I have recently noted that my readership has increased worldwide, literally. I take this information, weighing even more a greater responsibility for my readers to gain truth and enlightment in all areas of importance to us. I believe it is my duty, to expel the darkness with the light of truth whereever I may. Thus the purpose of this news blog is to do just that. To cause people, to wake up, and think for themselves for once and begin to examine all of life outside of their tunnel vision, their rose colored glasses and most of all to follow the admonition of God's Word, which says to have a transformation of the mind. To no longer think as the unsaved, and heathen do. This often requires you to let go of everything you were ever taught or heard, to be open to the Holy Spirit, to hear the small still voice of God, that gives you the ability to discern good (His good) from evil ( this Babylonian system of lies conjured up by Satan and loved by the flesh).
Truth does matter!
Even Pilate wanted to know the truth, for he asked Jesus, "what is truth?".
The truth stood right there in front of his eyes, yet because he held the tunnel vision of power, greed and supremacy, and because of his own fleshly desires,he could not see it.
We as Christians should NEVER accept anything at face value. We need to always question, and question some more, until God opens our eyes to see Jesus, and the truth about matters in this life and the life to come.
I believe Christians should be the most wise people in the world. For if they have prayed and sought God, they will be provided His wisdom. This wisdom applies to everyday life and decisions, and if we hear Him and act accordingly we can live our lives in His will, with His guidance and His direction, and His truth. This doesn't mean though they are to be the most properous, healthy, etc, that the propagaters of that lie teach. It means that even in poverty, or sickness, we will have an understanding and peace of mind, that is beyond understanding.
I seek truth in prayer and in hearing God everyday. His truth often so goes against the grain of the average persons thinking, that it makes them angry, at me. It often even shocks my senses and flesh, and I have to look to God to explain, I have to explore, I have to question and seek Him again, to reason with me.
Didn't Jesus say, if they persecuted me they will persecute you?
I believe as carriers of the truth, bearers of the torch of light, we must speak out, and must be willing to accept the hatred of others for doing so.
I believe that in all matters of life, whether it be history, politics, theology, or any other OLOGY that man wants to come up with, we should be those that hold truth to the highest level. We should not have tunnel vision, wear rose colored glasses and be moved by every little whim and doctrine of men. I believe at some point if we are growing as a beleiver, we will come to a settled place in our acceptance of Christ and His teachings and we should no longer be fooled by the lies of the enemy, our flesh, or the world. I believe that often we will stand in direct contradiction of the most popular opinion on any matter, because we have been taught by the Creator, the one who holds all the history of men in His hands, whether it be, history past or history to come. He already knows it and He is allowing it to transpire so that in the end, every tongue shall confess that "Jesus Christ is Lord".
We often have questions as we start out as Christians, we often wonder about things.
I say to you new Christian, that is fine, God wants and intends for you to reason with Him, but He also wants to enlighten your reasoning processes, so you can see Him. In the book of Job, we see this, and we see finally Job exclaiming, I have heard of you, but today, my eyes have seen the Lord. Job had a paradigm shift of thinking but it came as a result of reasoning with God, who showed himself to Job, with questions that were really statements of God's sovereignty. God is sovereign and there will be things in your life, that you will have to leave in his hand of sovereignty. I have been in a learning process of that for the last 6 years, for see, I lost my first wife, in a tragic but strange accident. We would have been married 27 years come that January 2002, when she was killed 2 days before Thanksgiving in 2001 by a horse that stepped into the path of our car on an Interstate highway. I have had a million questions why? I have cried, and questioned and I can only come to one conclusion- God's sovereign will, who am I that He has to give me an answer on that one, other than He is God and for me to trust Him. I admit, I still have struggles with this and have had nightmares, anxiety attacks, flashbacks and more to that day.
It was horrible and tragic, and slowly but surely I will recoup, but it still hurts to lose someone you love so dearly and not to question the Father, with Why?
Was it not the Father himself, who said, "Come let us reason together"? I believe more than emotion, or popular opinion, we should use the intellect to which God gave us, to reason things out with Him. Our intellect is what God gave us, that separates us from all other animals. Now, I admit that intellect has been deeply darkened, and is lost in the shadows of sin. It fell, when Adam fell.
However, when the Father gives us the new birth as new creations, something should be stirring within us, that makes us, ask questions, never asked before, and God intends this. He wants us to question our pre-birth thought structure, beliefs, customs and way of life. He desires we obtain the mind of Christ. We can, as we spend time in relationship with Him through the Holy Spirit, the Written Word of God, and the experiences He provides us after our new birth acquire TRUTH.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life.
How often we forget, he came to radically change us, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. However, it begins spiritually, then proceeds mentally then to balance our souls emotionally.
I often write about things, that 10 years ago, I would have never written, for I differed no more than the average person on matters, for I had not had MY thinking transformed as greatly as it has been today. I have spent since age 6, reading my Bible, asking questions, that God wanted to answer, but it wasn't until about 10 years ago I became willing to set aside my prejudics, my bias, and my traditions. Traditions -those things I had been taught by men and not by God. God couldn't get through to me, until, I laid it all down and said Jesus, you are my King - teach me, and give me a willing heart to listen, that I began to have the greatest shift of paradigm of thought that I could ever have experienced. Something that would never have happened, if I would have just continued to go along with the crowd, the majority thought, the religious traditions of men. Until you are willing to really step out in faith, and say I am willing to face persecution, and hatred by even those who you considered family and friends, you aren't yet willing to suffer with Christ. You will suffer lies made up about you, accusations, persecutions, name calling and more. Most of it coming from those that are the most "religious".
Just as Jesus suffered it, you will too. It becomes the discipline to drive you to your knees before the Father, and say, not my will, but YOUR WILL BE DONE!
It will test your flesh to the maximum, it will take every bit of the restraint of the Holy Spirit within you to keep you from relying on the flesh and wanting to strike back, injure those who injure you, insult those who insult you, get back at those who have used you.
People ask me often about different circumstances that have happened in my life, they ask the question, why didn't you do this or that to them, why didnt you sue, why didnt you hit them back, why didnt you attack them back, why didnt you return "tit for tat", why didnt you "take and eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"
I have only one answer - Jesus.
Jesus within me, wouldnt allow it. The Holy Spirit restrained me, and I learned from it to rely upon my Father. He is the great judge of all men, and I leave judgement and vengeance to Him. Jesus never answered insult with insult or injury with injury, he put Himself wholeheartedly into the hands of the Father.
This doesnt mean, I have learned to do this absolutely perfectly, but I am learning. I am learning to let go and let Jesus. As Paul said, "not that I have yet reached perfection, but I press on to the goal, the prize, the high calling in Christ Jesus.
This is our purpose, to become molded into the very image and likeness of Him, we have no other purpose in life above this. God is building His eternal dwelling place and it will be eternally within His people, but he can't as long as we aren't willing to let go. While we hold onto our own traditions, prejudices, bias, and our ways of thinking, or going along with the crowd, we will remain stifled, we will be quenching the Holy Spirit in our lives. We will remain stunted babies in Christ, when it is His purpose to bring us up to full maturity in Christ. God's intention for men- is to restore His glory and image in us! To restore man to His original intention, what is called the "Image of God".
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
So, when I write often, sometimes being not perfect, my flesh might jump into the writing. This stands true of everything we read or hear from others, pastors, teachers, great evangelist, none are perfect and neither am I. Thus the word of God tells us, "to hold onto that which is good and to abstain from that which is evil". We are to discern the two, we are to use reason, given by God, to separate out that which is evil and that which is of God's goodness, not our concept of good, because it was tainted at the Garden and has been ever since, until we seek His wisdom and guidance to truly comprehend holiness, goodness as defined by the Father, not defined by men we will remain confused and our minds in darkness.
We can only be taught when we have a teachable spirit before God, and not so much before men.
This can only be done when we realize our intellect must be transformed by the reading of the Word and in time spent with the Father to teach us. Time running to and fro from church to church, teacher to teacher, pastor to pastor, Bible school to Bible school, will never give us, what the Father can do in 10 minutes of quiet time before Him and the Word.
My transformation of intellect was radically changed when I analytically sat down and used the inductive method of study and begin to read and re-read the New Testament over 100 times. I asked the questions, who, what, when, where, why, and how. I begin to dig into His word, dig into understanding, researching Jewish thought and religious practices of the times, the way of life in the times, the culture, the theology, religions and more of the times.
I begin to see God's word through the eyes of the ancient early church, to see Paul and his ministry how it was directly opposed to the religions of the time, to understand how he assimilated with the Gentiles. I begin to think with an Eastern mind instead of the Western cultural mind that is so far from even comprehending these times, and life.
Once, this begins to happen, radical paradigm shifts of thinking will take place, you will now be able to grasp how outstanding these words are written for the testimony of Jesus. The Bible isn't a book to be worshipped, it is a book inspired by the Holy Spirit to lead us "to the testimony of Christ". Yes, there are some translational errors, there are some words added and taken away, but this in no way, changes what God the Father spoke, when the Word became flesh. The LOGOS of God, walked among men, died for men, and was resurrected for men, for all ages, all times, and forever.
The only answer to life, truth and the way can be found only in Yashua ( Jesus)!
I challenge your intellect, I challenge your traditions, your culture, your religion, your history, your politics, because Jesus did! He rattled the world with His coming, His words, His life, His death and His Resurrection. He still rattles the world intellectually, emotionally and spiritually, wherever Jesus really is, there will be true controversy, there will be men disagreeing.
The reason there is no truth outside of Him, and so those that so desparately cling to their idols, will be shocked, dismayed, and angry at His presence. They will do anything to hold onto their gods, rather than recognize Jesus as Lord.
I love Steve Brown, a theology professor at the Reformed Church Seminary in Florida, he said. "You should offend someone once a week". Meaning not that we go out and purposely look for someone to say something to make them mad, but if we have Jesus and He has us...someone is going to be offended by Christ, and most often it is the most religious of men. Jesus offended the Jews, the Pharisees and Rome.
Make Jesus your purpose in life- but here I post the warning sign, if you do "be prepared to make someone mad at you, to hate you and even perhaps want to kill you".
When Jesus has you, the world, the flesh and the devil get REAL UPSET with you, because all these things are contrary to the love of the Father.
It gets worse, as you discover truths in life, that no one wants to hear. Beware, the pearls you have to offer, will often result in you and them being trampled underfoot by those that will hate your pearls of truth and hate you as well.
"Through much tribulation we enter the Kingdom of God", as Luke wrote in the book of Acts.
May your tribulations be not consequences of your own misbehavior or lack of wisdom, but may they be, because you have given your intellect and purpose for life to Christ. We will all have those consequences which the Father uses as the hand of discipline, but he also is full of mercy, grace, compassion and truth, and will never discipline His children with the intent to destroy them, for He ultimately wants you to have life, eternal life, that only begins in Christ. He loves us so much that it often leaves me sitting in awe, that He is so kind to me and loving, when I often can be just the opposite. That's just it, we can't produce holiness within ourselves, it is something that only He can do within us, through His resurrected life lived out through us. One thing to know, when He does live His way out through us, He will offend someone by the way we live our lives. Let your intellect and your purpose be transformed by His light and Truth and know, that "all things work to the good of those who love God"!
Even the history, the politics, the evil going on, God is not without knowledge or purpose in it to work out His plan. The nations will bow before Him, for He is King and none other.
Dr. J.
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