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SUPERNATURAL FORGETFULNESS
CHARLO, New Brunswick, February 21, 2024 – As we know, God is watching us all the time. And he’s not only watching us, he’s listening to us and reading our thoughts. He knows everything about us, inside and out, down to the smallest detail and nanoparticle. In fact, he knows everything about us even before we know, because he knows our past and our future as well as our present. That’s his privilege for being God.
But even as he’s watching us, listening to us, and reading our thoughts, God’s made it so that we don’t think about his omnipresence and omniscience all the time. He’s made it impossible (or better said, he’s supernaturally suspended our ability) to think about his omnipresence and omniscience all the time because if we did think about those things all the time, we’d alter our behavior, the way that people act differently when they know someone is looking at them or a camera or microphone is pointed their way: They act like they’re on stage playing to an audience. God doesn’t want us acting differently just to please him. He wants to see us and hear us and read our thoughts as we are, not as we think he wants us to be.
I also think we’d go a little crazy if we couldn’t take a break from knowing that someone was always watching us. On the occasions when it does come to mind (like now), I don’t mind that God is always here with me because I love God and I trust him and I know that he loves me. I know that his omnipresence and omniscience are for my benefit. I know that everything he does is for my benefit. Still, if I were constantly aware, without a break, that I had no privacy at all – even in my thoughts – it might make me a bit coo-coo. That, I think, would be the natural human response (to go a bit coo-coo), which is why God has suspended our ability to be constantly aware of his constant presence.
I was thinking about this today when I remembered that not even Jesus or the holy angels know the date for the end of the world. Jesus said that no-one knows the end date except God. Then I thought about God’s reasoning for preventing us from knowing the end date and I saw a parallel between not knowing the end date and not always being aware of God’s presence. I think both of these “absences” are supernaturally imposed on us to prevent us from acting differently from who we are.
And to prevent us from going coo-coo.
Scripture tells of a time when “hearts will fail” for fear of what’s coming on the world. Imagine what will happen when everyone knows the end is no longer nigh but now! Unbelievers will lose whatever’s left of their sanity and hell will empty out, which means that every fallen entity in existence will be roaming the earth looking for a host and torturing people. Jesus describes this time as the worst in history. It’s safe to say that people will radically change their behavior under these horrendous conditions. Even believers (if any are still here) won’t act like themselves but will measure everything they do and say in relation to the ticking clock.
In movies about the end of days, there are always shots of people streaming into churches and packing pews, motivated not by their love of God but by their fear of what’s coming on them. I always think, when I see them, it’s too late, it’s too late, you left it too late. The time to turn back to God is long gone. I guess it’s prudent to point out that when the last day does come, there won’t be any church buildings to stream into, anyway. Those will also be long gone.
What I’m saying here is that we don’t know certain things – or certain things are not always on our mind – because God supernaturally made us not to know them, at least not yet. Whoever’s left on Earth on that last day, however, will very much know it’s the last day; God won’t hold that knowledge back from anyone anymore (which explains the scripture about failing hearts). I pray to God that I won’t be here when that time comes, and you should pray that for yourself, too. As bad as things are now, it’s nothing compared to the day when God pours out his final wrath and the devil has free reign. Earth will literally become hell, with every fallen being roaming with no restraints and Satan lording over them all.
I’m happy to know what God lets me know and to leave the rest be. I had to learn to turn off certain types of curiosity as a born-again believer. God made us to be curious, but not about everything. Look what happened to Adam and Eve. Look what happened to Solomon.
Some things are best left unknown.
**********
And now, dear reader, I leave you with a challenge: See how long you can be conscious of God’s presence before you forget about it. You won’t be aware that you’ve forgotten until you remember again. Me, I usually don’t last more than a minute before God draws my attention elsewhere with a shiny bauble of a thought. I know he does this for my benefit, and it makes me laugh. It makes him laugh, too.
But you – you see how long you can think about God’s presence before you forget he’s there. See if you can beat my one-minute record (lol).
And then try not to laugh when you remember again about God’s presence and realize how quickly you forgot about it.
That’s supernatural forgetfulness.
It comes from God, and it’s for our benefit.
JOSEPH AND HIS AMAZING WEALTH-TRANSFER DREAM SCHEME
CHARLO, New Brunswick, February 19, 2024 – Christian preppers often point to the story of Joseph and the 7-year famine in Egypt to justify their stockpiling of food and supplies. They also tend to simplify the story by saying, “Look, Joseph knew a famine was coming and prepared for it, saving his family and the Egyptians from starvation.” But that’s the rosy picture of Joseph and his allegedly heroic feat of prepping. If you look a bit deeper into the details, a darker picture emerges.
In the years leading up to the famine as well as during and after it, Joseph was second only to Pharaoh in power and authority. But how did he get there? How did a young foreigner imprisoned in a dungeon on rape charges rise in rank overnight to become Pharaoh’s right-hand man?
Scripture tells us that Pharaoh had put Joseph in charge of preparing the kingdom for the famine based on Joseph’s interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams. But what we have to read between the lines to learn is that Joseph’s suggested plan on how to deal with (or better said, how to profit from) the prophesied dearth stood to make Pharaoh the richest and most powerful man in the world. As soon as Pharaoh heard about Joseph’s dream scheme, he eagerly agreed to it and immediately rewarded Joseph with his exalted position. So Joseph not only became the second-most powerful man in Egypt virtually overnight, he also became incredibly wealthy, catapulting instantaneously into the upper ranks of the 1% or ruling “elite” class. This detail is important.
Once appointed, Joseph quickly set his plan in place. But the plan wasn’t a noble scheme prompted by his compassion to feed the starving masses during the coming famine. No, not at all. Joseph’s plan was much more shall we say “comprehensive” and involved the greatest wealth transfer in Egyptian history.
Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on your perspective), the wealth transfer was from the poor to the rich – from the people to the state – and started already when food was still being grown. Joseph instituted a nation-wide policy that required all farmers and other food producers to give the state 20% of whatever they grew or made each year. They could not opt out of this initiative (it was essentially a tax on their labour or an income tax). What Joseph was doing was taking the surplus food out of the market and storing it as property of the state, food that otherwise could have been stocked away as preps by the individual producers or consumers or even sold for a profit. So when the famine hit, the people had nothing in their own storerooms for themselves and very little by way of savings, as they’d had to give 20% of their product to the state and whatever was left over they had to live on.
The famine was long and widespread, which meant that the Egyptian people could not simply go to neighouring countries to grow or buy their food. They had to rely on the Egyptian state to feed them. After having centralized the entire food supply and in so doing creating a monopoly, Joseph then proceeded to sell the food taken from the Egyptians back to them. At first, he charged them money for the food. But when they had no more money (because they couldn’t produce or sell anything due to the ongoing famine), Joseph accepted their livestock as payment. Then when they ran out of livestock, Joseph accepted their land and their labour as payment. Under this “dream scheme”, the former independent subsistence producers and small landowners in Egypt became destitute serfs within only a few short years, thanks to Joseph’s prepping.
By the time the famine ended, Pharoah owned all the land in Egypt and the Egyptians were not only forced to labour for him, they were also forced to give him 20% of the fruits of their forced labour.
This is the view of Joseph and the famine that doesn’t get much airplay in Christian prepping circles, but the 1% have certainly taken note of it over the years. Joseph’s wealth-transfer and labour-taxation dream scheme has been repackaged and rebranded at various times in history and we’re fortunately/unfortunately (again, depending on your perspective) living in one of those times. We know the scheme today as “The Great Reset”, popularized by the heartwarming phrase: “You’ll own nothing and be happy”.
Yet it is worth remembering that Joseph did what he did with God’s approval and blessings. In fact, God instigated both the dreams and the dream scheme, just as he’s instigating the wealth transfer now. We can only assume that, like the ancient Egyptians, we have it coming.
RECYCLED SOULS? ON DEATH, DEMONS, AND SOUL MIGRATION
CHARLO, New Brunswick, February 18, 2024 – I came across the comment below a few days ago on a “conspiracy” website. I’m reposting it here because the topic is important and also touches on erroneous beliefs that some Christians hold – beliefs that are demonic in origin and need to be cleared up. The person who posted the comment was discussing the death of a famous member of a so-called elite family, speculating that the soul of the deceased had likely migrated to another human body and from there would continue his reign of economic and social engineering terror:
Pretty sure he hopped into a ‘donor’ body. These creatures never die; they hop from one donor body to the next. Most likely it would be his son, grandson, or something like that. This is how these entities continue to wreak havoc, this is why they never actually ‘die’; its because they are terrified of dying. Once they actually die (without hopping into a donor body), they will be punished for all of eternity, with most never being able to incarnate again. Before the actual ‘death’, a soul transfer is performed, switching the soul from the dying shell to the new host. [This is] similar to memory transfer into the clones they keep making. These old guys in power are older than history; they keep bouncing from one body to the next, with never actually dying, their soul just keeps transferring. ALL memories all memories, ideas, plans, etc., stay with them and they get up and continue on doing what they were doing before the transfer.
As informed as the author considers himself to be, his speculations are baseless. Souls don’t transfer from body to body; demons do. All human souls get one chance on Earth in a human body, whether they choose to serve God or choose to serve the devil. When they die, they don’t reincarnate into another human body (or animal body or insect body, etc.); their mortal body remains here (unless it undergoes the pre-ascension glorification process while still on Earth, like with Jesus) and their soul proceeds either to the realm of death or to Heaven. Satan lies to people about being able to transfer their soul to another human body when theirs dies; this lie is one of the chief tricks Satan uses to get them to sign on with him. It’s wishful thinking on the part of his prey, to believe they can body-hop, but it’s still a lie. We all, every one of us – without exception – get only one time around this racetrack, and that’s it.
Demons, however, with God’s permission, are able to migrate from body to body until the end of time, and demons are well able to pretend they’re this or that person’s soul transferred to another being. (Fallen entities are not called “intelligences” for nothing.) The lie of soul migration is how people have come to believe in and promote inter-body soul transfer and reincarnation. Demons also masquerade as dead people who are trapped on Earth in spirit form, causing “hauntings” and “visitations”. Demons tell a lot of lies and are quite good at deceiving humans. Whole religions and doctrines of superstitions have developed over the millennia based on nothing but demon-inspired lies.
Our discussion here today needs to include a reminder on where souls go when their human body dies. Scripture teaches us that there are four possible soul destinations: Heaven, hell, death, and the lake of fire. Heaven is the final destination of souls whose names are written in the book of life; hell is an interim holding pen for fallen entities who are not roaming the earth; death is an interim holding pen for human souls; and the lake of fire is the final destination (post-hell and post-death) for souls that don’t make it to Heaven. After the Judgement, all souls will either be in Heaven or in the lake of fire.
I had a very talkative cab driver a few weeks ago who regaled me with stories of his near-death experiences, claiming to have died at least three times over the past 20 years. But far from being frightened by his NDEs or finding that they gave him a new lease on life, he was enthusiastically anticipating his actual death. According to him, the only time he’s ever felt at peace was when he was dead. He described each of his NDEs as being in a dark place where he was free of pain.
As I’ve written here before, I also had an NDE (just before my rebirth) and experienced exactly what this man did – darkness and no pain. At the time, I interpreted the absence of pain as peace. It was in this pitch-blackness that God came to me with his offer. I accepted it and came back to life reborn. The so-called peace I’d felt in the darkness was nothing compared to the real peace I then experienced as a born-again believer. The peace of death is an absence of sensation, whereas the peace in a believer’s soul comes from the abiding presence of God’s Holy Spirit.
I mentioned to the cab driver that the peace he’d felt was an interim phase only (death) and that something much worse would follow for unbelievers, but he didn’t want to hear about it. He insisted (or better said, he ranted) that he hated life and longed for death. Needless to say, I was glad when that cab ride was over.
There are only four destinations for human souls when their body dies, and being recycled back to Earth is not one of them. Despite what the devil says to convince you otherwise, there’s no such thing as soul migration; there are only demons masquerading as human souls, pretending they’ve been reincarnated or transferred. Don’t fall for their lies. We’ve been granted by God to live once and once only on Earth, and then comes the Judgement. Before your time is up, set your sights on Heaven and hold them there steady ’til the end.
CHRISTIAN IN A BUNKER
CHARLO, New Brunswick, February 17, 2024 – You’re in your bunker. You’ve got enough food to last at least 10 years. Ditto, water (your bunker is on a gravity-fed well). Your power is run by by a bank of batteries that you recharge on a bike. Your air filtration and security cameras are camouflaged in tree trunks. You’ve stockpiled iodine pills, First Aid supplies, vitamins, supplements, and everything you think you’ll need to keep yourself occupied, grounded, and centered in an SHTF scenario. Your guns and ammo are high and dry, your back-up bows have plenty of arrows, and all your comms are masked and hardened. You’ve prepped to remain underground for as long as it takes, and as far as you know, no-one knows where you are.
But there’s just one thing you may have forgotten – God knows where you are, and so does the devil. And if God and the devil know where you are, you’re going to have company sooner or later. It could come in the form of surveillance or attack drones, or it may be some desperately hungry or injured people, sent by God or the devil to test how you’ll respond. As a Christian, what do you do? Do you give your position away and emerge to assist them, or do you hunker down, stay silent, and wait for them to move on? What if more refugees start showing up, even more desperate than the first ones? How long can you remain underground and silent, hoping everyone will just go away? Or should you pick and choose who to help and who to ignore?
Being a Christian makes you obligated to help whoever God prompts you to help, whether friend or foe. This obligation is non-negotiable for Christians, even in an SHTF scenario. If you choose not to help someone God has specifically prompted you to help, you’ll get the due rewards for that, which means you’ll pay the price in suffering.
Even so, helping strangers will compromise your hide-out location and put a dent in your supplies. This is the dilemma that all preppers face, Christian or not, and also the reason why they stockpile weapons and ammo. Defending your fortress at all costs may be priority #1 for most preppers, but it can’t be for Christians. Priority #1 for you as a Christian must be to help whoever God prompts you to help. You should be prepared to walk away from your bunker, if staying means you have to spill another’s blood to defend it.
Jesus’ warned us that the time would come when we’d be treated like outlaws by mainstream society, and when that time does come, we should get a weapon at all costs, even if we have to sell the shirt off our back to get one. But Jesus never said that we should use the weapon to hurt people. We should get a weapon, yes, but we should use it for deterrence purposes only. The person staring down the other end of our barrel, bow, or blade won’t know our true intentions and will likely be scared off by our menacing posture. That’s the idea, anyway, and should suffice.
Better not to have a bunker at all, if it only ends up bringing you tests and temptations.
We need to have this conversation around weapons and their use. Far too many people who call themselves Christians believe it is their God-given right to kill in self-defence or in defence of a loved one or property. Some even consider it their duty to kill in defence of God’s honor and for Christianity itself (Crusaders and “God’s Army”, I’m talking to you). This belief is false. Jesus was clear in his warning that those who live by the sword die by the sword. When Peter rushed to defend Jesus at his arrest, Jesus rebuked him for hurting the soldier and then healed the soldier’s wound. This crystalizes Jesus’ teaching on weapon usage for his followers. Yes, he told us to get a weapon, but he meant that we should carry it for deterrence purposes only. I cannot repeat that enough. We’re not to use our weapons to hurt or kill people. God will protect us from our enemies and deal with them as only he knows how.
So if you do get to that point (I pray you never do) where you’re hunkered down somewhere to ride out an SHTF storm and God sends you someone to help, to test you, you help that person, even if it compromises your hide-out and supplies. Unlike the children of the world, we’re not here for survival; we’re here to help: We’re here in service to others.
And by all means, have a weapon on hand and brandish it in fine style if the situation calls for it. Jesus told us to get a weapon. Just don’t hurt anyone with it. Only shoot (if shoot you must) to put the fear of God in your attacker. Learn how to handle and care for a weapon, but think of it as a prop only, not a killing or maiming tool. This scripture-based teaching for Christians comes straight from Jesus, who himself got it straight from God. So if you have any problem with it, take it up with them.
FEAR AND TREMBLING
CHARLO, February 16, 2024 – I was born-again from atheism nearly 25 years ago. I learned about God and Jesus from God and Jesus, first by my rebirth experience itself, and then by reading scripture and deepening my relationship with God and Jesus day by day. I attended Catholic mass for the first few years of my rebirth, but it was more an exercise in attendance and calisthenics (stand up, sit down, kneel down, sit down, bow your head, cross yourself, stand up, etc.) than an education in God. I guess what I’m saying in my usual roundabout way is that my knowledge of God and Jesus comes from the source itself – God and Jesus, and their words recorded in scripture.
Having been taught about God and Jesus by God and Jesus, I find it odd when theologians and pastors argue over what God and Jesus meant when they said this or that. God is Truth and we receive God’s Spirit of Truth at rebirth, which means those who are born-again are speaking God’s language of Truth by default. I don’t argue in support of this or that point of theology or school of thought, like a sports fan raucously backing a team for no other reason than that it is his team. As a born-again believer, I support Truth and Truth only, which is neither a school of thought nor a point of theology, because Truth, as scripture assures us, is God.
I mention this as a preamble of sorts to the topic of salvation. There are several different theological points of view and schools of thought on whether or not salvation (that is, eternity in Heaven) is guaranteed for all those who believe in Jesus. But how can there be opposing points of view on Truth? The fact that there are even differing arguments on this pivotal topic is itself a giveaway to the spiritual credentials of those doing the arguing.
Truth, being God, doesn’t need to be argued. Truth only needs to be presented, and those who love Truth will recognize it and receive it as such. This process of recognizing and receiving Truth when it’s presented is one of the abiding gifts of God’s Holy Spirit in a reborn soul. Those who are not reborn don’t have that gift and so can easily be deceived.
When I heard about “once saved, always saved”, I immediately dismissed it as a lie. It’s not only non-scriptural, it’s a repackaged version of the same old nose-stretcher told to the children of Abraham back in the day. Jesus had it out quite a few times with the scribes and Pharisees, etc., about their presumption that they were indisputably Heaven-bound solely because of their genetics. He tried to correct them by presenting the Truth, but being children of the devil, they would not receive correction.
I know that when you, as a born-again believer, read these words, you’ll recognize God’s Truth in them and receive them as such. I know that you’re well aware that we’re on spiritual probation and will remain on spiritual probation right up until the end of our time here. Our salvation is not guaranteed by our rebirth. Our rebirth, being conditional, guarantees nothing; it did, however, enable us to receive God’s Holy Spirit and through the Spirit to develop a close relationship with God and Jesus and to enter into God’s Kingdom on Earth.
But our rebirth does not guarantee our salvation, any more than the state of grace we entered into at our rebirth guarantees our salvation or being in God’s Kingdom guarantees our salvation. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross paid the sin price that enabled our reconciliation with God, but our reconciliation doesn’t in and of itself guarantee our salvation. Jesus’ sacrifice doesn’t guarantee salvation to someone simply for stating: “I believe”. If that were the case, even demons would be Heaven-bound, as James rightly pointed out, because demons know only too well that Jesus is the Christ.
Spiritual rebirth enables us to have a one-on-one relationship with God and Jesus. Through this relationship, we have their protection and guidance, which is worth more than all the world’s wealth combined. But even having this priceless constant protection and guidance still does not guarantee our salvation. We still have free will while we’re in the state of grace, which means we can still choose against God and Jesus.
We can still sin.
And we can still fall.
We don’t stop being tempted and tested just because we’re born-again and the apple of God’s eye. Yes, God loves us, but rules are rules and standards are standards, and we’re held to the highest of standards as God’s children. He expects the most from us, and rightly so, because he’s blessed us with so much. Jesus warned us that everything we do, every word we speak, and every thought we entertain will be judged. The devil’s taking copious notes on each of us and is planning to throw them in our face at the Judgement, pulling all stops to have us condemned. Jesus will present our defense, of course, but it will be much more than just “they believed in me”. He will have to prove by our actions, words, and thoughts that we lived our belief to the best of our ability, and that we did so to our last mortal breath. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding, not in the recipe.
You, as a born-again believer, know this already. You know that you have to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, not with presumption, boasting, and false assurances. You know that you’re on probation and will remain on probation until the end of your time here. You know that grace is a state of being that you entered into at rebirth, courtesy of Jesus’ sacrifice. You didn’t earn grace; it was given to you. God has no interest in taking his gift back, but you still have the capacity to trash it and dump it of your own free will.
God promises he’ll never leave us or forsake us, but we can certainly leave and forsake him. God will not stop us, if we choose to go. We still have the capacity to stop following Jesus and start following Satan, like Judas did. May we never do that.
I learned about God, Jesus, and scripture from God, Jesus, and scripture, not from theologians and pastors. Being reborn and in a state of grace, I have God’s Holy Spirit of Truth in me, so I know a lie when I hear it. “Once saved, always saved” is a lie and a very dangerous one at that. It makes people spiritually lazy and proud, which is why the devil told this lie to the children of Abraham all those years ago and why he’s telling it to Christians today.
But as born-again believers, we know that as long as we have free will, we have no assurance of salvation, which means we can still sin the unforgivable sin and fall from grace. Being conscious of our vulnerability makes us careful in how we choose our words, thoughts, and actions. The more careful we are, the less ammo we give the devil for Judgement Day.
HOW THE DEVIL EMASCULATES GOD’S WORD
They have filled the land with violence and have returned to provoke me with anger…. Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eyes shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them….
I will recompense their way upon their head.
CHARLO, New Brunswick, January 22, 2024 – The quote above is from Ezekiel (8:17-18/9:10), where God explains what he is about to do to his own people, and why. As with everywhere else in the Bible, God does not mince his words. He is not afraid to offend Ezekiel’s sensibilities: He simply says what he means.
Most Christians no longer say what God means. They’ve been trained by the devil to sugar-coat and even compromise God’s Word so as not to offend or hurt people’s feelings. For example, Christians are now watering down what love means to include sinful acts, again for the sake of not hurting people’s feelings or risking “alienating” anyone.
But we as born-again believers are not in the business of being nice or popular; we are not trained by the devil. Prophets of God should never sugar-coat God’s Word so as not to hurt people’s sensibilities. Our job is to represent God and to speak his Truth as he reveals it to us, no compromise.
And God’s Truth is at time intensely hurtful. It’s meant to be. God uses emotional and physical pain as a way to get people’s attention – to snap them out of their sinful delusions. He also uses pain as a reward for ungodly behavior (as evidenced in the opening quote) and as a test. Allowing people to experience pain is part and parcel of who God is. We can’t expect to go through this life, whether as a sinner or a saint, and not experience some level of emotional or physical pain.
In other words, God doesn’t shy from doing what needs to be done. His justice, like everything else about him, is perfect, and sometimes his justice requires the swift, mass, and fatal infliction of pain even in his own people as their due reward. You cannot sugar-coat this reality or you risk offending God. Yet as we see in the watering down of the meaning of “love”, many Christians have no problem offending God as long as people still like them.
I have zero problems offending Christians if the choice is between speaking God’s Truth and not hurting someone’s feelings. In fact, my consistent choice to offend Christians by speaking God’s Truth has become my calling card. Most pastors caution that we should be speaking God’s Word in “love” and “grace”, again with an eye not to offend or alienate, but I don’t see any attempt by God, in Ezekiel or elsewhere, to water down the description of what he intends to do to his people. The unadulterated Truth of God is that pain is part of love and that pain is part of grace. To deny that reality is to speak the lies of the devil rather than God’s Truth.
The devil scores points when we bend and twist God’s Word so as not to offend. He’s taught even God’s people to do this and continuously whispers in our ear to act “in love”, after having redefined love as meaning “good feels” rather than evidence of God’s presence. But when you reduce God to good feels and restrict his prophets to not hurting anyone’s feelings, you emasculate them. Misrepresenting God and his Word is not acting in love; it’s supporting and promoting sin.
We cannot, as born-again believers, tolerate the misrepresentation of God and his Word, any more than we tolerate any other sin. We call it sin and refuse to participate in it. Our job is not to mollify people’s sensibilities but to speak God’s Truth boldly and as he gives us permission and instruction to speak it. It is the greatest of all privileges to be a prophet and child of God, to be called his people, but it’s not a free ride: there are equally great responsibilities in being such. I’m not saying you should set up a soapbox in the middle of a pride parade and start railing against sin – no. That is not the time or place to speak God’s Truth. But if someone in a space designated as God’s House demands that sin be tolerated, you have an obligation to speak God’s Truth, and that obligation is to God.
God has no problem obliterating even his own people if his justice calls for it. That is who God is. As his prophets speaking his Word in Truth, we need to remind “those who have ears to hear” that God is revealed as much in Ezekiel 8 and 9 as he is in John 3:16, and that the same God of John 3:16 will not hesitate to Ezekiel 8 and 9 you, if you have it coming.
I tell you all this because the devil certainly won’t, and the devil has infiltrated all denominational churches, emasculating the pastors and their congregations by watering down God’s Word. This is not what Jesus had in mind when he said we should become eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. Jesus modeled what it is to be a child of God, and if you’ll recall, he was his boldest and hardest hitting when speaking God’s Truth to those who should have known better. There was zero compromise and zero sugar-coating in his confrontations. Jesus had no trouble revealing that side of himself or that side of God when circumstances called for it.
Neither should we.
THE ONE-STEP PROGRAM
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, January 19, 2024 – A while back, I attended a Bible Study at a homeless shelter. I only went for a few sessions, as I quickly learned that the study was less about the Bible and more about persuading the participants to attend the 12-step addictions program meeting held in the same room as the Bible Study, but on different days.
I will say from the outset – full disclosure – that I am not a fan of the 12-step program. I’m definitely not a fan of it for Christians, but I’m also leery of it for non-believers. I think at its core it’s a cult that aims to suck you in for life and make you dependent on it. It also aims to get you to bring others into the cult. I do not buy their assertion that alcoholism or any other kind of addiction is a disease. I do not buy that a person who hasn’t had a drink in decades should still privately and publicly label him- or herself an alcoholic. I do not buy that you need to lean on “mentors” for support rather than God. And I definitely don’t buy that you refer to God as a “higher power” rather than God. Frankly, the whole program and the people who run it give me the creeps. I think the higher power they worship is not God.
As I said – full disclosure. I never mince my words for believers.
If you’re a Christian, you don’t need a 12-step program because you’ve got the one-step program, courtesy of Jesus. The one-step program is calling out to God for help, in Jesus’ name. If you sincerely call out to God for help, he will help you. That is his promise, graven in scripture and on your heart. But if you only half-heartedly call out for help or do so in a double-minded way, God won’t help you. That is also graven in scripture. If you call yourself a Christian but then run to other people for help, God will probably also not help you. And if you call yourself a Christian and then bypass the one-step program for the 12-step program, you no longer have a right to call yourself a Christian.
What is a Christian? A Christian is a born-again follower of Jesus. As a born-again follower of Jesus, a Christian does what Jesus taught, guided, instructed, and directed his followers to do. Jesus taught them to go directly to God for help, in his name. Jesus did not say to go to other people for help: He said to go directly to God.
I’m talking to Christians here. If you’re suffering from some kind of addiction or obsession or something that keeps popping up in your life that you know is not right, you run to God for help. You don’t run to a doctor or a counsellor or a friend or a spouse or a minister or a priest or a 12-step program mentor. You run to God in Jesus’ name. You 100% submit to God, and he will help you. Sure, you can run to a doctor or a counsellor or a 12-step program mentor or even Santa Claus, if you want to (you still have free will as a Christian), but the only help you’ll get from them is the help that they can provide, which is a far cry from the help God can give you.
When God helps, he heals miraculously, and the healing, when it comes, is instantaneous, full, and permanent. Almighty God “makes whole”, which is the very definition of healing. People who offer their help, whether informally or professionally, usually only treat the symptoms, and that over a long period of time, and only partially and temporarily, and at great emotional and financial cost.
I was healed by God. I cried out for help and God healed me. He didn’t make me perfect; he made me spiritually whole. At the same time, he put his Holy Spirit in me and I became a follower of Jesus. The whole thing happened in an instant but has remained my reality for nearly 25 years.
Again, God made me whole at my rebirth; he didn’t make me perfect. I still have temptations and tests to grapple with, but I run to God for help with those and he always helps me, fully, instantaneously, and permanently. So when I tell you to run to God in Jesus’ name, I’m not simply repeating what Jesus told us to do: I’m telling you from deep personal experience gained over a long period of time as a born-again believer.
Submit yourself 100% to God in Jesus’ name, and God will help you.
It takes only one step.
In Jesus’ name.
Amen.
ARE YOU HELPING FOR GOOD OR IN VAIN?
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, January 17, 2024 – Jesus spent his entire ministry helping people. In fact, helping people was the reason God sent him. As Jesus’ followers, we also have that same impulse baked into us to help people: It’s part of who and what we are as Christians: we can’t help but help. Certainly, helping people is a good thing in and of itself, but we need to remember that Jesus didn’t just go around randomly helping people for the sake of it; he waited for God to show him who he was to help and how he was to do it, and then he helped them.
I was reminded of this when I read an article the other day about a homeless encampment in suburban Halifax. The camp has been growing for months on an unused baseball diamond and has gained some notoriety through constant media coverage. The fall-out from all the publicity is that members of the general public – including some local churches – have started dropping off “donations” to the homeless at the camp. These are usually in the form of food, gift cards, clothing, tents, sleeping bags and other camping items, and personal care products. Some people also drop off cash.
The reason the camp was in the news on that particular day is that a drug dealer had set up camp (literally, in a trailer) next to the homeless encampment. Using the camp as his cover, he’d been plying his trade for months. When the dealer was arrested and his trailer seized, the police found hundreds of gift cards as well as unused winter clothing, sleeping bags, tents, and other items with street value. The police also found a large amount of cash.
While no witnesses have come forward to attest to the homeless people at the camp trading their donated goods for drugs, the evidence is overwhelming. Thinking they were helping the homeless, the people who’d dropped off donations were in fact only helping the drug trade and enabling the drug-addicted homeless to sink deeper into their own personal mire. In other words, they were making a bad situation worse.
What the general public chooses to do is their business, and I would never tell them who or how to help. It’s not my job to do that. But what Christians do or don’t do is very much my business. We’re here to help each other as much as we’re here to help non-Christians. Please allow me, then, to offer you a gentle reminder (for those who need it) about the importance of helping people the way Jesus helped them and the way God invites us to help them.
First and foremost – wait for God to show you who and how to help. If you wait for God to show you, he will also enable you, and the help you provide will be blessed. When your help is enabled and blessed by God, it won’t end up in the hands of a drug dealer. It won’t make the situation worse. If you wait for God to specifically tell you who needs the help and how you can help them, you will genuinely be blessing people.
Secondly but just as importantly, “don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing”. In other words, don’t make a big show of your help. Don’t blow a horn and announce your help. Just do it.
And thirdly, let people know you’re happy to help them in any way you’re able to help them, and then leave the offer with them. Don’t force your help on anyone or guilt them into thinking they need your help. Wait for them to come to you. If they come to you, God has brought them to you, and God will help you help them.
I worked for a major international Christian charity several years ago on a short-term contract, coordinating the charity’s volunteers at Christmas time. My office was on the main floor of the main building, so I got to see all the comings and goings of the charity’s interactions with the general public. A few weeks before Christmas, an elderly woman dropped off a garbage bag full of mittens and hats she’d knitted over the past year, intended for the homeless and needy (there was a homeless shelter attached to the main building). She’d brought her donations to the charity assuming that the charity would then dispense the items to people who could use them. This was a tradition for the woman, that she’d donate a garbage bag full of her labours every year just before Christmas. The charity staff made a big deal of thanking her for her donation and waved her out the door. Then one of the staff took the bag of mittens and hats upstairs.
A few weeks later, just after Christmas, I was rummaging through one of the storage rooms to find a pair of winter boots for someone at the hostel, when lo and behold I stumbled across dozens of dusty garbage bags full of handknit mittens and hats, moldering in the dampness. By the looks of it, none of the woman’s donations over the years had gone any farther than that storage room, and now they were no good to anyone.
One of the most sobering parables in the Bible is the one about the people who’d attended church and performed miracles and preached in Jesus’ name but who were shut out of Heaven because they’d done all these things on their own volition. When we rush to help people without God’s prompting and guidance and without God’s blessing, we aren’t helping them in any real way and are likely only making things worse. As Christians, our job is to help people, but we need to help them as God guides us, in his way and in his timing. When we rush to help people just for the sake of helping them, our efforts are not unlike those who claimed to preach in Jesus’ name but who preached in vain because God hadn’t sent them.
David’s advice to “wait on the Lord” (Psalm 27) is as applicable to helping people as it is to every other aspect of our lives.
TO DO OR NOT TO DO: PRIORITIZING GOD
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, January 15, 2024 – Paul mentions how we’re always doing the things we shouldn’t be doing and not doing the things we should. He was talking here about things that are right in God’s eyes and how we have a tendency to slide towards the sinful rather than the righteous. He’s not wrong about that. Even Jesus had his moments when he had to rein in the tendency that was trying to pull him away from a righteous response. Thank God he always had the upper hand, regardless of the circumstance; we, on the other hand, not so much.
I was reminded today of our tendency to slide towards the sinful, but in a different context. I caught myself thinking how I never seem to have enough time to do the things I’d planned to do in the run of a day. I reasoned with myself (in my defence) that there are only so many hours in the day, and of those hours, only so many when I’m awake, and of those I’m awake, only so many when I’m fully functional, and of those when I’m fully functional, only so many when I’m operating at the top of my game. Yes, I’m being somewhat facetious about the “operating at the top of my game” part, but you get the gist. When you’re operating at the top of your game, everything flows, and you’re not so much “in the moment” as you are the moment.
As for the non-glorious rest of my waking hours, my “to do” list is perpetually longer than my day. What’s a poor sinner to do?
The answer, as always, can be found in scripture. If we do those things that we know we shouldn’t (or better said, if we don’t do those things we know we should), it’s because we prioritize the wrong things. It’s not rocket science. What you spend your time doing reflects your priorities.
But scripture very clearly tells us what our priority should be and how to make sure it stays a priority and dominates our waking hours. Note that I’m talking to believers here, not to unbelievers. What unbelievers choose to prioritize is not my business. They can prioritize whatever they want. My business is pointing out what believers should prioritize, and in a word, it’s God.
Believers should prioritize God.
Jesus says that that the most important Commandment is also the first Commandment, which is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. So, our priority is to love God and to do so with every faculty and ability we have. So far, so good. Simple and straight-forward. But knowing we’re supposed to do something doesn’t necessarily translate to our doing it. If we know that loving God should be our priority, how do we avoid all the distractions trying to lure us away from doing it?
Remember that Jesus also had a to-do list. He worked ceaselessly even on the Sabbath, because his work was God’s work, which meant he could do it 24/7. But Jesus’ to-do list didn’t include vacuuming the house, doing the laundry, or shoveling the driveway. It didn’t include picking the kids up after school and taking them to the dentist’s. Jesus had one job and one job only – being God’s Messiah – and so everything on his to-do list reflected that.
What I’m saying is that if we feel we’re not giving enough of time to God, it’s because we’re not giving enough time to God. Full stop. And we’re not giving enough time to God because we’re not prioritizing God. If we’re not loving God (that is, if we’re not putting him at the center of everything we do and not doing what he’s showing us to do), it’s because we’re prioritizing something or someone else over God. We should never to this, not as believers. When we come to the Judgement and God asks us why we didn’t get around to doing the work he sent us to do, “sorry, I was too busy” is not going to fly as an excuse. Truth be told, at the point (the Judgement), no excuse is going to fly, so we’d better make sure we get our priorities straight before we get there.
Immediately after Jesus called them, his disciples gave up everything to make God their priority, and other than for Judas Iscariot, they continued to make God their priority for the rest of their time on Earth. They walked away from their families, their jobs, their homes, and their possessions – their entire focus from that point onward was God, and their entire to-do list was “do God’s work”, as was Jesus’ list.
If you’re genuinely born-again, you’ve been called to put God first and make him the only priority in your life. God doesn’t ask us to this because he’s an egomaniac who wants to dominate our every waking minute. Far from it. God asks us to put him first because he knows that’s the only way we’ll avoid sliding into distractions. If we prioritize anything or anyone other than God, we risk backsliding, and if we backslide long and far enough, we won’t make it Home.
So, what’s on your to-do list for today?
More importantly, what’s on your to-do list for tomorrow and every day after that?
WHEN YOU TAKE GOD SERIOUSLY
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, January 13, 2024 – Jesus didn’t spend his ministry looking for people who didn’t believe in God and trying to get them to believe. That wasn’t his aim or purpose. Jesus spent his ministry inviting people who already believed to commit to the highest level of belief that encompassed every aspect of their lives.
What he essentially did was to invite people to take God seriously.
As followers of Jesus, we should not only be taking God seriously but aiming to get others to take him seriously, too. We do this not by threatening them (as some religions do) but by reminding them of Jesus’ teachings.
What does it look like when you take God seriously?
First and foremost, you totally and willingly submit to God. You don’t submit 50% or 75% or even 99% – you submit 100%. When you take God seriously, you take him at his Word, which means you keep his Commandments, the first of which is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You don’t love God just a little bit or when it’s convenient for you, or just on Sundays for an hour during church service. You love him 24/7. You fall asleep thinking about God, you wake up thinking about God, and he’s on your mind all day long. God and Jesus are your constant companions, through God’s Holy Spirit that you received at your rebirth, and you do nothing without their prompting. Jesus said he only did what the Father showed him to do and only what pleased the Father. Jesus didn’t dream up this or that scheme and then run it by God for his approval; he waited for God to show him what to do. We’re to do the same.
When you take God seriously, you understand that he means business. Yes, God is loving and merciful, but he’s also just, which means he dictates and approves vengeance. The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament. They are not different gods, as some would have you believe. The God who incinerated two of Aaron’s sons for burning incense to demons and then forbid Aaron to mourn them is the same God who lovingly called down from Heaven that Jesus is his son and we should listen to him. The same God who directed the children of Israel, under Joshua, to stone Achan and all his family to death and then to burn their corpses and heap rocks on their remains is the same God who sent his Holy Spirit to baptize the disciples at Pentecost. The same God who utterly and without remorse destroyed Sodom is the same God who lovingly nurtured John the Baptist in the wilderness.
What this means is that unless we want to end up like Aaron’s sons or Achan and his family or the people of Sodom, we need to take God seriously and thoroughly understand that he means business. It’s not enough to say that “God loves me” and “God is merciful” and “Jesus died for our sins so I’m covered” and then go on our merry way, living the life of the world. The hypocrites, as Jesus pointed out, thought that being children of Abraham was their spiritual covering and automatic ticket to Heaven, but they were dead wrong. We’re also dead wrong if we think that being followers of Jesus is our spiritual covering and automatic ticket to Heaven or that “pleading the blood of Jesus” is going to be a sufficient defense on Judgement Day.
Trust me – the last thing you’ll want to find out at the Judgement is that you are indeed judged on your every word, thought, and deed, just like Jesus warned us we would be. The devil is working overtime to get you to believe that’s not the case, that all you need is “faith” and to throw a little charity here and there and you’re good to go. The devil would have you believe that the Commandments are old school and optional, and that all that matters is “love”. He’s fooled a lot of people in that regard. I hope you’re not one of them.
When you take God seriously, your life looks nothing like the life of the world. You understand that, like Jesus, your time is short and you’re here only to do what God sends you to do. You don’t make long-term plans or any plans at all: You’re entirely in God’s hands. Also like Jesus, you don’t marry or have romantic relationships but instead become a eunuch for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. That doesn’t mean you cut off your genitals; it means you live as if you don’t have any. If you’re married, you leave your spouse. You don’t divorce, you separate. A spouse will only take your focus off God. So will children. You live celibately and without ties, attachments, or dependents. You don’t have a mortgage and you don’t have credit cards. You don’t take out loans. You owe nothing to anyone. You don’t own a house or land. If you have a job, you don’t have a boss. You work just enough to earn your daily bread and with the understanding that you might have to stop working from one day to the next. Your job is not your priority; your family is not your priority; your possessions are not your priority: God is your priority.
When you take God seriously, nothing written here shocks you or unsettles you. You agree with every word and see yourself reflected not in the hypocrites or in Achan and his family, but in Jesus. When you take God seriously, you respond with enthusiasm to his invitation to take your commitment to the highest level and you send God your RSVP right away; you don’t make excuses as to why you can’t or won’t: You simply do it.
When you take God seriously, spending all day, every day, with him and Jesus is not an obligation or an imposition: It’s pure pleasure. It’s life itself, outside which there is no life.
When you take God seriously, you do the right thing for no other reason than it is the right thing. You treat everyone as you would want to be treated, no exceptions. And if you fall short of these aims (and you will, we all do; only Jesus didn’t) – if you fall short, you make your amends and you keep going. You don’t wallow in self-pity or self-loathing; you don’t tear out your hair and berate yourself publicly or privately; you don’t make excuses or point fingers of blame: you make your amends and you keep going.
When you take God seriously, your life is blessed morning, noon, and night, wherever you are and wherever you go. You’re the happiest creature on Earth, when you take God seriously.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 