The Poor in Spirit

" 'The baptism of John was from what source, from heaven or from men?” And they began reasoning among themselves, saying, 'If we say, "From heaven," He will say to us, "Then why did you not believe him?" But if we say, "From men," we fear the people; for they all regard John as a prophet.' And answering Jesus, they said, 'We do not know.' He also said to them, 'Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things...Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.' " (Matthew 21:25-27, 31b-32)


The second day of His final Passover in Jerusalem, Jesus came to the Temple-grounds, where worshippers from throughout Judea and the diaspora were gathering. Amidst the tens of thousands with their sacrificial animals, the loud praying of the crowds and bleating sheep being slaughtered, the "chief priests and elders of the people" sought Jesus out and challenged His authority.

These were not men who did the ordinary work of the Temple; not the workaday priests continually slitting animals' throats and splattering their blood on the altar, or those who chanted psalms to the dusty, noisy crowds. Jesus' challengers were men of the wealthy, politically-connected establishment from whose families every High Priest was selected: the Bushs, Kennedys and Rockefellers of Judaism.

Jesus expertly challenged His challengers: could they recognize authority, spiritual authority, when they saw it ?

I'm impressed that the Jewish rulers' referred first to their public-image. They knew any straight answer, either for or against John's ministry, would let them be bested by a rustic trouble-maker, or lose them popular support. To save their public image, they dared not answer.

Jesus pointed out that their dishonesty went deeper than playing to the crowds. Even "afterward," He said: even after seeing that God changed the lives of repentant tax collectors and prostitutes who believed John, even after John's threat to your religious establishment was ended by his murder: you dare not admit you were wrong. To preserve your self-image, you dare not, even now, honestly admit to yourself that John was preaching God's message.

I doubt the chief priests and elders acted any differently than any of us would. What we perceive as ours is hard to give up. The "rich young ruler" was crestfallen when Jesus said, from love for him (Mark 10:21), that he must give up all his riches. The chief priests and elders had even more to lose: wealth, but also status, power, reputation, public esteem and self-esteem.

Those who welcomed God's rule in their lives at John's preaching, had none of these. Pariahs, despised by all who met them, the prostitutes and tax-collectors had no status to forfeit, no power nor wealth, no reputation or self-respect to lose.

Bob Dylan got it right: "When you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose."

God, give us the BLESSING to have nothing to lose !

How to Live in the Kingdom of God

The only way to give reality to confessing Christ is

to love The Truth,

to love The Good,

from an honest heart...

and sincerely repent each time we miss it.


This is how we live in the Kingdom of God.

"Stealing Our Freedom"

All those angry people parroting every N.R.A. and Tea Party talking-point as their own "opinion," and complaining their freedom is being stolen from them... ?

They prove it's true.

Nobody Tells ME What to Do

The first problem of rebellion, the mindset that "nobody tells ME what to do," is that it rejects all authority except its own. The rebel is his own god, with one worshipper.

The second problem of rebellion's "nobody tells ME what to do" is that it's categorically, continually, definitively, EXPERIENTIALLY contrary to reality.

Sold to the highest bidder

Jesus says, "I AM...the truth..." (John 14:6).


Hearts not completely sold on TRUTH will be sold to a clever liar.

But it's amazing that so many sell cheap to any tawdry lie they're offered.

Facebook yet again

Being on facebook has seemed, from the first minute, like standing in a sewer. All the filth and lies, all the manipulators' manufactured opinions they want the unwise to "like" and pass on to all their friends, flow around you continuously. My Christian "friends" are just as much a part of the problem as anyone else: but the problem is infinitely more serious for those who are supposed to be operating in "the mind that is in Christ."

That discouraging fact, and how little my speaking against it lessened the flow, had brought me to the place that I was considering leaving facebook. The thought that's become stronger, however, is that a sewer is the best place to study pathogens. The best place to find what's making people ill, so they can be healed. That thought seems to be from God, and seems to be what He requires for hearing His healing word of prophecy.

Good and Evil: letter to a friend

In a message dated 1/21/2015 12:45:43 P.M. Central Standard Time, xxxxxxxxxxx writes:

-- Unfortunately, we are stuck with the politicians the majority chooses

You've put your finger on the BIGGEST question of all: how is it that "good" people choose to follow evil men and bad principles ?

And of course, when you talk moral issues, "good" and "evil," it's really a spiritual question. It's only about politics to the extent that everything people do is a reflection of the spirit that is in their hearts. (Proverbs 4:23. Not a version I use a lot, but the NIV Reader's
Bible puts this verse really well: "Above everything else, guard your heart. Everything you do comes from it.")

How does the enemy get people who have "the mind that is in Christ" (I Corinthians 2:16, Philippians 2:5) to "like" lies, violence, and hatred ? The same way he always has: manipulate their thinking and operative attitudes (what scripture calls "the heart") to confuse what is good and what is evil. ("God is not the author of confusion"...which tells us who is.)

Politics is the worst possible way to sort out that moral question: but it definitely comes into play in manipulation. It's the essential job-skill of politicians to manipulate people's thinking, to their own advantage. Satan's main tactic of deception is also manipulating people's thinking; so politicians are perfect tools in "spinning" evil ideas as "good." (Which God curses in Isaiah 5:20.)

Christians "hearts" have been manipulated by politicians (but actually by you-know-who) to think (for example) that it's good to "give the
poor the dignity of helping themselves." That it's good to kill your enemy before he can kill you. That it's good to demand your "rights." When Christians' "hearts" operate on these thoughts and attitudes entirely contrary to "the mind of Christ," they will inevitably follow
bad leaders and evil principles. And it becomes questionable if people operating in the enemy's spirit should be called "Christians" at all.

This is pretty much the political (but behind it, the spiritual) state of "the Christian majority" today. It's not a hopeful situation, when God's moral law is that following bad men and evil principles can only ever lead to disaster.

Knowing who they work for, I keep a sharp lookout for manipulators, and speak out against them wherever I find them. It's what Christians'
spiritual warfare comes down to: recognize and resist the enemy. Otherwise we become part of the spiritual problem of "good" people who follow the evil one.

God, against this darkness, convict those who love You to shine all the brighter ! AMEN

My Sheep Hear My Voice

Jesus' word that "My sheep hear My voice..." has always been a comfort to me, the key by which I test myself to see if I am truly following Him. But what if we hear Jesus' voice...in brother Rick Frueh's words...crying out against us ?

Rick has written about that jarring experience.


I will have been saved for forty years this March. I have seen other people saved under my witness, I have experienced God’s wonderful presence, and I have read His Word many times. But as I reread His words I cannot help but confess I am wading into convicting waters. I do not mean some slight “I am far from perfect” waters. I already knew that. But I am now faced with some unimaginable truth which when taken without compromise from His lips indicts me on so many levels...I rejoice in the Spirit’s dealings with me, but I also am partially broken as well. I do not relish being utterly and completely broken, but I desire it.

http://judahslion.blogspot.com/

Tozer on the Need for Prophets

God blessed me this week when a brother sent around, and another brother blogged, this prophetic word from Tozer. If we needed prophets 50 years ago, how much more so now !


A prophet is one who knows his times and what God is trying to say to the people of his times.

Today we need prophetic preachers; not preachers of prophecy merely, but preachers with a gift of prophecy. The word of wisdom is missing. We need the gift of discernment again in our pulpits. It is not ability to predict that we need, but the anointed eye, the power of spiritual penetration and interpretation, the ability to appraise the religious scene as viewed from God's position, and to tell us what is actually going on.

Where is the man who can see through the ticker tape and confetti to discover which way the parade is headed, why it started in the first place and, particularly, who is riding up front in the seat of honor?

What is needed desperately today is prophetic insight. Scholars can interpret the past; it takes prophets to interpret the present. Learning will enable a man to pass judgment on our yesterdays, but it requires a gift of clear seeing to pass sentence on our own day. One hundred years from now historians will know what was taking place religiously in this year of our Lord; but that will be too late for us. We should know right now.

If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation it must be by other means than any now being used. If the church in the second half of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting.

Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray God there will be not one but many) he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom. Such a man is likely to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken and a little bit angry with the world. He will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the one and the salvation of the other. But he will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath.

We need to have the gifts of the Spirit restored again to the church, and it is my belief that the one gift we need most now is the gift of prophecy.

- from 'Of God and Men'.

To Stay or To Go

I've been thinking about quitting facebook. After a year or so on there, the stream of stuff "friends" send out seems just as much a spiritual sewer as ever. I see daily the same kinds of belligerent forwards from "conservative" websites about their "rights" (especially "gun rights"), the same rebellious spirit towards government, the same idolization of America's military, the same violent hatred of their faction's enemies (especially President Obama), the same kinds of lies, anger, nationalism, repeated endlessly. My "friends" grieve me every day with their eager willingness to be manipulated by the enemy's spirit.

Interspersed with all of that, my friends also daily post scriptures: how great is God's grace, how much we should love one another as Jesus loves us, etc. I can't say with certainty where anyone else's heart is: but I don't see any evidence my "friends" are aware their violent "conservative" posts are of a spirit absolutely contrary to their sentimental "Christian" posts.

The commonsense reaction to standing in a flood of sewage is to get out. I've been considering it: but there's another aspect to the matter.

Among my "friends," there seem to be few voices challenging lies, or calling "conservative" filth to scriptural account. There's a temptation to feel sorry for "poor lonely me:" but I trust that God has yet kept thousands who have not bowed their knee to this Baal of our time (I Kings 19). Indeed, there are occasional friends who will "like" some comment I make challenging a lying post on facebook.

But the question isn't whether many or few agree. That's the guiding principle of "democracy." and has nothing to do with the Kingdom of God. God assured Elijah that he was not alone in serving God: and then told him to get on with it. (ibid)

So there's the operative question. Stand in the facebook sewage, or get out of it ? I feel like God is giving me assurance I'm not alone in hating the enemy spirit rampant there: so now, get on with it.

Reinforcing that decision: even if I were the only one on facebook witnessing to truth, it would be my place to continue doing so. The call on every Christian's life is to witness to Christ, "the Truth." And was there really only one witness to Truth, how extremely important it would be for that one to continue speaking out when all else was lies. I think God is telling me to stay on facebook, as distasteful as that is, at least for now.

There are certainly times and places when God calls us to flee the spiritual filth. There are certainly times and places He calls us to stay. It all comes down to discerning God's timing.

Discerning is always hard for me. It requires listening; and I'm deeply aware how flawed my listening, and my hearing, can be. So I'm deeply aware I may flat-out be wrong making this choice between staying and leaving. But I know I can trust God to correct me, if my attempts to discern and to choose come from an honest heart.

Praise Him !!