Journey Of One Step

Exodus

2011-10-11T17:52:00.000-07:00

One night, while she could feel the demons in his place, Mare laid on his bed while he was in the living room and she could hear Jesus speak to her,

“Come away my beloved.”

She tried to obey that voice but her heart held back. She wanted Damien.

This is where it all began.

They spent the first two months, after meeting at their job, talking about work and about themselves and about everything. She let him know that she was a serious Christian.

He complained about getting lots of rejection from women. He said he couldn’t understand why, except that he was reaping the rejection he’d sown in his youth when he dumped lots of girls. He said he’d had temporary loves, about every three months.

Finally, he complained bitterly about Mare saying that she cannot be with an unbeliever. He said he cannot believe in God unless God gives him a “honey.”

They got closer and closer. Mare got steadily more attracted to him, despite the poor character shown in some of what has already been described. He drooled over women as they worked together – unabashedly.

Tom was at her house when she first met Damien – a voice of conscience in Mare’s life - a fellow Christian. She knew Damien wasn’t her type. He reeked of things she didn’t like, and told Tom so.

But Tom was patient with her. He liked Damien.

And when Damien came to see a movie one night, and showed great interest in the one she picked (they each picked one out) he showed her a side of himself that impressed her.

He kept watching the movie even when she wouldn’t have minded giving up on it, and that showed some depth in him that caused her to like him more and more.

One night they played “Wheel of Fortune” on his play station all night. It was truly fun for them. At about 4:00 AM he said he couldn’t see them as being lovers. He said,

“I’d like you for right now, but you’re too old for anything more.”

Mare was twenty years older.

Mare left knowing there would be a strain at work if they got involved, even though she felt they wanted each other.

That was on a Saturday night. Eerily he said, “Maybe you’ll sleep with someone tomorrow.”

Somehow that came up in the conversation. And then, Mack called the next night, being cocky saying there would be no more than this one night, and then he’d disappear.

Mare was enthralled with Damien, and Mack’s approach was disturbing. He just blatantly came on that he wanted a one-night stand, like they’d already had. They’d just ended up in bed.

Mare had a short period of sexual permissiveness due to a manic episode – that wicked disease that can cause temporary lapses of reason.

Her episode had ended, but Mack had gotten there as a result of it.

But she certainly wanted more than what Mack was offering. She wanted more than what Damien was offering. But with Damien it felt like a relationship.

She told Mack “no.”

The next Tuesday morning there was a company meeting. She saw Damien and he was bugging her for some reason. Little did she know he had just had sex Sunday night.

Sunday afternoon he had been working in the mall. He met someone else working in the mall at Victoria’s Secret. That night he went out with her, drank and had sex.

Tuesday night he told Mare about it. He said it was great, and how he’d like to have something ‘nice like that in his bed every night.’ He thought Mare would think it was just fine. He had no idea it would upset her.

Mare’s feelings were dashed. She didn’t talk to him for days. Already she was getting attached. They had been talking 3 to 6 times per day at work, and now nothing.

Finally, she confessed how hurt she was and why.

She fought hatred and forgave him. This is an example of where forgiveness can go wrong.

She went beyond forgiving him and forgot to look at who he was. She forgot to guard her heart! Instead, she kept sinking into desire for him.

That’s when she found herself at his place that night, and the demonic was surely present. She heard the voice of Jesus crying out to her to leave, but she didn’t.

She didn’t sleep with him that night, but by the next time she was in his place, she asked Damien to kiss her. He did, and they lost control. She told him how much she had been wanting him.

Chapter 2

Damien had obviously been inspired by Mare’s relationship with her cat, because he went out and got a cat after holding her cat in his lap at her house. He also got an aquarium, passionately creating an underwater world at home.

He said he was losing a desire to make a relationship work, a cat and a fish tank were enough for him. Yet later he talked about buying a wife from the Orient because he couldn’t handle American women anymore.

Mare had to face just how selfish and immature he was. Here he had slept with someone else, and then later dated another woman, a new woman working under him at their job when he became manager, and he just expected Mare to figure it out. He had gone for her because of her body, he had admitted.

He then proposed to Mare and 2 days later was oogling another new employee with a small trim body right in front of Mare. So, he was being open about it at least.

After they had been in bed together, Mare worried about the impact it would have on work, but things went along fine. Mare met with him at his place and ‘went for it’ passionately – thinking of him as her best friend, which was far from the truth.

Probably because they had been talking a lot before anything physical had happened – but that was a poor reason. He said he’d never slept with a friend before, only strangers.

And he even started talking about Mare being the right one for him. But Mare told him she needed a Christian and Mare tried to break it off, tried to stop the physical relationship. He protested madly, saying he hated God. He stopped talking to her for a couple of days and Mare got sick with a bad cold. Mare was giving her heart over to him, convinced that he was showing he was in love.

They ended up at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. – a restaurant, where he proposed to her. He asked if she minded occasional marijuana use, and she said she didn’t. He said “great.”

Two days later, a 36-year-old female employee was working with them and he was drooling over her. Mare knew the engagement was a joke. She got very angry.

A week later they sat in Perkins together and Damien was denying the whole thing, again talking about buying a wife from the Orient. He told her she was too old for him. Mare realized she had gone through a complete cycle with him. He laughed at her new used car.

Mare told him she felt suicidal. He said, “you’re going to kill yourself unless I marry you?” Laughing. Mare told him that buying a wife was like the old slavery of the South. What kind of people buy people? What kind of people sell people? He said he’d just been kidding. Mare thought “enough is enough.” If only it had truly been enough!

The company had a meeting and Damien was the manager at that time. Mare thought how he had a veneer of maturity and of liking himself. He’s obviously immature and doesn’t like himself, but only lives for self. Now it was apparent that he only got sex for the time being and didn’t need Mare. He would just as soon move on.

He had used Mare like a yo-yo. Mare saw the need to forgive yet maintain boundaries this time.

Chapter 3

The joy of the Lord flooded her room that morning after that meeting at Perkins. God so mercifully came to Mare as she repented, and suicidal feelings dissipated.

Now because of all that happened, she recognized that he couldn’t be honest with her, that she had no idea if he was dating anyone else at work. She told him that he had treated the engagement like a joke. He replied that his whole life had been a joke. So, he treated Mare like he treated himself.

He openly admitted to his second thoughts about getting married. He said his friends ridiculed him for being with a woman old enough to be his mom.

He said he doubts Mare is his soulmate. He asked Mare to write a prayer to say to God about his dilemma of finding a wife. She wrote a prayer in Jesus name in which he asks to be shown any unforgiveness, also asking to find his soulmate.

Mare prayed it would open doors for him spiritually, and then she prayed to surrender him to God.

After that he tried to deny that the incident with the Victoria’s Secret lady happened and then got Mare to go to bed with him again. Mare said “no more! Absolutely no more!”

Mare moved on to being able to abstain from a sexual relationship, but not from feelings for him. Even her Christian friend Tom would rather see them together and would be disappointed when they were “on the fritz” again.

Mare took a road trip across Minnesota, Iowa and South Dakota. She saw the badlands, Mount Rushmore and wild horses. When she returned, she was able to see the damage that had been done by the relationship with Damien – soul hurts and wounds. It had a lot to do with the effects of sexual sin. She knew she had to let this go into God’s hands.

Damien went to another company – the competition. Mare suspected that he had been fired for sexual harassment even though he didn’t tell her.

Still, Mare ended up in bed with Damien, seemingly powerless to stop it. Damien stunk up the apartment with cigarettes and Mare hated breathing in the second hand smoke, but endured it.

It was obvious that Damien was not in love but just wanted the convenient sex. He couldn’t love because God is love. Mare knew it but couldn’t act on what she knew.

Damien said negative things about her appearance – he was not positive or supportive. His young friend at work said that their being together was gross.

Damien reminded Mare of a boyfriend of years ago – who was good in sales, a little small in stature, who loves to sit around, never exercise, smoke pot, eat, have sex, sleep, and have no outreach to other people. Total self gratification. Mare asked, “is he being used by the devil? Is it a curse that he wants to be with me?” A friend from her Christian college said that it’s devilish.

He was crazy though. On one hand he called her his “pooh bear” and said “don’t I make a nice boyfriend?” and on the other hand he said “you’re not my girlfriend.” There was no rhyme or reason.

He consumed her time, she didn’t even get her laundry done. She felt loved by him until sex happened, and then that revealed the truth. It showed he was merely getting sex from her.

Mare thought of how friendship would have been so much better. He would deny all forms of commitment. Mare prayed to remember this about sex, what happens. And prayed to stop spending time in his apartment alone with him.

She tried to convey that they would have to sacrifice their friendship if they didn’t stop having sex. She would tell herself not to listen to him, because he’s not in love. She tried to remember that he needs Jesus.

She shared the gospel with him – shared the scriptures on salvation with him.

She tried to tell herself that the right man will call you beautiful and sexy, and not just to deceive you in the beginning.

She had to admit she wasn’t in love either.

The struggle ensued. Damien said all sorts of negative things about her. She had to admit she was not in love and that he was not her soulmate. She was baby-sitting. She was loving a lost soul. She was allowing him to corrupt her standards on sexuality and waste time better spent on future goals.

She realized she had better pray that God would redeem her testimony at work – what did her co-workers think of her after knowing about her and Damien?

She realized that she had gone ahead with Damien even though she had seen the bondage in his soul from the very beginning. She prayed “God help me!”

Things progressed to where Damien showed that he was mentally ill – schizophrenic and started threatening to use a gun on people who he thought were after him. He talked of using an Ak47.

As Mare kept falling into having sex with Damien, she kept getting back up on her feet, repenting, and she would take communion, privately, praying for God’s grace to come and give her power over the sin that she had not had power to overcome. She got prayer from ministers and hands laid on her to overcome the sin. She listened to messages by people of God on this. She read and confessed the word of God.

Mare had a revelation. Satan tries to cause sin, then shame. He appeals to our pride. If we have shame, he appeals to that shame – “look how bad you are.” Instead of humbly accepting he fact of our sinful nature and that God has totally accepted us in that state, we deny the sin in us and feel horrible about that shame.

Then Satan appeals to our flesh to strive, to make an effort to repair and to fix ourselves. The answer is to fall apart and fall into the downy bed of God’s perfect grace and mercy – allowing those to creep into us and bring strength from above. God revealed to Mare how much false righteousness had been within her.

Mare went full circle again. She maintained friendship with Damien and didn’t mean to get involved physically, but did. After this, more negative words, and then – Damien revealed that he was in the hospital for mental health issues in the past. He spewed out hatred towards those who put him there, and expounded on view of the world as a dark place, including negative views of God.

Mare realized that she was in a trap with a person who jeopardized her well-being in many ways, but she didn’t know how to get out. She continued with the communion, believing for a breakthrough.

Damien revealed that he listened to music like Judas Priest. Mare realized this was serious. She needed to get out!

Why does it say that where sin abounds, God’s grace abounds more? Paul says we cannot sin that grace may abound, but that refers to “license to sin” mentality. But it’s true that when we find ourselves falling into sin, helpless because our self controls aren’t working, then His grace abounds as He meets us right where we are weak. If we insist on “self-control” – relying on it, we will block grace. So, we don’t try to sin to receive grace, but we do let go of controls.

Why do people who have sinned so blatantly end up so powerful in God? It is because they lost control. Satan took over, then God came in and swept him aside and that person knows how to be “taken over” so they get taken over by God.

Mare continued taking communion and waiting on God for power to overcome the temptation. Eventually, she broke free of sexual sin, which was followed by a long period of having just a friendship with Damien which eventually had to be broken off too.

Damien revealed that he was an out and out schizophrenic with delusions about being monitored through the walls of his apartment and he believed Mare was a part of the ‘conspiracy.’ He got violently angry at times and it was scary. He got increasingly more bizarre.

Today Mare prays for Damien and has his number on her cell phone in case he tries to call her so she can identify the call.

Mare got free of involvement physically with Damien, and it was the end of sexual sin in her life. She has been free of sexual sin for over seven years, and all the glory goes to Jesus Christ! Exodus!

Prayer For Losing Weight

2011-05-02T21:07:00.001-07:00

Dear Jesus, I pray for this excess fat to go, in your name. You said that the work of God is to believe, so although dieting and exercise are good, letting go and trusting You is best. Help me to trust You for loss of weight, and not to be obsessed with what I eat, or with exercise.

Help me to use wisdom in what I eat, and to exercise healthfully, but let my trust be in You and in Your power and not in eating certain foods or in exercise.

You said that we could drink poison and it will not hurt us, so we are not to worry about ingesting bad things. You have given us power over all the power of the enemy, and the enemy cannot hurt me through anything that enters my mouth.

I acknowledge that I have judged myself and others according to appearance and that this is not pleasing to You. Forgive me and cleanse me. I acknowledge that idolizing a slim body is idolatry and that looking down on people who are overweight is pride. Forgive me and cleanse me of these sins.

I acknowledge that I have tried to fix my body in an attempt to make myself feel better about my life, when You want me to feel better about my life from the inside, not the outside.

Jesus, I acknowledge that I have allowed others to measure me by my appearance, and not by my heart, and that I have followed the fear of man. Forgive me, cleanse me, and give me courage to resist the fear of man and walk in confidence in Your love and affirmation of me.

Jesus, I acknowledge that I have eaten food to fill a void that only You can fill. Help me to turn to You instead of food to fill my emotional and spiritual needs.

Jesus, I need to lose weight to ward off certain diseases. Help me not to fear these diseases. I come against the fear of disease in Your name and by Your blood. By Your power, help me to lose weight and the potential for these diseases. I rest in Your power.

I come against the fear of being fat, in Jesus’ name. Jesus, I acknowledge that I have given in to this fear. Forgive me, and cleanse me.

Please help me to set these priorities straight, and then, having set them straight, to find Your will for me in losing weight. Let me lose weight as You cleanse me.

Jesus, I loose this excess weight, in Your name and by Your blood.

The work of God is to believe, so I let go of striving, and worrying, and enter into rest. I rest in Your power to work in my metabolism and burn away this excess weight.

Thank you Jesus for Your awesome and miraculous power.

Amen.

Assurance of Salvation

2010-09-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

John 14: 1-4

1 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And where I go you know, and the way you know.”

John 17: 1-2, 12

1 Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, 2 as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.

12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

Romans 8: 1-2, 29-32

1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.

30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these

He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

Salvation Scriptures

2010-09-16T20:12:00.001-07:00

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Romans 6: 23 …for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our lord.

John 3: 3 Jesus answered and said to him,, “most assuredly I say to you, unless a man is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

John 14: 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.”

2 Cor 5: 15 and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

Romans 10: 9 - 11 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”

Revelation 3: 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and he with me.

Hebrews 9:27-28 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, 28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.

Acts 4:12 Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”[Jesus Christ]

John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:

John 6:35 And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.”

In these scriptures you have met Jesus If your heart was open, and if you repented of your sin, you asked Him to come in. The work of saving you is now His.

All You Need To Know To Get Saved....

2010-09-07T20:17:00.000-07:00

is found right here on this page.

Read these out loud. If they don’t make sense at first, read them again.

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Please write the answer to the question: what does this mean to you?

Romans 6: 23 …for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our lord.
Please write the answer to the question: what does this mean to you?

Please notice the word sin instead of sins. That means that for one sin God could send me to hell. Death means hell. Jesus gave us the way out of hell.

John 3: 3 Jesus answered and said to him,, “most assuredly I say to you, unless a man is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Can you answer the question: why did Jesus come to die?

My answer to you is that Jesus came to die for the sin mentioned in the last verse. But until we repent of our sin – turn away - and receive Jesus and what He has done for us, we cannot have friendship with God or go to heaven. Will you do that – now?

John 14: 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.”
Please write the answer to the question: what does this mean to you?

2 Cor 5: 15 and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
Please write the answer to the question: what does this mean to you?

Romans 10: 9 - 11 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”
Please write the answer to the question: what does this mean to you?

Revelation 3: 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and he with me.
Please write the answer to the question: what does this mean to you?

Now answer the following questions:

1. Are you a sinner?

2. Do you believe Jesus died on the cross for you and rose again?

3. Are you willing to surrender your life to Christ?

4. Are you ready to invite Jesus into your life and into your heart?

(from Bill Fay’s “Share Jesus Without Fear”)

Inheritance

2010-06-21T15:02:00.000-07:00

We freely inherit all things

Ps 49:10

So now brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.
Acts 20:32

To open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they might receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.
Acts 26:18
(Paul remembering what Jesus said to him)

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ if indeed we suffer with Him that we may also be glorified together.
Romans 8: 16,17
I like to say: “I’m a joint heir with Jesus Christ – the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords”

In Him we were made God’s heritage and obtained an inheritance because we had been chosen and appointed beforehand according to His will. This is so that we who first hoped in Christ would live to the praise of His glory. In Him you trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. You were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the *guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession - to the praise of His glory!
Ephesians 1: 11-14
*The Holy Spirit is the down-payment

For if the inheritance is of the law it is no longer of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise….and if you are Christ’s then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.
Gal 3:18, 29

That the gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel.
Ephesians 3:6

In my father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so I would not have told you I go to prepare a place for you.
John 14:2

But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared a city for them.
Heb 11:16

Then the King will say to those on His right hand, “Come you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
Matthew 25:34

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. By His boundless mercy we have been born again to an ever-living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.
1 Peter 1:3,4

But as it is written, “Eye has not seen, not ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.
1 Cor 2:9

And whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ.
Col 3:23, 24

Wait on the Lord and keep His way and He shall exalt you to inherit the land.
Psalm 37:34

This is the work of God - that you believe.
John 6:29

Isaiah 45:5
I am the Lord, and there is no other. There is no God besides me. I gird you, though you have not known me.

***We are already in the heavenly places; heaven is now as well as later.

God's Words When You Are....Under Attack

2010-06-21T14:58:00.000-07:00

ATTACK back

Exodus 33:14
My presence goes with you and I will give you rest.

Psalm 143:12
The Lord destroys the enemies of my soul

1 John 4:4
I am of God, His little child, and have overcome all evil spirits because greater is Jesus Christ who is within me than he who is in the world.
¨
Zech. 4:6
...not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord.

Romans 8:27
We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

2 Cor. 2:14
But thanks be unto God who in Christ always leads us in victory.

Romans 8: 1,2
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and death.

Romans 5:1
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained an introduction by faith to the grace in which we stand, and we exult in our hope of sharing in the glory of God.

Luke 10:19
Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

1 John 3:8
The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil

John 10:10
The thief comes to steal, to kill and to destroy, but I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.

Revelation 12:11
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives even unto death.

2 COR 10:4,5 Our weapons are mighty casting down every thought that exalts itself against God
verse 6: you will avenge disobedience when your obedience is complete

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We demolish
arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
NIV

Romans 8:37 Version 1
In all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.

Romans 8:37-39 Version 2
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation is able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God's Words When You Are Tempted or Have Trials

2010-05-11T17:48:00.000-07:00

1 Cor 10: 12, 13
No temptation is too great because God will provide a way of escape and all your brothers and sisters around the world have the same exact temptations.

Hebrews 4: 14-16
Jesus our high priest was tempted in all areas the same as we, though without sinning, and can sympathize with our weaknesses. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace to find mercy and grace to help us in time of need.

Hebrews 2:18
Because He Himself has been tempted, He is able to nurture those who are tempted.

2nd Peter 2: 9
The Lord knows just how to get you out of trouble when you’re tempted.

Romans 6:14
Sin has no more power over you, because you are no longer under the law but under grace.

Psalm 119:11
I have hidden Your word in my heart so that I will not sin against You.

James 1:13,14
God doesn’t tempt us. We are lured and tempted by our own desires.

Proverbs 28:13
You cannot progress or prosper by being in denial about your sin. If you face them, confess and forsake them, God will show mercy.

1 John 1:9
What has the power to cleanse us from sin? Confessing our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 Peter 5: 8,9
Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking what he may devour. Resist him firm in your faith knowing that the same experience of suffering belongs to your brethren throughout the world.

Ephesians 6
Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Stand therefore, having the girdle of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and above all, take the shield of faith. With this you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.

James 4: 7
Submit yourself to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

1 John 4: 4
Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.
(Jesus said, be of good cheer – I have overcome the world)

James 1: 2,3,12
Be happy when you encounter various temptations and trials. The trying of your faith develops patience. The man who endures trials will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him.

Jude 24, 25
To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you blameless before His presence with great joy, to the only wise God, our Saviour, be glory and majesty.

Hebrews 10:22
Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, by his blood, and our bodies washed with pure water.

1 Peter 1: 6,7
You are full of joy even though it may be necessary for a season that you are weighed down with many trials and temptations, because the trying of your faith, being more precious than gold, which is an element in the earth that does not last forever, will bring you to praise and honor and glory when Jesus Christ appears.

God's Words for when you are afraid....

2010-04-02T08:44:00.000-07:00

PSALM 46
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be moved,
And though the mountains be toppled into the depths of the sea.

Though its waters rage and foam and though the mountains tremble at its tumult.
The Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our stronghold.

Come now and look upon the works of the Lord, what awesome things He has done on the earth.

It is He who makes wars to cease in all the world. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear, and burns the shields with fire.

Be still then and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth.

The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold.

PS 27:1 Version 1
The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?

Ps 27:1-6, Version 2
The LORD is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh [or to devour my mind], my adversaries and enemies, they stumbled and fell. Though a host encamp against me, my heart will not fear. Though war arise against me, in spite of this I shall be confident.

One thing I have desired of the Lord, that I will seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple. For in the time of trouble He will hide me in His pavilion, in the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me. He shall set me high upon a rock.

And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me. Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle. I will sing, yes I will sing praises to the Lord.

2 Tim 1:17
God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind.

Is. 26:3
You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.

Ps 34: 4, 6,
I sought the Lord and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.

Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You. In God, ( I will praise His word), in God I have put my trust. I will not fear. What can man do to me? What can the devil do to me? (Ps. 56: 3,4) In God I have put my trust, I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?
vs. 11

...my soul trusts in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by. Ps. 57: 1

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. Fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears has not been perfected in love. 1 John 4: 18

When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul. Ps. 94: 19

Phil 4: 6, 7
Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God. And God's peace, which transcends all understanding, shall garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Ps. 121: 7
The Lord will protect you from all evil, the Lord will preserve your soul. The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from this day forward.

Isaiah 54:11, 14, 17
O you afflicted one, tossed with tempest and not comforted, behold I will set your stones with colorful gems and lay your foundations with sapphires.
In righteousness you shall be established; you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear, and from terror for it shall not come near you.

Behold, I have created the blacksmith who blows the coals in the fire, who brings forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the spoiler to destroy.
No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue that rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their vindication is from me, says the Lord.

Strong's definition:
No apparatus, armor, or any weapon formed against me shall prosper, advance, break out, make progress, or be caused to succeed. Every tongue - whether it be man or beast, fire to burn, water to drown, any evil gossip or wedge that would arise - come on the scene, trying to establish itself, impose itself, erect, arouse or stir up against me, I condemn, cause and declare it guilty and wrong and it is departed from me. This is my heritage, portion and possession as a servant and child of the King - belonging to the kingdom of my heavenly Father. And my God says, "This righteousness and justice is of me - you are vindicated and you will prosper."

Joshua 1:9 NASB
Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.

PS 91
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, "My refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust." For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper, and from the deadly pestilence.

He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings you may seek refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark. You will not be afraid of the terror by night, or of the arrow that flies by day, of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or of the destruction that lays waste at noon. A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not approach you.

IS. 41: 10

Fear not for I am with you, be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Behold, all those who were incensed against you shall be ashamed and disgraced. They shall be as nothing, and those who strive with you shall perish. You shall seek them and not find them-those who contended with you, those who war against you shall be as nothing, as a nonexistent thing.

For I, the Lord Your God will hold your right hand, saying to you, fear not, I will help you.

Adventure, part 2.....

2010-03-21T16:22:00.000-07:00

On that initial visit to Montana, when I was in crisis, when I got to one particular town, I bound the principalities and powers that hovered over it. It was a nice town. It just had those characteristics of some small towns in Montana – immobilized, afraid, no change for a long time, lack of resources.

I had this enormous peace entering it, knowing that I had dealt with the enemy, and I was still in crisis. I hung out at a bar to get to know the locals (well, Jesus did it!)

Later, when I embarked on my real adventure, and with no mania, I passed through that town. It was Sunday and a pastor invited me to his church that morning. I was visiting with the pastor after the service and he confided in me: “I have just started seeing God really move in this town, since the end of 2003.” That was when I had come and bound the principalities.

I’m not saying anything, but I’m just sayin’ – you never know…..

I didn’t say anything to the pastor.

That was when I was on my way to camp out in western Montana. I had put my house on interest only, had put it up for sale and was living off the equity. Don’t try this at home. I knew that I would get my house sold in time to pay it off, and I did. I got it sold before housing prices plummeted. I got a good price and just in time. They had just told me I couldn’t live off my credit anymore.

I trusted God every step of the way.

In western Montana, I found an area west of Bozeman that was spiritually “light” and naturally beautiful and just camped out there for most of the summer, enjoying the locals.

I was off medication.

I kept returning home to take care of the house, sometimes having to do more repairs and decorating to improve it for selling, then set out again, heading for another part of the United States, traveling everywhere with my two cats.

We went to the Grand Canyon, where my one cat, Tubby attracted so much attention as I walked him on a leash that people were oogling him instead of looking at the Grand Canyon!

At one point we went to Mexico, briefly, where I got lost coming back. God helped me find my way back without knowing Spanish.

I visited family and friends I hadn’t seen in twenty years!

In Arizona I was camping out alone, because it was January, and discovered at 3:00 AM that I had accidentally pitched my tent over a sprinkler that went off. God wanted me to have a cold shower!

The desert winds also blew everything so my tent and my belongings practically blew away!

There was a sign at an Arizona rest area that warned against “Serpents and Scorpions” and I thought about that verse that says “nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

In Arizona I also met a lady who invited me to stay at her place in Phoenix, which was beautiful! It was next to an orange orchard and had a pool. She was nice and an opportunity to share my faith.

Whenever I returned to Minneapolis, the heavy principalities over it were so evident, and I would brace myself. But I began to see it as a challenge to embrace.

My adventure came to an abrupt end when I had another manic episode! I was completely off medication and not using wisdom. I wasn’t having a solid quiet time with God every day, getting into the Word. I wasn’t in a constant fellowship with believers. Duh!

Those are the Basic Maintenance 101 for every Christian. I was relying on prophetic “knowing” and not on other ways of knowing. Besides, that kind of prophetic knowing may just as well be shut off.

When I got manic, I was promptly sent back home, to Minneapolis. Since then, I’ve been operating just fine without thinking much about the powers that be, and that’s just fine with me!

When God Let Me Go On An Adventure!

2010-03-21T16:20:00.000-07:00

I finally let loose and went on an adventure after asking God if it was OK. I hemmed and hawed and tried to argue against it, but really argued for it, until I finally just went for it. I finally realized that God put the desires I had within me, and that my desires were good.

I realize now that the truth that was inspiring me is actually found in the bible. I have to admit that I went wild with it and that it got out of hand. I lost balanced wisdom and my adventure ended up in tragedy. But between the pain that preceded embarking on my adventure, and the not so happy end was a lot of fun! Here is the story….

I took off for Montana when things got intense in Minneapolis, a rather large city. I was aware that the city was heavy with demonic forces within, and as I got closer to God and dealt with the roots of the mental illness that plagued me, the city grew more and more oppressive.

As soon as I had a problem with mental illness, the police in Minneapolis would promptly hand me over to a hospital, where the atmosphere was unbearably intense, with other sick people to contend with. The "care" was sometimes not so careful.

When I didn't want to take extra sleep medication one night, but chose to sing and pray, the night nurse called the guards, who came and pinned me down, and stabbed me in the butt with a needle.

The next time I had trouble with my mind, it seemed like a good idea to avoid doctors and hospitals, so I took off in a car into the country west of Minnesota. I went all the way to Montana and there encountered the people of small towns – some small towns, not the freaky ones. I found that they dealt with me in a crisis mode much more patiently. Some police sat down and talked with me, and listened. They didn’t take me to a hospital.

They recommended I talk to some health care workers, who sat and talked with me rationally, and then sent me on my way.

The treatment I received in small towns was so compassionate. Also, the atmosphere in the small towns was so much better. There I felt released from the oppression of the city, and I started to feel better mentally and emotionally. I didn’t need to go to a hospital. I overcame fear and got over my bout with mania.

This taught me that there are spiritual forces over a city, especially certain cities, because of the type of people living in them. These forces can be heavy and demonic. This exists because the people in those cities collectively choose death. Some cities are more life oriented because the people have collectively moved more toward the light.

A certain Samaritan town that Jesus visited was collectively given over to unbelief. His disciples’ idea was that he should rain fire and brimstone on the city like Sodom and Gomorrah, after they tried to perform miracles there, and Jesus rebuked them and said He had come to bring life and not death. It shows how a whole town or city can be taken over by either good or evil. (See Luke 9: 51-56)

Notice also that Jesus pronounced judgment on whole cities – Chorazin and Bethsaida, because of their unbelief, in Luke 10: 13-15.

I became aware of this phenomenon (not the passages at that time) as I took off and went traveling, out of desperation, away from my city. I noticed how some towns had a certain peace about them, and there was light there, and others had a feeling of oppression.

After this initial experience, I was dying to go traveling and find the places in America where people were living in the light. I was more interested in the small towns, not the cities, after that good experience in Montana.

There are many things I observed in my travels: how just driving through a town late at night, there would be a light fragrance blanketing a city that was living in the light; how as I left my city, the spiritual forces lifted off me as I drove away, like mosquitoes lifting off a body.

Positive Cities:

Chicago (surprisingly enough!)
Dallas
Kansas City

Negative:

Lincoln, Nebraska
Fargo

To be continued….

God's Words When You Are Wounded Emotionally

2010-02-20T14:48:00.000-08:00

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Ps 147

The spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to set the captives free.
Is 61

Behold, You desire truth in the inward man. In the hidden part you will make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness that the bones [that are broken] may rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart oh God and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me by Your generous spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners shall be converted to You.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart. These oh God You will not despise.
Psalm 51

For it is not an enemy who reproaches me, then I could bear it, nor is it one who hates me who has exalted himself against me, then I could hide from him. But it is you a man my equal, my companion and my acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together and walked to the house of God in the throng.

He has redeemed my soul in peace from the battle that was against me, for there were many against me.

Cast your burden upon the Lord and He shall sustain you. He will never suffer the righteous to be moved.

I said, “Oh that I had wings like a dove. I would fly away and be at rest. Indeed I would wander afar off and remain in the wilderness, I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest…for I have seen violence and strife in the city.
Ps 55

Be merciful to me oh God for man would swallow me up. Fighting all day he oppresses me. My enemies would hound me all day, for there are many who fight against me oh God.

Whenever I am afraid I will trust in you. In God (I will praise his word) in God I have put my trust I will not fear. What can flesh do to me?
You number my wanderings. Put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in Your book? When I cry out to You, then my enemies will turn back. This I know because God is for me. In God, I will praise his word, in God I will put my trust. I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?

You have delivered my soul from death. Have you not kept my feet from falling that I may walk before God in the light of the living?
Ps 56

Be merciful to me oh God for my soul trusts in You and in the shadow of your wings I will make my refuge until these calamities have passed by.

I will cry out to God most High, to God who performs all things for me. He shall send from heaven and save me. He reproaches the one who would swallow me up. God shall send forth His mercy and His truth.

My soul is among lions.

I will sing and give praise.
Ps 57

I will wait for You oh You his strength. For God is my defense. My God of mercy shall come to meet me.
Ps 59

Oh God You have cast us off. You have broken us down. You have been displeased. Oh restore us again. You have made the earth tremble. You have broken it. Heal its branches, for it is shaking. You have shown your people hard things. You have made us drink the wine of confusion.
Ps 60

Hear my cry, oh God. Attend to my prayer. From the end of the earth I will cry to you. when my heart is overwhelmed. Oh lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For You have been a shelter for me, a strong tower against the enemy. I will abide in Your tabernacle forever. I will trust in the shelter of Your wings. For you God have heard me.
Ps 61

Truly my soul waits silently for God. From Him comes my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not be greatly moved. My soul! Wait silently for God alone, for my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not be moved. In God is my salvation and glory. The rock of my strength and my refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, you people. Pour out your heart before Him. God is a refuge for us.
If riches increase, do not set your heart on them. Power belongs to God. Also to you Lord belongs mercy. I did not invent mercy.
Ps 62

My soul thirsts for you, my flesh longs for you, in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, to see Your power and glory. Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you, thus I will bless you while I live. I will lift up my hands in your name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise you with joyful lips. Ps 63

For this reason I bow my knees to the father of our Lord Jesus Christ from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may have the power to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and height and depth. That you may know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
Ephesians 3

God's Words For Provision and Prosperity

2010-01-16T12:50:00.000-08:00

You must read these out loud. I know it sounds crazy, but the Word Of God has power, and if you read His word out loud, it brings power into your life to bring about the changes related to the thing that the words are referring to.

These scriptures can transform your finances. These scriptures can drive away the things that tear you down financially and build you up financially. These scriptures can bring good things into your life that produce the financial blessing that God would give to you as one who inherits the blessings of Abraham.

Of course, it does not eliminate the basic things necessary for financial prosperity:

1. Hearing God's voice

2. Heeding the commandments of the Lord

3. Obeying the Lord

Here are the scriptures and confessions:

The Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they gave them what they asked. And they stripped the Egyptians (of these things.) EXODUS 12:36

Deuteronomy 8:18 Amp
But you shall earnestly remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers as it is this day.

And the Lord shall make you the head, and not the tail, and you shall be above only and not beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you this day and are watchful to do them. Deuteronomy 28:13 Amp

Joshua 1:8
This book of the Law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe and do according to all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall deal wisely and have good success.

2 Samuel 22: 17, 20
He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters.
He brought me forth also into a large place: He delivered me because He delighted in me.

Proverbs 8: 18
Wisdom speaks: Riches and honor are with me, yea, durable riches and righteousness. KJV

The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. The glory of this house shall be greater than of the former, says the Lord of hosts: and in this place I will give peace, says the Lord of hosts. Haggai 2:8,9

Father, you said through Jesus that you don't want me to worry about my life, about basic provisions such as food and clothing. I resist negative feelings in the name of Jesus and stand on your word. You feed the birds and cloth the beautiful flowers, and you can take care of me, made in your image.

Everyone needs and desires many of the same things, especially food and clothing and shelter, and you promised to provide everything, absolutely everything, if I put your kingdom and your righteousness first. Matthew 6:25-33 Marie's paraphrase

Eph 3:20
I do put those things first. Thank you for giving me far more abundantly than all I ask or think.

I will no longer waste my time and energy struggling to "make a living." I give and you give back to me. I have many talents, but I will cut things down to the most essential. I'll use only the most important ones. I will receive my wages from you, Lord, who owns the cattle on a thousand hills. You pay high dividends for desiring You, for following You, for righteousness, for caring for others, for giving to others, for praying, for living life to Your glory. I will do the work of God, which is to believe. John 6:29

The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want! I shall not live in lack. Psalm 23:1

And God is able to make all grace abound towards you; that you always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. 2 Cor 9:8
I have everything I need to perform every good work which You, Lord, have given me to do.

Eph 3:20
..by the power within us, he is able to do...far over and above all that we ask or think.

Phil 4:19
But my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

...He brings out those who are bound into prosperity... Ps 68: 6

Zechariah 3:4
See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes.

God will supply all I need and more, because He is rich and gives richly. I am giving to Him, cheerfully, and He will give back. I am not robbing God, and He is not robbing me. I always have enough. Everything I put my hand to prospers just as if I were an original child of Abraham.

I rebuke the devourer who devours my finances, by the blood of the Lamb. I give and it is given unto me. Luke 6:38, Phil 4:19, Mal 3:10-12

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor that you through his poverty might become rich! Through Your poverty, Jesus, I am now rich. 2 Cor. 8: 9

Romans 8: 17
I am a joint heir with Jesus Christ, and He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords!

I have suffered with Christ, and now I am glorified with Him.

The money comes NOW that God has promised!
Satan, take your hands off my money! The wealth of the wicked is transferred to me, who is not the wicked, but the just!

Satan, the debts are cancelled, NOW!

The house yields the maximum amount! The right buyers come to purchase the house.

I can do anything, through Christ, who is my strength. Phil 4:13

I lend but I do not borrow anymore!

Is 61
I have been sent to preach good news to the poor. I AM NOT POOR! I AM RICH!

Lord, I am very very weak, but Your strength has come in and taken the place of each area of weakness, so that when I am weak I am actually strong.

The Lord’s blessing makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow with it. Prov 10:22

Poem: I lend and do not borrow
He makes rich and adds no sorrow!

The people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts, the richest of the people. Ps 45:12

Ps 35:27
Let them shout for joy and be glad, who favor my righteous cause; and let them say continually, “Let the LORD be magnified, Who has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant.”

He raises the poor out of the dust, and lifts the needy out of the ash heap, that He may seat him with princes—with the princes of His people. Ps 113:7,8

I will abundantly bless her provision; I will satisfy her poor with bread. Ps 132:15

If the ax is dull, and one does not sharpen the edge, then he must use more strength;
but wisdom brings success. Ecc. 10:10

“You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether one of your brethren or one of the aliens who is in your land within your gates. Deut. 14:14

So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD. Deut 8:3

The wicked borrows and does not repay, but the righteous shows mercy and gives.
He is ever merciful, and lends; and his descendants are blessed. Psalm 37:21,26

The LORD will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. Deut. 28:12

The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. Prov 22:7

God's Words For When You Are Depressed

2009-12-29T04:37:00.000-08:00

Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God: what is good, acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Is. 55:8

Prov. 3: 5-8
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.

He restores my soul. Ps 23: 3

Therefore if anyone be in Christ he is a new creation. Old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new. 2 Cor. 5: 17

For you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. Col 3: 2

He is the only wise God, our savior. 1 Tim 1:17

Phil 4:8
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of a good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy - meditate on these things.

Ephesians 3:14-21
For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might through His spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love, may have the power to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever, Amen.

God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind. 2 Tim 1:17

...my soul trusts in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by. Ps. 57: 1

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Is. 26:3

When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul. Ps. 94: 19

The Lord will protect you from all evil, the Lord will preserve your soul. The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from this day forward. Ps. 121: 7

Phil 4: 6, 7
Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God. And God's peace, which transcends all understanding, shall garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

I sought the Lord and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. This poor man cried out and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. Ps 34: 4, 6

6 However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But as it is written:

“ Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16 For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.1 Cor. 2: 2-16

I have the mind of Christ.

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Gal. 2: 20

God's Words For Renewal Of The Mind

2009-12-29T04:32:00.000-08:00

God's Words When You Have Physical Disease

2009-12-29T04:28:00.000-08:00

Beloved, I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health even as your soul prospers. 3 John 2

Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing every sickness and every disease among the people. Matthew 9:35

Luke 6: 19
The whole multitude sought to touch Him because of the healing power that went out of Him, and He healed every single one of them.

Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever. Hebrews 3: 18

He bore our sins Himself in His own body on the tree so that we who were dead in sin might be alive in righteousness. By His stripes you were healed. 1 Peter 2: 24

He forgives all your iniquities; He heals all your diseases. Psalm 103:3

He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement needed to obtain our peace and well-being was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. (The 39 stripes) Isaiah 53:5

Heal me oh Lord and I shall be healed, save me and I shall be saved, for You are my praise. Jeremiah 17: 14

I will restore health unto you, and I will heal you of your wounds, says the Lord. Jeremiah 30:17

If you will diligently listen to the Lord your God, do what is right in His sight, listen to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases upon you which I put upon the Egyptians, for I, the Lord, am your healer. Ex 15:26

Proverbs 4: 20-22
My son, attend to my words, incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart, for they are life to those that find them and health to all of their bodies.

He sent His word and healed them and delivered them from all their destructions. Psalm 107:20

The centurion said to Jesus, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word and my servant shall be healed, for I am subject to authority with servants subject to me. I say to one go, and he goes, to another one come and he comes, and to my slave do this and he does it.”

Jesus Himself was amazed. He said, “I tell you the truth, I have never seen such faith in anyone, not even in Israel.” {His faith was also spiritual understanding.}

Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way, and as you have believed, so let it be done for you.” And his servant was healed that same hour. Matthew 8:8-10, 13

James 5: 14, 15
Is anyone sick among you? Let him call the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he has committed any sins, they shall be forgiven.

These signs will follow those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues, they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick and they will recover. Mark 16: 17,18

You shall be blessed above all peoples...And the Lord will take away from you all sickness and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all who hate you. Deuteronomy 7: 15, 16

vs 8 ...because the Lord loves you and because He would keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage.

But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. Mal 4:12

If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. Mark 9:23

Luke 1: 46,47
My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my saviour. For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant.

Do not be afraid, only believe and she will be made well. Daughter, be of good cheer. Your faith has made you well. Luke 8

And one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear. But Jesus answered and said, "permit even this" and He touched his ear and healed him. Luke 22: 50,51

He entered the synagogue...and a man was there whose right hand was withered. He said to the man, "stretch out your hand," and he did so, and his hand was restored to whole as the other. Luke 6: 6, 10

Ps 34: 3, 17, 19, 20
My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and be glad.
The righteous cry and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones, none of them are broken.

He delivers me out of all my troubles. He delivers me from all my afflictions.

..and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated but rather be healed. Heb. 12: 13

"...I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears, behold I will heal you..." II Kings 20:5

Bless the Lord oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name.
Bless the Lord oh my soul and forget not all His benefits; who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases. Who redeems your life from the pit. Who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies. Who satisfies your years with good things as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. Ps 103: 1-3

Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones you have broken may rejoice. Ps 51: 7,8

For You will light my lamp; The Lord God will enlighten my darkness. For by You I can run against a troop, by my God I can leap over a wall. He makes my feet like the feet of deer, and sets me on my high places.
Psalm 18: 28, 29, 33

As you do not know the way of the wind, or how the spirit comes to the bones of the woman who is with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. Eccl. 11:5

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that made us whole and with His stripes we are healed. Is 53:5

He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds we have been healed. (1 Peter 2:24, Rom 6:11, 2 Cor 5:21)

If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

God's redemptive work of forgiveness includes HIS REDEMPTIVE WORK OF HEALING. Because I am forgiven and cleansed I am also healed.

"Speak to Aaron saying: 'No man of your descendants in succeeding generations who has any defect, may approach to offer the bread of his God. For any man who has a defect shall not approach: a blind man or lame, who has a marred face or any limb too long, a man who has a broken foot or broken hand." Lev 21: 17,18

The Lord did not want anyone in His presence who was not physically perfect. He has no delight in physical defects. To be in His presence today means to be restored. He restores us because it pleases him to restore us to the perfection THAT WAS HIS ORIGINAL DESIGN. Look at birds, at your cat or dog and the unbelievable symmetry that God took the trouble to create in them, with thousands of tiny hairs covering their bodies. If it did not please him to make things so perfectly, why is all of nature this way?

Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. Proverbs 3:7,8

And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment. For she said to herself, "If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well." But Jesus turned around and when He saw her He said, "Be of good cheer daughter, your faith has made you well." And the woman was made well from that hour. Matt 9: 20-22

When Jesus departed from there, two blind men followed Him crying out and saying, "Son of David have mercy on us!" And when He had come into the house, the blind men came to Him and Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" They said to Him, "Yes, Lord." Then He touched their eyes, saying, "According to your faith let it be to you." And their eyes were opened. Matt 9: 27-30

Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: the blind see and the lame walk the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. Matt 11: 4,5

O you of little faith, why did you doubt? Matt 14: 31

If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed you will say to this mountain, "Move from here to there," AND IT WILL MOVE; AND NOTHING WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU. Matt 17: 20

I speak to this mountain of affliction and oppression and say 'be thou moved away from me.'

...with God all things are possible. Matt 19: 26

And when the men of that place recognized Him, they sent out into all that surrounding region, brought to Him all that were sick, and begged Him that they might only touch the hem of His garment. And as many as touched it were made perfectly well. Matt 14: 35,36

The thief came to steal, to kill me if he could have, and to destroy my faith and hope, but Jesus came that I might have life and have it more abundantly-He came to restore, to recreate, to bolster faith, hope and love and to set me my on my way prospering and bringing life to others. John 10:10

Jesus, you have given me abundant life. I receive that life through Your Word and it flows to every part of my body bringing healing and health. The words you have spoken, Jesus, are spirit and life and it is the spirit that gives life! (see also John 6:63)

It is NOT abundant life to be diseased and lame and to have one's productivity and prosperity hindered.

Jer 30:17
I will restore you to health and heal all your wounds, declares the Lord.

Behold, I will bring it to health and healing, and I will heal them and reveal to them an abundance of prosperity and security. 33:6

And Jesus answered saying to them, have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain "be taken up and cast into the sea," and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it shall be granted to him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them and they shall be granted to you.

And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your father also who is in heaven may forgive you your transgressions. But if you do not forgive, neither will your father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions. Mark 11:22-26

I am free from un-forgiveness and strife. By the power of Your Spirit, Jesus, I forgive anyone who has wronged me. I forgive others as Christ has forgiven me, for the love of God is shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Ghost. (Matt 6:12, Rom 5:5)

Jo 11: 2-4..."Lord, behold he whom you love is sick."
But when Jesus heard it he said, "this sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it."

Did I not say to you, if you believe you will see the glory of God? vs. 40

I believe and I shall see the glory of God.

And as He passed by He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he should be born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was in order that the works of God [healing] might be displayed in him." Jo 9: 1-3

A Very Useful Prayer to pray often! Ps 25: 16
Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged. Bring me out of my distresses. Look upon my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins.

Let those who seek thee rejoice and be glad in Thee; let those who love Thy salvation say continually, "The Lord be magnified." Since I am afflicted and needy, let the Lord be mindful of me. Thou art my help and my deliverer; do not delay O my God. Ps 40

Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Luke 10:19

The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil. 1 John 3:8

Prov 4:20-22
Heavenly Father, I attend to Your Word. I incline my ears to your sayings. I will not let them depart from my eyes. I keep them in the midst of my heart, for they are life and healing to all my flesh.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us... Gal 3:13 Jesus became a curse for me. I am redeemed from the curse. The curse that manifested in my body and mind is destroyed.

My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. That Holy Spirit in me has the power to release the right chemical balance and to grow back what is missing.

The Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead lives in my mortal body. If that Spirit lives in me who raised Jesus from the dead, that Spirit in me releases life to all my body and mind. I command my body and mind to submit to that Spirit.

All that is not from God is rooted out of my body and mind.

Body and soul, I speak the word of faith to you. I demand that every part of my body and soul perform a perfect work, as a temple of the Holy Spirit. I charge you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the authority of His holy word to be healed and made whole in Jesus' name. Prov 12:18

I am the temple of the Holy Spirit within me, which I have from God. I am not my own. I was bought with a price. God is glorified in my body.

Father I resist the enemy in every form that he comes against me. I require my body to be strong and healthy, and I enforce it with Your Word. I reject the curse and enforce life in this body. James 4:7 (submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.)

Father, you forgave my sins, you healed my diseases, you redeemed my life from destruction, you have satisfied my mouth with good things so that my youth is renewed. Ps 103

Lord, you bless my food and drink so that they are pure, and I thank you.

Lord, you bless my animals, which you gave me dominion over, and heal them also. You protect them and give them health. You enable me to care for them. You love me through them. They reflect your humor, your gentleness, your sweetness, and the wonder of your creative power.

I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord. Ps 118:17

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. Romans 8:11

He is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us. Eph, 3:20

...for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye. Zech. 2: 8

...not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord. 4:6

Everything we do, Lord God, is not by power, nor by might but by your Holy Spirit.

Mark 16: 17
And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues, they will take up serpents and if they drink anything deadly it will by no means hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.

In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name.
Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full. John 16:23,24

Is 65:24
Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects. James 5:16

John 14:13,14
Whatever you ask in my name I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.

Therefore, do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance so that after you have done the will of God you may receive the promise. Hebrews 10:35,36

So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth, it shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish what I please and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. Is 55

Now see that I, even I am He and there is no God besides me. I kill and make alive, I wound and I heal, nor is there any who can deliver from My hand. Deuteronomy 32:39

“I say to you though he will not rise and give it to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs. So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened unto you.” Luke 11: 8,9

I have asked and I will persist, and it will be given to me, I have sought and I will find, I have knocked and it will be opened unto me.

"More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it." vs 28
We keep God's word by enforcing His will to heal us, revealed clearly in His word.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. ALL THINGS WERE MADE THROUGH HIM and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life and this life was the light of man. John 1: 1-4, 14

vs 14 AND THE WORD BECAME FLESH and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory , the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

As You were the Word that became flesh, Jesus, I want Your Word to become flesh in me.

O Lord my God, I cried out to You and You healed me.
O Lord, You brought my soul up from the grave. You have kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit. Psalm 30: 2,3

I sought the Lord and He heard me and delivered me from all my fears. This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. Psalm 34: 4, 6

My eye wastes away because of affliction.

LORD, I have called daily upon You;
I have stretched out my hands to You. Psalm 88:9

Read Psalm 102

This is my comfort in my affliction,
For Your word has given me life. Psalm 119:50

My soul faints for Your salvation,
But I hope in Your word.
My eyes fail from searching Your word,
Saying, “When will You comfort me?” vs. 81,82

1 I waited patiently for the LORD;
And He inclined to me,
And heard my cry.
2 He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay,
And set my feet upon a rock,
And established my steps.
3 He has put a new song in my mouth—
Praise to our God;
Many will see it and fear,
And will trust in the LORD. Psalm 40:1-3

I said, “LORD, be merciful to me;
Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.” Psalm 41:4

Healing of Hypothyroidism

2009-12-20T12:31:00.000-08:00

November 10, 2009

This is strange. It has been hard to tell people about this. Why? People reject hearing about an absolute, in-your-face miracle of healing by the hand of God. It is amazing!

This is one of those.

God has healed my hypothyroidism.

When I told someone about it, she said, “well, it won’t always be that way. You’ll probably still need to take Synthroid someday.” Great. Great response to a tangible miracle. Why is it that people reject something so amazing?

Only months ago, a doctor had found that my thyroid level was low, which is indicated by a thing called TSH. When the TSH level is high, that means that your thyroid is low.

My TSH level was 7.45, and the normal range is between 0.2-4.5. My doctor prescribed Synthroid, but I wrote her a letter saying I would not be taking Synthroid, and that Jesus Christ still heals today.

She had already sent me a prescription for Synthroid, and ordered another test of my thyroid level two months later, perhaps thinking I was, in fact, taking Synthroid.

I went in for the test, but not until I first went for healing prayer to the healing rooms in Brooklyn Center, MN. I had hands laid on me and I was anointed with oil for healing. I also read scriptures on healing and prayed to the Lord for healing.

I got the test back and it proved that the Lord had done the first truly tangible, physical miracle in my life! My TSH had gone down. It was now 5.58.

My insurance was going to end and so I wanted another test done before I was not going to be able to get more tests done. I got another test about two months later. I had been prayed for again at the healing rooms, and by other healing ministers, and continued to read healing scriptures out loud and pray.

The test came back. The Lord had done it again. Now my TSH had gone down yet farther. It was now 5.37! At the level it is now, the doctor merely says, “slightly elevated, stable.” I don’t know if the doctor realizes that I’m not taking Synthroid, but she didn’t prescribe Synthroid.

Now, I will believe God for my TSH to go all the way to normal.

Question not if the Lord wants to heal you! I don’t.

Alchemy of Music

2009-11-26T12:02:00.000-08:00

Written when? 1997? The words won’t necessarily reflect all my current feelings or thoughts.

I've been listening to WNCB lately. They call it "Christian Hit Radio." "Finally, a radio station that you don't have to apologize for having on." "Bible Study with a beat."

Like "En Vogue" Singing "Never Gonna Get it" only now they are saying "Never gonna get it-never gonna get it-never gonna get salvation 'til you give your life to Him" with mini-skirts and moves.

Christians are learning not to be religious-that's why I like the station. I never again have to listen to a song about how romantic love is going to save me, or about how someone is dying of lost love.

I know more than anyone about lost love and the pain of it, but I still don't desire to hear a song about it. I want to hear about how it doesn't matter when you know God, how you can mend and feel great about yourself just because He lives and He loves you - that's what I want to hear.

Christians, since the beginning, have been turning secular music into praise and worship. That's the "Alchemy of Music." Alchemy is where you turn something like tin into gold. That really can't be done, but in this case we are turning to gold what wasn't worth much in the secular.

In ancient times in the British Isles, a place where a lot of hymns began, our Christian forbears took songs sung in pubs and places of ill repute and made those same songs into hymns. And why? It is because the music itself was much loved by the people already and was inherently pure and worthwhile. The only thing that needed changing was the lyrics. That continues to be true today in the case of rock and roll, jazz and rap.

Look at us today. Once the people of the 19th century in their high buttoned collars sat in the pews of their churches and sang "Rock of Ages," "There is power, power, wonder working power," (sung dead-pan) "Praise to the Lord the Almighty the King of creation," and would listen to the "jungle beat" of the black race and frown and call it the devil's music. Here we are today with a whole array of rock instruments doing jazz, rock and roll – flouting every idea of "the devil's music." Isn't it grand? And the reason is that we know that it's not the kind of music that makes it holy or unholy but the attitude in which it is done, the spirit in which it is done, and the words which are set to the music.

One of the ancient songs which was transformed by Christians was this little folk song-a famous song that is done time and time again by folk artists: "The Water is Wide."

The song it was made into is a hymn now found in one of those red Lutheran hymnals - I'd have to do some research to find it.

Another song taken from the British Isles and turned into a hymn was, of course, Greensleeves.
This of course became the Christmas Carol What Child Is This?

Now, in the present, there are a couple of songs that were meant as secular songs to a person, precisely, meant for a woman by a man. Probably more eloquent love poems and songs have been written by men about women than in the reverse- which is interesting when you consider that men are supposed to find it harder to communicate their feelings.

Van Morrison wrote:
"Have I told you lately that I love you?" That's nice: a man is getting around to telling, finally, after a while, that he loves his woman, then says, "have I told you there's no one else above you? WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!

Wait a minute!! You know- it really matters what you say-it matters what you say-even if the meaning is subtle. But here he is literally saying, "there is no one else above you."
That would mean, even God. No one means no one! And that is a problem because that is exactly what we do with the person we fall in love with. We make them our god.
We put them first. We think they have come to save us, and that they will save us. We find no fault in them. We set ourselves up for a huge disappointment.

See, I found this man all of 8 years ago, and he did save me in many ways. Even though I attributed this salvation to God giving me someone to help me, I did attribute so much more just to the man himself. I believed he was the man I should be with, I believed he was restoring my soul, but I was forgetting about the restoration that was possible in Christ alone, without any romance to go with it. He was with me for a year and I was in heaven. In some ways it was painful, but I was in heaven. Then, all of a sudden he left me, and for the next 7 years I swear that I could not forget him or move on, or find someone new, or in any way do anything better than just feel the deepest pain, sorrow, regret and hunger for him.

I only began recently to see the fact that I wasn't relying on God. After the first 7 years of wanting and waiting for this man I finally turned to God for help and restoration, and then after about three years of trying to get back right with God, I finally recognized that I must make God my Lord with regards to this man and I am not waiting for this man anymore.

What happens when we make someone our god is that they prove all too soon that they aren't really capable of being our god. And they prove it in the darndest ways.

And when we find out what they are, we don't want to be with them anymore.

Well, this song is giving the lover the status of a god, and that's wrong. It goes on to say, "You fill my heart with gladness, you take away all my sadness, you ease my trouble that's what you do.."

Oh Ho Ho-- when was the last time you met someone who filled your heart with gladness, took away all your sadness, and eased your trouble-and that was it? The person simply took away all your trouble-no sadness, only gladness. Sure, when we are all first in love, that's the way it feels, that's the way it looks. But how many of you found out very soon after that this person was the trouble- was the sadness-ruined the gladness-HMMM?

Most humans are that way. Know why? Because most humans like you and me don't feel comfortable here on earth. This place is not comfortable or easy- it leaves us high and dry, it gives us terrible fears and unbearable pains. And chances are, the person you love suffers from living here just like you do. ‘Cuz we're all waiting to be redeemed from earth, you know-we're all looking to get the heck out’a here. This is not it, you know.

So, I listen to this song and I think-this is really a song to God. You hardly need to change the lyrics. Van Morrison includes in here that at the end of the day the two lovers will thank and pray to the one-and that's nice. But still, the rest of the song is only deserved by the lover of our souls. It was sung by Rod Stewart, whose voice I so rudely had extracted from the recording when I made a karaoke version of it-and here we have it folks-along with everything else-Karaoke in the church.

"Have I told you lately that I love you
have I told you there's no one else above you..
You fill my heart with gladness
take away all my sadness
ease my trouble that's what you do.

Well, the morning sun in all it's glory
Greets the day with hope and comfort too
You fill my heart with laughter
Find a way to make things better
Ease my trouble that's what you do

And there's a love that's divine,
And [though it's yours
now it's mine]
like the sun
And at the end of the day, I will give thanks and pray
to the one. You're the one

Have I told you lately that I love you?
Have I told you there's no one else above you?
You fill my heart with gladness you take away all my sadness
You ease my trouble that's what you do
You fill my heart with gladness
Take away all my sadness
Ease my trouble that's what you do

Then we have a song by a man who was in the group Genesis, who I believe to be Jewish, but I'm not sure. It's just that he did the music for the Last Temptation of Christ
and this might be an easier project for a Jew to undertake. He also has a quality in his music, something that says he is Jewish--I'm talking about Peter Gabriel. Does anyone know if he is or not?

I love his music. His album "SO" is SOOOO.. spiritual and alive, and it is from this album that I take this next song. As a matter of fact, I have decided to make Peter Gabriel sing this song in church. Hopefully this won't subject me to any legal problems--I mean, will he sue me for this?

I am leaving his voice on here and letting him sing his song. Now, here is another song by a man to a woman--so it seems. And once again, the praise is out of this world. This is ridiculous- unbelievable.

Here are the lyrics:

Love, I get so lost sometimes. Days pass, and this emptiness fills my heart. When I try to run away, I drive off in my car. But no matter where I run, I come back to the place you are.

All my instincts, they return, the grand facade so soon will burn. Without a noise, without my pride, I reach out from the inside. In your eyes, the light the heat, I am complete, I see the doorway to a thousand churches, the resolution of all my fruitless searches. Oh I want to be that complete. I want to touch the light the heat I see in your eyes. In your eyes. In your eyes.

Love, I don't like to see so much pain. So much wasted and this moment keeps slipping away. I get so tired, working so hard for my survival, but I look to the time with you to keep me awake and alive.

All my instincts they return, the grand facade so soon will burn. Without a noise, without my pride, I reach out from the inside.....

The song is In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel.

Let this song ring out as an awesome worship to the Lord.

God Speaks

2009-11-12T09:20:00.000-08:00

When I open the bible, I don’t read it like any other book. The bible is “living and active” and God uses it to speak to me each day – directly.

There is a passage that God has used to remind me of His miracles and of miracles that are in my future: 2 Samuel 22, particularly verse 34, and Psalm 18, particularly verse 33. “He makes my feet like the feet of deer and sets me on my high places.”

I had a terrible car accident that took a joint out of my foot. It was the direct result of being delusional while in a manic-depressive episode between 8 and 9 years ago (written a couple of years ago). The passage refers to the feet of deer, and always reminds me of my feet, so it speaks to me of God’s promise to restore my feet. Since deer feet have lots of bone, “making my feet like the feet of deer” means adding bone to my feet.

Right after I had my accident, I met a woman who had also had a freak accident involving her foot. She had gone to a faith healer – the same one I went to – and had been completely restored. Her leg and foot were all shriveled and the bones were fusing together, but she woke up one morning and it was all restored. She got up to get her cane but realized she didn’t need it. I felt that this was a sign for me to believe.

The accident came as a result of being manic-depressive – the source of the problem. In general, when I read this passage, it reminds me that God wants to restore my feet but he also wants to restore my mind.

How do I know that this is what the passage means? The Holy Spirit has spoken that to me.

God causes me to turn to these passages all the time, and at the most synchronous moments – amazing! He even slips this passage in when I least expect it. I was in church the other day and the scripture reading for the day was from Habakkuk and the theme was on being thankful. It starts out by saying that though no “fruit be on the vine” and there be “no herd in the stalls” “yet I will rejoice in the Lord” and it goes on to say: ”The Lord God is my strength. He will make my feel like deer’s feet, and He will make me walk on my high hills.”

There it was again! God is always reminding me of this passage, which is His promise. Reading the bible is not just reading stories, or dryly reading commands or reading portions of “Holy Scripture” each day to fulfill some obligation. It is God speaking to me.

I open the book, and not always the first thing I open to, but after I flip through a time or two, I come to something that I know is Him speaking to me. The 2nd Samuel passage, and the Psalm 18 passage are not bookmarked, yet I flip to them almost right away, and wonder at that. I always find other scriptures that God wants me to read as well,

God wants our bible reading to be part of a relationship, to be exciting. He can guide us through it in a living and vital way.

Don’t just read the bible like a book, or let other people tell you how you should read it. Let the Holy Spirit make reading the bible as exciting and as comforting as He has made it for me.

Financial Miracles

2009-11-12T09:13:00.000-08:00

This is an account of miracles involving money. I hope it helps your faith.

1. The Keyboard $1,250

I purchased a keyboard at a time when I had very little money- no extra money at all. I was desiring a keyboard to use for praise and worship in my home. I purchased it on credit, since I had a large amount of credit but hadn't used any of it yet, believing God for the means to pay it back. Not long after I made the purchase, a mysterious deposit was made in my bank account for the exact amount of the keyboard. I hadn’t told anyone who had access to my bank account the exact amount of the purchase. Only my parents had deposit slips for my bank account. I hadn’t told them about my purchase. It was a bizarre miracle.

2. A Hospital Bill For $8,000

I was traveling in Canada while on a manic episode. The police stopped me because people at a hotel I had stayed at reported some odd behavior. The police determined from my behavior and language that I was delusional and brought me to a hospital. They kept me there for several days, but of course, not much care was given except for putting me up for the night and giving me medication.

When I returned to the States they sent me a bill for $8,000. I was paying for it with payments of about $15.00 a month. Once I forgot to make a payment and the bill ended up in collections,, but they retrieved it from collections and I was back to making payments. I was getting prayer for this bill from my church.

At one point, I heard God tell me not to make the payment for that month. I just knew I wasn’t supposed to make any more payments. I never received another bill and nothing came from a collection agency.

3. God Told Me I Would Receive $10,000.00

I heard God tell me that I would be receiving $10,000.00. I didn’t know where it would be coming from. I told a friend about this. Some time later, but not that much later, I received my first payment from my grandmother for $10,000.00 She was giving money from her estate early, before her death. We received more payments. I ended up receiving that 10,000 7 or 8 times worth. I used the money to go to the church in Toronto several times, and to buy my house.

4. A Hospital Bill For $48,000

Well, it’s simple. I had a bill that large, and it was written off. I got prayer from my small, charismatic church named Lovepower, and then went in to discuss the bill with the financial office. When they learned that I was almost jobless, they wrote off the bill.

Deeper Life

2009-10-29T09:49:00.000-07:00

Lutheran "Deeper Life" camp on Lake Koronis is where I first experienced the presence of God as something pleasurable. The Lutheran Evangelistic Movement, alive in the 1960s, held four meetings a summer at this lake. They called their meetings "Deeper Life" and the name of the lake is Koronis, near Paynesville, Minnesota.

They had meetings for young people and adults, and cared for kids as well. At night there was a large tabernacle meeting for everyone, and there the presence of God was felt. The whole atmosphere was sweet! People were wonderful. People behaved like Christians. The only names of leaders I can think of who were present are Nels Pederson, who had a great message, Pastor Ellingson, and the Klawitters. Messages from the word of God were delicious food for the soul. The actual food in the dining room wasn't bad either, and we always enjoyed a visit to the canteen for snacks after the meetings.

I remember there would be guys I would be interested in and the magic of that first taste of sexuality, so innocent and so pure.

The atmosphere at the camp was magic. I felt so happy. That presence was very sane--something dependable. This was, to me, the greatest doctrine anyone could learn. It was that almost tangible presence which I kept in my memory in the following years to remind me that God was a Good God.

The only problem with this was that one could find that reassurance of the truth at camp, but once camp was over and it was necessary to return to ordinary life, the certainty of truth could get swallowed up by the powers of the world. So, in remembering the magic of that camp, I now remind myself continuously that we must find a truth so strong that it does not need the trappings of a lovely camp to hold up. At the same time, I am sure that "Deeper Life" Camp's indelible memories have helped me to build a stronger inner certainty, and that was the purpose of our week there each summer.

I am back at that camp now in 2005. I marvel that people who own it have kept it as a sanctuary, as hallowed ground. It is my prayer today, September 10, 2005, that God will bring a powerful work of redemption that will take place right on these grounds - a work of deliverance, healing, restoration as Minnesota has never seen at any time past.

I re-dedicate Lake Koronis Assembly Ground to the Lord for that purpose.

Sunday morning, I arose on the campground that adjoins Lake Koronis Assembly Grounds in Paynesville, MN.

I was planning to go to a church in another small town that morning, and got up early so I could pack up the tent, get my cats in the car and get to that church.

I was packing my things and thinking about the large tabernacle on the grounds where we once held the beautiful Christ-filled meetings in my childhood summers. Suddenly I thought I heard an honest to goodness Holy Ghost service - a super spirited meeting with hooping and hollering! It was hope! It turned out it was just a pack of dogs or something.

Was it a mirage? Did I conjure up the sound because I wanted with all my heart for a service like that in the tabernacle? Did the Holy Spirit do it?

But at first I was hopeful. Wow! Somewhere in Minnesota maybe someone is having those kind of services such as I have seen and experienced elsewhere.

I thought it came from the tabernacle, so I walked over there. I looked around, and walked into the tabernacle, left open, though the entire grounds were empty. Nothing. No one. Not a sound in there. I sat down on one of the old wooden seats they had managed to keep in the sanctuary. I thought - "I'm sitting in the first place where I found the presence of God was the sweetest thing in life. I'm waiting for that presence to truly come back, but this time come back even greater - to break bondages, to cause deliverance, to bring healing of every kind."

How cool to be praying for that to come to Minnesota in that lovely place. My childhood home was torn down, but it never occurred to me til then that this place from my childhood, almost untouched, holds even greater significance and meaning for me than my original house. Thank God!!!

Gardening

2009-10-12T08:59:00.000-07:00

Now that it's fall, and everything is dying, it's a good time to think about gardening, think against the grain, when everything is budding.

Oh the many analogies in gardening to the Christian life, and to human life. You realize them as you garden.

WEEDS

1. There are many varieties. Sometimes you don't know if a plant is a weed or something planted by the gardener.

2. They appear with no effort, they grow freely and appear easily. You don't have to choose them, buy them, or plant them.

3. Their roots are sometimes deeper and harder to dig up than the desirable plants. They are hardy and strong.

4. They grow up overnight-quickly.

5. They can look good but do damage to good plants. Deceptive. Desirable plants can be thwarted by weeds, so weeds have to be dug up or killed.

6. The dandy lion weed has a deep root like a carrot, like false vegetable or false food, and is very hard to pull out.

7. If you pull it out but don't get the whole root, it grows back. Bitterness: the bible calls it the root of bitterness-it runs deep, it has to come all the way out or it comes back.

8. If you are able to pull out the whole thing, it goes away.

9. Dandy lion and other weeds- so ugly, except for the yellow flower. Destructive to grass and other plants.

10. When the soil is watered, it's easier to pull out weeds by the roots. Analogous to the raining of the holy Spirit.

11. Sun causes weeds to grow as well as the good plants.

12. More sophisticated weed killers were not available in the past, but now we can kill them more efficiently and thoroughly.

13. As a child, I remember picking and fondling dandy lion weeds. So different from how I feel about them as an adult. Reason I dislike them as adult: dandy lions are a symbol of neglect.

15. Weeds tend to crop up most where the good plants begin to grow.

OTHER areas of gardening

1. Good, desirable plants have to be bought and carefully cultivated, they don't appear instantaneously or effortlessly.

2. A beautiful garden or fruitful field has to be planted and cultivated by human hands. God doesn't just grow everything as it needs to be without us doing our part. He has left it up to human hands to bring it about. Saying: that a farmer planted a field and said, "look at the crops I grew." The person said in reply: "only God can grow a crop." the farmer turned to a field that was uncultivated and said, "oh yeh? Look at the field I let God plant all by himself!" In another teaching I will discuss our part and call it: 'our obligation to let go, and our obligation to hold on."

3. Beautiful breeds of flowers originated with wild flowers that in some places and times did just appear, but that humans cultivated. All plant life was made by God and comes from God. Our part as the gardener is vital, and yet, we aren't the creators. We have to do our part, and then the rest is up to God. We can't do the actual creation of the plant. We can't cause the actual growth, we can only encourage it. He gets the credit, but we get the benefits.

4. The good plants can be hardy also and can take over a garden eventually so that weeds don't grow.

5. Watering is essential, Sunshine is essential.

7. Plants are more vulnerable and may not become plants at the seed stage.

8. Seeds sometimes require more nurturing.

9. Different types of plants thrive in different climates.

10. Plants can be tended too much and die.

11.new plants in the ground also require extra nurturing.

12.moving a plant to a different location can traumatize it and kill it

The Bible

2009-09-11T15:31:00.000-07:00

How can I pass on to you that the Bible is the only set of words actually given to us by God? These are the only words we have been able to find from such a source. The Bible is alive--the words live. The way we know this is that God said that in the beginning was The Word and The Word was with God and The Word WAS God, without Him was not anything made that was made (First chapter of the gospel of John). Therefore, words created every single physically alive thing in our world. Isn't that bizarre? By the same token life is given to us again and again through words. These are the only words that live in the here and now and create life. All nobility, every desire to be strong enough to have the right attitude, to love the unlovable, to have faith in oneself in the face of hatred and scorn lies between these relatively few pages. It is so hard to believe that this could be true, but it is. The Jews have preserved these words for us, and we should never forget the price they have paid to be the ones who have done this.

There are several stories in the Bible that are astounding and deserve attention. Now that you will attempt to read the bible, I wanted to tell you about some stories that are great examples of astounding miracles. These were very blatant manifestations of God on earth. These stories have, from childhood, always given me the greatest longing to see and know God in a tangible way.

You can look up and read for yourself the following stories: the story of Daniel in the lion's den--found in the book of Daniel (imagine that!) chapter 6 (however, the story begins before 6), the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego--three friends of Daniel who survived being thrown into a fiery furnace, and merely walked around and then stepped out unharmed--in the book of Daniel, chapter 3; the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal--he made a deal with them that if their god would send fire from heaven instead of his God, then it would prove that theirs was the true god. He had no doubt in his mind that his God was true. The prophets danced around, and cut themselves and cried out to Baal and there was no answer. Elijah built an altar and had it covered with water--drenched--and then called upon the God of the Bible. Fire shot down from heaven and consumed not only the altar but trenches of water that surrounded it and the stones the altar was made of and the dust beneath. After this the people fell down and worshipped Elijah's God. I KINGS CHAPTER 18, vs 20-40

This becomes more meaningful when you discover that the people of Baal used to throw their children into a fiery death--the mouth of a huge face--and then would hear the child laughing as it went in--the laughing being merely caused by the effect of the flames on their lungs and vocal cords. This historic information comes from outside the Bible--and is the result of archeology, etc.

And the story of Elijah is more powerful when you realize that many people today are saying that it is very cool to be "pagan" again, because the people of the time of Baal were the perfect embodiment of pagan.

These stories are so much more exciting than most of what we experience in our everyday lives. They tempt me to step out into that world that is considered "mythical" and leave the world we live in behind.

We feel more comfortable believing that our world is not ordered in the way of the Old Testament, but I do believe that we deceive ourselves, and at the same time our world seems to be going back to looking more like the Old Testament.

Win Over Sin

2009-08-16T12:57:00.000-07:00

The answer to the sin problem is very simple, but not easy. The primary thrust of this writing is: to overcome sin we must become so weak, so perfectly unable to do for ourselves what only God can do that we fall before his mercy and receive his grace, at last.

Our inability to receive His grace, especially those of us who are so good at being good and have long been taught the way of striving, is our main problem.

It took me so long to learn this, and I had to unlearn so much of what I thought I’d learned.

The bible makes it clear that His strength is to made manifest in our weakness, and that our righteousness is as filthy rags. Unless His strength replaces our weakness, we have attained nothing.

How does this play out? Since sexual desire has always been strong for me, and there has been a stronghold against my relationships, I have had to go for years and years without a mate as a way to find an outlet for this energy.

So, sexual sin was always my biggest weakness. Let me start there. The way to getting victory was so simple I missed it. We make these valiant attempts, even when we are sincere in loving God, to rid ourselves of sin, but we become freakish and self-righteous in the process. We make our Christianity a source of insanity. People become crazy over Christ and the sin problem. Balance is so difficult for most people. That’s why Jesus said that the way is narrow and not easy. That’s what he meant when he said, “few there be that find it.”

How do you get the victory? First, I am assuming here I am addressing those who have a desire to get a victory. If you don’t truly desire to get rid of sin there is no way. If your sin doesn’t grieve you, one would wonder if you have even gotten saved. The Holy Spirit, which God gave you, will convict you of sin.

Next, you rid yourself of dishonesty and you become totally open and honest about what you do wrong. By trying to hold things in, and rely on self-control, by trying to stuff things away, we also can deceive ourselves and keep from seeing our sin.

I have such good restraint. I am so controlled - never having had a drug or alcohol problem. I have no desire for substances. I don’t like bad habits. I brush my teeth regularly; I can eat just right, no problem. I can fast, no problem. I can exercise religiously - no problem. My problem has been that natural strength that I was born with. It has been so easy for me to be religious, to strive.

Natural strength has to be let go of.

The brief period of learning this was a sexy one. However, I soon found myself longing for victory, the real way, over sexual sin, because the consequences, which manifest internally and emotionally, were not so sexy. Externally, the usual bad treatment by my partner was painful.

Prior to this I got extreme in abstinence and self-restraint. I had a young, Christian roomie who was a virgin and thrived on her influence. I abstained from all forms of sex: masturbation, etc. I was harsh, ascetic, and fierce. I fasted, and resisted all involvements with the opposite sex; I avoided every form of temptation, and only spent time with Christians. It brought absolutely no lasting change. I eventually found myself frustrated again.

I then met a guy who became my boyfriend who wasn’t even a true Christian. Now I had the perfect temptation - a man in my life, and a man with no restraint. It was better he had no restraint than if I were dealing with the spirit of religion, however. But, no holds were barred – no self-restraints on my part. During the period of being sexually active with him, I came home to my sanctuary, and took communion a lot. I had been keeping these crackers made in Jerusalem - unleavened bread. And, I used whatever juice I had, preferably grape juice. I called the bread Christ’s body and the juice His blood and I took them.

I repented of my sin and recognized that there was no reason to condemn myself, and no reason to deny myself the body and blood. I was believing that the body and blood would give me victory over sin. Confessing and repenting in this case did not mean I would not sin again in the same way – I knew that. But for a besetting sin, this seems to be the way to handle it. You repent and confess until the next time, until you get the victory.

I have a nice prayer or confession to accompany communion. I did nothing at all outward to deny myself or to deny my sin.

I did sin again, but it was grief to me. I repeated the exercise, knowing that I would get the victory. It’s important to see that I kept the switch of faith on at all times. Jesus said that the work of God is to believe, and this is so true. I kept on believing through all this. But I also received God’s grace. These are the two important elements

I bought a ring with a cross in it, to wear on my left hand - a reminder of whom I belonged to. Eventually, I got a victory Later I praised God that He did it.

I received God’s grace. This is the thing that many Christians miss. – They simply have never been able to receive God’s grace. It is essential to receive that and nothing more - not try to fix ourselves, not try to put on a righteous façade.

I accepted God’s unmerited favor and I resisted the devil. The bible says that we submit to God and resist the devil and he will flee.

In the case of hatred, which can lead to murder, it was much harder for me to let go and allow whatever was in me come out. I don’t enjoy the feelings of hate.

This area was going to be much harder to deal with in the future, I found out, and to get a victory.

But the essential elements are: receiving God’s grace as you receive his body and blood and believing that you will have a victory over the sin, even while you are still sinning. The results can be profound.

Communion Prayer

Prayer: Father in heaven, I examine myself today to see if there is anything in me that is displeasing to You. In Jesus name I ask You to forgive me for _______, and to release me from the power of this sin. I break the hold of my judgment against anyone who has hurt me and allow him or her to go free of me. I ask You to forgive me for any part I had in causing this and to cleanse me.

And now we will repeat the words of Jesus as He broke bread with His disciples:

Take, eat, this is my body, like the body of the Lamb eaten by Israel, broken for you to bear your sins, so you may die to sin and live to righteousness. This body heals you of the results of sin, and heals the body. Do this in remembrance of me.

Drink, for this is my blood of the new covenant, not the old covenant of the blood of animals, but the new covenant of the blood of the eternal Lamb of God. This was shed for you to pardon sin, to release you from sin. This blood sets you free from the destruction that sin has caused, and heals the soul. Do this in remembrance of me.

Lord, we remember You and what You have done for us.

Affliction

2009-08-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

When tragedy comes, when horrible things happen, we first feel absolutely compelled to look at our lives and see if this came from sin. (John 1: 1-14 Healing at the pool of Bethesda, Jesus says “sin no more or a worse thing may come upon you”)(Ps 7: 3-5) How could we not?

Job at first examines himself with regards to sin. His conclusion is that he did not have sin. There have been sermons in which it is stated that Job did sin, and his sin was fear. This is so absurd. If the illustration here is of a sinless life, then saying Job has sin defeats the entire lesson.

The illustration is of a life that has no sin, at least, a life that is open before God with all sins confessed - a godly man. God told Satan that this man will not curse him even if he has to endure the ravages of Satan. If Job isn't the godly man God said he was, the point is lost.

God tells at the end of the book of Job that his friends are wrong, that Job is not being chastised for sin. To say that he had fear and sinned is then denying what God said to his friends.

One preacher (Jesse Duplantis) explained that the fear the scripture referred to was his fear for his sons. His sons apparently were questionable regarding sin, so he kept offering sacrifices for them so that their sins would be covered.

He was always concerned that their sins would reap terrible consequences. When his life was attacked and their lives were destroyed, he believed that his fear had come upon him.

If we are reaping bad things from sin, if we suffer because of sin, we need to recognize and deal with that area, or we've learned nothing, gained nothing. We may have opened a door for Satan, not knowing.

In Job's case, he didn't open a door through sin. God just took away his protection, and Satan attacked.

We know what to do when Satan attacks us now, many years later, with the writings of the New Testament. Much has been written about dealing with the devil.

When bad things happen, we get stronger, we learn because we allow God to use the thing that has happened for good, according to Romans 8: 28. It doesn't mean that God expressly sent the negative thing that occurred. Satan is in the earth and is always trying to send evil things, shown in Job, where he was anxious to attack. There was a hedge and Satan challenged that.

Mac Hammond preached a very good sermon one Sunday night on this topic.

He preached about how Job had no knowledge of the benefits or the necessity of spiritual warfare (Ephesians 6). It was this piece, this missing piece that made all the difference in Job's experience.

He said that indeed the enemy tries to come against us, seeing the hedge about us, complaining. But with the many gifts of the spirit and the blessings of being able to attack back, we are not left to being bludgeoned in the same way as Job anymore.

The book of Job is not written to tell us that we are left to being overwhelmed by the enemy's power as it seems so many try to preach.

But what if Satan has attacked and we have experienced great loss? There we are, already sick, already down, already nearly destroyed.
It doesn’t matter if we have the power to overcome Satan. When Satan came against us, we seemed to lack the power and now it seems too late to fight back. He has already caused destruction. What now?

First we make sure that we are right with God, that all sins are confessed, that we have dealt with sin. If we are right in that area, we move on to faith in healing, and this is faith in the work of Jesus, who primarily went around healing and raising from the dead. There is restoration through the cross.

It is amazing how many people will defend the right to remain sick and broken, ignoring the explicit words of Jesus, which expressly command that we heal the sick and raise the dead.

I believe strongly in the power of communion, especially for those who find they do not have very good fellowship with other believers to rely on. Communion is symbolic of the work of Jesus on the cross and it is His work on the cross that has given us all of the life and power that we need for everything in this life. In a healing class it was made clear to me that his body was broken to heal the body, specifically, and his blood to heal everything else.

We overcome by the blood and communion reminds us of the blood and its power.

The next thing we do Is take up the Sword of The Spirit which is the Word Of God. By reading the Word and speaking God’s Word out loud, we will find great power for restoration and also to prevent further attacks.

It is very helpful to collect verses on specific topics, such as healing, and write them down so you can recite them regularly.

By taking these tools – confession, communion, and the Word Of God, we can find restoration from the destruction that the enemy has caused, and barricade ourselves against his tactics.

We must persevere in faith to see our restoration.

Black People, Listen to Me!

2009-07-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

A Message of love and hope.

God revealed the star shining over the African American. It is like the star that stood over Bethlehem that foretold of something great.

Black people need to know that their sojourning in America has been for a glorious future that God has prepared for them. I needed God to confirm this outside my little world, and then ran into a book by modern day prophet Rick Joyner. God has given him special gifts to predict things that will occur, proven by what has already occurred. His knowledge is by the spirit of God and has gone out to that part of the church that recognizes these gifts.

His little book is entitled Overcoming Racism. Here is an excerpt:

“If the white race, or any other people, had suffered the same historic problems as the black race, we would be having the same problems the are having now. I have heard many white leaders actually say that we would have no inner city problems if blacks just had some ambition. What do you think slavery did to the work ethic? Such deep cultural wounds cannot be healed without the intervention of the cross.

The black race in America was allowed to be subject to slavery for the same reason that the Lord allowed Israel to become slaves in Egypt - they have a destiny with God. When they come into this destiny, the rest of America is going to be very thankful for this great and noble people in our midst. It is the destiny of the black race to carry freedom to a new level. This will be true freedom, with the dignity and honor that God created men to have.

THE POWER FOR HEALING

It was by the Lord's stripes that we were healed. In a sense we too, receive the authority for healing in the very place where we are wounded, once the wounds have been healed. Even when the wounds have been healed, there is sensitivity in that area that remains. Someone who has been subjected to abuse will be sensitive to others who have been abused. When someone who is subjected to abuse is truly healed, they will not only be truly free, but they will have the authority to carry healing to others with those same wounds.

The black race is going to embrace the cross, receive healing for their wounds, and start loving white Americans with such power that we will all be set free by that love.

The Uncle Tom of Uncle Tom's Cabin [you know how negatively black people have thought of this man] truly was a prophetic figure. In spite of all the abuse that he suffered at the hands of his 'owners,' he was freer than they were, and he was willing to use his freedom to lay down his life if that would result in his owner's salvation. The black believers in America, when they have been fully healed will bring revival and true spiritual liberty to the whole nation.

The inner cities of America will ultimately become the inner sanctuary of God's tabernacle; the place where his glory and presence dwells. The greatest move of God that America has ever experienced will come out of the inner cities. The suburban church may have the gold, but the inner church will make them jealous with the glory. Those who are wise will take the gold that they have and use it to build a tabernacle for the Lord that is not made with hands, but with people.”

I was shocked to read this. I had the same "premonitions" but thought it too bold to say as much as he has said. " Bring freedom to a new level!"

WHAT YOU ARE

You are the ones who have been humbled. You are the people of God who have been put into the iron furnace that God talked about when He said that he would take the Israelites out of the iron furnace of Egypt (Deut 4:20).

African Americans are not just called, they are chosen. The journey has been leading to things that eye has not seen, ear has not heard, and the heart has not conceived of.

White people will come bleeding and broken to you, asking for mercy, telling you they are sorry for treating you like dirt. Sorry that they thought you were simple and less than they. Sorry that they ignored you and kept you in a box. They will come for mercy and knowing you, you will embrace them with open arms. As my mother has said, I have never seen people who change more through the power of Jesus Christ to become forgiving and loving than the African American.

If this is true, and I believe she is right, then it means that you glorify God in ways that no other people on earth glorify Him.

While some African Americans cringe to think of Jesus Christ as the banner for the American Negro, or of Martin Luther King being the prophet, because they feel that all has failed, you know that this is not true. You know that who you are in Christ is more precious in your journey than it has been for anyone else in America. You must also know that you are chosen, precious, singled out and created for a special purpose in America that will amaze every American and the world.

It's the African American and not the African, in particular. It's what you have become in Jesus Christ in your journey, your humiliation and travail in America that has made you the unique people that you are. Your place in God, your destiny is similar to the Jews, even to the point of having been slaves.

Don't you know that God doesn't waste our tribulations?

THE WORD 'BLACK'

Why are you called black? We call sin black, we call dirt black, and we call night black and equate night with the darkness that one hides in to hide from sin. But I've been told that the blacker real dirt is, the richer it is for growing crops. The red river valley of the North has rich black dirt. So has southern Minnesota and northern Iowa.

I am a night person. I love the night. I love the quiet of the night, the peace of darkness that doesn't make my light-sensitive eyes strain, and the beauty of the lights that show in the sky against the backdrop of dark.

I wear black often because it is a dignified color. When I was a little girl I would walk a mile to school every day alone, and relish things in nature along the way- leaves, stones, and more than anything, the chestnut. I remember clearly how I loved the color of the chestnut. I would keep and collect chestnuts because of the beauty of the wood.

Do we look at mahogany and think of sin? Do we look at the gorgeous slick sides of a dark reddish-brown Arabian horse glistening in the sun and think of it as evil? When we open a can of coffee and look a the rich color and take in the rich aroma of coffee, which is awesomely more beautiful than the taste, do we think of human dung or of the filthiness of human hearts?

Why would the skin color of the African-based human being have any ugly connotations compared to the beauty of other things that also have rich tones created by the sun?

Lots of people through the ages have seen the African skin and thought it was beautiful. Anyone who thinks otherwise is blind, absolutely blind and stupid. This is a beautiful color. White people want to get a tan, many times in excess. Doesn't that say enough?

Black people are a piece of art.

From my window far away, growing up in a small town with rather indifferent white people, to living in the inner city, I have watched black people everywhere and waited. I have waited for this sojourning to come to a beautiful purpose. God has shown it will someday come to be.

It can be discouraging, but a black face is still a happy thing to behold.

WHAT YOU POSSESS

You have the most incredible endurance of spirit. You have passion and energy. God gives greater burdens to the strong than to the weak. You are strong people. Oh my Lord you are strong people.

I am a musician. I have studied mainly classical music but my favorite music as a child of God has been black inspirations such as Fred Hammond and Kirk Franklin. I recently ventured into teaching some flute students who had only classical music in their background to play flute to a CD background of rock inspirations such as the Beatles. This was far more difficult for them than the mechanical style of classical. All rock and similar styles are rooted in blues and jazz - the creations of African Americans. It is the work of true genius.

Genius has been overlooked. Not very many white people think about that, maybe because of pride or just ignorance.

It is not a myth that musical genius runs strong in the black race. It is a great legacy. Rhythm is a beautiful heritage. Being a musician I also know that math and music have a strong connection. People good in music have that sense of order that makes them good at math as well. Many black people seem to excel in this area.

Black people tend to be aggressive and excellent in the power of persuasion. This implies having a gift for sales.

Black people tend to be flexible, hearty, resilient - able to bounce back.

What are you waiting for? You have genius, sales ability, flexibility, and endurance. Go in and take the Promised Land.

WHY HASN'T IT HAPPENED?

Black people, you don’t have a passion for becoming a part of the world of the white world, or becoming a part of their ways, for the most part. This has been an important factor in the fulfillment of the prophecy. You don't want the messed up ways of the white world, but you need an alternative to your own problems.

You know the problems. The list is long: poverty, drugs, sex, violence, and crime. But Rick Joyner and Jesus say that you will come out of this and set an example to others - to the white race. That is awesome!

FEAR OF MAN

One of the biggest obstacles to going into the Promised Land is the fear of man. It brings a curse according to the ancient prophet Jeremiah.

Though fear of man is wrong, God understands how hard it is not to fear him. But black people, this has got to go in order to conquer and go into the Promised Land.

The death of Martin Luther King inspired fear, but God doesn't want black leaders to die in their prime. It's not His will for us to die before we have finished our work on earth. Since this battle to emancipate the African American is vehemently hated by the devil, we need to fight a spiritual battle to stand strong. Perhaps Martin Luther King waged too much of a political battle. This is not to say that he wasn't a true Christian or that it wasn't also a spiritual battle. This is not to say that people weren't praying or that Christians failed.

But the weapons of the Spirit are the only weapons that will win in this battle, no matter what we do on a human level. And we don't need to wait for any one person. We already have that one person - Jesus Christ.

Stand against that fear by God's spirit. It is not too late. God is watching over His word to perform it. He will perform it in you - His black people.

FORGIVENESS

Everyone has a problem with forgiveness to some degree. It is one of our greatest obstacles to moving forward. Forgiveness must be a very difficult thing for the African American. But bitterness has to go if you are going to possess the Promised Land.

Black people actually possess an amazing ability to forgive and embrace another human being. It is called being "magnanimous."

One of the best portraits of forgiveness is the black Baptist minister who visited Jeffrey Dahmer in prison, resulting in his conversion. What kind of character would it take to be the only person visiting a man who killed and ate black men, and be black yourself? This minister is the kind of black person I have seen that I believe in.

So you may ask, if that is true, what has been going on in our world with people such as Tupac, demonstrating such rage? It is because the sojourning has gone on for so long, and African Americans have begun to buckle under it. The time is ripe for a breakthrough.

God usually asks us to make the first move. That move is toward forgiveness. He understands how hard it is for black people but He cannot bless sin. Maybe your ancestors sinned. Forgive them. The heart of stone must turn to a heart of flesh. That is when we will see this prophecy fulfilled.

BELIEVING THE LIES

Stop believing the lies about you! You can do that when you stop trusting man and start trusting God. "Cursed is the man who trusts in man," says Jeremiah. You don't need to hear what people think of you when God has you in the palm of His hand and has created you for good works before the foundation of the World. What God thinks of you is what matters. His opinion is the one that matters.

SHAME

People who have been degraded take on the shame themselves. Stop the shame. Stop blaming yourself. Stop accepting shame just because someone may look at you in a certain way and it may be that they don't like your color. It may be that you imagine it, or it may not. God made you in His image. Jesus sees you as His righteousness. You were created in Christ Jesus for good works. You are the apple of His eye. You are His workmanship.

IT'S TIME.

It's time, black people. It's time to win. It's time to go in and possess. It's time to know who you are in Christ.

In the world you have been the sad brunt of a joke and sometimes the object of scorn. But as God has it so often in His kingdom, you are the pearl inside the oyster (black pearl). You are the treasure that He has been working on for a glorious purpose. You are the fulfilling of the prophecy in Micah that says He is doing a work in our day that we would not believe if we were told.

But I know and believe, in part. I want to go to the Promised Land with you. I just want to be with the winners.

YOU CAME INTO JESUS LATE

The white race had Christianity in a whole culture in large numbers before any race on earth. We probably needed help a lot sooner!

You came late.

In America, you may not realize that though Europe had Christianity all the way back to early AD (England, not long after 500A.D.) Europe was still a bastion of evil and oppression.

My Swedish ancestors were sharecroppers. Most people were poor and the wealth was inherited and owned by an elite group - the upper class. Over all of Europe this was true. My ancestors as sharecroppers lived on the property of someone rich and were allowed to live in a dump and survive by working for the people on that land. They did not necessarily even eat well. The need for forgiveness was great for them too.

There was no religious freedom in Sweden. The Lutheran church in Sweden was oppressive. You were not allowed to worship God in the way that you chose.

My great-great grandfather was fortunate enough to come to America after the great exodus of Swedes in the mid 1800's. The rest is history. My family from there on was able to make a simple, adequate living. My grandfather was a schoolteacher. My father was a minister. We always had enough and my parents taught me the value of giving and of having enough and that it didn't have to be more than that. They also taught me that racism is a sin.

My English ancestry goes back to some guy that baled out of the army and got a boat to America.

Most American Caucasians have similar backgrounds and stories. We were humiliated and degraded in many cases in Europe. We lived no better than slaves, even lived like slaves. In America, those people who ran the slave trade were the same people who had enslaved white people and who many Europeans were trying to separate from. The people who opposed slavery were people such as my ancestors who despised the ways of the old world.

We had a head start in America, though we too had humble beginnings. The African American beginnings were more difficult.

White people were the first in America to have the chance to reverse the evils of our original homeland. We didn't fully succeed. Our generational bondage has been deep and lasting. Our need for Christ's salvation is also evident.

You were last. We had Christ before you. You were last, but the last shall be first.

Believe in the meaning of that passage and seize the Promised Land!

To order Rick Joyner's booklet call: 1-800-542-0278
Or write to: Morning Star Publications
16000 Lancaster Highway
Charlotte, NC 28277-2061

Don Juans and Donna Juans

2009-06-20T13:17:00.000-07:00

What is the truth about Don Juan, about what he was really like inside? We carry with us a myth about the lifestyle of this famous character, always denying what may be true about such a person. From my own view, this is what Don and Donna Juan are really like.

* They feel deep pain and worthlessness who have found worth through their beauty.
(The word beauty is used in a universal, "Hollywood" sense.)

* They obtain admiration and affection through their looks but, in fact, feel no worth, no substance at all. They rely on something doomed to fail them, and no one can offer assurance of the true value of their souls because somehow it is always hidden.

* They feel they cannot be loved.

* They let sexual urges and sexual thoughts go before other, more important things.

* They claim sexual needs cause them to surge forward and find a lover, somehow, and to "get laid" at all costs. Sexual need is a substitute for seeing the real need inside for which there seems to be no solution or fulfillment.

* They are never beautiful enough in their own eyes. Always they are too ugly, too fat, their hair is never "right" and they are ashamed of their looks. Before making any other changes in their lives when they feel unhappy-they starve to lose weight, buy new clothes, change their hair, buy a new house or car, or take up karate or a fitness program.

* Beauty of the opposite sex speaks louder than any other human quality, and the sexual excitement caused by someone beautiful distracts and even RULES.

* They find having sex very desirable until the deed is accomplished, and then something changes. Rather than get closer to the truth-to the real person-they would rather have someone new they haven't slept with yet. In fact, going back to the one before is a pain-filled experience.

* They compare themselves with others of the same sex, relentlessly cursed by jealousy and the tendency to be OVERJOYED when someone else gets jealous at the sight of them.

* Knowingly or secretly they are in deep despair.

* They live for new lovers. The experience of falling in love with a new person is so extraordinary and exciting and Don and Donna thrive on this ecstasy. As John Bradshaw stated in his lecture on the family: who wouldn't like this feeling that we all have at first love to last forever? But it doesn't last forever. It doesn't last long. Don and Donna know this and leave before the magic is over. They also claim that it doesn't matter, that they don't believe in having permanent relationships.

* Hardly anyone knows or deeply loves them because they have maintained an arms length distance. They want love but they cannot have it. Intimacy brings complications, and neither they nor the ones they choose can abide the pain of it.

*Childhood relationships spelled out the disaster of intimacy and spelled out pain. A pattern of avoidance has been established.

*They expect a person of the opposite sex to be sexually stimulating, i.e., physically "exceptional", but more than this they expect themselves to be sexually attractive and everything that occurs to the contrary-every bit of flabbiness, overweight, or wrinkling is a traumatic threat to being attractive. So it is also a threat to their security; it is terrifying! These people believe that if anything causes them to lose any degree of attractiveness they will lose love.

Love cannot exist without their attractiveness. They have to measure up.
If a lover cannot be delighted by what they present in their physical bodies, then they cannot delight a lover as individuals. The real love they could have without physical beauty recalls painful memories of a kind of intimacy they cannot bear. There is a feeling similar to claustrophobia, maybe. The intimacy they already experienced was most likely claustrophobic and did not allow expression or freedom, in short, genuine love.

For them there is no other kind of intimacy. Physical beauty is a safe, hard shell, which a person can hide behind (until it is gone). The world of exteriors is a place where many beautiful people hide from their fears. Physical beauty has a life of its own; it determines Don Juan and Donna's boundaries and defines their lives. The world of movies and television seems to be in tune with this. If you can make things look good--your body, your car, your house--then things are good. If they look perfect in the controlled environment of TV or movies to others--then one can vicariously experience that perfection. Physical parameters can be comforting even in their limitations.

* They don't notice that people are happier who love themselves without physical attractiveness. Other people have love in their ugliness, but what does this matter if, in fact, Don Juan and Donna cannot face intimacy?

* Everyone they meet fits into a pattern of escape, of finding intimacy impossible, though they may not understand why no one can stay with them.

There is a drastic difference in attitudes between beautiful women who were raised on love and the Donnas who were not. The ones who grew up with love see themselves on the inside--where they are loved. They have less use for beauty and it is obvious by what they project.

What use do they have for emphasis on their looks when they have always had love? They become that much more beautiful because of their self-worth and men are attracted to them. Yet, they have no use for men who care more about their looks than about themselves. A wise, beautiful person knows that she can never be as flawless and glorious as her appearance makes her out to be.

A foolish Donna, forged in love-lessness, enjoys creating the appearance that she is as glorious as she appears. She flaunts her beauty, is vain, and has vicious competitions with other women who are beautiful, hoping to be envied. She attracts men through her beauty and not through her worth. And all of these things apply to Don Juan as well.

CONCLUSION:

What can happen to Don and Donna is that they come to a dramatic dead end where they cannot find joy in the temporal any longer, and realize that they are hungry for love after all. They want it but at the present rate may not get it. At this point they are forced into an intimate relationship with themselves that is inescapable and the pain of it is indescribable.

It seems like an eternity before one gets to the end of the long journey back to understanding love. The journey cannot be completed and I do not recommend it without God who has given us the road map.

The journey is, in fact, the journey towards true love and esteem for oneself. Don and Donna do not love themselves and they do not respect themselves. The golden rule is: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." If a person does not love himself, what he would have others do unto him is probably not healthy!

Thus we have the cause for hurting others. We hurt ourselves first, that is why we hurt others. The commandment is: "love thy neighbor as thyself." Of course, the commandment implies that we are already truly loving ourselves, and many a twisted religious person has equated loving oneself with being selfish, saying, "well, we always find it easy to love ourselves now, don't we?"

But we do not love ourselves easily, and self-love is NOT the same as selfishness, since selfishness is, without question, destructive of oneself. No, we must love ourselves and then love others as we love ourselves.

Love is in a contest with our pride. Adam and Eve had to choose between having sweet love and security in God and the chance to actually BE God. They chose to be God, something we do time and time again. We always have to choose between love and pride, which also means love over power. (Dire Straits would add: Love Over Gold.) When you realize that someone loves you, you have a choice between love and pride. You can begin to gloat to yourself over your victory and the power you now have over the one who loves you, or you can choose to receive love and the benefits and/or changes it will bring you.

Billy Graham could choose to think of himself as a god because so many people listened to him and adhered to the same beliefs as a result of his ministry, or he could rejoice that he was fortunate enough to participate in the healing of many people's lives. Bill Gates can think of himself as a god and try to use his power for his own good to the exclusion of others, or he can rejoice that he has made my writing so much less of a nightmare along with so many others who benefit from the upside of technology. Doctors can try to manipulate and rob people or they can try to heal. We always have these two choices before us, and each of the above mentioned people has also been required at some point to decide which it is going to be.

When people are not raised on love they do not know how good it feels and they do not know how to receive it. They learn the patterns of pride, and the way of love becomes foreign and frightening to them, as pride is something we develop in the absence of love. What happens when a culture is full of such people?

The culture we are in has taken great strides away from love. Self-love has taken a fall along with all the other love that has been drained from a society that centers on gaining property, proving the genius of man, and having power. When you are truly satisfied with the love in your childhood it can last for a lifetime, in fact, celibacy can be achieved with surprisingly little effort if one aspires to it because satisfaction has been achieved early along with emotional maturity.

So says psychologist and author Gabrielle Brown*, who compares the nuns and monks of today with yesterday, pointing out that it has become too difficult today for most to maintain a celibate lifestyle. In the past, before industrialization, our agrarian society stuck to simple family bonding and people found emotional satisfaction. That satisfaction made sexual restraint much easier.

Why is it painful to go back to the person that the Don or Donna Juan has slept with already, instead of finding a new one? First of all, there is shame. Both partners feel ashamed and don't want to face each other with the reality. Secondly, it's because of the pain of intimacy. You have to love yourself and be OK with yourself to have someone else know you well and come near you. Avoiding intimacy is a way to avoid knowing yourself or someone else knowing you.

I respect John Bradshaw to some degree, yet he falls somewhat short of the truth. You cannot patch up a society by saying, "let's just start getting smart here and raise better families which will produce better people." How are you going to "just" do that? It's about as dumb as saying "Just say NO." It is true that some families have become sicker and so have the people in them.

It is also true that many families have, to some degree, been sick down through the ages. Healing does not begin with trying to patch these things; it begins with the individual and his spiritual regeneration. It begins by looking UP, not just at US.

We are all suffering from whatever has happened to us as a civilization. You are not alone.

*The New Celibacy, by Gabrielle Brown, PhD, Ballantine

Animals

2009-05-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

This is a study on the importance of animals in the lives of humans.

Ps 8: 6-8

6 You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
7 All sheep and oxen—
Even the beasts of the field,
8 The birds of the air,
And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas.

A program just aired (Nov 2005) on public TV showing the SPCA and the Humane Society rescuing animals after Katrina hit New Orleans. This caused me to reflect, again, on my love for animals and my feelings towards my two cats. Once again, I thought back to animals I have owned in the past.

It was stated that man's feeling towards animals are simple yet overwhelming and unexplainable. Yes, I know what they mean. Who can explain why we bond so deeply with them? Is it because we fall in love with innocence? Do we love small creatures the size of human infants who, though they cannot talk, invoke strong, loving feelings?

It is incredible to think of having a creature that shares breathing and blood coursing through its veins as we do, yet a different species. The fact that they are not human leaves a mystery as to what they think and feel. So there is endless fascination watching them play, sleep, or clean themselves. They are often clever and humorous, especially when they mimic humans.

I have had animals that live with me day in and day out for at least 15 years now. Maybe some people cannot comprehend that I look forward to being with these animals as much as I can, and that their effect is so profoundly soothing I would write about them.

I find it very hard to be alone and also without my cats at the same time. While staying in hotels in Toronto, I was happy to be alone with God while at a spiritual retreat there, but I am more in tune with Him when I have the gentle, unselfish, loving touch of an animal. Thus, if I am going to be in a hotel communing with God - let it be with my animals as well.

There is little theology written regarding the meaning of animals in the lives of humans, and the purpose God has for them. We have yet to talk about this great resource offered to us for our numerous emotional and spiritual ills.

It might be hard to defend the idea that animals ought to be so important to us. That is why we need to look at the biblical history of animals in relation to man, and find out what God thinks. It is quite amazing.

"OX AND ASS BEFORE HIM BOW.” "And the friendly beasts around him stood."

Christmas reminds me of the great purpose God had for animals in the birth of His son, Jesus. God had him born in a stable. I’ll talk more about that later.

You probably never really knew how divine, how special animals are to God. If you pay close enough attention, the Bible shows just how important animals have been to God and just how divine their influence. Notice how much detail God puts into regarding animals when he finally speaks to Job. He asks Job if he created the sea creature Leviathan, and then goes on to describe the scales and the fiery breath (Job 41) He describes numerous other animals (job 38, 39) He seems extremely proud of them.

Job states that animals and the earth know God better than man. They know who is in charge.

Job 12: 7-10 reads, "But now ask the beasts, and they will teach you, and the birds of the air, and they will tell you, or speak to the earth and it will teach you, and the fish of the sea will explain to you.
Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this, in whose hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind?"

Animals were present during the most significant events in the history of earth. Animals were used by God to care for man, even for His only son Jesus.

But let's start at the beginning. They were present in the Garden of Eden, and man lived surrounded by them without fear. (Gen 2:19) One must recognize that part of the paradise was the rich life surrounded by all types of animals. Adam first, then both Adam and Eve were delighted and fascinated by the variety of animals - all tame.

Next, animals were present on the ark in the story of Noah (Gen 6-8) as the people on the ark passed through forty days and nights of terror, floating on pure water over the whole earth and braving the endless storm. I can't help but believe that the animals played a significant role in making the journey far more bearable-bringing them "down to earth" providing comfort and peace. Undoubtedly, the animals were quite peaceful about the event, as they went into a state of hibernation during the flood.

Being forced to care for the animals during the trip might have provided a healthy diversion from Noah and his family's upset feelings. One group of historians, who researched the flood and produced a television special, stated that there were not all that many species of animals at the time and many would have gone into hibernation, so the feeding of them would have been within the reach of Noah's family.

Animals have an amazing consistency in all circumstances and often behave as if nothing is wrong. At times animals signal man that something is wrong, as they pick up on it with a keen sensitivity - many times beyond man's ability.

The next major event is, of course, the birth of Jesus. (Luke 2) Here is where it makes perfect sense to me that animals were involved. Jesus was forced to stay out of the inn, but that was God's idea.

If Jesus had been born in the inn, the spirits attracted by people would have surrounded the little baby, and in so many cases those spirits would be wicked. The people in the inn were just ordinary folk, and many of us ordinary folk have a fair share of demons in our lives if we're not totally committed to God or "sold out" on His presence. To protect the newborn child who was God in the flesh, God made sure that the spirits of animals surrounded him.

The spirit, the life within an animal, is a dispensation of God Himself. An animal is a creature without a will. God makes all the choices and the animal lives in no discord with God. Being surrounded by animals, along with Joseph and Mary (consecrated human beings) meant being surrounded by healthy spirits instead of evil spirits. It was a protection for the mind of the little child. TRULY, ANIMALS WERE THE MOST DIVINE PRESENCE FOR THE LITTLE BABY.

Most people who love animals are extremely vexed by the imperfections in man and find man intolerable. Whether for good reasons or bad, such people feel they need to stay clear of man, but find a great compensation for their loneliness in animals.

I can vouch for the fact that the comfort is great, and that God has provided a great means of coping with estrangement from man (if that is necessary for a time) in animals. Nevertheless, it is important to guard against making animal companionship a substitute for life with other humans, or even worse, making an idolatry of animals.

Discovery channel began a new series called "I shouldn't be alive" telling amazing stories of survival against all odds. One of the episodes told the story of a man who started a conservation effort for the painted dog in the bush of Africa. He had been working in the bush for several years and was familiar with every aspect of the wilderness.

One day he was called upon to rescue an animal he hadn't had as much experience with out in the middle of nowhere using a small plane. I think it was a rhino.

A man who helped him with the painted dog effort had a bad feeling about it. They both had premonitions that they didn't follow. The man went out, against his better judgment, alone, taking the plane and circled over the area where the animal was. The plane suddenly had a problem and began spiraling to the ground.

The man survived but his legs were broken in several places. He noticed that gas was dripping from the plane so he was concerned that it would explode. He decided to crawl away from the plane, but that was slow and painful.

As he inched away he realized that his boots, tied with double bows tightly, were constricting his legs. His legs were swelling, and swelling into the boots. So he crawled to a nearby tree and propped himself up onto the tree so he could reach his boots. The tree just happened to be thorny, so he had to endure the thorns as he rubbed up against it. He managed to untie and pull off his boots through much pain, using a stick to reach the laces. From there he realized that it was far too hot to stay out under the sun.

He now needed to crawl back to the plane to find shade under the wing, in spite of the threat of it blowing up.

He began to try to crawl back, enduring lack of food and water, hallucinations, and total weakness due to loss of blood and broken bones. He had to force himself to roll over onto his stomach as it was far easier to crawl that way to the plane.

The pain of rolling over one of the broken legs was again excruciating, and he screamed. Crawling back (and here's the part about animals!) he said he could begin to hear the footfalls of animals - all ones he clearly recognized from his years of experience in the bush.

He heard the hard pounding of elephants, with their babies, and knew that if they saw him as a threat may stampede him. He knew that if they caught sight of him early enough they would walk away. If he was a surprise to them too late, they would get scared and threatened. He could do nothing but lay there and hope for them to catch sight early. They fortunately did see him early and they did walk away.

He made it to the plane, which offered some sort of refuge from wild animals, but not much. The next animal to come along was one I don’t remember. It was sniffing. He knew that to make a loud sound banging a stick on the plane may send them away, but it was terrifying and uncertain until it did work, and they ran away.

Next, it was the king of the jungle - the lion - a pride of lions. He used the same technique and it worked, but it was a close call and terrifying.

When night fell, he had to face new challenges. At night, hyenas came by and he was more scared than ever as they are a terrifying threat. He did the same thing again, and it worked, but again - more frightening suspense.

27 hours he was out there waiting. His friend who had helped him found the painted dog operation, was out searching for him. During the night it was impossible to continue the search, but the next day the search was on again.

By that 27th hour, he was spotted. Never was there a more beautiful demonstration of a profound truth, though the movie Grizzly Man partly portrayed this as well.

This man, alone in the wilderness, found that animals were a serious threat to his very life. Animals were a source of complete terror, and completely unwelcome, even though he had loved every minute of working with them for many years.

Each animal that had come by was a new hell to endure. Each time he said in the documentary: "I heard a new footfall" and each time it was elephants, or it was hyenas - some new animal he was familiar with.

But the last time he said, "I heard a footfall and knew - it was the feet of man." And when people came it meant nothing but being totally rescued, and nurtured back to health.

This was a profound comparison, reminding us once again: nature can be harsh, unloving and dangerous. This is an important reminder to those of us who may have been tempted at times to replace people in our lives entirely with animals.

For those who depend heavily on animals, I want to say that some day your greatest rescue will not come from animals, it will come from man. For some of you this is hard to believe. But man, made in the image of God has the knowledge of what you need. Like Adam, you will at last learn that what you need in the garden is to find the "bone of your bone and the flesh of your flesh."

Yet, there is the value of animals.

Paul the apostle went into a hermitage of being alone while learning to become God's leader. David the shepherd spent his formative years with animals. In my own hermitage away from many aspects of man and the culture of man, I simply would not know how to cope without a loving touch in some way. For that I found cats.

In my attempt to survive my loneliness with regards to people, particularly male people, I found myself becoming more caught up in the behavior and nature of animals, and found a measure of satisfaction in their affection as well. But I would be remiss to say that it was total satisfaction. It helped me in some ways, but in some ways it totally failed.

New studies in 2004-05 show women have stated that their pets provide more affection than their men! Funny!

I am a cat lover by nature, but this love is not limited to cats by any means. I simply find cats to be the most practical animal for my kind of a world. I adore animals in general.

Contrary to popular thought, I find that cats are incredibly loving and dependent, although not the same as a dog. Their affection is priceless.

Animals are completely spotless with regards to sin. They cannot sin. When man becomes delusional and hyper-religious, as Christians have been during certain periods of history, man sees animals as no different than man.

In the middle or dark ages, it is chronicled that animals were put on trial and executed along with humans. If a human indulged bestiality, the animal himself was tried and if "convicted", was put to death.

Enlightened and healthy minds know this is ludicrous. It might make sense to get rid of an animal that had been used this way, so that the sickness of the ordeal would be erased for the animal as well as the people involved, but I don't think this is why the animals were put to death.

We have not defined the spirit that lives within an animal. Like our spirits, it keeps them alive and leaves them when their bodies are destroyed.

The affection is pure. It is genuine. It is devoid of insincerity and of unwelcome sexuality. It is a God idea.

They can be healers. Pets supposedly cause blood pressure to go down.

Animals have been given to man in three ways:

1) As incredibly satisfying companions

2) As food acceptable to God for man's nourishment, but only certain animals

3) As a sacrificial offering for sin before Jesus made the final sacrifice.

In essence, God has made animals for various needs of man. Their purpose is beautiful.

Proverbs 12:10 A righteous man regards the life of his animal.

Psalm 36:6 (Amplified Bible)

6Your righteousness is like the mountains of God, Your judgments are like the great deep. O Lord, You preserve man and beast.

Psalm 50:10
10 For every beast of the forest is Mine,
And the cattle on a thousand hills.

Revelation talks about God creating unique animal creatures to praise in heaven :
Rev. 4: 6-11.
6 Before the throne there was a sea of glass, like crystal. And in the midst of the throne, and around the throne, were four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back. 7 The first living creature was like a lion, the second living creature like a calf, the third living creature had a face like a man, and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle. 8 The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night, saying:

“ Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God Almighty,
Who was and is and is to come!”

9 Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying:
11 “ You are worthy, O Lord,
To receive glory and honor and power;
For You created all things,
And by Your will they exist and were created.”

Ismail, Cut Off From Isaac

2009-05-04T10:29:00.000-07:00

I wrote this about 15 years ago.

For so long I was enamored of the Jews and the meaning of their existence - still am. The Jews have everything to do with my own faith, as they have laid the foundation upon which faith in Jesus rests. But when it comes to Arabs, it took longer to both understand and appreciate them. I finally understood the meaning of being an Arab for the first time, when the story of Ismail first became clear to me. This understanding came during a confusing war - the Persian Gulf War. This war was confusing mainly because Saddam Hussein was never captured at that time.

One of the key ways of learning was through two pastors who preached on the subject. One of those pastors was Rick Engels-a Jew from California who became a Christian and who is now doing mission work in Pune, India (Muslim.) He visited a church in Minneapolis where I attend. He obviously has a loving spirit and is very intelligent.

The other is an African American pastor in California who appeared on Trinity Broadcasting Network, a Christian television network that broadcasts from California. I will share some of what they shared in sermons on Ismail and will add insights that I have gained as well.

First, as we all know, Abraham wanted a son but Sarah was barren. He was a man, and like any man he doubted God. God had said he would have a son whose blood line would bring the Messiah, and whose descendants would be more than the sands of the sea. Here he was, advancing in age along with Sarah, and no kids.

Maybe he wondered if it was his duty to go ahead and have a child in the traditional way under these circumstances (have one with the wife's mistress.) It wasn't immoral according to the standards that were understood at that time. But God's idea was unique for the times.

Abraham was expected to listen to God's ideas even if they were foreign. God expected a lot! God wanted the mother to be Abraham's only wife, Sarah. In spite of the fact that both Abraham and Sarah were brought up in a kind of harem where there was one father but many mothers (Sarah and Abraham had the same father) God was introducing something new.

Even though Abraham and Sarah were half siblings, through them God was trying to establish a nuclear family. Abraham did not marry again until she was gone. By taking Hagar the young Egyptian as Abraham's son's mother, he was violating God's plan.

But he did impregnate Hagar, and she had a son. It is very interesting to read in the Jewish writings about this memorable event. The story begins in Genesis, chapter 16. How many Jews have paid attention?

Sarah was inflamed with jealousy when she saw this young beauty with the child that she may have felt she could never have, the child that God had said would be hers.

Incidentally, Sarah pressured Abraham into doing this, yet God held him responsible for his deed similar to the Adam and Eve story. God never excused men for giving into the pressure of women!

It says that Sarai (original name) treated Hagar harshly so that the maid fled from her. Then, an angel appeared to Hagar in the wilderness where she fled. As Rick queried-how many of us have had an angel appear to us? In the Bible, only a few accounts can be found where people had angels appear to them.

One was Mary, the virgin. Think of the fact that Hagar was considered as important as the Virgin Mary or as Jacob, for example. The angel tells her to go back to her mistress to submit to her. Through the angel the Lord gives her the same blessing that he gave to Abraham!

He said, "I will greatly bless your descendants so that they shall be too many to count." Where and how has this been fulfilled? We clearly see the answer in the huge number of those who are believers in the faith of Ismail, not to mention his direct descendants, the Arabs.

Furthermore, the angel told her that she was to call her child Ismail (God has heard), because "the Lord has given heed to your affliction." (Vs. 11).

Then God says, "And he will be a wild donkey of a man, his hand will be against everyone, and everyone's hand will be against him." (Verse 12.)

When I heard this I thought “huh! Now that sounds right!” And the preacher made a joke about it. This problem may be the result of Ismail's anger as a result of not having a stable and secure beginning, or the normal position for a first son.

Then it says, (vs. 13), "Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, 'Thou art a God who sees'; for she said, 'Have I remained alive here after seeing Him?' (Vs. 14) Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi..."
(Means "before the face of")

Later, when Sarah had her son, Isaac, she wanted to drive out Hagar and Ismail and said she did not want him to be an heir along with Isaac. This was said in response to Ismail mocking her. (Genesis 21:9) Abraham was greatly distressed, (vs. 11). Ismail was jealous and angry. After all, he was the first son. Why shouldn't he, according to tradition, be the heir?

God tells Abraham to listen to Sarah because through Isaac his descendants shall be named. But, in the next verse God also says, "And the son of the maid I will make a nation also, because he is your descendant," (vs. 13).

Then, Hagar was forced out into the wilderness alone, with the boy, where she feared she would die. An angel of God came and asked her what was wrong. He said

"Do not fear, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad and hold him by the hand, for I will make a great nation of him. Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water; and she went and filled the skin with water, and gave the lad a drink. And God was with the lad, and he grew," (verses 17-20).

Clearly, the human element barred Ismail from having a place in the family at all. Reconciliation between Jews and Arabs must take place before God's work can be considered finished on earth. The Messiah of the Jews, whom Jews reject, and whom the Muslims believe to be merely a prophet, is the answer.

Jesus came to reconcile all non-Jews to Himself, while the Jews remain blind to his having been here already. The ultimate plan is that the Jews will also recognize the Messiah, and together Arabs and Muslims, Jews and true Christians will be as one.

It sounds too good to be true. But I cannot help but believe that the Jews have made it nearly impossible for Arabs to recognize Christ simply because one needs to embrace Judaism first, and the meaning of Messiah having come, and Arabs have been wounded by this religion.

Without embracing Jews and their beliefs, the Muslim feels the need to contain Jesus in the role of a prophet, because Ismail's rightful place in the family of Abraham has been torn from him. He does not care to look at or think about this Messiah who is for the brother who rejected him. But this Messiah is also his.

When all things have become clear, then Ismail's descendants will understand the meaning of being the sons of Isaac, for Isaac's sons have paid dearly for such an inheritance, and their lives have been marred by torment, persecution and insecurity.

Ultimately, though Ismail was thrown out and lost his security, it is Isaac who has been without a home for a long time. And don't forget-it is Isaac's family that is living without their Messiah.

The Jews' situation is sad today. The children of the remnant-Jews who know they are Jews-have somewhat compromised their identity. Many have abandoned faith.

We tend to believe that to be chosen is to be as a king, to be served. This is not what God had in mind for His chosen. When you learn that they have done it all for all of us, including Ismail, then you will rejoice in the meaning of Isaac and his descendants.

Through Isaac-Messiah has come. The meaning was for all who were left out of the inheritance of the Jews. That would include the writer of this essay-a gentile. Through Jesus, all of the riches of this inheritance were passed on. In fact, even the Jews never tasted some of the delicacies of being bonded, through the Messiah, to God.

The ultimate truth is this: God's chosen are given great burdens to bear, and we should neither desire this task nor envy those to whom it is given. Instead, we can benefit so much more from receiving what they have given us: the way to the Messiah of the world.

Will you recognize that the Messiah is being offered to you ahead of the Jews? He bypassed their plan for Him. Their plan for Him was to come to earth and be king and give them heaven on earth.

Instead, he came as a humble, unlikely man to prepare the hearts of the rest of those he came to save so that he could finally return as king. In this way he is humbling them, not allowing them to see him now, so that they will see how much he loved all those he came to save.

As an Arab, a descendant of Abraham through Ismail, or as a Muslim, a descendant by faith, you are offered the Messiah's peace, and a place in God's kingdom, just as we gentiles have been offered.

Please accept this offer and know that the cycle of rejection is ended. God has joined you to himself by Abraham's gift to you: the right of being a true son by faith in the promised Messiah that did come.

Why Do I Extol The Jew?

2009-05-04T10:26:00.000-07:00

The Jew is God's focal point on earth.

The Jew goes back directly to Adam and Eve (we have the entire family tree on record), and Abraham, the father of all Jews, comes directly from the lineage of Adam.

God chose the Jews and collectively made them a kind of messiah; He made them endure burdens and hardships for us-the lowly Gentiles-so that one day their messiah would come and be ours as well.

They were spit upon, tortured, and despised, just as He was-all because they bore the imprint of God and therefore bore the burden of divinity. Poor beasts that flogged them-they knew that absolutely no one could hold a candle to the Jew.

And God laid on the Jews that burden, the burden of His divinity. They did what they did for us, only most didn't understand, or don’t understand. Many wanted to be more like we Gentiles and emulated us.

This is an interfaith exchange. We believe that Jesus, (Yeshua in Hebrew) was the true Messiah, though many Jews do not accept this as true.

When our messiah, their messiah, came to us-we were beasts. We had strange notions of gods (instead of God) and of our earth and our relationship to it. We had a twisted relationship to each other as well as to animals and rocks.

We had darkness in our understanding, even though we had knowledge of many things. We communed daily with demons and drank blood-God's sacred element, which He strictly forbade His people. Our minds were dull and yes, pagan, swept by winds of evil and base impulses. All things considered, we had nothing! We were alone, each of us a stranger to one another. We knew no love. We knew only the idolatry of beauty and the lust thereof.

Yeshua came and touched the wild minds the way he stilled the wind and the waves. He came in the form of his saints. He came over the seas, first to islands where they received his message – England and Scandinavia. It was there the Angles, Jutes, Saxons and Friesians had wandered to from some unknown location, and the Vikings later emerged that were also called the Danes. Yeshua came to the British Isles, which had once been inhabited by the Romans, who for a time had extended their kingdom, and by the Celts who had already lived there for an untold number of years.

All of these pagan nations waited in darkness for many years, though for what they did not know.

Lives began to transform. The Vikings were subdued and overcome and also turned to Yeshua for grace. We found dignity and power, self-control and knowledge, science and creativity - we found light! All came through a moral awakening in our spirits and through a spiritual tide sweeping over us.

Our minds sharpened and eventually we excelled so far we brought the advanced technological age we know today into being. That was in cooperation with Jews and other enlightened souls. Unfortunately, knowledge brought power and pride, which conflicted with the divinity Yeshua had instilled. Many souls still retained the poisons of the past, yet we did not turn back to our pagan ways altogether.

We know now that some have returned to the pagan ways, but many have not.

Rabbi Jacob Neusner, who doesn't even believe that Jesus is the messiah, claims in his book "A Rabbi Talks With Jesus" that Jesus is responsible for civilizing the western world.

Despite the humble origin of the Christian church and its many faults and foibles throughout history, as D. James Kennedy says, "the church has made more changes on earth for the good than any other movement or force in history." Here are some of the changes that can be credited to believers in Jesus and the church in the west:

Hospitals and Universities, founded during the middle Ages

Literacy and education for the masses

The abolition of slavery

Modern science

The elevation of women

Inspiration for some of the greatest works of art

And the list goes on and on...

Contrary to popular thought, when women were deified in our world, and while some were in authority, most common women were still treated like animals. Yeshua totally altered this. Look at our world today and notice that it is the Christian world that has given women the power to excel.

In studying what we call the “Old Testament,” which has the same words as the Jewish scriptures, I can see that women had a much higher status in the Jewish system than in the world around them.

In the “New Testament,” Paul the apostle states there is neither Jew nor Greek [now] and neither male nor female. The values of the Old Testament are carried over into the New.

To put it simply – we got their God. I don’t know how it happened, but we got to be like them, chosen also by God.

All that we have been able to realize in our lives was made possible by our friend the Jew. Even before the birth of Yeshua, the Jew brought light and the opportunity to find God's love and transformation.

The Jews, among us for centuries, ensured a sane and civilized mind always inhabiting the earth during many dark years. This civilizing effect made many ripples in the pool of history.

When I look at the Jews as a collective I can see the imprint of God, even today, long after the Jews left their homeland and wandered the earth for centuries. I have to ask, "How is it possible that so many of them still know they are Jews?

Their history is unparalleled. They are truly 'peculiar' people. Yes, and they have even gone back and retrieved the ancient country that once was theirs-the place that theoretically, Adam and Eve had their Eden - how amazing after being scattered for centuries.

When I look at the Jews I see the most tangible evidence that will ever be offered me that the God of the Bible is real, because the Jews are obviously the people God is talking about in that book. The Jews give me a strange security because if they ever disappeared off the face of the earth I would know that God had left me to perish.

As a group, the Jews reflect talent, cleverness, tenacity and the ability to have the mind of a computer coupled with the heart of a rabbi. In so doing, they show me what I have missed as the member of a group so long immersed in darkness, it has not been able to catch up.

No matter what we have been able to achieve, to this day it is still Jews who stand out amongst us all as the cleverest and the most talented. They show me that to be God's chosen-to be connected to God-is to realize the best possible person I can be.

More importantly, we believe that we were adopted into the same family because of Yeshua. In other words, I am an adopted Jew! This is beyond my capacity to comprehend.

God took me from the "wild beasts" of the earth and made me one of his own people. This is too high, too good. But you understand...this is what Messiah came to do.

The Jewish people are here today because of the remnant of Jews who never forgot their forefathers and their identity. We are what we are today because their endurance made possible the entry of Messiah into our world.

We Christians are struggling to get the same kind of relationship going that the Jews have had since the beginning of earth's story. So we have our legalisms and rebellions, our Tammy Fayes and our faggy Toms-we're new!

I want to ask you, the Jewish people, for patience and understanding for all the beastly minds in this world, who know in their hearts that they are beasts, and cringe as they watch the Jew march on in his regal destiny.

Sources:

A Rabbi Talks With Jesus, an interfaith, intermillenial exchange. Rabbi Jacob Neusner, Doubleday

What if Jesus had never been born? By D. James Kennedy.

Forgiveness

2009-05-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

Reading John Arnott's book on forgiveness (The Importance of Forgiveness), my mind's curative and creative powers are stirred. Arnott is a man who I have met and observed on videos of the legendary Toronto church. I’ve thought, "wow, now that is real! There is a man who embodies true commitment to the word of God." Love so easily pours out from me to him as I watch one of the videos, loving someone who has helped me so immensely. It is a privilege to be able to read and hear, "from the horse's mouth," the theory behind his very effective practice.

Many thoughts have rushed to the surface as he talks on forgiveness. His book compels me to go on and add the enlightenment God brings with along with his insights.

Someone once said that the more you dive into the deep and sort out what is complicated, the simpler everything becomes. Maybe this is what has been happening to science. I feel that I am also a person who goes in, sorts out the things of the deep and the complex issues, and then ties them up-handing them to you in a fashion in which the complexities are resolved. I don't know how to describe it, but the Lord has blessed me so much with the gift of thought. If I just begin to think and probe, eventually, truth comes to me and I find an answer. I love the process! It is a form of science, if you will. I love to think!

Of course, just as The X-files says, "the truth is out there," and many people of the world, in general, can do this same thing. They can find some of the same universal truths. But always, they find truths that hang there by themselves-so many little truths, but nothing to adequately tie them together. In Jesus, we have the peace and security of having that one common tie to which all truth is bound. I thank God with all my heart for giving that to me.

For me, thinking is stretching the mind. With each new revelation comes thought that a mind imbued with the Holy Spirit brings, and I am further healed! I feel relief, a new breath of air!

My only problem with his book on forgiveness is this: John seems to say that every act of unkindness from an individual stems from one's own lack of forgiveness. He seems to blame us for every thing wrong that happens to us. Certainly lack of forgiveness has repercussions in relationships, but it's almost as if John is justifying the unkind person's act and blaming the one who received it. He is totally blaming it on the recipient's lack of forgiveness.

What about the many who are falsely accused and those scorned as the Word says we will be for following Jesus?

What about the fact that bullies like to hurt the already wounded?

I just don’t get it. A person is wounded and because of it he or she has a problem forgiving. Now, he says, they attract new problems and on and on it goes. So, they are hopeless? First they get wounded and then they hopelessly get wounded over and over, until they forgive? What if they forgive to the best of their ability but still find themselves being bullied? Then he says that they haven’t done a perfect job of forgiving and it’s all blamed on them.

Main body of this essay:

One basic truth stands out for me in the area of forgiveness: it is hard to forgive. We may find it hard to forgive because we have been robbed. For example: imagine the feelings of a person who has lost his child in the conflict between the two sides of the Irish conflict. Imagine how much anger and bitterness that might stir up, and the acts that would follow.

For me, feeling robbed comes from seeing man in a petty state of existence. I feel robbed by losing a hoard of values and special delights that society once offered in my childhood. I feel robbed of the things I learned to expect in life based on what my childhood taught me to expect.

Forgiveness does not mean that we cannot be angry. It means not letting the anger exist after "the sun goes down." We should not try to trap the angry soul by telling them that they have to deal with all situations instantaneously-with no anger-to be truly godly. ANGER IS NOT HATRED OR BITTERNESS, BUT WHEN PEOPLE ARE ANGRY, THEY ARE OFTEN ACCUSED OF THIS.

First of all, acknowledge the wrong and what it has done to you. Acknowledge that you have been robbed by someone in some way, and recognize what it is doing to you. This is the first step. "Be angry, but sin not!" This is what the Word says, doesn't it?

Second of all, find out how God can pay you back what someone else owes you instead of that person. This is the key.

God is like a rich man who comes along and says--"why do you, who have a fair amount of money and provisions go out to the beggars in the street who grovel for scraps (spiritually speaking) and wait for them, or demand for them to repay you what they have stolen? Here, I have the money to pay you back. Though I do not owe you one single penny, I still will pay the debt that they owe to you so you don't have to go to them any longer!"

See, God can do this for us if we are willing to receive our supplies from a spiritual source and not from a person.

HOW ARE WE EXPECTED TO DEAL WITH THIS? WHAT FORMULA CAN WE USE EACH AND EVERY TIME WE NEED TO FORGIVE? First, we must move away from trusting in man in general, and we must begin to learn how to receive things from God that we cannot receive from man. When man disappoints us and betrays us, we will have the power to forgive if we learn to discontinue placing so much importance upon the role of other people in our own happiness.

This kind of thought used to bug me. I used to envision a person who lives like a hermit and doesn't need people. No! YOU MERELY DO NOT NEED PEOPLE IF WHAT YOU NEED IS SOMETHING PEOPLE CANNOT PROVIDE! One of our biggest problems that leads to bitterness is wrong ideas about the degree to which other people should be supplying our needs. We have got to, individually and collectively, determine how much we should be expecting from other people, and how much is too much!

The person who lost his child in the Irish wars has to recognize that man kills and steals and destroys as an adjunct to the main enemy-the devil. He has to recognize that God still has a purpose and plan in all things-even the death of his child. He has to realize that God requires forgiveness of the murderer regardless of the pain. Then he has to gain from God (a spiritual entity) what he has lost. What he has truly lost is his serenity, his faith, his happiness, his joy and not just his child.

We have to learn what it means to pull out of the spiritual realm what we need in the material, emotional, physical, sexual, mental, etc, realms, in other words, what we call the "natural". THE SPIRIT WORLD CREATED THE MATERIAL, SO THE SPIRIT WORLD IS THE REAL ONE! Unless we can step out of the natural realm and into the spiritual, we cannot forgive. Let's all acknowledge before we judge those who cannot forgive that it takes a great deal of faith and grace before it is going to happen concretely.

Expectations and Romantic love

Hollywood and other influences have helped to reinforce many myths about the things we should expect from other people, and how to get them. Don't get me wrong. I am one of the greatest fans of Hollywood movies and feel strongly that they have also done a great deal of good.

But, there are two sides. Hollywood has helped weave many myths about romantic love. Of course, romantic love is the biggest area of deception in human relationships, and consequently, the biggest area of regret, remorse, frustration, and wounding. The key to understanding romantic love is that it is the relationship that is connected to the powerful feelings we have towards our parents.

Loving Mom and Dad is a passionate love that we hold in our hearts with the same degree of intensity as we do towards potential mates. No other relationship can lead to hurt and disappointment like this one. None of us can very likely comprehend the degree of feeling we hold towards our parents. The potential for hate comes from the degree of intimacy we have had with them, and the dependency we have had on them. We hate people for not giving us what it seems we had every right to receive from them.

You can't take a baby and teach him or her the things I am trying to teach right now on losing our dependency on people. A baby will depend a great deal on his parents, that is a given. What we do for the rest of our lives to correct the wrongs that have occurred out of these familial and imperfect situations is part of the great journey that an adult life is all about. It is a great quest and it can have immense rewards, if we end up in the loving arms of a loving heavenly father-a truly personal God. Some might conclude that the whole point of everything we have experienced negatively was meant for that very purpose: to show us the immensity of God's perfection and love.

In romantic love situations, what usually causes hurt almost immediately is that many people begin too early defining their expectations in ways that are too unrealistic, and having sex too early reinforces the dependence on man that doesn't work.

We must have an autonomy that God has ordained for humans. We must understand the correct way to have a relationship, especially if it's sexual. The only right way to have a relationship with someone else is when we are whole on our own, but we choose to bless another person with our love and our gifts. Romantic love should be a celebration of love between two people who could survive very well on their own, yet enjoy the love shared between the two. The kind of dependence often depicted in Hollywood films would have disastrous results that are never shown realistically in those situations!

God can make us very whole on our own. A relationship with God is the only way to achieve that. A relationship, especially one with one of the opposite gender in a marriage type, has to be a gift from God that we enjoy as something God gave, and as something God can take away if He desires! We have to remain in a right fellowship with God and we have to see ourselves as complete in Him!

Bitterness seems to be the only way to get over a romantic love that we know is not good for us, in the natural. We defend ourselves against further hurt by having a perpetual anger (bitterness) towards that person. In Jesus, the believer always has to be able to resist evil and remain vulnerable. It is one of the many ways that being a Christian is so very, very difficult. We forgive, but we choose not to put our self in the path of that person's hurtful ways at the same time. It is easier to defend against further hurt by creating a hard shell of bitterness.

In the era of love growing cold, we better be very careful to get this important principle of depending on God for our supply. The enemy will use everything he can get. Since it says that we are cursed if we depend on man and make flesh our "arm", that curse gives license to Satan to do what he wants. We are safe, in our strong tower when we no longer go to man for our supply. We all have been brought into this world to depend-to grow together with others like a beehive and to conform. We have to unlearn. Autonomy in God is not anti-authority, anti-community or anti-intimate friendship or marriage at all. But we have to learn what it is. We have to find the narrow path to life, which requires not too much of one and not too much of another-a careful balance. Balance is too hard for most people-you cannot be lazy and have a balance.

There is also the danger of letting people continue to do evil things because that's “forgiveness”. Such thinking is twisted. To the best of your God-given ability you should stop the person from doing anything more-stop the cycle of revenge, stop the rapist, stop the thief, stop the preacher from living a double life, etc. We have a responsibility of discipline towards others when we see them doing wrong, and that discipline has to be discerned, but we can't forsake it in the name of being forgiving. Too often people try to avoid confrontation by saying you are judging them. When you confront others in areas that are serious for all concerned, it is your duty to confront.

We must reach out to the unseen spiritual world, now, before we perish and bring others with us, to receive what we need to heal the broken heart that brings deep bitterness and hatred (a root of bitterness). Most of us wait for people to do for us or bring us the things we need. We seek compensation, we seek recompense, etc. and we can't get it if we wait on man, because "cursed is he who trusts in man." The bible is clear! Trusting in man will result in a curse on our lives. This is serious! We all do it and we don't even see what we're doing. But God didn't make this path so easy, did he? We still walk under a curse because of what we cannot see.

If we can't see God and reach out to Him, we are truly lost.

Forgiveness only becomes possible if we let the ugly poisoned thing out and have something to replace it. That unseen force must touch us. God must touch us or else we will never get what we need to mend a bleeding heart. Without the extra dimension of the Spirit, no one can truly forgive. Thus, forgiveness waits until people begin to pull out of the spiritual realm everything they need.

If we are extra sensitive types our hurts and bitterness will be even greater.
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Everything in me was initially so wounded and broken and bitter and hopeless and alone and full of remorse and full of sadness. I have had a bounty of brokenness in my life. I tell you that God has done miracles, yet every day is also another step towards the completion of an amazing miracle from God. There is nothing like the Holy Spirit coming and cleaning out the junk in you, and I want nothing less than the best. I'll not look to man anymore to give me the solution. I'm an American. I believe in "having it all."

I know now that I must not expect anything from man, but every new little hurt man might inflict threatens to raise hatred and anger and it is something difficult to relinquish and flush out of your life, but it's possible if you persevere.

We have to recognize that many situations we encounter are merely tests from God. He is just seeing what is in us, (or letting us see what is in us), seeing what we will do and letting us learn. Possibly, our revenge and un-forgiveness towards man is actually a fist up to God. God is whom we are truly angry at. We malign others with un-forgiveness because we are mad at God and do just what He hates. That is why so much gets done in the prayer closet. Go back to your little space and get it out with God and leave man out of the picture for the time being.

We can never know the heart of a person. That leaves us unable to judge. And none of us, in ourselves, truly hates sin. Let's face it. God is He who hates sin. We have vengeful feelings towards others for things we are also capable of.

When you have the grace to do certain things right, you cannot comprehend someone else who cannot do what you can. This usually leads to judging. I have been amazed at the conditions of some people's lives where, "there but for the grace" truly. A person of higher standards feels robbed more, hurt more and more disappointed. Un-forgiveness is likely to be that person's sin stronghold.

A person who is able to live by his own standards better than others will find it harder to comprehend why someone else cannot do the same, and will find it harder to forgive, easier to condemn. Usually, the one sin of the person of higher standards is self-righteous pride, but unfortunately, this sin is a bigger sin than a lot of others. It is one of the most deadly sins.

A person of higher standards may live isolated and alone and feel unloved. In this bastion of problems, un-forgiveness becomes a stronghold.

I don't believe that people are necessarily unwilling to look at their own pride in this situation, it is just that they have strong values and live by them, missing the one truth that can save them-that nothing they have has come from themselves.

1. Know that God tests to see if pride goes before other things
2. I must learn to see that I have been given grace from God!! It is not my righteousness!

3. Emptiness and loneliness happen when you stand apart and make a stand on something not shared by the group. It can make you very critical simply because you feel lonely and abandoned. The answer is to draw from the unseen friend, and wait for quality love relationships with humans. If we don't go to God in this we are in trouble.

4. The more one sees things as they ought to be the greater the pain in seeing things as they are. You must gain the grace of God to wait in patience for others to see what you do, and understand that they just can't for now. It requires walking in a kind of bubble with God whereby the sting of reality is taken away as you look towards the unseen God.

5. Everything goes back to our relationship with God. We get scared and question God when disappointment goes over our heads. Keep trusting.

6. When you are truly righteous and wise, you learn that you cannot possibly know or understand another person's life or heart enough to know how God sees them. Even Jeffrey Dahmer and "Hannibal the Cannibal" alias, David Berkowitz got saved as a result of being caught!! It was possible for the sins of the fathers to finally accumulate and result in an insane child who did not understand his own actions. God saved them. He considered two men who ate people and sodomized them and took off their skin, etc. people He wants to share eternity with!!! If he wants them, what can you know about how much he wants other wretched sinners who today aren't even close to His likeness?

7. God has no use for your self-sufficiency and condemns it!

8. Seeing one's values torn down and one's values being trashed by others becomes unbearable. It becomes so hard to say, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." At this point you must take on the mind of Christ to begin understanding that your own righteousness is a gift of God and not in the least owned by you. You must grasp the conformity to the one who "though in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself..."

10. I have anger and un-forgiveness towards others often when I see them degrading themselves and thus robbing everyone else of a good example of an elevated way of life. I hate to see human life being degraded and I get exasperated with it. I get sick of people being lazy and rebellious and foolish and destructive. They rob me of things I so long for. So, the people who are most likely to judge and find forgiveness difficult are the ones who had higher hopes for others as well as themselves. Doesn't that make sense?

I have always had such high standards for what this life should be; consequently, my criticism has been so much harsher. Martin Luther was mad at the Jews because he thought they would come to Christ by the multitudes after he helped them see truth, so I hear. So now, the anti-Semitism that got a stronghold in Germany has been traced back to Martin Luther, of all people! This is only according to a couple of sources and not proven.

11. What has us hung up is knowing some people truly sin without cause and will never repent. We never know if that's what we're dealing with and we (rightfully) want to despise that. But the problem is, we can never know if that's what we're dealing with and that's the point. God has set us in a mystery of not knowing a person's heart, at least not until we know them extremely well. That takes oodles of time. Sometimes even time leaves us in a mystery. People are a great mystery. Suddenly, many people do the unexpected. So few people allow us the luxury of transparency, and I love the ones who do, I must say!!

12. When we are hurt, if we are healthy we acknowledge that we do not know that person's heart or life, or why they have done this. We acknowledge that God is testing us, and we try to pass the test. I am learning to stop and remember that I am being tested. I am telling you that sometimes the test is so blatant and so ridiculous (I mean, things seem so hopelessly ridiculous) that I have to laugh at God as I realize--IT'S JUST A FRICKIN' TEST!

Here's an example of a test I've had from God: I can't find one single Christian man in my town, and finally, one day, a man at my job confesses that he is a Christian, and sure enough - he's the guy with the high-water pants and thick glasses, body odor and a very low IQ who has to have everything explained to him a hundred times. It's like, "come on God - you can do better than that, can't you? Why does everything look so hopeless?" And then, I just start laughing, cuz it's a test.

And then there's my computer printer. This story is true. All the sudden it doesn't emit jet ink even though I put in a dozen cartridges. I send my computer back to the dealer who sold it to me and order another one, which they promptly send. The new one does the same thing. The technician tries to work with me over the phone on what to do to make it work. We can't find a single answer. Then, they report that they received back the printer that wasn't working for me. "It works fine," they say. OK, God, very funny.

13. Un-forgiveness in you primarily comes from not being able to get what you need from God.

14. There are almost indelible patterns in us-people fall into treating us according to the given pattern. The patterns are like furrows that are dug fairly deep in a garden, and if you walk casually and effortlessly, you cannot help falling into them, but if you walk carefully and attempt to stay outside the furrows, it is possible, you just have to try a lot harder. Kind and loving people carefully step so they do not fall into treating people as they are used to being treated.

It takes strong people of major conviction to treat us differently than the patterns suggest. How do we get rid of the old patterns? We go to God and he heals the deep patterns and takes them away-no other way. Once he does, even dealing with weak people won't expose us any more to the relentless patterns-there's nothing left to fall into.

My cat "Bonita" seems to have suffered some things at the hands of people. She has always had reservations and stuff so you can tell. I have found myself treating her worse than my cat "Fred" simply because that's what she is used to. I find myself saying--"oh my Lord, what is wrong with me? I am hurting my little girl cat!" But it is still hard for me to resist treating her in a way she is used to. So it is with humans.

15. You must look at what was wrong, (what happened in your past) and acknowledge what it did to you. How can you understand your anger and the sad state of your life? How can you understand the things you have done or have been done to you unless you see what the wrong is?

When someone comes along to explain to you what has happened to you, and that reality for you has been enough to cause terrible hurts and difficulties in your life, this is one way to experience the love of God. It is love to your soul to have it explained. You understand that you have, indeed, mountains of difficulty, and you finally understand why you hurt so much.

16. Un-forgiveness causes you to resist even the "violin" experience. That's true bitterness, when you no longer want it even explained.

What can you say about the people who have given in to bitterness, so hurt and angry they cannot and will not care about others? They won't look at anyone else's pain, only their own. In fact, they inflict pain in the name of their own pain. They expect others to take responsibility for their needs and problems, not themselves. Psychology has a name for that- a "character disorder".

We all want to hate them-we want them to get their just due. But if you desire to "live Godly in Christ Jesus," you have to take another position.

We're all robbed. What do we pray? What do we say, what do we do? What do we say to that person? How do you cope with someone who wants no help?

17. You can't even depend on your loved one getting well. Once again, it's a case of having to let go of something that most people want in their natural minds, and it's a form of depending on man, to depend on that person getting well. Even your loved ones having the things you always hoped for is something you cannot depend on getting in your life, because although you can appropriate all things in your own life through faith, YOU CANNOT MAKE THE CHOICE OF FAITH FOR ANOTHER PERSON. It is one of the most difficult lessons in life.

You have to stop crying for them and expending all your energy at some point. You have to acknowledge that this person has signed away love, both giving and receiving it, and has chosen hopelessness and bitterness. That is something we cannot reward them for.

HOWEVER, God IS THEIR JUDGE. WE CAN NEVER JUDGE BECAUSE WE DON'T KNOW THE HEART. ONLY God DOES. SO WE DO NOT HAVE UNFORGIVENESS TOWARD THEM FOR DISAPPOINTING US, AND WE DO NOT CONDEMN THEM FOR WHAT APPEARS TO BE THEIR REBELLION AGAINST God.

18. I have found that once you know the conditions of a person's life, it is amazing the things that went into their weaknesses and problems. We must rejoice that we were given immense grace by God that we cannot comprehend or deserve, and that God does not give us license to despise those who apparently don't have this grace, since we DO NOT DESERVE IT, NOR DID WE EARN IT. Just be in awe, just be in thanksgiving! That's the most important response.

19. We pray, we hope, and we never give up for that person, but we go on. We hope for others to forgive that person who may be keeping him or her in bondage because of their un-forgiveness. We pray to release that person. But, we cannot judge those who haven't forgiven that person either. We have to refrain from holding them in debt, while we nevertheless pray.

20. When you are very, very hurt and no one says, "I'm sorry," you feel immobilized. You don't know how to begin to forgive because you MUST have that touch from God that makes it possible. You cannot wait for man to respond to you with an apology. Unfortunately, many people are too wounded in their relationship to God to reach beyond their pettiness in order to touch Him, in order to heal. We must acknowledge that establishing a relationship with God has been our privilege, and that it is a very hard thing to do! We have to see that many people have not been able to establish a healing bond with Him.

21. You can't start with nothing in order to forgive. It isn't fair to say that people have no excuse in their un-forgiveness. People are in holes, in traps. It's a 'Catch 22' when you find it hard to trust God because you have been hurt from the beginning of your life. You have to trust God before you can get above your situation, but how do you trust God until you get above it? The hurts in your life have caused you to question the love of God. The hurtful actions of man are what have damaged our relationship to God in the first place, yet it is imperative that we reach God in order to get beyond what man has done. The answer: God's miraculous grace. And I, as one who receives God's miraculous grace, hope to someday truly be a vessel, in human flesh, of that grace.

22. We humans are so absurd, each of us hurting and saying to the other (especially in marriage) "well, you don't love me, and you don't care for me!! I'm not going to do this or that until you first do this or that for me. I need love. I cannot love you without your love."

This is what we say to EACH OTHER! It is a pit, a dead end. It cannot go anywhere. Neither side has the resources to begin loving, but both sides are waiting for the other person to go first. The only progress in life is when that one person reaches up to God, by some miracle, and begins to draw from the higher source what is needed for one's own love hunger, and from there, loves another. It does not happen to a large majority of people! This is what Jesus meant when he said, "few there be that find it." I believe he was referring to abundant life.

Single people keep expecting betrayal from others. They're afraid, unsure, angry, hopeless and frustrated; always waiting for someone else to make the first move, always second guessing the other person. We do not live in a world that fosters trust!

The only way out: God LOVES YOU OR ME FIRST, AND THEN YOU OR I LOVE OTHERS. We take from the spiritual realm what we need in the natural. We do not go to man for our needs. He will inevitably come to us. Relationship is always sharing and always give and take with man. It is never meant to be just one or the other.

I LOOK UP TO God TO GET OUTSIDE MYSELF. I stop asking the pauper to pay the debt, who has no money, and I go to the King who is more than ready to pay the whole thing, who owes me NOTHING (!) God says, "I will pay that person's debt! Stop going to him or her! Stop that! I have all the money in the world! Stop that!"

People are weak. They are waiting for you to make the first move, to have the power, because they cannot make that move themselves.

23. Yes, some are purely evil and have no intention of changing. But you may never know who is hopelessly evil. You may not be sure of who is the evil one who will never repent and will perish (the seed of Satan).

24. Discipline is another subject to cover, that we do need to discipline others who do wrong. But you cannot be a disciplinarian until you have been made ready for the task, and you better be sure that you are in a position to do that!!

25. IT'S BETWEEN US AND God. WE HURT OTHERS IN ORDER TO HURT God!

RESPONSE TO JOHN ARNOTT'S BOOK:
REASONS WHY THE HURT FROM OTHERS MAY NOT BE COMING FROM YOUR OWN UNFORGIVENESS:

1. People hurt us because they cannot resist falling into the patterns which are engraved upon us from the way we have been treated. It takes a strong, supernatural person to get beyond the patterns. The way we have been treated invites people to treat us the same way and most people are weak enough to fall in. People fall in and they go ahead and hurt afresh the injured person. MIKE MURDOCH SAYS: "BULLIES LIKE TO BEAT UP WOUNDED PEOPLE."

2. A person can feel that there is deep hurt in someone else, but they truly cannot make up for what the other person has lost; they cannot go in and heal because it is beyond them. Chances are the hurt is so deep and horrible that an outside party would have to be God and play God in order to heal the wounded soul, however, they are not God and they cannot do it. So, in such a case, the outsider may just be or appear negligent, but actually feels helpless and cannot cope with the need they see.

3. People test us to see if we are going to get angry and bitter if they treat us bad, suspecting we have been mistreated before. People test us with the idea that if they see us fail again and get malicious and bitter, this is our fault and that they need not assume any responsibility for it. So, they test our ability to forgive.

4. Some just can't handle a sensitive person and see that a person is too sensitive they just want to get it over with: hurt that person because they'll have to end up hurting them anyway.

5. The flesh of man enjoys perpetuating the lust that bitterness produces either for material things or for sex, and enjoys perpetuating bitterness and hatred as well. Many people who have enough bitterness of their own like to go ahead and create a hotbed of malice and anger and bitterness in others.

6. It takes two to tango and many people reject us before we reject them.

I tried for an unbelievable number of years to go out into the world and start afresh with people, putting behind the past and hoping for love and friendship and respect, and still got shot down time and again. I felt that I was being tested and that people still wanted to perpetuate hurt even though I was beckoning for something else. I realize that I did harbor bitterness where I didn't realize it before, and that people were testing me also to see if I could forgive, or if I'd respond to hurt with un-forgiveness. I always failed the test because I could never understand why there would come hostility when I sought reconciliation and it was so discouraging I would just want to give up. I didn't know how to go to God and say: "the debt is yours, not theirs-you pay me and I'll forget their debt."

...end of response to John's book.

How we should think and pray when others hurt or malign us, or hurt others, or just disappoint us in major ways?:

PRAYER OF FORGIVENESS

"I do not know the heart. God knows the heart. I am a sinner too and I cannot love or hate sin any better than anyone else except by the grace of God, so I cannot exalt myself above anyone else. I don't understand this person's attitude or behavior, but I cannot see all the details, or claim to know the mysteries of every human heart. I forgive this person the debt he or she owes me for robbing me or another person, or for inflicting wounds that have no just reason or cause, and I trust God to repay me for the debt another owes-God who has the means to repay the debt, while this person may not have the grace to do so. I look to God to refresh my soul and make it up to me for what has been lost or destroyed.

I look to God to befriend and help me, to heal my soul of its wounds and to give me love that surpasses all knowledge and understanding. I wait for God to bring new souls into my life who have wisdom and power to go beyond human failings and petty conflicts, and understand that all those who come into my life before the right people do are there to test me, to see if I will forgive and trust God. Since there is a curse on those who trust man and not God, I make every effort not to bring this curse upon myself, by acknowledging that I look to God for every need in my life, and stop expecting man to provide for me the things my deepest soul needs.

I love others as God gives me the grace to do so. If I cannot love enough now, I'll also look to God to understand that my weaknesses and imperfections are preventing me, but look forward to the day when I will truly walk in newness of life, with the renewed inner man operating in all facets of my life, and when supernatural love from God will be able to flow.

I acknowledge that man is weak, and that someone has to make the first move in human relationships, and it might as well be me (or should I say, I probably got stuck with the job!)"

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU NEED TO FORGIVE

1. RECOGNIZE THAT GOD DID NOT, IN HIS PERFECT DESIGN, INFLICT THIS PAIN UPON YOU. GOD LOVES YOU. MAN 'S FLESH AND THE DEVIL BRINGS EVIL.

2. FIND HIS LOVE, SO YOU HAVE POWER TO FORGIVE. YOU CAN'T DO IT IN YOUR OWN STRENGTH.

3. ASK HIM TO SHOW YOU UN-FORGIVENESS and keep repenting.

4. ASK HIM TO MELT THE HEART OF STONE, AND KEEP ASKING.

5, FIND THE POWER OF YOUR CONFESSIONS....

"God is at work in me to will and to do of His good pleasure."
"I have the mind of Christ..."
" I am the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ."
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
"The love of God is shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit."

FINAL

There is the forgiveness we grant to those who ask for forgiveness, that is, the forgiveness we show them. For all those who never ask, God requires that we forgive them in our heart, but we have to have a wise strategy for those who require that we take more and more suffering than already given. Forgiveness is not allowing them to continue, to do more damage. We should make them accountable and bring an end to the evil being committed. Did we see fit to forgive Hitler, by letting him continue? Would that have solved it?

We cannot, however, stand against our enemies unless we examine ourselves and repent of our own sins.

Song For Eagles

2009-03-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

Dedicated to Andrew, my nephew

We were the generation of blown minds
the one that the hinge turned on
the one the world turned on...the one the world "turned onto".. things.
they blew our minds
they passed the grass
"acid" test
the me generation

did they care enough about the "you" generation?

we were guinea pigs
they told us to smoke this, don't worry about it
later we were in mental hospitals

but you came along
your generation rose out of the pit that was ours
there you were - strong
and you can do and be so many things we cannot be - go where we cannot
carry the torch

fly eagle
fly to the seas
fly to the mountains
fly to the streams
where we can never be
to the things we could never reach, the things we could never be

fly eagle
soar
be what you can be
reach what you can reach

I won't hold you back with the bitterness of my tears of my lost years
I won't give him that one last victory, to hold you back by groveling in my self pity
To try to keep you from trying
To keep you from flying

fly eagle
fly to the seas
fly to the mountains
fly to the streams
where we can never be
to the things we could never reach, the things we could never be

fly eagle
soar
be what you can be
reach what you can reach

(copyrighted)

It's Not Gay, It's Queer, Part 2

2009-03-29T11:07:00.000-07:00

Words For The Homosexual You Don’t Want To Miss, Part 2

As a girl, an adolescent, I was interested in other girls' bodies as an extension of my own. My interest was in the sexuality of the body and I was not attracted to females.

Adolescent girls are afraid of experiencing real sex (I mean, so it was in the mid-1960's,) but they are fully aware of it and extremely curious.

There's excitement in exploring other girls' bodies as a way to get familiar with one's own sexuality, but this is far removed from desiring another girl as a sexual partner, or from having a longing for romance with another girl. This seems to be more acceptable for females than for males, so I hear.

When I turned 16, I remember a female friend in my High School class who was sensual and had been violated - more by the culture than anything else. She had been in some very shallow sexual relationships for a couple years already with older men.

I was staying at her home for a weekend and I remember lying next to her one night and having thoughts of 'playing around' with her as I had done at about 12 or 13 years of age.

Suddenly the thought caused fear and revulsion. Suddenly it seemed evil and inappropriate, because I had passed the point where it was no longer innocent.

I had reached the age of accountability, but also, God had placed His spirit within me through excellent evangelical teaching, and it was His spirit, not me that gave me that check inside.

What causes a young woman to be attracted to this very same evil that suddenly presented itself to me that year, rather than resist it? What makes this a desirable thing to the lesbian?

It is a pathological condition, a weakness that makes good and evil indistinguishable in terms of consequences. It comes from nothing more complicated than our basic evil nature, the sin we were born into.

If you continue in something sinful, including perversion, demons will surely find you and seek to overtake you.

Where people continue in heterosexual or homosexual sex even when they know it will give them AIDS, just to have the full sensation of unprotected sex, the demonic is evident and present there.

Here is an example of the beauty of the multi-dimensional experience of normal, healthy, male to female sexuality that I have experienced.

A policeman dropped me off at a convenience store during the dead of a cold, long winter years ago, because my car had broken down on the highway.

This was to help me to find a phone. At the store I discovered a young man I'd worked with at a security company a couple summers before. At that time he was only about sixteen and a half, but now at eighteen, he was the picture of masculinity with only traces of boyhood left behind.

He was adorable! There was something so innocent about him, so unspoiled; yet he seemed bursting with the thoughts and feelings of a grown man.

I looked at him and literally sent a thought up to God, "this is the object of my greatest desire." Just as my thought emerged, the young man turned, looked at me and smiled.

The affirmation this gave me is something unparalleled on earth. The ordeal I was having with the car and being in a lonely place in the middle of "urban-sprawl" was softened, even made happy by this young man.

I remember thinking how the feelings he was giving me were health to my mind, my body. This was not a sordid lust - this was the purest and surest form of the basic attraction we all feel who long for the opposite sex.

The warmth that came from him was almost a tangible river. I could feel it. I think when we feel this desire, this pure, healthy version of sexuality we are ministered to.

When I sit next to a homosexual male in a cafe or a computer lab - wherever, and he's someone who has all the obvious signs of being gay, almost inevitably I can clearly observe that he cannot, or will not share the current that often runs between a male and me similar to the one described above.

He coldly shuts me out, except in the case of the type of gay man I described at the beginning where by some accident he is attracted to me.

Otherwise, the cold is also almost as tangible as ice. Again, I want to mention that homosexuality carries with it a face, a look, a sound in the voice - that is so unattractive. Think about it - why does it change one's appearance to look and sound strange?

That's why it didn't surprise me that the actor in Will and Grace isn't gay. He isn't gross enough.

Does this not alert the gay person to the truth about him, that he is living a big lie? Yes, and I also know that many who are caught in the gay lifestyle feel trapped, regardless of how hideous they may seem. That prison has been opened by Jesus Christ.

The gay person suffocates and twists what is so profoundly basic in us all. He causes himself ill health, damage. Lesbians and gays are trying to undermine the most fundamental area of their lives! Can you imagine rejecting something as basic as your gender? How miserable!

Adam wasn't happy in Paradise because he was alone. As the saying goes it was Eve not Steve, her, not him who made the difference. God made her out of him so she wouldn't be something that much different, i.e., "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh."

It was not God's idea to create anything so far from Adam, just something that would reciprocate needs and feelings in a way that would be far better than something identical.

And male and female is one of the most basic and concrete plans God ever showed us. I laugh to think of going against that.

I think of the profound way in which God did that, how men do compliment me and provide so much that a woman can't. I am in awe of this perfect idea and the fact that so much of that perfection is still present in the world.

After all this time I still see my Adam in so many men, having a part in Eve. If you do not accept the biblical story, I cannot convince you or find any frame of reference for you.

How is it that homosexuals have gained so much ground in our society today that we are being told how to think, how to act? There has begun an undermining of our foundations through deadly, "snaky" brainwashing.

Don't impose upon me your same-sex mentality! Lesbianism can only undermine the beautiful love between my mother and myself in which sexuality would be absurd, or the love between me and my blood sisters, and all wonderful loves between me and other mothers and sisters who come into my life.

I will defend to the death these safe, non-sexual relationships against the systematic and lecherous undermining going on, by minds so open their brains are falling out!

How can you live day-by-day killing the power of biological urges, which go to the core of our survival? These urges have caused men to worship women in monosyllabic tones, and these urges have caused women to go through hell in order to have the child they have been told it is not possible to have with the man they love.

How can anyone live in opposition to the first and most basic thing God built into our life on Earth every day of their lives and not only that - also brag about it?

What kind of insane bitterness from rejection or what revulsion of nature could possess such people? Think about it.

There is a deluge that has begun to move in our direction in Western society - starting with the acceptance of the disease of homosexuality, under the guise of coming to the aid of the people afflicted by it, and feeding off of every shred of guilt we may have from ill treatment in the past of homosexuals. And what is our defense? What is our survival packet? Here it is:

A) Ask God to show you that you too are capable of homosexuality. It seems strange, it hurts, and it's ugly to see such a thing within you. No one is above this sin. No one! It shouldn't surprise us to see this within us.

B) Confess your sinfulness to God and ask God to cleanse and purge you. It doesn't matter if you have sinned in this area already or not.

Repentance and forgiveness are two of the greatest weapons of the Christian, in fact, two of the greatest luxuries. You will find power. Use communion - it is also powerful, and rightfully yours if you desire to separate from sin.

C) Live life free from heterosexual lusts. Heterosexual lust leaves the doors wide open to homosexuality.

D) Above all - find Christ's righteousness through his death and resurrection. Do not rely on your own righteousness - a deadly trap.

If Jesus was tempted even in this way, but did not freak out and tell himself he must be gay, then you too can face the temptations to perverted thoughts without owning them, without letting them pigeonhole you.

E) Failure in relationships with people of the opposite sex doesn't have to freak you out. Many are experiencing failure today, because it takes two to make it work, and you can't control the other person's choices.

It can take time to iron out all the kinks that have come from the things that haven't been right in one's life. Find the wisdom of patience.

F) You need to learn about inherited sin. Yes, it's true that our genetics can bring homosexuality, because sin patterns and tendencies are inherited. It doesn't make it natural. It means that it gets passed down. Lucky you. Jesus broke all curses at the cross and can break yours.

G) The good news is that if something is a sin, all we need to do is repent, and Jesus will wash us from it. This was such a breakthrough revelation when I had bulimia years ago.

When I got out of High School I suddenly got fat from eating the way I did as a teen. It was so bad I found myself throwing up to keep from getting fat. My gluttonous eating was so horrible and I wanted to stop.

I was so blessed to know that gluttonous eating was a sin and all I needed to do was repent, because then according to the scriptures 'if we confess our sins He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.'

Repentance, then, has the power to cleanse us from whatever the problem. Any other type of problem is not as easy to remove if it is not a sin we are committing.

I confessed my gluttony as a sin and was released from gluttony from that time forward. I’ve never had that problem again.

Homosexuality is a compound of sins, therefore a serious condition and not easily overcome, yet nothing is impossible for God. It is rebellion against the simplest most basic plan and design of God.

This rebellion may be forged out of an extreme hurt or disappointment, causing us to lash out at God, who we feel has betrayed us.

It is lust, the kind I have described in another essay, a hateful, unkind, unloving wish for another person.

It is perversion - twisting something out of its original and intended shape. It is hate and violence.

There is no love in sexuality that is against God's way of sexuality because God is love. It is a serious sin condition that breeds in affluent and complacent societies like ours. If you have fallen in, it’s not too late. God has an answer. Call on the Lord and you will be delivered.

I feel terrible for those who are plagued by homosexuality, who have found they are vulnerable to this.

I will offer you my compassion, to find healing and be restored to the person you were meant to be, but I cannot respond to you as long as you expect me to believe that you are normal.

Note: I have encountered trouble in completing this project. I feel sure that the subject I have just presented to you is one of the enemy angel's most treasured conquests in the world today and that certain principalities and rulers of this present darkness in the world desire to propagate the homosexual kind to the furthest degree possible.

As in the days of the prophets of Baal, I know my God is the one who can consume the works of our enemy gods.

Go in peace. The force of the Holy Spirit is with you!

Exodus International: www.exodus.to/ phone no: 888-264-0877

It's Not Gay, It's Queer

2009-03-29T11:04:00.000-07:00

I prefer the word "queer", not gay for this, because gay you are not. Gay means happy. You know you are not happy. If you were truly happy, you'd have no reason to end the misery. But you can let misery propel you to end the problem. Those who are comfortable and happy in this sin are lost - eternally, but I know that is not you.

WORDS FOR THE HOMOSEXUAL YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS

Oh to be "gay"

I sit at table with my male friend
I look over and see a young man, and his "friend."
They are conspicuously dressed in 1920's hair and 1920's
sweaters. Something about the face is tight. It's awful.
One of them sees me. He begins to look longer. He begins
to look admiringly. He begins to look longingly.
I look again and catch him looking. He snaps head around to
avoid me. His friend returns. They leave the bar/restaurant
and he detours to pass by the window in front of my friend and me.
He looks at me. Deep inside, I gasp. I pray a prayer for his confusion because I believe he and his friend are "gay."

(I believe this was written when I was "too good to miss")

Homophobia makes sense. What if I am capable of homosexuality? We know for sure that it can happen to a whole society.

I mean, loosely recalling history I know that in Greece the military was 90% gay towards the end of their great civilization. End, that is.

So, if Homosexuals inject their thinking full-force into the society trying to influence others, and are accepted - that's it! The writing is on the wall. Decline ahead. I believe we are seriously heading for a fall.

The man who plays "Will" in the TV show "Will and Grace" said on a recent talk show he believes we'll all be gay someday.

Yeh, over my dead body, Mr. Know-it-all! That possibility is not something I would boast about on a talk show. Interesting that he and the other main gay character are actually straight. Weird, but I was so happy to find it out.

I thought they were straight. Why is that? What happens to a man that even converts his exterior self to reveal that he is "queer" indeed.

We do not know if we are capable of becoming Sodom and Gomorrah. It's about the collective mind. Christ seems to have more interest in us than that. Look at the door that has been opened to the enemy of our souls, allowing AIDS.

Yet here is a crisis that could bring someone out of sin, if they let it. I do believe the disease comes from consequence, in general. (Therefore God can remove it on the behalf of the penitent one.)

I have a right to fear not only disease, but also the moral disease that can erode a culture, that can desensitize people to what is right and wrong, that can weaken the moral fiber. Excuuuuuse me, then for my "homophobia," but I'm gonna say these things if it causes trouble, or not.

Of course one must not hate people for homosexuality as has been done in the past. We must not insist that people live in dark corners alone, unable to talk about the strange desires they are not able to control, and try to brush the problem and the people under the rug.

There is healing for the homosexual through basic principles laid down in the Bible, and that healing has perhaps been denied for too long, so we reap the consequences.

As a society we eventually suffer as a whole for our neglect of homosexuals as their bitterness and hatred escalate. The power they have over us comes from the guilt we harbor deep down from our own part in the problem - our neglect.

The word homosexual means same-sexual (homo=same,) therefore the word applies to male or female and shouldn't be used to denote only males of that orientation.

In observing two lesbians, or female homosexuals, I noticed one was very pretty, the other looked like a lesbian (could that have been the perverse turning up of the corners of the mouth as she looked at me?)

She had short, black hair, and a very rugged face. Ok, let me stop here and acknowledge - homosexual sex is a part of the human race because we all are capable of just going after kinky, wild forms of sex - it's in us. I am not exempt. Some are more vulnerable to that.

Back to the "queer" women - OOOOH isn't it just sweet and cozy? Together they left the cafe where I found them, the pretty one of the two, the unlikely one (of course), took the masculine role, surrounding the other one with her hands and arms.

Because it's weird, it's kinky, it's not how it's supposed to be and that's rebellious. Rebellion can appeal to you if you have given up on the things you once loved that were right.

They are so "close." It led me to thinking...

1) Women get their periods at the same time when they live together. Ish. Yuck. The thought of touching another woman's menstrual blood, it makes me cringe. But for a man, it’s not a problem or disgusting at all.

Why should it be? When the mind becomes perverse, when you want to rebel against what is normal, you can learn to overcome what would otherwise be objectionable. You can learn to love what is disgusting. The thought of oral sex with another woman-it also makes me nauseous. Involving myself with labia, or vaginal discharge (unless as a gynecologist) ISH! ISH! ISH! What possesses a woman so that she can love such a thing? Need I say?

2) Don't things hit these two over the head once in a while, such as, a woman can never truly make love to another woman with a part of her body, the one thing which makes sexuality between a man and woman extremely charged and strange, but fantastic?

A man puts an extremely sensitive part of his own body inside the woman. This is the profound, the symbolic thing about heterosexual (normal) sex that is so essential and cannot in any way, shape, form be replaced in homosexual sex by either gender.

To say that it is replaced in any way is stupid and absurd. Doesn't it seem absolutely ridiculous, childish, flat and empty to be trying to simulate what a man does each and every time they strap on a fake penis? It should remind them that a man has a real flesh and blood penis.

They don't care if this is absurd because they enjoy bashing God and God's beautiful creation. However, that is something we all are capable of, I want to add, but usually because the good things have been destroyed for us.

Always in male homosexual sex one person is uncomfortable or in pain while the other is getting a cheap, merely physical imitation of true, fulfilling sex. Interesting that God's ideal is that both parties feel ecstasy at the same time, with body parts complementing each other in a way that it is not painful, but also, homosexuals seem to miss the fact that there is a deep, spiritual component built into God's way of sex that is only present with male and female.

Both feel wonderful sensations at the same time, but both fulfill some God-given need, in part, as they merge with the other sex.

It is as fundamental as God saying he made man in his image: male and female. The true Godhead is made complete as male and female unite. The mystery that Apostle Paul talked about lay in the fact that God has become the lover of mankind as male is lover to the female.

It seems possible that the two become one because the oneness created is a total picture of the Godhead who himself said that his image is made up of male and female. (See Genesis.)

It amazes me that for the sake of whatever the homosexual is trying to 'prove' he or she endures third-rate sex that is merely the physical aspect of getting an orgasm or some kind of physical pleasure. It is shallow.

There are those who try to say it is good sex. How unbelievable. How stupid. They are referring to an erotic experience that can in no way come close to what male and female can experience because of the dimensions God has placed within it. And in giving in, and going to the homosexual dimension, they have lost the ability to truly experience the mysterious, wonderfulness of what God has given to male and female.

God did not place within males and females the same dimensions with their own sex as he placed within male and female towards each other.

Homosexuals cannot see the third and fourth dimensions that cannot possibly exist between them. What? Do homosexual men find a perfect replacement in having the penis enter the part of the body that disposes of bodily waste? HA! What mockery of the creation! And that's what it is. It is mockery because it is forged in cynicism - when we give up on the good things.

When the penis is sinking into human feces - this perfectly replaces the union of male and female? What? While one man looks down at another man's back, and causes him pain while he finds momentary pleasure of the rankest kind? This is "wonderful?" HUH? Are you insane? I really think so.

Homosexual love is not actually love for your own sex - to the contrary. There is an underlying hatred or disgust for one's own sex, not to mention, there is hatred for the opposite sex, despite what many will claim.

I have examined these things carefully, having also been tempted by the gay lifestyle. I have observed the fundamental basis for this temptation. It was deterioration that brought this temptation. It was the deterioration of my hopes regarding the opposite sex.

I believe when one is hurt by the opposite sex and after going ahead of God and indulging sexuality outside of a loving commitment, what God would have, one can become so deeply wounded.

I can see clearly, having passed through these same portals more than once, where the spirit of the age was beating against my soul and where homosexual thoughts came flooding in and I didn’t have the usual resistance.

I can see that there is a cynicism that comes in with the hurt, and homosexuality is a result of the cynicism. Ugh. Are you ready for the truth? Homosexuality is a compound of evils, of sins. These words cannot help the one who just doesn't care about all this. For those who never really cared about the good things, about God's good things, God's ways - this is meaningless. I am speaking to the ones who care, or who once cared.

Satan is lying to you. It has a lot to do with the collective unconscious of a place, and the spirits in that place, something I understand now but didn't then, when I first felt overwhelmed by a new temptation to perversion.

There I was, 28 years old, and let me tell you how heterosexual I am, how I've always adored the male. Yet, at 28, living in central Philadelphia surrounded by transvestites waiting for their turn to have their sex change at the Philadelphia hospital, which is renowned for it's sex changes, I was being attacked by something new and unwelcome. I was being bombarded by homosexual thoughts.

My sister shared a passage from some book years ago. I can't remember if it was C.S. Lewis or who it was, but he stated that he observed living in a location, I believe it was Israel, how different the influence of the west bank from the east bank.

He noticed that the prevailing attitudes and behavior of the people in the area he was living strongly influenced his own thinking. He noticed that where he otherwise wouldn't think certain thoughts or have certain impulses, yet living in that particular location, he had those thoughts and impulses.

I think that Carl Jung tried to define that as the collective unconscious. I know now that it goes beyond the power of minds and the power that one mind can have over another. I also know that spirits - wicked spirits can overwhelm and control minds.

Living in Central Philadelphia was negative because of many negative spiritual influences. I didn't know how to "hold them back' as well as I do now, and I am still learning. My experience in a church in Toronto was that the administration had created a sanctuary where the wicked spirits were pushed back and the spirit of God prevailed to create the sweetest atmosphere. But Central Philadelphia was having a different sort of influence.

Just prior to this I was living on the other coast in Los Angeles. The collective unconscious of that particular region is very powerful and controlling also. I had been influenced by the attitudes and behavior of L.A. at a time when some were choosing to escape typical lifestyles and try celibacy.

A new movement was under way called "neo-celibacy". The old kind was monks and nuns. The new kind was people reacting to the damage done by promiscuity, lust, and a casual environment for sex. A guy told me, "It's either become a neo-celibate or become gay." In other words: either get off the sex merry-go-round or let it take you even further into a wilder, cruder form of self-indulgence and perversion.

And I had just moved to Philadelphia where people weren't old fashioned anymore. Oh no! You can't let that "old world" exterior fool you.

Brotherly love is now brotherly lust. I had stopped the destruction and become a neo-celibate a little too late. I had also gotten pregnant and it led to a miscarriage. Miscarriages are a lot more traumatic and dangerous than people realize. Post miscarriage is a time of mourning and a time of psychological vulnerability.

The damage had been done. Me - a raging heterosexual! I suddenly felt like putty, strangely without resistance to sensual thoughts and feelings. My head was reeling.

I felt as if I was losing my mind. It didn't seem possible that I was getting thoughts of perversion, and I didn't want to admit it. Wow! I would know today exactly what was happening. The collective unconscious and the wicked spirits of a metropolis are controlling. Yes, I had to deal with something in me, but there was something outside of me I never understood.

Satan has been given a degree of power to be able to invade our thought lives. If you get a thought of perversion, why does it surprise you? You still have a flesh side of you and the enemy can influence it. There is no need for panic or to think you are now "gay."

No one is gay, that is a lie. Everyone is either male or female, and everyone is capable of perverting the normal way of the genders. That your flesh would want to pervert sexuality should be no surprise. But if Christ has bought you, you can just say, "no" to the enemy. Just send the author of sin away, and confess your own sin.

I finally sought out the group called HARVEST at Tenth Presbyterian in downtown Philadelphia (restoration for the homosexual through Jesus.) Partly, I chose this ministry because it was all I could find in that town that had living, evangelical Christianity. Here at last were people whose lives had been truly transformed by Christ, and they were thankful to Jesus for it.

Finally, in the privacy of my own home I simply came to terms with the reality that I was capable of the sin of homosexuality, and that I had opened a door through my heterosexual sins. Something had been conceived within me, though not realized through experience. I simply confessed this to God, while taking a bath, and asked him to cleanse me of this sin.

An important element is that I needed to recognize and confess that I could not stand in my own righteousness. No. I needed to come to the end of that, and to accept that I too could become homosexual and am capable of perversion. In the transaction that took place, I confessed my sin that had brought me to this place, but also received the righteousness of Jesus in place of my own. In that I found grace and strength to overcome.

Wham! I came out of that weird struggle overnight. Simple confession and forgiveness are great weapons of the Christian. I was afraid that sin would grow in me and lead to actions, and confession stopped that.

It's important to note that I will always recognize the potential I have for that sin, and will never assume that I am beyond it. This gives me great power against it. It is our strongest defense. Self-righteousness will never hold up. It's His righteousness or no righteousness.

We are tested and tempted by our living in the world. Not being of the world is only possible in the strength of His righteousness replacing our own. Yes, the self-righteous attitude of those who do not feel tempted by homosexuality, and maybe never have, can be cruel and loveless.

Violence is an element of homosexuality. It exists in homosexuality because it exists wherever there is lust. I will later add scriptures that confirm this. There are several scriptures that link violence to lust. I will outline this in my essay entitled merely: "sexuality." The evidence is everywhere.

Homosexuality proves that there always have been two kinds of desire involved in human sexuality.

One: the multi-dimensional longing to join with the body of the gender with which one can create new life, and find affection and love according to nature and God, i.e. male to female.

Two: the desire for pleasure, for kinky diversions from love, for other people's spouses in order to play a game or cause pain (a destructive wish,) for a physical sensation and experience with anything or anyone for the sake of excitement, or the desire for someone in a kind of idolatry, or the desire for someone as a conquest for the sake of ego. These I label with one word: lust, whether they be between male and female or of the same sex.

Homosexuality is not only the second kind of desire; it is taking it to the next level, taking us deeper into bondage. It's lust gone completely wrong, completely out of control. It cannot have the dimensions of health and love, and it is not surprising that it has fostered so much disease (syphilis now occurs only in homosexual males, did you know?)

Don't give me your hare-brained sentiment about how homosexuality can belong to the first category if the situation is right! Homosexuality is intrinsically and without exception an evil diversion from healthy sexuality and nothing you can do can redeem it from that.

You think marriage can redeem it? Hilarious.

You cannot experience love for your own sex and include lust, there is no possible way.

Homosexuals have damaged the one relationship in which the most pure and self-less love can be found-fraternal love. What is fraternal love? It is an unselfish love felt toward a brother or sister, which does not include sensuality or sexual desire.

Just as with our pets, we can get a non-sexual, and thus non-threatening touch from our brother or our sister, or our friend of the same gender. In homosexuality, this is being threatened.

It is one of the purest loves, right up there with mother or father love. It is a relationship in which we can retreat and know we are not being used, that there is nothing to be desired about us but our true selves. For the homosexual, lust has spilled over into that relationship too. There are no boundaries. There are no safe places.

I don't know how I could handle the tragedy of losing the beautiful love that I now can have with another woman or the tragedy of losing the protection I have against elements of desire that would pervade it.

To lose that would tell me to scream in terror. But because of an overwhelming deluge of perversion and of lust, the homosexual lives that nightmare which I cannot bear to imagine.

Even in my relationships with men, it seems only the ones which do not include sexual desire last and demonstrate true love. In any relationship where we introduce sexuality, problems always seem to come so easily.

If sexuality is spilling over into all sorts of relationships where once one felt "safe" from them, one cannot experience this without misery, unless one is merely a devil or a son of the devil.

How horrible when a father sees his daughter no longer as a beloved child but he sees her body, her sexuality and takes an interest only in the pleasure it might give him.

How horrible when a person sees an animal and instead of having a divine respect for a species given by God to mankind for a divine purpose, sees it as a means of sexual pleasure. This could be a dog or a horse.

Men have looked at the opening on a sheep, and seeing it’s not that different from a human female, they have decided to have sex with a sheep. What can you say about such a man? Such a person as this has lost all self-respect, all hope, all faith, all life, all love.

Do I have to remind you that AIDS reportedly began with someone doing this same thing with a monkey? There are built in consequences when sin goes to the extreme. Thank God. Without consequences we would not know for sure if anything were wrong.

Imagine, a man saw that a monkey is a higher species, and has an opening, a vagina similar to a woman, and says, "I'll have sex with that." He sees a boy, and since boys can be small and delicate with smooth skin, he can't see the difference between that and a soft, delicate woman. No boundaries!

Something horrible happens to a society where the boundaries surrounding those who should be protected, or those who are completely inappropriate for sex are destroyed. That society becomes very, very ill. And that's what I see happening, and my soul is troubled.

Satan is a thief, a killer and a destroyer. He wants nothing more than to see you and the culture around you sink into lust and perversion, with no boundaries, and uncontrolled passions and desires until you turn into a pile of mush!

All the colors of relationships just run into one muddy mess. That way you and others will lose all strength and energy for life and lose all inspiration for the things that really matter and you and those around you will be destroyed. This is happening to our society. It is terrifying.

Why have so many societies and countries disappeared into fragments of history? Because, Satan did them in too. They eventually were overtaken by passionate hatred, greed, anger, vengeance, lust, murder and perversion.

Just think of where things can end up. Think of those strong characters of honor we depend on to hold our society together. If they get old and die and are not replaced, it is a tragedy.

Since this is such a long essay, I have divided it in half. See part 2.

To contact an organization that helps people resolve unwanted homosexuality, look up the website: www.exodus.to/ called Exodus International or call 888-264-0877. There are thousands of success stories of kicking the gay lifestyle.

How Jesus Saved Me!

2009-03-28T09:33:00.000-07:00

There have been two giants in my life, seemingly sent to destroy me: a father who didn’t seem to love me, and mental illness.

My father is a retired pastor, so he lived a double life. He was a ‘man of the cloth’ to the public, but to his family and to me, he was an angry man. He lashed out at me and hurt me, verbally and physically all through my childhood.

When I turned 18, I suddenly had a terrible manic episode. It was like having a bad LSD trip, only I hadn’t taken drugs. Suddenly, all my plans were destroyed – no college for me. I was suddenly unable to do the things I was once able to do, and that is how I have been ever since – fragile.

But that is not the whole story.

When I had the episode, I went to my mother and asked Jesus into my heart. Getting into a bible study with my peers followed this, and I began to seek God for the first time in my life. I also forgave my father. At least, it was the first layer of forgiveness for him.

Even though I was seeking God, a year after I had the first episode, and each year for four years after that, I had subsequent manic episodes. Each time, my mother had the wisdom to take me, not to a hospital, but to faith healers.

A couple of times she took me to a hospital, but when I came out and was on drugs and was no better, it became clear that there was no solution in drugs or doctors, so she still had to take me to a faith healer. Through their prayer ministry, I was delivered instantly from manic-depressive symptoms. My manic episode would come to an immediate halt in the name of Jesus!

Finally, in the fourth year, the last faith healer I went to ministered powerfully to me during an episode, and I walked away free.

I didn’t have another episode, at least for eleven years.

Now you would think that I would just be grateful to God and would serve him joyfully because of that. I didn’t. Just because of the mental illness that I had gone through, I doubted God and strayed from Him.

For those years, I had no episodes, just some depression and some slight symptoms that remained – nothing major. But, in order to be rid of those, I went to a psychiatrist. Can you believe that? God had helped me through faith healers, but now I had strayed and was going to a psychiatrist for help.

The psychiatrist put me on some powerful psychotropic medication. I was OK for a couple of years, but then there were these side effects. I started to gain weight. My hair stopped growing. I was miserable. When I tried to go off medication, a manic episode would result! Now I was really miserable! I felt trapped!

In addition to this, I lost the only man I had ever truly been in love with. I was devastated. The good thing about it is that it drove me to the Lord.

Thank God for what drives us back to Him!

You probably want to hear that all my problems ended after that! No! My problems only began at that point! The problems with manic-depression only intensified.

I found the most amazing church in Toronto, the one they call the Toronto Blessing. And there I discovered a love relationship with God like nothing I have ever known.

Two years after I found that I had a horrific car accident while having a bizarre manic episode. I got into a car and drove into a tree, losing a joint in my right foot, and causing a scar across my right shoulder.

I had just begun to learn more about the importance of forgiveness, John Arnott’s favorite message, the Senior pastor at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship.

It's been an intense spiritual battle all the while pursuing a love relationship with God.

Through it all I’ve found restoration in my soul and in my relationships. I moved back in with my parents after about twenty years of not living with them. I discovered with an attempt to live with them twenty years ago, that living with them was a large part of the mental illness. I'm successfully living with them and having a blessed time with them, helping my dad now that he is disabled.

I had once rejected my family and sought to avoid them, since I had issues with all of them, not just my dad. But now I spend most of my time with them, and have forgiven them, and continue to forgive them.

I have a good job where I have respect and some management responsibilities. I sing at my parents’ church.

God is so real to me and I continue a love relationship with Him where He is the most important thing in my life. Since all the episodes that I went through, I can see that the enemy was trying to stop the growth and healing that was taking place but didn’t succeed.

I’ve also been healed of back trouble and gum disease. I believe God will someday restore the joint that is missing from my foot.

The doctors, who I once feared, have lowered my meds and I can foresee a day when I’ll be taken off of meds completely.

Praise Jesus!

2/17/09

What Is A Frat Rat?

2009-03-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

Published in a University paper in the early 90’s.

The ancient Greeks were never able to answer one very important question, and the question still haunts the Greeks today: What is a frat rat?

I am here to answer that question.

Who am I?

A cleaning lady. I'm one of those artists who tries to write and paint and stuff and so I work...on the side.

I do jobs like clean houses, or chop up buffalo chips while trying to sell my 1000 sketches of upside-down rhinoceros butts(just as an example.)

I was cleaning the home of this nice, older couple in south Minneapolis one day when their son showed up. He was a gorgeous, young Italian type who introduced himself as Romeo.

I said, "Hi-yi-yi" and he said he would like me to come and work for his fraternity because they really needed help.

"Boy do they need help," I thought. I ended up working there for the next five years, and concluding, "I adore frat guys."

Me and the guys got along famously right away. They complimented me or they ridiculed me, all in fun.

Sometimes they put creepy things in the bathroom sinks, but I thought it was a laugh riot.

Most importantly, all their fraternity-style antics simply made my day, and the rowdy characters were just great for my self-esteem.

I'm not saying things couldn't get carried away, but the guys responded to my limits and boundaries. If things went too far I could draw the line.

And, as for rape. HA! I never feared that, especially since these guys have adoring females everywhere. What did they need me for?

Oh please, don't even think it. They aren't really ancient pagans, they're just named after them. To be completely honest, the real concern at fraternity X was how to keep me from sexually harassing them. Ladies have you seen some of these guys?

They all have girlfriends or hope for one, they all want to get married and often do when the four years are up. Where does the stereotype fit in? What's the big deal anyway?

Many times one of the guys would get into a serious discussion with me about the things that mattered in his life. Some told me they go to church regularly and went into a lengthy discourse on why.

Each fraternity is known to be involved in some kind of philanthropy. They are mostly just plain sweethearts, hilariously funny, talented, and highly intelligent. Why do people give them the worst rap? Why did I at one time?

Perhaps the answer lies in this: they remind me of the young men in The Dead Poet's Society-- they are privileged, slightly upper-crusty boys, and as endearing as the characters in the film.

I think what sends people puking is the fact that they have such cohesiveness as a group and are generally so upbeat. They belong to each other and THEY have a community in an over-sized University. They are, for the most part, let's face it- winners!

Yet they will never hold you to that. For each one is an individual plagued with insecurities like anyone else, trying to get his own life off the ground. And that's all they are thinking about, not about being better than you.

What is a frat rat? He's an occasional member of a fraternity who...drinks too much beer at a party and tries to score with a girl he just met. HMMMM, this just sounds too much like a large number of ordinary college guys in their wild oats phase.

OK, how about this? A frat rat never commits to any girl. HMMM, try again. A frat rat...feels superior. Oh brother, how many guys in their prime don't feel that way occasionally?

Try again. A frat rat...gets a tan. Oh I don't know what a frat rat is. I can't be sure I've ever met one, or would recognize one if I did. Let's get real.

Ladies! I've got a secret. Next time you see Campus Carni or Homecoming antics being put on by Larry, Moe or Curly of Fraternityville, USA, go and check them out. I guarantee there's a chance that one of those guys is the man you're gonna spend the rest of your life with.