How important is only one?

For those of you out there (me at times), feel that during those dismal days of which we only reach perhaps one or two that we are useless and infective?

Sure.  We’ve all been there once or twice or perhaps even more.  It is easy to question your value when you gauge yourself to others. Doing so is measuring success by the world’s value system, not Gods but it’s an easy enough trap.

Imagine yourself if you will where you have fallen over a cliff and hanging on to that proverbial tree branch for dear life and you cry out to God.

And God replies back to you:

“But there is only ONE of you.”

You protest:  “Yeah, yeah.  True enough, but I’m important.”

And what again if God failed to extend his hand to us in that terrible predicament?  Just because we are only one person, we are not IMPORTANT enough?

Do we remember the parable of the lost lamb where the man left 99 to seek the lone one?

So then, in answering the question: How important is only one?  The answer is obvious:  it is extremely important when it comes down to US.

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Who Prayed for Paul?

How many times have you thought of some bad guy that you would just love for them to change?  There are all kinds of bad guys, had they been different, so too historical outcomes.

What if Hitler or Stalin or Mao Zedong had not been bad guys at all.  Instead, what would have happened had these guys been good guys?  For one, I can attest that over 100 million people would not have been murdered and that’s a lot of destruction: genocide.

And such might have been for Paul.  Someone, it could even had been Stephen the first martyr, upon his stoning, been the one who prayed for Paul to change.

Mind you now, I don’t know this and the scriptures don’t say, but still, it doesn’t mean that Christ (out of the blue) called upon Saul to change.  It could be that intercessors all among the Christian community actually prayed for Saul. I am saying it is possible.

We know at least Jesus did and so the lesson here is rather than coming down on the bad guys all around us, perhaps instead we should do what Jesus told us to do and that was to bless and pray for them.

After all, Saul was a murderer and in fact, a murder of Christians.  He was fanatical, vicious and brutal. At this point, he was NOT a good guy at all.

Toss the idea around In your head for a while and see if maybe some saint did in fact beseeched God for Saul to change to Paul.  I believe someone did and believe the same about you and me.  We should do the same for all the others. It is all possible that the impossibilities of people like Saul could all come down to the core and change Saul into people like Paul.

The World without the benefit of the Holy Spirit

Prior to the day of Pentecost, the gift of the Holy Spirit was not available to all.  Only in ancient days we read that from time-to-time, the spirit of God came upon them and for His purposes.  Too, prior to Jesus we as ordinary people did not even have access to the throne of God for petitions—we had to go through 2^nd parties—the high priest and even then on designated times only.

When we look at this evil world now, can we envision how evil the world was prior to the advent of the Holy Spirit?  Can we envision the evil and all the wicked deeds that were practiced on this earth?

The outcome is mind-boggling and staggering.  Life on earth without the Holy Spirit is nothing short of a living HELL.  In the absence of God’s spirit there is NO LIFE.  Life begins and ends with God.

And the access to eternal life is through Jesus.  There is no cutting it short on any of this as the truth of man without God is self-evident.  Man is a monster—an animal and capable of anything except natural good. And for those who wish to see bad—all they have to do is step outside God’s presence.  And in the process, we no longer have the gift of the Holy Spirit.

You Are a Hard-boiled Egg and You Can Take it. (No, you Can’t)

People have a remarkable ability to endure and to persevere. That doesn’t mean that you can ‘take’ it.  You are not indestructible and no, you are not really a hard-boiled egg.

For those who boast so loud that ‘they can take it’, it simply means that they can come to the point where they just don’t care.

The Old Testament describes at least on several occasions where the king is forewarned that they are so evil that they would even cut out the unborn babies of pregnant women.  These guys cried out in horror and swore they could never do such a thing.

But they did.

As witnessed over the past hundred or so years in wars and in political purges, man has demonstrated an uncanny ability to harm, to maim and to kill. There is nothing man won’t do.  Simply witness some of the gruesome deeds ISSIS has performed within recent years. Who could imagine anyone is capable of such wicked deeds?

I’m not about to admit that I can ‘take it’ when someone is cutting my head off or boiling one in hot water or acid.  No, I can’t.

Yet, through Christ my soul can endure it. That is all.  I simply am not big enough to endure death and injury and horror and suffering and agony and hunger and all the other woes man endures.

I thank God for God and for His son, our Lord, Jesus.  Through them, I can endure for as long as I must until expiring, all the while never becoming that hard-boiled egg or begin able to ‘take it’.

Getting Everybody All Kinds of bent out of Shape

I know some people who are so non-offensive that it offends me.  Some people will ‘agree’ with anything and everything you say and of course are really nodding only in agreement to bury the issue—never for it to ever appear again.

Some of us are great to that effect—we are GREAT in adapting to a situation, to camouflage ourselves, to blend in and not stick out. We’ve learn to bend to every wind, to essentially hide and avoid confrontation at any cost.

Some of this adaptive behavior is in attempts to be Christ-like in the sense we are not to ‘offend’ anyone per se.  We are tolerant to a fault and will dismiss almost any offense.

And that is exactly why we need some preachers to say things that absolutely get everyone all kinds of bent out of shape. We call times like that a revival.

I’m not advocating here for you to go out and offend someone.  No sir.  But what I am saying is that your belief system should be equipped enough that whatever you say has meaning and is worthwhile to the point that it upsets the established order of mediocrity.

In other words, there should be LIFE in your words and actions and thus, I should desire to hear you and be with you and around you and follow what you say.

Anything less than that is almost a case for death.  And I mean that as we should not sell ourselves cheap.  Our life should have value.  We should represent something that matters, that counts for something. And in times like these we should have at least something to say that will really get everyone all kinds of bent out of shape.  And when we do, we have simply stirred up the pot just a little and perhaps risen life in some just a little.

There are Some Times When Everything Just Sucks

For those with the Pollyanna approach to life, one could accidentally saw off their leg, and this perfected optimistic would announce: “Now we have this set-back to advance a strong period of personal growth.”.

Yep, you got it.  For whatever bad thing out there, we have some intellectual telling us it is all for our own good. You and I both know this is total baloney.

Divorces do not help us out and assist our spiritual and emotional growth.  Yes, yes, we can overcome it, but to declare the event as a good thing is a complete overstatement.

And that’s how we’ve come to endure our obstacles and tragedy.  Essentially we’ve learn to deny the very thing that creates excruciating pain. By some means, we’ve learned to ‘justify’ the event and turn it around and say it’s all for the good.

I’m saying it is NOT.  It was not all good that millions are killed in war, or the murders that rage within our streets here even in our own country.  This type of loss and mayhem is NEVER good.

During these times, life just sucks.  Luke 13: 1-5  Look at the tower accident that was brought to Christ’s attention.  Even there, life sucked and no, our Lord didn’t come up with some crap about how it was all a teaching moment or any of that other junk about how we could all learn from it.  In a very real way, it pushed it aside, knowing it was simply another thing that sucked that happens every day.

And no, I’m not saying we should look for the bad but that we should call a spade a spade.  And sometimes, it sucks, it hurts like hell and we should acknowledge as such.  We are not an emotional ‘Superman’ and cannot always simply take it on the chin without flinching. Sometimes things hurt so bad that it sucks and it sucks big time and there is nothing else to call it beyond that.

Religious Idiots (For the complete and total idiot

Some religious ‘counselors’ are so desperate to make a buck they’ll concoct some mechanism to screw others out of mercy and concern.  Apparently, they have nothing better to do than figure out why THEY are the chosen few to interpret our spiritual world.

Honestly, this really reminds me of the spiritual leaders in the days of Jesus—those of whom Jesus referred to as snakes and vipers whose father was the devil.

I mean—hear me out if you will—how do you come up with an honest theme that excuses Christians NOT doing something?

We could take all of this to the logical conclusion:

Don’t feed the homeless or poor as they’ll become dependent on you

Don’t assist ex-cons as they need to learn to repay their debt to society

Don’t love the sinner as they need to learn from their experiences

Don’t forgive those with reprobate minds as they’ll simply do it again

We could go on and on with this and it is all so totally insane.  Oh, I’m sure there’s a manual out there somewhere that justifies all that I’ve refuted, but then again, I’m not a complete and total idiot.

Congratulations! You Just Put 10 Rice Farmers Out of Business — Fat Beggars School of Prophets Agent X is on the War Path with some intellectual idiots. btw those are my words.

So, I am doing this on-line study about reimagining charity called Seeking Shalom put out by the Lupton Center. It claims to present biblical principles that make charity “effective”. And during one of the early videos in the series, the instructor talks about a group he presented a hypothetical problem to and their attempt to […]

via Congratulations! You Just Put 10 Rice Farmers Out of Business — Fat Beggars School of Prophets

Growing Numb with Pain

Much is said in the aftermath of a major tragedy.  Someone always throws out the words that it is time for healing.  I think the notion is nuts.  There is no healing. A person grows numb instead.

Think about it.  Your emotions are not physical.  There is no scar tissue to seal over an open wound.  No.  The wound remains open forever. Upon recall, it is in PRESENT tense.

No one really gets over the loss of your mother or father or son or daughter or best friend or over a divorce.  Oh, we might forgive the incidents, but those memories are forever with us and dwell deep within us forever.

Telling someone they are going to ‘heal’ over it is nothing more than a platitude. In reality, we’ll stack up other events on top of those, but they will never be buried away far enough out of our reach.  And while one might mean well to say healing occurs, it does not.

You don’t heal from love.  You don’t heal from matters, values that mean more to you than anything else on earth.

In the same manner you don’t ever heal over the crucification of Jesus. I am sure you are all like me and whenever this image burns into my mind, it pains me—I tear up with giant tears and have a need to cry in agony and in shame.

It is the same with our other loved ones as well.  And where we may ask our Lord to place all our troubles into that dark chasm, that sea of forgetfulness, we will never heal from it or ever forget.

Finally, we might grow more resolved, more determined than ever to remember lest we forget, but no one ever HEALS from the loss of love.

God Told Me (And then again, maybe He didn’t)

Some Christians and preachers are very quick to alert the rest of the world with the impending announcement of “God told me…” A few would even make it appear that God was preoccupied with them, devoting hours daily with personal face-to-face interviews.

Not that long ago even, one preacher touts a website promising to ‘teach’ you how to listen to the voice of God.  Mind you, God isn’t smart enough to do that for you, but he is.  Sorry, I am more than a skeptic. In exodus, God’s voice was so loud and overbearing they couldn’t even stand to hear Him, but with ‘modern’ preachers, God isn’t able to mutter much over a whisper.

Recently, I read where two preachers were getting into it.  One stated how God told him one thing and the other preacher retorted that God told him the exact opposite.  The message from one opposed one preacher directly.

So then it seems God has to get his act together.  No one is going to believe He speaks in multiple statements that conflict each other.

And then we have our obedience.  Our obedience can always serve to manifest what we believe God’s words actually are.  A harmony should exist between what we say and what we do.  Our words should, as Jesus, align with each other in perfect testimony.

In so doing, there is no need to utter phrases or messages of whatever God may or may not have instructed to one but not to the masses. And in leading by example the act actually speaks volumes for itself. It comes down easily and simple…”Your sins are forgiven of you…”  or “Rise take up your bed and walk.”  There you have it.  As Jesus said, words are Cheap and who knows in the aftermath of what God said.  With our actions, we know the truth of what He did.