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WHEN YOU TAKE GOD SERIOUSLY
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, January 13, 2024 – Jesus didn’t spend his ministry looking for people who didn’t believe in God and trying to get them to believe. That wasn’t his aim or purpose. Jesus spent his ministry inviting people who already believed to commit to the highest level of belief that encompassed every aspect of their lives.
What he essentially did was to invite people to take God seriously.
As followers of Jesus, we should not only be taking God seriously but aiming to get others to take him seriously, too. We do this not by threatening them (as some religions do) but by reminding them of Jesus’ teachings.
What does it look like when you take God seriously?
First and foremost, you totally and willingly submit to God. You don’t submit 50% or 75% or even 99% – you submit 100%. When you take God seriously, you take him at his Word, which means you keep his Commandments, the first of which is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You don’t love God just a little bit or when it’s convenient for you, or just on Sundays for an hour during church service. You love him 24/7. You fall asleep thinking about God, you wake up thinking about God, and he’s on your mind all day long. God and Jesus are your constant companions, through God’s Holy Spirit that you received at your rebirth, and you do nothing without their prompting. Jesus said he only did what the Father showed him to do and only what pleased the Father. Jesus didn’t dream up this or that scheme and then run it by God for his approval; he waited for God to show him what to do. We’re to do the same.
When you take God seriously, you understand that he means business. Yes, God is loving and merciful, but he’s also just, which means he dictates and approves vengeance. The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament. They are not different gods, as some would have you believe. The God who incinerated two of Aaron’s sons for burning incense to demons and then forbid Aaron to mourn them is the same God who lovingly called down from Heaven that Jesus is his son and we should listen to him. The same God who directed the children of Israel, under Joshua, to stone Achan and all his family to death and then to burn their corpses and heap rocks on their remains is the same God who sent his Holy Spirit to baptize the disciples at Pentecost. The same God who utterly and without remorse destroyed Sodom is the same God who lovingly nurtured John the Baptist in the wilderness.
What this means is that unless we want to end up like Aaron’s sons or Achan and his family or the people of Sodom, we need to take God seriously and thoroughly understand that he means business. It’s not enough to say that “God loves me” and “God is merciful” and “Jesus died for our sins so I’m covered” and then go on our merry way, living the life of the world. The hypocrites, as Jesus pointed out, thought that being children of Abraham was their spiritual covering and automatic ticket to Heaven, but they were dead wrong. We’re also dead wrong if we think that being followers of Jesus is our spiritual covering and automatic ticket to Heaven or that “pleading the blood of Jesus” is going to be a sufficient defense on Judgement Day.
Trust me – the last thing you’ll want to find out at the Judgement is that you are indeed judged on your every word, thought, and deed, just like Jesus warned us we would be. The devil is working overtime to get you to believe that’s not the case, that all you need is “faith” and to throw a little charity here and there and you’re good to go. The devil would have you believe that the Commandments are old school and optional, and that all that matters is “love”. He’s fooled a lot of people in that regard. I hope you’re not one of them.
When you take God seriously, your life looks nothing like the life of the world. You understand that, like Jesus, your time is short and you’re here only to do what God sends you to do. You don’t make long-term plans or any plans at all: You’re entirely in God’s hands. Also like Jesus, you don’t marry or have romantic relationships but instead become a eunuch for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. That doesn’t mean you cut off your genitals; it means you live as if you don’t have any. If you’re married, you leave your spouse. You don’t divorce, you separate. A spouse will only take your focus off God. So will children. You live celibately and without ties, attachments, or dependents. You don’t have a mortgage and you don’t have credit cards. You don’t take out loans. You owe nothing to anyone. You don’t own a house or land. If you have a job, you don’t have a boss. You work just enough to earn your daily bread and with the understanding that you might have to stop working from one day to the next. Your job is not your priority; your family is not your priority; your possessions are not your priority: God is your priority.
When you take God seriously, nothing written here shocks you or unsettles you. You agree with every word and see yourself reflected not in the hypocrites or in Achan and his family, but in Jesus. When you take God seriously, you respond with enthusiasm to his invitation to take your commitment to the highest level and you send God your RSVP right away; you don’t make excuses as to why you can’t or won’t: You simply do it.
When you take God seriously, spending all day, every day, with him and Jesus is not an obligation or an imposition: It’s pure pleasure. It’s life itself, outside which there is no life.
When you take God seriously, you do the right thing for no other reason than it is the right thing. You treat everyone as you would want to be treated, no exceptions. And if you fall short of these aims (and you will, we all do; only Jesus didn’t) – if you fall short, you make your amends and you keep going. You don’t wallow in self-pity or self-loathing; you don’t tear out your hair and berate yourself publicly or privately; you don’t make excuses or point fingers of blame: you make your amends and you keep going.
When you take God seriously, your life is blessed morning, noon, and night, wherever you are and wherever you go. You’re the happiest creature on Earth, when you take God seriously.
ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS
CHARLO, New Brunswick, January 9, 2024 – Beginnings are not always at the start, but they always come after an ending. There is a clear dividing line between ending and beginning. Spiritual rebirth doesn’t happen at physical birth; but if and when it does happen, it designates an ending of that soul’s cursed life and the beginning of its blessed one. The two lives don’t overlap. The parting of the Red Sea and the parting of the Jordan allowed for the mass movement of the children of Israel from an ending to a beginning, the narrow passage through each body of water not unlike a birth canal. The children of Israel were birthed into their new life in the wilderness at the parting of the Red Sea and then later birthed into their new life in the promised land at the parting of the River Jordan.
We were birthed into our new life at conversion. We left behind whoever and whatever we were to become whole new creatures – children of God. We’re not born children of God, we’re reborn children of God, and that by the power of God’s Holy Spirit. The ending of our old ungraced life powered by demons and the beginning of our new life of grace powered by God’s Spirit mark a definitive ending and beginning; there is no overlap. There can be no overlap, as God’s Spirit will not occupy the same soul that demons occupy and God’s Spirit can enter into a soul only once. If that soul loses grace, God’s Spirit will not re-enter it. The state of being after God’s Spirit has exited a soul Jesus describes as better not having been born at all. The exit of God’s Spirit from a soul is a definitive ending that is followed by the beginning of that soul’s eternal perdition, from which there is no escape and no end.
The Bible begins with a description of an earthly paradise and ends with a description of a heavenly one. The tree of life features prominently in both. In the beginning, the tree is guarded and prohibited; in the ending, it grows abundantly and is offered freely for the healing of the nations. If you’re reborn, you have eaten from the tree of life and have been healed.
You need to end what you are not in order to begin who you are. The world, from the time of our birth, molds us into something we were never meant to be. Note that I’m talking here about most people, not everyone. Most of us, for a time, allowed ourselves to be molded into what the world wanted us to be, not realizing that the world was under Satan. Very few escape the molding process. We called demonic influence “inspiration” and satanic-level rebellion “freedom”, not knowing any better, not knowing Truth. God knows this and doesn’t hold it against us. He allows for blaspheming of him and Jesus when we don’t know any better, but once we’re under his authority and graced with his Holy Spirit, we’re held to a higher standard that we dare not violate. Truth be told, we wouldn’t dream of violating it, because we know the Truth as God, and knowing God (as Jesus promised us) has made us free.
We love God with a fierceness we never thought ourselves capable of.
The ending of this life will lead to the beginning of the next that will have no end, whether in Heaven or the lake of fire. Every breath we take here – every word, every deed, every thought – moves us towards either Paradise or perdition. God doesn’t move us; we move ourselves. It is not enough to say: “We have Jesus as our savior”, any more than it was enough to say: “We have Abraham as our Father”. The fruit of our doings is either good or bad and we are judged on that – not on a description of what we hope our fruit might be, but on our actual fruit, with all its bruising and imperfection.
I want to hold God’s hand and protect him. I want to shield him from the cursing that spills so easily from the mouths of some people. When they’re around me, they curse more than usual and confess to doing so, not understanding why. If I told them why they wouldn’t believe me, so I just silently bless them as they blaspheme. This is the lot of God’s children. The same people who have no trouble respecting my earthly father have no trouble disrespecting my heavenly one.
I will end when it’s time and begin where I deserve. In the meantime, every second counts.
FROM THE HEART: THE CONVERSION OF THE PRIEST IN THE EXORCIST
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, July 20, 2023 – Growing up an atheist, I loved watching horror films. One of my favourites was The Exorcist, which I saw several times. I didn’t know then what drew me to that particular film (or why I cheered for the demon rather than the little girl [lol]), but now I know. I also recall being struck by certain scenes which have stuck with me ever since. These weren’t the more infamous scenes, like the head-spinning or levitation, but rather (and oddly, in retrospect) quieter moments that were not at all demonic.
One of these quiet scenes that struck me and then stuck with me over the years was where the priest pours his bottle of liquor down the drain. He’d been having a crisis of faith and had turned to alcohol as a comfort. But after he witnessed Regan’s full-on demonic possession, his crisis came to a screeching halt and out the booze went in one fell swoop. He’d been instantaneously and miraculously healed of his alcoholism.
I recalled this scene tonight when I was reading some comments under a YouTube video. The comments were from people who claimed to be born-again but were fighting addictions such as alcohol or drugs. I couldn’t help but think that if these people truly were born-again and therefore truly believed not only in God but in the existence of evil, they would know first and foremost to go to God for help, and he would help them. That was my first thought.
My second thought was the scene in The Exorcist where the priest pours his liquor down the drain. I remember how the tenor of the movie shifted after that scene. In layman’s terms, “sh*t got real”, and what had been for the priest a theoretical belief became a real belief. He’d witnessed evil so up close and personal that he could no longer deny its existence. In witnessing evil face-to-face, he finally came to believe in everything he’d been taught in seminary; that is, he finally believed in God.
When the God-penny dropped for the priest and he became a believer, nothing else mattered to him but acting on that belief. He’d already been equipped with the tools of his priestly trade so he knew what he had to do to deal with the demon, and off he immediately went to do it.
What does this priest have to do with us? Well, comparing this scene in the movie with the comments I read on YouTube, I’m wondering how many people who say they’re born-again actually believe in God. Because, to my mind, if they actually believed in God, they’d be like the priest who just poured the booze down the drain and that was that. No more addiction. I guess what I’m trying to say is that many people seem to have a head belief in God but not a heart belief. They want to believe, they think they believe, but their lives and their fears belie their belief.
When you truly believe in God, you’re like Jesus. You’re like Moses after he saw the burning bush. You’re like Elijah or any of the prophets in the Old Testament. You’re like Paul. What I mean is that God is your whole life and doing his will is what motivates you. You don’t have to force yourself to do it, like an obligation – you want to do it. You might even have to be held back for a time, like Jesus was, so strong is your desire to serve God.
Yes, you might still want to do things that you want to do, but if they’re not God’s will for you, you don’t do them. You don’t even think about doing them after God lets you know they’re not his will for you. If you truly believe in God with a heart belief rather than just a head belief, then you don’t have addictions. Why? Because an addiction is an idol that you worship and bow down to. You cannot bow down to an idol and truly believe in God at the same time. It’s not possible.
That quiet scene with the priest pouring his beloved booze down the drain shows what it means to truly believe in God, which is why I’m of the opinion that most people who say they believe, don’t actually believe.
I haven’t watched The Exorcist since I was born-again 23 years ago. Maybe I should watch it again, just to check that scene, to make sure it was as I represented it here. One thing I do know for sure, though, if I do decide to watch the movie again – I won’t be cheering for the demon this time! 😊
HEALING THROUGH EXORCISM
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 4, 2023 – We are allegedly in the midst of a mental health crisis. This is how the mainstream media is labeling it – a “mental health crisis”. Having collectively turned their backs on God, most people living in former Christendom have no concept of demons or what spiritual oppression looks like. So those in positions of authority call it a mental health crisis and try to shock, counsel, incarcerate, or drug the demon-oppressed person into some semblance of health. Of course, these approaches don’t work, because the more you try to suppress a demon, the more it will call for back-up, which means the oppressed person will get worse and worse until finally succumbing to full possession or suicide.
The book of Revelation tells us of the time when Hell will empty out and every disembodied fallen spirit ever created will roam the earth, looking for a body to possess. It also says that no matter how bad things get at that time, people will still refuse to repent and will continue with the same sinful behavior that got them into their spiritual mess and vulnerability to demons in the first place.
We’re not at that point in Revelation yet (thank God), but we’re getting closer every day. Demons are gaining an upper hand in the lives of more and more people. Yet these same people, these demon-oppressed and occasionally possessed people, are our neighbours, our family members, or even our friends, and they need our help. They don’t know the kind of help they need – some don’t know they need help at all – but spiritual help is the only thing that can heal them.
How do you get people to ask for the kind of help that they don’t even know they need?
Jesus, during his ministry years, spent most of his time healing sick people, and the majority of those who were sick were demon-oppressed or possessed. There was an understanding among the general public at that time that demons were at the root of most health problems, so people actively sought out Jesus and his disciples, begging to be healed.
Spiritual rebirth is an exorcism. During the rebirth process, the spirits of the world (that is, demons) are expelled and God’s Holy Spirit enters in. No demon can share a soul with God’s Spirit; a soul can house only holy or unholy, not both types of spirit simultaneously. This process of exorcism happened to me and was confirmed by God to have happened, when later that same day, after reading the verse about seven devils being driven out of Mary Magdalene, I was told by God that he’d done the same to me, only there were a lot more than seven.
Exorcism nowadays has devolved into the stuff of horror movies or the confessions of renegade priests on YouTube looking for attention (and donations). But Jesus cast out demons as a matter of course, all in a day’s work AND WITHOUT PAY, and so did his disciples. Exorcism was part of their job description. People came to them specifically requesting that type of healing.
Fast-forward to today, and we see in Canada that it’s now illegal (as of 2022) to perform an exorcism under what the federal government calls “conversion therapy”. This should not be surprising, considering that Canada has become a posterchild for how fast a former Christian nation can devolve into godlessness. Canada is now officially a secular (atheist) nation, with more unbelievers than believers. Back when I was seven years old and started calling myself an atheist, I was in a very very tiny minority in Canada.
How fast we’ve fallen as a nation.
Exorcism heals. I know that, because it healed me at my rebirth 24 years ago. All the pain I’d accumulated since I was a child disappeared in an instant and has not come back. Exorcism is a casting out of demons from a soul, to be replaced by God’s Holy Spirit. God himself had to perform the exorcism on me, since no-one else offered to do it. In my pain, I cried out for help from the depths of my soul, but God was the only one who heard.
We, as born-again believers, who ourselves have been exorcised of the spirits of the world (or else wouldn’t be born-again), need to hear the cries of the demon-oppressed calling out for help. We need to hear them, and we need to help them. These people are everywhere, all around us. And like Jesus, we need to let them know we’re here and that we can help them. People traveled vast distances to get to Jesus for healing because they’d heard he could help them. They had faith in him that he could help them. We need to build that same faith in people today that they can come to us for healing. And we need to be ready and able to help them when they do.
I believe that demons are at the root of most people’s problems. We’re not in a mental health crisis, we’re in a spiritual health crisis. Sin opens the door to demons, and they let themselves in and make themselves at home. Once in a soul, the only way that demons will leave is either through the death of the host or exorcism.
Most people didn’t initially come to Jesus to hear the Gospel: They came to be healed. Then, after they were healed, they were open to receiving the Gospel. This is not surprising to me, since the first thing I did after God exorcised me was to reach for a Bible and read the four gospels for the first time in my life. I read them all in one sitting, and I haven’t stop reading them since.
If your notion of exorcism is still based on Hollywood’s version, you need to read and reread the gospels. And then you need to ask God to help you heal the spiritually sick the way that Jesus and his first disciples did.
For us born-again believers, exorcism is part of our job description.
FROM HORROR TO LOVE: The Story of King Manasseh
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, July 4, 2021 – Being under the power of Satan can lead you to do some horrible things.
I knew this intimately before I was born-again because I did horrible things myself, and now, since my rebirth, I see those horrible things being done by others.
But some take the horror to extremes, like Manasseh, King of Judah.
We know from scripture that Manasseh was the son of Hezekiah. He co-reigned with his dad from the age of 12, and then became king upon Hezekiah’s death. We also know from scripture that Hezekiah did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, but that Manasseh did that which was evil, overturning, for a time, all of Hezekiah’s reforms.
If you don’t know the story of King Hezekiah and his son Manasseh, please take a few moments to read through 2 Chronicles 29-33:20.
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God is patient. Even in the face of extreme evil, God gives people time to repent of the horror they inflict on others. God has also promised to look after the children and children’s children and children’s children’s children of those who love him and keep his Commandments.
The prophet Isaiah was related to Manasseh on his mother’s side. Some sources claim that Isaiah was Manasseh’s maternal grandfather. Isaiah was a very great prophet in the eyes of the Lord and also greatly beloved by Jesus. In fact, Jesus quoted a passage from Isaiah when he publicly came out as the Messiah in his home synagogue in Nazareth. Isaiah’s prophecies speak intimately and personally of Jesus.
And yet Manasseh, while under the spell of evil, had the prophet Isaiah, his grandfather, sawed in half with a wood saw.
Let that sink in for a moment.
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God is patient. He was with me and still is with me. But God was also patient with Manasseh, even despite all the horror he unleashed on his people, including his grandfather. As a reward for his evil, Manasseh was captured by the Assyrians and imprisoned.
While in prison, weighed down by heavy chains and the full horror of his sins, Manasseh cried out to God, and God heard him. Manasseh then repented of his evil, and God forgave him.
As a token of his forgiveness, God released Manasseh from the Assyrian prison and reinstated him as King of Judah. Manasseh then spent the remainder of his reign undoing all the evil he had done, faithfully keeping his promise to God and showing the sincerity of his repentance.
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The story of King Manasseh is intertwined with the story of the prophet Isaiah, his grandfather, and the story of King Hezekiah, his father. It starts out as a horror story, but then turns into a love story showing God’s great mercy and forgiveness. We don’t hear much about Manasseh’s conversion from evil to good, but we should. It’s a reminder that God looks after the children and children’s children and children’s children’s children, and so on, of those who do God’s will and die in God’s grace. It is also a reminder of God’s great mercy even to those who do profound evil to those who die in God’s grace.
As a final gesture of humility, King Manasseh requested that he be buried in the grounds of his own house rather than in the City of David, where kings traditionally were buried.
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I know that if I make it home to Heaven, I will find Manasseh there among the living, and that all the horror he did before his conversion will have been forgotten by everyone there, including God, just as what I did will be forgotten. Here on Earth, we still read about the horrors inflicted by Manasseh before his conversion because we need to learn from his mistakes, just as we need to learn from the mistakes of others and (hopefully) from our own. At the same time, we need to take hope in how Manasseh found forgiveness through sincere repentance, and how he made good on that repentance for the rest of his life.
Manasseh’s is a horror story that turned into a love story with a happily-ever-after ending. I pray that our stories – however they started out – will end the same.
SIMPLE
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, July 16, 2016 – A few years back, I dropped in on a church service in suburban Toronto. The “church” was a small dilapidated building (a converted cottage, I think) and only a few people were in attendance. The service was short, but at the end of the official proceedings, the minister asked if anyone had any prayer petitions they’d like to present. There was an awkward silence, and then a middle-aged woman sitting a few rows behind me slowly got to her feet. She nervously cleared her throat, cupped her hands palms upward in classic Muslim prayer style, and started to recite a litany of words. (more…)
KEEP IT REAL
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, July 14, 2016 – There are lots of things I like about how Jesus carried out his ministry 2000 years ago, but one of my favourites is how he kept it real.
He wasn’t trying to be something he wasn’t, and he wasn’t trying not to be something he was.
Take, for instance, how he dealt with the Pharisees. They invited him to dinner on occasion because they had a morbid curiosity about him, but they certainly didn’t like him. Nor did Jesus like them, and he didn’t pretend to. Even as he sat eating their food and drinking their wine, he told them exactly what he thought of them. (more…)
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 