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JESUS UNLEASHED
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, April 3, 2025 – Up until about a week before his resurrection, Jesus was very quiet about who he was. If he revealed his Messiahship at all, it was very hush-hush and to his disciples only, and that obliquely, never directly. If he knew he was targeted for arrest in one place, he avoided it and went to another. He kept a low profile and was always on the move, always looking over his shoulder and cautious in his words. He cautioned his disciples to keep certain things quiet. He cautioned those he healed not to tell anyone who’d healed them. He commanded the demons to shut the hell up about him. He proceeded steadily through his ministry, steadily, steadily, but at times as if walking on eggshells, not on water, and always keeping within the strict bounds dictated by God.
And then about a week before his glorification, Jesus was unleashed. It started with his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, riding a colt over an impromptu red carpet of strewn palm branches and bystanders’ garments, fit for a king. Because he was a king – JESUS IS KING! – and from that moment, he openly assumed his rightful role.
I used to get depressed about what the Catholics blandly call “Holy Week”, the days leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion. I hated thinking about what was done to Jesus, and the closer the memorial of that event drew near, the more depressed I got. And then one day God showed me another way to think about that week. He showed me not to focus on the crucifixion but on all the events leading up to the resurrection, as relayed in the gospels. From that perspective – God’s perspective – I came to see those days as the most action-packed and exhilarating of Jesus’ entire ministry.
After his triumphal entry, Jesus tore through the temple like a cleansing whirlwind, overturning the tables of the moneychangers and whipping any of them who refused to leave. He also stopped anyone from carrying vessels through the temple proper, commanding them to respect God’s temple as a house of prayer, not a place of commerce. And in that cleansed temple that he now rightfully lorded over, Jesus taught like he’d never taught before. He rebuked the hypocrites for being hypocrites. He directed to give God what is due God and to Caesar what is due Caesar. He told the temple elders and chief priests that by whose authority he did what he did was none of their business and accused them of being like greedy and murderous workers who’d been tasked by their master to maintain his property but instead had destroyed it. He set the Sadducees straight on the resurrection doctrine. He declared himself to be greater than David’s son. He declared the widow’s farthing to be of higher value than everyone else’s contributions to the treasury. And he gave his famed and detailed run-down of what to expect during Earth’s final days.
In short, Jesus owned that week in the same way he owned the temple – fully, unapologetically, and rightfully. The King had ascended his throne – the Highest Priest had entered the Holiest of Holies – and he danced like no-one was watching, like David danced when he brought the Ark of the Covenant into the City of David. And with Jesus’ every word and every movement during that most glorious of all weeks, God was not only fully onboard, he willed it, showing his signature and seal of approval by having his prophets record it in scripture long before it happened.
Jesus unleashed was God’s greatest creation. No-one before or since has come anywhere close to that breathtaking display of power and glory. Still, as Jesus’ followers, we should pray to be unleashed like Jesus was when our hour comes.
So consider this fair warning, all you hypocrites out there: Maybe not today, but one day… we’re coming for you.
GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD
ANNAPOLIS ROYAL, Nova Scotia, April 22, 2022 – I have to laugh a bit at Christian preppers.
They’re usually the same people who stand every Sunday with arms outstretched, palms upward, loudly reciting the so-called Lord’s Prayer, which includes the line “Give us this day our daily bread”.
And then they go out and buy a 5-year supply of MREs at Walmart, and they don’t see the irony in it.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Prepping is anti-christ. Jesus never prepped, other than for his spiritual tests. He was King not only of Israel, but also of the quick get-away and traveling light. When he taught us to pray to God to give us our bread daily (that is, our food), it was because that’s how he lived. He didn’t say one thing and then do something else; he was no hypocrite. He taught us to pray to God to give us our bread daily because that’s how he lived and how he knew we should live.
But Christian preppers appear to know better than Jesus when it comes to food. Even as they pray to God to give them their bread on a daily basis, they hoard enough beans and rice and Spam to last into the next millennium. And they don’t see any contradiction there, because the words they mouth at church don’t really mean anything to them.
It’s classic lip service.
Did you know that when you buy more than what you need at any given time, someone else won’t have enough?
The fear-driven food hoarding that’s been going on for the past few years is not from God. The recent spike in fear mongering over a forecasted famine is also not from God. All you need to ask is “Who benefits?”, and then you’ll see who’s pushing the panic button to get you to spend all of your disposable income on food and other preps.
I don’t need to show you statistics about how the globalist businesses have made off like bandits since the start of the “pandemic”. You can see it for yourself. Meanwhile, small and micro-businesses are daily dying the death. It’s almost as if the lockdowns and restrictions were imposed solely to destroy the Mom & Pops and further enrich the globalists. But they wouldn’t do that, now, would they? ;D
We born-again believers need to ignore the siren call of prepping. We need to follow Jesus not just spiritually but also in physical matters. When he told us not to worry about what we’ll eat or what we’ll drink, he meant it. When he said that unbelievers worry about those things but we shouldn’t, he meant it. He wasn’t just filling up his followers’ heads with words; he was teaching them how to live. And what he taught them was that God will provide for his children in ways that we cannot even imagine, as long as his children remain faithful to him.
If you’re a born-again believer and you’ve prepped beyond having a few things in the cupboard that you could leave behind without a second thought, you need to stop. You need to refocus on God’s Word and actually listen to what Jesus is teaching you. You cannot call yourself a Christian and at the same time have months’ or years’ worth of food squirreled away. That makes you a hypocrite.
What you do with all the food and supplies you’ve prepped thus far is between you and God. But if you’re reading this and you still go out tomorrow or the next day or the next and buy more than what you reasonably need over the short-term (that is, until your next anticipated grocery shopping trip), you’ve got some serious soul-searching to do.
And don’t get me started about the “Christians” who are stockpiling years’ worth of bullets to put in their guns to use against anyone who tries to take their food. This is reaching absurdity levels of hypocrisy that I’m sure even Jesus hadn’t thought possible.
The only kind of prepping that is Christian is spiritual prepping.
Everything else comes from the devil.
BEING BORN-AGAIN
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, November 19, 2015 – Being born-again can be a lonely road. Spiritually we’ve got lots of company (God and Jesus are always with us through God’s spirit, just as Jesus promised), but fellow human believers are few and far between. It can be discouraging at times to feel so alienated from the general population.
How do you resolve this dilemma? Or can it be resolved?
The good news is yes, it can be resolved, and the best way to start is to be who you are. In other words – just be yourself. If you’re born-again, be born-again. Let people know you’re born-again. They should know anyway, but if they don’t, don’t try to “hide” it to keep the conversation polite. You know what I’m talking about. Jesus said that our worst enemies will be those under our own roofs, and he wasn’t kidding about that.
He might also have mentioned that one of those enemies under our own roofs is – surprise, surprise – us. We can definitely be our own worst enemy if we choose to hide our true spiritual identity. It comes back to bite us hard, and may even cost us our grace. DON’T BE YOUR OWN WORST ENEMY. Don’t lose your grace. Stand tall in God.
The next step, after we out ourselves, is to be clear about what we believe. Millions of people call themselves “Christians”, but what they actually believe has nothing to do with what Jesus taught us. As born-agains, we must necessarily believe what Jesus taught. Believing it implies living it as well as preaching it. Jesus is our example, and our task is to mirror his example in our lives. So – don’t drink yourself into the gutter. Don’t watch porn on the internet. Don’t have pre-marital sex, and don’t marry someone who is divorced (if the divorced spouse is still alive). Jesus wasn’t preaching just to hear himself speak. He was showing us which choices to make that would lead to the best outcome for all concerned. That’s what God’s laws are all about.
Bad choices have bad built-in consequences, and good choices have good built-in consequences.
Along with living your rebirth openly and being clear about what you believe, you should also not shy away from correcting false teachings. Jesus didn’t preach to non-believers, and nor did he yell at them for being non-believers. He just let them be.
In contrast, he spent a good deal of time yelling at people who said they were believers but showed by their words and actions that they were not. These were the hypocrites, and he didn’t hold back in telling them what he thought of them, or what was waiting for them if they continued in their hypocrisy.
Keep in mind that Jesus made a clear distinction between those who purposely skewed scripture and misled people (either from pride or a hidden agenda) and those who just got it wrong and/or messed up. He didn’t yell at the woman who was caught in adultery; he gave her a second chance. We all make mistakes and have moments of weakness, and sometimes those can be real doozies. Mistakes don’t condemn us; consciously and consistently choosing what we know is wrong – THAT condemns us. We all know the difference between those who sincerely love God but occasionally mess up, and those who are just pretending to love God in order to get a paycheck or fit in with the Sunday morning crowd. If we don’t know the difference, we need to learn it real fast because that latter group – the professional preachers and Sunday-morning Christians – is the main reason driving many would-be believers away from finding God.
Living fully as a born-again follower of Jesus means to be fully open about who you are and what you believe. That doesn’t mean you should preach to everyone, but anyone who knows you should also know that you’re a born-again follower of Jesus. Jesus only preached to those who wanted to hear, but everyone who knew him or knew about him during his ministry years knew that he was a strong believer. You shouldn’t be mistaken for a Muslim or a Buddhist or an atheist. If people don’t like what you have to say or don’t want to be around you because you’re a believer, let them be. Pray for them. But let them be.
Which brings us back to the original dilemma and its resolution – how do born-agains find fellow born-agains when they are so few and far between?
The answer is: God will bring them to you. When you live your beliefs openly and fully, God will bring like-minded believers into your life (as well as believers who need to learn a few things from you, and believers who have something to teach you or remind you about). Jesus said: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” He was including human companionship in “all these things”. We don’t need to go out and look for fellow believers; if we’re living our lives as we should be living them, we’ll just happen upon each other.
God will make it happen.
STRANGE CHRISTIANS
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, August 12, 2015 – There’s a strange kind of Christian that is very much like the strange kind of Jews that Jesus railed at.
You know which Jews I’m talking about – the lipservers, the ones who considered themselves dyed-in-the-wool descendents of Abraham and who thought they had a guaranteed ticket to Heaven based on this heritage.
Jesus let them know that their expectations were in vain, and they hated him for it.
Jesus never railed against heathens and unbelievers. Not once. But he did rail a good deal against his own followers and against those who considered their salvation a done deal (sort of like the “once saved, always saved” crowd). The strange Christians of today spend a lot of time railing against the 21st century versions of heathens and unbelievers (Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, etc.) without seeming to realize that they are not the enemy. They are spiritually sick and demon-enslaved, yes, but they’re not the enemy.
Just like in Jesus’ day, our enemies are those who say they know God and are doing his will, when in fact they don’t know God and are doing the devil’s dirty work. Remember the parable of the ten virgins? Remember the parable of the goats that were shocked at being sent to Hell instead of Heaven?
These are strange Christians.
I went to school with a former atheist who became a strange Christian. He ‘converted’ in his late teens and since then has preached in various churches. He now has a full-time job as a pastor at a small local church. He records his sermons and uploads them onto the church’s website.
When I was born again, I wanted to go see this guy. He claimed to be born again, so I figured we must now be spiritual kin. But for one reason or another, God kept me from contacting him. After listening to a few of his sermons, I realized why: He isn’t really born again. He’s a professional preacher and strange Christian. He’s legalistic and (not surprising) a cheerleader for pressure-tithing into the church’s coffers, but he’s not born again. To God, he’s still a stranger.
Even worse, he thinks you should be paid for preaching the Word, just like you would for any other job. But preaching God’s Word is a privilege, not a job, and payment is in God’s blessings, not in money.
This is how you know a real Christian from a strange one: a real Christian does not demand financial remuneration for preaching the Word, whether as a pastor or a writer or a musician. A strange Christian, on the other hand, not only expects to be paid, but demands it and bases his or her “success” as a preacher on how much money he or she makes for selling God.
And regardless of their asking price, the actual amount is always the same: 30 pieces of silver.
Don’t be a strange Christian. Be like Jesus. Get to know and love God as your Dad. Never request or demand money for preaching the Word. Ditch the donation button.
And remember: The most bizarre phrase in all of Christendom is “retired minister”.
No real Christian ever retires.
We preach for free until we fall down dead.
PREACHER
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, July 14, 2015 – I came across a video of a street preacher plying his trade at a “gay pride” festival. While it was difficult to make out what the preacher was saying and whether he was actually preaching or just yelling responses to his tormentors, the words spewing from the mouths of the hecklers rang loud and clear.
I’m not going to repeat them here.
As I watched (sound turned way down) the relentless onslaught of hate emanating from the crowd, I couldn’t help but wonder what the heck the preacher was doing there. The phrase “don’t throw your pearls before swine” sprang to mind. I tried to recall an instance in the gospels where Jesus preached to a crowd of rowdy and possibly drunken and/or stoned sodomites, but I could think of none. The best I could come up with was Lot and the angels admonishing rowdy drunken residents of Sodom the night before God destroyed their city.
But in this example, as in all examples of preaching in the Bible, the Sodomites came willingly to Lot. Certainly, they didn’t come to be preached to, but they did come to him. He didn’t seek them out.
This may seem a minor distinction, but it is actually very important. Jesus roamed the countryside as an itinerant preacher, but he only preached to those who came to him wanting to learn about the kingdom, and only healed those who sought his help. He didn’t impose his preaching or healing on anyone who didn’t want them and he avoided places where he knew he wasn’t welcome. Even God doesn’t impose himself on anyone: He respects our free will and waits for us to give him a clear signal before he rushes in to help.
This approach – waiting for a clear signal – is crucial to successful preaching. Whether done two thousand years ago or today, preaching must be done to those who want to be preached to. Otherwise, it’s a waste of time. When Jesus told his followers to go out into the world and preach the Good News, he didn’t mean to stand on street corners and rail at all and sundry. He meant to feed those who were spiritually hungry, wherever you encounter them. People who are hungry for the Word will come to you on their own volition; God will send them. What kind of message can possibly be conveyed when a preacher’s every word is drowned out by a mob shouting expletives and curses? That is not preaching.
The Word is a precious cargo: We carry it with us wherever we go, and our job is to share it with whoever wants some. We let them know it’s available, they come to us of their own free will, and we give it to them freely. The heckled preacher at the “pride” festival would have done better just to leave a few flyers around rather than try to force-feed God to people who clearly had no hunger for him.
As for targeting sodomites, Jesus stated that there are far worse sinners in need of repentance, and that Sodom’s judgment will be far less than that of hypocrites. If it’s sinners that preachers genuinely want to reach, they’d be better off heading to the top floor corner offices of banks or multinational headquarters, or to seats of government, or to the inner reaches of the Vatican or any commercialized church today because THAT’S where the super-mega-sinners park their arses and plot their dark deeds day in and day out. In the grand scheme of things, as Jesus pointed out, the “sin of Sodom” is small peas compared to people who pretend to be something they’re not in order to rip people off.
Bottom line? Just because you think someone needs to hear the Word doesn’t mean that they want to hear it. There are more than enough people who want to hear the Word. Preach to them. In the meantime, pray for those who have shunned God. It may be that they, like me, will one day turn.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 