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HOW TO INHERIT ETERNAL LIFE
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, June 4, 2022 – When Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell what he has, give to the poor and follow him, he was using him as an example of how attachment to worldly possessions can get in the way of going to Heaven. The few times I’ve heard this scriptural passage preached in a mainstream church, it’s always along the lines of “that message doesn’t refer to us; that was just for the young man because he was rich and cared too much for his wealth. We don’t have to give up anything to follow Jesus. We’re not called to do that.” The preachers don’t use those exact words, but the spirit is the same: They imply that Jesus preached two messages on the same topic – one for the rich young ruler, and one for us.
Only Jesus didn’t do that. When he told the rich young ruler to give everything up and follow him, it was the same message he had given earlier to Peter and to James and to John and to Andrew and to all his disciples, without exception, and they all did what he asked them to do. To claim that Jesus gave one message to one person and another message to everyone else is to preach another gospel.
This is one of those hard Truths that I wrote about a few weeks ago. I would guess that nearly every Christian knows this scripture, but very few actually do what Jesus advises. Jesus did it himself when he left Nazareth, got baptized by John, and then went into the wilderness for 40 days and nights. There’s no indication that Jesus ever did his carpentry work again or that he returned to Nazareth for more than a brief visit. We can only assume that Jesus sold what he had, gave the proceeds to the poor, and hit the road as an itinerant preacher with little more by way of belongings than the clothes on his back.
He was no hypocrite in that regard (Jesus was no hypocrite in any regard); he practiced what he preached. When he told his disciples to leave everything behind, he’d already done it. He not only knew what was required to do it, he also he knew the rewards of doing it. He knew that anything that was not directly contributing to his ministry work was detracting from it, so it had to go, whether possessions or jobs or people.
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Have you done it yet? Have you sold what you have and given the proceeds to the poor in order to genuinely free yourself up to follow Jesus? Or do you still have a house and land and possessions and a job and entanglements in a relationship with someone who is not born-again? Do you have a bank account with more money than you need for the next few days or weeks? Do you have investments? Do you have a pension plan? Does even the thought of giving any of these things up – let alone all of them – fill you with fear and dread?
Are you a rich young ruler in spirit?
*****
If you haven’t yet done what Jesus advised the rich young ruler to do, I’m setting a challenge here. The challenge is to read the scriptural passage about the rich young ruler and think about it. Pray about it. Talk to God and Jesus about it. But I’m setting this as a challenge for all those who haven’t yet done what Jesus advised the rich young ruler to do. Born-again Christians claim they want to radically follow Jesus, but at the same time, they cling to their lives. In particular, they cling to the material aspects of their lives. They cling to their job and everything that goes with it. And they cling to their blood relatives and to lovers who do not share their love for God and Jesus.
In his ministry, Jesus’ first order of business was to choose his disciples and to ask them to walk away from their life and everything that had previously defined them. There is no indication in scripture that Jesus chose a disciple who refused to give up his family or his possessions or his job. They all did precisely what Jesus asked of them, and they did it without hesitation. The same process took place after Jesus’ death and resurrection – his disciples directed the members of the early church to sell their possessions and give the proceeds to the church leaders to disperse according to need. Those who didn’t do as they were instructed suffered accordingly.
This is a hard Truth, to apply this scripture to ourselves today, but it is a Truth nevertheless. Jesus clearly meant it to apply to all his followers, as he later went on to assure Peter that everyone who gave up their livelihoods and possessions to follow him would receive a better livelihood and better possessions in this world, and eternal life in the world to come. Jesus did not make a distinction between the rich young ruler and his disciples, so neither should we make a distinction between the rich young ruler and us. The teaching applies equally to everyone, whether rich young rulers or not, if eternal life is the goal.
It is worth noting that, when the young man asked Jesus what he should do to gain eternal life, Jesus told him he had to keep the Commandments and treat others as he wanted to be treated, in addition to selling his possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor. This is worth noting because Jesus didn’t simply say “You just have to believe in me” or “You just have to have faith in God”. No, he very clearly stated that the young man had to do specific things, namely to keep the Commandments and to treat others as he wanted to be treated. The icing on the cake (or what Jesus called “being perfect”) was to sell his possessions, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow him.
Like the rich young ruler, most Christians do their best to keep the Commandments and treat others well, but that isn’t enough. Those things are important, but they’re not enough. If they were enough, Jesus would not have had to leave Nazareth and all it represented and the disciples would not have had to leave their lives. If keeping the Commandments and treating others well were all it took to inherit eternal life, then Jesus’ ministry was in vain and his sacrifice on the cross superfluous. But we know that Jesus’ ministry was not in vain and his sacrifice was not superfluous because everything Jesus did and said during his ministry years was directed by God, and God would not have sent Jesus on a wild goose chase. If Jesus, by God’s direction, instructed people to give up their possessions and worldly relationships to follow him, then that’s what people need to do. And not just some people – everyone who wants to inherit eternal life.
*****
I pray that you take this challenge to heart. Jesus’ teachings don’t change because fashions change or seasons change. The teachings remain the same and are equally applicable to Jesus’ followers today as they were 2000 years ago. The scriptural passage that I’m challenging you to read and pray over is the one about the rich young ruler. It appears in three of the four Gospels:
MATTHEW 19:16-30
MARK 10:17-31
LUKE 18:18-30
If inheriting eternal life is your goal and you’re still clinging to people, places and things that are getting between you and Jesus, then you know what you need to do.
And the sooner you do it, the better.
WASHING YOUR FEET
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, June 4, 2022 – Jesus often surprised (and confused) his disciples with the things he said and did, and one of the most surprising things he ever did was to wash their feet. In fact, the last thing the disciples expected Jesus to be doing at the Passover meal was to take off his robe, wrap a towel around his waist, and get down and dirty with that part of their anatomy that was by far the filthiest. But Jesus washed their feet with the same total absence of squeamishness that he displayed when he embraced lepers – nothing deterred him from his mission to do what his Father laid out for him to do.
By way of explanation as to why he was washing their feet, Jesus told the disciples that they wouldn’t understand at that time, but they would understand later. Further, he told them that if they didn’t permit him to wash their feet, they’d have no part in him. He also mentioned that just as he washed their feet, they would also have to wash the feet of others.
From that explanation, it’s clear that the foot washing done by Jesus had a meaning far beyond simply removing the dust and grime and whatever else had accumulated between the disciples’ toes. Most theologians and other commentators focus on the humility aspect of the foot washing, as such washing was normally done by servants or slaves. However, I’m not convinced that humility is the main reason why Jesus almost ritualistically washed the disciples’ feet. I’m not even convinced that humility is any part of the reason at all for the foot washing. Jesus was adamant that the disciples wouldn’t understand at that time why he was doing what he was doing, but he was certain they’d understand at some point in the future. He was also just as insistent that they would someday wash others’ feet as he was washing theirs.
I believe the ritualistic way that Jesus approached the foot washing is the key to why he did it. Remember how important it was for Jesus that John baptize him in the River Jordan, and remember how surprised John was to be doing the baptizing. John told Jesus that he should be getting baptized by him, but Jesus responded that the baptism needed to happen in that way (that is, John baptizing Jesus) in order to fulfill prophecy. In other words, the ritual had to be carried out in accordance with scripture.
John’s form of baptism was full body dunking or a dunking of the head or water sprinkled on the head. However performed, the baptism was focused on getting the head wet. It was also a way to publicly declare the repentance of the baptized person. This form of baptism is still used in Christian circles today.
I propose that what Jesus did in washing the feet of his disciples was a baptism, and that Jesus’ baptism – the ritualistic washing of feet – was a sequel to John’s baptism. Where John’s baptism signaled the start of the penitent’s journey along God’s Way, the foot-washing baptism marked the end of the initiate phase and the beginning of the master phase. Remember that Jesus at the Passover supper told his disciples that where once he was their Lord and master, he was now their friend, meaning they were spiritual equals and peers.
John’s baptism symbolized spiritual cleansing through repentance, but Jesus told the disciples when he was washing their feet that they were already clean. In other words, they didn’t need to repent and wash their head again, like in John’s baptism. Jesus wasn’t washing their feet to spiritually or physically clean them; he was washing them as an indicator that the disciples had reached the next stage in their spiritual evolution. That next stage was to take over from where Jesus left off – that is, to take over the role of master by teaching and preaching the Kingdom in the power of God’s Holy Spirit.
Their journey as initiates began with the ritualistic cleansing of their head in John’s baptism and ended with the ritualistic cleansing of their feet in Jesus’ baptism. All they had to do from that point onward was to wait in Jerusalem, as per Jesus’ instructions after his resurrection, until they’d received the baptism from on high (that is, the baptism of the Holy Spirit). They would then be able to preach and teach God’s Word as Jesus did. They would become teachers and masters in God’s Kingdom.
I do not see humility in Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet – I see a ritual that Jesus was carefully demonstrating, the same way as he carefully demonstrated drinking wine as a symbol of his blood and eating bread as a symbol of his body as a new way to celebrate the Passover in remembrance of him. Keep in mind that everything Jesus did at that Passover supper was incredibly important. Nothing was left to chance in its preparation, and every word that Jesus spoke and every gesture that he made was determined in advance. Jesus (and God) wanted everything that took place that night to be branded in the hearts and minds of those present so that they would clearly recall and record it later. Because what Jesus was actually doing at that Passover celebration was launching a new religion – a new Testament to replace the old one – and that new religion would have as its high priests Spirit-filled born-again believers who had ascended to the same teaching position as Jesus during his ministry years.
Have your feet been washed yet?
If so, are you ready to wash the feet of others?
GOOD FIRE
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, June 4, 2022 – Someone asked me the other day why preachers don’t preach on sin anymore.
I guess the short answer is because they don’t want to lose their customers.
Most Christians are easily offended these days. Sure, they understand, for instance, that adultery is a sin. But if you point out that, according to Jesus, the sole grounds for divorce is fornication, making most second and third (and fourth, etc.) marriages illegitimate and therefore adulterous, they get offended. They would rather remain in their adulterous union (that is, live in sin) than follow Jesus’ teaching.
I hope that the bar is higher for born-again believers. I hope that when someone points out that we’re committing a sin according to Jesus’ teaching, we rush to repent. I hope we don’t get offended or make excuses. I hope we don’t look for sin loopholes or alternate interpretations, or just look the other way. Jesus was always crystal clear in his teachings. You either accept what he taught and apply it to your life, or you don’t. The choice is always yours, but obviously to accept what Jesus taught and apply it to your life is the right way forward. There’s no wriggle-room for being offended when it comes to Jesus’ teachings, not for born-again believers. We’re supposed to be feeding the sheep. We’re supposed to be setting the example.
*****
Last Sunday, I went to a church service for the first time in 12 years. I only went because God suggested I go. Otherwise, I would not have gone. I wasn’t sure initially what God wanted me to see or hear, but it was a dismal display that I beheld. If I were not a born-again believer, if I were just someone who’d wandered in off the street, wondering what Christianity was all about, I would have thought I was at a funeral and wandered back out.
The building was dank and smelled of mould, the way old buildings devoid of sunlight and fresh air tend to smell. It was also dark as twilight. Not surprisingly, there weren’t many people there (maybe a couple dozen). There were no Bibles or hymnals in the pews; I figured people must have been stealing them and the church decided not to put them out anymore, but that left the pews empty of scripture. I guess I should have brought my own Bible with me.
Another church staple strangely absent was singing. At the altar, a small orchestra played tunes that you could hum along to in your head, if you were so inclined, but you could not sing along, as there were no words. The songs were wordless, played by a masked violinist, a masked cellist, and a masked clarinetist. In fact, everyone there was masked except me. I guess the purpose of having the instrumentalists playing wordless songs was to prevent people from singing, which, I guess, is still verboten in some churches, lest the pestilence spread via joyful expression.
I confess that I did not stay beyond 20 minutes. I could not stay. Even those 20 minutes were painful. I kept thinking about Ezekiel’s vision of spiritual adultery (Ezekiel 8) and God’s call to Haggai to rebuild the temple. And I thought about an odd comment I’d heard years ago, that what the thousands of decrepit and run-down Victorian wooden row houses in Halifax needed was a good fire. The commenter was not wrong. Some degrees of decay, whether physical or spiritual, cannot be redeemed; in such cases, destruction is a mercy.
*****
The pastor spoke a form of English that I did not understand. I taught English as a second language for years, so I’m well-versed at deciphering mangled English, but the English spoken by that pastor was beyond even my professional abilities to comprehend. To make matters worse, he mumbled and he spent at least ten minutes offering some kind of a tribute to the tribes that hundreds of years ago used to roam in the same general vicinity as where the church building now stood. The tribute included words in the tribal language, which the pastor constantly stumbled over. To be honest, it was difficult for me to tell when he was mumbling English and when he was mumbling the tribal language; it was all equally incomprehensible.
After 20 minutes of straining to decipher the gibberish, I’d had enough.
As I thankfully slipped out of the cold dank building and onto the warm sunny sidewalk, I asked God why he wanted me to go to the service. He said simply so that I could see it. I needed to see it for myself.
*****
I wasn’t going to write about this, but God suggested that I should. I don’t know what your experience is with church services these days, whether my experience was an outlier or par for the course. I hope God doesn’t send me to another service any time soon, but I’ll go if he sends me.
I think pastors don’t preach about sin anymore not only because people don’t want to hear it, but the pastors are incapable of doing it. When you stand before a congregation as a representative of Jesus, preaching God’s Word, you had better be doing so in the power of God’s Spirit; otherwise, get off the stage.
I said to God, just before I left the building, “There’s no God here”. The words spilled out of me as a visceral response to what I’d just seen. But God said to me: “Yes there is; you’re here.” He’d meant that I’d brought his Spirit with me into the building.
Then I took his Spirit back out.
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God, among other things, is a purifying fire. There is nothing that will save what has become of the mainstream worldly church. It would be a mercy for it to be destroyed by a good fire. What I witnessed on Sunday is not what Jesus came to establish; it is not what he built. The spiritual temple of his body is alive and well and living through genuine born-again believers. This I know for a fact, because I am such a one. I am a witness to the Spirit in me, which is the same Spirit that was in Jesus.
As long as there is even one genuine born-again believer on Earth, the church that Jesus built will live on. When the last believer leaves, hell will reign.
Hell is now waiting in the wings: It wears a mask and plays Wordless tunes, while mumbling another gospel no-one understands.
THE SEASON OF THE SHOVEL
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, June 1, 2022 – Sometimes you have to call a spade a spade, and sometimes ya gotta call it a shovel, lest ye be banned from the Internet.
Sin, though, is sin, and should always be called sin. You should never call sin anything other than what it is.
Sin is sin.
Whether a fashionable term or not, sin remains the sole state that separates us from God. Nothing that separates us from God is good, no matter how sparkly the packaging or slick the label, no matter how cleverly terms and symbols are co-opted and misapplied. Sin remains sin, and sin separates us from God.
Nothing that separates us from God can be good.
*****
As we enter the season of the shovel, we are faced with the dilemma of how to deal with in-your-face shoveldom 24/7, even in churches. There is nothing to celebrate about shoveldom; it is the same sin that has gotten whole regions destroyed in the past and it will get whole regions destroyed again. As a born-again believer, I feel sorry for those who identify as shovels. Their shoveldom is a manifestation of sin on their soul. Those with a certain type of sin manifest that sin as shoveldom. Some choose to be shovels; others are tempted and fall for shoveldom, seeing the temptation as “who they are” instead of the temptation that it is.
No-one needs to be a shovel. Even those who claim to be born that way (in sin) don’t have to stay that way (in sin). While there is yet time, sin can be overcome.
I have a passing acquaintance with shoveldom, because when I was an atheist, I identified for a time as a half-shovel. In that state, I spent a lot of time with other half- or full-shovels (or variations on those themes), and I know this: They are messed up. They are not happy souls. They constantly act out their self-hatred and fear, as I did as an atheist half-shovel. And they are addicted to sex far beyond an urge that can be explained as a natural biological function (desire). Their desire is demonically inspired. It does not come from God.
I am not trying to belittle the shovel experience. A life lived in sin and based on sin is no life; there can be no real peace and no real joy. There can be short-lived euphoria, but no real peace and no real joy.
Nor can there be real love, not in that sinful state. There can be lust; there can be obsession; there can be possessiveness; there can be infatuation; there can even be companionship and a sense of obligation and responsibility; and there can be ungodly desire that rips you apart from the inside, but there cannot be love. Love is God and God is love, and where God and his Word are not welcome, love cannot be.
*****
The purpose of these words is to say that no matter how it’s relabeled or rebranded, sin remains sin. Sin separates us from God and therefore has no grounds to be celebrated or normalized. It is not normal for a soul to be separated from God. We were not made to be that way. That’s why Jesus came to pay the sin debt owed by Adam – to spring us from the abnormal state of sin.
That debt was paid for shovels, too, if they want to avail themselves of it. They don’t have to be shovels if they don’t want to be. Repentance is free to all, for a time, and God’s mercy extends to shovels and beyond, for a time. Shoveldom is a sin that is a manifestation of a deeper sin on a soul, but neither sin is beyond redemption.
Again – shoveldom is a sin that manifests as an indicator of other underlying sins on a soul: Deal with the underlying sins, and the other will disappear.
It did for me.
The cure for every spiritual ill isn’t to relabel or rebrand or normalize sin; the cure is always and only spiritual rebirth that results in reunification with God.
*****
As we enter yet another season of the shovel, let us not condemn shovels, but instead pray that those who identify as such find their way to God through genuine repentance and forgiveness, while there is still time.
Amen.
RUNNING THE RACE TO WIN
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, May 27, 2022 – What did Paul mean when he said “run the race to win”?
He meant we’re to give it everything we’ve got, even if we know we’re competing against faster runners. Because the winner in the race Paul’s talking about isn’t the one who comes first (or second or third), but all those who make it to the end. Making it all the way to the end is what will make us winners. Stopping short of the end won’t.
Jesus already ran the race, and won. In fact, he was first over the finish line. No matter how hard or how fast we run, we’re never going to beat that. Jesus had to run the race first or we wouldn’t have been able to. He set the course for us. We run the course that Jesus set.
*****
I saw a sign outside a church a couple of days ago that read “CONGRATULATIONS, BLUENOSE MARATHON PARTICIPANTS!” The Bluenose Marathon is an annual race that (usually) takes place in Halifax on the May long weekend. Like with other marathons held in other cities, the Bluenose Marathon clogs up the main arteries of Halifax and causes chaos with local traffic, particularly with transit. But that doesn’t matter, because people need to run. And amidst the thousands of runners, someone’s gotta win. But according to that church with the sign out front, even just participating in the race already is worthy of congratulations.
God disagrees. Being a participant in the race Paul talks about and Jesus ran is all well and good, and God will give you every advantage if you indicate that you want to run it, but you have it run it to win. You have to give your best shot not just at the starting line or towards the middle of the race, but all the way to the end. Which means you’ve got to make it to the finish line, or you ain’t gonna win.
There are no congratulations forthcoming for those who don’t make it to the finish line.
You don’t get congratulated just for participating. You get encouraged. You get assisted. You get guided and encouraged some more. But you don’t get congratulated unless you make it all the way to the end.
Jesus said those who endure to the end will be saved, not those who say they intend to endure or those who put in a few spiritual miles and then quit. Those who endure to the end will be saved, those who run the race to win.
*****
Shame on that church for lauding people just for participating. Shame on it! That is not a message that makes people want to endure to the end. That’s a message that makes people lazy and slack and proud of accomplishing nothing but showing up. Why are we congratulating people just for showing up? Is the bar really that low now?
You don’t have to answer that. We know what the answer is. Yes, the bar really is that low now, and I see it in every mainstream church that tells people all they have to do is “believe” and they’ll make it to Heaven. I guess that’s an improvement over telling people all they have to do is pay indulgences and they’ll make it to Heaven. That’s what the Catholic church used to promise people – pay a certain amount of money and you’ll get to Heaven. I don’t know what’s sadder about that – people demanding the money in the form of indulgences, or people believing you can buy your way into Heaven. But believing that you can simply “believe” your way in isn’t much better.
*****
We born-again believers can be better than that. We need to be better than that. We need to set our sights on the finish line and not stop until God sends his congratulations in the form of a one-way, first-class, all-expenses paid ticket to Heaven. We cannot stop halfway and consider the job done. We cannot let ourselves fall for the lies of those who tell us either it’s not necessary to run or that we’ve won already just by participating in the race.
We have not won until we endure to the end.
We run the race to win, even if it means we have to drag ourselves over the finish line by dint of sheer will.
Only those who endure the race to the end – to the very, very end – will be saved.
PROFESSIONAL PREACHERS
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, May 27, 2022 – Very few career pastors and preachers talk about where Jesus got his talent pool. Fact is, when Jesus chose his twelve disciples, he didn’t go to the temple and recruit the elders there; he didn’t go to synagogues or to schools run by the Pharisees. Not one of the twelve was a member of the religious elite or of any religious sect. None of them had any experience in teaching or preaching, but that didn’t seem to be a barrier to their being chosen and it also didn’t seem to be a requirement for the job. Rather than look for people who earned their living in a religious role, Jesus sourced his talent from places like fishing boats and from the IRS of his day. Anyone who was sourced from a religious sect (like Paul, who was educated as a Pharisee) disavowed the sect when they became Jesus’ follower.
Very few professional pastors and preachers talk about where Jesus got his talent pool, because it would highlight how little regard Jesus had for mainstream religion or for those who were trained in it or made their living from it. Throughout history, God almost exclusively chose people disconnected from mainstream religion to be his voice. He didn’t do this to be ironic, but because he knew his chosen few would do the job they were sent to do, not get bogged down in dogma, money, and misplaced obligation. Jesus himself, the son of a carpenter, of dubious parentage, and allegedly uneducated, was the poster child for the person least likely to be the Messiah.
If you’re genuinely born-again, you have personal experience in how God chooses the “least likely”. I was an atheist until I was born-again at age 36, so I guess I’m a case in point. Zero religious background (other than being dragged to church as a very young child), zero religious training, zero knowledge of scripture, and then one day BOOM!, I’m a follower of Jesus. A few years later, with no formal religious training, I’m teaching scripture, based solely on God’s guidance through his Spirit.
Perhaps Bible school-trained and seminary-educated pastors and preachers don’t dwell on where Jesus sourced his talent because it would reflect poorly on them. They would be presenting themselves as the talent pool that Jesus not only overlooked but outright rejected. The best pastor I ever heard preach was neither Bible school-trained nor seminary-educated. He had a background in radio, so he had some voice training, but his knowledge of scripture came from scripture and from God, not from a formal program of study. Unfortunately, being influenced by the mainstream denominational church he eventually accepted a full-time job from, he’s been scrambling over the past few years to stack up letters behind his name, and his sermons reflect his shift in focus. Now instead of preaching the Word, he preaches his denominational agenda and the theologians he’s studying. I stopped listening to his sermons because of it. God was no longer in them.
For the most part, professional pastors and preachers are like car mechanics – they’re in an industry that requires their customers to keep on needing them, so they rightly or wrongly keep finding things that need to be fixed. You could drive a new car off the lot and straight into a repair shop, and the mechanic would find something wrong with it. That is a guarantee. In the same way, pastors and preachers who rely on your donations to keep their church business going will also keep you thinking that you need constant spiritual realignment, so you’d better keep coming back. And don’t forget to bring your wallet! That village well in Africa isn’t going to dig itself, any more than the power bills at the church will pay themselves. Your ongoing support is sincerely appreciated, it truly is. See you next Sunday!
When Jesus made his remark about not being able to serve both God and mammon, he was referring to people in general, but he was targeting in particular professional preachers and all those who made their money from religion. Christianity is awash in preachers who preach only for the money, and if you took that incentive away, they would stop preaching. There are many ways to know whether or not someone is genuinely sent from God, but the main way is whether they’ll preach the Word for free.
*****
There should never be an expectation of having to pay to hear God’s Word. There should never be a sense of obligation to give a financial offering during a service. The “Donate” button should not exist on a Christian website. Mammon and God’s Word should be entirely separate from each other. You shouldn’t have to worry about having your purse stolen while you’re at a church service because you shouldn’t be bringing your purse to church.
How, then, is a church building to be maintained? In the same way Paul’s ministry was maintained (through the labouring of the ministers in other pursuits and the free-will offerings of believers) or Jesus’ ministry was maintained (through followers’ free-will donations, as God led them to give). Years ago, when I did some stupid things and was down and out as a result, sitting on the side of a highway bawling my eyes out, God spoke to a woman who was driving by to give me the only cash she had in her purse at the time, which happened to be $20. So the woman turned her car around, drove back to me, and gave me the $20. It was all the money that she had with her and it was then all the money that I had, but it was enough to feed me for the next few days. The good Lord always provides for his children.
*****
When he chose his disciples, Jesus didn’t go to the professional preachers and those who made a living from religion, because he knew what was in their heart. God guided Jesus to look for his disciples elsewhere. Nothing has changed in that regard over the past 2000 years; the true followers of Jesus are either teaching and preaching or preparing to do so, and none of them are doing it for money: All of them do it for free.
Remember Simon, the magician who offered the disciples money to give him the power to baptize people in the Holy Spirit? Professional preachers and teachers or anyone who expects money in exchange for preaching God’s Word are Simon’s descendants in spirit. Jesus steered clear of these people and didn’t include them among his chosen few because he knew their hearts were not right with God.
*****
I hope, if you’re a professional preacher (or have a “Donate” button on your website), you’ll consider these words and consider your ways.
THE SADDEST VIDEO ON YOUTUBE
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, May 25, 2022 – I post this without commentary.
The video says it all.
ARE YOU A NOMINAL CHRISTIAN OR A BELIEVER?
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, May 25, 2022 – Before being born-again, I followed no-one. I had no ‘heroes’, though I did have phases of admiring this or that writer. I was what you would call fiercely independent. The truth is, I didn’t respect anyone enough in those days to want to follow them.
This all changed the second I was reborn. I became a follower of Jesus before I even knew I was a Christian. I willingly submitted to Truth and Love, to believing something was True for no other reason than that God told me it was. I had never believed like that before. Sure, I’d fallen for the smooth lies of lovers, but I had to consciously force myself to believe them: I had to suspend my disbelief.
But in the hours and days after my rebirth, when God was revealing his Truth to me, there was no suspension of disbelief. There was no forcing. There was just an internal nodding of “yes” to the obvious Truth of the matter, even though just a few hours or days earlier, as an atheist, I would rather have slit my wrists than to accept God’s Truth as self-evident.
When God’s Spirit inhabits you and surrounds you and enlivens you, God’s Truth is self-evident. Nothing else is self-evident except God’s Truth. I never believed like that until I was reborn. I didn’t believe such belief was possible – to believe beyond doubt and with a certain certainty that dismisses even death as a casual thing of little value, if it tries to get between me and my belief.
What I’m trying to say here is that I’m not consciously trying to believe God’s Truth as a born-again believer; I cannot NOT believe. Believing and breathing are one in the same for me now. In believing like this – from the core of my being – I became a follower of Jesus before I even knew the details of what it was I believed. I became a follower before I could frame the words “follower of Jesus” and apply them to me.
I came to my belief not as dogma or theology that was an external set of beliefs that I had to swallow and regurgitate, but as a lived reality that was not only more real than anything I’d ever experienced before, but that happened without my willing it to happen. I was born again, and at that same instant the reality of my unshakeable belief in God’s Truth simply was.
It became inseparable from me.
I and my belief are one.
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This, I believe, is different from the experience of nominal Christians, who tend to cherry-pick what they will choose to believe about God and about Jesus, and then form their customized belief system based on what they choose to believe. This is how denominations and other cults are formed. But a system of belief so formed is external to the believer and so can be added to, adjusted or deleted at will, depending on who or what is influencing the set of beliefs at any given time. To a nominal Christian, belief is external, malleable, exchangeable, interchangeable, and ultimately disposable. To a nominal Christian, even belief in God is optional
This way of approaching God (or better said, keeping him at bay) is not the strait and narrow of following Jesus. To follow Jesus means not only to believe what he believed, but to believe HOW he believed, which was with a certain certainty that he would rather die for than deny. He did die for it. All genuine followers of Jesus die for their belief. This I know for a certainty. They are given the option to compromise their belief to gain more time on Earth or to stand firm and die. Genuine followers always choose to stand firm. It is a choice, and they choose it, like Jesus did.
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Are you a nominal Christian or a follower of Jesus? Is your belief external to you or is it who you are? Can you separate yourself from your belief, and if you do so, what happens to you and your belief? Do you believe in God because you’ve been taught to believe in him, or do you believe in God because you cannot NOT believe? It is either one or the other; it can’t be both. You are either a nominal Christian or you’re a follower of Jesus. You can’t be both.
You’re either pregnant with God’s Spirit or you’re not.
You’re either a believer or you’re not.
You’re either a believer, or you’re not.
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“HELP THOU MY UNBELIEF!”
Just before Jesus cast out an evil spirit from the young son of a man who had gone to the disciples for help, Jesus asked him if he believed. The man replied he did, but then immediately broke down in tears and begged Jesus to make up for whatever was lacking in his belief. Faced with the life-or-death situation of his child’s illness, the man came clean about his unbelief. He admitted to himself and to God (through Jesus) that the belief he thought he had wasn’t belief at all. Belief that needs someone or something else to prop it up is not belief.
But God can work through repentance. Repentance can override a lack of belief. When the man repented in tears for his unbelief and sincerely begged for help, Jesus had the hook he needed to do the healing.
God will never turn away those who sincerely want what he is offering, who sincerely want his help. The key words here are “sincerely want”. Nominal Christians remain nominal for the sole reason that they don’t sincerely want what God is offering. They want it somewhat, but they want it on their terms and in their time, not on God’s terms and in God’s time.
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You either believe, or you don’t.
You either want what God is offering, or you don’t.
There are no halfway positions; there is no such thing as a little bit of belief, any more than there is a little bit of pregnancy.
A thing either is or it isn’t.
You either believe, or you don’t.
If you believe, you’re a follower of Jesus.
If you don’t, you’re a nominal Christian.
A nominal Christian can become a believer the same way the tormented father of the tormented son became a believer – through genuine self-acknowledgment and sincere repentance. Those things are between you and God. You don’t go to other people for self-acknowledgement; you go to yourself. And you don’t go to other people to repent; you go to God.
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For me, as a born-again believer and follower of Jesus, there is no life outside my belief in God. When I say belief in God, I mean love for God. I cannot separate myself from my belief and then say “I”, because there is no “I” without my belief: I am because I believe.
I have existed in this world as an unbeliever and I live now as a believer, and there is no comparison between the two states. There is no life outside belief in God. There is existence, yes, but life only comes through belief.
THE COMING MONKEYSHINES
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, May 25, 2022 – As most of you who read this blog already know, I will not wear a face covering for any reason. I’ve stated this before on a few occasions and I have not altered my position at all: I will not cover my face.
However, as there is a good chance that the face-covering mandates will return at some point in the near future, I thought it would be helpful if I explained in greater detail my reasoning for my position. This information could prove useful to someone someday.
Note that my decision not to cover my face is less a decision than an adherence to scriptural guidance. It’s a decision only in the sense that I agree to adhere to the guidance set forth in scripture.
I am a born-again follower of Jesus. Being born-again, I’m in God’s presence 24/7. That means there is never a time when I am not in God’s presence, whether I’m awake or asleep, and whether I’m consciously aware of God’s presence or not. For a visual of what it means spiritually to be in God’s presence, go to Revelation 7:9-17. There you’ll find a description of genuine born-again believers forming what Paul in Hebrews calls a “cloud of witnesses” (note that all of the spiritual realm is part of that cloud, not just born-again believers).
Being in God’s presence, I have an obligation not to cover my face. How do I know that? Because Moses, whenever he was in God’s presence, uncovered his face. During the process of receiving the Ten Commandments, Moses had to climb up the mountain to be with God to get the Law. When he came back down the mountain, away from God, he covered his face (since the shining of his face frightened the people), but whenever he communed with God, he uncovered his face. You can read about this in Exodus.
Unlike Moses, I don’t have to climb a mountain or go into a tabernacle to be with God: I’m with him 24/7, through his Spirit. I am always in God’s presence; I am always before God’s throne. And being always before God, I’m like Moses when he was before God, and Moses never covered his face before God. He just didn’t do it. In not covering his face, he set a clear example of how we are to face God, and that is with our faces uncovered.
If you are genuinely born-again, you are like Moses communing with God. You are always in God’s presence in the spiritual realm of his holy mountain and holy of holies, otherwise known as the Kingdom of God: You are always before God’s throne. YOU DO NOT COVER YOUR FACE IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD. It is just not done. Whether or not you choose to adhere to that guidance is up to you (you have free will), but I’d recommend that you take Moses as your guide, not someone who doesn’t know God and has never been in his presence.
The guidance provided by scripture regarding face covering is meant for born-again believers and for anyone who comes before God. IT IS AN ABOMINATION FOR A CHILD OF GOD TO COVER HIS OR HER FACE IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD, and A CHILD OF GOD IS ALWAYS IN GOD’S PRESENCE, THROUGH THE POWER OF GOD’S SPIRIT. That’s what it means to be born-again. Genuinely born-again followers of Jesus enjoy the one-on-one relationship with God that Adam had before his fall, and that Jesus had during his time on Earth.
I am a born-again follower of Jesus.
As such, I am always in the presence of God through his Spirit, as Jesus promised his followers they would be.
I will not cover my face.
WORKING FOR GOD
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, May 22, 2022 – Work, to Jesus, was not something you did 9 to 5. It was also not something you did full-time, part-time, seasonally, in shifts, or three weeks on, one week off. It was not contractual, in the sense that you had to agree to do and say certain things “on the job” that you may or may not do or say in your “off” hours.
It was not something you did for money.
Work, to Jesus, was not like that.
To Jesus, work was who he was. He was his work. He made no distinction between the work he did for God and who he was as a person.
We who live in the Kingdom and follow Jesus should also strive to be our work, as Jesus was his.
*****
Today is my Sabbath. I’ve written before about how much I love the Sabbath. The Sabbath, of course, is our God-sanctioned day off from work. We need it and use it to rest from our labours. Keeping the Sabbath is also a Commandment. That means, not keeping the Sabbath is not an option. In keeping the Sabbath, we’re also to keep it holy, which means we’re not to devote our Sabbath day to profane (worldly) pursuits, including doing work for mammon.
I don’t always keep my Sabbath on the same day that most people keep theirs. Sometimes, I’m led by God to keep it on a different day, but the content of my Sabbath – regardless of the day I keep it – is still the same. Jesus says that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, and I take him at his word. I keep the Sabbath when God guides me to keep it, and I keep it holy, as he instructed in his Commandment.
Jesus, however, was infamous for breaking the Sabbath, or so his detractors accused. Because he made no distinction between the work he did and who he was, Jesus worked on the Sabbath without breaking the Sabbath. Like priests, Jesus was actually obligated and expected to work on the Sabbath, as he frequently pointed out to his detractors.
We again see Jesus’ take on work reflected in the famous interchange between him and Martha, when Martha asks Jesus to get Mary to help her with her chores. In asking Jesus to intervene, Martha likely assumed this tactic would shame Mary into helping her. So imagine her shock when Jesus instead sides with Mary and reminds Martha that, in sitting at Jesus’ feet and learning about the Kingdom, Mary has chosen the better job.
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During the time they were with Jesus on Earth, the disciples did the same mundane daily chores that the rest of us generally do, such as shopping, food prep, and so on. However, shortly after they’d received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, they allocated the mundane daily chores to others and spent all their time doing the work of the Kingdom. Like Jesus, they had finally become their work.
It took Paul some time to get there. Even while he was traveling and preaching and writing his letters, he still made tents for his daily bread. He also encouraged others to earn their way through the world rather than to rely on hand-outs. The six-day designated work-week was important to Paul, as it should be to us. Working six days a week is part of the same Commandment as keeping the Sabbath holy.
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So where does all this information leave us? If you’re like me, you’re both working in the Kingdom and working in the world, as Paul was for most of his ministry. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to the point where I’m working only in the Kingdom, like Jesus, but I hope so. I’m on God’s time, not mine.
In the meantime, I’ve been blessed to have work that I can do anywhere in the world and where I’m my own boss. The work I do for the world (freelance writing and editing) also feeds the work I do for the Kingdom, which is a profound blessing. Even better, God is my agent. And being perfect at everything he does, God is a perfect agent, which means he only gets me work that suits me, that I have time for, and that satisfies my needs. I am never without.
How much longer I’ll be doing my worldly work is up to God: again, I’m on his time, not mine. When I do my God-sanctioned and God-given worldly work, I keep in mind that I’m always to do it (as scripture tells us) as if unto God, as if I were doing it for God: as if God were my client. So even in doing worldly work, I’m still doing Kingdom work if I do it unto God, which means if I do it to the best of my ability.
In doing both worldly work and Kingdom work, I see myself along with others doing the same. We’re in a vision given to John, which he recorded in the book of Revelation:
After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;
And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.
And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,
Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.
And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?
And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.
For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
Revelation 7:9-17
There we are, having come through our own personal Tribulation and washed our robes in the sanctifying blood of Jesus, making them white. That is spiritual rebirth. Protected, guided, provided for, and comforted, we spend the rest of our time on Earth in what Paul called a “cloud” of witnesses – spiritually before the throne of God, rejoicing in God, and serving God only. If you’re genuinely born-again, you’re in John’s vision. Your work and everything you do is now a testimony to Jesus. Stick your face close enough to the words of that passage, and you’ll see yourself waving at you. I’m waving at you, too. Go ahead and wave back.
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For Jesus, working and doing God’s will were one and the same, and he did them night and day. For us born-again believers who are doing both worldly work and Kingdom work, we’re not that far off from how Jesus worked if we do everything we do as if unto God.
Even so, if God guides us to do it, we shouldn’t be ashamed to make tents. It’s always better to work than to beg; God never wants his children to beg. If we show the willingness to do whatever’s asked of us, God will bring us the resources we need in the world to continue our work in the Kingdom. That’s a guarantee.
Scripture tells us so.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 