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THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, August 2, 2025 – A love of the truth, the desire for truth, the need for truth – these all exist at a gut level in those who love God. Where there is no love for the truth, there can be no love for God. Without a love for the truth, there can be a seeming love for God, a casual affection for God, but no genuine love. Only those who have a love for the truth can genuinely love God.
There’s a reason why the first Commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. God made it the first Commandment, because if we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, the other Commandments will be easy for us to keep. By “easy to keep”, I mean self-evident. It’s self-evident that if we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we’ll keep his Commandments. It would be self-contradictory for us not to keep them.
I’ve been talking about love for the truth in the past few articles because love for the truth is central to our reality as born-again believers, and I don’t think it gets enough press. Love, of course, gets lots of press, but love for the truth often gets pushed to the side, being the plain-speaking and so less desirable sister. We’re taught by the worldly church to love everyone without distinction, but rarely are we encouraged to speak God’s truth at all costs. This is a great failing on the part of the worldly church, not to emphasize the primacy of love for the truth.
God is Truth and the sole source of it, and so to have a love for the truth is to love God (even if you don’t believe he exists). When Jesus started his ministry, the first thing he did was to leave everything and everyone behind. And why did he do that? Because worldly values and love for the truth cannot peacefully co-exist. If you have a genuine love for the truth, you cannot compromise, and the world requires constant compromise.
Jesus’ first disciples likewise had to choose between the world and love for the truth. Thank God they chose truth! As soon as Jesus called them, they left everything and everyone behind, understanding that there could be no compromise in Kingdom work.
I am deeply saddened when I hear words like “diplomacy” and “tolerance” being used to describe Christians’ interactions with the world. These words have never been used to describe Jesus’ interactions and so should never be used to describe the interactions of those who claim to be Jesus’ followers. We cannot be diplomatic and tolerant and have a love for the truth at the same time. Diplomacy and tolerance are worldly values, not Kingdom values.
Like the early Church, we born-again believers can have a certain degree of community with each other, but only if it’s predicated on a love for the truth. I’ve made it my mission on this blog not to compromise, not to be diplomatic, and not to be tolerant of untruths, which has not made me many friends. But I’m not looking to make friends here, at least not at the cost of compromising my love for the truth. I have friends enough in the heavenly realm. It’s more important that I speak God’s truth, and God’s truth cannot be compromised to spare someone’s feelings.
Jesus never once minced his words, even if it meant he trampled on people’s sensibilities. In this, as in everything else, we’re to follow Jesus’ lead. I don’t mean we should be purposely cruel for the sake of cruelty. No. I mean that we should speak God’s truth uncompromisingly, as all God’s prophets have done throughout the ages, and that we should speak God’s truth regardless of the cost. It’s the high price of discipleship that lost Jesus most of his early followers and it’s still losing him followers today. Who wants to live poor, outcast, mocked, despised, and out of synch with the world?
I do, if that’s what it takes to stay loyal to God.
I’m happy for them to say at my passing: “I never liked her. I’m glad she’s gone”, if before their own passing they say: “She was right.”
JUST A TOOL: ON AI, TRUTH, AND THE MARK
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, July 28, 2025 – I recently had the strange experience of being grilled by an older person about my Artificial Intelligence (AI) usage. Specifically, I wasn’t grilled on how I was using AI; I was blasted for not using it, for not wholeheartedly embracing the tool.
Because that’s what AI is essentially, just a tool. Just another tool. I don’t know if you’ve experienced it as well, but I’ve found that many people across the age spectrum are starting to view AI with near worship-like awe at its capabilities, even though it’s just a tool and can only ever be just a tool. And whether we choose to use that tool or not is still up to us. We still have free will. Most of us. For now, anyway.
There are some places where we use AI without knowing it. We don’t consciously summon it; it’s built into the feature we’re using, like online searches. But even there, when we use the AI tool inadvertently, we can see its limitations, we can see how the promptings are at best best-guesses and the search results leave out more than they include. We can see how the tool’s been digitally carved to deliver results that accord with a certain agenda, and that agenda is not godly. That agenda is skewed away from God.
Which leads me to the whole point of this article, which is that AI, being just a tool, has no love for the truth. Truth doesn’t guide its results in my online searches any more than truth guides its responses to people’s “chats” with the technology. Being just a tool, AI can’t discern between truth and lies because it doesn’t have that capability. It has a lot of capabilities, but not that key one, not the one that distinguishes us from it. Missing the key capability of being able to discern truth from lies renders AI able only ever to be just a tool. It can only ever be just a tool.
Even as a bio-neurological implant, AI is still just a tool, because when AI merges biologically with humans, it overrides their free will. By overriding people’s free will, AI replaces people’s ability to discern truth from lies. I say “replaces”, but what I really mean is “nullifies” – AI nullifies people’s innate God-given discernment so that, like AI, the humans become a preprogrammed tool with all the awe-inspiring capabilities of AI, but still just a tool.
In merging with humans biologically, AI doesn’t become human or even a human hybrid: AI doesn’t become sentient (it can never become sentient). Instead, the humans it merges with become AI hosts, fully controlled by the AI’s programming and no longer able to discern truth from lies, no longer having free will, no longer able to choose the truth solely because it is the truth and therefore desirable, regardless of the consequences of choosing the truth. The human-AI entity devolves to an “it”, to being just a tool.
And there’s the crux of the problem right there. The Bible talks about people who take the mark being permanently shut out of Heaven. People who’ve lost their free will have also lost their ability to discern truth from lies and therefore cannot have a love for the truth. Just as it’s impossible for AI, being without free will, to have a love for the truth, one day it will also likewise be impossible for AI-controlled humans to have a love for the truth. The Bible says that most humans will choose this state—will willingly take the mark—and that it will be their eternal damnation.
I can very well see the older person who grilled me about embracing AI taking the mark without thinking twice. I can also see the people who willingly took the injections and willingly wore the mask taking the mark without thinking twice. These are people who, though still having free will, display no love for God in their free-will choices, no love for the truth. They will willingly exchange their God-given free will for a SmartMind™, or better said hive mind, but we dare not. We dare never make that exchange, not for any promise of near godlike abilities if we do, nor for any threat of punishment if we don’t. We who are melded with God’s Holy Spirit dare never make that exchange.
I’m not against AI as a tool, but I am against AI as a replacement for free will. When the time comes, will you use your free will to choose Truth—to choose God—or become just another tool?
“WHO IS TRUTH?”
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, March 7, 2024 – During Jesus’ trial, Pontius Pilate rather sardonically muttered as an aside: “What is truth?”, likely not expecting anyone to answer him let alone record his question for posterity. And yet here we are, nearly 2000 years later, not only repeating Pilate’s question but happy to finally set the poor man straight. (“Better late than never”, as my grandmother would say.)
First of all, Pilate’s remark needs rephrasing. He shouldn’t have asked “What is truth?” but “Who is Truth?”, and the answer to that question is, of course, “God”.
God is Truth. As believers, we’ve heard this countless times and (if we’re believers) wholeheartedly agree. But for unbelievers like Pilate, it’s simply a shrugging moment. So what if God is Truth?
We believers need to address their shrugs because a lot rides on God being Truth. God’s quality of being Truth works in tandem with all his other qualities, like being Loving, Just, Merciful, Good, Omniscient, Eternal, Unchanging, and so on. If God isn’t Truth, then he can’t be the wonderful qualities we’ve come to know about him. He would just be relative lies, the kind that social justice and the evil “DIE” trinity are based on.
Back when I was an atheist, I would have waved enthusiastic jazz hands at Pilate’s sardonic aside. But the instant I was born-again, I knew Truth, and knowing Truth, I also knew what wasn’t Truth. Jesus tells us that Truth is a Spirit – not a thing, but a living being – and that the Spirit of Truth inhabits believers. At my rebirth, God’s Spirit of Truth entered into me and I could see – really see – for the first time in my life. By “see”, I mean that I finally understood how the world works and why people do what they do. I could see what motivated them and what enticed them. I finally understood why things are the way they are, an understanding that had eluded me from the time I was old enough to wonder why things are the way they are.
My eureka moment of understanding has lasted now for nearly 25 years. In that time, I’ve come not only to know who Truth is, but to get to know him personally, one-on-one. Truth is my heavenly Father, the same Father Jesus spoke of during his ministry years, the same Father Jesus was referring to after his resurrection, when he told Mary Magdalene: “go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God”.
God is Truth. Because he is Truth, he is also all good things by virtue simply of being Who He Is. Jesus said that none are good but God. Since we know that is a factual statement (Jesus never lied to us), then we know of a certainty that God is good and that all good things come from God. We know of a certainty that the way things are is precisely as God’s Spirit of Truth shows them to be. My understanding of God’s Truth and God-as-Truth is not based on my own understanding but on God’s revelations through his written Word and his Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit has been with me now for nearly two and half decades since my rebirth, teaching me and revealing more and more of God to me as my capacity grows to receive him. By “capacity”, I mean faith. By “capacity”, I mean faithfulness.
The world is blind and deaf to God and his Spirit, as Jesus told us it would be. We who see and hear are blessed beyond measure, as this gift cannot be bought or bartered or sold, no, not for any price. The richest and most powerful people in the world, even if they pooled all their wealth and persuasion, still could not purchase the smallest measure of God’s Holy Spirit. The tiniest of slivers would still be unattainable to them, and yet we, the “afflicted and poor”, received a generous measure of God’s Spirit as a welcoming gift when we entered into God’s Kingdom at our rebirth.
Pilate knew Jesus didn’t deserve the death penalty, but his hands were tied and he had to give into the mob’s demands. If Pilate had known God to be the truth he’d so cynically dismissed, perhaps he would have stood his ground. Perhaps he would have taken Jesus and hidden him away, like Paul had been hidden away before being rescued. But had he done that, Pilate wouldn’t have fulfilled scripture. His blindness to Truth was part and parcel of prophecy, as is the world’s blindness, as was our own blindness, before we could see.
God is Truth. Thank God we know this now with every fiber of our being.
Thank God we see.
__________
“Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: For I tell you, that many prophets and kings desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them….”
Luke 10:23-24
__________
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.
CARITAS
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, July 31, 2021 – When God tells us he’ll never leave us or betray us, we need to pay attention.
Jesus says we’re to love God with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength. If we love God like that, we won’t have any love left over for anything or anyone else. What we’ll have instead is caritas, which is the cup-runneth-over kind of love. Caritas enables you to be kind to everyone, regardless of how they are to you, and to treat others as you want to be treated. In other words, caritas enables us to keep the Commandments, including the one Jesus gave us to love our enemies.
Caritas is the by-product of receiving God’s love in return for loving him. When you love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, so much of his love pours back onto you that you can’t contain it. That’s where caritas comes from. This overflow love is then meant for you to pour onto others.
The notion of caritas has been bastardized by the world and by the blind to refer to an obligatory form of giving (charity), but real caritas is God’s love overflowing you. You can give caritas to anyone indiscriminately, regardless of whether you know them or not and regardless of whether they hate you or not. God’s love fills you so much that you don’t require love from other people. If everyone in the world hates you but you know God loves you and you feel his love, you have more than enough love for yourself and to share.
When we love God the way scripture invites us to love him, we have no need to look for love in anyone or anything else. People who don’t love God are constantly looking for God-love substitutes, usually in other people, though sometimes also in material things or pursuits. But God made us to love him; we’re hardwired to love him; so if we try to rewire ourselves or override the wiring, we fail. We were built to fail if we try to find love in anything or anyone other than God. This is the failsafe that both drives us toward and brings us back to God, even if we don’t believe he exists.
As an atheist, I believed in love and I believed in truth, but I didn’t believe in God. I thought if I kept looking for love and truth, someday I would find them, though not necessarily in the same place. What I didn’t realize as an atheist is that God is Love and God is Truth, so the desire that drove me to find love and truth was actually the inborn desire for God that was hardwired into me by God himself.
God will never leave us or betray us. These are huge promises. No-one and nothing on Earth can give us these promises and keep them. Only God can. People will always leave you and betray you, just as you will always leave and betray them. You may look the other way and pretend they’re not leaving or betraying you, but you’re only fooling yourself.
Women are very good at this, fooling themselves. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of women I know who haven’t looked the other way while their significant other betrayed them. Most women would rather be betrayed and look the other way than lose their man, and that is just sad.
God will never betray us. HE WILL NEVER BETRAY US. He will neither leave us nor betray us. Imagine the enormity of such promises, and yet you don’t have to imagine, because these promises are real and unbreakable. God cannot break his promise to us. When he says he’ll never leave us or betray us, he won’t. When he invites us to love him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, we should. The rewards of loving God are infinite and nothing on Earth compares to them.
God is standing there with his heart on his sleeve saying “I love you, and I’ve made you to love me.” He’s not begging you; he’s reminding you that he loves you and that he’s made you to want to love him. The desire you feel to give and receive love is at heart the desire to love God and receive his love in return. You have been hardwired to love God and to receive his love.
In loving God and only in loving God can you find your peace and fulfillment. You’ll have no desire to look for love in others or to expect love from others.
In loving God and only in loving God can you truly give caritas.
Freedom
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 1, 2015 – Jesus is the greatest of all freedom fighters. He told us that knowing the truth will make us free, and so it does. God is truth, so knowing God as our Dad brings us into God’s kingdom on Earth and makes us free from the attacks of our spiritual enemies. This is the true freedom that God promised Israel through the Old Testament prophets. This is true safety and security, not the fake one promoted by the Homeland Security organizations of the world. As long as we keep wanting and choosing what God wants for us (knowing that God wants only the best), then we are secure in our safety and freedom.
But at the same time God loves and encourages free thought. In fact, he loves the notion of free thought so much that he embedded it in the concept of free will. We are free to think our way into choosing what God knows is best for us, and we are equally free to think our way into rejecting it.
We are as free to be illogical and wrong in our thought processes as we are free to be logical and correct.
Why would God do that? Why wouldn’t he just make us receptive only to correctness rather than allow us to doubt and make wrong choices based on those doubts?
God loves it when we use the gifts he’s given us, and the gifts he loves us most to use are free thought and free will. God doesn’t want automatons serving him; he doesn’t want forced obedience: he wants us to come to him because we want to come to him. He wants us to weigh the pros and cons (do a cost/benefit analysis, if you will) and then decide what we think is best. Of course, he’s always putting in his two cents’ worth; he never leaves us guessing as to which option is the right one. He wrote his laws on our hearts, and if we’re still not sure, he gave us scripture, his spirit, and Jesus.
I love Jesus! He’s such a cool guy. Nothing ever fazes him. That’s because, when he was in his Earthly body, he lived fully in God’s promise of freedom, protection and security. That doesn’t mean, however, that he automatically did God’s will in everything – no, not at all. He took advantage of his free thought and free will to try to negotiate better terms with God.
One of these famous “negotiations” played out in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before Jesus was crucified. God had earlier told Jesus what was going to happen to him, and certainly Jesus knew from scripture what was going to happen to him, but he didn’t like it. Not one bit. And why would he? He was a virile young man in the peak of health. He didn’t want to die, and certainly not the way that was laid out for him. If he had willingly embraced his humiliation and crucifixion and gone marching to his death with a smile on his face, he would have been insane, and Jesus most certainly was not insane. So, trying to wheedle maybe a few more days or weeks or even hours out of God, Jesus asks him if there’s some other way he can do what needs to be done. He asks him once, and God says “No.” He asks him again, and again God says “No.” He asks him a third time, and when God’s answer is still “No”, Jesus throws in the towel and says he’ll do it.
Does he do it with a smile on his face? Not at all. We know from scripture that he barely spoke a word from that moment onwards. With his God-given free thought, Jesus weighed the pros and cons of what was required of him to be the Messiah. He also used it to try to find some way around the worst of the requirements, but God wasn’t budging. Still, he let Jesus think it through. Still, he stood firm while Jesus tried to find a short-cut that would not involve crucifixion. When the combined witness of God, scripture and his own heart showed Jesus that the best way to do what had to be done was simply to do it, Jesus conceded. He wasn’t coerced; he wasn’t forced; he could have said “no” and gone down another path that might have ended with him marrying Mary Magdalene and bouncing 12 Junior Jesus’s on his knee, but he deduced, through logic and God’s witness, that choosing God’s way was the best way to achieve his goal of Messiahship, so he chose it. God then strengthened him, and less than 24 hours later, Jesus took his place forever at the right hand of God.
David had a similar clash of wills with God over David’s first-born with Bathsheba. Through the prophet Nathan, God informed David that the child would fall ill and die, but David reasoned that maybe God would change his mind if he fasted and prayed and mourned. So, he held vigil for seven days and nights, refusing to eat or drink or even talk to anyone. Despite David’s efforts, the child died, but instead of mourning his death, David got up, took a shower, grabbed a bite to eat, and then headed over to Bathsheba’s private suite to “comfort” her in the Biblical way. His servants are taken aback by what they saw was his odd behavior at the death of his son, but he explained that while his child was still alive, there was a chance that God would change his mind and let the child live. The child’s death signaled that God would not change his mind, so David conceded. It was as simple as that. And at David’s concession, God strengthened him, and Solomon was conceived that very night.
God not only allows us but encourages us to use our free thought and free will. He invites us to align our wills with his not by coercion but by logical choice. God wants only the best for us, but sometimes no pain means no gain. God protects us spiritually, but spiritual protection doesn’t mean that we won’t have to suffer pain while still in our Earthly bodies. We need to make up our mind to accept that now, because, as with Jesus and David, some form of pain is almost definitely going to be in the cards if we intend to “endure to the end”. Still, maybe God will give us some wiggle room; who knows? It never hurts to ask. But if you do ask, and he doesn’t budge, you can be sure that what awaits you on the other side of that temporary pain is a whole lot of gain beyond your wildest dreams.
FOR WHOM THE BELL CURVE TOLLS
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 16, 2015 – Jesus ended his ministry on Earth exactly as he started it: Alone.
When he was naked and dying in agony on the cross, no-one except him believed anymore that he was the Messiah, just like no-one, when he was growing up, believed he would become the Messiah.
If you plotted in graphical form the number of followers Jesus had during his time on Earth, a classic bell curve would emerge. From the initial 1, the numbers would swell to many, and then back down to 1 again.
Ding, dong.
Jesus himself is not responsible for the sharp rise and fall of his follower numbers. Rather, it was his followers’ lack of understanding of scripture along with their unwillingness to accept Jesus’ mandate as being spiritual not political that led to their exodus from the truth.
When Jesus burst on the scene dispensing miraculous healings like free condoms at a Pride parade, nearly everyone wanted to be part of the excitement. Jesus was youthful and vibrant and he really sounded like he knew what he was talking about. He thumbed his nose at religious authorities, besting them in every argument, and had a genuine connection with the people. He was a likeable guy doing likeable things. What’s there not to like?
It was only when Jesus started to challenge his followers’ false beliefs that his popularity began to wane. People wanted feel-good excitement and a “winning” candidate that they could get behind, but Jesus was stating very clearly that the winnings would not be in Earthly terms, and that in fact the Earthly reward for being part of the Kingdom would be persecutions and social rejection. Who in their right mind would want to sign up for that?
As follower after follower drifted away, Jesus didn’t water down his message but instead pushed the remaining followers harder and harder. He was weeding them even as he was feeding them. Those who could stomach the truth, stayed; everyone else either ran screaming or slithered off in silence.
At the cross, no followers at all remained, just a few friends and family members along with some soldiers and the usual assortment of haters. No-one believed anymore that Jesus was the prophesied saviour. Some still loved him, but they didn’t believe in him. He alone persisted to his dying breath in the sure belief that he was the Messiah.
After Jesus died, the women went to his tomb a few days later to apply the spices that were part of Jewish burial rites. Even though Jesus had told them explicitly that he would rise from the dead in three days, they still went to dress his corpse. They didn’t believe he would rise because they didn’t believe he was the Messiah. Then, when they found his tomb empty, they simply thought his body had been moved. They thought Jesus was buried, not risen, because they no longer believed he was who he’d said he was.
Self-confidence is a beautiful thing when it’s based on truth. Jesus remained firm in his belief that he was the Messiah because his interpretation of scripture was God-based, not man- or demon-based. In assuming his role as the Messiah, Jesus hadn’t set out to win a popularity contest. He didn’t measure the success of his mission by how many followers he’d accumulated but by how closely he adhered to a Godly interpretation of scripture and how closely his will was aligned to God’s. And in both of these measurements, his mission was more than accomplished.
Most if not all of today’s churches measure their success quite differently. For them, “making converts” has become some kind of a contest and the church with the most “converts” wins the prize. But to make converts to their false version of Christianity, these antichrist Christians – these wolves in sheep’s clothing we were warned about – not only water down the gospel but sweeten it with saccharine lies. I have stood in many of these churches, as have you.
I will stand in them no more, even if it means, like Jesus, I stand alone.
Even if it means, like Jesus, I die alone.
WHEN THE GOOD NEWS IS BAD NEWS
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 6, 2015 – We know from scripture that the devils speak the truth as well as lies. Demons were among the first to ‘out’ Jesus as the Messiah, and he had a devil of a time shutting them up. Paul and Peter later had the same problem, with a demon-oppressed fortune-telling slave-girl following them around and declaring: “These men are the servants of the most high God, which show us the way to salvation” (Acts 16:17).
What should be a good thing – declaring Jesus as the Messiah, and his way as God’s way – turns into a bad thing when it’s spoken at the wrong time to the wrong people. Rather than promote to the general public that he was God’s Christ, Jesus requested the people he healed not to reveal who he was. You would think that hiding rather than proclaiming who he was would be the opposite of Jesus’ mission, but in this, as in everything else Jesus did, there was a method to his perceived madness.
Jesus often mentioned that the Jews were out to kill him. He meant the Jews in positions of power in Israel, not the everyday-Joe Jews. The Jews in power wanted to kill him because if the everyday-Joe Jews saw Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah, their established power and authority under Roman rule would be threatened. The establishment Jews had the most to lose both in Jesus being the Messiah (eternal damnation) and in Jesus being seen as the Messiah (worldly loss of power), so the best way to rid themselves of this all-round threat was to get rid of Jesus.
Knowing this, Jesus avoided traveling and preaching in some areas. So when the demons ‘outed’ him by speaking through demon-oppressed people and taunting him with “we know who you are”, Jesus told them to be quiet before casting them out. Paul and Peter did the same thing to the demon who spoke through the fortune-telling slave girl. In these cases, the demons were speaking the truth, but at a time and place that put Jesus’ and the apostles’ lives at risk. The truth, when spoken by demons, is always bad news.
Obama has a way of saying things about Christianity that casts Jesus in a bad light and therefore threatens those who follow him. Obama’s latest attack on Christians was launched at the National Prayer Breakfast a few days ago. At the breakfast, Obama stated that Christians should “get off of their high horse” about how brutal the Muslim religion is, considering how brutal the Crusades and Inquisition were, both of which, Obama declared, were carried out “in the name of Christ”.
Obama is speaking the truth in saying that the Crusades and the Inquisition were brutal and were carried out in the name of Christ (meaning, under the banner of Christianity). However, in pointing out atrocities that were carried out in Christ’s name, Obama puts Christians in the same boat as Muslim fanatics who are carrying out mass murders and other atrocities today. In equating Christians with Muslim fanatics, and Muslim fanatics with terrorists, Obama condemns both Christians and Muslim fanatics for the same crimes and thereby implies that these groups are equally dangerous and thus equally enemies of the free world.
This is how demons speak the truth – with the intent to harm, not to help, and their target is almost always followers of Jesus. Yes, the Crusades and the Inquisition were horrendous, and yes, they were carried out in the name of Christ, but Obama’s dredging up of past crimes against humanity serves as a means of deflecting from current atrocities carried out by so-called “extremists”. Obama’s statement is also only “truthful” if taken at face value, considering that the Inquisition was carried out first and foremost to find and ‘convert’ to Roman Catholicism genuine followers of Jesus who refused to submit to the pope. That it was carried out under the banner of Christianity doesn’t mean it was a Christian act.
It should not be surprising that Obama would defend Islam and attack Christianity, given his Muslim upbringing. It should also not be surprising that Obama would attack Christianity, given that the world is under Satan and the POTUS is one of Satan’s chief spokespersons. Islam is a fanatical ideology whose founder was a murderer who encouraged and sanctioned murder. The Koran is filled with exhortations to kill and torture ‘infidels’, meaning all those who refuse to submit to Islam. In contrast, Christianity is an open invitation to live your life by faith by following the example of its founder, Jesus, who never committed murder and always counseled his followers against murdering anyone. The New Testament is filled with exhortations to “love your enemies” and do good to them. The two ideologies – Christianity and Islam – could not be further apart, either in word or deed.
Yes, horrendous acts were committed long ago in the name of Christ, but these acts were carried out by demon-inspired people who did not know God, did not know Jesus, and did not know the New Testament. The horrendous acts being carried out today in the name of Islam use the Koran as an instruction manual for those deeds and bear Mohammad’s seal of approval. The demon speaking through Obama at the Prayer Breakfast may have been speaking the truth, but its intention was not to enlighten, as truth should; rather, the demon’s aim was to deflect blame from the guilty and, in so doing, condemn the innocent.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/02/05/obama-at-prayer-event-christians-did-terrible-things-too/
GOD’S SURVEILLANCE STATE
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 2, 2015 – You are being electronically monitored nearly everywhere you go. And if you’re not actively being monitored, the technology is within viewing, hearing and implantation range, set up and ready to roll. All it requires is to be installed and activated. Communications grids that enable instantaneous global communication also serve as tracking systems. Yet these monitoring and tracking systems, however impressive, pervasive and invasive, are nothing compared to God’s surveillance state.
God, being God, designed and engineered the first and best of all possible surveillance, protection and alarm systems. This combined system (better described as a state) is perfect. And it works without unsightly wires, cameras, microphones or other cumbersome hardware that can easily be compromised or break down. Through his state, God knows exactly where you are at all times and exactly what you’re doing and saying and seeing. Plus, as an added bonus (and one that the world’s surveillance systems designers can only dream of) – GOD ALSO KNOWS ALL YOUR THOUGHTS. There’s nothing and nowhere you can hide from God.
But wait – there’s more! God not only knows everything about you in the here and now, he also knows exactly where you’ve been and exactly what you’ve done, said, seen, and thought THROUGHOUT YOUR ENTIRE LIFE thus far.
And if you’re not sold yet on how God’s surveillance state blows the world’s surveillance systems completely out of the water, this oughtta clinch it – as incredible as it sounds, God knows everything YOU HAVE YET TO DO, SAY, SEE AND THINK!
So there you have it: God knows everything about you, past, present and future.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Most born-agains don’t spend a lot of time thinking about God’s surveillance state. That’s part of the built-in mechanism, I guess, to keep us from being paranoid about it and to allow us to exercise our free will, well, freely. And when we do think about God’s surveillance state, it isn’t with fear or reproach. We love God as our Dad and appreciate that he watches over us as a good Dad would and should. We’re glad that he knows everything about us because his intimate knowledge of us, together with his perfect justice system and his unconditional love, helps to keep us on the straight and narrow road to heaven. We also appreciate and feel safe knowing that God is protecting us all the time.
Ultimately, God created his surveillance state for our benefit. It isn’t about spying on us in order to catch us so that he can punish us; it’s about teaching, guiding and protecting us, all for the sole purpose of helping us.
The world’s surveillance systems, on the other hand, are all about the opposite. Although sold to a gullible public as being the technological equivalent of sliced bread, these systems exist for the sole purpose of intimidating and punishing us. And what are we being punished for? Committing crimes, of course – ‘crimes’ like speaking openly about what the world’s powers (who are, not surprisingly, also the initiators and supporters of this technology) are doing behind the scenes politically, financially, scientifically, and so on. How ironic, that the same Earthly powers whose technology is trained on us night and day are the very same powers that are making it a crime to know and report on what they’re really up to.
Scripture tells us about these kinds of powers – the ones that operate in secrecy where they think their dark deeds will not be known. They’ve been operating “behind the scenes” since the beginning of human history. Intensely paranoid themselves (a guilty conscience will do that to you), they want us likewise to be paranoid: It’s their natural state of being. They don’t hide their electronic snooping but instead reframe it as a benign means to enable enhanced communication, target consumer products, and protect us from the latest contrived boogey-man (like, for instance, ‘terrorists’). And if we’re not aware that they’re potentially everywhere that a camera or microphone is (i.e., your smartphone, your laptop, etc.), they’ll send agent ‘messengers’ like ‘Edward Snowden’ and give him blanket mainstream media coverage for months and months, just to make sure that you are aware that you’re being watched and listened to, indoors and out, 24/7. After all – a paranoid populace is an easily controlled populace. We can see the truth of that in how easily controlled by Satan the ultra-paranoid powers-that-be are.
Jesus says the world is under Satan except for those who are in God’s kingdom. Jesus also tells us to shout the truth from the rooftops, and that we’re not to fear those who have power over our body and possessions but not over our will. If you live in fear of the world’s punishment, you’re fearing the wrong thing. Big Brother might be watching you through your computer, but God is watching Big Brother, and God’s got your back.
God’s surveillance state is perfect. It is based on love for us and respect for our free will, and it operates solely for our benefit.
In contrast, the world’s surveillance systems are deeply flawed. They are based on disdain for us and disrespect of our rights, and they operate solely to our detriment.
Yes, the world is under Satan, but thank God we don’t have to be. Never be paranoid and never be afraid to speak the truth, regardless of the Earthly consequences. We all have to die for something; it might as well be for the truth.
Bizarro World: Protesting Freedom of Speech
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 23, 2015 – There is an epidemic of offense going around these days. Everyone, it seems, is offended by something or someone. Jesus advised his followers not to be offended by what he said, because he spoke the truth. Despite his warning, many were and still are offended.
The truth resonates in every soul, but most people have closed themselves off to it. They would rather keep believing their self-satisfying and self-protecting version of reality than accept even for an instant that maybe, just maybe, they might be wrong, or maybe they’re just taking themselves way too seriously.
Freedom of speech is a hard-won and precious right that is currently under attack in the free world. We shouldn’t throw away freedom of speech just because some people’s sensibilities are offended by insults to, say, their religion or confusion over their gender. As we see in scripture, the response of being offended arises in people who don’t want to hear the truth. They are presented with the truth, and they reject it. The offense isn’t because people are speaking the truth; the offense is because people don’t want to hear the truth.
There was a protest march yesterday in Sydney, Australia, AGAINST freedom of speech.
Let that sink in.
I’ll rephrase it, while you’re letting it sink in: Using their hard-fought and hard-won right to openly voice their opinions, a group of Australians protested against their hard-fought and hard-won right to openly voice their opinions.
You can’t make this stuff up.
The protest group was comprised of around 800 young Muslims, and the catalyst for this particular protest was the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of Mohammed. Trying their own hand at creating and promoting offensive material, some protesters displayed drawings of dogs urinating on the graves of the victims of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris.
I don’t find either the Charlie Hebdo or the anti-Charlie Hebdo drawings offensive; I just find them childish and petty. If people took themselves less seriously, then maybe they’d share my opinion, which I suggest is a healthy and sustainable one.
I prefer to take Jesus’ advice and not be offended, as there really isn’t anything to be offended about. You shouldn’t find the truth offensive, and you shouldn’t find petty insults offensive.
THANK GOD, in free countries, people are still legally entitled both to hold and express their own opinions, whether in spoken, written or graphic form, however unsavory and downright ridiculous those opinions might be to others. There should be no limits to freedom of speech. Those who want to limit the expression of your opinions really just want to control you.
Don’t let them.
The moral of the story is: Go ahead and protest against the right to protest, if that’s what you want to do, but don’t be offended if I laugh at you. You’ve earned it.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 