Category: Sex

Is Satan the embodiment of Sin?

I woke up with this concept on my mind: “Is Satan the embodiment of sin?” Please give this some thought, does this make sense to you?

Mornings tend to be the most spiritual time for me. Some mornings, I wake up with a strong thought about something and I have no idea why that thought popped into my mind. Sometimes it’s a dream, sometimes it’s a clarity about something, sometimes it’s a “message” that I feel compelled to share. Often when it is the “message” type, later in the day I will see the same message, sometimes even the exact same sequence of words being spoken by another Christian, and sometimes numerous Christians in the same day will say the same thing. When that happens, I can’t help but think there was more to it. It wasn’t just “my thought”, it was God using various people to pass on the message. I don’t know if God is giving me clarity here about Sin and Satan?

Let’s think about when “sin” entered the world. It happened in the biblical story of Adam and Eve when the serpent deceived Eve and she disobeyed, then caused Adam to disobey the only command God gave them. Pay attention to this too: God was walking (and you can trace this back to the Hebrew word: Halak in scripture) in the garden when He called for Adam. My conclusion is that God was present with Adam and Eve. This concept works whether you believe the story of Adam and Eve is figurative or literal. God was present with mankind on earth at that point in time, before sin entered, but then the Bible doesn’t seem to describe the same possible “physical” presence after that: God remains omnipresent though, it just seems “differently described” after that. It seems (my opinion) that if God is present and a sinful person comes into His presence, the “sinful” person will die: an example is when God told Moses to keep the people away or they would die at Mt. Sinai when he revealed the 10 Commandments to Moses. And interestingly, the 10 Commandments were placed in the Ark of the Covenant and God appointed a specific group of people, the Levites, to be the ones to carry the Ark. The arc was known to be “holy” and there were many rules about being in the presence of the Ark. In fact, there was a story of men transporting the Ark and one of the men reached out and touched the Ark to save it from falling (which would be a “kind” action), but he instantly died. If the man was sinful (and all people are naturally) and the Ark is holy, that would make sense, follow the logic, explaining why he died instantly. Yes the bible tells us God caused that to happen, but was it because of the law (Sin leads to death and the sinful will die in the presence of God or what God defines as “Holy”)? There were also stories of people who stole the Ark and then had calamities happen to them and at one point there was a passing back and forth of the Ark (you take it, “no, you take it”) that I recall from reading the Bible too. This logic seems to make sense to me.

As I was writing this, I had more clarity about “sacrificing.” I wrote about this before and have always struggled with God requiring a “sacrifice.” Why would He ever do that? Why would God allow people to kill animals in the sinner’s place? I really struggled with these questions. However, I just recalled there are many entries in the bible where God states: “I am not happy with your sacrifices! They are worthless!” But yet God told the people specifically what they had to do. Think about this logically: if sin leads to death, then death is a consequence of sin. We know God places a high value on people and doesn’t want people to perish so if God made the law that Sin becomes Death, then if a person sins, according to God’s law, the person must die, but God didn’t want that, but in accordance with His law, there had to be a death as a penalty for sin. Therefore a life must be sacrificed or given up, so God allowed animals as a substitute for people during the Old Testament time. Of course I would not question God about that sacrifice not being proper, knowing who He is, I just didn’t understand this, I couldn’t accept it, but I knew there had to be a reason for it, I just didn’t understand. But throughout the Bible it states that God’s word will remain. Now I think I am beginning to understand: God didn’t want ANY OF THIS! Remember one of the 10 Commandments God gave us: Do not murder. (Does this have a slightly different definition than kill?) The living sacrifice only came about because of Sin and the law was the penalty of Sin is death. There had to be a resolution, an end to the killing, an end to the sacrificing. But it couldn’t stop unless the law was fulfilled, so God (the only one more powerful than all) took personal action, through Jesus, who became the final sacrifice that ended it. Jesus was the sacrifice that no one else could be, no one else has the value of Jesus, was sinless, without blemish, only Jesus. The Son of God is the only one who is worthy to be the substitute for all the sacrifices, and to be the sacrifice for our sin, Jesus was the final sacrifice. We should be thankful, Jesus ended this horrible act.

Getting back to Satan being the embodiment of Sin. The Bible tells us the life we are experiencing is more than what most of us realize: it is a spiritual war happening. Satan, and his followers, rebelled against God and are fighting against God still today. You may ask: Why doesn’t God simply kill Satan then? If He is all powerful, why doesn’t He just take care of it now? My opinion, from what I understand from the bible is that God gives everyone a choice to love and obey Him, but God has a timeline for each and every one of us already determined: a time to be born and a time to have a physical death and that time in between is our opportunity to choose God or reject God. We have numbered opportunities (so don’t waste them). If God did that for us, wouldn’t it be possible for God to do that for Satan too? If God is Love, that conclusion/opinion makes sense.

Here is another opinion/thought about the Bible: maybe God knew how confusing and tough this spiritual war would be for all of mankind to comprehend and experience, so in His love for us, He spoke through the authors and gave us this information (the scripture), so we would know there is a good ending (God wins): don’t give up!

The Bible reveals the last thing that Jesus conquers in this spiritual battle is DEATH. The Sin that leads to death is blasphemy of the Spirit. (Blasphemy: the act or offense of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things; profane talk.) All other sins can be forgiven by God, if a desired change in action occurs and one asks God for forgiveness, God is merciful and he forgives. Satan is cast into the lake of fire for eternity = Sin and Death are gone forever.

Think about this: God is Love. Satan is Sin. There is a spiritual battle happening and it is between God and Satan.

Sin separates us from God. Satan is sin. Satan wants to separate us from God; he seeks to kill and destroy. When we choose sin, we are allowing, permitting Satan spiritual access to our bodies, our mind, our being. Satan/Sin is powerful, appealing but deceiving, it’s manipulative, full of lies and people are influenced and drawn to it naturally (sin is an evil spiritual force). People are not more powerful than the spiritual beings, but God is. Who/whatever we give access to will influence and determine the outcome of our existence.

When we allow God access (by surrendering our life, or asking God to take over/guide our life) we then permit God spiritual access (through the Holy Spirit) to our bodies, our mind, our being.

God has always allowed “choice.” So what are you choosing?

by Categories: Face Fear, FAITH, FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP, God, Improvement, Love, parenting, Parents, priorities, RELATIONSHIPS, Sex, WellnessTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Our Parents, Parenting and Jesus

Oh my gosh when information found in the Bible starts connecting to various scripture throughout the Bible about a single subject, an awakening/eye opening occurs and, I felt compelled to write about this even though there are so many other things I have to do right now.

Months ago, while reading in Genesis, I noticed something that stood out to me:

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring (seed) and hers; he will crush (strike) your head, and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:15

This is God speaking to the serpent. Does anyone else notice something odd? He is talking to a serpent and refers to your “offspring”. Look at this definition of a “serpent” too, then pay attention to a detail in Genesis 3:14:

So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You WILL crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.

This statement refers to the future, not the current moment. Evidently the “serpent” WASN’T existing as a snake crawling on its belly UNTIL God cursed it! It (the serpent) was something specific, but not what we know as a “snake” when all this took place. What we understand from the bible comes from translations and depictions in artwork, but when we study God’s word, a deeper understanding occurs. Did you ever wonder why God, in the commandments He gave to Moses, told them not to make images of ANYTHING in heaven or on earth or below earth? (See Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 4) This was meant to discourage worshiping anything other than God, but also when we make an image in our mind of something we have not seen, it is only our imagination; it is not true reality! This is also the reason many people can mock this story, saying: wow a snake talking to people, right?!…but this isn’t just a “snake”!

So after we discover the fact that this wasn’t a hissing snake that deceived Eve, then there is the second part of this odd statement: “your offspring” or “your seed”. This implies that there are offspring from this serpent! This explains why God could justifiably wipe out or destroy a bunch of people.

Remember God is just, God is trustworthy, God is faithful to His people, God NEVER abandons His people. People abandon God, by their own choice.

People may bring up examples of good people who were hurt, destroyed or died untimely deaths and say: “that is not just, that is not fair, God is not just” but the answer to this is in the Bible too. When this happens, this is NOT God! Remember that. In God’s future Kingdom, there is no death, no weeping, no pain, no disease- this is God’s future plan for those who don’t CHOOSE to abandon God! The only reason for disease, pain, sadness, depression, etc. is due to the opposing evil forces working against God in an attempt to destroy our relationship and reliance on God. God is good; only God is good. Be careful, we need to be able to recognize evil and we only get that intuition from God (the Holy Spirit) who gives wisdom and discernment. Evil forces are deceiving, why do you think Paul said to put on the armor of God? Evil spiritual forces will appear enticing, to lure us in, and then after “the lure,” they destroy us. It’s like fishing bait, where we are the fish that gets fried if we can’t discern. That is the truth.

Bad things happen to good people for two reasons, found in the bible: 1) as a consequence to our own sin that we choose or 2) if God allows it to test us, to test our trust in God, our relationship with God. You may have heard this: “Whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger” well that is the truth, and God does that to strengthen us. God could end our life, if He wanted to, but when He doesn’t, He wants us to be strengthened by that experience. We also have to remember or understand from the bible: God will RESTORE anything that is taken from us in the testing of us; this grows our faith in God. Read the book of Job if you want to understand this. This may happen in our life on earth, but it may also be reserved for eternity. Read about future blessings here. We need to trust God and have patience.

OUR PARENTS

I just comprehended this after studying the Bible. All of us are “adopted” in a sense. Our true parent, the one who created us, the one who enabled our parents to produce us, is God. We are His children. Our parents are ultimately given a purpose, from God, to raise us and to introduce us to God, to encourage us to seek God, to share the knowledge of God. And God gives our parents the choice in how they do it and if they choose to do it. Just like anything else, some are good at the job and others aren’t good at the job God gave them. But God knows parents are not perfect and He knows when a parent is trying their best or if they are not trying at all; that’s between God and that person but it doesn’t make any child less loved by God, if that child didn’t have parents who encouraged. God makes each child for a reason and with a purpose. The purpose, as we learn from the bible, is ultimately helping others so that others will enjoy God’s future Kingdom and will not be deceived by the evil spiritual forces and lose out on what God has planned for His children (us). Here is an example from the book of Jeremiah, the prophet. Get to know God personally, then help others to know God, to know the Truth.

PARENTING

If we truly comprehend the truth in the paragraph above, we will realize this is why abortion is so wrong. In an abortion, we are destroying a child that God thought of and has plans for, the child God created for a purpose. God can bring good from bad. So even if the physical connection between the parents was “bad”, trust God, seek God, God can do amazing things with that child and with us. Don’t forget that Rahab, the prostitute, was part of Jesus’ ancestry/lineage. So can good come from “bad”? Yes, Jesus was a descendant and proves this. Jesus also said there will be prostitutes entering God’s kingdom ahead of the people who know God’s word, appear religious, keep the commandments, but whose hearts are far from God. (Of course the prostitutes in this example are the ones who realize what they have done, ask God for forgiveness and change their ways; God forgives.) Remember: God forgives easier than people do; He knows what’s in our hearts.

God is our parent, he gives us guidelines to follow, but as rebellious children, we don’t listen to Him. Starting with marriage; God tells people in the bible to not intermarry with “foreign” people- this has NOTHING to do with race or nationality! This is about individuals priorities: who or what is their priority? It should be God. God is warning people that life WILL be more difficult if we don’t follow his guidelines. If one person has God as their priority and the other doesn’t, that is going to be a rough road ahead. He warns because often the person who doesn’t have God as their priority slowly turns the God focused person away from God. If you want examples of this, look at what happened in Solomon’s life, in Samson’s life, in the book of Ezra (these people took drastic measures to avoid separation from God), and those a just a few examples, there are many more. It’s ultimately about getting separated from God and loosing eternity with God (by our own choice) when we choose a partner who does not have God as a priority. History repeats, don’t think that this won’t happen today; it does. The bible is there to help us, not harm us. There is an eternity and it is one of two outcomes: 1. With God or 2. Without God.

“What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” Matthew 16:26 (Jesus’ words)

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. 24 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ 25 When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order.26Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.” (Jesus’ words of warning) Luke 11 This is scary, concerning and further evidence of this spiritual war that is happening.

Read all these verses in this link about Children. Tying this into the beginning of this article; God tells us in the bible, the first book of Genesis: there is an evil spiritual seed/offspring. How do you think this happens? By uniting with someone who has evil residing in them. This doesn’t mean that it is hopeless because you have to remember that Jesus is more powerful than evil, Jesus saves and Jesus can defeat this evil spiritual force, if we seek him, call upon Him. God is faithful and merciful. Despite our shortcomings and mistakes, He ultimately loves us and wants us back. Connect with God in prayer and He will rescue a person in this situation! Last night I came across this (visit the links for the details), “Ahab” kept showing up in my reading, Ahab was connected/married to Jezebel and when you read the bible about them, that is the worst combination, look what happens to their descendants, how their character is described in these verses: “did evil”. And notice their fate too. God wants to save His children from this. Jesus is how we are saved from this; seek Jesus.

JESUS

Getting back to the initial verse in Genesis: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring (seed) and hers; he will crush (strike) your head, and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:15

Jesus is the one that crushes the serpent/Satan’s head and Satan continually tried/tries to strike Jesus.

There are so many things the bible tells us about Jesus. He is the most powerful, and will defeat all of this evil as we are told through prophecies. Check out the numerous verses in this link.

Summary: Seek Jesus for any and all of your needs. It is only through Jesus that we will overcome the evil spiritual forces that attack and surround our broken world.

Please share this with others who may benefit in knowing this. In doing so, you may help others enjoy God’s future Kingdom.

by Categories: Dating, Face Fear, FAITH, FAMILY, God, Improvement, Love, Make It Count, Marriage, parenting, Parents, priorities, RELATIONSHIPS, SexTags: , , , , Leave a comment

Secrets of the Universe

…this is meant for you.

I woke up compelled to write about this because you may not hear this from someone close to you, maybe not even your local religious organization, for many possible reasons that may become obvious to you after reading this. I intend to condense 4,000 years of history into a brief summary hoping it will be relevant and worthwhile for you and answer many “why” questions. This is the truth, not a fictional story.

CURRENT TIMES

You and I are caught in the middle of, and and are living with the residual effects of a war continuing today, that started approximately 4,000 years ago, or maybe even before then. Unfortunately and unknowingly we have been brought into this war, as participants, and we don’t have a choice in participating. There is no way to avoid being involved; we can’t “opt out.” This is one of the most challenging types of wars to succeed in because it literally is invisible, so if we can’t see it, how are we going to defend ourselves?

THE BACKGROUND

We are not the only beings in the universe: there are angels (both good and bad ones), demons, cherubim, and other creatures and spiritual beings that have not been revealed to us yet and most importantly, there is a God, who created all of this. Despite the intelligence of many in this world, the human race is not all knowing or as wise as some want to believe. Just think of the “food chain”- the rank that exists in nature, we are part of a rank as well, different than the food chain. I don’t know where we rank relative to other beings in the universe, but since angels and demons can travel back and forth and we can’t, that may indicate we don’t rank that high compared with all that exists.

The hardest aspect to comprehend is God, probably because we don’t know anyone or any thing that has “no beginning and no end, is omnipresent, all knowing”- again we have limited knowledge, limited comprehension. It is hard to comprehend a divine Person who created everything, because we didn’t see it happen and haven’t seen God. That’s an obvious reason why many “logically” don’t believe this.

WHAT CAUSED THIS WAR

We aren’t given all the details, but there was a rebellion in heaven by Satan, by name, and some of the angels who began to think they were as good or better than their Creator. God had blessed them with beauty, limited power and limited knowledge (in comparison, more knowledge than the human race has) and they evidently felt they had the ability to be as good as, to compete with, or be better than God. We can easily see this reality in our everyday life if we think about our business world: we have creators of a product or service and we have people who help the creators. Some of those people who help the creator begin to think they can do something better (sometimes they can and other times it’s not as good as the original) but they venture out on their own. Same concept, but there is much more to gain when we are talking about the level of God and His Kingdom. Satan was given limited authority over the air and the earth, I’m not sure if this was before or after the rebellion; but it would make more logical sense if this authority was given before the rebellion, when Satan was in God’s good grace. Satan apparently didn’t start out evil, but something happened: pride occurred. In this rebellion, Satan is attempting to take away or gain a following from God’s created children, probably out of revenge, proving his ability to do this to God. Historically, Satan has been, and will be successful in doing this with many people, but not all.

THE ULTIMATE PLAN

God creates everything that is good and has good intentions for it, but when He gave “choice” to the beings He created not every thing or everyone chooses to love Him back, obey Him or recognize their “rank” in the Universe. God is going to get rid of everything that has turned bad, that doesn’t love Him, that doesn’t want to obey Him, that doesn’t recognize their rank. God created the universe with an order in His design and that order will prevail, despite efforts by any other being. Only God knows the timeline for this because he designed it. He has a new kingdom that will be revealed in the future, it will be on Earth (but it will be a new earth; this existing earth will be destroyed) and He will live among the people in His kingdom; but none of those who turn against Him will be part of it.

THE HISTORY

In the beginning, God was both physically (walking in the garden) and spiritually here interacting with humans, but when sin occurred, He could no longer be physically present and the earth was cursed at that point. That’s something else which is hard to comprehend: the law surrounding Holiness: not being able to be present where sin exists. Only God knows why He made the law this way. Perhaps this was part of the knowledge Satan had from being in God’s presence: if Satan created sin, God couldn’t be present and Satan could gain influence and rule?

Without God’s physical presence it obviously was a challenge for people to believe He exists and since the earth was cursed once sin was present, everything on earth was then under the influence of Satan. Other beings in heaven that rebelled against God came to earth too. In fact there is a very brief mention of this in the bible; these beings came from heaven because they became infatuated with, lusted after some women on earth. They had physical connections with these women producing children called Nephilim. There is a book of Enoch that is not certified as completely without error or incorporated into the bible, but IF this part is true, the angels who rebelled against God, took some of the knowledge they had and taught humans- that is where astrology originated and much of the occult. The bible is very specific about astrology being something bad that God does not want the human race to get involved with, it actually separates us from God. Just think about that, doesn’t this all make logical sense now?

Because the world was getting so corrupted by this and filled with sin, God decided to flood the earth, and destroy the majority of life, saving only a small portion of humans (those God determined were the most obedient to Him) and animals, and there was an opportunity, a new beginning for humans once again. In the beginning of the human race, people had much longer lives (hundreds of years), but after seeing the bad choices and sinful nature of humans, God changed the average life span to 120 years. After this “cleaning up” of the world through the flood, God promised the survivors He would never do that again and as a symbol of this promise for people to remember, He created the rainbow which appears after rain.

Due to the law surrounding holiness not being able to be in the presence of sin. God had to use other means to reach people, so He did. He used other people (prophets, and those who had faith and believed in Him) to reveal Himself, through miracles, supernatural events, letting people know that He truly exists, even though they don’t see Him. Remember this is part of a spiritual war, as it has been from the beginning: Satan is trying to take people away from God, gain them for Satan’s purpose. Both Satan and God use people who are willing to be used. This is where we only have two options: either we are being used by God, or we are being used by Satan. This is the participation we can’t avoid. From history, we see that despite these supernatural events, people were still skeptical and didn’t believe. Satan has much more influence in a cursed earth environment and easily manipulates people through money, greed, lust, perversion, pride and self-centeredness. None of these things have any value at the end of history, but somehow people are blinded by the deception, perceived value. We are not the most intelligent beings created! Satan uses temptation, lures people into thinking they are getting something of great value, for people only to be disappointed after a period of time. One of the supernatural events God used was giving Moses the 10 commandments (a collection of 10 rules that God wants His people to live by); people still didn’t keep them. Within a very short time, people were back to their sinful ways.

Finally God sent his son, Jesus to be a physical presence here on earth, interact with people, do supernatural things and fulfill in real life the events that the prophets told people about, so that this information would be believed. Still some people didn’t believe, but others did. Jesus told those who believed, he wanted them to spread this information to others, to save the others. When Jesus was here, he gave insight into the heavens and tried to give humans a better understanding of God, God’s nature, God’s expectations, God’s plans and to let people know how they will be able to be a part of God’s future kingdom, when Jesus returns again. This continues today, in an effort to save people.

WHY BAD THINGS HAPPEN

One misconception that people have is that if we are “good” nothing bad will happen to us. That is not true, unfortunately the earth has been cursed and there are two reasons bad things will happen to us: spiritual warfare (Satan’s power against God’s people) or a consequence of our sin. God does give blessings to his people and God will use the spiritual warfare to make us better people. He turns something bad into something good and promises us even more in the future. God stays true to His word. He is trustworthy.

HOW WE CAN BE A PART OF GOD’S FUTURE KINGDOM (A NEW EARTH AND HEAVENS)

  1. Seek God. Learn about the bible, study the bible, pray/talk to God, ask God to reveal Himself to you. Pray as often as you can.

2. Make a decision, but don’t take this decision lightly, because your intention matters: Are you willing to surrender to God and let God lead you? This means a willingness to give up the “valuable” things in this world, which are ultimately meaningless in the eternal world, but are very valuable to people in this world. A willingness to make God your priority, your #1 priority. A willingness to admit ‘I don’t know it all, I need God to provide. Admitting it when we are living differently than how God wants us to live and then committing to change that. A willingness to trust God. A willingness to let God use you, to serve God in some way with your abilities and help others. A willingness to accept God’s commands and do your best to obey them, knowing you won’t be perfect, but that you will keep trying. A willingness to put others first, rather than yourself. The honest intent is what matters, if you’re afraid you can’t do all these things, don’t be afraid of that, God will help you; you just have to be WILLING and give it to God. God has seen throughout history how hard it is for humans to be “good” he knows it’s impossible, and that is the main reason Jesus first came to earth: to save us (He became the required sacrifice to release Satan’s hold on us) when he was crucified, died on the cross and was the first to be resurrected (given a supernatural humanlike body, but better). That supernatural body is what all who surrender to God will be given in the future, because of Jesus. And we will be living with God in eternity, doing things/enjoying a NEW physical life on the new earth, not just floating around “in heaven” as some imaginations/teachings may have you thinking.

3. Get baptized. This is symbolic, but Jesus said it was required (baptism of the Holy Spirit) to gain eternal life and get this supernatural body. It symbolizes a “rebirth”: a death to our sinful natural self (old ways) and a new life (living according to God’s commands) This is where “born again” got its name, from a conversation Jesus had with Nicodemus.

4. Ask for the Holy Spirit. God’s spirit is what enables a person to be resurrected and live in eternity. When you have God’s spirit residing in you, you will know you are saved. You will feel like a different person, and the following character traits in you will be seen by others: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. God will be working within you. God’s spirit also give you courage, strength and power. We will need all these things to make it, endure until we are in God’s future eternal Kingdom.

5. Remain connected to God by prayers. The bible is also a way that God can communicate with us; so reading and studying the bible has many purposes: teaching, letting us know right vs wrong, correcting and training people in God’s ways.

I hope this makes a positive difference in your life! If you think this might be valuable to someone, please share it. Thank you.

by Categories: FAITH, God, HAPPINESS, Improvement, Love, Make It Count, priorities, RELATIONSHIPS, Sex, WellnessTags: , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

God Revealing or Strange Coincidence?

“Interesting” things seem to keep happening to me and it makes me wonder, is this God revealing, communicating through scripture, or strange coincidences? I’ve been telling people close to me about these occurrences when they happen, but I may start writing about them since they seem so frequent lately and if it’s only a strange coincidence, then it’s entertaining/intriguing (at least to me, maybe to someone else?).

Earlier this week, I opened up to a random page in the Bible after praying that God “speaks to or shows” me something from the Bible when I read it. If I don’t make an immediate connection, sometimes I think it’s meant for someone else possibly? This is how I often decide what I post on my “Faith” Instagram account when I don’t have a topic on my mind as soon as I wake up in the morning. As I was reading, my dog hops onto the couch, right next to me and puts his paw on the Bible. I just thought he looked cute, so I took a picture and laughed at him, then sent the picture to a few people I’m close to, who know this dog’s funny personality and might laugh. Here’s the picture:

This was one text response I received (posted with permission):

(Message about the picture I texted)

So that was on Monday, I thought nothing of it, didn’t make a connection with anything, but read it wondering what significance it might have, if any? Tuesday was busy, I ended work at 8 pm and then caught up on “news,” which was informative, but discouraging at the same time. I found a few Instagram accounts posting current events and pointing out biblical connections when appropriate, so I followed those accounts because I’ve been noticing some of that on my own (when I was reading “prophecies” in the Bible and started seeing current world events relating to them) so this would be interesting to me to see what they find. After that, I decided I had enough for the day and went to bed; I was exhausted.

Wednesday morning after I opened to a random page and posted the scripture from it like usual, I looked through the feed on my faith account. (I only follow the accounts of people or entities that I learn something from, or who have contributed to my growth in learning more about Christianity on my faith account.) The accounts I follow are “resources” that I’ve found in alignment with what I found in the Bible, not any particular denomination, more of a variety, with the exception of the “news” sources I just recently followed. Anyway, in the Instagram feed I saw a recent discovery by Israeli archaeologists with the inscription: ‘Jerubbaal’ believed to be from about 3,100 years ago and reading further the post states “after he broke down the altar of Baal”. This triggered my memory: I just read about that: it was in the picture with my dog! So of course I had to let the person I was texting with know about this update after we had been joking/laughing about me “being shown” something while reading the Bible! (Even though this does happen; I didn’t think this was one of those times.) But this gets even more personal later…

First, here is what I saw in the feed:

So this is the scripture my dog was covering:

So that connection was worth exploring more now: the photo with my dog was in the book of Kings, not Judges, but part of the account was about the Baal Temple destruction. Then I noticed “Joash” in the title of the next chapter, Chapter 11. I wondered, how many Joash are in the Bible? Is Joash, the son of Gideon mentioned by the archaeologist the same as this Joash? So I looked that up too: here’s what I found. There certainly appears to be a connection, even though it’s not the same book from the Bible. So the person I was texting with said, I just searched Baal and this popped up: The Largest Baal Worship Service on the Planet is in America. Of course I had to read that article because when we read the Bible about stuff like this (worship of idols/false gods) we always think, that was back then, people don’t do this now! Well this article hits even more personally to me as I read it further. In reading this, I am acknowledging: this is someone’s opinion, but at the same time, this is eerie too! Here is a factual account of this event (link).

Next is how it becomes personal to me: if you’ve been following my blog, or if not, you can even go back and look at prior posts, in 2017, I decided to “Surrender to God” (which for me meant praying every day, but I didn’t really change my lifestyle too much at first). I noticed shortly after I “surrendered” all sorts of “bad” things started happening to me, then “good” things, then “bad”, then “good” again. It was like wave after wave and it was tough. Anyway, in 2017, I was in this “baby stage” as a Christian, probably our most vulnerable time, in hindsight. And I also think this was the start of God testing my faith but also revealing things too and disciplining me. If you read my posts from 5 years ago you will see this. In 2017, I was always going somewhere and one of the events I happened to go to was an art festival with music (one of my favorite hobbies): “Burbs Music and Art Festival”…here are links to the photos from my personal Instagram account taken in August 2017, the same month and year of that linked article above (scary):

UFO by Gateway Burners, local chapter of Burning Man

Gateway Burners

Burbs Music and Art Festival

Burbs Music and Art Festival 2

Burbs Music and Art Festival 3

Burbs Music and Art Festival 4

When I realized the connection to Burning Man and Baal Worship after reading the article, I initially thought: I’m going to delete those posts! But then I reconsidered: we can’t change the past, I went completely ignorant to what was talked about in that author’s opinion, I was intrigued by the art and music festival. If the festival happened again, I wouldn’t go because of that article I read, which makes me question all of it. But it also made me think about all the “subliminal” things we are exposed to unknowingly. It also made me wonder how many other people are “innocent” to this in participating and what influence, if any this has on our lives? From the bible we are told we are the subjects of “spiritual warfare” It really makes me think, maybe we shouldn’t be so naïve to this? Maybe we shouldn’t brush this off as “meaningless, unimportant, not impactful?” Do we really know? Jesus told his followers they couldn’t understand earthly things he was trying to tell them about, so how could he tell them about the spiritual world, despite the fact that his followers actually witnessed demonic possessions in their travels along with miracles and healing. Because of all of this, I tend to think there very well could be subtle spiritual deception in our lives working for a greater purpose later on. Again, I think it’s good to be aware of this, don’t be “blind” to this. There are blatant things happening in our world right now that are completely against God. How we live is a personal choice we make, and this is between God and each of us; no one should judge anyone else because we honestly don’t know everything. But we should have a clear conscience with God about how we are living our lives, if we don’t, it may be the reason for a personal change, if we choose God’s Kingdom.

Also this morning, while getting ready, I listened to Tim Keller’s Gospel in Life: The Robber’s House (another good one!) when he said: as Christians we are either “all in” or “all out” it made me think about that statement in relation to how I live my life. He’s right. Jesus had that warning to one of the churches in Revelation, about people being “lukewarm” and if they didn’t change he was about to figuratively “spit them out” or “extinguish their lampstand.” It gave me much to think about today.

So what do you think about all these events? Is God communicating or is this a strange coincidence?

by Categories: American, Entertainment, Face Fear, FAITH, FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP, God, HAPPINESS, Improvement, Love, Make It Count, MUSIC, priorities, RELATIONSHIPS, Sex, WellnessTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Love and Lust

What’s the difference? It’s hard to differentiate today because these words are used interchangeably every day. It’s interesting when you think about it, for as long as people have existed (historically), we still don’t have this understanding clearly represented in our culture, so confusion passes from generation to generation. Personally, I think this confusion is intentional. “Hindsight is always 20/20”, isn’t it? Things are so much clearer looking back, than in the moment. If you want love, this will be worth your time reading. But for those “satisfied” by lust, don’t bother reading any further; this isn’t meant for you to see, that is unless “death” is something you don’t welcome.

Hindsight: There is an easier way to live, but most of us want to do it our own way and ignore wisdom. Instead we often listen to others who don’t have wisdom. The advice from others who don’t have wisdom is harmful and really where did they get this authority to give advice anyway? Is it really good advice? What makes them the expert in comparison to wisdom? There are so many opinions about everything, who can we trust? Who is looking out for us, protecting us, caring for us? Is this person looking for a “cohort in crime” or giving truthful advice? Is this person truly concerned about our future, our well being?

If we learn the difference between love and lust by others’ examples or our own experience, there is no doubt, it will be a long bumpy road ahead for us. But if we listen to, learn from and act upon wisdom provided almost 2,000 years ago, we can reduce these painful experiences starting now. Wisdom is found in the Bible, from God, who has authority over all.

Did you know the book of Revelation covers this subject (love and lust)? When I mentioned “hindsight” earlier, what better “hindsight” can a person have than seeing what is prophesized in the future and acting on it now?

 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

Revelation 1:3

I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling.

Revelation 2:21

But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

Revelation 21:8

Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Revelation 21:27

 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.

Revelation 22:14

Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.  “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you[a] this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”

Jesus, Revelation 22:15-16

Read it for yourself. I don’t know of anyone who has read the Bible, seeking to learn something from it and hasn’t changed their life. Revelation 22:14 symbolically illustrates this with the phrase: “wash their robes” meaning a change in the way they live, becoming a follower of Jesus so that they may have eternal life “right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.”

Not only did Paul write so many letters addressing sexual immorality to various people (Corinthians, Thessalonians, Ephesians, Galatians) and every one of the gospel authors address this (Matthew, Mark, Luke- the book of Acts, and John) but this is Jesus, himself, telling us this fact about who will not be with him in eternity (Revelation 22:15-16) I don’t know about you, but for me, this was impactful and life changing. There is so much in this statement to comprehend: “magic arts” (those involved in sorcery, witchcraft), sexually immoral (from the original Greek biblical translation, it is the word “pornos” meaning (male) prostitute, fornicator, whoremonger), murderers, idolaters (an image worshipper- literally or figuratively), falsehood (lies or lying).

Regarding falsehood, lies that are taught under the “grace” of our God, pay attention to what Jude (Jesus’ half brother and James’ brother) tells us (don’t be misled):

For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

Jude 1:4

In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

Jude 1:7

Getting back to “Love and Lust”: Look up fornication in the regular dictionary and you will find this definition: 1. voluntary sexual intercourse between two unmarried persons or two persons not married to each other 1. Bible: idolatry (the religious worship of idols or excessive or blind adoration, reverence, devotion, etc.)

In Lust, a person serves as an “idol” to us. Lust is an excellent example of selfishness and self gratification. Selfishness is not love. Living a life in lust is actually going against God’s 1st and 2nd commandments that were given to us as well as God’s 7th and 10th commandments. Lust can possibly break 4 commandments at one time!

In Love, a person acts selflessly. Love exhibits certain characteristics that are not present in lust: patience, kindness, supports justice, never gives up, is hopeful, endures through all circumstances, is gentle and maintains self-control.

So if you struggle with lust, the best thing to do is to seek to know God (through the bible and prayer), and seek God’s help (ask for the Holy Spirit’s strength). God wants us in eternity, so God will help. God needs to become your/our priority, if He isn’t already. God needs to be our priority above every human being we know. After you/we do this, make God our number one priority, we will be prepared for the future. This is the most important thing for every person: make God your priority. Eternal life is promised for those who do, there are unimaginable beautiful things prepared by God for those who make God their priority. Learn more about it, it’s worth it. We came into this world naked…what do you think we take with us?

One of my favorite teachers is Dr. Tim Keller who has the “Gospel in Life” Podcast, this entire month of May 2021, his podcasts were focused on marriage (purpose, meaning, commitment) and is worth listening to whether you are single or married; he gives such great clarity on this topic. Click here to get to his podcast page. One of the points Dr. Keller makes is that unless we make God our priority, we will be too demanding of anyone in our life, our expectations will be too high. God is love, if we want love in our life, we need God above anyone/anything else. The purpose and reason for marriage is companionship but we have to remember that God created this “union” and it was never His intention that this union replace God (if the companion is an idol to us).

The bible contains so much wisdom, if we only accept what it tells us. This book is thousands of pages long and repeats the same messages over and over again through different individuals. Pay attention before it’s too late.

From Revelation 22 (the invitation and the warning) and the last verse is so relevant (we need God’s grace):

12 “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

14 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. 15 Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you[a] this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”

17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. 19 And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.

20 He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.

by Categories: Dating, FAITH, FAMILY, Following Passions, FRIENDSHIP, God, HAPPINESS, Improvement, Love, Make It Count, Marriage, priorities, RELATIONSHIPS, Sex, WellnessTags: , Leave a comment

While Single, think about this…

I’ve been wanting to write about this for a few years but have held back for many reasons, or have lightly touched on this topic in some of the first blogs I wrote because it’s a very sensitive subject and people have strong personal opinions and views of this. I hope what I write reaches at least one person and gives something to think about, then has a positive impact. “Life Lessons” is an appropriate summary.

I know you may not agree with this right away, but I’ve learned the hard way (from experience) so I think it’s true:

We keep receiving the same lessons in life until we learn from them.

Whoever is single right now will probably agree with this statement: there are a lot of messed up people out there. (LOL) But the irony in that statement is we all are a little messed up and in different stages of life. Different stages of life meaning: emotional maturity and spiritual maturity. This is really a personal issue, not always necessarily a “someone else” issue. If we are emotionally immature we may say it’s someone else’s issue, but it truly does start with taking an honest look at ourselves and realizing areas where we could be a better person (how an emotionally mature person would view it).

Some people become more laid back, easy going, the older they get, but some can be in their 90’s and still emotionally immature, so age doesn’t always guarantee emotional maturity, only physical maturity. I have seen how growing in spiritual maturity helps a person grow in emotional maturity and the opposite of that too: how someone who is not growing in spiritual maturity often lacks emotional maturity.

Love being single:

There are some people who enjoy being single, love the freedom and don’t want the obligation of a commitment. If a person truly stays single, only has friendships (without the ‘benefits’) that’s a choice and there is nothing wrong with that.

Claims to love being single:

There are those who claim to want to remain single, love the freedom, but then pursue someone, become involved with a person, or multiple people, then wreak havoc in other(s) lives. Someone who does this is not emotionally or spiritually mature and will continually be unsatisfied with life, constantly seeking happiness, but only finding fleeting moments, then frustration. And because those moments don’t last perpetually, it’s a lifetime cycle of this. (This is a selfish person)

Love being in a relationship:

There are some people who constantly need to be in a relationship. They feel insecure alone, so they jump from one “committed” relationship to another. Again, this person isn’t emotionally or spiritually mature to be comfortable being “single” so this person is very “needy” to the other person and exhausts them. This person is using the other person. (This is a selfish person)

Casual relationships:

There are some people who take a very casual approach to relationships. They just want the “high” they get from physical pleasure, and are truly never satisfied for very long. I don’t think emotionally mature is an accurate description of this, emotionally “numb” better describes it and also spiritually immature. (These are selfish people)

In all but the first example, a person typically ends up frustrated, or heartbroken, depending on which end you’re on. From experience, I believe before a person starts dating, it’s best to first work on spiritual maturity (which automatically grows emotional maturity), if you want to have a healthy/good relationship with someone someday.

The most important choice we will make in life is to choose God or reject God because that choice has eternal consequences. Everything else is temporary. If we choose God; He must be THE priority in our life.

I made mistakes in life. I didn’t do things this way, but life could have been a lot better if I had the order right from the start.

Start with God, seek Him in personal prayer, read and study the bible (know what’s in it), then make a decision: do you want what it offers? (How to get to Heaven) Do you believe it? If you believe, then ask God to take over EVERYTHING in your life, literally let go of control (we don’t really have control anyway) and give it to God. Basically, this means getting rid of pride, surrendering to God. Once you truly comprehend and believe, you will appreciate what Jesus did and you’ll want to show appreciation. God wants us to show our appreciation (love) by choosing to obey the 10 Commandments. At the same time, God knows we won’t be perfect at this, but He sees our true “hidden” intentions. If we choose to obey, God is forgiving when our intentions are good but we realize we made a mistake and ask for forgiveness and try again to do things better next time. If we choose to obey the Commandments, we can also ask God for the Holy Spirit’s power in helping us keep them. (These recommendations are not my personal thoughts, this is a summary from reading the bible.)

Once you have this knowledge, I am absolutely certain you will view life differently. It will cause you to view ALL relationships differently. The bible is a resource for living life; there are answers to the most important questions in life in it. It will help you become a better person, understand what love is, how to show love, it will help you identify and avoid red flags in people, it will prepare you for marriage (if that is your future intent) and knowing God will bring about a hard to explain “peace” when you wouldn’t have that “peace” without God. This is one of those experiences that can’t be explained, until you feel it for yourself. Don’t waste your time while you are single with meaningless activity; use it to improve your future life (and others). God gives blessings to those who will be blessings to others.

by Categories: Dating, Face Fear, FAITH, FRIENDSHIP, God, HAPPINESS, Improvement, Letting Go, Love, Make It Count, Marriage, priorities, RELATIONSHIPS, Sex, WellnessTags: , 1 Comment