Blessing

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

A few years ago I was praying, and asking God to bless various people who were sick, or lost their jobs, bless our church activities, etc.

God said, "You're praying all wrong."

So I waited to hear what He was going to say.

He said, "You pray for blessings like they were a pile of poker-chips I push across the table to people."

When I considered what He'd said, I had to admit, yes, that really was how I was thinking of blessings.

"No." He said.  "Blessing is My Presence."

That's been my definition ever since of what "blessing" is.

Blessing to all who read here.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Sin is Stupidity, and Stupidity Sin

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Sin is absolute stupidity.  And stupidity is absolutely sin. 

There's all kinds of ways to work that through: but here's a biggie.

Doing self-destructive things is laughable...and fatally stupid.  We're all familiar with the Darwin Awards.

Sin is self-destructive.  Going against God's commands is ASSURED self-destruction.  That's real stupid.

But wisdom keeps us from being stupid.  And God offers WISDOM to anyone who asks Him in faith (James 1:5-6).

Maybe some haven't heard His promise, and don't know to ask.

But the profoundly stupid are those who know God's promise, and choose instead to "turn to his own way" (Isaiah 53:6)

God says that choice is sin.  God says that choice assures self-destruction.  That choice is stupid.

The good news is that although we've all been stupid ("all have sinned..."), we don't have to stay stupid.  God offers us the chance to change our minds: the Bible's word for that is "repent."

That starts by admitting you were stupid, and asking God for His wisdom to keep you from continuing in stupidity.

Father, open the eyes of CHRISTIANS in this country to repent this destructive political foolishness.  Father, please forgive us for so sorely OFFENDING you all these years.  God, Father, forgive us !!

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Now Recruiting

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
  

Everybody wants to believe they're on "God's side."

But quoting Bible verses on facebook is no proof. The way we know if we're on "God's side" is if we love Him.

The way we know we love God is if we OBEY Him.

God commands us to love mercy and peace. He commands us to hate lies and unrighteousness.

Recruiters for "God's side" and the "other side" are standing by right now on facebook.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Capitalism, Really ?

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

I'm amazed how many of my Christian facebook "friends" post stuff about how righteous capitalism is.  Usually that alleged righteousness is by comparison with some very evil economic theory . . . usually socialism.

It's true Jesus had plenty to say about righteous economic relations.  But it seems questionable that any human economic theories really embody what He taught.

Capitalism certainly doesn't.  Capitalism is a materialistic philosophy.

Should Christians champion materialism ?


                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Star Wars Christianity

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

There's a scene in the original "Star Wars"...

Imperial storm-troopers are searching for Luke and his friends.  As they approach the spot where Luke and friends are hiding, Obi-Wan Kenobi takes a stance in front of the storm-troopers' officer, looks commandingly in his face, and says, "There's nothing to see here."

The officer turns and says to his men, "There's nothing to see here."

Obi-Wan Kenobi says to the officer, "Move along !"

The officer dutifully commands his men, "Move along !"

 Yeah, it's like that.  

Trumpi-Wan Kenobi looks the Church in the eye, and says, "Nothing to see here."  No lies, no viciousness, no arrogance, no unrighteousness ...no wrong spirit...at the heart of America's government.  And the "leaders" of the American Church dutifully tell their people, "Nothing to see here, Christians."  

The difference is that Trump's not even trying to hide his pride, his hatred, and his lies.  His spirit, his unrighteous spirit, is in plain sight, every day, continually: exactly as he thinks it should be, and demands it be...himself every Page 1 story, every place in all the world, every minute.

But never mind, Church.  Keep posting your Bible-verses about salvation and your "Like if you love Jesus !" memes on facebook.  Nothing spiritual to see in the world's daily events..

Pay no attention to the spirit behind the curtain. 

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Muslim Immigration

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

It’s always been hard to evangelize Muslims. Most of their countries ban Christian missionaries, to keep their people from hearing the good news of Jesus.

But that doesn’t thwart God’s wisdom and mercy toward Muslims. He brings them to us, in this country where we are free to tell them the good news, and…most importantly…live the gospel in front of them, and toward them.

Thank you, Father ! Your Ways are always righteous and perfect !

(Isn't it amazing how "the world" always gets what God does upside-down, and backwards ?!?)

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Repent, Christian

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
  
Jesus said " I AM...the Truth" (John 14:6).

Jesus said "...the Truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).

Jesus said satan is "...a liar, and the father of lies..." (John 8:44).

Jesus said "...everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin" (John 8:34).

If your politics makes you "like" lies and liars, and spread lies, and follow liars, and whitewash lies and liars,
you are NOT following Jesus.

Repent of your politics, and turn back to Jesus.  The Truth will set you free from lies.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Inauguration Day

                                                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                                                   


Yesterday I couldn't wait to get in front of God in prayer.  I'd literally been feeling a bit sick the past few days, and needed desperately to be with Him and hear Him.

I'd organized and spread word to our local rural churches of a silent prayer-time beginning at 11, to coincide with the beginning of the inauguration.  "Silent," so we could listen to God, and hear what He is saying to us in this time.

The one friend who'd said she's be there e-mailed that she needed to be with a friend having surgery.  She's an honest person, so I know she wasn't just making excuses.

Nobody else showed up, but I didn't feel that mattered; and I was careful to cut off the lie of feeling I was "the only one who cares."  God has thousands of saints who see what's going on, and who are as heart-sick as He is at the ascendance of unrighteousness and lies.

It only mattered that I do what He told me, and trust Him for anything beyond that.  I did, and He was pleased to be there, and reassure me of His rule even over the rampant evil of this time.  After a couple hours in His Presence, I was reassured.  I drove home feeling a kind of established joy: He IS, He is with us, He is King.

I purposefully didn't listen to the radio all day, so I've heard none of the speeches, Trump's nor his "faith-leaders."  I'm curious what the latter might have said in blessing an unrighteous ruler, so I'll probably look them up later.

This morning, it just seems like "business as usual" again in America.  People's lives continue on an even keel, America is still the greatest nation on earth, and all's right with the world.  I'm sure the appearance of normalcy will reassure many, and lull them into still-deeper certainty that we haven't really crossed a determinative spiritual line, and there's nothing to fear.

I'm glad...with a great deal of trepidation...God's given me spiritual eyes to see the forces of evil we face: and given me the boldness to speak against them, and the compassion to speak reassurance to God's saints that His power is greater, and is with us.

Praise you, Beloved King !!  All glory to You !  Amen.

                                                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                                                   

Scripture for Today

"...the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when they said, 'Give us a king to judge us.' And Samuel prayed to the Lord. The Lord said to Samuel, 'Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them...however, you shall solemnly warn them and tell them of the procedure of the king who will reign over them.'..."     I Samuel 8:6-7,9


God called this scripture to my mind this morning.

Persecution Chic

It's an unexamined article of faith (literally) for most "Evangelicals" that they will be persecuted.  And we know Jesus did promise many times that those who follow Him will be persecuted (Matthew 10:16-23, for example: verified in II Timothy 3:12, and elsewhere).

It seems one of those true teachings of Jesus that we like to hear backwards: from our end of His teaching.  Jesus says His followers will be persecuted.  We hear instead that persecution proves we are Jesus' followers...glorifying us.

If Jesus' teaching worked the backwards way we want to hear it, the greatest Christians in America the last two centuries were the early Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses in World War I, and Topeka's Westboro Baptist Church today.  Persecution does not prove who is Jesus' true follower.

It's pride that we hear Jesus that way, of course.  Who wouldn't be proud of being persecuted, if persecution proves you are following Jesus ?

Self-deception is also necessarily involved, enabling pride.  Any human being convinced he has anything in himself to be proud of has to overlook a lot of contrary evidence.  But self-deception can make that evidence disappear, or minimize it sufficiently to let us convince ourselves we are a "good" person.

That judgement is God's alone: and His judgement is the only one that actually matters.  But self-deception, well- and long-practiced, can even satisfy us we meet God's standard.  And how much more could we convince ourselves it's so, than if we are being persecuted, as Jesus said His followers would be ?

There's consequently a kind of "persecution chic" among Evangelicals: a desire to be persecuted, and a desire to be seen as persecuted.  Why wouldn't there be ?  It plays exactly to our cherished pride and self-deception.  It "baptizes" pride and self-deception as adjuncts of our Christianity...rather than treating them as enemies that must be painfully and radically eradicated from our hearts.

Ordinary American Christians...to this point...have always had incredibly easy faith-lives: there's very little actual persecution anyone can point to.  But the "fake news" technique works for persecution the same way it works for event-Truth  and scripture-Truth: it can be manufactured by interpretation.

Philippians 1:15 attests that there have always been some "preaching Christ even from envy and strife."  There are still Christians who are obnoxious jerks (my observation is that their flawed lives usually go hand-in-hand with flawed doctrine).  And I've heard more than a few of them boast of being persecuted for witnessing Christ.

I'm skeptical of that interpretation.  People usually hate obnoxious jerks because they're obnoxious jerks.

Lacking a personal persecution merit-badge, many ordinary American Christians have embraced the interpretational class-action persecution of a "War on Christmas."

And there actually are occasional instances of an obnoxious jerk, atheist or Jewish or Muslim, who makes a public cause of his outrage at the "Merry Christmas !" banner in the local public high school.  Even more, there's a perception that "political correctness" forbids saying "Merry Christmas."  "Perception," because I've seen no verifiable evidence that supports the belief "they won't let us say that anymore."  (But who needs evidence for their perception, when the lie has assured us every one of the past eight Christmases that President Obama's issued an executive order forbidding Americans to say "Merry Christmas.")

Pressed on what they've suffered from the "War on Christmas," most Christians will say they're persecuted in being denied their "religious rights."

Never mind that "Christmas" is not really, in any historical view, a Christian holiday.  Or that most American atheists and Jews (and even some acculturated Muslims) celebrate Christmas. Or that their sloganeering insistence that "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" shows deceived Christians realize Jesus is tangential to most Americans' perception of the holiday.

That "The War on Christmas" specifically targets Christians is questionable.  That it is "persecution" in any sense seems whining exaggeration, and nothing at all that Jesus meant by "persecution."  Has any American been tortured for celebrating Christmas, or ostracized by family and community ?  Has anyone been sentenced to jail, or to death, for saying "Merry Christmas" ?

And we'd be rightly skeptical that any such things could ever happen.  Society only persecutes those at odds with it.  Would an American actually be persecuted for celebrating Christmas, when America loves its Christmas ?


If the "persecution" of "The War on Christmas" comes down to Christians being denied their "freedom of religion:" did Jesus consider being denied our "rights" is "persecution" ?  Did He promise us "freedom of religion"...or was that the American constitution ?  Most importantly: did Jesus command us to "stand up for our rights" ?

It's a political matter, not a Christian one.  (And even as a political matter, only relevant to Christians of a single nation for the past couple centuries, not to the universal Body of Christ in all times and all nations.)  But "The War on Christmas" (and "political correctness" generally) has been a very successful political deception aimed at Christians, because it casts "our rights" as Jesus' teaching.  Most American Christians don't love Truth enough to notice the lie.

It succeeds because it plays to the spiritual pathology of American Christians' "persecution chic."  We have not suffered for Christ's sake: certainly not for speaking Truth, as He IS: but we can yet convince ourselves (or let political deceivers convince us) that "our rights" have been denied us.

Our "right" to say "Merry Christmas," for example.  And if an anecdotal someone, somewhere, is occasionally brave enough to say they find that greeting insensitive in some contexts, we can throw an angry "Merry Christmas !!" in their face to show we will not be denied our "rights."  But more importantly, we can be proud of being persecuted...exactly as Jesus said His true followers would be.