A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER

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EATING SOUP WITH A SCREWDRIVER

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 17, 2025 – All science is theory, so the phrase “the science is settled” is an oxymoron. God gave us science as a tool to make sense of the natural (not the supernatural) realm, but he never meant for us to treat it as a religion and to worship it as infallible. Science by very definition is perpetually in motion, perpetually flawed, and perpetually being upended: Settling something with those characteristics is impossible.

Still, the belief in science has for many people replaced belief in God. In scripture, God talks about those who’ve not only rejected him but have replaced him with “broken cisterns that can hold no water. He was including science-believers in this group.

The number of people who are embracing broken cisterns in the form of science is growing larger by the day. So are their claims. One claim that recently caught my eye is that there are an estimated 10 quintillion insects in the world, and of these, an estimated 80% have yet to be identified. These kinds of broad, sweeping, and frankly quite silly pronouncements highlight the inherently flawed and profoundly unsettled nature of science. Yes, science is a tool, but tools that are not suited to the task at hand are pretty much useless.

Have you ever tried eating soup with a screwdriver? Of course not. That would be silly. So is saying there are 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 insects on Earth. Verging on criminal is expecting us not only to believe this nonsense but being forced to regurgitate it as gospel truth on a science quiz or be failed.

So, while God gave us science as a tool, people who blindly place their faith in science (i.e., Trust the Science) have themselves become tools – useful tools of Satan. The rebranding of scientific inquiry from being a cautious, inconclusive explainer of the natural realm to being a dogmatic writ-in-stone fact (that you dare not question) has the devil’s pawprints all over it. As we well know, “those who believe in nothing will fall for anything”, and science dogmatists have fallen for the devil’s lies in the form of “the science is settled” and similar creeds. Even worse, they’re constantly evangelizing and infiltrating all aspects of human society so that to be (as I am here) an “unbeliever in science” (that is, one who questions scientific dogmatic claims) is akin to being branded a witch or a heretic in the Middle Ages: A burning stake is being prepared for me as we speak.

I am grateful to God for his gift of science as a tool to help explain nature. However, I don’t worship or “believe in” science. I don’t unquestioningly Trust the Science™. To me, scientific theories are just that – theories. They’re not truths and they’re not settled, and by very definition they can never be. They can only ever be flawed and questionable, as God intended them. Still, a flawed and questionable work-in-progress explanation is better than no explanation at all.

As a born-again believer, I don’t reject science; I reject the dogma around it.

FAKE TIME VS REAL TIME

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 15, 2025 – I wrote a few days ago about solar time and how it differs from Daylight Savings Time (DST). I mentioned that our bodies are naturally synched to the sun, not to an artificial construct like DST, and that because DST jumps ahead of solar time (up to two hours in some locations), we have the constant sense that we’re running behind and don’t have enough time to finish what we need to finish. Being significantly ahead of solar time also gives us the sense that we’re never quite ‘in the moment’ – that lunch time is not really lunch time, dinner time not really dinner time, and bedtime not really bedtime. We perpetually feel out of synch with time because we are actually out of synch with time, if we follow DST.

In Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I’m currently stationed, DST is nearly one and half hours ahead of solar time. Ironically, the city has an historic cannon that thunders to life once a day to mark high noon. Except it isn’t really high noon when the cannon booms; under DST, it’s only a little past 10:30 a.m., and the sun is nowhere near its zenith.

Should this concern us as born-again believers? Is there a spiritual impact in following fake time like DST that can be up to two hours ahead of real time? I believe there is a profound spiritual impact and that it’s rooted in the constant stress generated from being forced to schedule daily activities according to a time marker that is patently false. The constant stress affects our patience level, as well as the time we spend with God and Jesus in prayer and the time we spend reading God’s Word. How many times have you cut short or even foregone a Bible reading session because you felt you didn’t have enough time? The truth is – you did have enough time; you were just following the wrong clock

DST is fake time. It forces us to rise before we’re sufficiently rested, eat when we’re not particularly hungry, fast when we are hungry, and go to bed when we’re not yet sleepy. You can’t win if you schedule your daily activities according to DST, as you’ll always feel like you’re running behind or otherwise out of synch with time.

I recently started following solar time, and it constantly amazes me how different time feels to me. When I ignore worldly timekeepers, I experience a deep sense of having plenty of time to do whatever it is I need to do. I don’t feel rushed. I don’t feel like I’m falling behind. If I happen to glance at one of my clocks (all set to local solar time), I don’t experience that unwelcome jolt of feeling that I’m running late, which DST always gives me. I have plenty of time for God. I have plenty of time for his Word. And I have plenty of time for Jesus, though I’m still working on the patience thing (lol).

I heartily recommend switching to local solar time and scheduling your daily rounds according to it.

And if the worldly clock nags you that you’re running late, just ignore it.

CHANGING TIME

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 11, 2025 – Time has a feeling. We associate certain times of the day with certain activities and therefore certain feelings. Mornings are typically for waking up, which means we engage in activities that help us do that. Evenings, on the other hand, have a whole different feeling. Evenings are typically for winding down, and our activities reflect that.

But what if time is changed? What if morning isn’t quite yet morning and evening not quite yet evening? What if the morning is not yet dawn and the evening not yet dusk? Would we still want to do the same activities an hour and half ahead of what our body is telling us is the “real time”? Because our body knows exactly what time it is, even if consciously we don’t.

When I was a kid, my bedtime was 8 p.m. sharp. I remember that, because I always had trouble falling asleep in the summertime. I remember lying in bed and staring out the window at the sunshine. And no matter how hard I tried, I could not get to sleep.

In real time in Halifax, 8 p.m. in the summertime is dark. What I mean by “real time” is solar time. In Daylight Savings Time, it’s not dark until nearly 9:30 p.m., which is almost an hour and a half later. If, as a kid, I’d gone to bed at 9:30 DST instead of 8:00 DST, I would have conked out the minute my head hit the pillow.

As a culture, we have the perpetual feeling that time is getting faster and faster and that our days just fly by. Is it possible instead that the shift from “real time” (solar time) to “fake time” (DST and Standard Time) has robbed us of our true sense of time, and in so doing has made us feel that we’re always falling behind? Our body says it’s one time, while our clock claims it’s much later.

Take now, for instance. My laptop clock tells me it’s nearly 12 noon, but my solar clock says it’s just 10:30 a.m. These two times bring with them entirely different feelings related to the activities attached to them. They also have entirely different qualities of sunlight. So if my body is telling me that it’s mid-morning and maybe time for a snack but the world is telling me it’s high noon and time for a full mid-day meal, how is my body to make sense of this conflict other than to feel that time is getting faster?

But the truth is that time is not getting faster. Time is getting changed into fake time that doesn’t reflect reality. When it’s 5:30 a.m. according to the sun but already 7 a.m. according to DST, should we really be surprised that it’s so difficult to drag ourselves out of bed?

Again – time is not getting faster; time is getting changed, like scripture said it would. But not in my house. In my house, time is set to solar time, so no matter what time the world tells me it is, I’m always pleasantly surprised to find that it’s much earlier than I thought it was, and I still have lots of time to do whatever needs to be done.

Feels good!

EVERYTHING

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 10, 2025 – Every problem in the world today could be solved by turning back to God and following Jesus.

There isn’t one problem that can’t be solved this way.

In turning back to God and following Jesus, you’d realize that what you thought were your problems are actually not your problems, and you’d let them go. The rest of whatever issues are plaguing you, you’d deal with through God’s guidance, in his way and in his time, following the example of Jesus.

Every problem can be solved by turning back to God and following Jesus.

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It could have been so simple. God means for it to be simple for us. He means for it to be so simple that even a child can understand.

It could have been so simple if we’d just turned back to him, like he invited us to do, all those years ago. It would have been so simple if we’d just turned back to him like he invited us to do, and then like he urged us to do, and then like he warned us to do.

And now, here we are, well past the warning phase. It’s become a Command now, to turn back to God; it’s do or die.

And it could have been so easy.

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I see this countless times, in deals that are offered to me or to someone else. You never get a better deal than the one that’s first offered you, because the one that’s first offered is made from a position of wanting. The people making the offer want you to want what they’re offering. And so they buff it and shine it up and lay it down tenderly at your feet, thinking of you as much as themselves, of what you want as much as what they want. They lavish their love on you and offer their best. The first offer is always the best, from a spiritual standpoint.

But if you decline that first offer, it’s all downhill from there. It might seem to you that you’ll get a better deal if you haggle, if you hold out until you’ve worn them down a bit, and then a bit more. But the deal doesn’t get better. It might seem to you that it gets better, but it doesn’t. The terms may seemingly shift in your favor, but the deal starts to rot from the inside. It changes into something that’s not quite as good, that rankles and sours and turns bitter whatever initial love and goodwill there could have been between you and the one making the offer. There is a palpable cooling of affections. One way or another, you lose if you don’t take that first offer, because the first one is always the best.

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I hadn’t realized that in loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, as Jesus taught us was the first and greatest Commandment – I had not realized that to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength means to love him like that, too. Every love song ever written we’re to sing to God, and to God only. We’re to give him everything that he’s given us to give.

Everything, like Jesus did.

HERE AND GONE: THE RAPTURE ABDUCTION

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 8, 2025 – The powers-that-be have a plan. When their time comes (that is, when Satan’s time comes), they’re going to get rid of us, with God’s permission. To back their plan, they’ve twisted scripture until it states that the golden age of Jesus’ Kingdom will come only after true believers have been raptured and everyone else has gone through a tribulation. First comes the rapture, then comes the tribulation, and then comes Jesus’ 1000-year Kingdom, along with the return to Earth of all the previously raptured saints.

Sounds great, right? Really something to look forward to!

The only problem is that it’s junk theology. Scripture doesn’t back it up (except the part about God permitting us to be killed). In the “millennial reign” mentioned in the book of Revelation, the martyred believers reign with Jesus for “a thousand years” (i.e., a very long but indeterminate time stipulated by God). These saints died and went to Heaven, where their bodies have been glorified. Glorified bodies aren’t suited for long-term visitations on Earth, which is why angels don’t appear in their glorified form very often or for more than a few minutes at a time. Instead, most angels appear in an earthly-heavenly hybrid body, like Jesus during his 40 days of post-resurrection appearances. But hybrid bodies aren’t built for long-term earthly use either, so how are Jesus and his saints going to reign on Earth in physical form for a thousand years?

I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating because the PTB have been going into overdrive lately beating their rapture drum (see the video here or below for an example). They’re hammering the rapture into people – even unbelievers – by simplifying and codifying its occurrence, so that when the mass abductions take place, most people will default to “rapture” and accept the disappearances without question or be threatened into silence.

I have zero doubt that there’ll be mass abductions. How else are they going to get rid of us when their time comes? Still, the truth of the matter is that Jesus has been reigning on Earth for almost 2000 years already. Jesus is King here and now, and his glorified saints rule with him in his spiritual Kingdom, while we, his Earth-bound saints, are its cherished and protected citizens. This is the prophesied Zion written about in the OT, taught by Jesus in the NT, and presented as the millennial reign in the book of Revelation. There will be no other Kingdom on Earth and no other Zion, golden or otherwise. This is it.

There will also be no rapture as framed by the PTB, though there will be individual ascensions, like Jesus mentions (“one shall be taken, and the other left”) and as exemplified by Jesus, Elijah, and Enoch. So no, there won’t be a mass rapture before the tribulation, but there will be mass abductions of born-again believers. That is the PTB’s diabolical plan.

But I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it, because if I’m still here when it all goes down (or allegedly up), I probably won’t be around to tell you “I told you so”, because I’ll be gone.

And so will you.

“SMASH THEM DOWN!”

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 5, 2025 – At the very center of St. Peter’s Square, in the corner of Vatican City that interfaces with the world, stands a 4,500-year-old obelisk. The pillar was stolen from Heliopolis, an ancient Egyptian city whose principal deity was the sun god Ra, the “king of the gods”. But as we well know, all “gods” are demons. So why has a demon idol been erected in the front yard of the home of the alleged vicar of Christ?

Good question.

And this isn’t the only demon pillar in Rome under the auspice of the Vatican. There are 13 in total scattered throughout the city, all designated as Catholic “pilgrimage sites”.

God, in scripture, commanded his people to smash down and destroy every demon pillar they came across in the promised land. Roman Catholics are either exempt from this command or not God’s people. It was the Roman caesars who first relocated these idols from Egypt to Rome at great cost and effort, but it’s been the papacy that’s maintained them over the centuries. Interestingly, all worldly centers of power, such as Washington, London, and Paris, have their own prominently displayed obelisks, which they either pillaged from Egypt or built as replicas. When Jesus said that the world is under Satan, he wasn’t kidding. The demon pillars are proof.

But the obelisk in St. Peter’s Square is particularly perturbing. Surely at least one person at the Vatican has access to a Bible and has read the Old Testament? Because the very first time I read the OT as a born-again believer I came across the verses about the pillars and immediately thought of the obelisk at the Vatican. I thought: How can this be?

I’ve since come to understand that the Vatican, and in fact Roman Catholicism in its entirety, is an homage to Satan, full of ostentatious wealth and pomp and idols and rituals that have nothing to do with Jesus, let alone God. This abomination of a religion is only permitted to exist because God has put the world under the authority of Satan, including this branch of the worldly church, and so the papacy is not actually under God’s protection but under Satan’s. It will remain under his protection until it no longer serves the devil’s purpose.

I say without reservation that there are profoundly unholy people occupying the highest offices of the Vatican. How can these be God’s people? They serve Satan and do so openly, as anyone with eyes to see can see. It’s worth noting that Vatican City was built on the site of Nero’s Circus, where countless Christians in the early Church were murdered for sport and entertainment. The same demon pillar that held a position of prominence at Nero’s Circus holds a position of prominence on the Square. The blood of the martyrs is mixed into the very soil of the place. Peter and Paul were also murdered there. I would not be surprised if martyring of genuine Christians continues at the Vatican to this day.

I despise the papacy and everything it stands for, even as I acknowledge why it exists. Still, having been born Roman Catholic, I pray to God to be excommunicated from that abomination before he takes me Home.

ON MISINTERPRETED SCRIPTURE

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 4, 2025 – Deuteronomy 28 provides a run-down of the blessings and curses that come from obeying God. This chapter was directed at the children of Israel, to guide them as they settled the promised land; by extension, the blessings and curses are also meant to guide us born-again believers as we settle the spiritual promised land of God’s Kingdom on Earth.

In two seminal Gospel passages, Jesus took those blessings and curses and applied them directly to us. Unfortunately, these passages are also among the most misinterpreted in all of scripture.

The first passage describes Jesus using a little child as a metaphor to explain how to live in the Kingdom. He calls the child to him and then sets him up and apart “in the midst” of the crowd while giving his teaching. The child is the focus of the lesson. Jesus explains that after being converted, his followers are to “humble” themselves like a child, to be thoroughly obedient and compliant to their heavenly Father as a child is to his earthly father. Jesus then warns what will happen to anyone who harms these little children, saying that it would be better for the offenders if they hadn’t been born at all.

The common interpretation of this passage is that Jesus was referring to all children (i.e., humans under a certain age), and that we’re to treat all children with a certain deference, as they hold a special place in God’s Kingdom, but this was not Jesus’ intention. Jesus used the child as a metaphor for God’s children (i.e., born-again believers), and the lesson is meant as a guidance for God’s children as well as a warning to anyone who purposely harms them. That Jesus was using the little child as a metaphor rather than as a direct reference is clear when he states “except ye be converted and become as little children”. He is describing here adults being converted and then humbling themselves like a child in relation to God. He was not teaching how to deal with young humans in general.

The second passage has been similarly misinterpreted and misapplied. In it, Jesus refers to God’s children as his “brethren” and describes the blessings that come from helping them and the curses that result from refusing to help them. This is the parable of the sheep and goats: the sheep are rewarded with Paradise, while the goats end up in “everlasting fire”. And who are Jesus’ brethren? Those who do God’s will, as Jesus explained in another passage.

Unfortunately, the “brethren” part has been overlooked in most interpretations of these verses, making “those in need” apply to everyone in need, especially the poor. This was not Jesus’ intention. Jesus mentions elsewhere that we can help the poor whenever we want, as there’ll never be a shortage of them, but we won’t always have him to help. In saying this, he prioritizes helping him (and by extension helping his brethren) over helping everyone else.

Enormous blessings flow to those who are obedient to God and help his children, while horrendous curses result from disobeying God and refusing to help his children (or purposely offending them). Deuteronomy 28 and the “little child” and “sheep and goats” passages make this crystal clear.

ON OLD ACQUAINTANCES, SOFT HEARTS, AND GRUDGES

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 1, 2025 – The older we grow, the softer our hearts should grow. That doesn’t mean we turn into a pushover or a soft touch. No, because even as our hearts grow softer, our resolve to do God’s will grows stronger. The two – soft heart and firm resolve – are intertwined and interdependent. This doesn’t make for a pushover, having a soft heart and a firm resolve; this makes for a person firmly rooted in God but holding no grudges.

It’s critically important that you live your life firmly rooted in God and grudge-free because grudges will keep you out of Heaven and distance you from God. If you’re distanced from God, he’s not hearing your prayers, you’re not hearing from him, and the only way you can proceed along that dreary path is downward. You don’t want to go downward; you want to go upward. Upward is the only way to stay in God’s heart and the only way Home.

I ran into someone yesterday I hadn’t seen in years. We have some history between us, though not personally. It’s more an arms-length, third-party history, affecting people we know mutually. But that history is decades old. Still, and not having seen me for years, this person studiously stonewalled me, purposely looking the other way as I passed by.

My heart must be softer than I realize, because even as it was happening, I didn’t feel anything but sadness for that person. How can you not pity someone who’s still holding a grudge decades after the fact? Paul says we should be on good terms with everyone as much as possible and Jesus warns us that God won’t hear our prayers if we have a hardened heart.

As we know, everything happens for a reason. More specifically, nothing happens that doesn’t affect our spiritual well-being, whether for good or bad. So I asked God why he brought this person into my life yesterday. Was it to test the hardness of my heart? Was it to test my resolve? What he told me surprised me: He said that he hadn’t brought that person into my life yesterday, he’d brought me into that person’s life. It was for that person’s sake that we had our unexpected meeting after all those years, as that person’s days are numbered.

A grudge is horrendous chronic spiritual pain that burdens the person holding it, not the person it’s held against. My encounter with the grudge-holder yesterday made me grateful to God for teaching me not to hold grudges. You learn at some point in your life to hold grudges, and then you have to unlearn holding them. You have to unlearn holding grudges, and the best way to do that is simply to make the choice to forgive, and stick with it.

A few hours after that encounter, I passed by another old acquaintance I’d had some words with years ago and hadn’t seen for a while. He, too, used to stonewall me, but yesterday he nodded and smiled in response to my nod and smile. That’s all Paul meant when he said we should be on good terms as much as possible with everyone. Just a nod and a smile, keeping the heart soft and grudge-free.

LIVE LIKE JESUS

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 28, 2025 – The lies of the devil are embedded in Christianity and have been since just after the beginning (Jesus warned us about that), but no lie is more perfidious than the one that states that Jesus did everything for us and all we have to do at the Judgement is claim we’re with Jesus and we’ll gain entrance to Heaven.

If we live the life of the world, slacking and going easy on ourselves, Heaven is not where we’ll end up. I know this because Jesus states it plainly in the Gospels. He said the Way is narrow and few find it. He said we need to pick up our cross daily and carry it. He said that our every word, deed, and thought will be thoroughly examined at the Judgement, and that we’ll be held accountable for them all. He said that those closest to us will be our worst enemies and, knowing that, we should proceed accordingly. He said we should live as if we were actual eunuchs. He said that the sheep go to Heaven, but the goats don’t, and what separates the sheep from the goats is their response to people in need. In other words, did they help the people God put in their path to help, or did they refuse to help them? The sheep actively helped the people God directed them to help, and this was counted towards them as righteousness.

If all we have to do is claim we’re with Jesus but otherwise live however we want while using as an excuse “we’re all sinners!”, then what about the five virgins who didn’t have enough oil in their lamps? Why couldn’t they just borrow some oil from the five virgins who did? Or why couldn’t they just have said to the bridegroom when he arrived: “It’s OK that I don’t have enough oil because I’m with you”? Or what about the guy who was kicked out of the wedding feast because he didn’t have a wedding robe on? Why couldn’t he have just claimed to be with Jesus?

In his teachings, Jesus insists that we must keep the Commandments, all ten of them. Being his follower doesn’t exempt us from that. Yes, Jesus permitted himself to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins up to the point when we say “Yes!” to God and are converted and become like little children for humility and obedience to God, but after our pivotal “Yes!”, after we’ve been purged of the  world’s spirits and filled with God’s Spirit and have entered into God’s Kingdom on Earth and reestablished (thanks to Jesus’ sacrifice) the relationship with God that we’d lost through Adam’s sin – from that point onward, everything we do and everything we say (and yes even everything we think) is on us. We’re responsible for choosing what is right in God’s eyes, and the best way to do so is following Jesus’ example.

It’s a lie to claim that because “we’re all sinners”, we can do nothing worthy and that Jesus did it all for us. Jesus sacrificed himself for us, yes, but first he taught us how to get home. We need to live as Jesus taught us, not as the devil says we can.

INTO THE BLESSINGS ZONE

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 26, 2025 – God blessed Nebuchadnezzar with a great empire not because he was a holy man or a child of Israel or a convert to Judaism, but because he gave the remnant (God’s children) shelter and allowed them to thrive under his reign. It didn’t matter that Nebuchadnezzar wasn’t a believer; he did God’s will, and so he was blessed.

It was God’s will that Judah and Jerusalem and all the cities and towns of Israel be overrun by the Babylonian and Chaldean armies and in most cases destroyed. God gave that responsibility into Nebuchadnezzar’s hands, knowing that the king of Babylon would carry out the destruction to the letter and without flinching. It was God’s will that the people formerly known as the children of Israel (but who had turned their backs on God and had become instead the synagogue of Satan) be punished, with the heathen Babylonian and Chaldean armies as their executioners.

Even today – especially today – those who do God’s will and look to the good of his born-again remnant are profoundly blessed by God, regardless of whether they themselves are believers.