Infinite Love

Isa. 60:15 “Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations.”

Compartmentalize

God is not religion. Man is the owner of the compartmentalized term ‘religion’ that they placed God into. In Genesis when the world was breathed into existence from a vast void in space, there was no religion. God spoke to men and that is when they began building a religion to suit their needs. 

Diversified- man grew to separate because as humans always do, they each see things differently. God told man not to worship false idols but sure enough man has built worlds of religious artifacts/idols to worship and in essence loses the intention of the Supreme Being and all He had wanted for mankind.

When I read that someone don’t believe in religion they only believe in man and nature. What exactly are they saying? Personally, I don’t believe in man. Man has worked for millennia to shape and construct religion and it has gotten them nowhere but in the center of war.

To ME, in my happy little world, the only thing I compartmentalize is love, there is no room for hate and thus my life in a bubble is my own, apparently. Love has shown me inside the mechanizations of the stellar space out there in the cosmos, love has shown me the inside of miracles and how they work. Love has carried me into a world where I kiss the Light of the Lord on a daily basis.

I often thought myself to be crazy and sometimes people are the ones that made me feel a wee bit insane but as I love to read and write, I see that some of the great philosophers, artists, writers and poets were all in the same thought of mind as I find myself. I’m not alone in the happy little bubble I find myself in, I am in great company with the Masters of times gone by. 

Yes, my thoughts are sometimes crazy insane but they are brought to you by the magnificent wonders of light and love. It takes a pretty strong SANE mind to stand naked in front of the Lord and shed all inhibitions and little boxes that man is so famous for creating. To humble oneself you must strip yourself of all ties that lead to anger and hate and there is where you’ll find yourself in the presence of the infinite Love of God. 

I can understand why men say they don’t believe in religion but to say they don’t believe in God is unfathomable in MY mind. Religion is the compartmentalized box that man has placed God into and if any of you know OF God, you know you cannot put Him in a box? He is EVERYTHING! He is infinite! He is ETERNAL!

John 12:25 “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.”

When you look at a leaf, do you see a simple leaf or do you see the veins running through the leaf? Do you think of the branch that the leaf fell from or do you think of the tree? The veins of the leaf are fed by the veins of the tree as the tree sucks nutrition from the earth which the earth receives its nutrition from God. 

Our veins running through our body are nourished by the food we feed it. The veins in our brain are nourished by what we put into our brain. What you physically put out into the world is the you that YOU shaped yourself to be. If all you see is hate in the world I believe your brain is malnourished of nutrients. 

Our body was made to receive our nutrition from God but again, man put little compartments up so God can fit neatly into his life. Where you find compartments you find walls. Walls are built so the little compartments stand up stronger against wind and chaos. God can knock down those walls of anxiety, depression, angst, and hate but he needs YOU to nourish your body with Him so the waxed walls start to melt like a lit candle. 

What I’m trying to say is that man is depleting the world of God. One by one, nutrition is being drained from the veins of life. You might say to yourself I am only one person, what can I do? Well, bring the Living nutrition into your life and send bits and pieces into the world via positive fruit of the Vine!

Yes, we all fall, we all do wrong and make bad choices but we need to be aware of the bad and wrong choices so that the only thing we send out is LOVE! Infinite LOVE!

Rom. 1:20 “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:”

It Affects The Whole

Job 34:13 "Who hath given him a charge over the earth? or who hath disposed the whole world?"

What you say and do affects the whole!

When someone says, “Oh that don’t affect me.” I seriously believe they are lying to themselves. I try to say I won’t let all of this negative barrage of false information affect me but it has me feeling like a scrambled egg in a hard-boiled world!

I took a much-needed break last week from writing BECAUSE the negativity is wearing me down! I had a cold on Saturday; I call it my once a year cold because I only get a cold once a year. I didn’t get it when Steven had his a month ago but Adam was off of work for his cold and well THAT is the cold that latched onto me like a leech to fresh skin.

With all the negative mudslinging and me trying to get away from it, the cold snuck up on me, sank in and had me feeling not too well so I, the woman who never rest, rested! A much-needed rest from writing and playing into the hateful hurtful hands of a society gone mad.

It can’t be just me but when I was being raised I distinctly remember being told not to talk about money, religion, or politics. The Social Forums have become my ancestors’ worst nightmare where people actually think that THEY can change your mind by filling the newsfeed with HATE!

I’m not force-feeding my Native American friends my religious views nor me their Spiritual views. We have a mutual respect for one another. So why can’t political views be the same? Why the force-fed inundating hate-filled political views? And we wonder why we have such lousy choices to choose from? People, young and old, male and female cannot be civil beings and respect one another, that’s why!

You cannot change my view on abortion by showing me a late term abortion where a living baby is being pulled (yanked) out of a woman and tossed in the trash! Especially after hearing amazing stories by amazing women about choices that had to be made, and they chose wisely! Another friend was told by the DOCTOR (as happens more than YOU know) to abort her baby and she CHOSE to listen to her instincts and not to!

You cannot make me become a republican by trashing the democrats and vice versa! Do you honestly feel you’re HELPING an already destructive warpath? You’re NOT! You’re adding fuel to the fire and I consider you walking merrily with Satan hand in hand looking like a family. A family that hates together stays together!

Why am I talking about this with you? Because your negative infectious antics have AFFECTED ME! I’m sick, I’m tired, and I just want to write about the blessings that this world has and all anyone can do is rant about what they hate in the world. It has literally made my body susceptible to a normally fought off cold!

People are deleting long time friends, people are arguing over the who’s right and who’s wrong in society, cyber attackers are taking down websites, and  scary clowns are turning fun happy clowns into something sinister. Do we really think this is going to end after the November elections are over? I’m afraid not my friends, this is the beginning of the end and I’m going to be off in my own little world with my happy thoughts thanking my Lord for saving me from the chaos about to ensue. 

God be with you all! 

Heb. 2:4 “God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?”

Quotation Saturday ~ Quotes for today

Ephesians 3:16-17 “That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,

IDEOLOGY

“As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that. … That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life… Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.” 
― Anthony de Mello

“Ideology knows the answer before the question has been asked.

Principles are something different: a set of values that have to be adapted to circumstances but not compromised away.” 
― George Packer

“Whenever people are certain they understand our peculiar situation here on this planet, it is because they have accepted a religious Faith or a secular Ideology (Ideologies are the modern form of Faiths) and just stopped thinking.” 
― Robert Anton Wilson

“Christians should never have a political party. It is a huge mistake to become married to an ideology, because the greatest enemy of the gospel is ideology. Ideology is a man-made format of how the world ought to work, and Christians instead believed in the revealing truth Scripture.” 
― Charles W. Colson

“In public affairs men are often better pleased that the truth, though known to everybody, should be wrapped up under a decent cover than if it were exposed in open daylight to the eyes of all the world.” 
― David Hume

DOGMA

“Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
[Commencement Address at Yale University, June 11, 1962]” 
― John F. Kennedy

“When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons.” 
― Anaïs Nin

“While believing strongly, without evidence, is considered a mark of madness or stupidity in any other area of our lives, faith in God still holds immense prestige in our society. Religion is the one area of our discourse where it is considered noble to pretend to be certain about things no human being could possibly be certain about. It is telling that this aura of nobility extends only to those faiths that still have many subscribers. Anyone caught worshipping Poseidon, even at sea, will be thought insane.” 
― Sam Harris

“Until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book, and creed, and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free. Mankind will be enslaved until there is mental grandeur enough to allow each man to have his thought and say. This earth will be a paradise when men can, upon all these questions differ, and yet grasp each other's hands as friends. It is amazing to me that a difference of opinion upon subjects that we know nothing with certainty about, should make us hate, persecute, and despise each other. Why a difference of opinion upon predestination, or the trinity, should make people imprison and burn each other seems beyond the comprehension of man; and yet in all countries where Christians have existed, they have destroyed each other to the exact extent of their power. Why should a believer in God hate an atheist? Surely the atheist has not injured God, and surely he is human, capable of joy and pain, and entitled to all the rights of man. Would it not be far better to treat this atheist, at least, as well as he treats us?

Christians tell me that they love their enemies, and yet all I ask is—not that they love their enemies, not that they love their friends even, but that they treat those who differ from them, with simple fairness.

We do not wish to be forgiven, but we wish Christians to so act that we will not have to forgive them. If all will admit that all have an equal right to think, then the question is forever solved; but as long as organized and powerful churches, pretending to hold the keys of heaven and hell, denounce every person as an outcast and criminal who thinks for himself and denies their authority, the world will be filled with hatred and suffering. To hate man and worship God seems to be the sum of all the creeds.” 
― Robert G. Ingersoll

RELIGION

“Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.” 
― Mahatma Gandhi

“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.” 
― Abraham Lincoln

“Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee
And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.” 
― Robert Frost

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

They Ruin It...

Prov. 13:18 “Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction: but he that regardeth reproof shall be honoured.”

They Ruin It…

They’ve [humans] ruined my relationship to church; it’s now relinquished to a place to show my face so I can come home and boast of how great the sermon and praise was. They’ve ruined what little trust I had in people by being more about the manipulative angle they can use to abuse me. They make drinking alcohol all about fun and games like it is just a second nature and fine to do without ramifications, they spread lies like mosquitoes spreading Lyme disease injecting their poisonous falsehoods for the world to see and STILL claim to be Christian. 

It is Christians, you know, the very good Christians that are destroying the religion, for ME. I have a faith in Jesus Christ and my Heavenly Father but I have zero faith in humankind. I don’t have faith in the churches because they are imploding while touting their growth. Church is no longer about God, it is about an opinionated what-you’re-doing-wrong drama. 

I read the headlines and the stories are unending of a collapsing society. I should say societies because this is happening worldwide and if you just happily ignore the succession of downfall going on around you, then to me, you are part of the problem. We are perverting society by accepting sin like candy from a dirty old man, it’s become the norm.

Evil is stampeding across the globe knocking down pillars that have been in place for centuries. I’m saddened not celebratory at all. Everything is about race, sexism, politics, shoot or be shot, kill or be killed, blatant propaganda spoon-fed by the media to the masses and fed to innocent children who know nothing yet but are being programmed to follow in the footsteps of the hate in the world.

We as a human race are not coming together to solve problems, I see too often people sitting back and being PART of the problem and enjoying their placement in a world of fellow angry citizens who can’t even rise from bed without feeling hate in their veins.  And that makes you a good person?

What exactly constitutes a good Christian or a good person? I shouldn’t have to struggle to see them; they should be quite obvious among the crowd yet they’re not. They’re hidden among the booze drinkers, layered with, if not covered in, the hatemonger; splintered by the right and wrong in the world.

Actions are what separate the good, not color, religion, race or sex but that is what we’ve done to the world, divided man and thought, and has made information so liquid we bathe in the offering. It does not make us good people by agreeing to everything the hate spewers feed you.

Greed has ruined any form of celebration for me. People want and want but are not willing to give a little time and effort to the term ‘change’. They’d much rather be herded together like cattle and be tagged and counted among the crowd as one of the all.

I feel alone as I wade in the ocean of life. I’m out to sea and see no land in sight. Ruined is the joy in a day. Gone is the hope in tomorrow. I have but one thing to hold onto as a life preserver and that is my faith in God. 

While man has destroyed everything, burnt the promise of growth, singed the tide of deliverance, damaged the blossoms of love and buried the plateau of joy, I remain alone. I will count by single digits the good ones and remain skeptical of the boasting 'good' people; skeptical not judgmental because I hold no right in judging. We each have to judge for ourselves what is right and wrong and prayerfully I choose right.

Ten Things Money CAN’T buy?

Manners
Morals
Respect
Common sense
Character
Class
Integrity
Trust
Patience
LOVE!

Bonus: Faith, Hope and Charity

1 Cor. 13:13 KJV “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”

They're all IDIOTS!

Prov. 15:1 “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.”

How does that feel? Don’t you just love it when a ‘so called’ Christian stands out in plain site calling people idiots? That speaks volumes to the kind of person he/she is, I mean seriously isn’t there another way to hate people or nations, provinces, races, colors, ideologies? To disagree is one thing but to name-call, that is just harsh words to stir up anger. 

What I see when people name call are people who are racist, prejudice, ignorant slanderers that would not hesitate in calling a handicapped person a derogatory name either, or someone overweight belittling names or a mentally challenged person a demeaning name. It is the nature of haters to hate everything they possibly can and love only, what, their own mother?

This is a sad world when all you can do is register hate to begin your day. Are you telling me that your life is so boring that you have nothing better to do in life but spread hate, hate-filled posts, ignorance, lies and disgusts? I thought I had a sad life because of all the love I have for nature but surely the hate-mongers are desperate for attention. Oh don’t worry, they are not alone because they rally the numbers behind them and have the innocent victims falling in line to agree and cheer on their hate rant. I guess it is justified but the vicious cycle actually makes me want to puke. Just as my posts anger people for whatever reason because I don’t share in the hate? 

Prov. 19:1 “Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity, than he that is perverse in his lips, and is a fool.”

A couple of months ago the singer Prince died. The social media lit up in condolences and sympathy while the haters did nothing but add the dislike for the man. Was it because he was black man? Or his religion wasn’t the same as theirs? This weekend Muhammad Ali died after a long battle with an illness but he died happy and content. That made the jealous ones sit up and fill to the brim their hatred of the man who didn’t do one thing wrong to them, but oh wait, he was Muslim. 

You see, in this country, you cannot be any other religion. You can only be one political party and you MUST agree with the masses or you are up the creek without a paddle. If you do not conform to one way of thinking you are the one shunned for being different among the crowd. 

I wonder if this is what the Native Americans felt like when the Polish, German, Irish, British, Jews came over and put them in their own little private corner of the world and tried to force their religious and political beliefs on them.

In America, you can be Jewish and you’re accepted and praised, you can be Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, Baptist, Jehovah Witness, Lutheran, Methodist, Buddhist and any other religion except Muslim. God forbid should you be a practicing Muslim in America because that is SO un-American and no person will accept you. Yes, that IS what the Native Americans feel like. 

The hate-filled people will say that the Muslim are killers. Muhammed Ali was a practicing Muslim, was he a killer? Aaron Hernandez is a killer, OJ Simpson is a killer but they were probably of the right religion and that is why they are idolized.

I don’t even think America is divided by religion in my eyes, we’re divided as the people who love, and the people who hate. You either fit in or you don’t. Get over yourself people, America does NOT own the world and does not own religion. You so-called Christians need to learn how love, practice what you preach and stop all the hating any one or thing that doesn’t conform to YOUR expectations.

What to do? Well, what I do is I bask in the glory of the trees, the earth, the fields coming alive, the colorful birds singing and chirping, the sun rising and lending shadows to the earth. I rejoice in my Father who is in heaven and gave this beauty for me to behold, love and appreciate. Am I wrong for loving the human species the way Jesus loved all men? Am I so naïve to cherish all that I have in my life and not want for more?

I am content, I am alive and I LOVE. Alleluia, Amen!

MTOC ~ Day Five Finale

Acts 18:9-11 “Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city. And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.”

Sometimes the truth hurts. 

It is pretty sad to watch the nation go down the tubes but it is also pretty sad to watch mankind take everything they read at face value. Remember, if they read it on the internet it MUST be true, right? 

This week I lay open MY truth, the truth of MY life and why I am who I am and just who it is you judge. Some people call me a God freak and they’d be right. I am inebriated on God. I am drowning in the love and peace of God. 

I see a nation before me who has kicked God to the curb, tossed Him out like yesterday’s news but funny thing is, man clings like a wet napkin to yesterday’s news more than they ever clung to God. 

People put more energy in their government than they ever put into God, maybe that is why the social media is lit like Times Square on New Years Eve with political memes bashing politicians, passing laws, hatred for practically everyone and everything and not giving a second thought to God the creator of this mess we call Earth.

Many people out there believe God is the creator but there are more that don’t understand how He can let this earth go to hell. You only see the bad, pick out the portions of the bible that scare you and go from there attacking anything religious in nature.

If someone posts a scripture you assume they are God freaks, if they post pictures of Angel’s you assume they are worshipping false idols. If someone posts an Obama picture you call them Libtards and if someone posts a picture of Donald Trump looking like Hitler you attack their insensitivity to humans killed by Hitler. Do you see the pattern?

The world is consumed with attacking one another for any and every single thing! It began when satan didn’t like the idea of God ruling the world and so he began attacking harshly then went on to rape (literally and figuratively) more discreetly pulling the human race into his web of deceit. 

Man is supposed to be the one on top of the food chain but seriously I see animals with more respect for their fellow species! I can see why people think that Christianity is full of hypocrisy. Native Americans had to watch the ‘religious man’ take over their land. They then became the first people discriminated against and the white man has been pushing the discriminatory agenda for centuries!

My parents grew up in an era where the black man was the low man on the totem pole. I grew up in an era where all I wanted to do was GIVE PEACE A CHANCE; morally, spiritually or ethically. Peace is a state of mind and I don’t feel that religiously peace is possible or what man wants. This era is one to shun ANYONE or ANYTHING that is different from what YOU believe in all because “the Bible says THIS” or “the Bible says THAT.” Without dissecting the bible to fit your agenda, can you say that the bible taught you to hate?

Don’t hate me for saying this but I personally feel that the many different religions are what is destroying the world. My God did not intend for the world to be full of hate. He didn’t send His Son to give a message of hate but of love and unity and we have distorted the Word from every angle we possibly can. That my friends is not God’s doing.

Yes, I am a God freak, not a religious nut. I accepted the Holy Spirit (yes, SPIRIT) to guide me in a life of love. Love my enemy as I love myself. To love my sister and brothers (yes, I still love my siblings) as God would have wanted me to in turning the other cheek. Live it! Be one with love and you will feel the peace I’ve been writing about all week. Wake up people, GIVE PEACE A CHANCE!

My testimony of Christ stands to say that *I* found God my way with all that He intended for MY life and now it is your CHOICE to choose a spiritual path or an angry riddled trail filled with gravel to hinder every barefoot step you take. I hope you’ve enjoyed my testimony and if you haven’t I have enjoyed writing and feeling an emotional healing taking place. Just so you know, I would NOT want to go back and change one single thing in my life, it made me who I am today. 

May the Grace of God be with you all!

Phil. 4:9 “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.”

Col. 1:20 “And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.”

Rev. 6:4 “And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.”

Fear: A Driving Force

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 

1 John 4:18

There is something going on in my life that I’m not quite ready to share with you at this time but I can say that fear has tried to creep in and take over. Also allow me to say that I’m not one to succumb to fear, I live through faith. 

Recently I have been taking everything at face value. It is what it is. I allow outside influences to steer my thoughts and I’ve never done that before because I’m so focused on God. Here lately the dark one has been doing overtime trying to get me to live in FEAR! My prayer and meditation remains on God but again, outside influences and negativity try to seep into my being. 

“Fear is an acronym (I received this in my email this weekend from Bible Gateway) False Evidence Appearing Real.” How did they know I was dealing with this? Oh, they didn’t but GOD did and made sure the message was sent to me and received!

Lent for me is always a time where mysteries are revealed to me. The Greek meaning of mystery is defined as: what was not known but is now revealed. My body is going through some earthly changes; changes that scare me and have me dawdling in fear, but I can’t and won’t live there because I have an immense faith that there is something greater going on.

As I walk on faith, people will come at me saying but you have to be looked at, you have to see a doctor, you have to do this and do that, you can’t just rely on faith. I would like to slap them upside the head but I won’t, I’ll just simply say, “Thanks for caring but this is my cross to bear.” (I know, I can see your eye roll from here.)

God has a plan and that is to get His message across and He can be as subtle as the dark one when it comes to conveying a message. He wants and NEEDS us to walk on faith to find 'perfect love' and He’ll carry us the rest of the way on this little blip we call life. If you think for one moment that these fifty, sixty, one hundred years of life that you live on this planet is all that there is, you are sadly mistaken. 

We are on a mission for Him and He uses every way possible, even deaths, for us to see the Light. Take for example people who run on and on about what they hate of the Muslim people. People they don’t know and have never met. Don’t tell me because you’ve met a couple of them you hate all of them, really? And what they’ve done to the Christian faith?  (more in a later post about the Crusades)

God at work does not mean everything He does is rainbows and beauty, some of the things that has to happen HAS TO BE ugly, or no one would sit up and take notice. Take the Muslim women who have converted to Christianity secretly. You assume all Muslims are killers and worship a false god. Do you know that many are over there sacrificing their life for Jesus? How else can God wake up an evil nation? Because I choose not to HATE, I’m considered Un-American, really? Well I consider you who hate unChristian. Touché. May I ask if you hate Jews in America? Germans? Mexicans? No? Just Muslims?

When you spew hate, you are doing the Muslim’s work for them, they are feeding off fear and hate and you are feeding off of what they are planting while God is busy at work trying to get you and them to see Jesus, to spread LOVE not to spread hate. If that is your mission, you are no different than the very Muslims you abhor. When I see the slaughtering and pillaging I see God at work and see the Muslims realizing that this Jesus is bigger than anything they’ve ever imagined. They are delivering a message from OUR GOD without even knowing it, which is why I said God is subtle. He KNOWS what He’s doing.

Romans 5:15 (NIV) “But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!”

If dying for Christ is wrong; if God is wrong for taking lives; if we’re just here to read and believe, then this is a sad day to be a Christian. Take note: It is NOT a sad day to be a Christian, this is the time to stand up for Christ and show the people of the world that Jesus IS worth dying for in every way imaginable. Fear does not rule our world! But I see many who feed on the same venom those they despise feed on. You cannot bring people to Jesus through loathing what you don’t like in the world. 

If I have to die to show you how Christ lives then I am honored to be a part of this master plan and if satan thinks I’m going to go in fear and feed off of what the hatemongers wish me to take a bite of, he has another thing coming because the only thing I fear is what is left behind and that is leaving my family. But I’ll take Jesus over my family any day. 

This brings to mind a beloved worship song:

Our God is greater, our God is stronger, God you are higher than any other.
Our God is Healer, Awesome in Power, Our God! Our God!
And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us.
And if our God is with us, then what could stand against.
And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us.
And if our God is with us, then what could stand against.
Then what could stand against.

Think of this song and the power of YOUR God before you spew your next rant of antagonism. 

Change

Proverbs 2:1-5 (NIV) "My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God."

Today is the day I will renounce my Christian label. Before you all go ballistic on me, allow me to explain. The label Christian means absolutely nothing these days. People toss the word around like a basketball; dribble it here, toss it there. 

Definition of renounce (before vocab nazi’s attack): to give up or put aside voluntarily: to renounce worldly pleasures.
2. to give up by formal declaration:

As I’ve been working through some tough things lately, I’ve sure been hit hard with a realization lately; I need the courage to let go of what I can’t change. I can’t change my past I accept that. I can’t change humans I have to accept that also. 

These humans are the very reason I will no longer call myself Christian. They have me struggling with my faith and it doesn’t seem fair to me. I have an extremely strong faith, a viable strength in the Lord, and an apparently different way of seeing things.

They (Christians) drink because hey, Jesus drank wine so it must be okay. Well to me, I don’t believe he drank a beer in His life and definitely don’t see Him nipping at some mushrooms in the garden before being tempted by satan. Was it all a hallucinating experience for Him and He just wish-washed the truth?

I wanna drink.  Thanks Christians.

They also curse, and that is okay too because I guess Jesus rode an ass so everyone must get the symbolization that we’re all asses? 

I wanna curse. Thanks Christians.

Is this a lie?

Ephesians 5:4 ESV “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.”

So is it okay to joke and use crude vulgar language. All in fun, right Christians? 

More lies?

James 1:26 ESV “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.”

I struggle. Thanks Christians.

I’m beginning to think hell is the better place to end up when I die. Heaven is going to be full of people cursing, drinking, laughing at people cursing and drinking and maybe THIS is not where I want to end up. Christians believe they’re all going to heaven and these same Christians are the drinkers and cursers. Are they all going to change AFTER they get into heaven? Hmm...

I’m confused. Thanks Christians.

I will now call myself a Follower of Christ. Not a follower of humans who fill people with lies, have no remorse, have no character and basically they have a wilted soul. I can only pray for them in their disillusionment. I cannot change THEM I can only change ME! And this is what I strive for!

Romans 12:2 ESV “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Thank you Jesus! 

Now this is a post not many will like, maybe because of the truth it holds? My point is this I can call myself a Christian but it doesn’t mean I AM one. Just as I can call myself a butterfly but until I CHANGE from a caterpillar, I am just a caterpillar.

Thank you God! For making me, ME!

Psalm 19:14 ESV “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

Tuning Out

Rom. 12:2 “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

It is quite sad that so many are working hard to bring people to God yet turning them away from Him unaware. I’ve been tuning people out for some time now but still, that doesn’t keep me from observing their behavior. The negative aspects still have a way of seeping in when I least expect. I’m not offended as much as I’m saddened at their inane actions while claiming to be children of God. Human beings are a sad lot.

I see why people are turning from God in record numbers, not just because they don’t believe in the first place, but they are being deceived and that can lead to a falling away of forming any sort of belief system.

It’s confusing when people are touting that they KNOW the truth but don’t LIVE the truth. People boasting of their love of God but are visually so filled with internal hate for everything. People seeking the truth are then led to believe that you can do no wrong and the bible then becomes a laughable joke. They see people practicing not what they are preaching.

I’ve come to the conclusion that we don’t live in God’s world, we live in a political world and man uses the bible as a footstool to base their belief system on and of course, the non-believers are not going to stand for the word Bible or God in their vocabulary. Everyone is too busy seeing the left and right or the wrong and right of things, not the God things. Their focus is NOT on God but the world.

Rom. 12:1 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

I realized something last year; that I had raised my son in a Christian household and when he turned eighteen; I realized his beliefs were not the same as mine. Sure I tried to instill all my Christian beliefs into him but there came a backfire when he said to me, “I don’t believe the same things as you.”

A shocker right? Wrong! I realized (an awakening of sorts) that my son is not my property, he is God’s property. It was my job to teach him in the way that he should go but in the end, he is his own person and can form his own ideas/beliefs. He hasn’t turned from God, he’s just drinking in all the foolish lies people spout and forming his own opinion. Wow, how did that happen, he turned out to be his own being? He doesn’t do the facebook thing because, “There is no good in that place.”

This is what is happening in the world today. We try and shove OUR belief down people’s throats and it backfires, people are not buying what we are trying to sell. To a believer you’ll get an AMEN sometimes but to the non-believer you get tuned out. You are turning them AWAY from God instead of TO God.

I was taught as a child that you don’t discuss money, religion and politics because it causes disagreements, arguments, and division. It’s not a law to abide by but it is a non-formal moral code that humans have supposedly grown accustomed to, you’d think.

I think of facebook as a gathering of friends. It would be no different if it were everyone sitting around in the park at a picnic table sharing food and family fun. What I don’t expect is to be hit (and hit hard) with a barrage of political crud, religious buffs (who know everything, BTW) and gabfests on money. Oh wait, the only time money is brought up is when people are sharing the abundance of the amount they have, which is almost NEVER! So why not hold the religion and politics to the same stature? You’re among friends, act like it!

I’m starting to think that these folk don’t have a moral code that they live by. They just want to point out that they are right and you are wrong. It makes me want to tune out and turn away from the very people I’ve come to know and love. Facebook has become a cesspool for the arrogance of society; taken away (or lost in the crud) is the fun-loving, God embracer. Oh they’re there, but far and very few between. My newsfeed is down to about five people now, a much more POSITIVE flow of the GOODNESS in the world.

This is what is happening in the world today. People are tuning out and turning away; tuning out from the hypocritical society, the political garbage and turning away from God. Guess what, people can actually THINK for themselves. They don’t need YOU to tell them what is wrong with the world, clearly showing them where YOUR focus is, and it isn’t on God!

My only saving grace is turning away from the world and tuning into God. God is my refuge; He’s not my platform, I don’t use Him for gain, I use Him for comfort. He is my Soul Food!

Let me let you get back to your political propaganda, your regularly scheduled program. I’m tuned out of Social Media and I’m tuned into God.

Pss. 139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

AMEN!

Sin is Sin

Luke 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

Sin is Sin

I read something interesting this morning, note that it is not mine:

*** I went to church tonight with my family and the pastor said something I think every Christian should hear.

Pastor: Now according to a few passages in the Bible, homosexuality is a sin.

Couple of older males in the audience: Amen!

Pastor: Now wait, I’m not finished.

Pastor: You know what else the bible defines as sin? Divorce!

~ uncomfortable silence ~

Pastor: There are countless passages that talk about how divorce is wrong, and there are consequences to getting a divorce such as a woman should be stoned.

He went on:

Pastor: We choose to overlook the consequences of divorce because time has proven that they are inhumane and cruel.

The bible doesn’t say anything about the consequences of the homosexual lifestyle. Yet we seem to be spearheading a campaign to ruin the lives of people we don’t even know.

Pastor: The bible says we are to love thy neighbor. That’s it. There are no other rules or restrictions to that passage.

So WE as a church family have to support equality with a smile on our face. THAT is the true Christian way. ***

Here lately I see so much hate coming from so-called Christians. I say so-called because while they call themselves Christians they certainly don’t act like a Christian. Posting a scripture here and there does not make you a Christian, attending a church does not make you a Christian. The way you ACT and partake in living Christ-like makes you a Christian.

I saw another post:

***Love Thy Neighbor

Thy homeless neighbor

Thy Muslim neighbor

Thy black neighbor

The gay neighbor

Thy White neighbor

Thy Asian neighbor

Thy Jewish neighbor

The Christian neighbor

Thy Atheist neighbor

Thy disabled neighbor

Thy addicted neighbor ***

I’d like to add to the list, Thy Sinning neighbor. So as much as you despise the homosexual and hate the Muslim, the divorced woman must also repulse you?

Luke 17:25 “But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.”

I am a sinner. I have been cohabiting with a man for many of years. My Church just about did away with me because I didn’t bow to their rules. *I* am no different than a homosexual being turned away from a church, or for church goers to deny them/us entry because of their/our lifestyle.

I almost forgot, I’m also divorced! Stone me now! I don’t feel I committed adultery but by marrying this man I have spent thirteen years with, it is considered adultery. My ex husband abandoned his son and me and I found a man/friend who respected and honored me in ways the ex never did, nor would or could. He broke the vows by treating me as an obsession/possession that when he lost me, he never tried to file for a divorce as he said he would. He kept me hanging, wondering and dangling feeling like the most repulsive sinner in the world.

I remain committed to God. The blood of Christ washes away my sin, right? So why would Jesus’ blood not be forgiving to the homosexual? Does he only forgive certain sins, like the man who hates, despises, steals and tells white lies? A lie is a lie and a sin is a sin. You cannot paint your sin a pretty color and say that it is not sin.

My beau and I have decided to get married at a Historical courthouse. Why a courthouse? The church that is built for sinners to come to has turned us away. We are just sinners, so please, stone us now.

I think I will give up on religion for the time being. RELIGION! Not my faith in God and certainly not Jesus Christ. I am empowered by the Word and by the Word I will live, and as a sinner I will die. But Jesus will forgive me, right? "...the kingdom of God is WITHIN you."

Jas. 1:26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.

[27] Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

Think about this:

 
Luke 17: [33] Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.
[34] I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.
[35] Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
[36] Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
[37] And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.

The Martyr

Rev 11:7 And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.

The Martyr

I’m sure you’ve all heard of the Christians beheaded by the ISIS group?

I read that they were Coptic Christians and I thought, what’s the difference, isn’t a Christian a Christian?

A Coptic Christian is called Coptic because this is the language of the Afro-Asiatic. I’m intrigued to know more about them. They are Christians living in a predominantly Muslim world, which is why they are persecuted on a daily basis.

This isn’t the first beheadings and certainly won’t be the last we hear of this atrocity. So why do these beheadings warrant an outcry more than the others?  I can’t say. I do know the bible says that we will be persecuted for His names sake so why does it shock us that prophecy is being fulfilled?

These people live in the very land where Jesus and His followers walked. His shoes were filled with the sand of the land and the same that were persecuted in Moses day and Jesus’ day are the same men and women being persecuted in this very day. Can you think of any difference in then and now?

I thought about it and the main thing I found different was the way we, in the safe zone called America basically thousands of miles away from the Middle East and these horrendous acts, hear the stories by the click of a button.

We’re sitting at our desks, all snug in our warm socks, possibly wrapped in a warm blanket, drinking our freshly brewed coffee, relaxing behind a screen. All the while Christians are being persecuted all around us in record number.

Imagine a time when we were fed our news via mouth. “I heard this...”

Yup, word of mouth, then it was the written word via a long article in the newspaper, now we click a button of our preferred news source and then we become the relaters of the words like little gossipmongers.

“He said this.”

“She said this.”

It must be the truth because they said this and that.

I’m wondering if anyone else has noticed that not only is God working here but satan as well? God is trying to hold us to our commitment to Him while Satan is waving his arms all around garnering our attention and it is working. Yes the crimes are horrendous, yes it is despicable to think that one must die proclaiming Christianity but it is also saddening to watch ‘Christians’ walk right into satans hands. How? By spewing hate, that’s how. This is his goal and all too many are the gullible, willing recipients. He spews hate, they spew hate, and the line of hate flourishes and grows.

Yes, we are called to despise evil but when YOU spew evil am I to despise you? Think about that. There are always two sides to every story. Did Jesus use just one disciple to spread his word? Did God have one man spread His word across the nations? No, He didn’t and as such we have the books that form the Holy Bible in front of us today. And an FYI, the Bible was not written in verse form I believe, so that one verse couldn’t/ shouldn’t be taken out of context.

We are in the midst of nation rising against nation. God and Satan are at war. Prophecy is being fulfilled and we cower and spread hate? We are divided spiritually, religiously and politically. I do not pretend to know the religion of my acting president no more than can I know who my fellow Christian brother/sister is. Just because I clicked a button and was fed lies am I to believe them as truth?

I am neither democratic nor republican, I am neither a Jew nor a Muslim but in this world I am persecuted no matter what I believe. I believe in truth. God’s truth not man and his twisted truth. Do you get it? If you partake in the spewing of lies and hate, you are no different than the men of the ISIS group; you want to be heard, you want to be right, you my friend are doing just what satan wants you to do, not what God wants you to do.

You say you’re a Christian but would you defend Christianity in death? Can you place yourself in the beheaded Christians place and say you too would die for your belief? I see Americans and people worldwide being persecuted for Christ and we don’t hear anything about them, they are all hidden deep within the information highway so you only SEE the most gruesome of crimes being committed. We FEED off this brutality hence become a part of the atrocity. To my eyes, you are fulfilling satans task at destroying us.

To be called a Christian you must act like one. Name-calling is not what Christianity is about. If our government stood firm and called themselves Christians and not ACTING like Christians, the fingers would be pointing, shouting even, you’re a liar, you can’t be Christian, but when the government takes no stance on religion they are called other names and the vicious cycle of satan-born hate goes round and round.

Instead of hate-spewing, I read this yesterday:

...whatever the world news may say about the Brave, Martyred 21 Christians who were beheaded by ISIS, Lord, we know Your Word speaks the Truth: "The world was not worthy of them." (Heb.11:38) However any evil thinks it's winning & overcoming, Your Truth declares that they are the Overcomers, that they overcame "because of the blood of the Lamb & because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death." (Rev.12:11) And wherever Your people are tonight, God, We will remember every one of their names because they did not forget You or forsake claiming Your name, We will pray for their families because they are our literal family, And we will pray that our faith *in You* is worth laying down our life *for You,* We will pray that we don't live lives of cheap grace but of costly Christianity, We will pray that their sacrificed lives will stir us to live sacrificial lives And we will weep prayers for the persecuted Church because we are *bound* to them through Your Heart & in Your heart they are UNBOUND, UNDEFEATABLE, UNDAUNTED, & UNFORGETTABLE.  ~ Courtesy of Ann Voskamp of Smoky Mountain Christian

I don’t know if the author is Ann Voskamp but instead of shouting injustices she took the high road and showed her CHRISTIAN faith! This is what it’s all about people, PRAYER! Not hate-filled, dogmatic words of prayer, genuine heartfelt, fervent prayer.

I am a child of God. I will not judge you for whatever road you choose to get to where you are at in life today, and I should hope and pray that YOU don’t judge others for whatever path THEY are choosing. Don’t let satan have the pleasure of deceiving you.

 Matthew 5:10 “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Quotation Saturday

^from the net ^

RELIGION

“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.”
~ Mark Twain

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong.”
~ John Lennon

“In truth, there was only one Christian and he died on the cross.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

GOD

“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”
~ C.S. Lewis

“God has no religion.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

“I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: "Go down again - I dwell among the people.”
~ John Henry Newman

“I don't stand for black man's side, I don't stand for white man's side, I stand for God's side.”
~ Bob Marley

FAITH

“I have faith that God will show you the answer. But you have to understand that sometimes it takes a while to be able to recognize what God wants you to do. That's how it often is. God's voice is usually nothing more than a whisper, and you have to listen very carefully to hear it. But other times, in those rarest of moments, the answer is obvious and rings as loud as a church bell.”
~ Nicholas Sparks

“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.”
~ J.R.R. Tolkien

“I have great faith in fools - self-confidence my friends will call it.”
~ Edgar Allan Poe

“Sometimes beautiful things come into our lives out of nowhere. We can't always understand them, but we have to trust in them. I know you want to question everything, but sometimes it pays to just have a little faith.”
~ Lauren Kate

“Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want. It is the belief that God will do what is right.”
~ Max Lucado

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

NEW YEAR

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.
So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”
~ Neil Gaiman

“For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.”
~ T.S. Eliot

“May Light always surround you;
Hope kindle and rebound you.
May your Hurts turn to Healing;
Your Heart embrace Feeling.
May Wounds become Wisdom;
Every Kindness a Prism.
May Laughter infect you;
Your Passion resurrect you.
May Goodness inspire
your Deepest Desires.
Through all that you Reach For,
May your arms Never Tire.”
~ D. Simone

“Tomorrow, is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one.”
~ Brad Paisley

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Lent: Day Thirty-seven ~ God is Not a Religion

Luke 2: 40 And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.

God is Not a Religion

Pss. 86: 13 For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.

“Religion is for people afraid of going to hell…Spirituality is for people who have already been there.” ~ Vine Deloria – Sioux

I hear so many times people saying, “Don’t shove your religion down my throat.” Maybe they are misinformed but scripture from the bible is not a religion; God is not a religion so when I post a scripture and you’re offended and tell me to stop shoving my religion down your throat, allow me to enlighten you.

Scripture is not a religion. Faith in God is not a religion. Now when a Jehovah’s Witness knocks on your door and tries to shove a pamphlet in your face, THAT is someone trying to force their religion on you.

I’ve been approached many times in the parking lot by a JW and as you’re trying to unload all your groceries, they run up and try shoving a pamphlet in your face. Now THAT to me is trying to force a religion on you. When someone physically approaches you and feeds you their religion as if it is the only one and the only RIGHT one that exists.

Spirituality is not a religion either and TO ME that is just what God and all His biblical testimonies are, primarily. The Buddhists don’t own spiritual awareness, the Native Americans don’t have the market cornered on spirituality. Spiritual experiences are for all whether faith in one God or not.

My spirituality is a deep rooted faith in one God. It is rooted in there being only ONE God, who had a Son through a divine Immaculate Conception, who then died for mankind and all his sins, thus bathing us in the Holy Spirit!

If religion is defined as the worship of One God, then yes, I am religious. I will walk with the Holy Spirit and share with you all that that entails, but I will not say that this is the one and only faith that you must adhere to in life or that it is the only RIGHT one. 

We are all of different creeds and I respect that. I cannot judge someone whose only faith is in spiritual awareness and I would hope that I am not judged for believing in the trinity.

When I was a child, I was raised Catholic and very much wanted to be a nun and dedicate my life to Christ but be it as it may, God wanted a different path for me and in every breath I took, He guided each step. He is the one who put me on this spiritual path. He did not sink me into a religion and guide me in the way of becoming a nun; He had different plans for me.

Spirituality is hard to find a definitive definition. Scientist define it “the search for the sacred”. There is a definition on spiritualism that is defined as: the belief that all reality is spiritual. Metaphysics: any of various doctrines maintaining that the ultimate reality is spirit or mind. If God did not want us to be spiritual beings why use the word over 600 times in the Bible?

Why did God take me on this journey? Why did He set my path on the spiritual aspect rather than a religious road? I think it is because He wanted me to know the differences in life based on spirituality.

Being called a Jesus freak is okay with me. I’ve already stirred up thoughts with this Lenten series and some have been good, while others I can sense are tired of it all already. I’m not called to please you, I’m called to please my Lord and Savior who is guiding my fingertips. I am guided by the warmth washing over me by the Holy Spirit and what comes out in these posts are for all to walk away with and think about.

You can walk away in agreement or disagreement that is for you and where you are in your journey of life. All I know is that God is my divining rod. I can choose one way or the other, I can believe in all He has shown me, or I can shrug off all He has conveyed and take a different path. That is free will.

If you pick up a bible and read it, do you walk away with questions, enlightenment, doubts or unbelief? Enlightenment to me is an AHA moment where a lightbulb goes off in my head. And when I read the bible, I walk away enlightened by the knowledge that God has placed on my heart. I have read many different doctrines and the Holy Bible is the only one that gave me clarity.

God is not my religion, He is a way of life for me. I am a very spiritual person who sees God in everything, and I do mean everything. The land, the trees, the soil, the animals, and yes in human beings whether they have the Light of the Lord in them or not, I see them as spiritual beings set on a different path than me.

My religion is my church (Christians) and my church family (where I go to praise and worship) where we are all set on the same path walking hand in hand with the same beliefs. You can poke fun at me, laugh at my pain, correct me because I’m not grammatically perfect, scoff at my imperfections but please, don’t make fun of my spiritual beliefs. I judge no one and don’t care to BE judged.

God is not a religion, He is a spiritual journey. Embrace it.

1 Cor. 16: 18 For they have refreshed my spirit and yours: therefore acknowledge ye them that are such.

Lent: Day Twenty-two ~ Breathe a New Beginning

Pss. 51: 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Breathe a New Beginning

Don’t we all wish we could just breathe a new beginning? I think that is what Lent is for me. Normally I fast from food and do a deep spiritual meditation focusing on all things NOT related to technology. These days these techno gadgets are getting on my last nerve.

A new beginning to me is a fresh new day. Seeing things in life in a new perspective. That’s what my blog posts are doing for me, breathing in me a new beginning. While some people are content with their spiritual life, sitting at home living on the techno gadget they own and passing the time thinking this is a normal way of life.

I’m not knocking it if you are handicap and need techno gadgets. To some people it is all they have, it is their only means to viewing what the outside world is like. This gadget can be everything to a home-bound person. I’m not far from that in being the arthritis in my back won’t allow me to just get up and go so sometimes I depend on this gadget for friendships. But will it ever be the replacement part for the here and now called reality? Never!

I sometimes feel like Jesus, as I’m fasting from what the Lord asked me to and doing what He’s asked, I feel satan taking little nips at me as I’m in my deepest breath of a new beginning. Pick, pick, pick! He doesn’t care how or when he just picks and picks trying to get at me little bits at a time whether online or offline, he’s there, slithering in the garden, trying to sway me into a bout of anger.

I find it quite chilling that man (when I refer to man I mean the HUMAN race) thinks HIS will could over ride God’s will at any given time throughout a day. Man cannot live by bread alone. We were reading our bible study last night and it posed a question, “Who (or what) are you a slave to?” I just blurted out “God, I’m a slave to God.”

I think what it was asking is what do we find ourselves richly immersed in, in our lives? Are we surfing the net for hours? Then you’re a slave to the net. Are you listening to music for hours upon hours? Then you’re a slave to music. Do you sit on YouTube watching inane clips? Then you’re a slave to YouTube, just a wee part of the net. Ask yourself what is it YOU are a slave to?

I said I was a slave to God because I find myself hour upon hour, reading the Word, writing ABOUT the Word, talking about the Word and anything else about God or the Word I wrap myself up in and feel safe. I wouldn’t call it a slave though; I’d call it addicted.

Have I always been addicted to God? Well, it did begin as a minor obsession, then grew into a must have possession and then it became so phenomenally thirst quenching, I could no longer breathe a single minute without Him.

I did look into different religions and different faiths but nothing was so breathtaking as the Word from the Holy Bible. I then had to seek out a way to surround myself with positive-natured, God-nurtured people. Yes, my path was a little haywire at times, but I wound up breathing a new beginning with Christ.

I’m not here to judge how you walk in your breath of Christ; I’m not here to tell you the ‘right’ way or the ‘wrong’ way to find the breath of Christ alive in you. I AM here to tell you how the breath of Christ refreshes me and wakes me every single day and causes me to walk in a Light that many don’t understand.

Some try finding God in a book, some try and find Him in proof, some try and redefine the essence of His true meaning. Some will continue their search and change for the better. Some will get all the proof they need, read and believe until their eyes bulge out of their heads, but still remain a slave, to humanity. Me… I find the breath of Christ right here within me; I need look no further.

Pss. 40: 8 I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.

Is God dead?

Pss. 40: 10 I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation.

Is God dead?

I’ve been taking a break from writing these past few months, and a friend of mine made the comment, “You’re abandoning your God given talent?”

“No, no I’m not,” I offer, “I’m taking a rest.”

We live in a day and age where people need proof that God exists. They go on and on about having faith, but then they seek out ‘proof’ in archeological findings to see if He was really real, if Jesus existed, if the flood was real, if Moses parted the sea. Is that faith?

I can be preachy at times, but that is by my choice not because someone or some religion expects it from me. I don’t and won’t push my beliefs on anyone but I will share when my heart is heavy laden and I need to get things out there.

I read the news daily and also the comments. Whatever you do in the yahoo comment section, don’t mention God. You’ll get thumbs down out the wazoo! It seems to many that God is an imaginary creature that man has created in the wellsprings of the mind and passed on for thousands of years. Is His legend dying?

By no means. If He can still anger so many people for existing, then I think he is very much alive. They just need proof.

I know this is a writing blog but among writers this debate goes on and on too. This weeks question:

Does adherence to rationality lead to atheism ?

George (opposes Christ) wrote: Paula, I'm glad you are so certain. I know it gives great comfort. I agree that there is a lot of wisdom in the Bible and the Judeo-Christian religions. There is also a lot of mythological fantasy obviously written by man and plagiarized from previous versions of a God.
None of that convinces me that I am doomed to hell for not buying in to the whole nine yards. I go to church with my wife often. At the end of the sermon, the Pastor always says, for those who have not found him yet, ask him into your hearts now. I do that with as much earnestness as I can. The message I get in return is, "You are on the right path, keep trucking, no worries."  (Joni’s note: So where does this message you get come from? Your mind?)
It takes no faith to be an Atheist or Agnostic, it takes great faith to be a Christian. Why many keep trying to make a parallel with that is beyond me and shows a weakness in their faith. LOL 
Where we agree is that in the working of the laws of nature there sometimes appear (for me) positive, unexpected, synergistic results that I choose to attribute to a "Higher Power." I have observed countless miracles in that manner and I am constantly amazed by them. (Joni’s note: Higher power? Would THAT be God?)
The people in my wifes' church here in Texas pray for everything, world peace, end the drought, win the lottery, cure cancer etc. I don't have faith in that kind of "Prayer on demand" but they do, despite any rationally measured success rate.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it until new evidence appears. Which I am open to.

Paula (believer of Christ) wrote: If you were God and you created beings that you love, then do you make them robots? That's not love. That is slavery or worse. So you create this universe and humans evolve from that. They have a choice. The wrong choices humans make have terrible consequences for other humans and nature itself. We have to take responsibility for this and not blame God.

I get really mad at God sometimes, but this life is going to end for me some day. What evidence do I have that no matter how bad this life gets there is still a sunrise? Don't slam the door on my viewpoint. Go back and reread the biblical accounts and the books written about the evidence. There is real evidence.

Cathy (a believer) wrote: George, I don't think that Jesus performed "magic" which is usually a form of trickery where the hand is quicker than the eye. Now how they saw people in half and separate the box, I have no idea. But Jesus was pure, God's power which is ever present for all of us flowed through him. It was his intention rooted in compassionate love that allowed him to use that power to heal the sick. It's like having a very well wired house but never having established the service contract. It is capable of making the lights go on and all of the appliances work but with out meeting the condition of turning on the source, nothing works. So what is the price for service? That is what the whole gospel and teachings of Jesus are about. It is the instructions manual about how to get to the state of a pure and contrite heart that will get the evil and distractions or our fleshly appetites out of the way and under control so that the divine power can flow through us. We are designed to be fully divine. Jesus was the fully functioning 'model unit" so to speak to show the way and motivate mankind to change and return to God.

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Let me tell you, George went on for pages decrying the falsity of God and Jesus. Every scientific theory he came up with, there was a believer with a somewhat better argument, in my opinion. But then again, I’m a believer.

I’ve learned many things in my young life, and as a believer there are some things you just don’t talk about: money, God and Religion. I myself don’t have an argument for atheist. They don’t believe and maybe never will. Believers will speak and write, often falling on deaf ears. But hidden among all the rubble is TRUTH. That is where people get divided; seeking out the TRUTH.

In my rational mind allow me to ask you this: How come no one blames Zeus for striking their house with a lightning bolt burning it and all material things to the ground? Why doesn’t man blame atlas for the climate change? Why do they blame a God they don’t believe in? Boggles the mind.

Where does all this fit into the WRITING world?  Apparently the writers of the world are seeking some truth to their writing so that they’re not misleading readers. But who really has the TRUTH?

I watch as man defecates on man, destroys the very thing that they believe in and we wonder, “Where is God in all this turmoil?” There’s a post going around facebook that says something like this: “The teacher is quietest during the test.”  I like that!

He’s watching us destroy ourselves and don’t worry, He’ll be back to ‘correct our mistakes on the test’. But don’t take my word on it, seek out the proof you need, seek out the truth and before you know it, you’ll fall flat on your face in the realization of, the TRUTH!