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LIVING BEYOND “MY SIDE, RIGHT OR WRONG”
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, October 23, 2023 – Honor differs from culture to culture. For some, it means defending “my side” (that is, family, organization, nation, etc.) regardless of what that side has done. Defending, in most cases, means killing or at the very least socially excoriating whoever did the alleged dishonoring. In other cultures, honor is more the upholding of a vow or cherished norm, such as integrity, even if it means you have to stand against your family, organization, nation, etc., to do so.
I have never been a fan of being a fan. I never understood the practical purpose of supporting a team solely for the sake of supporting that team. To me, such support has shades of defending “my side” for no other reason than it is my side. Even as an atheist, I found that kind of blind allegiance troubling.
Not being a fan of being a fan has positioned me on the periphery of mainstream society for most of my adult life. I like it here. As a fringe dweller, I enjoy the advantages of living within a society without having to be participate in its blind enthusiasms. I contribute my fair share (that is, I pull my weight; I’m not a burden), but I don’t identify with the mainstream or any of its cultural tributaries.
Jesus, during his ministry years, and all prophets throughout time have been fringe dwellers. To be a fringe dweller is not to impose your opinions on others with the intention of getting them to agree with you, but simply to state your opinions, letting them fall where they may and living by them. Fringe dwellers respect the free will of others because they so cherish their own.
I didn’t choose to be a fringe dweller. I wouldn’t even say it chose me. When Truth (or the finding of it) is more important to you than going along to get along, you are automatically relegated to the fringe. You find no other place suitable for you but the fringe. Anyplace else is claustrophobic and inauthentic.
Years ago, when I was an atheist, I spent time occasionally within the bosom of mainstream society. In hindsight, I guess you would call me an imposter or interloper, though I never purposely intended to be one. I was just going to school or earning a living or involved in a personal relationship that required me to spend my days and nights among mainstream dwellers. And so I read what they read, ate what they ate, wore what they wore, listened to and watched what they listened to and watched, and generally tried to make myself agreeable. This is what you do when you’re trying to get an education, make a living, or nurture a relationship – you adapt to your environment. Only I found I could only adapt for very short periods of time before I had to get out. And so I moved from school to school, job to job, and relationship to relationship without really understanding why I never felt like I belonged in any of them.
Truth, to me (even formerly as an atheist who otherwise believed in nothing but my own self-gratification), doesn’t dwell in mainstream society. It can’t dwell there because mainstream society by very definition is built on compromise. It’s composed of a group of people who agree to set aside their differences so they can mutually benefit from each other. There’s nothing wrong with this set-up; I’m not criticizing mainstream society (it has its uses for me as a fringe dweller); I’m just saying I can’t live there because it doesn’t value Truth.
For mainstream society, if Truth gets in the way of doing business or pursuing an agenda, Truth gets the boot. The mainstream will always gravitate towards whatever supports the continuation of its status quo, like cultures that define honor as “my side, right or wrong”. That today’s status quo was yesterday’s anathema doesn’t faze mainstream dwellers in the least. In fact, they’re oblivious to it. Their willful or unconscious blindness is what marks them as being mainstream dwellers. Without such inherent blindness, you can’t live in the mainstream for very long.
I was blind to God before I was reborn, but I believed in the existence and supremacy of Truth from a very young age, even if I didn’t know what Truth was or where I could find it. My desire to find Truth was what drove me to pursue higher education and romantic relationships. Needless to say, I found no Truth in any of those pursuits. Like mainstream society, higher education and romantic relationships are premised on compromise and self-justification that at times stands against Truth. I eventually found that the costs of these pursuits far outweighed the benefits, so I got out and have no plans to go back.
Jesus, as I mentioned, and all prophets throughout the ages have lived on the fringe of society. There is nowhere else for Truth-lovers to live. Some are outcast and driven to the fringe, while others gravitate toward it on their own. And there we stand, like lighthouses in a stormy night, shining the Light of Truth both as a welcome and a warning.
Honor, for me, can only mean standing for Truth, no matter the personal cost. As a born-again believer, I have come to know Truth not as a concept that is “out there somewhere” but as a living being that lives within me: His name is God, and I love him more than I love myself (which, if you know me, is saying something). He is not “my team, right or wrong”, because he’s never wrong. There is no compromise with God, no flawed self-justification just to keep the ball rolling or save face. I can fully and with 100% of everything I am stand for him with no regrets and no doubts, like Jesus did. I know he will never let me down, never betray me, and never change, because he has never let anyone down, never betrayed anyone, and never changed.
There is no Truth outside of God. I may live on the fringe of society, but I’m nestled deep within the heart and core of God. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
LIFE AFTER DEATH? WHAT TO SAY WHEN UNBELIEVERS DIE
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, October 22, 2023 – One of the most difficult and heartbreaking situations we can encounter as born-again believers is dealing with a mother whose beloved child has died of suicide. In one recent incident brought to my attention, the daughter had killed herself after years of unsuccessful attempts. The mother, in tears, wanted to know whether her daughter had made it to Heaven.
Christian tradition holds that suicides cannot be buried in hallowed ground, and so those who’d killed themselves are usually interred (if in fact they are interred) outside “official” graveyards. No funeral mass is said for them. The reason for the corpse effectively being banned from receiving Christian burial rites is that it is assumed the deceased did not make it Home.
But hold on there a second. I was born-again from atheism over 24 years ago, and I died before I was born-again. I don’t just mean I was spiritually dead; certainly, I was spiritually dead, but I was physically dead, too. I died on a deserted beach in South Australia, and in the early stages of my physical death, God came to me and made me an offer. Not in words but in a series of images, he showed me that if I chose to forgive someone I thought I could never forgive, the pain that had driven me to my death would disappear; if I chose not to forgive, the pain would not only continue but grow worse.
The pain at that point was so unbearable, I didn’t care what I had to do to make it stop, including forgiving someone I considered unforgiveable. So, wanting only for the pain to go away, I chose to forgive. As soon as I’d made my choice, God showed me that the pain I felt – the pain that had so overwhelmed me, it killed me – was nothing more and nothing less than the sum total of the pain I’d inflicted on other people throughout the course of my life. The pain I’d felt was the pain I’d earned.
When I came back to life, everything was still in deep darkness, like it was when God made me the offer. Then I heard a loud, long inrushing of wind… and I found myself lying on the beach facing the ocean. I could see nothing but sand, sea, and sky.
And all the pain was gone.
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I mention my rebirth experience here briefly because people need to know I was dead. I died an avowed atheist and came back to life a born-again believer. God came to me and made me the offer when I was dead, both spiritually and physically. I don’t know why he brought me back to life instead of leaving me to rot on the beach, but the fact remains that he did bring me back to life in every conceivable way.
If I, the miserable sinner that I was, could be forgiven my sins after physical death, it must also be possible for others to be forgiven theirs after physical death.
So this is what I would say to those who, like the tearful mother, are wondering about the spiritual fate of their loved ones who die as unbelievers. God came to me after my death and gave me one last chance to make things right. No, I hadn’t committed suicide, but I’d certainly died deep in my sins as an unbeliever and I had attempted suicide previously. I know for a fact that God can work in souls even after the body dies, because he worked in mine; I also know for a fact that bodies can be resurrected, as we know from scripture and as I know from personal experience.
A few weeks after my own rebirth and resurrection, when I was pulling out some white hairs from my head (don’t ask lol…), I discovered that the roots were brunette, which is my natural (that is, pre-white) hair color. All of the white hairs I pulled out that day were about an inch brown at the root. This should not be, but it certainly could be if a body were brought back to life through an extreme energy burst or some unknown phenomenon. Jesus mentions in scripture about God being the only one who can turn hair black (or in my case brown), and that he surely did at my resurrection. It wasn’t just a spiritual rejuvenation that happened to me on the day of my rebirth, it was a physical one, too.
Judgement is reserved for God alone. None of us knows for sure (unless God tells us) whether we’ll make it all the way Home, so we have no right assuming that other people will be condemned. God can work in the souls of sinners even after physical death, like he worked in mine, making those souls an offer and giving them one last chance, like he did for me.
I believe that as born-again believers we are here to give spiritual guidance and hope to those who are open to receiving it. It’s never wrong to give people hope. There is no such thing as “false hope”. If a grieving mother wants to know whether her suicided unbelieving daughter made it to Heaven, tell her that with God all things are possible and that conversions can happen not just on deathbeds but after death as well. God is merciful and does everything he can to bring souls Home to him, even when to others it looks like it’s “too late”.
His mercy doesn’t stop at physical death. If it did, you wouldn’t be reading this because I wouldn’t be here to write it for you.
FOLLOW JESUS
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, October 21, 2023 – We all come into relationship with God and Jesus in our own unique way. No two conversions are the same. Some are sudden, unexpected, and out of the blue (like mine or Paul’s), some happen slowly over a period of years before reaching the rebirth tipping point, and the rest fall somewhere in between. But once converted, we’re all on the same path and walking the same Way that leads Home.
Being on the path, we’re all expected to make the same decisions that Jesus made during his time on Earth. We dare not veer to the left or to the right: We need to walk straight on. Mind you, we could veer to the left or to the right, if we wanted to; we still have free will. But we’ll pay the price for it. Do that enough, and you never want to do it again.
Do that more than enough, and you’ll lose your grace.
I’ve been on the path now for over 24 years. Just like everyone who’s born-again comes to God and Jesus in his or her own unique way, we who are on the path walk it in our own unique way. That’s not to say that we don’t follow Jesus’ commands and teachings. Walking the path in our unique way doesn’t mean we’re blaspheming or turning from God. Far from it. That’s just to say that none of us is the same despite having the same Spirit and heading for the same destination.
We’re not robots or drones. God doesn’t want robots and drones, he wants children – living, breathing children who love him and do his will not because they’re threatened or forced or programmed to do it, but because they simply want to do it, like Jesus did during his time here. My relationship with God is not like Jesus’ relationship with God because I’m not Jesus. Not being Jesus, I love God differently. I love God like I love God, and he loves me differently than he loves Jesus, but in the same measure. He loves me as much as he loves Jesus, just differently. He wouldn’t be our Heavenly Father – the Living God – if he didn’t love each of us differently but in the same measure. His love is as living as he is.
I thank God that he lets me walk the Way as me, Charlotte, and doesn’t expect me to be someone else. I thank God that he not only allows me to be me but encourages me to be me. If we’re not walking the path authentically as ourselves, we’re not walking the path. We’re spinning our wheels or maybe even sliding backwards.
When I was first born-again, I thought I had to change the way I dressed or the way I interacted with people, that I had to say certain things to them that I wouldn’t otherwise say. God let me roll with that for a while (thank God, it was a mercifully short while) until I realized that not being me is not what God expects of me. I don’t know why God chose me; I just thank God that he did. But he chose me, Charlotte, not The Born-Again Person Formerly Known As Charlotte. He chose me in all my glory and all my flaws.
We need to deeply understand that in following Jesus, we don’t mimic Jesus. We keep his commands, we learn the lessons he taught us, but we remain true to who we are as unique individuals. We come to God uniquely and we walk the path uniquely because we are unique and genuinely one of a kind. God made us that way. Still, Jesus is our example, as Paul put it, so when it comes to making decisions, we base them on what Jesus taught us.
As born-again believers, we don’t become Jesus. We remain true to God by remaining true to ourselves, true to how God made us, each of us unique and different from everyone else.
As born-again believers, we don’t become Jesus: We follow Jesus.
And in following Jesus, we make our way Home.
WHEN THE DEVIL FORBIDS YOU TO SAY “GOD”
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, October 20, 2023 – With the “HUG-A-NAZZI” scandal still making waves across media streams, and just when you thought Canada couldn’t fall any lower, the Canadian government one-ups itself by issuing a decree forbidding chaplains in the Canadian military to say GOD during official ceremonies, including during the upcoming Remembrance Day services. The official reason why GOD is now verboten in government circles is that the Canadian government has replaced the worship of GOD with the worship of DEI (Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion).
As reported in LifeSiteNews, the Department of National Defence spokesman explained the GOD ban as follows: “Chaplains giving reflections in public, mandatory military ceremonies should not use the word ‘God’ or other references to a higher power such as ‘Heavenly Father’ in order to ensure that all feel included and able to participate in reflection no matter their beliefs.”
Yes, you read that right: The chaplains can’t even say “Heavenly Father”.
It’s worth noting (and not at all surprising) that the last name of the government official who issued the NO GOD decree is “Belisle”, which is pronounced “Belial”, another name for the devil.
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Chaplains are ordained ministers of GOD. If I were a chaplain in the Canadian Armed Forces and I received a command from my military superior not to say GOD during official ceremonies, my response would be this:
Can I say “I Am”?
Can I say “Jehovah”?
Can I say “the name that’s the same as the name of the band that sings Dancing Queen”?
Can I quote the very first line of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms? You know, the one that states: “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of GOD….”
Can I say “Father”?
Can I say “Dad”?
Can I say “Daddy”?
Can I say “Da”?
If not, how can I not say a name that is embedded in the very name of my country?
Can I now not say CanaDa? Must I stop at Cana?
If I cana say Da, I cana be Cana-ian.
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If I were a chaplain in the Canadian Armed Forces and I was commanded not to say GOD, I would no longer be a chaplain in the Canadian Armed Forces.
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AMEN!
GOD-INSPIRED OR DEMON-DRIVEN?
CHARLO, New Brunswick, October 16, 2023 – This is how you can tell the difference between the God-inspired and the demon-driven, even when the demon-driven have the appearance of being God-inspired.
Jesus says when someone demands your coat, you give him your cloak as well. If someone asks you to go a mile, you go two. If someone borrows from you, you give without expecting to get it back. You love your enemies and pray blessings on those who hate and persecute you. This is what the God-inspired do.
The demon-inspired protect their possessions at gunpoint. They not only want what they have, they want what others have, too. They covet. They constantly scheme how to take more and more from others, whether money or possessions or land. The demon-driven lend expecting not only to get back what they’ve lent, but to get it back with interest. They hate their enemies and curse and dehumanize them, wishing only evil on them.
But more than anything else, the demon-inspired want to control. They want to control people, situations, organizations, and nations, and to do so by any means possible. Lying, cheating, stealing, and threats are their tried-and-trued methods. (Not much has changed since The Fall.)
The God-inspired, on the other hand, respect your free will, which they know is God-given. But they also urge you to use your free will wisely. The God-inspired inform you, advise you, guide you, and even at times persuade you, but they would never coerce, force, or trick you. Coercion, force, and trickery are the hallmarks of the demon-driven.
I mention the importance of discerning between the God-inspired and the demon-driven because we are currently neck-deep in a propaganda war made all the more deceptive by artificial intelligence. Claims are being made backed up by images and audio that may or may not be AI-generated (like the image above). We must question everything we see and hear online and on TV because all digital representations of reality can be altered and compromised. A talking head could in fact be just that – a digitally-generated image of a person saying something the person never actually said. Putting words into someone’s mouth has never been easier, thanks to AI.
The world chooses loyalties based on emotion and coercion, but we need to choose ours based on discernment. As born-again believers, we stand before God as his children, shoulder to shoulder with Jesus. Our unquestioning loyalty is to God and Jesus. If we choose to support someone or something in addition to God and Jesus, we must first use our discernment to see whether that person or thing is God-inspired or demon-driven and whether the evidence claimed for the support is real or contrived.
There is no excuse for born-again believers to be deceived or coerced into supporting a lie, as we are graced with God-given discernment for just such a purpose.
Now more than ever we need to be using it.
I KEEP THE SABBATH FOR MY BENEFIT, NOT FOR GOD’S
********** A repost and a reminder for those who may need it! **********
WE DON’T TAKE SIDES
CHARLO, New Brunswick, October 8, 2023 – Jesus taught us that the measure we mete is the measure we get in return.
In other words, what goes around, comes around and we get what we deserve, whether in love or in war.
Other than for Jesus, there are no innocent victims. There is only God’s justice playing out in real time.
That’s not to say that things don’t on occasion happen that you haven’t earned, like with Job. But when a Job-like situation arises, it’s a test. You don’t fight it. You stand your spiritual ground but you don’t fight it.
If you handle the test in the right way (that is, the godly way, the Jesus way), you’ll not only recoup whatever you lost, you’ll get it back in spades. God is very generous with his reimbursements. Look at how he reimbursed Jesus for his sufferings. Look at how he reimbursed Job and Lazarus the beggar. I know from personal experience that when I respond to God’s tests the right way, God rushes to shower me with gifts afterwards, like the father rushed to shower his prodigal son. But when I grumble or whine or push back against my heavenly Father, no spiritual cigars for me and I have to start the test all over again.
Unfortunately, the world has no time for God’s lessons. In the world, when someone strikes a blow against you, you strike back, as in an eye for an eye. Only, it usually ends up being an eye and a nose and half a lip and a few teeth for an eye, because vengeance is the purlieu of God, not the world. When God says “vengeance is mine, I will repay”, he means that he and he alone knows the exact measure that is due and the best time and means to deliver it. The world only knows crude measurements and crude timing and crude delivery methods that worsen the situation rather than even the score, prompting further retaliation and yet more eyes.
And because the world has no time for God’s lessons and does such a bad job at vengeance, we should never get involved in the world’s conflicts. They are not our concern. They are either God’s tests or God’s chastisement or God’s judgement, none of which we should protest or question. We don’t take sides because Jesus never took sides when it came to the world’s concerns and we always follow Jesus’ example. He never got involved in issues related to the Roman occupation, for instance. He only said that God had put the world under Satan, but that he’d overcome the world, so we should be of good cheer.
We are followers of Jesus, not of the world. We stand with Jesus, not with the world. Our realm is the Kingdom, not the world. The conflicts of the world are not our business. Our business is the business of the Kingdom only, as exemplified by Jesus in his preaching and teaching.
We don’t take sides, no matter the provocation. We observe – we’re always watching and praying that God’s will be done – but we never take sides.
“…for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”
Matthew 26:52
IT SEEMS PRETTY CLEAR TO ME
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, October 3, 2023 – It seems pretty clear to me that Jesus is not God.
It seems pretty clear to me that Mary was a virgin when she conceived and gave birth to Jesus, but that after Jesus’ birth, Joseph “knew her”.
It seems pretty clear to me that the man-made doctrine of “the rapture” is a lie.
It seems pretty clear to me that “once saved, always saved” is a lie.
It seems pretty clear to me that if you request or demand money for preaching, you’re not from God.
It seems pretty clear to me that the papacy is an abomination.
It seems pretty clear to me that the Bible’s been messed with.
It seems pretty clear to me that there are no holy places, only holy people.
It seems pretty clear to me that there are no haunted places, only haunted people.
It seems pretty clear to me that nearly everything most people spend their time doing is a distraction luring them away from God.
It seems pretty clear to me that the world is under Satan, and that more and more people are signing on with him every day.
It seems pretty clear to me that the only way home to Heaven is the Way shown to us by Jesus. There is no other way.
It seems pretty clear to me that if Jesus says that we’ll be accountable for our every word at the Judgement, we’ll be accountable for our every word at the Judgement.
It seems pretty clear to me that the Kingdom of God has been set up and running since the time of Jesus’ ministry.
It seems pretty clear to me that when Jesus says his Kingdom is not of this world, he means that his Kingdom is not of this world. There will be no earthly kingdom.
It seems pretty clear to me that the devil tells lies to confuse and lies with an agenda. For Christians, the lies to confuse cause dissension within their ranks, while the lies with an agenda prepare them to follow the anti-Christ.
It seems pretty clear to me that most people who call themselves Christian do not take up their cross daily and follow Jesus.
It seems pretty clear to me that the same people who didn’t recognize John the Baptist as Elijah or Jesus as the Messiah, won’t recognize the anti-Christ.
It seems pretty clear to me that most of what passes for Christianity today needs to be thrown in the garbage.
It seems pretty clear to me that Christians have become the biggest barriers to people finding God.
It seems pretty clear to me that genuine born-again believers are one in a million and that none of them post videos on YouTube.
It seems pretty clear to me that the same scribes, elders, and chief priests responsible for Jesus’ execution are responsible for the executions of all saints, including those to come.
It seems pretty clear to me that most people who say they know God and follow Jesus are lying.
It seems pretty clear to me that those who genuinely love God and genuinely follow Jesus are few and becoming fewer.
It seems pretty clear to me that you don’t protest persecution, you thank God for it and celebrate it.
It seems to me that Jesus didn’t found a religion; he made friends.
THE FINE PRINT
CHARLO, New Brunswick, October 1, 2023 – The devil once crowed that the greatest trick he ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.
But the devil is a liar, as we know from scripture, so we shouldn’t be surprised that he’s lying about his so-called greatest trick, too.
People didn’t stop believing in the devil per se; they stopped believing in God. When they stopped believing in God, belief in the devil also got thrown in the trash.
If you want to know the greatest trick the devil ever pulled, ask a former heavenly angel who fell with Satan. Actually, don’t ask a fallen angel; that was just a turn of phrase. What I meant to say is that the former heavenly angels know full well what the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was and what a consummate liar he is, as he sold them all a bill of goods when they were still in Heaven, only for them to find out too late and forevermore that they’d been lied to. What he’d promised them, he could only half deliver on.
The devil is still using the same ol’ half-truths to trick humans into signing on the dotted line of his infamous deal. In exchange for their soul, he promises them not only wealth, prestige, fame, and protection from prosecution, but also that they’ll never die. Sure, he delivers on the wealth, prestige, fame, and protection from prosecution (those are easy-peasy for him and well within his God-given jurisdiction), but what he doesn’t let them know (it’s buried in the contract’s fine print) is that he doesn’t actually have the authority over their immortal soul and what happens to them after Judgement.
Humans are notorious for not reading a contract before signing it. Case in point: How many times have you tapped “Agree” for online Terms of Service without reading past the Terms’ first few sentences? You have no idea what may be buried deep within the legal verbiage of the TOS, but you hit “Agree” anyway so that you can get on with your day.
The deal with the devil’s not much different. He offers his own legal advisors (you’re not permitted to use yours) to help you with the intricacies of the fine print of his contract, but the force of his charm so overwhelms you, you don’t think to question anything he says. You just accept him at his word. To be honest, you’re flattered that he would even want you on his team. You don’t want to mess up a good thing by asking too many questions or any questions at all.
This is how most souls are drawn into the contract without reading the fine print. They agree to the terms without knowing what they’ve agreed to, but the devil, as they say, is in the details. And then, as untold wealth falls into their lap and doors that were previously closed swing open, as the red carpet unfurls seemingly endlessly before them and every worldly pleasure is theirs for the asking – then the truth begins to seep through and the details they hadn’t bothered to inquire about slowly emerge.
There’s no eternal life for those who’ve knowingly and with full intent signed on with the devil. They get eternity all right, but not the kind they’d envisioned, not the kind they’d exchanged their souls for. You see, these people were promised they’d never die, that their soul would migrate from body to body forever more. But that’s just not the case. Paul says we live once and then the judgment. This is the same for everyone, whether they’ve signed on with the devil or not. The body dies and the soul is reserved for judgement. There is no “second chance” in another body. Soul migration is one of many lies the devil tells humans.
What migrates from body to body are disembodied demonic spirits, the ones that fell from Heaven, the original believers in the devil’s lies. In the process of coming under the devil’s authority, these fallen spirits became liars themselves, habitually passing themselves off as reincarnated human souls. Having sold their services to the Father of Lies, demons have to do his bidding, whether they want to or not. They have to lie, whether they want to or not. They have to move from body to body, whether they want to or not (think of the demons that were cast out of the man with the Legion, only to end up in swine that were then herded off a cliff).
The people who got hoodwinked into signing the deal with the devil are in the same boat as the fallen angels. They serve the devil, so they have to do precisely what he orders them to do. Sure, they get some cheap thrills and flashy bling in exchange for their service, but there’s no way out for them. Not for most of them, anyway.
I’ve written before how some people sign the devil’s contract without really knowing what they’re doing. These people are salvageable, but the desire to be saved must come from them. It would be an extraordinary ministry, to help these people – extraordinary and extremely dangerous. By dangerous, I don’t only mean mortally dangerous, but immortally perilous. You would be as much a target of the devil’s temptations as Jesus was, and by the same people.
But the rewards of such a ministry would likewise be extreme. You’d become part of God’s elite search and rescue team for souls, like Jesus, Paul, and the apostles were. You would join their ranks, and like them you would be just as protected, just as exposed to danger, and just as handsomely eternally rewarded at the completion of your mission.
I’m not asking you to help those who signed on with the devil without knowing what they were doing. It’s not for me to make that request; only God can do that. All I’m doing here is mentioning that such a ministry is urgently warranted. Years ago, when I was first born-again, I used to wonder why Christian ministries made such an effort to go on missions to Africa when so many people in first-world countries are just as spiritually needy, if not more so, and none are more needy than the most wealthy and powerful among us. Jesus said: “How hard it is for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom!”, but he also said that what seems impossible to us, is possible with God. The CEOs in the top-floor corner offices, the presidents of universities, the politicians, the lawyers, the judges, the celebrities – most if not all of these people are lost sheep who need to hear the Gospel as much as anyone else, and urgently so if they’ve signed on with the devil and are now secretly regretting it.
We need to be there for the Nicodemus’s as much as for the Mary’s. The devil doesn’t like us messing with his assets, but if his assets come to us of their own free will, like Nicodemus went to Jesus (secretly and under cover of night), who are we to turn them away? They are fair game and we’re not breaking any rules by helping them. The least we can do is to let them know that we’re here and are willing to help.
God will arrange the rest.
What I tell you in darkness, speak ye in light; and what ye hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops.
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matthew 10: 26-28
“I WANT TO LIVE!”
CHARLO, New Brunswick, October 1, 2023 – So here’s the thing about God – he doesn’t stay where he’s not wanted.
If you don’t want God in your life, he’ll leave.
But here’s the other thing that’s just as important or perhaps even more important – after God leaves, demons rush in. There’s no such thing as a spiritual vacuum. Either God occupies and administers your spiritual real estate or the devil does. There’s no third option.
When demons take over spiritual real estate that used to be administered by God, things fall apart. Whether a nation or a city or family or an individual – once God is kicked out or willfully blocked from entering, there’s nowhere to go but down down down like the Titanic.
And that’s what we’re seeing now everywhere in the world, especially in former Christendom.
I’ve written before here and here and elsewhere about how kicking God out of a nation disastrously affects that country, but let’s look today at what happens to individuals when they turn from God or deny his existence altogether.
I’ll speak from personal experience because I lived as an atheist before I was born-again 24 years ago. I know what a life without God looks like from the outside and what it feels like from the inside.
From the outside, it can look fine. Prosperous, even. Happy, even. But this is an illusion that is very superficial.
Inside (that is, where no-one can see or when no-one’s looking), it’s a disaster zone. One thing after the other goes wrong – health-wise, relationship-wise, work-wise, study-wise. Not one day goes by when you don’t think about running away from it all, thinking that running away will solve your problems. Sometimes “running away” is called quitting a job or getting a divorce or dropping out of school or going on a drinking binge. Sometimes vacations are running away. But no matter what you do to try to shake off the constant feeling that you HATE YOUR LIFE (or just simply hate life), it follows you wherever you go. So you start therapy or you get a new lover or you try a new fitness regime or a new diet or a new hair style, or you learn a new skill or take up a hobby or buy a new car or laptop or phone, or you spend the day shopping or drinking – anything to take your mind off how hurt and angry you feel inside.
And then at some point you start thinking about killing yourself. This used to be known as suicide ideation, thinking that killing yourself will solve your problems. I actually tried it a few times (obviously not very successfully), but with me it was a classic case of a cry for help. When I was 18, I bought a doll that had a hangman’s noose around its neck. The doll was manufactured as an effigy of an executed woman. I hung this loathsome thing from my bedroom chandelier, horrifying everyone in my family, but I actually liked the doll. I felt sorry for it. I related to it.
People who’ve kicked God out of their lives may also become social justice warriors who spend most of their time obsessing over how victimized they are and who’s to blame for it (never themselves). This is probably the worst way to try to deal with life – obsessing over your problems and blaming others for them. This will, guaranteed, lead you directly into the hell of your own making. And in the process, you’ll become a demon-magnet. Remember the crazy guy in scripture who lived in a graveyard and ran around naked because no chains could hold him? He called himself “Legion” because there were so many demons in him. If he lived today (and trust me, he does), he’d go by the pronouns “they/them”. I became Legion as an atheist, only I kept my clothes on and wore a big smile, so no-one knew what was inside me.
And here’s the thing about people who’ve rejected God and are sorely in need of spiritual help – they’ll turn down whatever spiritual help is offered them. Oh, they’ll reach out eventually for the kind of help they think they need, but the kind of help they really need they won’t even consider. It will repulse them. Again, I speak from personal experience. As an atheist, the older I got and the worse my life grew in every conceivable way, the less I thought of looking to God for a solution to my problems.
It’s not that people didn’t try to help me; they certainly did. And it’s not that people were unkind to me; they certainly weren’t. But offers of help and gestures of kindness didn’t address the root of my problem, which was that I was demon-infested from unrepented sin. So while the kindnesses might have numbed my pain in the short term, they ended up prolonging and ultimately worsening my spiritual agony. In other words, the help the world gave me didn’t help me in the way I needed to be helped. The help the world gave me only made things worse.
Sin and repentance are words that are rarely heard these days, even among Christians. Most Christians blame the devil for their problems. They claim to be “under spiritual attack” and beg for people to pray for them, when what they actually need is to get down on their face before God and repent. They also need to forgive whatever they’re holding against others. Grudges and unrepented sin will sooner or later land you in hell on Earth, followed by hell in Hell. If Christians don’t even know to repent and forgive when they have problems, how can we expect unbelievers to do so?
Individuals who turn from God or try to live without God are on a fast track to perdition. There’s no other way to put it and the odds are totally against them. Their plight reminds me of the scene in the movie Titanic, where Rose gives up hope of rescue and lays down to die. She’s freezing to death floating on a piece of wood in the middle of the North Atlantic, surrounded by a sea of bobbing corpses propped up by their unaptly named life vests. Like the corpses around her, Rose’s skin is ashen, her lips are black, and her hair has frozen into icicles. She’s a goner if ever there was one.
As she drifts in and out of consciousness, she hears a voice calling from a distance. At first, she ignores the voice as background babble that has nothing to do her. But when the voice that she’s been ignoring starts to fade away, something inside her wrenches back to life and she finds the strength to blow the whistle attached to her now very aptly named life vest. Her whistle blows are faint and feeble at first, but grow stronger and stronger until the voice responds eagerly and a rescue boat appears.
I remember this scene when I think about people who’ve all but given up on life. I think about how they ignore God’s rescue call but God keeps calling anyway. As long as there’s still time and a sliver of hope, God keeps calling.
So for the individuals who’ve kicked God out of their lives or who deny his existence altogether, we who know and love God dare not give up on them. We dare not give up. If it’s too late for them and they’re beyond his help, God will let us know, but as long as there’s still any hope – however faint – we dare not give up on them. We never know when their desire to live will roar back to life and they’ll finally open themselves to God.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 