realize they’ve been left behind, what faith they had will be dissolved under their hurt pride.
Do I believe these abductions will take place soon? I have no idea. Despite the rapture being a human-engineered event, its timing is still up to God. Even the people planning the abductions have no idea when they’re going to take place. Nonetheless, they’ve been preparing for the operation for some time now, awaiting the signal. Note that it won’t require a lot of people to be “raptured”, just enough to get rid of the worst of the troublemakers (that is, those who refuse to fall for their lies) and to lend credence to the myth of the rapture so that those left behind will be soul crushed. After Jesus has allegedly come and gone without them, what will these people have left to believe in?
Some of you may be wondering how I know about the planned abductions. Did I stumble across a leaked document on the deep dark web? Did I overhear a whispered conversation? Did I bug a secret meeting of the infamous cabal?
Nope. None of the above. The simple fact is, dear reader: I had a rapture dream, too. ;D
TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, April 14, 2024 – There are two kinds of people: those who use words to convey meaning, and those who hide behind words, using them as a weapon or a strategy.
The first kind of people are truthtellers and the second kind are liars.
The funny thing about truthtellers and liars is that they don’t always identify as such, even to themselves. I have met truthtellers who speak the truth because they can’t conceive of not speaking the truth. The alternative doesn’t even occur to them. I have also met liars who lie as a matter of course, without thinking twice about it. They don’t consider words as strategies or weapons; they just lie because that’s who they are.
For the most part, the world is full of liars. Better said, the world is peopled by liars. Liars by far form the vast majority of the population no matter where you go. Some (surprisingly few) lie knowingly and with intent, but most do it without even realizing they’re doing it (or thinking that what they’re doing is in any way wrong), since lying is the currency they trade in, and they’re good at it. It comes naturally to them. The world is conceived, built, greased, and rolls on lies.
Me, I had learn this the hard way, about the way things are. I’m a born truthteller and a terrible liar, though I occasionally tried lying on for size as a child as a way to wiggle out of tight spots. I wasn’t very good at lying, though some still believed me, or at least feigned believing me. I found it was all in how you stare them steadily in the eyes while you stumble for the right words or what you think are the right words, daring them not to believe you. Now, in hindsight, I understand that people accepted my lies not because they actually believed me but because taking what I said at face value was easier than trying to get to the bottom of things.
Liars are lazy. Truth requires constant self-adjustment, like a tuning, every day, several times a day. It takes effort. Lying simply adjusts around you so that you can stay exactly as you are, looking past truth as if it doesn’t exist or has no more merit than lies. Most people go through life lying not because they have a character flaw but because they’re born that way. You’re either born a liar or you’re born a truthteller. You don’t become one or the other through circumstances: You remain the same from birth to death and beyond.
Liars surround themselves with liars the way that birds of a feather flock together. Truthtellers tend to be individualistic, wandering from one flock to next in search of – what? Another truthteller? You might as well pan for gold in a septic tank. Your chances of success will be greater.
Surely it can’t be that bad. Surely I’m just making this up as a way to explain away the hurt. I have seen smile after smile of sympathy, the feigning of empathy, when the mind is a million miles away, planning supper. You can only say so much to most people, and that I had to learn. The hard way.
Let us talk about the weather (but not about weather modification). Let us talk about beliefs (but not about God). Let us talk about the future (but not about death, never about death and certainly never about what comes after death). Steer toward the middle of the liar freeway and you’ll be OK. You’ll be fine. Just, whatever you do, don’t mention (the unmentionables).
I have found it is better to live alone than to live with liars. This, too, I had to learn the hard way.
I’m still learning.
THE AMBITION OF JESUS
CHARLO, New Brunswick, April 14, 2024 – A topic that’s rarely discussed in polite religious circles is Jesus and his ambition. It’s as if ascribing something as “human” as ambition to one such as Jesus is somehow off-limits, but Jesus was ambitious. There’s no doubt about that. And he wants you to know he was ambitious because he wants you to be ambitious, too, but ambitious in the way he was, not in the way the world is.
The difference between Jesus’ ambition and worldly ambition is that Jesus wanted to go as high as he could in the Kingdom, in service to God, while worldly people want to go as high as they can in the world, in service to themselves, their families, their nation, etc. So, instead of aiming for the same old tired trinity of worldly fame, worldly fortune, and worldly power (yawn…), we born-again believers need to be ambitious like Jesus was. We, too, need to want to go as high as we can in God’s Kingdom so we can gain spiritual fame, spiritual fortune, and spiritual power, all of which comes from God and is both free of charge and priceless.
But how do we get there? How do we achieve the same or similar level of spiritual fame, fortune, and power as Jesus? In other words, if we’re not yet there, how can we become ambitious like Jesus?
To answer these questions, we need to look at how Jesus achieved his ambitions, because everything we do should reflect what Jesus did, not only in the choices he made, but how he went about making them.
As his first order of business, Jesus waited for God’s signal to let him know it was time to start his ministry. This is an absolute must, to wait for God’s signal. You cannot achieve anything of spiritual value if God isn’t in it, helping you do it in his time. You might desperately want to do something – you might even think it’s a good thing to do, an honorable thing to do – but if God hasn’t inspired you to do it and hasn’t given you the go-ahead to do it, you’re wasting your time on a pride project.
Secondly, when he got God’s message loud and clear that it was time to start his ministry, Jesus immediately cleared the slate of his former (pre-ministry) life. He gave up everything he’d accumulated in Nazareth, including his role as the eldest son, his job as a carpenter, his home, his possessions, even his good reputation. When he’d finished clearing his slate, he was no longer welcome in his hometown (on pain of death) and even had to sneak in undercover to visit his family. Yet he considered his new-found infamy of no consequence and didn’t try to back-track to recover lost ground. He simply moved on.
Next, he threw himself entirely on God’s mercy and good graces. He did this initially by relying on God for basic survival during his 40 days and nights in the wilderness fasting. When he emerged from this ordeal and started his ministry proper, Jesus had plenty of work, but no “gainful employ”, meaning that he relied on others to provide for his needs. Being an itinerant preacher and teacher meant he was always on the road and had no need to maintain a house, anyway, but still, that’s a lot of unknowns to deal with every morning when you wake up – Where am I going to sleep tonight? What am I going to eat today? Where am I going to go and how am I going to get there? Most people wouldn’t last a week living like that, let alone three years, especially when paired with working 18-hour days. Jesus was able to do it because he relied on God to provide for him either directly (like the gold coin in the fish’s mouth) or indirectly (through donations).
Fourth, once his course was set and he was on his way, Jesus refused to be sidetracked or compromised. The devil famously tried to knock him off-course right out of the gate by plying him with his usual “deal you can’t refuse” schtick, but Jesus easily brushed him aside and kept going. He just as easily brushed aside the religious powers-that-be in Jerusalem and elsewhere, as well as his family when they showed up in Capernaum, intending to take him back to Nazareth for his own safety. We can only imagine the number of alluring women the devil strewed in his path, trying to tempt him, or the number of shady deals he was pitched during his pub visits or even at the homes of the religious elite. What we don’t have to imagine is that he turned them all down, because that he clearly did, ultimately emerging a sinless and worthy sacrifice.
Fifth and finally, Jesus refused to give up. He knew what his mission was and he knew what his reward was, and he wasn’t going to falter, no matter how hopeless things looked at any given time. This strategy of “never give up, no matter what” is actually the secret superpower of every successful person, whether you’re aiming for worldly success or spiritual success. You cannot be ambitious without it. And Jesus certainly was ambitious. He was driven, focused, single-purposed, and tireless and he gave everything he had in every conceivable way to achieve his goal. Even the looming threat of crucifixion didn’t stop him – he simply doubled-down on his prayers and was immediately rewarded with a contingent of angels, strengthening him.
We must never downplay the ambition of Jesus during his ministry years or dismiss ambition as being unworthy of him, because ambition was beyond a doubt one of Jesus’ core traits. I’d even go so far as to state that without ambition, Jesus might not have been the Messiah. Faith, of course, is necessary and certainly gets us farther than mere desire, but ambition gives us that extra boost, making us crafty, adaptable, resourceful, and relentless, all of which are formidable characteristics when directed – with God’s inspiration – to the service of God’s Kingdom.
COMPLAINING YOUR WAY TO CONDEMNATION: A TIMELY REMINDER ABOUT GRATITUDE
CHARLO, New Brunswick, April 12, 2024 – Let’s play a little game, shall we? Let’s see how long we can go without complaining about something. How long do you think you’ll last before being disqualified? If you’re like most people, you won’t last an hour, because complaining, unfortunately, has become the default mode for conversations these days. In other words, complaining has been normalized and even trivialized in modern society. But the normalizing of complaining is the normalizing of ingratitude, which is an expression of pride… all of which means that we born-again believers need to work extra hard at winning the “no complaining” game every day of our lives until God takes us Home.
We know that God hates when his children complain. In fact, he hates it so much, he condemned nearly the entire generation of Israelites that were of age at the time of the exodus. Their sentence was to die in the wilderness before reaching the Promised Land because they chose to complain about their freedom under God and long instead for slavery under demons.
What about you? Do you complain? Do you think that your life was better before you were reborn? I in no way believe my life was better before my rebirth, but I still have to bite my tongue umpteen times a day to keep little whines from spilling out. I don’t mean any harm by them and frankly I’m usually just shooting the breeze with someone, griping good-naturedly about the weather or the traffic. These are just careless, casual remarks, but are they hurting me anyway?
Scripture says yes, they are. Any kind of an expressed complaint is signifying that you don’t like the way things are in your life. But the way things are in your life is what you’ve brought on yourself by your words and your thoughts and your deeds. Jesus says the measure we mete (dish out) is the measure we get in return, so if we feel we’re getting less than we deserve, the problem lies in us, not in other people or in “bad luck” or in God.
Even worse, at the root of our impulse to gripe is ingratitude. When we complain that things are not as good as they used to be or not as good as they could be, we show ingratitude for all the good gifts God has given us and continues to give us on a daily basis. We honestly have no clue how many blessings God showers us with day in and day out, as we tend to take nearly everything we have for granted or we mistakenly believe we have ourselves and our own efforts to thank for our abundance (all you Nebuchadnezzars out there – I’m talking to you!).
Reasonably good weather and living conditions? Check. Comfy roof over our heads? Check. More than sufficient food in the fridge and cupboards? Check. Amiable companionship? Check. Stimulating leisure activities? Check. Purposeful work and adequate income? Check. Good health? Check. All these blessings didn’t just happen; God arranged them for us and presented them to us as gifts. He doesn’t want us to faun and grovel over his gifts, but he does at least expect us not to complain about them.
If the root of complaining is ingratitude, what is the root of ingratitude? When we reject what we have and demand something bigger and better, or newer and shinier, or faster and more impressive, we’re essentially saying that we deserve more than what we have, which defies what Jesus taught us about the measure we get being the measure we’ve earned. And what is the core motivator for believing you deserve more and better?
Pride.
The same pride that consumed Satan and his followers and ultimately got them perma-banned from Heaven.
When we praise God, we’re thanking him. When we thank God, we’re showing our gratitude for his gifts. And when we show God our gratitude for his gifts, we’re standing humbly before him as his loving and beloved children. There is no better place in all of creation than standing before God, loving him and humbly receiving his love. Humility, as we know, is the opposite of pride: “A humble and contrite heart you will not despise.”
So the next time you almost let slip a complaint, remember the Israelites in the wilderness and what happened to them when they complained. If it hasn’t yet happened to you, it doesn’t mean it won’t happen; it just means that God is generous, merciful, and longsuffering towards you, giving you yet another chance after yet another chance after yet another chance, which you should also be grateful for.
I certainly am.
INTO THE FIERY FURNACE
CHARLO, New Brunswick, April 11, 2024 – Our trials, when they come (and come they will), don’t always announce themselves in advance. Sometimes our trials are meant to blindside us because our raw response is part of the test.
Daniel’s good friends and colleagues, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (hereafter “SM&A”), weren’t entirely blindsided by their trial, but they also didn’t have months to prepare for the furnace. In the book of Daniel, we read that Nebuchadnezzar, the then king of Babylon, had a 60-foot-high golden idol set up. He was so proud of his idol, he decreed that everyone – regardless of cultural background – must fall down and worship it whenever they heard the sounds of certain instruments playing, kind of like Pavlov’s dogs responding to ringing bells. The punishment for failing to prostrate before the abomination was death by fiery furnace.
From the get-go, SM&A wanted nothing to do with the decree. Note that they didn’t lobby against it or protest it or start a petition to protect their minority religious rights. No, they didn’t engage in any kind of public protest or encourage others to do so. Instead, they just didn’t go along with it and remained quietly and resolutely standing when everyone else around them fell down.
Their decision to remain standing marked them for trouble. Soon enough, trouble came in the form of a gaggle of envious Chaldeans who gleefully snitched on them to the king. Furious, the king hauled SM&A before him and offered them a calculated deal: He promised them that if they would fall down on cue from that point onward, they’d be off the hook for their previous failings and free to go. But if they chose not to fall down, they’d be thrown into the furnace and burned alive. The king then addended his offer with: “and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?”
Who, indeed.
SM&A, knowing their God and choosing to stand firm in his promises rather than those of the king, quickly but respectfully schooled Nebuchadnezzar, stating:
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. (Daniel 3:16-18)
Their refusal to submit to him sent Nebuchadnezzar into a blind rage, and he ordered the furnace to be heated seven times hotter than usual and that the men be thrown into it fully dressed and bound, and without further ado.
We can only imagine what was going through the minds and hearts of SM&A while they were being hauled off to their fiery end by the king’s brutes. Whatever it was, it caught God’s attention, and he immediately sent his angel to protect the faithful trio, who ultimately emerged unscathed, unsinged, and even fresh-smelling from their trial. Humbled by what he’d witnessed, the king then decreed that anyone who spoke anything amiss against God should be dealt with accordingly.
All’s well that ends well, certainly, but I believe there’s a deeper lesson to be learned here than simply that God comes to the rescue of those who are faithful to him or that God gives you exactly what you’re asking for in prayer. In their statement to Nebuchadnezzar, SM&A not only pointed out that God was indeed able to save them from the furnace, if he so chose, but that even if God chose not to save them from the furnace, they would still remain loyal to him. In stating this, SM&A were showing that they were not putting any conditions on God or making assumptions about what he would or would not do: they were only stating what he was capable of and affirming that their loyalty and submission would remain to God and to God only, regardless of how their trial played out.
My dear fellow born-again believers – this is the crux of our faith: that we stand on the witness of our heart, not our eyes, and that we put no conditions on God or make assumptions about what he will or will not do for us. We love God and are loyal to him because we love him and are loyal to him. Full stop. We don’t stop loving him (that is, give up on him and turn from him to worship other gods) if he doesn’t deliver us from our trials in the way we think we should be delivered, or if he doesn’t deliver our loved ones from their trials.
We put no conditions on God. That, I believe, is the deeper lesson taught to us by the fiery trial of SM&A. Yes, they were delivered by God who showed he was well and easily able to do so, but even if he hadn’t delivered them (like he didn’t deliver Isaiah from being sawn in half or he didn’t deliver Jesus from being crucified), their faith (I believe) would have remained sure.
We stand on the witness of our heart, not our eyes. We love God with everything we have and everything we are and submit fully to him and to him only not because of what he can do for us, but because he is. That’s the first and what Jesus called the greatest Commandment.
If you’re not there yet in your faith, you need to get there, and the sooner the better.
A HEADS-UP FROM “MISS HALIFAX”
CHARLO, New Brunswick, April 10, 2024 – I’ve had this blog now for nearly 10 years. During that time, I’ve corresponded privately with a lot of people who contacted me because of something they read here. Most of the correspondence has been amiable, some of it has been odd, a fraction of it has bordered on abusive, and a few of the correspondents eventually did turn abusive and/or aggressive and I had to block them.
As a female raised in the late 20th century in a first-world English-speaking country, I was taught to be polite and pleasant to everyone. I always had a smile on my face, even before I was born-again. Some people used to snidely call me “Miss Halifax” behind my back, in reference, I guess, to my hair & make-up routine and ever-present smile. But I learned the hard way that you don’t have to smile at everyone, certainly not all the time. Sometimes you don’t even have to acknowledge them.
Jesus didn’t heal everyone who called out to him to be healed as he walked through this village or that. He didn’t even heal all those who made the effort to come to his house in Capernaum. He healed only those God showed him were ready to receive his healing; the rest he let be.
When I say: “ready to receive his healing”, I don’t mean they were pure when they came to Jesus for healing. Not at all. I mean they were ready in their heart to do whatever it took to get healed. That’s not the case with everyone who cries out to God for help today any more than it was the case in Jesus’ day. Some people cry out to God in anger; some people cry out with a list of conditions; some people assume a demanding stance, with heavy expectations; and some people just want to test God to see whether or not he exists.
For those of you who’ve contacted me over the years because something on the blog has resonated with you – God bless you for reaching out! Your kind words encourage me, and I appreciate them. But for those of you (and you know who you are) who just want to lock horns or bait me – God has taught me that I’m under no obligation to respond to you. Jesus received Nicodemus because he came to him with a sincere yearning to understand what Jesus was teaching. On the other hand, Jesus all but ignored the scribes and Pharisees, because as much as they feigned interest in the Kingdom and would show up at his teaching sessions on occasion, their baited questions revealed their true intent.
I will continue with this blog as long as God gives me the green light to do so. In the meantime, anyone who wants to reach out in sincerity has my full attention. But those who reach out with other motivations might not get the response they expect, if any at all. Yes, I’m polite and pleasant (and still smiling!) as a born-again believer, but I don’t take the crap I used to.
Just a heads-up! 😀
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 