COMING FULL CIRCLE. NOTHING IN GODS WORLD IS PRIVATE

in the past two years, ive seen many of my prayers which were put out there years ago concerning my sister finally starting to take fruit.seeds were indeed planted but i know now that the time had not yet come for them to blossom. the answer as to why finally and very suddenly came to me this past wednesday as anna had us share during home fellowship over at lynns teatimonies of how God has answered prayers involving our families. i remembered what pastor gary said som weeks back SIN AFFECTS EVERYONE AROUND YOU....EVEN WHEN ITS DONE IN PRIVATE. something happens in the spiritual realm concerning those around you when your own heart isnt right with God even if they dont see what youre doing. its like the seed that gets dropped and the birds eat it. the reason why years ago my sister didnt recieve what i was saying was for the very same reason that virtually everyone in my church shunned me though i was far too reprobate to see it at the time. i still hadnt lost enough to come out of that denial. THE CHILDREN OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS ARE OFTEN SMARTER CONCERNING THEIR OWN THAN WE ARE. it was like YOU CANT HUSTLE A HUSTLER HONEY. deep in my heart i knew i wasnt being "mistreated"...they simply were onto me. they knew a liar when they saw one. however likewith my sister they may not even realize why they dont hear you..theres simply something in the spiritual realm thats "off" and they can feel it.
my life islike a gateway into the lives of others and what i do can either be a witness or cause others to stumble even when they dont see what im doing. its no coincidence that a nations leaders are like gateways into the lives of the people of their country. i remember hearing bob yandian talking about what clinton was doing in his private life and how at that time the country was rife with sexual sin. there isno such a thing as victimless crime and sin that doesnt affect tothers. period

IN THE WORLD BUT NOT OF IT vs OF THE WORLD BUT NOT IN IT

as i have been studying the Gospels and saw how frequently Jesus butted heads with the pharisees whose deviousness and underhandedness......... plus the sly cattiness not so different from what one would find in your hen circle, do-goody charity type of women..which seems to be a mindset in ALL people whose place their sense of significance in their own goodness and others no goodness...a couple of things came back to my remembrance. i remember what pastor gary was talking about how its impossible to change the world when youre the same substance as the world. i also remember listening to an excerpt from an aussie lady preacher by the name of christine caine when she pointed out tre difference between BEING IN THE WORLD but not OF IT and BEING OF THE WORLD but not IN IT. i saw how they were constantly trying to trap Jesus. for example any fool who knew anything about OT law could take one look at the situation of the woman caught in the act of adultery and be able to tell that the pharisees had set her up simply as a way of trying to catch Jesus contradicting the law..even though He made it very clear he came NOT to destroy the law but to fulfill it. why do i think it was a trick bag?
because in the OT both the man and the woman caught in the act of adultery was subject to being stoned. plus look at when barrabas and Jesus was presented by pilate before the masses.
it was the pharisees and scribes who whipped the people into a frenzy to hav Him crucified. during His trial they out and out lied in their testimony against HIm repeatedly. after His resurrection they bribed the soldiers to lie and say His disciples came and stole His body even though moving that stone with a hundred men was impossible and when Jesus spoke when He taught in the synagogues He SPOKE AS ONE WITH AUTHORITY and NOT AS THE PHARISEES. even thought Jesus WAS God He STILL was speaking from the point of His HUMANITY to say WIHTOUT GOD WE ARE NOTHING!!!!!

the mindset of these men went far beyond the evidence of their hypocritical natures..in that even thought they turned their nose up at the common folk even the soldiers whom they spit on to do their dirty work for them. the very core of the duplicity in their characters was that they confused being SEPARATIST with HOLINESS!!!! they thought that by COMING OUT OF THE WORLD it somehow made them BETTER THAN THE WORLD. so they shunned the world around them forgetting about what all the types and shadows really meant which pointed to the one who came for the very world they rejected. the problem was that all the pettiness all the cattiness all the dishonesty and manipulation which is so integral in our fallen natures they took right along with them. all the backbiting the gossip NOTHING HAD CHANGED.!!!!! and they say that women in your sorority type of setting are catty backbiting blackballing and vicious???!!!! OH PLEASE!!!! rather than remaining IN THE WORLD and being salt and light IN THE WORLD they came OUT OF THE WORLD but kept all its nastiness!!! of course no one saw any real authority in them. they were all about giving themselves attaboys AND SNUBBING THE WORLD AROUND THEM but God wasnt tin the midst of any of it.

i see now why Jesus so went after them while displaying the love and mercy of God to the tax collectors the prostitutes. true these werent people that society would exactly look up to but you knewwhere you stood with them. but THESE MEN?? you couldnt trust as far as you could throw them the most dangerous lie is when we lie to ourselves. but i also have to remember as blind as these men were He also loved them and died for them too

zaccheus

id been meaning to get around to blogging this for a couple of weeks now so here goes. i remember a couple of sundays ago when pastor gary was talking about zaccheus, the chief tax collector whom nobody liked and was so short that he had to climb up the tree to see Jesus. as i was listening to pastor gary speak, god really opened up my heart as to how there was nothing that Jesus spoke of and nobody that He encountered that we dont come across today i saw hoe Jesus looked beyond the outside and ministered to the inside man behind the outer actions.
a couple of things really stood out...the fact that zaccheus WAS so short and that he was in a position to rob his people. i see someone who all his life was probably what we would call today a geek...smarter than the average bear, sort of an oddball, probably someone who got made fun of, the kid whom the neighborhood bullies probably took his lunch money, got beat up on more than one occasion. but he was smart. go figure they didnt pick dummies to be auditors and tax collectors. we see this alot today..kids who have a miserable childhood because people just dont like them very much who later in life get put in positions of power and authority that give them a chance to get their own back, where everything they do when they rob step on and fleece other is like saying HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW!!! im pretty sure if you try to establish a sense of loyalty to zaccheus"s people his response to you would have been LOYALTY??? TO MY
PEOPLE?? WHY??WHAT DID MY OWN PEOPLE EVER DO FOR ME?? i think he thought that by being in a position of power wealth and authority would somehow banish that frightened kid who just was trying to get thru another day without being hungry because his lunch money got stolen without getting beat up without being called a nerd and a geek too afraid to tell anyone knowing it would made it worse for him. that finally being able to get even with his tormentors would silence that deep need just to be loved accepted for who he was to have friends. but it never did. that frightened little boy was who was climbing up that tree to see Jesus because he knew that deep emptiness inside of him hadnt been and never would be filled by any of that. thats all of us who are lost..that frightened kid who never ever healed. some of us were able to let Him in behind the mask because we saw He WAS the one who COULD heal us.
many of us however never do.

zaccheus being willing to give half his goods to the poor and restore manyfold what he had stolen came from that place that matthew 6:14-15 talks about..in order to recieve forgiveness from God he first had to be willing to forgive those who had wronged him. and forgive himself

stewards of the earth

the issue of the environment has taken on ridiculous heigths. i think much of it is a byproduct of how secular humanism has violently rejected God and attempts to place stock in their own sense of "goodness" WE DONT NEED GOD TO BE GOOD!!!!! the problem with this is whenever Jeus ISNT the center of all this is that our focus tends to become distorted and on the wrong things. of course as believers we should love and cherish this glorious creation that God gave us and when we hear those who say that its irrevelant that one day well have a new earth and heaven it just gives us as a whole a bad name.we are also to occupy until He comes and to be good and faithful stewards over what He has given us NOW. ONE DAY THE EARTH WILL CLAP ITS HANDS THE SEA WILL CLAP ITS HANDS THE OCEANS WILL ROAR AND IF WE DONT PRAISE HIM THE STONES THEMSELVES WILL CRY OUT!!! and of course i value animal life..anyone who has endured my babbling on about my fourlegged bratty samson
knows how big an animal lover i am. however i have a huge problem when we see the very same people who are pro-life over the rights of a sea turtle or a tiki bird being pro-choice over the rights of an unborn child. ive actually heard of women willing to have an abortion so they can be free of the responsibilities of parenthood thus being able to pursue their career of protecting the environment....their priorities are way out of whack. and i remember some years back an episode of LAW AND ORDER which always rips cases out of the headlines about a famous case involving GREENPEACE a radical environmentalist group who actually condones acts of terrorism to promote their cause to preserve the environment. they set a building on fire and it turned out many people perished in the flames. the mastermind of the acts response was chilling... IN A WAR THERE ARE ALWAYS CASUALTIES. his cause was more important that the lives of his fellow man. this is what always happens in any situation where we preserve our own twisted sense of righteousness after turning our back on God........we leave a door open to the demonic. there is a definite satanic force behind the section of the environmentalist movment that is anti-God. its called THE SPIRIT OF THE ANTICHRIST!!! people are Gods most valuable commodity and we are the ones who in Jesus name makes satan shake in fear.
get rid of people and he gets rid of a huge chunk of the competition because he know they were created with gifts and calling that could destroy his kingdom. whenever we arent God centered we always think WERE in control not seeing that its SATAN whose existance we deny controlling us. so its little wonder that the very same people who often lobby for peace and justice are often the most violent people youll ever want to meet. whats more violent than ripping a baby out of its mothers womb before its time? attacking a whaling ship endangering the lives of human being to protect a whale? MATTHEW 6:23-24 "IF THE EYE BE SINGLE THEN THE WHOLE BODY IS FULL OF LIGHT. IF THE LIGHT BE EVIL THEN THE WHOLE BODY IS DARK...AND IF THE LIGHT INSIDE OF YOU BE DARKNESS HOW GREAT IS THAT DARKNESS!!! " these things are what happens when people become so decieved that they actually have their priorities out of order and think that they are serving the greater good!!!!!

the root of the carnal nature is ALL ABOUT ME!!! WHAT ABOUT WHAT I WANT??? DONT I HAVE A SAY IN ANY OF THIS???? IIIIIIIIIIIIIIMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMME like a never ending litany. this is the weapon that satan most often uses to enslave and entrap us with traps he sets for us. and its very self deceptive. when we allow others to penetrate that shield of faith and push our buttons we immediately rise to the defense or even offense and our carnal nature will always tell us that were in control were getting one up on our opponents YOURE NOT TELLING ME WHAT I CAN AND CANNOT DO!!!!!!! a common lie satan will tell us is that somehow ..as insane and twisted the thinking behind this is......two wrong equal a right, forgetting that what OTHERS are doing isnt the issue. the issue isnt what others are and arent doing....WHAT DOES GOD HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT??? WHAT WOULD JESUS DO IN THIS SITUATIION????!!!!!!! pastor gary hit on a crucial truth two weeks ago when he defined humility...it isnt being a doormat.....its holding off on the self-proclaimed right to do what we want to do and acting on it because there is a higher agenda at stake. humility is not only remaining teacheable but its also picking your battles. there is a time to yield and a time to draw the line. if its just all about proving im right and exercising the right to do what I
want then it means its time to let it go. however when it directly goes against what GOD says then its time to draw the line but there is a way of doing it. i was getting so caught up in my right to do what i wanted that i was forgetting to live by what His Words said. it was all about IM IN CONTROL YOURE NOT GOING TO CONTROL ME!!!! i didnt see that in my vain efforts to exercise control over my life that all i was doing in the eyes of God AND others was sabotaging myself. i was looking at WHAT ARE THEY DOING and not seeing GOD ISNT PLEASED WITH THIS. a doubleminded man is unstable in all his ways......by behaving one way in the presence of my fellowbelievers and my coworkers and then acting dramatically different on nighst i was out in an effort to defy those who told me i couldnt do what i wanted
only succeeded in painting a picture of me as unstable and someone not to be trusted. that duplicity of character scares people and when they see you on facebook or wherever posting all things about God and then when youre around them behaving totally the opposite theyre going to look at you as kind of nuts. pastor gary nailed it when he said whatever we put over God we WILL become enslaved by. alot of things we become enslaved by often happens because we leave a side door open to it thru bitterness and unforgiveness much of my unforgiveness was due to the fact that i saw in some of the people closest to me that their first priority was being out for themselves and as much as they may have loved me they clearly loved themselves more and they made decisions concerning me because they were looking out for and protecting themselves. well there are several parts to this. the first and this plays a crucial element in forgiving others......one is looking at MY PART IN IT- i am ALWAYS the lowest common denominator in everything that happens in my life. people tend not to talk about you unless you give them reason to talk about you and what they saw was someone clearly going back to their old ways. they also tend not to protect themselves from you when they dont see you as someone they need to protect themselves from. i was only looking at life thru the eyes of my own carnal nature and seeing those whom i couldnt trust because they didnt have my best interests in mind
and failing to see that they were doing what they were doing because they didnt trust me either.
the second was seeing that in taking my eyes off of GOD and fixating on what I wanted what was and what was not fair to me and seeing everything from a carnal perspective was i lost sight of the big picture. i strained at a gnat and swalllowed and almost choked on the camel.
HUMILITY ISNT LETTING OTHERS WALK ALL OVER YOU. ITS LOOKING AT THE BIG PICTURE AND SAVES ITS ENERGY FOR THE PRIMARY THINGS. the carnal nature focuses on defending things that God isnt happy with and forgets what His will for our lives is.

BULL TERRIER "KILLING NATURE"

LUKE 2:35: A SWORD WILL PIERCE YOUR HEART

its been awhile since ive blogged in here. ive often wondered about what simeon was talking about when he looked right into marys eyes when Jesus was nothing more than an infant, and said "A SWORD WILL PIERCE YOUR HEART." as described in luke 2:35. he WAS referring to His coming death as simeon knew as few of the elders knew that the fulfillment of prophecy was unfolding right before them, that one day she would have to eatch Him die, but i also knew it was much more than that, even more than the fact that she would also have to suffer the pain that would come from the fact that Jesus would never be a normal child. more than that. MUCH MORE..BUT WHAT??? at home fellowship, i remember linn telling esther
during prayer that she was a woman whose heart had been pierced in many places. once gain WHAT DOES THAT MEAN????? there was a part of me that understood that soon i would find out personally. i realize now that hearing about how someone close to mes heart was pierced
was something that God had meant for me to hear.

i remember very well my first marriage. his name was grant and he turned out to be someone whose behavior fell well within the perimeters of a sadistic sociopath, whose hatred of women
was so deep that he even hated his own daughter. he came very close to murdering me on more than one occasion. it wasnt just a matter of mere abuse. he wanted me dead. for years i hated him, lived in fear and hatred of him, and saw myself as a victim. recently, for some strange reason, i decided to research him online. i came across a web caption showing that he had passed away two years ago, and it gave the name of his sister who was on facebook. i looked her up and i wrote to her. i was wondering how he died seeing that he was only 56 years old. the email i got back was heartbreaking. he had died from complications of hapatitis c as a result of sharing dirty needles several years back. he died the way that he lived....drunk high full of rage and alone. he was dead for several days before he was found.

as i was reading this, a question rose inside of me....WHY DID YOU MARRY HIM???? THE TRUTH!!!! NOT SOME PRETTY FICTION YOUD LIKE TO HAVE YOURSELF BELIEVE?? the answer was simple... i married him to get away from home so i could live life as if it was one big party, and grant had the drugs. THATS A SAD PATHETIC REASON TO MARRY SOMEONE!! that was the moment when i understood what it meant A SWORD WILL PIERCE YOUR HEART!!!! its that moment of not only allowing the Holy Spirit to convict you in line with His truth, but actually allowing it to be that two edged sword, cutting right into the depths of your heart, revealing all those twisted motives, and hidden things of dishonesty, and seeing it for what it is..its ugly. it PAINED me to see that. i know now that i was never going to forgive grant for what he had done to me until i first saw that my part in what had happened to be was HUGE. this was also the first time i really saw how id lived my life in the past.. i went rocking thru life not having a clue. i didnt have a clue, i just went thru life, blissfully ignorant, not accepting responsibility for anything (ididnt think i HAD any responsibilities. mommy and daddy never made me accept responsibility. why should anyone else?) i thought i could just do anything i wanted to do, with no repercussions. i was like the little girl on sesame street LALALALALAL down the street, then wondering why i got a gun stuck into my back. i used people back then, i just didnt take into consideration that there just might be someone who came across my path who was the wrong person to do that to. he wasnt stupid. he was hip.. SHES USING ME. when you do something for selfish reasons, it will always reach out and bite you.

this is one of these postcards from God that i needed to see. it was like looking at a snapshot of my life fastforward in another 10-12 years if i had kept going in the direction i was going.seeing myself at nearly 60, doing what i was doing at 20 to get high...FILL IN THE BLANKS, its not pretty. today i understand that everyone deserves to have people who want to be around them because they love them, not for what they can get from them. i see what God pulled me out of, not only eternal damnation ,but also an early grave. i am grateful for a God who saw when i needed to have my heart pierced

THE CAVE OF ADULLUM.

yesterday, when i was on my way to complete a job assignment, i was listening to this cd that was a teaching on the early life of king david. it was called, "the cave of adullum" that period of david life where hed been running from king saul, and relying on his own efforts to solve his dilemna, rather than God, and hed reached a point where he had nowhere left to run to. "the cave of adullum" is that period in our lives that is that watershed place, where were forced to see that OUR way isnt working, and we have no alternative, BUT to turn to Him. with me, that
"cave of adullum' had been that period, which had basically been MY WHOLE LIFE where id been blaming others for my problems, and i was now in a situation where id run out of people to blame, it was being forced to see that i was the lowest common denominator in every situation, w(hich always seemed to revolve around the same issue) i wound up in.

during periods of revelation that God leads you into, often, teaching that was previously LOGO..meaning i KNEW it was true, but hadnt yet hit an area that made it personal..suddenly becomes RHEMA. it was concerning PRIORITIES. it spoke of how, when things on your list of priorities get out of order, your whole life gets messed up. "HE WHO HAS WILL CONTINUE TO GAIN, BUT HE WHO HAS NOT WILL LOSE EVEN WHAT HE ALREADY HAS" recently, i had problems come up on my job that seemed like they were sudden. i was forced to confront the fact that issues in my life i had blamed those closet to me for were ones that carried over inot every other area of my life. rather than deal with my issues, id always run from them, in one way or another. a common way was to shift blame. i was told by God, when this teaching onpriorities came back to remembrance, to look at my order of priorties. i remember hearing this about how they should be.
1.God
2.loved ones
3your church and home fellowship
4.relationship with employer and fellow employees.
5. all the details of life
well, this is what had happened here. i was having issues with loved ones, and how id chosen to deal with them was to move those loved ones down my list of priorities to where they were close to the bottom. in essence, put them out of my mind. my list of priorities ended up looking like this.
1.God.
2.church and home fellowhsip
3. relationship with employer and fellow workers.
4.loved ones
5. all the details of life.
THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMM!!! my priorities were seriously out of whack here.
God, for a long time, will work with us, when were being stubborn and rebellious, and be loving and patient, because Hes just that way. however, there comes a time, when, just like any other stubborn, rebellious child, Hes going to end up prying things from our fingers, not out of punishment, but, because, He wants us to see He LOVES US and is trying to move us to a new levels. this often involves a test that He usually doesnt place in front of us, but He sees we have to pass in order to grow. He also wants us to see He is a God of order. THINGS MUST BE DONE DECENTLY AND IN ORDER!!!! even FAITH wont get it if im not in line with His WILL.
whatever i put on top that doesnt belong there i will end up losing along with everything elsE.

this was always my M.O.......F.E.A.R
Forget
Everthing
And
Run

this is how HE wants F.E.A.R to look like.
Face
Everything
And
Restore.

DISCIPLINE AND OBEDIENCE

i was reading one of pastor garys posts on just how important discipline and obedience is in our daily walk with God. he also talked about ACTIVELY listening. this means HEARING it and actually APPLYING it. meaning i need to do what im told, even when i dont WANT or FEEL LIKE doing it. my flesh might moan (and the flesh nature DOES tent to be whiny) OI WHY SHOULD I BOTHER? but the DISCIPLINE of His Word, as well as His Word itself says DONT BE A BABY, QUIT WHINING, JUST DO IT. often, my flesh nature, when it doesnt want to do something, reminds me of the time i made an english steak and kidney pie. i allowed
alan to cajole me into tasting a piece of the kidney..i was like a little baby, when it gets something in its mouth it doesnt like, like a mouth of cod liver oil, makes a face, roLls it around in its mouth, knowing that sooner or later, hes going to have to swallow it. it was AWFUL! im kinda like that, when i taste something in Gods Word i dont like, but the Spirit is cmon downnnnn the hatch ATTA GIRL!!!!! it never ceases to amaze me just how FEELINGS oriented my flesh nature is, and if i had my way, at least half of what i read in Gods Word id spit right out like that baby, and look for something much tastier as fast as i could, regardless that it may be bad for me.

a good analogy to what pastor gary was talking about......its very frustrating, when i try to get through to loved ones, who are getting dangerously overweight, that in order to lose weight, and KEEP IT OFF, they have to be willing to do it the RIGHT way.
1. drinking WATER
2. QUIT SMOKING!!!!!!!
3.go to the gym, and start a rigorous cardiovascular routine
4. a balanced diet, including all the major food groups. a biggie here is not eating veggies that are cooked to death.
5. the chips, crisps, and foods deepfried in lard have got to go.
instead, they keep looking for diets,tailormade to suits their GREEDS, not their NEEDS ( yep, i borroowed that one from pastor gary), quick fixes to BOOM!! take the weight off quick, so they can get back to what theyre doing as quick as possible, but making no sacrifice or permanent change. then they want to make a fad diet out of the fad diet. they want to do things THEIR way, not the RIGHT way.

this selfserving, spoiled, undisciplined approach to GOD was a major factor in my vehement
rejection of the Gospel for so many years, as is it is with so many others who reject it. DONT TELL ME I HAVE TO GO THRU JESUS TO GET TO GOD! ILL DO THIS MY WAY.
and the truth is, my rejection of the Gospel wasnt just limited to knowing i had to accept Jesus to get to God, it was everything i already knew i had to be willing to renounce AFTER i decided to follow in His footsteps. it was virtually everything i was doing. in AA, i liked the idea of being able to create MY OWN version of God, that would let me operate a barter system with Him,
thati if id id this, Hed overlook that. I fully believe now that He healed me of my addictions at that time, because He did see an open door where A PART of me was seeking Him...Hes persistant, He wanted me in His fold. however, the God I chose was nothing more than A FORM
of Godliness, but still DENYNG His power. discipline and obedience requires SUBMISSION. and i still wasnt ready to submit to anyone.
DONT TELL ME I HAVE TO LOVE PEOPLE, EVEN IF I DONT LIKE THEM.
DONT TELL ME I HAVE TO STOPP ALL THESE THINGS IM DOING. I DONT WANT YOUR GOSPEL..ITS TOO HARD. ILL JUST CREATE MY OWN GOSPEL.

the discipline that comes thru building my life on His precepts means im having to learn how to do EVERYTHING in my life in completely the opposite way of the way ive done everything my whole life. it requires making His principles the core of everything that i do in my daily life..even when i dont WANT TO. it means i can no longer pattern my life about starting things, and never completing them. it means being in this for the long haul.

WHAT DANIEL HAS TO SAY ABOUT BECOMING LOVERS OF SELF

i just wanted to do some followup on what i blogged yesterday. even though i understand how so much of my thinking was due to the fact i was lost, its still, at times, hard to get my head around how, not only did i reject what i, deep in my heart, KNEW to be right in favor of what i knew to be WRONG...BUTTTTTTTTTTT i also with many things, even when confronted with not just the TRUTH, but even the FACTS, i would still choose to believe in a lie.

i came across TWO very important verses that deal with just that.

11 thessalonians 2:11-12 "they were sent STRONG DELUSION, and they BELIEVED IN A LIE. THEY SHUNNED THE TRUTH, AND TOOK PLEASURE IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS."

another trip back to my aa days, when, one day, i was talking to a sponsor of mine about just how destructive and DECEPTIVE the disease of addiction is. even when confronted with, not only the TRUTH, but the FACTS of how, in the natural, that addiction is a progressive, and fatal disease, and there was NO SUCH A THING, as an addict EVER being able to manage his addiction in his own strength. not only is it a Biblical fact that it will neber be in man to find his own way or to order his own steps, but the SCIENTIFIC facts show its impossible. i asked her
how was it even when confronted with facts AS WELL as the truth, anyone, once confronted with and accepting it, could ever believe they could go back and manage their addiction. she told me that addiction is a disease that is so strong, you can have the truth and the facts staring you right in the face, and you will still believe in the lie"

this came to mind, the other day, when i was confronted with the belief that certain men and women are born gay. before i got saved, and the lights started coming on about how alot of the things the world tells us, flies not only in the face of the Word of God, but also good sound logic.
i sent the person a reply that not only is it completely illogical....... that God would present homosexuality as being totally against His Will as a crystal clear absolute, then creating someone in the very image of what he clearly states is an abomination..........but also, how can someone claim to be BORN sexually oriented a certain way, when it is a SCIENTIFIC fact
that sexual development doesnt occur until puberty? i am slowly beginning to understand, that satans power to decieve is so powerful, that, we can be confronted with the truth, and hell still have us believe in a lie.

EPHESIANS 6:12 "WE DEAL NOT WITH FLESH AND BLOOD, BUT AGAINST PRINCIPALITIES" the message in this is crystal clear. even armed with the facts, even KNOWLEDGE of the Word, i can never go against the enemy in my own name and strength.
even the smallest demon is stronger than i ever will be. I AM WEAK, BUT HE IS STRONG HIS GRACE ALONE IS SUFFICIENT TO ME!!!!

MODERN DAY ANALOGY

to avoid BOTH being sucked in and decieved by the way the world looks at things AND being sucked in by cults, one thing id better be able to do on a dime is to see how what was written thousands of years ago on parchment rolls, relates to MY life and THE WORLD AROUND ME
TODAY!!!!! being able to simply spout out and parrot Bible quotes, no matter how logo His truth is, is NOT going to be able to help me or others, if i cant grasp how it speaks about what i see around me in hands on real life. it would be like a doctor memorizing and maybe even understanding med term and even being able to cut up cadavers, but not being able to perform surgery or diagnose an illness in an actual patient.

i have an account with youtube, and, in addition to being a great source for freebie entertainment, it opens the doors to alot of communication with other people as you post comments on what you see and listen to. i remember 11 timothy 3:2-5 "for people shall be lovers of selves,..covetous, proud, blasphemers disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy. without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, INCONTINENT, FIERCE, DESPISERS OF THOSE WHO ARE GOOD. TRAITORS, HEADY, HIGHMINDED,
LOVERS OF PLEASURES MORE THAN GOD" when i tap into a certain sight, and when i not only process what i view, but also read the responses to it, this verse comes to light with frightening, startling clarity. i was utterly horrifed particularly at the responses i read to two particular sources. one was the movie "hes just not that into you." which DOES reveal alot of truth about people who constantly seek to obtain and hang onto relationships with people who just dont feel the same way about them. BUT, there was a scene, where this one guy was having an affair on his wife, and she happens to arrive at his office right in the middle of it.
the responses i read to this not only revealed how the mindset of society is increasingly tolerant
of behavior that goes against the word of God, but actually cheers it on, and violently despises anyone who points out that, regardless of HOW "hot" the "other woman" is and what a "dog" the wife is, ADULTERY IS A SIN!!!!! this is a scary insight, not only into how depraved the thinking of the world is becoming, but how depraved MY OWN THINKING is minus God.

another example, i used to be a huge fan of the FX series "rescue me", which all about the escapades of a firefigher who glorifes being a bad boy. hmmm, lets see here. lets go thru some of the characteristics of the clinical narcissist and psychopath, shall we?
1. totally devoid of any sort of real conscience, except for things they have no choice to admit, once theyre nailed.
2.totally incapable of any kind of REAL, NORMAL, HEALTHY emotion.
3.interexploitiveness and manipulation of everyone around them. even their own kids.
4.an almost drunken sense of entitlement.
5. sexually promiscuous
6. lying pathologically-giving 5 or 6 different names at AA meetings when there was no logical reason to do so.
and this character is a cultural icon. as i said, i was a huge fan of this episode, and my response to what i saw, when i youtubed it and came across a particular clip showing how he sold his own baby for 400,000 bucks to his ex gf and how his wife freaked out on him, reading the responses to it, is an example of how often the way you remember things is drastically different to how one views things now after being saved. when i was struck by, taking all this in, was how utterly
perverse and depraved the mentality of modern culture is. when they are confronted with what is right and what is wrong, and they CONSISTANTLY CHOOSE what is wrong. the fact that a clinical sociopath would be considered a cultural icon is really scary. the tragic thing is so many ofthese people who applaud this sort of behavior are clueless as to the values theyre imparting to their kids, and then wonder why their kids end up getting in trouble with the law, in sort form of trouble. sin blinds you, not just to how warped your sense of values is, but tothe fact that, your kids are a reflection of you are are and WHAT you are LIKE IT OR NOT!!!!!!

seeing what i WAS and what i AM BECOMING and what I COULD GO BACK TO BEING shows how it is not by MY power, but by HIM that my life has changed

MORE ON RELATIONAL IDOLATRY:1 CORINTHIANS 13; THIS IS WHAT LOVE SHOULD LOOK LIKE

i just got thru looking at a video on youtube. it basically showed a gorgeous singer trashing some guys truck, because she caught him cheating on her. the whole precipace of this scenario was that this somehow is going to deter him from cheating in the future. this really REALLY scares me. even though it is true that ultimately we are responsible for our choices, young people who see this crap are very impressionable. whether icons in our culture either are unaware of the ramifications of what they peddle to our young people or they just dont care, the end results are still the same. they are sending a message that to take unacceptable behavior and wrap in in a pretty package makes it somehow not only ok, but even cool.

i remember yossarian, from the book by joseph heller CATCH 22, which gave birth to the "anti-hero" once again, it not only accepts the unacceptable, but even glamorizes it. the whole concept of it is embracing and condoning the unacceptable aspect of our fallen natures, and that trying or wanting to do the right thing actually makes you a pariah. and we see more and more where this is becoming true. what is really frightening is all too often unacceptable behavior is done in the name of what we call love.

one of the things i got very caught up in, in my unsaved state was relational idolatry. that is, making other people, rather than God the center of my universe. it is very true that all our emotions, including anger, are a reflection of the fact that God made us in His image. anger is one of the emotions God has given us that He himself posesses. but there is a huge difference between GODLY anger and WORLDLY anger. the latter is largely a secondary emotion. the real root of carnal anger is FEAR. fear of not being in control. this type of anger was almost always the byproduct of every failed relationship id ever had in the past. and i always did it in the name of love. popular culture calls it "crazy love." spreading lies about someone who had rejected me, trashing his or her property, attacking them or the other parties involved was all because "I LOVED THEM."

THIS IS WHAT LOVE SHOULD LOOK LIKE. 1 CORINTHIANS 13:5 "LOVE IS NOT EASILY PROVOKED. IT NEITHER THINKS OR DOES EVIL" this is a drastically different picture from what seems rampant in the videos and all too often private lives of so many of our popular icons. whats so sad is that so many young people seek to emulate what its being presented to them as cool or hip because like i said its presented to them in a pretty package. but the message in this verse is clear. anyone who for any reason seeks to harm you DOES NOT LOVE YOU.

what the WORD calls things is often very different than what the WORLD calls them. for example "crazy love" is just another word for UNCONTROLLED OR UNBRIDLED ANGER.
in other words, IT IS A SIN. is being unfaithful a sin? yes it is. but so is out of control rage. i see now with so many of the things i did it was because i wasnt trusting in God to provide me with something better than the things i was so desperately trying to hang onto. today i understand if people are meant to be in my life i dont have to try to force them to love me. it has at times been a struggle to allow God to pry out of my clutches things in my life that just arent meant to be there, but today i know its because He always has something much much better in store

DIFFERENT PARTS: ONE BODY

pastor gary spoke this past sunday on the importance of losing your identity in Christ. one good thing about falling down, then getting back up again is that you learn what happened to cause you to fall down to start with. for starters, one thing i see now that always comes out of taking the time to dig into the Word on a regular basis on your own is that you dont just grab onto a particular catch phrase in a particular teaching and develop some wacky, off-balance doctrine out of it. in the past, for some reason, when i got saved, i somehow thought that it meant dressing funny, giving up the educational field..... (which happened to be criminology) because that HAD to mean i was called to go to Bible-college (never minding that i didnt have a clue if that was actually what God had called me to do.....becoming like some of the well-meaning people around me who constantly were spouting things like "name it and claim it", "dont say that. thats a bad confession" and couldnt even talk normally. and what happened was that i was miserable. i was like a square peg that was determined i was going to make myself fit in a round hole. im not saying that there was or is anything wrong with some of the things i was trying to do, but it wasnt what GOD had called me to do. i wound up eventually falling because it wasnt ME.

i liked the analogy that pastor gary used about all the individual grapes becoming crushed grapes. today, having a much better WORKING understanding of what he meant by all the crushed grapes losing their identity of the juice, hes NOT talking about what i USED to think he meant when he was talking about loss of individuality. hes not talking about becoming some quasi-nazi group of people who all look alike, dress alike, and who constantly talk in a constant monotone of cultlike religious psychobabble. what hes talking about is the laying aside of our own personal AGENDAS. its getting out of the MEMEMEMEMEME mindset that is so integral
in our flesh natures. he was talking about how the crushed grapes become juice and are no longer individual grapes but are a combined whole, able to be poured into any container God chooses to put us in. OKAYYYYYYY!!! now here is where proper division of His Word comes in here. how does that jive with the passage of Scripture talking about how the Body of Christ is made of up INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS? doesnt that make us individuals?????? yes and no. hpw does, then,what pastor gary said about the grapes becoming juice mesh with the passage about the body being made up of different members?

well, at work, they used to have a sign, (which i think was largely for the benefit of employees who were more childish about some people "they just couldnt STAND to work with, than some of the residents who always squabbled about certain tablemates they didnt like) "ITS ABOUT THE REIDENTS! KINDLY LEAVE YOUR EGO AT THE DOOR." yes mama the body is made up of individual members, but they all work together. you dont see the arm saying i dont need the hand or vica versa, and, on the other hand you dont see the hand wanting to be the arm. each member has its own unique function, but it always functions as a whole. you cant very well whack off a hand and expect it to be able to pick up a sandwich, now couldnt you?
DIFFERENT UNITS ONE BODY. and, you dont see a body of nothing but hands, or eyes, or feet. get the picture?? go to the emergency room of any major hospital and youll see a motley crew of people who probably wouldnt sit next to each other on the bus. but when those patients come rolling in, they function as ONE UNIT.

EZEKIEL 36 :8 "SHOOT FORTH YOUR BRANCHES AND YIELD YOUR FRUIT TO MY PEOPLE" i dont see anything in this verse here about dwelling on ones own self-involvement. when one doesnt have a vision of anything beyond his or herself, her individual survival is actually in jeopardy. the body relies of each of its individual members as a whole for its own survival. the message to a backslidden Israel is the same as the one given to any self-involved, self-pitying believer today. WHY DONT YOU THINK LESS OF YOURSELF AND MORE ABOUT CARRYING THE MESSAGE?

THINGS NO LONGER AS THEY SHOULD BE.

when i got saved it was a given that in Christ i was a new creature all old things were passed away behold all things got made new. my SPIRIT got renewed as it got translated from the kingdom of darkness into the Lambs Book of Life BUTTTT!!!!!!!!to use a well known AA
cliche....WAS I IMMEDIATELY HAPPY JOYOUS AND FREE????? NOT HARDLY!!!!! and trust me, i wasnt always this great wonderful person to be around either. one of the first things that happened with me was the realization that the role i played in other peoples lives and they in mine no longer fit. i spent the first few months being PRETTY angry.
and one of the first things i had to ask myself was...WAS I REALLY ANGRY AT THEM OR WAS I MORE ANGRY AT MYSELF BECAUSE ID ALLOWED, EVEN CHOSE TO DO WHAT I DID. the next thing i had to also get was THEY hadnt changed... I HAD!!!! at the very heart of "being unequally yoked" with ANYONE is when someone changes while others in their world stay the same and are not able to accept that YOUVE changed, we got a problem, folks. NO. YOURE NOT GOING TO BE ALL HAPPY JOYOUS AND FREE ALL THE TIME. God never promised me a cakewalk. ive gone thru some drastic changes and some of them hurt like the devil. and i was pretty angry at times and i at times was a pain in the butt to be around. God only promised Hed never leave or forsake me. and i can take that to the bank!!!

i recently heard about a case of a woman being a sociopath and that it was SUPPOSED to be
physiological rather than a choice, something wrong with her brain wiring and she had no control over it. now i dont agree with that, because if someone realizes the difference between right and right, that to me IMMEDIATELY makes them responsible for their actions. but, thats a whole new ballgame there and im getting offtrack. well, she was married to a man she didnt love, she only married him for his money, she was unfaithful to him in order to further her career and wound up sabotaging her lover to do that, and, EVEN after realizing what she was,
her husband STILL wanted to stay with her and his reasons are all too common in those who fall into the trap of relational idolatry........HED RATHER BE USED THAN TO BE ALONE!!
pretty pathetic, huh? and, heck yeah, his wife was all for that while she still was a sociopath..she could just keep draining him dry. then she underwent radiation that worked on her brain, and VOILA!! she was no longer a sociopath. WELLLLLLLLLLLLL the first thing that she did was look at her longsuffering hubby and tell him how pathetic he was and she couldnt see herself spending the rest of her life with someone like him. not exactly a sweet loving response, but no longer being willing to be with someone who would allow her to use him KNOWING she was using him was actually a big step in being healthy. and often, when we become healthy, the first thing that happens is sometimes people have to go.

of course, in actuality, its not that simple. no amount of HUMAN therapy is ever going to make a person ever GROW a conscience. only GOD can breathe life into a dead heart. but i could see thru the eyes of this woman just what happens when suddenly you realize you simply cannot go on with life the way it once was and suddenly things are no longer the way they should be. suddenly having a GOD-CENTERED life, rather than a ME-CENTEREDa life put my whole world in an upheaval. i could see my life both thru this woman and her husband. in her husband, being willing to be used rather than being alone, shows how much i lived my life without an ounce of faith in ANYTHING but my own self-centered fear..which is ALWAYS FEAR OF LOSING WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE AND NOT GAINING SOMETHING YOU WANT TO POSSESS!! it was not trusting in God to provide me with anything or anyone better. thru the eyes of the woman, who was no longer willing to live a lie,...its like this-seeing she WAS married, loving your spouse is a CHOICE not a FEELING and God can teach you to love even the unlovable. now if you arent married, the first thing you will realize is one day God will find you the person who WILL be your spouse, whom you WILL love for the right reasons. the VERY FIRST THING i saw when i came back to the Lord is that i HAD TO STOP PRETENDING AND GET REAL!!!!! DISHONESTY OF ANY KIND IS ALWAYS ROOTED IN FEAR

False
Evidence
Aappearing
Real

to get to cannaan almost always first reguires me to go thru the wilderness FIRST!!!!!

NOTTTT THE SINS OF THE FATHER

i find it interesting how contradictory AND selective the understanding of liberal theology is in regards to its philosophy. on one hand, it states that man doesnt need a god to define it, that man is perfectly capable of forming his own destiny, establishing his own righteousness all by his lonesome. on the other hand, however, he never accepts responsibility for his own shortcomings or for his own misdeeds. he didnt have the right upbringing, if only he had had the privileges that others more fortunate than someone else may have had, etc maybe he would have turned out different, maybe he wouldnt have gone on a shooting spree and killed X amount of people. liberal theology, .......which is almost always rooted primarily in secular humansim,even when it does throw the word God in there every once in awhile........shows at the heart of it an utter rebellion against ANYTHING demanding from it individual accountability for ANYTHING it does. it wants freedom from the autonomy of an all-powerful God but not having to accept responsibility for their own choices. this is at the heart of all new age. I BELIEVE IN ALL PATHS TO GOD.I PICK AND CHOOSE THE IDEA OF GOD THAT I LIKE!!!!! I CAN DO ANYTHING I WANT WITHOUT HAVING TO ANSWER TO ANYONE NOT EVEN MYSELF! AND NOTHING IS EVER MY FAULT!!

the problem with that sort of thinking is i have as of yet to find ANYWHERE in the Word of God that states that its daddys or mommys fault that i turned out the way that i did. over and over, it states that, ultimately, each and everyone of us, is responsibile and accountable for his or her choices.

ezekiel 18:2-5 "what do you mean by the proverb concerning the land of Israel saying 'the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the childrens teeth are set on edge? as i live saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. behold all souls are MINE!!!!! AS THE SOUL OF THE FATHER SO IS THE SOUL OF THE SON MINE!!!! the soul that sins, it shall die. but if a man be just and do which is lawful and right it shall live."

what we see here in these verses perfectly embodies the sin nature..... which is at the heart of ANYONE trying to approach God in ANYWAY outside of the way of JOHN 14:6 THE WAY!!!....versus the first thing that one learns when they approach God with a TRULY repentant heart.

the sin nature-its never my fault. its all about passing the buck.
repentance-THE BUCK STOPS RIGHT HERE!!!!!!

its is and never will be within man to try to find his or her own way. this means that if i refuse to submit to God in the plan of salvation and with the blueprint He clearly provides for me, that i cannot hold anyone but myself accountable for it. this means, i cannot hold accountable anyone elses misdeeds NOR can i expect to fall back on the righteousness of another person ,even my own father and mother, and say its enough. i cannot blame anothers sins or live off the annointing of another person. my soul is GODS ALONE. I ULTIMATELY WILL ANSWER TO HIM

SPECIAL AND SET APART:NOT JUST ANY OLD THING

ezekiel 15:3-5 "shall wood be taken to do just ANY work???"
"behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel, the fire devours both ends of
and the midst of it is burned. is it meet for ANY work?"
"behold, when it was whole, it was meet for NO work!!!!! how
much less shall it be meet for ANY work when the fire has devoured
it and it is burned?"

first lets look at when god talks about whether or not a piece of wood was meet for any work, and when it was whole it was meet or fit for no work at all. the WHOLE piece of wood is a reference to those who are unsaved. obviously UNSAVED means UNPREPARED for ANYTHING!!! our own works attempoting to establish our own righteousness will never be anything more than filthy rags to be discarded by Him

god has created each of us for a special purpose. FIRST we have to be cast into the fire.
this is a reference to our SALVATION. its a no brainer that i had to be born again before god could proceed any further. being devoured at both ends is God getting rid of all the garbage that is holding me back from moving into what God has planned for me. too allow that, the middle, the very heart of me had to be burned to get rid of all the inner motives or whatever that wants me to hang onto all that crap.without first being thrown into the fire i couldnt have been saved. once there i had to dig that i couldnt just continue to be the same old gal i once was. and once there what god had for someone else may be very different than what He had for me.

you see, theres not only conformity from the WORLD but also from BELIEVERS who often make the mistake of thinking that each individual has to conform to what i call a cookie cutter type of mentality. god has a unique plan for each of us as to how he wants to use us.

the revelant thing is................God didnt save any of us to continue doing the same old thing we used to do. a SAFE church presents the message of grace and reconciliation as incomplete or watered down. itll tell you GOD LOVES YOU JUST THE WAY YOU ARE.......BUTTTTT itll conveniently will lop off the part....BUT HE LOVES YOU ARE TOO MUCH TO LET YOU STAY THAT WAY. HOWEVER, a DANGEROUS church is going to present the whole message, and make it very plain that if you honestly DO look upon the message of grace as merely a license to overlook, or excuse whatever it is that you dont want to give up in your life, then its time to seriously rethink and wonder about your true relationship with God.

the bottom line is line...if one has had a TRUE encounter with the Living God, then their lives will start to line up with the Word of God. i heard an awesome teaching by a guy named micheal
yusef who presented His word as a love letter to all believers. how can i honestly say im in love with someone if first off i dont READ any of their letters,and if i dont seek TO DO what their letters ask of me?

a dangerous church:PUMPIN UP THE VOLUME

i well remember the day when i first decided to start working out at the gym. i had just gotten my rowdy english bull terrier whom those who have been so kind as to tolerate me blathering about like any lovesick parent will. i couldn even handle the little bugger for a simple walk around the block. when people as i was attempting to manage him around the block were standing there laughing at me saying things like"the dog taking YOU for a walk"i was like thinking to myself"this is pretty sad when you cant manage your dog for a simple walk around the block without getting out of breath" thats when the lights came on to start taking advantage of my free membership with pro-health fitness.

so i started, and for a while i was rocking along, lost over 20 pounds, then lo and behold, one day i was told "your stomach is getting bloated again" and i realized sure enough it was. at first i didnt understand why it was happening. then i remember what one of the trainers at the gym told another client, about after a time ones body starts to adjust to the workout regime to the point that it actually begins to lose some of its effectiveness. also, i had began to neglect other parts of my regime, in the way of diet. id almost completely stopped drinking water. also in an attempt to save a few bucks had opted for buying a cheap generic fiber supplement as opposed to the herbal coloncleanz that i had been taking. i realized i had to start doing two things....i had to start making water part of my regime again and i had to pump up the volume in my workout. go back to daily maintenence in diet plus in my workout up the ante.

that was kinda how it was when i rededicated my life to god id reached a watershed point where i realized it wasnt in me to find my own way. for awhile i was rocking along going great guns doing great. then i hit a snag. all of a sudden i was angry all the time at people close to me in my life. i was angry all the time PERIOD felt like i was stuck not going anywhere. THEN TWO THINGS HAPPENED. first God revealed to me on an individual level that i was falling back into an old trap. i was making other people my god..which was IDOLATRY. i already knew that was a road doomed to failure. i was going back to making THINGS and PEOPLE more important than GOD. time to going back to some basic principles in spiritual maintenance.
then pastor gary started teaching the congregation on a new series.....A DANGEROUS CHURCH. God deals with believers both on an individual level and on a collective level. which means when He starts addressing the congregation on something speaking to each of its members individually that many of its members are going thru the same thing as you.

often at the same time when God is telling you to go back to some basic maintenence on some basics with your walk with Him, hes also upping the ante to bring you to a new level. some of the rpoblems i was having was indeed due to starting to become complacent and lazy..self absorbed. it was also due to the fact id reached a plateau and was starting to stagnate. i remember reading a book by a poet sylvia plath called the bell jar which described a state of sour depression where one stews in their own sour air. that was where i was at. GOD LOVES ME THE WAY I AM TRUE. BUTTTTTTTTTTT HE LASO LOVES ME FAR TOO MUCH TO LET ME STAY THAT WAY. theres no middle ground here..its forward or its going back GOD WILL NOT EVER LET ME BECOME COMPLACENT. not on HIS watch.

A DANGEROUS CHURCH is speaking to His church...INDIVIDUALLY AND COLLECTIVELY.going back to daily maintenence and upping the ante as He moves us to a new level

FELLOWSHIP VS PACK MENTALITY

im really glad ive chosen to take up pastor garys challenge on really getting serious about studying, chewing on, and reflecting on Gods Word. its really neat the way God works! im really seeing how all my innate passions and interests are really coming full circle as He goes into my personal world and really becomes RHEMA and not just dry boring LOGO Word. as i said before im really seeing how,... in their proper context in relation to how my priorities are ordered,...my personal passions and interests were put there by Him. His MESSAGE OF SALVATION never changes. HIS WORD never changes. HOWEVER, our INDIVIDUAL TESTIMONIES differ from person to person. the testimony of a housewife may not be the same as that of a doctor, a nurse, a criminology buff, and so forth. if someone doesnt relate to how god works in MY life, but they get it thru talking to someone else, it wasnt the MESSAGE that failed. with me, they just didnt click. the same also goes vica versa. lets say, for example, at work, a combative resident wont listen to one caregiver, but they follow me like a little puppy dog. sometimes, a different voice, a different approach, makes all the difference in the world

im having a ball with ezekiel. all my natural inner drivings that spawned my fascination with the world of criminolgy.( i have a strong feeling in my spirit that Hes going to pull me into prison ministry at some point, just not yet.)..ESPECIALLY that burning desire to find out how things happen and why...all those hours i spent under the tutelege of my psychology of abnormal behavior professor...are really coming back. walking with God isnt an easy road all the time. but its never boring. all i can say for anyone whos either never walked with Him, or just starting to get serious about it, sit back....youre in for one heck of a ride. theres NO WAY
you can spend an hour with Him...and leave the same as when you came.

i just got thru reading ezekiel chapter 14. two verses really grabbed my attention. i take that back. make it THREE. ezekiel 14:4,7-8. to me, they crystalize two very important aspects of
what God wants us to imcorporate into our collective AND individual walks with Him.
ACCOUNTABILITY and EXAMPLE. let me break it down just a wee tad.

ezekiel 14:4"...every man of the house of Israel that sets up his idols in his heart and puts the stumblingblock of iniquity before his face,....I, the Lord, will answer Him according to the multitude of His idols." INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTABILITY is very clear here. each one of us is responsible, when push comes to shove, for our own individual walks with God. blaming our pastors, or even each other, when we slip and fall is like blaming mummy and daddy for what happened to us way back when, for the fact, one day, we decided it ws ok for us to do something we KNEW was wrong, and we did it anyway. it just doesnt cut it. for one, and this passage really drives this home. HOW can i POSSIBLY blame another person for my own individual sin and iniquity, which ive allowed to to become MY OWN personal idol, when they may not even be struggling with the same thing that i am? that doesnt make a whole heap of sense. one of the things that make our individual walks with God different is the reason that our individual testimonies are different is the reason that the sins each of us struggle with are different. what i see here is when He talks about working out our own salvations with fear and trembling. its all about our inventories, and everytimne we take our eyes off of our own plates, sand look at someone elses, our just keeps getting bigger. ultimately, it all falls back on us.

ezekiel 14:7"for everyone who separates himself from Me, sets up his idols in his heart, and puts the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face....I, the Lord, will answer him by Myself" verses 4 and 7 both, once gain being ACCOUNTABLE. i remember, not too long ago renting
a 2 part cd series from netflix that they got from a special that was done on the discovery channel on female killers. there was a particular segment on teen killers who engaged in what is called thrill killing. one notable charactersitic of this particular crime is that it is rarely ever done alone. it is almost always done in pairs, or even more often in packs. the propensity that thrill killers have towards working in packs makes it a prime crime to be committed by teens. because of their natural pull towards solidarity-confirming ones identity in a group. this type of thinking was rife in the backslidden condition of Israel in ezekiels day. fellowshipping with God, and the pack mentality im referring to here, are flips sides of a coin. when we felloship with other believers around the things of god, yes, we do, operate in one mind, one spirit towards a comon objective. however, we also understand, that we are still ultimately the ones, who are accountable before God for each of our individual actions. the pack mentality, on the other hand, often makes it very easy to stay in iniquity......THEYRE DOING IT TOO. its not just a matter of taking the path of least resistance, its also a way of sharing the blame when anything goes wrong.

ezekiel 14:8"and i will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and i will cut him off from the midst of my people, and you shall know i am the Lord." God uses the falings of others, sometimes especially those He initially called for His purposes, as an example of what NOT to do as well as what TO DO. often, we dont see ourselves the way others see us. one of the primary reasons God uses others as an example of what not to do is often its a mirror we can hold up to ourselves so we can see we are doing the exact same thing.

HAITI:IS IT GOD?

i cant get out of my mind when pastor tony posed the question about what has happened in haiti: IS IT GOD???????? i touched upon this in my last post, and i pointed out about what haiti has done by dedicating its nation to satan. i HAD to do some surfing on the web to research that one, because when pastor tony brought it to our attention, my first thought was ur joking, right mate?? but i looked it up under more than one source, and,yep, they sure did. i had to research it because, one of the reasons i became so disillusioned with evangelical christianity some years back was seeing all too often how too many of us were themselves not above using propaganda
to promote their own agendas, usually finacnially related. one thing i have to credit this congregation on, especially under the tutelage of such men as pastor gary, is, and much more rapidly than id ever thought, to eliminate that patina of cynicsim that had formed such a hard crust around my heart for so long. once i verified this, my next thought was, DOES THIS NATION HAVE A DEATH WISH????? to me, it seemed almost surreal that any nation would so brazenly and recklessly leave themselves open to the forces of evil like this. heck, stan doesnt
even have to disguise themselves as an angel of light, or as being someone else. they KNOW who he is, and they did it anyway.

ive struggled, for many years myself, to comprehend the eternal question... HOW COULD A LOVING FATHER DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS TO HIS CHILDREN OR HOW COULD HE ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN? once again, i think back to my days in early recovery when i was in AA, and this is a very harsh, but necessary truth. no matter how much you may love a son or a daughter you have that is in the throes of addiction, and you see that they dont WANT to break free of it, NO MATTER HOW HARD IT MAY BE to see your child
going through what theyre going through without you, there comes a point and time where you HAVE to let that child go. they may be homeless, going through the pain of withdrawal because theyre in agony with their bodies screaming for a shot. YOU HAVE TO LET THEM GO!!!!!!
were dealing with a nation that has openly rejected God and embrace satan. i dont think God has brought the devastation were seeing here. however, there comes a point where, like any loving father, where what 1 corinthians 5:5 speaks of when it refers to "turning one over to satan for the destruction of the flesh so that in the day of the Lord, they may be saved." life is all about choices. people rarely get saved until they come to the absolute end of themselves. God really didnt have to do anything here. when you dedicate yourself to satan, as i said before, thats like waving a red flag in front of a bull, or befriending a poisonous spider, and not expecting to get bit. ive heard of people who called upon satan and asked them to be their lord and master, and they felt the temperature drop 30 degrees in the room. GO FIGURE!!!!

one of the most dangerous messages were hearing in safe religion is that there are no consequences to ANYTHING!!!!! no one will turn away from anything destructive as long as
its allowed to be a pleasant experience for them. we are to be intercessors for others, and our prayers form protective barriers around others. but, there comes a point, when we see that someone doesnt want to stop doing what theyre doing, to keep rpaying for their protection isnt LOVE its ENABLING!! TURN ONE OVER TO SATAN FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FLESH SO THAT IN THE DAY OF THE LORD THEY MIGHT BE SAVED very simply means
there comes a point where you quit praying for them. not quit praying for their redemption, but it means quit praying for their protection. before anyone repents, they almost always have to hit rock bottom. if an eartly parent has the right to decide when they must let their child go, how can we say our HEAVENLY Father doesnt have the right to do the same?

HOW CAN A LOVING FATHER ALLOW HIS CHILDREN TO SUFFER AND BE IN PAIN???? i remember,back in the 90s, in leonardo decaprios early days, i remember one of his first movies the basketball diaries, this story about a heroin addict, who later recovered and became a street poet,...there was this one scene where he was going thru withdrawal, and he was banging on his mothers door, about to break it down, screaming at her, IM YOUR SON!!!!! HOW CAN YOU BE SO CRUEL???? CANT YOU SEE IM IN PAIN????!!!!
and you can see the uter devastation on her face as she was witnessing this, wanting so badly to give him that 20 dollars, knowing that 20 dollars would be the shot to give him relief, but also knowing, if she did that, she was helping to kill him. how do you think God feels, right now. witnessing the utter devastation in haiti, watching 1 14 year old girl wail in anguish as she pulls her little brother out of the rubble? and couldnt He stop it at anytime? yes, He could. but God gave us free will. He WANTS haiti to return to him, and many, many of them will come to Him. but it has to be an act of the free will. in order for anything to be rebuilt, it first has to be utterly broken.

one day, things far worse than this will happen, and it WILL be God. ezekiel 12:27..."the vision he sees is for many days to come, and he prophesies of times far off." and vs 28 "...there shall none of my words be prolonged anymore, but the word i have spoken shall be done" my big problem for many years was i thought i was immortal. one day i was no longer 18, i was 47. the fact that God IS so loving and merciful makes it all the more frightening to imagine of what it will be like one day when His mercy WILL run out, and He means what He says and itsnt saying these things, that Hes been saying for thousands of years just to hear himself talk. nothing we see on earth will even remotely compare to the horrors of hell. hebrews 10:31 "it is dreadful to fall into the hands of the Living God"

but i also know today, it doesnt have to be that way. Jesus gave us the way out

more on reprobate mentality;reprobate versus character.

after i posted my blog yesterday, i realized how much more i had left to write, SOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!... let her rip! getting into the books in the Word, such as isaiah, jeremiah, and ezekiel, has, like i was saying yesterday, incorporated aspects of my personal world that i hadnt thought about THIS actively in a very long time. reading ezekiel takes me back to 1997, to my sociology class, to my instructor dr. hitchcock, when he used to love to show us such documentary videos, such as "the iceman", which was all about a hitman for the mob who specialized in various poisons, and who took special pleasure in watching the effects of the poisons, ESPECIALLY the slow acting ones, on his hits. a textbook case of, what i also learned that same semester in pyschology of abnormal behavior, of a sadistic psaychopath.as ive seen reading, studying, meditating, and blogging on the book of ezekiel, ive been finally come to terms with, and accept, that (and THIS is what REALLY explained to me just what REPROBATE really is in the spiritual realm). that it is entirely possible to KNOW His truth, to hear the Spirit convict you on it, to KNOW the difference between right and wrong, and STILL CHOOSE to do wrong. ezekiel is a frightening picture of just what can happen and DOES INDEED happen when the mind of a sociopath becomes the NORM, rather than an ABERRATION.

i remember hearing pastor tony last sunday, talking about what has happened in haiti, and whether or not, it is indeed a judgement from God. and i was like, when i found out that this was a nation who had actually dedicated itself to satan, DOES IT REALLLY HAVE TO BE A JUDGEMENT OF GOD??? the very fact that this is a nation which has deidicated itself to the devil, is like waving a red flag in front of a bull, and wondering why it comes charging straight at you. OR, befriending, taking in, and feeding a brazillian wandering spider (like i saw this total
idiot do on youtube)and then wondering why you get bit. but i cant even begin to put whats happening here in haiti with what was happening in israel in ezekiels day.when a leader dedicates its nation to satan, its evident youre dealing with a person who is lost. being unsaved isnt the same as being reprobate. being LOST is when you just dont get it, and you keep going back to the same jive over and over because you just dont get it. being REPROBATE is when you know, but you dont care.

God puts in His Word examples of bad as well as good as just that- examples of what to do, but also what not to do. over and over, as ive been studying isaiah, jeremiah, and ezekiel, what has repeatedly come to mind, when pastor gary was talking about the earmarks of false teachers.
what he was saying about CHARACTER has stuck with me. ANNOINTING isnt enough. KNOWLEDGE OF HIS WORD isnt enough. even CONVICTION isnt enough. His Word ABSOLUTELY MUST be the code we live by, that our values must be based on. if our CHARACTER does not line up with what is in this Book, then we are all nothing more than wolves crept in to decieve the flock. reading ezekiel and what God was talking about in dealing with a people who had turned their backs on Him, and still thought they were a people who were special, and set apart, gives the definition of the criteria for a narcissistic personality a whole new meaning. and often, when people develop the belief that due to special gifts that God has given them,(forgetting they are to be used for HIS glory, not THEIRS), that, somehow, because of the grace freely given to all men thru Jesus Christ.who want it, that, somehow, the rules just dont apply to them. somehow His WORD doesnt apply to them. or, that, due to great works, they may have done in the past, before they turned their backs on Him, that they could just go on living off of yesterdays annointing and works. His Word is crystal clear EZEKIEL 3:20"when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, and goes into iniquity(this means returning to a LIFETSYLE of sin), HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS WILL NOT BE REMEMBERED" do i dare think i can live off of yesterdays annointing? THINK AGAIN.

i fully believe many false teachers arent born- they are MADE. and all too often, those cloest to them who recognize early, their special gifts and callings are to blame. many cults are born from these teachers being told over and over YOURE SPECIAL, YOURE ABOVE THE LAW, EVEN HIS LAW, THERES A SPECIAL GRACE EVEN BEYOND THE GRACE ALREADY GIVEN TO YOU, THE RULES JUST DONT APPLY TO YOU. to me, this is really scary. that someone can, for a very long time continue to operate in an incredible annointing, bfore the plug gets pulled on it, even actually being used to bring many into the Kingdom, and all the while lead countless people astray. being reprobate is like having a brilliant mind with no conscience to guide it. when i read ezekiel, and fully understand what a reprobate mind is, and understand what a false teacher is as well, i see, all too often what this is is simply an unchecked version of what God wants me to be. salvation is immediate. character, in line with His Word takes a heck of a long time to build. i dont get right standing or saved by living by His Word, but its expected to follow, and if it doesnt, then i have to begin to wonder about my true relationship with God. books like ezekiel, isaiah, and jeremiah, are examples of what
i can easily become if i DONT regard His Word as my personal code.

REPROBATE:WHEN ABNORMAL BECOMES THE NEW NORMAL

over the past 13 years when i FIRST came to know Jesus as Lord and savior, i often wondered just what exactly REPROBATE MENTALITY was. over this past year, the connection finally
began to click into my mind, just as to what it really was. and i have my years-long fascination
with anything involving criminolgy..particularly the areas of forensic psychology and criminal
profiling..to thank for this. its really amazing just as to how God will go into our individual worlds, and make His truths revelant by revealing anaolgies that make all the difference in taking his LOGO WORD, and the lights suddenly kick on,and it becomes RHEMA. to me, this shows that all of our deep seated interests and passions are those that God has instilled in us, as He uses each one of His children in different ways.

well, anyway, ive done alot of studying and research on the antisocial, or sociopathic mentality. one of the most frightening charactersistics is that they are fully able to distinguish right from wrong, but they just dont care. if they are given the choice between right and wrong, and it is within their best interests to do wrong...according to a prominant FBI profiler.......they will ALWAYS choose to do wrong. they also fully expect to get away with what are often atrocities
totally foreign to that of a normal person. they fully comprehend the legal sanctions and cultural mores/social norms of the world we live in, but they feel that they dont apply to them. theyre special, unique, and the ordinary person is "stupid" i did alot of things over and over before i got saved because i just didnt get it..thats the area of strongholds. this type of person just doesnt care,theyre like SO WHAT????AND YOUR POINT IS??? and, theyre often stunned when they sit in a courtroom, and hear the sentence over their horrific crimes, never, ever expecting theyd ever be held accountable

its really laughable when we pride ourselves, in our human arrogance, in discovering what we feel is "new" knowledge. reading in the Epistles..romans 1:28, when they talk about being turned over to a reprobate mind, because they dont like entertaining God in their thoughts, we see the truth of what was spoken of in ecclesiasted "there is nothing new under the sun" reprobate is just a less cosmopolitan term for a sociopath. even worse, because with the reprobate mind,were actually dealing in an area where ones eternity is at stake, they KNOW it, and, somehow feel that the rules just dont apply to them. they KNOW His words, His ways, but, being one of HIS people, theyre speical, His grace has them covered, so the rules are for other people. having the annointing of God in your life, without also having the character built around building ones life on His Word, is like what ive read all too often about the antisocial personality, who often possesses a brilliant mind, with no conscience or scruples to guide it. and often, that annointing is tremendous.and the reprobate mind may move and operate in it for awhile. God is merciful. for those who dont see how a LOVING God can wipe our a nation, critters and babies included...need to ask themselves a very important question...how many of us would have given nations such as assyria 400 YEARS to repent. God will often wait a long time before He pulls the annointing off of us, because He loves us, and wants us back?

the antisocial personality, thank God, makes up only 1-4% of the american population. right now, im in the book of ezekiel, and the picture that it paints of a backslidden Israel, is downright scary. imagine how frightening it is knowing we have that 1-4% running loose in our country.
NOW, THINK OF AN ENTIRE NATION BEING LIKE THAT!!!!!! matthew 6:23 "when the light in you be darkness, HOW GREAT IS THAT DARKNESS?" the sociopath is unable to exist within the norms of society, and one of its trademarks is a pattern of behavior which is grounds for arrest. well, in the case of the israel that men like jeremiah, isaiah, and ezekiel lived in, THE ABBERANT BEHAVIOR of Israel was what was normal. anyone who chose to be obedient to the Word of God were the ones viewed to be abnormal. ive read alot about murders being commited in packs. think of an entire nation wanting to gang up on you and killing you because you dared to stand behind His truth even when it goes against the norm.

there were two verses in ezekiel that i feel perfectly captured the collective, dangerously reprobate mind of a nation, who, when confronted with right and wrong would consistently choose wrong, KNOWING IT TO BE WRONG. it just didnt matter to them
ezekiel 8"then said he unto me, son of man, see what the ancients in the house of israel do in thr dark of the chambers of his imagination? they think the Lord doesnt see them, for He has forsaken the earth." i see alot of this thinking TODAY in the mentality of people, who believe they can use the grace of God to excuse themselves, especially, when they have a special annointing, because the honestly beleive the rules just dont apply to them. i fully believe many false teachers arent born, they are MADE!!!!! all too often, theyve been surrounded by others, from very early in life, who keep telling them "youre special..the rules just dont apply to you....God will overlook whatever it is in your life that doesnt line up."a prime example are spoiled, narcissistic brats like samson. and he grew up believing it. i can only imagine the rude awakening he got when he got his eyes dug out after delilah whacked off his hair. STUNNED
was an understatement

ezekiel 5 16" moreover i will make you a waste, and a reproach amonst the nations" Israel
was raised as a people who WERE special , SET APART. they were the ones, in ezekiels day who carried the evangelism of the coming Messiah to the rest of the world. guess what, whoever God raises up as an EXAMPLE of what He wants us to be, as well as to speak to others of His grace and mercy. when we fall, especially if we take others with us, we will also be held as an example
of His sanctions. this especially applies to those who think His grace as a license to excuse whatever they were doing. THINK AGAIN!!!! leaders always get held to a higher, often harsher set of standards than those who arent. to whom much is given, much is required. law enforcement rarely goes after the individual users, they want the dealers.

reading books like ezekiel make me realize two things. how unbelievable Gods mercy really IS..AND HOW FRIGHTENING IT ALSO IT IS WHEN IT RUNS OUT

more on relational idolatry.

relational idolatry isnt just a matter of placing PEOPLE in general over GOD. whenever people get into relational idolatry, its usually a perversion for the sole trust and reliance we are supposed to place in God. this was a dynamic that led me to become so male driven. just as the reliance and trust we should place in God alone should become an all-consuming fire, whatever romantic interest i had at the time, became an all-consuming fire as well. im well into my renewed walk with God for well over a year, and im just now beginning to fully realize just how destructive this dynamic was, not just to myself, but to those around me. this was one of the factors that was at the root of my obsessive bipolar disorder. medication is,at best, a bandaid solution, if the deeper spiritual and psychogical factors arent first addressed. and recognizing it is only half the battle. the new birth is instant, but, after the new birth, we are often left with the nature of the flesh,one part of which is a mind diametrically opposed to the Word of God, to retrain. and this process can take a long time. to pereservere, one often has to just keep renewing their mind daily and keep ones eyes on the prize.

medication DID bring me to a place of normalcy for me to see it had to stop. but i had still yet to see it would never be within me to find my own way sans God. like most people, prior to accepting Jesus as lord and Savior, i had to come to the end of myself to realize this. its not enough to take meds, and to say, "im not going to do this, or do that anymore". it had to come from a much deeper place inside of me, where i had to say, "i dont want this kind of dynamic anymore" at the time, i return to the Lord, i wasnt out on the streets, and id been sober for three years(BEING SOBER was an important factor, in being brought to a place where i saw i HAD to submit), i was in a stable, loving relationship. theres all sorts of ways one can come to the end of ourselves. the bottom line is, that its sort of like max dugan when it comes to God (and God IS persistant) YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CANT HIDE!!! it was basically God telling me He loved me and wanted me back.

relational idolatry is Satans way of, not just COUNTERFEITING the sole reliance God wants us to place upon Him, but also PERVERTING it. making God the center of ones life, brings joy, fulfillment, and a sense of completeness. unbelievers view the God of the Bible as one who wants to TAKE YOUR LIFE AWAY FROM YOU. the opposite is true .God GAVE MY LIFE BACK to me!!!!!! making PEOPLE important parts of your life..theres nothing wrong with that.PEOPLE are Gods most valuable commodity. relational idolatry is totally different. its when you take one person, place that person at the absolute center of your life. THIS brings
frustration, disappointment as you look upon each one of them as one failure after another,( not understanding that its impossible for that person to meet your demands) its a stronghold- a pattern of thought you cling to even when its apparent its not working( only SATAN can have you persistantly clinging to a revealed lie), and ulitmately DESPAIR. IT TAKES YOUR LIFE from you, including other people.

relational idolatry is the dynamic behind people who end up stalking their target of interest. a key factor in the life of a stalker, is that they have either no close friends, except for family, or they have very few close friends. having no network outside of that one person, they pursue something that is impossible, making that one person the answer to all their problems. only GOD can do that, IF youre willing. i STALKED people. why???? well, its like this. we ALL deal
with disappointments in friendships and relationships, when one person just isnt as interested as the other one is, and they pull away. most of us, even though we experience the sense of loss and disappoinmtents, they move on. they have other people to balance out that sense of loss.
however, relational idolatry robs you of other things in your life, including other people that God may place in your life to help you. i wound up feeling swamped by that disappointment, and consumed by the obsession to obtain that relationship, which included anger i was uable to let go of if they werent satisfied with everything i did. this came from my world just not being full enough to combat it.

i remember the movie FATAL ATTRACTION, and one scene that really stands out in my mind,
is the scene where glenn close is sitting, glass of wine in her hand, listening to madame butterfly, and you could see the obsession, frustration, and, most of all, the deep loneliness,
that was at the very root of her obsession. you could see THIS MAN was her God..if only she could have him, all hesr problems would be solved. most people, when going through something is in the company of friends. but relational idolatru, in its futile attempt to make ONE PERSON the answer to all your problems, almost always leaves you with few or not friends. its a frightening place to be...for others who are the target of this obsession, but also for the person consumed by this feeling of being utterly out of control.

relational idolatry is a countefeit for the One who CAN meet all my needs..IF i let Him

more on relational idolatry.

my viewpoint on a dangerous church

for me to understand the difference between a SAFE CHURCH versus a DANGEROUS CHURCH, its not that difficult. to really get it, some great analogies can be found in our unsaved past via the people we THOUGHT were our friends as opposed to the people who REALLY WERE our friends.

this is how i see a SAFE CHURCH!!! a SAFE CHURCH is sort of like that group of girlfriends many of us unsaved gals used to go partying with, whenever we wanted to whine and cry in our beer over whatever flame we happened to be obsessing over at the moment. we all know these fair weather type of friends. they spent alot of time murmuring, clucking sympethetically, ALWAYS telling us what we WANTED to hear, all the while thinking OH HOW I WISH THIS PERSON WOULD JUST GO AWAY THEYRE RUINING MY HIGH or I CAN LISTEN TO THIS AS LONG AS THEY KEEP BUYING. this is exactly what a SAFE CHURCH IS LIKE.
it neither makes demands on its members nor wants demands made on it. there is a barney-like mentality pervading it, as they preach a "social" Gospel. I LOVE YOU YOU LOVE ME IM OK YOURE OK.....a Gospel of NO CONVICTION. at best, it presents IMCOMPLETE truth. it claims GOD LOVES YOU THE WAY YOU ARE......umm, somethings missing at the end there.

a DANGEROUS CHURCH-its like that type of friend or loved one that you may end up hating for awhile when they tell you something that may rub you the wrong way, you may even HATE that person and not talk to them for a lomng time, BUT, later, often, you end up THANKING them for it. they may not always tell you what you WANT to hear, BUT they will always tell you what you NEED to hear. i think of my sister alot, when i think of what a DANGEROUS CHURCH is like. wheneve i wanted to cry in my beer over some guy, or whatever self-defeating situation i kept landing myself in. not alot of murmuring sympathetically here...instead i got alot of being told needing to start looking at patterns that kept repeating themselves, looking to see where i was always the lowest common denominator in every one of these problems. thers always RISK whenever one is willing to step out in the area of TRUTH and CHANGE. a DANGEROUS CHURCH is all about RISK and conviction. im currently in the book of ezekiel and one verse stands out in my mind "do not be rebellious like the others...but rather EAT ALL of what i give you." a DANGEROUS CHURCH doesnt deal with watered down, partial truth. it deals with the whole thing. it takes GOD LOVES YOU JUST THE WAY YOU ARE.....and adds on the other half of the statment...BUT HE LOVES YOU FAR TOO MUCH TO LET YOU STAY THAT WAY. a DANGEROUS CHURCH allows the Holy Spirit to use the Word like a mirror, where you look into it, and, NO, youre not always going to like what you see.

often, it really is much easier to deal with outward persecution from the world, than it is to look in the mirror and allow the Holy Spirit to use His Word to tell us that the one who needs to change is ME. well, its like this...a SAFE CHURCH allows us to keep doing our own thing, cluding shifting blame. a DANGEROUS CHURCH carries one of the most important factors
required for TRUE repentence...............THE BUCK STOPS HERE!!!!!!

A SAFE CHURCH-A FORM OF GODLINESS, DENYING ITS POWER. WERE STILL RUNNING THE SHOW.

A DANGEROUS CHURCH- AGOD THAT CAN OPEN THE EYES OF THE BLIND, HEAL THE SICK, TURN WATER INTO WINE. RAISE THE DEAD. GOD IS THE ONE RUNNING THE SHOW

being the lowest common denominator

matthew 5:44"love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who despitefully use and persecute you" this is all about REACHING OUT!!!!! and dont you know that all too often reaching out to your enemy can be like reaching out to pet a brazillian wandering spider, hoping you wont get bit ( i had the pleasure of seeing one of them suckers on discovery, as it barreled up this poor guys broom, and zinged his hand. this is not a mild manner tarantula. this critter is aggressive). and, roger that, we live in a day an age, where those of us who embrace Jesus as THE way to God, not A way, who believe in shaping our values around the Word, not vica-versa etc. is NOT going to be modern mainstream societys cup of tea. this aint a popularity contest, i dig it. BUTTTTTTTTTT, AND I PLACE A HUGE EMPHASIS
ON THE BUT HERE, when we come across a difficulty in life, where we feel compelled to grab for good ole trusty matt 5:44, for that feel-good attaboy, i found it also highly advisable to remember hebrews 4:12"the Word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword.....it is a divider of the thoguhts and intents of the heart" sometimes this doesnt
give us that attaboy feeling, but rather, an OUCH!!!!!!! we all can relate to being persecuted.
but nobody likes to look in the mirror, seeing theres no guarantee, theyll like what they see. but,
true forgiveness and love of ones enemies is never going to come if we dont also have the willingness to allow God to search our hearts, to allow the Spirit to convict us, on where if the shoe fits, we happen to have fallen into a pattern of destructive behavior with others that is actually contrary to being in His will. true forgiveness is only going to come when we see where we are the lowest common denominator in the situation.

the TRUE litmus test as to whether or not i have truly forgiven someone: MY part in it suddenly becomes HUGE!!! if i dont balance matthew 5:44 with hebrews 4:12,matthew 5:44 becomes nothing more than a way of shifting blame, and feeling justified in doing so. the Gospel is pretty simple, common sense. its the ABCS of our walk with God
A. I CANT
B. HE CAN
C. I THINK ILL LET HIM.
after that comes learning to LIVE THE WALK, not just TALK THE TALK. this is largely inward,
and, trust me, when youre in a job situation, where you have charge nurse who is willing to frame you in order to get you fired, hebrews 4:12 is going to be alot harder to put into practice than matt 5:44. no one likes looking in the mirror, and seeing where he or she is the lowest common denominator in the matter. and the tragic thing, is many believers lose job after job, even one loved one after the other, and still not get it, as far as being able to accept responsibility
for their shortcomings. and, what happens as a result, they look forward to a life of defeat, and all they tell the world by this is "this DOESNT work" lack of humility, unwillingness to relinquish destructive interrelational patterns paint a picture of a very UNchristian christian.

trust me, satan KNOWS exactly how to push your buttons. why do you think that the people closest to you can be the HARDEST to forgive????? they can send you from 0-glad to 10-boiling mad in a nanosecond. this is especially hard when dealing with strongholds of relational idolatry, where ones world became so centered around people that one word from them could ruin your whole day or even your whole weekend. the problem with that sort of perspective is that its ME-centered,and you drain people dry, or they flee from you. like i said before, and hebrews 4;12 sums it up, the chief cornerstone of daily picking up that cross daily, and following Him, is finally getting the fact that is isnt other people i need to try to be CHANGING. who really needs to CHANGE is ME. my job with other people to to SHARE MY FAITH!!!

a SHEEP knows his masters voice:DOGGIES AND DUCKS TOO!!!!

samson and i have an early morning routine( welllllllllll, we HAVE slacked up on it over the past couple of mornings since BRRRRRRR ITS COOLLLLLLLDDDDDDDD!!!!) i pop about six cups of popcorn, bag it up, along with the brats early morning doggie treats, and we walk down to the park, where there is a huge natural lake. ( in the summertime, i kinda began to wonder if
the ones who actually braved the pond stench could read, seeing there was a huge sign up, saying, DO NOT SWIM IN THIS LAKE, SINCE IT IS A SOURCE FOR PROTOZOA, AMOEBA, AND OTHER MICROSCOPIC PATHOGENS......something like that anyway)
it is a daily ritual to feed the ducks. and they already know me and samson, before i even tie up samson (that is, unless i want to end up going for a swim in da pond as samson takes off like a heat seeking missile after the ducks, two in particular. in 15 degree water? um, dont think so.)
as soon as they see us, here they come.....quack, quack, quack, heres the nice lady who feeds us. ive learned to wear sneakers, instead of flip flops when i come on this expedition, as they like to bite my feet if they feel i aint feeding them fast enough. they know ME and they know THE SOUND OF MY VOICE!!!!! they know IM THE ONE WHO FEEDS THEM!!!!
alan trie coming to the pond one day, minus food, but with samson in tow. they recognized samson, but saw i wasnt with him with the popcorn. so, after the initial recognition of samson, they knew, "nothing here,guys" so, they didnt even bother coming up to alan. first impression ,from a distance, samson may have made the scenario LOOK familar, but, upon closer inspection, the ducks saw there was nothing there, sooooooooo, it was cyalaterbye!!!!

its really funny, man is supposed to be superior in intelligence to a dog or a duck. but, heck, a sheep is as dumb as doggie poop, and they KNOW the sound of their masters voice, and will never be fooled by an imitation, no matter how good of one it is. its ironic that MAN can be fooled by a fake, but you cant fool a duck, or a dog. they KNOW whos going to feed them, and whos not, and will not go up to you, if youre not them , no matter how much you may LOOK
like the real source of the food. Jesus knew what He was doing when he used animals, especially sheep seeing as it WAS one of the dumbest animals on the planet. animals know the real thing in a new york minute, but man often doesnt have a clue theyre being taken in by
a fake, such as a false teacher, even when theyre in the grips of starving to death. A SHEEP KNOWS THE SOUND OF HIS MASTERS VOICE AND WILL NEVER FOLLOW THE VOICE OF A STRANGER BUT WILL RUN!!!!!

a dog or a duck will never have the gift of eternal life, such as we have, but i feel God has given them the gift of distinguishing the true from the false as an example to us. a loyal faithful dog worth his salt can always sense the evil and duplicity behind a false smiling veneer, and is quick to warn their master, no mater how good the package looks on the surface. physical analogies are an invaluable tool as we delve into the spiritual realm via the Holy Spirit to discern spiritual truths theres alot of kooks and whackjobs out there wholl tell us things that are obviously off the chain, and we can laugh, and shake our heads, and rest assured we wont get taken in by a false teacher. but look at the one verse that both peter talked about in his epistiles as well as what jude in the book of jude does as well......clouds without water, carried about by winds.
these are the ones that are hard to spot. on initial inspection, a could with rain thatll nourish you, and prevent dehydration cant be told apart from a cloud that will give you nothing. its like confusing alan and samson together with me and samson together..rushing up to alan and samson because they LOOK like theyll give you something, then...........nothing. thats what a false teacher all too often windfs up doing. they may even quote scripture. they offer something and give nothing. and all too often, they end up TAKING everything from YOU. the prosperity doctrine gone out of hand is well known for that.

distinguishing a real teacher from a wolf that creeps into the flock is impossible without the Holy Spirit, and learning to be sensitive to His voice and conviction. just dry knowledge of the Word, without the Spirit to guide you isnt enough (though you bloody well BETTER know the Word as well) the Holy Spirit is like our english bull terrier or pit bull that warns us of the hidden dangers below the surface of a nice pretty package that at first SEEMS to line up with the Word, but quickly reveals to us when something is hinky ( i LOVE detective terminology)
in other words, when the body of evidence isnt lining up with the body of the crime, so to speak.
it shows us the M.O (modus operandi)

its all about whether or not we end up getting fed, amen