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LOT’S SONS-IN-LAW AND THE CANADIAN WILDFIRES
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, July 6, 2023 – I read the Bible several times a year, and each time I read it, something new jumps out at me, something I’d noticed before but hadn’t really taken to heart, something God put there for me to see and use at a specific time and in a specific place.
Lot’s sons-in-laws are a case in point. How many times have you read about Lot’s escape from Sodom and not given his sons-in-law a passing thought? For me, it’s been quite a few times. Mind you, the sons-in-law only appear in one chapter and only as minor characters, so it’s understandable if we overlook them.
What do we know know about Lot’s sons-in-law and why do they matter now? We know they thought Lot was joking when he told them Sodom was about to be destroyed and they needed to leave immediately. We know they laughed at him. We know that when Lot did leave, only his wife and two daughters went with him and that they were dragged out by the two angels, since even Lot himself seemed reluctant to go.
But the angels didn’t grab the sons-in-law when whisking the rest away. Why is that? Why were the sons-in-law left behind?
Scripture doesn’t tell us outright why the angels left them behind. But we do know that the rescue was carried out as a favour to Abraham, who’d earlier interceded with God for Sodom on behalf of his nephew Lot. So the angels, when they arrived in Sodom, were on a rescue mission. They had no intention of trying to save souls at that point, just the bodies of the souls that had been granted God’s mercy. In other words, they weren’t there to preach repentance; they were there to get Lot and his brood the heck out of Dodge.
The older I get and the stronger I grow in faith, the more I realize that there’s a time for preaching and a time to get out of Dodge. Those two times are definitive and should never be confused. Scripture is clear that God’s mercy has a use-by date. We see this in the flood narrative, as well as in Ezekiel 9, in the sacking of Jerusalem under King Zedekiah, and in the book of Revelation. And we also see it very clearly in the full-scale destruction of Sodom.
Jesus tells us that we as his followers should live as he did – with our “loins girded”, which means we should be ready to leave wherever and whatever at a moment’s notice. There are no exceptions to this directive. Leaving at a moment’s notice necessarily implies leaving everything (and possibly everyone) behind. That can be the hard part.
That, for some, is the deal-breaker.
There are currently several wildfires burning out of control in Canada. Most of these fires are in remote forest locations, but a few are burning near communities. As of today, thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes and forbidden to return until the all-clear is given. Some of the evacuees were not at home when the fires broke out and the mandatory evacuation zones declared, so they had to leave all their valuables, including their house-bound pets, behind. This can be emotionally devastating.
When Lot was hauled out of Sodom by the angels, he could take nothing with him but the clothes on his back. All his possessions – which were extensive, he was a very rich man – were lost when Sodom was obliterated. Scripture doesn’t say, but it’s highly likely that even before the angels showed up, Lot had been warned already by God to get the heck out of Sodom. Lot shows by his conversation with the Sodomites that he was fully aware of how evil the place was, and yet he continued to live there.
The hundreds of wildfires burning out of control across Canada have prompted local governments to issue warnings about evacuation alerts that may come at any moment, day or night. The Lots living in the fire zones have long since been hauled out of the ever-shifting path of the flames, while the sons-in-law are still there and continuing their lives as if there are no fires. Like their Biblical namesakes, they probably don’t even believe there is any danger, so if and when the government’s emergency evacuation order does blare from their phones, they’ll likely just hit mute, roll over, and fall back to sleep. In Sodom, Lot’s sons-in-law were likely still asleep when the fire and brimstone started falling on them and were incinerated in their beds.
Jesus told us to watch. He also told us to live our lives with our loins girded, ever ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Lot’s sons-in-law are a cautionary tale of what not to do when God gives you the signal to go. You don’t question the directive and you certainly don’t laugh at or ignore it. You should at all times be mentally prepared to walk away from everything and everyone the instant you’re directed to do so by God. It can be a difficult directive to obey, but your body and soul depend on your obeying it.
As we know from the sad and sorry tale of Sodom, God’s refining fire can purify or it can devour.
PRAY FOR YOU
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, June 17, 2023 – In praying for others (which I know you do every day, even several times a day), don’t forget to pray for yourself. We often overlook our own prayer needs in focusing on the needs of others, but God wants us to let him know what we need. He invites us to let him know. He urges us to let him know. In fact, he stops just short of making it a Commandment. Jesus says: “Ye have not because ye ask not.” We need to ask God not only to protect and strengthen those we pray for, but also to protect and strengthen us. We should never presume God’s protection; we need to pray for it, just as we need to pray to God to protect others.
Jesus says that, in praying for ourselves, we should ask God to take us Home before the “test”, which most people call the tribulation. So, in following Jesus’ advice, we pray to God to take us Home before the tribulation starts. In case he chooses not to take us Home but rather to let us go through the test, we also need to pray for his protection and strength to endure it. We should never presume God’s protection, not now nor during the tribulation; we should always pray for it.
So today, and tomorrow, and the day after that and so on, when you pray for others, take a moment to pray for yourself, too. Pray for God’s continued guidance and protection and pray for him to strengthen you to endure whatever he sees fit for you to endure, which you know ultimately will be for your benefit.
Never presume God’s protection, but always – ALWAYS – have faith that he will provide it, even before your prayers leave your lips.
ITCHING FOR A JIM JONES-STYLE REVIVAL: A WORD ON CHRISTIANS AND SUICIDE
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, June 4, 2023 – Someone sent me a YouTube video yesterday featuring a pastor telling his flock it’s OK to commit suicide as long as you have faith in Jesus, because faith in Jesus is all you need to get into Heaven. It was cartoon video, and I thought at first it was a parody of Jim Jones, the guy who counselled his followers to kill themselves by drinking a Kool-Aid-like concoction laced with cyanide. But no, the video wasn’t a parody. The pastor was teaching his flock that God is fine with them killing themselves.
But here’s what God actually has to say about Christians and suicide.
First of all, Jesus tells us not to judge, which in this case would mean not to say whether someone who commits suicide will or won’t get into Heaven. A soul’s final destination is determined by God, not by man, and certainly not by doctrines of men. To say that all those who have “faith in Jesus” automatically have a ticket to Heaven is a form of judging. It’s as much judging to claim that someone will get into Heaven as to say someone won’t. Both claims are judging, and we’ve been warned not to do that.
At the same time, Jesus also taught us that, at the Judgement, we’ll be held accountable for everything we do and say during our time on Earth, and Paul tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. These lines from scripture don’t in any way indicate that anyone has an automatic ticket to Heaven, no matter how strong their faith in Jesus.
In any case, how can people claim to have faith in Jesus and at the same time want to kill themselves? The two positions – faith in Jesus and suicidal intentions – cancel each other out. If we have faith in Jesus, we’ll want to be like Jesus, and Jesus was in no way suicidal.
The pastor on what I now think of as the “Jim Jones video” also trotted out Paul’s statement that we’re saved by grace, not by works. However, what the pastor didn’t mention was that the works Paul was contrasting to grace in that particular verse were the works of the law (the 600+ statutes and ordinances given to the children of Israel by Moses), not the 600+ choices we make every day with our free will. Jesus and Paul and others throughout the Bible are abundantly clear that our works (that is, everything we choose to say and everything we choose to do, including the thoughts we choose to think) are being monitored and recorded in the spiritual realm. We’ll be held accountable for those at the Judgement.
It’s also worth noting that the pastor didn’t define grace. Had he defined grace, it would have upended his argument about suicidal people getting into Heaven, which I guess is why he chose not to define it. Grace is the state of living with God’s Holy Spirit with you 24/7. It is a gift that God confers through conversion. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross reconciled us to God not by default but only if we willfully submit to God like little children, repent, and are genuinely converted. Again, first comes the willful submission and repentance, then comes the conversion, and then comes God’s Holy Spirit into our soul.
When we’re converted, Jesus and God come to live with us through the Holy Spirit. This is the state of living in grace. But after conversion we still have free will and so still need to make godly and righteous choices for the rest of our time on Earth or we’ll push God and Jesus out of our soul. Grace can be lost, as the fallen entities well know and as Jesus warned us in the parable of the man who was “swept clean” and then later became so full of evil that his end was worse than his beginning. Anyone who claims that grace cannot be lost is dead wrong. God and Jesus cannot live in a soul where sin has command, and the potential for sin to have command in a soul persists (due to free will) as long as that soul, whether converted or not, remains on Earth.
Furthermore, and this needs to be said loud and clear – someone who contemplates committing suicide is not by definition a Christian. The definition of a Christian is someone who is born-again and so lives under God’s grace and has the companionship and guidance of God and Jesus 24/7. Entertaining (that is mulling over) the possibility of suicide is A BIG RED FLAG that the soul is not under grace. Such a soul urgently needs to submit to God, repent, and be converted. No genuine born-again follower of Jesus would under any circumstance entertain thoughts of suicide (including assisted suicide), let alone actually do it.
As I mentioned, a genuine Christian has God and Jesus with him or her 24/7. When you have the constant presence of God and Jesus with you, contemplating suicide never comes to mind, or if it does, it’s knocked back so fast, your head spins. Any problems you encounter, you take them immediately to God and Jesus and they help you work them out. That’s God’s promise to you and that’s their job. As a born-again believer for over 23 years, I can vouch for this. Before I was born-again, I constantly thought about killing myself, but since my rebirth, I have never again thought about suicide.
Most people contemplate suicide as a way out of their spiritual (emotional) pain. Spiritual pain is a sign that a soul is in sin. Souls that are in sin cannot get into Heaven, not because God is keeping them out, but because their sin, as evidenced by their spiritual pain, is keeping them out. Scripture reminds us over and over that it is sin that separates a soul from God. That is a basic spiritual fact.
Again, we’re not to judge – God is the judge – but God’s given us enough rules and examples in his Word, along with a Spirit of Truth and wisdom and understanding, that we can easily discern right from wrong. Any pastor who teaches that it’s OK for a Christian to commit suicide because “once saved, always saved” and that it’s all about “faith in Jesus” rather than our relationship with God and what we choose to think, say, and do during our time on Earth – well, such a pastor will find out the hard way, I guess, what happens to you when you teach lies. “It’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
To sum up, Jesus tells us not to judge, which means not to claim that this or that particular soul will or won’t go to Heaven. God is the Judge. Also, there’s no such thing as a suicidal Christian. People who are contemplating committing suicide are in a state of sin. They need to get right with God and then they’ll actually become Christians and live under God’s protective and healing state of grace. Under grace, all thoughts of suicide automatically stop, including thoughts of assisted suicide. Those thoughts will not come back as long as that person remains under grace.
Jesus invited us to drink the water of life, not the dregs of death, and definitely not the Kool-Aid.
__________
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine;
but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
2 Timothy 4:3-4
THE DEMONS IN THE BASEMENT
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 24, 2023 – Years ago, when I was much younger and even more foolish than I am today, I used to hitchhike back and forth between Halifax and Vancouver in the summertime. I did it so often, it became like an annual pilgrimage to the west coast. During one of those pilgrimages, I got picked up by a young man, probably in his mid-20s, who took me to his basement apartment just outside Calgary. I spent the night there.
The apartment was filthy and had a strange stench that I could not identify. What looked like leftover meat was rotting on plates here and there around the kitchen and living room. I don’t remember much beyond the filth and mess and strange, strange smell. The place was very dim and the only functioning light was the hall light. Shortly after we arrived, I remember telling the guy I was tired and wanted to get to sleep early so I could leave first thing in the morning and try to make it to Vancouver by nightfall.
The guy led me to a small bedroom with a single bed and left me there alone. I laid down with my clothes still on and fell into a restless sleep that was punctuated every so often by the guy standing at the bedroom door, silhouetted by the hall light, asking if he could come into the room and ‘sleep’ with me (for decorum’s sake, I won’t use his exact words here). Every time he asked, I told him “No”, and he went away. This bizarre ritual went on all night, too many times to count.
At daybreak, groggy but determined to get the heck out of that apartment, I got up and gathered my few things together to leave. The guy was already up and sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me. I think he’d been sitting there all night. Without saying a word to each other, we left the apartment, got into his car, and drove to the closest highway onramp, where he pulled over and let me out.
I thanked him for the lift and for letting me spend the night at his place. He stared straight ahead as if he didn’t hear me and then drove off without saying a word.
I never saw him again.
Years later, for what I thought was the first time in my life, I was exposed to a dead human body that had begun to putrefy. The smell of the rotting corpse immediately took me back to that basement apartment all those years ago and the strange smell that I could not at the time identify. I finally knew what it was.
My hitchhiking as a teenager and young adult had exposed me to many dangerous scenarios that I was too naïve and foolish to understand were dangerous. But that man constantly asking my permission to come into the room to rape me was among the strangest of all the bizarre situations I’d ever found myself in. Until I was born-again, I didn’t understand why he didn’t just come into the bedroom and rape me, why he kept asking my permission to enter the room. Now I understand that he needed me to say “Yes” in order to break through the spiritual safety net that even as an unbeliever was all around me. I didn’t put the net there; God did, on behalf of the few people in my life who were praying for me.
The demons in the guy could not get past that spiritual barrier without my permission, which even in my youthful atheistic foolishness I wasn’t about to give.
I recalled this incident today after reading about a young man in Lethbridge, not far from Calgary, who’d held a woman captive in his basement for days, repeatedly raping her. I thought: There was a woman who had no safety net of prayers around her, not from her own prayers or the prayers of those who love her. I had no idea at the time that I was being protected by the prayers of my loved ones, but I know now that I was. God honored their prayers and protected me, even when I didn’t believe in him, even when I persecuted those who were praying for me.
We need to be reminded every now and then about the power of the prayers of God’s children. These prayers are the most powerful force in the universe because they allow God to directly intervene. I experienced that power as an unbeliever, when I was rescued on umpteen occasions from being raped and abducted or otherwise molested during my hitchhiking days. The strangeness of the protection, at the time, and how I escaped in ways that to me and to those who witnessed it defied logic, puzzled me for years until my rebirth. When I was born-again, I finally understood.
Please pray for those you know who need your prayers. They may not be believers and they may hate your guts but please pray for them. The safety net of my loved one’s prayers played a critical role in keeping me alive long enough to realize the error of my ways and turn back to God. I might not still be here – even worse, I might not be born-again – had it not been for those prayers.
Please pray for your loved ones, especially for the naïve and foolish ones who’ve lost their way. Your prayers may be the only thing standing between them and the demons.
A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT: SOWING SEEDS WITH GOD
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 8, 2023 – The strangest thing is, I don’t remember saying it. I mean, I must have said it, otherwise this person wouldn’t have told me how much it meant to her and how it made her look at her situation differently. I must have said it; I just don’t remember saying it.
This is how it is sometimes when you minister to people. You have no idea what will stick and what won’t, what will sprout and what won’t, what will mean something to someone and what won’t. The funny thing is that when you think you’ve said something that will resonate, you find that no-one paid any attention.
But God did. God hears everything you say and he sees everything you do. So everything you say and everything you do he can work with to your credit. He can use your unwitting labour to tend his fields, and then reward you with the fruit.
Sometimes you’re just throwing seeds to the wind, not knowing if even one of them will eventually sprout. But you have to do it; you have to sow your seeds into the cold dark silent earth, praying for rain, praying for heat and sunlight, praying that something eventually will grow. You have to do it because it’s your job description as a born-again believer. And strangely, the more you do it, the more you find you can’t not do it.
It’s a great mystery, sowing into God’s Kingdom. Jesus told us to go out into all the world and preach the Good News, so here we are, going out into all the world (mostly via the Internet) and preaching the Good News. But who knows who’ll hear us, who’ll read us, and most of all, who knows what will stick, what will sprout, and what will grow roots deep enough to endure to the end?
Sometimes I think about my labours thus far in the Kingdom – 24 years’ worth – and all I see is someone dropping seeds hither, thither, and yon. Dropping seeds and hoping and praying. But that’s our job. God only expects us to do our job, nothing more. If we do our job (dropping seeds hither, thither, and yon), God can take it from there. He can take our most bizarre and unlikely seed-sowing effort and turn it into a conversion, like a mustard seed turns into a bush as big as a tree. We just never know what will sprout. That’s the wonderful part about it – never knowing the impact our words and deeds have on others, because it’s not our efforts doing the impacting, it’s God moving through them in his mysterious way.
I’m not a fan of the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” (horrible depiction of a holy angel!), but I like the part where Jimmy Stewart’s character finds out how much he’s positively impacted people’s lives. He’d just stumbled through his days like most of us do, trying his best to do his best under whatever circumstance, never realizing (until he does) how important his humble contributions have been to the lives of his family, his friends, his colleagues, his community, and beyond.
If he hadn’t had the spiritual crisis that formed the fulcrum of the movie, he may never have found out how big his mustard bush was.
So we need to keep on keepin’ on with our ministering, whatever form it takes, knowing that as long as we do our part (sow the seeds), God will do the rest (water them, germinate them, sprout them, tend them, etc.). We need to have faith and keep going, even if we see no discernible fruit from our efforts.
Because at some point, someone’s going to come up to you and thank you for what you said to them, and you won’t have a clue what they’re talking about, even as you nod and smile. And when that happens, you’ll know that God did his mysterious ways thing again but is giving you all the credit, and that of all the seeds that you sowed over all the years, at least one sprouted.
And that has made all the difference.
WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE?
NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario, November 17, 2022 – You say you’re a believer, but what is it exactly that you believe?
Some people believe that Jesus is the Christ; some don’t.
Some people believe that God answers all prayers; some don’t.
Some people believe that simply claiming to be a Christian is enough to get you into to Heaven; some don’t.
Some people can’t articulate their beliefs at all when you ask them what they believe. Some look confused. Some go blank. Some shy away. Some get belligerent and demand to know What kind of a question is that?!? Some lower their eyes and say nothing.
The rest usually just change the subject.
What about you? What do you believe?
If you were standing before God’s throne right now and God asked you what you believe, what would you say? You can’t lie to God. You can’t not answer God, not when you’re standing before his throne. So what would you say?
I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I do want to put a bee in your bonnet and plant a seed in your heart. If you can’t easily articulate what it is that you believe, you need to start thinking about it. You need to start praying on it. You need to ask God’s help.
Because some day someone is going to ask you what you believe, and you’re going to need to answer without hesitation and with rock-solid conviction.
Could you do that now?
*****
For centuries, believers were spoon-fed their beliefs in the form of creeds they had to memorize and recite in unison along with everyone else. A group of men would get together every now and then and decide what other people needed to believe, word-for-word. Anyone who refused to swallow and regurgitate the creed on command was deemed a heretic and cast out of the church, in much the same way as those who believed in Jesus during his ministry years were cast out of the synagogue.
The problem with creeds is that they mix lies into the truth. The devil is very adept at doing that. So believers see the truth in the creed and then tend to overlook the lies, suffering from a kind of selective spiritual blindness. I don’t think they recite the lies knowing they’re lies, they just don’t believe them to be true.
I was taught a creed soon after I became a born-again believer. And then I was taught another creed. And another. Every church has its own creed that attendees have to recite at some point during the service. It’s like an anthem, but spoken instead of sung. Most people honestly don’t pay much attention to the words of a creed, any more than they pay attention to the words of an anthem. Maybe if they did pay attention to the words, they’d speak them differently.
*****
“I was born in Canada and have lived in Canada most of my life. Yet this country has become like a foreign country to me. Its values no longer reflect mine. It’s creed is anathema to me.
“For example, Canada introduced Medical Assistance in Dying (MAD) a few years ago. It was originally sold to the Canadian public as a mercy extended to those who were at death’s door and suffering unendurable pain. Then it was further extended to those who were suffering pain but were not at death’s door. Then the notion of ‘pain’ was extended to include mental anguish, such as you might feel if your boyfriend dumped you. Young people were then invited to apply for MAD. Old people were invited to apply for MAD. Parents were invited to apply for MAD for their babies. Now every Canadian citizen and permanent resident can apply for MAD and be executed by the state FREE OF CHARGE in Canada. MAD is mostly done by lethal injection.
“I no longer recognize my country. This is not the Canada I grew up in, this is not the ‘true north strong and free’, as the anthem informs us. Asking someone to kill you is not being ‘glorious and free’. This is state execution dressed up as mercy killing. This is preying on the sick and the weak.
“The creed of Canada has become demonic. When God is kicked out of a nation (as he has been in Canada), he will leave, but demons will rush in to take his place. There is no such thing as a spiritual vacuum. The demons have taken over the reins of power in Canada and they are doing what demons do best – masquerading as angels of light. So it’s not a state execution by lethal injection, it’s a mercy killing; it’s euthanasia. The same medical professionals tasked with keeping you well now counsel your death, in their expert opinion. In their expert opinion you need to die, if you say you want to die. Even if you don’t say you want to die, in their expert opinion they will suggest death as a solution to your problem(s). In their expert opinion, MAD is the only solution. MAD is Medical Assistance in Dying, which is the fancy phrase for ‘we gon’ kill yo’ ass’. The real acronym is MAD, but the experts call it MAID, for obvious reasons.
“This is what I believe. They are all murderers, every health professional involved in MAD and all those who support this ungodly creed. There is nothing merciful in murder. Medical Assistance in Dying is not MAID, it’s MAD. Those who do it and those who support it are likewise mad. This is what I believe. This is my creed. I am an unCanadian, a social heretic. I cannot call darkness light. I cannot mangle an acronym. I cannot believe lies. I cannot repeat lies. I am an unCanadian who believes in God and follows Jesus.
“There is no life outside of Christ. You must die spiritually to be reborn. This is what I believe. There is no such thing as a spiritual vacuum. This is what I believe. When God is kicked out of a nation, demons rush in to take his place. This is what I believe. You cannot get rid of a nation’s demons by casting them out – you need to repent them out. You need to get down on your knees and repent them out. You need to get down on your face and repent them out. But you first need to take care of your own soul before you can take care of the souls of others. That is the Law of the Beam in the Eye. This is what I believe. You cannot take away someone’s pain by killing them. Pain does not end in death if a soul is unrepentant. This is what I believe. The pain of an unrepentant soul continues for all eternity. This what I believe.
“There is no mercy in killing the desperate. There is only murder. Canada is MAD. The demons have taken control. This is what I believe.”
*****
When you stand before God on Judgement Day, you’ll have to know what you believe before you get there. You won’t have either the time or the ability to formulate your thoughts once you’re there; you will arrive fully formed. There will be no addition to your thought processes once you’re before the throne. You’ll make no more decisions of the will. There will only be you as you are, nothing added and nothing taken away. You will be judged on that, and the judgement will stand for eternity.
Most people don’t believe this. Most people don’t believe in God, or if they do, they believe they’ll get a second chance even on Judgement Day. They believe they’ll still have time.
But we born-again believers are not most people. Our beliefs need to be based in God’s Truth, not in the world’s truth and not in the truth of nominal believers who simply spout what they’ve been told to spout. While we still have time to formulate and refine our beliefs, we need to test them against God’s Truth. We need to see whether or not they hold up under examination. We need to be sure that we’re standing on God’s rock and not in the devil’s quicksand.
What do you believe? Do you stand by your beliefs? Do you live by your beliefs? Are you willing to die for your beliefs?
If you’re not willing to die for your beliefs, then you don’t really believe them; you only say you believe them. That’s called lip service. God does not look kindly on lip servers who say they believe in him but prove they don’t when put to the test.
I cannot tell you what to believe. Even God can’t tell you. It’s your choice, what you believe. It’s your free will choice. The record of your free will beliefs along with the record of your free will words and deeds are all you’ll take with you when you leave your human body. Everything else you (think) you own you’ll have to leave behind, because you don’t really own it. You don’t even own your body. It’s just on loan for the time you’re here. God owns your body, just as he owns your soul and everything else in Heaven and on Earth. The only thing he doesn’t own is your free will.
What you believe has eternal ramifications. The thoughts you entertain become you – not the thoughts that appear out of thin air and sidle up to you unbidden, asking for a light, but the thoughts you entertain. Better make sure those thoughts are godly. Better make sure your beliefs are godly. Better make sure your words and deeds are godly, because you don’t know when you’ll be whisked away and stood before God’s throne. But it will happen, that is a guarantee. And when it does, it will be too late for you to change your beliefs or words or deeds, and you’ll be judged on them. For all eternity, you’ll be judged on them. That is a scriptural Truth spoken by Jesus and recorded in the Gospels.
So what do you believe?
Do your beliefs inform your words and deeds, or is there a disconnect between what you believe and what you say and do?
Do people know what you believe by what you say and do, or do they have to dig deeper to discern the real you? Do you hide your beliefs?
Do you hide your beliefs?
*****
There was a time when I hand-wrote upwards of 40 pages a day. I couldn’t not write. The words clamored to get out, and so spilled down my arm and onto the page. My pen moved like a lie detector needle, leaving big sprawling cursive strokes that spanned multiple lines and making my Grade 2 cursive teacher weep for the horror of it all. It was illegible, my cursed cursive, but it wasn’t meant to be read by anyone but me. And even I didn’t read it. It was just words that needed out and so I let them out.
After I was born-again, I couldn’t write for three years. The compulsion to record words on a page was gone. When it came back, I wrote Faith Revolution, which was my first attempt to express my newfound beliefs in written word format. Sections of Faith Revolution later became the first entries in this blog.
“I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not….”
I don’t hide my beliefs. Sometimes I give too much away. I don’t write in multiple-line-sprawling cursive anymore (other than for my signature); I type, thanks to an old boss who’d hired my mini skirt and high heels fresh out of university without asking first whether I could actually type. I could, if you call using only your pointer finger “typing”. I guess what I did was more “pecking” than typing. Within a few days of starting the job, I was given the ultimatum to involve my other nine digits in my secretarial pursuits, or I’d be out the door. And so, over the next few weeks, I taught myself to 10-finger type, and that skill I still put to good use today.
A threat can be an excellent motivator.
*****
God doesn’t threaten us, but he does warn us. He warns us that time will have an end, and that after time comes the judgement. He warns us that there’s a right way and a wrong way, and that there are rewards for both – good rewards for choosing the right way and bad rewards for choosing the wrong. These are meant to be motivators, but they’re not threats. God doesn’t coerce, he guides. He is consistent in his guidance; it is never his goal to confuse but to clarify. The Ten Commandments are as clear as it gets.
God won’t force you to believe anything, but he will teach you the right way forward that will lead you Home. It’s up to you whether you’ll accept his teachings and base your beliefs on them. That is entirely up to you.
I believe everything God teaches me. I have no reason not to believe, as God has shown me time and time again that he is faithful in everything he says and does. He has shown me and he has shown others throughout the ages. When he says “I will never leave you nor forsake you”, that is not an empty promise: It’s a statement of fact.
What do I believe? The Word of God. The promises of God. Everything that comes from the mouth and hand of God. I believe everything Jesus taught us and continues to teach us through God’s Holy Spirit. I believe I was born again from atheism by a miracle of God. I believe I continue to live that miracle every day as I make my way Home. I believe that God’s Spirit guides me, protects me, smooths my way and informs my words, just as Jesus promised. I believe that Jesus is the one and only Messiah. There is no other and no need for another. I believe that Jesus is Lord.
What do I believe?
I believe.
DANCING WITH GOD
NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario, November 6, 2022 – The physicality of God, in addition to his spirituality, is a contentious issue among theologians. I’m not – THANK GOD – a theologian, so I’m more interested in approaching this topic from the perspective of Truth (that is, from God’s perspective) than from the perspective of stubborn adherence to creed (that is, from man’s perspective).
God has a body. In fact, he doesn’t just have one body, he has an infinite number of bodies, and all of them are perfect. He can manifest into the bodies whenever he chooses to. They’re different shapes and sizes and colors, but each is totally flawless. It would be impossible for God to be in an imperfect body because his very nature is perfection. Each of God’s perfect bodies aligns perfectly with the situation he is manifesting into. That is, he’ll appear to you as you wish to see him or believe him to be or in the way that he knows you need to see him. That’s why there are so many different descriptions of God in the Bible.
Recall that we’re made in God’s image. If we ideally have two arms, two legs, one head, etc., then so does God in his infinite number of perfect bodies. But God, being God, to whom all things are possible, might also possibly manifest as a perfect form of something else. It would be his perfect prerogative to do so. Recall that God appeared to Adam and Eve, habitually walking with them in the Garden of Eden. Recall that God appeared to Moses and that Moses spoke to him face to face on occasion. Recall that Moses once witnessed God’s body from the back. How anyone can read the Bible and still assert that God doesn’t have a body is beyond me.
Jesus famously stated that God is a spirit, and as such should be worshiped in Spirit and in Truth. For most of us mere mortals, God will be to us a spirit during our time on Earth. He is to me. We born-agains know God as a spirit, because that is the fulfillment of the promise. God is with his children through his Spirit, in the same way he was with the OT prophets on occasion. The difference between born-again followers of Jesus and (most) of the OT prophets is that we have God’s Spirit with us continuously; most of the earlier prophets had to make do with cameo appearances and “sneak peeks”.
But if we make it to Heaven, I have no doubt whatsoever that we’ll be talking to God face to face. I have no doubt that we’ll be hugging him and getting hugged in return. And I have no doubt that we’ll be dancing with him – you won’t know what it means to dance until you’ve danced with God in Heaven! His perfect body will be perfectly matched to your perfect body. He will anticipate your every move and move with you in perfect rhythm and perfect form. There will be no time but the beat of the music, no faltering, no missteps. There will just be perfect fluid movement in perfect motion, with feet barely touching the floor. It will be more like floating than dancing, because it will actually be more like floating. No earthly laws of gravity in Heaven!
“But Charlotte, how can you know this?”, whines every theologian everywhere.
Well, you could say I’ve had a vision, or you could say I’m just dreaming, or maybe you could say it’s a little of both. We know there’s going to be a wedding feast for those who make it to Heaven. Scripture says so. What would a wedding feast be without dancing? And what would dancing at a wedding feast be without a Father-Daughter dance?
These are the dreams and visions that sustain me. Paul says we see God now as through a glass darkly, that is, we can only have a vague idea of him; we’re not made to know him as he really is. Not yet. Not while we’re in an imperfect body with limited senses. But Paul also says that when we get Home, we’ll see God “face to face”. Paul doesn’t say we’ll “perceive” him as he is, but that we’ll SEE him as he is. Only the physically manifested can be seen.
We tend to focus entirely on Jesus, which is understandable, considering that he is our Leader and the one whose example we’re to follow. But Jesus himself focused on God during his time on Earth and promised us that we’d have the same relationship with the Father as he did. He was insistent that we get to know God as our Father – not just as our God, but as our Father. So the more we focus on God, the more we become like Jesus and the clearer God becomes to us. And the clearer God becomes to us, the closer we draw to him and to Home.
We will not be dancing with God as a spirit in Heaven, but with God in a very real, very touchable body that is the most perfect among perfected beings. And to you, he’ll look exactly as you imagine him, and to me, he’ll look exactly as I imagine him, because that’s what God does: He fits himself perfectly to each one of us, whether we’re still here on Earth in our flawed human body or in Heaven in our perfected one. Or perhaps he’ll appear as he wants us to see him, because he can do that, too.
As Jesus told us, God is Spirit. That fact is indisputable. But just as indisputable is God’s ability to manifest as a body, as scripture well attests. God will appear to you as you believe him to be, and he’ll appear to me as I believe him to be. When we’re speaking to a baby or a young child, we adjust our tone and facial expressions to soothe and engage. We don’t want to frighten the little ones; we want to make them smile. God does the same with us. His aim is not to overwhelm us, his children, but to connect with us and let his love flow through us.
That is like dancing: the flow of love across and between bodies in motion. We can do that now with God, in Spirit; but in Heaven, oh, in Heaven, that’s when the real dance begins.
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.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 