A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER

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STOP TALKING ABOUT IT! Choosing to Forgive Means Not Talking About it Anymore

love forgives and forgets

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 22, 2015 – Christians are a funny bunch. They spend a lot of time in group hugs and “sharing” sessions, all the while lamenting what a rough time they’ve had at the hands of parents, spouses or acquaintances before they became Christians. They even sometimes go into gory details about their abusers, offering up their abuse stories for sympathy (I suppose), although they mask it as a learning or a teaching moment.

These stories aren’t teaching anyone anything except how NOT to choose to forgive.

When we choose to forgive, we should do the same thing as God does when he forgives – forget about it. Forgetting about it means to CONSCIOUSLY choose to put it to the back of our minds, even if it keeps popping up. It’s a decision of the will. It’s not a feeling (you won’t feel like forgetting and you may even feel like you can’t forget; that’s why it’s a decision, not an emotion-based response). Ask God to help you with this. He’s more than happy to help you. THAT’S WHAT HE’S THERE FOR.

If you truly want to forgive, don’t talk about people who’ve hurt you and whom you’ve chosen to forgive. Don’t talk about what they’ve done to you, however horrible it was and however deeply it scarred you. As a born-again, you’ve become a completely new person. God has forgiven you because you’ve chosen to forgive everyone who’s hurt you. Whatever people did to you in the past, pre-rebirth, is dead and done; whatever people are doing to you now, post-rebirth, is likewise dead and done after you’ve chosen to forgive them (which you should do as soon as you notice someone’s hurt you).

Here’s what you do when you choose to forgive: You simply act as if it never happened, you pray for your abusers, and you keep a safe distance from them. If people prod you to talk about your experience, tell them it’s over and you don’t want to talk about it anymore. If you feel it starting to overwhelm you, take your pain to God in private. He wants to counsel and comfort you. He’s your counselor and your comforter. Chances are pretty good that he’ll tell you what I’m telling you – if you want the pain to go away, choose to forgive and TOTALLY forget.

Imagine if God says he forgives us one day, and then turns around the next day and starts railing at us about things we did two years ago! That would be very confusing for us and also very un-Godlike. Once God forgives us for something, he forgives us that thing forever. We’re supposed to do things God’s way, as Jesus did, and as Jesus taught us to do.

Remember: “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”

Choosing to forgive also means choosing to forget.

God will help you with this. Just ask him. He loves you. He’s waiting. Ask him.

A True Fast: Giving Up Lent

fasting

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 22, 2015 – For practicing Catholics, Lent is the time of year when, for 40 days and 40 nights prior to Easter Sunday, you “give up” or stop doing something you enjoy doing, such as watching TV or eating sweets. In many instances, the activity you give up for Lent is a ‘bad habit’ that you want to quit anyway, like smoking cigarettes or overeating.

Why, then, do you only temporarily ‘give up’ something that you shouldn’t be doing in the first place? What is the benefit of giving it up for only five and a half weeks?

When questioned about Lent, Catholics explain that they ‘give up’ things for a certain time every year because it is traditional to do so. They also cite the importance of self-restraint and self-sacrifice in developing good character. For Catholics, Lent is essentially just a symbolic gesture of self-restraint and sacrifice as well as a sign of obedience to the pope.

But what does God think of Lent?

Not surprisingly, he’s not a fan. In Hosea, he states “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Jesus reiterates this position in Matthew, and Isaiah (58) explains in stark detail precisely what God means by fasting, including the consequences of ‘false’ and genuine fasting.

Jesus also advised us NOT to look like we’re fasting when we fast, stating that our fasting should be between us and God, and should not be announced or even visible to the world. This is similar to his advice to pray in private and to give alms (charity) anonymously by not letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing.

Lent is basically just a public display of piety. On Ash Wednesday, which is the beginning of the 40-day “Lenten season”, observant Catholics receive a cross-mark of ashes on their foreheads from the priest. This is supposed to represent, again symbolically, their repentance of, say, eating too many Snickers bars. The ashen cross also serves as a public declaration that for at least the next 40 days and nights, they’ll do their level best to abstain from eating Snickers bars (or smoking cigarettes or whatever). That the highly visible black smudge on the forehead goes against Jesus’ clear advice not to show the world that you’re fasting, should not be a surprise to anyone.

I have a real problem with Lent, just like I have a real problem with most things Catholic. My understanding is that Lent was initially supposed to represent the 40 days and 40 nights Jesus spent fasting in the desert prior to starting his Earthly ministry. During this time, he was tempted by the devil and overcame each temptation by a rebuttal based on the true interpretation of scripture.

The Catholic organization should take a page from Jesus’ book. He wasn’t out there in the desert to kick a bad habit or give something up for the sake of giving it up – he was being tested to show that even under circumstances of extreme physical and psychological duress, he was able to do God’s will, combat the devil’s insidious attacks, and withstand temptations with God’s help. He was using fasting as a form of training and preparation for the spiritual and physical rigors of his ministry work, which he could successfully accomplish only with God’s help.

Yes, I bolded those three little words so you can see what’s important here. Yet again, Jesus was showing us that we can do the seeming impossible (i.e., withstand and outsmart the very Devil, even though we’re nearing the end of our physical and mental reserves) with God’s help.

Jesus’ time in the desert wasn’t about self-sacrifice or any other kind of sacrifice. It was about leaning on God for all our needs, both physical and spiritual. In contrast, Lent focuses on self-sacrifice and leaning on one’s personal resolve to ‘give up’ something. This, I suppose, is meant to impress God in some way or win you spiritual brownie points, but I’m not buying it and scripture doesn’t support it. And it has nothing to do with Jesus’ time in the desert.

Fasts occur throughout the Old Testament. Typically, a fast is called in order to defer God’s wrath, such as when all the residents of Nineveh (including the cattle) successfully fasted to prevent the destruction of their city that was scheduled to occur within 40 days (see Jonah). Judaism also features specific fasting days, but they are at most a 24-hour period. A fast where you just randomly ‘give up’ something for 40 days and 40 nights has no basis in scripture at all, and is yet another example of what Jesus called “doctrines of man” masquerading as religion (which itself is a cheap knock-off of faith). Catholicism is mostly doctrines of man propped up on a base of demon worship, and Lent is its big red flag.

So what about fasting?

In this, as in everything else, we are to follow Jesus’ example and do God’s will. When God wants you to fast, he’ll not only let you know, he’ll give you the strength to do it. And it will be for a genuine purpose (like Jesus in the desert), not for some contrived hogwash like Lent.

ASSASSINATION OF GRAY STATE DIRECTOR / WRITER / PRODUCER AND HIS FAMILY

gray state

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 19, 2015 – David Crowley, the 29-year-old writer, producer, director, editor, VFX artist and composer for the controversial film project “Gray State”, was found dead with his wife and five-year-old daughter. The police state that it is an “apparent murder-suicide”, without providing any details about who actually did the killing. Here is the trailer for the film:

I hope a full investigation is made into the deaths, but I doubt there will be one. It sounds to me like a hit, an assassination, or what we conspiracy buffs like to call “a suiciding” to silence a truth-teller before he became too dangerous (meaning, before he was in a position to wake too many people up to the truth about the NWO). Most of these types of assassinations are framed to appear either as suicides or as murder-suicides. In every instance, without exception, there is NO history of depression, and the murdered individual is on the brink of a break-out that would take his or her truth-telling to the next level.  PRAY THAT SOMEONE WITH THE SAME COURAGE, FOCUS, INTEGRITY AND VISION AS CROWLEY WILL CONTINUE WITH THE PROJECT, so that the movie will be made.

This movie must be made.

Obvious suicidings such as this one are done to send a warning message to others that the same fate awaits them if they continue exposing the NWO. But how cold and far removed from God the humans who perpetrated this crime must be, to have killed a five-year-old little girl. We must pray for the killers, even as we expose and condemn their acts.

News like this makes us sad for a moment, but then strengthens us to continue fighting for truth. The world is under Satan, as Jesus told us, but we need not be. The truth is always stronger than lies, but it needs to be shouted from the rooftop at high noon, not whispered in the darkness at midnight. Let us continue to shout, and in this way honor and carry on the work of truth-tellers who have suffered at the hands of Satan’s minions.

What these emissaries of hell don’t seem to realize is that the more of us they kill, the stronger become those truth-tellers still standing.

Pray for those who suffer under the children of the Father of Lies, and pray also for those wayward, suffering children.

Love your enemies,

BUT NEVER GIVE IN TO THEM.

Below are some links to recent interviews with David Crowley. As you’ll see, Crowley was articulate, passionate, intelligent, good-looking, young, vibrant, brave, balanced, profoundly gifted as a script-writer and artistic director, and heavily invested in exposing the NWO.

He was a true potential visionary and leader for this generation. People would have believed his movie.

That’s why he was killed.

Jesus Is Lord, Not God

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 18, 2015 – Jesus was not, is not, and never will be God. This is made crystal clear in the New Testament. Jesus referred to himself as “son of man”, meaning “prophet”, and also as the one who was to come, meaning the Messiah. His disciples and followers, both before and after his crucifixion, never considered him to be God. Why, then, is mainstream Christianity now defined as a belief in Jesus as God incarnate?

Then simple answer is, as Jesus would say, to keep out those who are trying to enter.

If Jesus were God, then the fact of his sinless life would not be exemplary, since God is God and can do anything and everything, including living a sinless life. If Jesus were God, then his constant reference to his relationship with “the Father” would be very strange indeed. Jesus claimed that the Father was greater than him; Jesus claimed that he always did the will of the Father; Jesus claimed that he was going home to the Father; Jesus publicly prayed to the Father and the Father occasionally audibly responded; and Jesus deferred to the Father in all things. Jesus very clearly considered God to be his Father and his Father to be someone who was fully separate and autonomous from him. Certainly, God and Jesus were very close, but they were nevertheless two very distinct persons.

This is how I see it. Jesus came to pay off the spiritual debt of Original Sin. He did that by sacrificing himself as an unblemished (sinless) “lamb”, willingly suffering for sins he did not commit. Jesus was able to live a sinless life because he always did God’s will, meaning that he always asked and took God’s advice. In paying off the debt by accepting to be crucified, Jesus opened the door for his followers to have the same relationship with God as he had. His sacrifice both paid the debt and healed the breach of Original Sin. Because of Jesus’ work, we can have a close relationship with God, like Adam had before the fall, and like Jesus was able to have, being sinless.

Having a close relationship with God is crucial if we are to make it all the way back to heaven. Jesus showed us how to get to heaven and enabled us to get there, but it’s still up to use to make the right choices in life, the way he made the right choices, and to keep making those choices right to our dying breath. If Jesus were God, we would expect him always to make the right choices (he’s perfect, after all), but he wouldn’t be much of an example for us humans. It’s critical that we understand the essential humanity of Jesus, because only as a human can Jesus serve as our “ensample”, as Paul called him. Jesus was not divine; Jesus was not God. Rather, Jesus was fully human and suffused with God’s spirit, in the same way we are, as born-agains.

Then where did this erroneous notion of Jesus being God come from?

I’d suggest it came from people who don’t know God as their Dad and don’t follow Jesus. I’m referring, of course, to the mainstream church that grew into Roman Catholicism and other orthodox offshoots, and from there poisoned all manifestations of “Christianity” to this day. Catholicism was first and foremost a worldly power whose interest was control of people and their wealth. It still is. Jesus tells us that the world is under Satan, so it stands to reason that those organizations that wield control in the world are emissaries of Satan, including Catholicism.

Of course, it would be in Satan’s interest to keep people out of heaven who are trying to enter. By framing Jesus as God, we have a different relationship with Jesus. We don’t see him as “one of us who made it”, but as a divine being who is entirely different from us, superior to us. Paul called Jesus the firstborn among many, meaning he was our big brother spiritually. This is how we must see him, as our older sibling who set a good example for us, as older siblings are inclined to do.

People who call Jesus “divine” or God don’t know God and don’t know Jesus. We need to hold onto the essential humanity of Jesus, because the essential humanity is what makes Jesus’ accomplishments ‘doable’ for us.

Jesus was not, is not, and never will be God. He was supernaturally conceived (scripture foretold that he would be born of a virgin, and so he was), but if DNA tests were available at that time, I am 100% certain they would have shown Jesus to be Joseph’s son. Physically, Jesus shared the DNA of his mother, Mary, and his father, Joseph. But his spiritual DNA (if you want to call it that) showed that God was his father, just as our spiritual DNA, as born-agains, likewise shows us to be God’s offspring.

God was Jesus’ spiritual (heavenly) father, not his Earthly father. Joseph was his Earthly father. This was the miracle of his virgin birth – not only that a virgin could conceive, but that the child born of this miraculous conception was fully the child of both Earthly parents, and thus fully human.

The essential humanity of Jesus must not be thrown away in favor of a fairy-tale myth that serves no purpose but to separate us from Jesus and God, and to undermine Jesus’ accomplishments. We can be like Jesus, who was fully human, just as some day we can be where Jesus is – with the angels in God’s heavenly kingdom. Yes, we mere humans can do all that, with God’s help. Jesus proved it. He’s our example. You don’t have to be divine to get to heaven, but you do need divine help.

The New Inquisition: Islamic Death Squads

cartoon

A priest, a rabbi, and an imam walk into a bar….   The priest orders red wine, the rabbi orders kosher wine, and the imam orders everyone who will not convert to Islam to be beheaded.

Just kidding!

The priest actually ordered a beer.   **********

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 18, 2015 – Jesus is acknowledged in Islam, but only as a prophet. Jesus’ mother, Mary, is also acknowledged, but in Islamic lore she remains a virgin to her death. I found this out the hard way from an immigrant Muslim taxi driver in Halifax who informed me that the female name “Mariam”, which is popular among Muslim women, is a nod to the Virgin Mary. I commented jokingly that Mary might have been a virgin at Jesus’ birth, but she didn’t stay a virgin. Scripture tells us she “knew” Joseph after Jesus was born. I can still see the look the cab driver sent me through the rearview mirror. I felt impaled. He took my cab fare but didn’t respond either to my “thank you” or “good-bye”.

Religious disinformation is nothing new. Neither is the fanaticism that grows up in support of the disinformation. Genuine Christians who refused to bow down to papal lies during the centuries-long Inquisition were either tortured until they ‘repented’ or died, or were killed outright. Today, Islamic fanatics are reviving the Inquisition, with a decided Islamic twist – instead of torturing to extract a ‘confession’ and conversion, they simply behead non-Muslims.

As followers of Jesus, we need to closely monitor the shift from papal persecutors to Islamic persecutors. Islamic adherents have already slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people who identified as Christians in the Middle East, Africa, Indonesia, Pakistan, India and China. Now, through rampant immigration, Islamic (sharia) law is being instituted in Muslim communities in the West, so it is just a matter of time before the beheadings start here as well. Do what you can to oppose the institution of sharia law in the West, but if it is established nonetheless (which it likely will be), be prepared to leave on short notice.

“The introduction of sharia is a longstanding goal for Islamist movements globally, including in Western countries, but attempts to impose sharia have been accompanied by controversy,[9] violence,[10] and even warfare.[11] Most countries do not recognize sharia; however, some countries in Asia, Africa and Europe recognize sharia and use it as the basis for divorce, inheritance and other personal affairs of their Islamic population.[12] In Britain, the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal makes use of sharia family law to settle disputes, and this limited adoption of sharia is controversial.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia

At the same time that sharia is spreading like a cancer, a massive misinformation campaign is underway to declare the “God” of the world’s three monotheistic religions to be one and the same.  Nothing could be further from the truth, but it doesn’t stop people from falling for the lie, or for killing for it. Those who kill on behalf of Islam claim to be doing God’s will. If the lie of “three religions, one God” gains enough adherents and sharia is successfully installed as the law in formerly Christian lands, those who oppose it will then become Public Enemy #1. That would be us. Get informed, and be prepared.