#i know god and jesus (and the holy spirit) probably won’t appear in the show

[inamindfarfaraway]

The Exorcists’ Masks of Virtue

The vast majority of Exorcists in Hazbin Hotel have a notable design element that other angels don’t: their masks are missing an eye. Specifically, the right eye.

I believe this is a reference to the Bible, Matthew 5:29. Jesus says, “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

He’s being hyperbolic. Mr Free Healthcare was not pro-mutilation. What he means is that you have to be willing to make sacrifices to prevent sin. The context of the eye metaphor is him condemning adultery and warning that even something as easy, casual and small as a look full of lustful intent can lead to further, worse sin if you don’t notice your sin, hold yourself accountable for it and do the work to not let it influence your decisions. This will probably be hard. It could be very, very painful. Changing your perspective can feel as horrible as plucking out your eye, so many people can’t bring themselves to do it. But although it won’t feel that way in the moment, it’s healthier for our general wellbeing in the long run to abandon traits and behaviours that damage ourselves and/or others.

(You may notice that Jesus’s teaching that you can have sinned, redeem yourself by giving up sin and thus escape damnation is the founding principle of the Hazbin Hotel. You may also notice that it contradicts everything the Exorcists believe.)

The Exorcists seem to follow this idea of painfully excising badness for the sake of the greater good devoutly to the point of placing it above teachings like ‘Thou shalt not kill’, with their job being to remove sin, in the form of sinners, to protect Heaven. Hence the missing right eyes. They’re a declaration of moral righteousness and inability to stumble.

But the truth is that the Exorcists all have their right eyes. Their flawlessness is a facade. Underneath, they are untouched, think themselves morally untouchable and, as shown by their horror and outrage when even one of them is killed, would much rather be physically untouchable too. This perfectly represents their complete unwillingness to acknowledge their own faults, let alone improve. They are never the ones who sacrifice. They force the sinners to sacrifice and don’t compensate it with any salvation. They metaphorically rip out the sinners’ eyes, but still condemn their entire bodies as inherently, permanently sinful. So they’ll just have to do another Extermination to get the other eyes! And another one to cut off their right hands! And so on until there’s nothing left.

The only exception to the rule is Vaggie, both in appearance and character. Her mask has the left eye crossed out instead. Even before her expulsion, she’s set apart to the audience as an Exorcist who has the capacity to, shall we say, see a different side of things. Her mask having its ‘sinful’ right eye reflects her understanding that the Exorcist worldview is wrong.

When she almost kills a demon child, her hateful vision clears. She discards the part of herself that’s an unquestioning, merciless agent of death, terror and grief… and as punishment for what Lute perceives as treacherous weakness, gets her eye plucked out.

Of course Lute leaves her with only the ‘sinful’ eye. It brands Vaggie forever as the inversion, a perversion, of what the Exorcists are meant to be.

You know, all this talk of eye removal in the Bible reminds of another line - ‘an eye for an eye’. Adam directly quotes it in “Hell is Forever”. He uses it to frame the Exterminations as Old Testament-style punitive justice; the sinners did harm and so they receive it. But putting aside the debate about how ethical the concept of revenge is, the entire point of taking an eye for an eye is that it’s proportional. The punishment fits the crime. If someone cuts your eye out, you shouldn’t murder their whole family in front of them and then slowly disembowel them to death. That would be the sin of wrath. You should just make them pay without excessive pain or collateral damage. This is the fairest form of revenge.

The Exorcists don’t do that! The Exterminations aren’t proportional to the wrongs of all they hurt, nor was Vaggie’s brutal punishment equivalent to her extremely mild insubordination. Lute literally takes Vaggie’s eye, and more, after Vaggie does nothing to her! That’s the opposite of the phrase! Adam and his soldiers are wrathful and cruel, deriving satisfaction from others’ suffering. But they just can’t stop going on and on about how disgustingly evil the sinners are, in total hypocrisy… despite some of the sinners being far better people than the genocidal Exorcists are… it’s like they’re obsessed with specks of dust in the sinners’ eyes when they have massive logs stuck in their own. Oh hey, that’s in the Bible too!

#both emotionally and symbolically i am rooting for vaggie or charlie to take out one of lute’s eyes #i was like ‘cool vaggie’s missing the opposite eye to her former mask!’ #and then i went back and saw that her mask was also different #and then i went down a rabbit hole of biblical mentions of bad things happening to eyes #i know god and jesus (and the holy spirit) probably won’t appear in the show #at least not in person #but i do cherish the mental image of adam and his genocidal army hanging out #when jesus christ bursts in with a whip #and gets all ‘you have made my father’s house into a den of thieves’ on them but an order of magnitude more intense #because HE SAID LOVE ONE ANOTHER #WHERE IS THE LOVE #HE SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED IT #i’m not christian! i’m a hardcore atheist! #religion is just as fictious to me as egyptian mythology #however i am also autistic and have major special interests in mythology and folklore #so here i am fervently writing analysis of the sermon on the mount #hazbin hotel #hazbin vaggie #hazbin hotel vaggie #vaggie #hazbin hotel exorcists #hazbin exorcists #hazbin hotel analysis #hazbin analysis

[giftofshewbread]

Thief dying on a cross next to Jesus Knew!

Are you ready? “All who call on the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved” (Romans 10:13) Luke 23:32-43 (New King James Version) 32 There were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death. 33 And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left. 34 [a]Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” And they divided His garments and cast lots. 35 And the people stood looking on. But even the rulers with them sneered, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God.”36 The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine, 37 and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself.”38 And an inscription also was [b]written over Him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.39 Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, [c]“If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.”40 But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said [d]to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”43 And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”  ​( the words of the thief who 'knew' Jesus are in green lettering above) What did Jesus say about Paradise?Jesus answers him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise”. This has often been interpreted to mean that on that same day the thief and Jesus would enter the intermediate resting place of the dead who were waiting for the Resurrection.

So, we have to ask ourselves, where do we go when we die, as a believer or non-believer? Question: "Where did Old Testament believers/saints go when they died?" Answer: The Old Testament believers went to a place of comfort and rest called “paradise” when they died. The Old Testament taught life after death and that everyone who departed from this life went to a place of conscious existence. The general term for this place was Sheol, which could be translated “the grave” or “the realm of the dead.” The wicked were there (Psalm 9:17; 31:17; 49:14; Isaiah 5:14), and so were the righteous (Genesis 37:35; Job 14:13; Psalm 6:5; 16:10; 88:3; Isaiah 38:10). The New Testament equivalent of Sheol is Hades. Luke 16:19–31 shows that, prior to Christ’s resurrection, Hades was divided into two realms: a place of comfort where Lazarus was (Abraham’s bosom or Abraham’s side) and a place of torment where the rich man was (hell). Lazarus’s place of comfort is elsewhere called “paradise” (Luke 23:43). The place of torment is called “Gehenna” in the Greek in Mark 9:45. Between paradise and hell (the two districts of Hades) there was “a great chasm” (Luke 16:26). The fact that no one could cross this chasm indicates that, after death, one’s fate is sealed. Today, when an unbeliever dies, he follows the Old Testament unbelievers to the torment side of Hades. At the final judgment, Hades will be emptied before the Great White Throne, where its occupants will be judged prior to entering the lake of fire (Revelation 20:13–15). On the other hand, when a believer dies today, he is “present with the Lord” in heaven (2 Corinthians 5:6–9). There, he joins the Old Testament saints who have been enjoying their reward for thousands of years. A resurrection awaits everyone—either a resurrection to eternal life or a resurrection to “shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). The Bible clearly states that New Testament saints who have died will be resurrected at the event we call the rapture of the church (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). The Bible is less clear about when the Old Testament saints will be resurrected. It is our view that Old Testament believers will be joined to their resurrected bodies at the end of the tribulation period when Jesus returns to earth to set up His millennial kingdom (Isaiah 26:19; Hosea 13:14). Paradise was not heaven at this time of Christ's crucifixion, paradise was a place people went to after death, till the Messiah came and when he did, Jesus, went there after he was killed on the cross, to minister to all who had died before him and those who believed in him, went up to heaven when Jesus rose. So when they say now, 'To be absent from the body is to be in the presence of the Lord', MEANING, Believers in Jesus, true followers, not the pretenders, the luke warm, the social Christians, but true followers of Christ, at death, our souls/spirits go to be with heaven, our bodies are in the grave. Unbelievers, are said to be in the grave, still conscious, still in soul/spirit, but NOT in the presence of the Lord, as unbelievers/unsaved sinners CAN'T be in the presence of God/Jesus, for there is NO Sin/Unbelievers in heaven, can never be. So Unbelievers or 'fake' Christians as we'll call them that aren't truly trying to follow the lord and are only Christian in name only, they are conscious, they are awake, their soul & spirit are likely where all are held in waiting for their final judgement, but not in the presence of God/Jesus or in heaven.  Some say the unbelievers or fake Christians are asleep in the grave, could be, but if like in the old testament teaching, they are with all the others from the beginning of time, waiting in limbo persae, in Hades, till the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Judges them at the Great White Throne of Judgement, which doesn't end well for all who are judged. What is Amazing, the thief who recognized Jesus, recognized him as GOD/Son of GOD, He KNEW Jesus was sinless, committed no wrongs, that he was true and in his last breath he asks JESUS to Remember him, when Jesus comes into his Kingdom/Heaven. And what did Jesus say, " Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise".  JESUS gave the thief at that moment, GRACE, that thief in his recognition, became saved, he was going to be with Jesus, but first they would both go to 'Paradise' where Jesus ministered to all those who were waiting for Jesus to come, then they rose with Jesus and are in Heaven now.Do you see how easy it is?  The Thief in his dying breath called on JESUS to be Saved.  He wasn't baptized, he didn't say the 'Sinners Prayer' (which pastors often ask us to do in these latter years ) HE Simply Recognized 'WHO' Jesus is, The Messiah, The Savior, The Son of GOD!  The Thief simply 'KNEW' and asked JESUS to Remember him.

So,,,,,, Are you ready? “All who call on the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved” (Romans 10:13)

What of the other thief, he's dead, he mocked Jesus along with everyone else on the cross that day and is being held in Hades, till his final judgement, which won't end well for him or all who wicked/evil/unbelievers, period, there is no 2nd chance, we have to accept Jesus before our last breath or be damned, period, it's this basic.

So,,,,,, Are you ready? “All who call on the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved” (Romans 10:13)

Time is so very very short now folks, we are in the 'End Times/Latter Days', meaning, Jesus is about to Rapture all who are his beloved, rescue all who are true believes, from a world that is about to go FULL BLOWN EVIL, Yes, Jesus is about to appear at any moment, in the clouds, with a great shout of an angel and a great trumpet sound, He's gonna call all alive, home with him to Heaven..How do we know, by watching all the signs and times we are living in now, great evil is rising and will soon have full control of all the earth, NOBODY wants to be left behind. The greatest EVIL is about to be unleased all over the world, such as this world has never experienced before, no man will survive, go to the Book of Revelation in the Bible, the last book and read for yourself the unbelievable horrors to be unleashed, to KILL OFF ALL MANKIND, by every manner of Evil the soon coming Antichrist will pour out, satan's puppet will have full power to destroy 'ALL', Nature, Animals, Sea life, Water, Vegetation, Mankind, He's going to make this world uninhabitable and sweeping destruction & death, he hates all of GOD'S Creation, that means EVERYTHING, EVERYONE! 

 So,,,,,, Are you ready? “All who call on the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved” (Romans 10:13) Call out to JESUS Now to be SAVED! 

 The Thief 'KNEW' and think about this, the Bible hadn't been written then, he was living it right then and there, he was with the Son of GOD on a Cross going thru excruciating pain, dying on the cross next to Our Savior. He 'KNEW' only what he had heard or maybe even seen, at that time, he only 'heard' about Jesus, maybe he even seen some of the miracles JESUS commanded, maybe he was even around to see when Jesus fed the multitude of people with only a few fish and loaves of bread. Maybe he heard of how he healed the blind, the cripples, the deaf, the infirm, maybe he heard how he raised Lazarus from the dead?  Being a thief, he probably wasn't hang'n around with JESUS & the disciples, but he did hear enough about JESUS to KNOW, HE was GOD among them. No Bible, No Church services, No Television, Radio or Internet to be shown Scripture/Holy Word of GOD or to hear it, NO, the thief heard by word of mouth, he heard others speak of the Messiah at that time, the Son of GOD who came to save sinners, save mankind, if only they believed in Him, That HE is the Son of GOD, The Savior !

  Guess what?  That thief in his final moments on earth, in sheer pain & agony, 'KNEW' enough, that Jesus is LORD and that thief was saved and with Jesus.  And again, the thief asked JESUS to just remember him and JESUS said, 'Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise'.  And that thief was Saved and is with Jesus Now.

  What about You? So,,,,,, Are you ready? "All who call on the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be Saved" (Romans 10:13)

Time is Now, no more waiting, wait a breath too short and you are dead in Christ, meaning NO ETERNAL Home in Heaven with GOD/JESUS and ALL He's prepared for those who are truly believers/followers, are saved.  GOD says we can't Conceive of what's awaiting us who are Saved, What GOD has prepared in Heaven for those He sent his Son Jesus to die for, it's beyond our comprehension what awaits us in Heaven. To live in Beauty NO Eyes of mankind has ever seen. The Pure Love & Joy that awaits all who call on the Name of Jesus to be Saved, its absolute mind blowing and absolutely NOTHING compared to earth or all that is of the earth, GOD went all out for His Beloved, for all eternity, no more sickness, no more death, no more pain or sadness or suffering. We get new perfect bodies; we are eternal and will be with GOD/JESUS in all their Perfection..

So,,,,,, What are you waiting for?  Call upon JESUS Now, don't hesitate and don't look back, begin anew, be Saved, be part of GOD'S Heavenly Family and truly LIVE !  You absolutely WON'T Like the Alternative that awaits you otherwise and it's eternal as well, it doesn't end well.

 One last time,,,, ARE YOU READY?  CALL ON JESUS NOW, BE SAVED

 Before it's Too Late ! He's at the door knocking, "JESUS SAVE ME"!   YES it's this simple, Ask JESUS with all your heart, 'SAVE Me JESUS'. HE IS THE LIVING GOD, The Only 1, only HE Can Save us from an Eternal Hell, He died on the Cross of all of us, all who believe He is the True Son/Living GOD, will be Saved. We all are wretched/unclean, we all are SINNERS, we all are unworthy, but we can be saved, but only by the Greatest Love Sacrifice Ever, The Savior, The Lamb of God, JESUS. HE died for all, You & I, He loves us so much, He gave His Life for our sins, our unworthiness and HE makes us clean and worthy to be Saved, if we only call upon Him,.Are you ready? “All who call on the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved” (Romans 10:13) Heaven or Hell, it's our free choice, period.

One last time,,,, ARE YOU READY?  CALL ON JESUS NOW, BE SAVED NOW, Before it's Too Late !  'Knock Knock, It's JESUS, Are You Ready'?

Leho Lechem  

#news #music #art #home #movie #pets #cute #food #guns #vids #blm #msm #eu #dc #prince #phillip #died #today #april #9 #2021 #monarchy #royality #england #europe #asia #russia #america #africa #india

[riseupandcomeaway]

Dear left,

I am writing to you in the hopes that you actually don’t need to read this. This should only be read if all of a sudden I disappear along with millions of others and you’re still here. Many have noticed that a common denominator of the missing people is their spiritual belief in Jesus Christ as Son of God, Savior and Lord.

Immediately after the Rapture there will be accidents involving all kinds of vehicles with missing passengers, including cars, trains, airplanes, boats… you name it. There may be piles of clothes and personal belongings lying around everywhere, all over the planet.

Why did it happen?  Because the Lord Almighty is about to pour his wrath upon the earth. God is about to pour His wrath out on the inhabitants of the earth in one last ditch effort to get humanities attention. You have been left behind because prior to the rapture (the snatching away of the true Christians) you have refused to believe in Christ for salvation, or to repent of your sins that have separated you from Him.

PLEASE UNDERSTAND: We were not abducted by aliens, we have not wandered off, we have not disintegrated from a horrible disease, and we have not been taken hostage.  Any other scenario presented to you about our disappearance is a lie. We have been Raptured.  It was foretold in the bible. “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air and sol shall we ever be with the Lord.” (1 Thes. 4:16-17). We are with God. Plain and simple. Don’t take my word for it, please read it for yourself in a book that’s been around for centuries. In fact, more than two millennia - The Bible. The Bible is a long book; in fact it’s a compilation of 66 Books / Letters. Takes a while to get through, but it does end. Let me save you the suspense. God wins.

You are in for some extremely difficult times. You will want to start finding some remote location in which to hide. Save drinking water, food stores, vitamins, medical supplies, a generator, gasoline and oil. You’ll be needing all of these things. You’ll need to know how to grow your own food. The lawlessness that will scourge the earth will have seen no rival. Grab a bible now! There may come a time when it will be impossible to obtain one and illegal to own one. It can give you the truth better than my simple words ever could. Don’t believe anything that is being fed to the world through the media or the government. Cling to Jesus Christ and His saving work of atonement on the cross for your sins.

Now, you need to prepare for the next seven years. This seven year period will start with a world leader who will emerge and broker a peace treaty with Israel for 7 years. This is the antichrist. Three and a half years into this treaty, he will break it himself and force the world to worship him as God. This will occur in the rebuilt Third Temple Mount of Israel. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Look in Daniel 9:26,27. This week is seven years. This begins the Tribulation. After seven years, Jesus will come (the Second Coming) and touch Mount Olives causing an earthquake and He will reign for 1,000 years. When you hear this treaty announced (probably within a few months, or at most a few years), you can mark your calendar and know when Christ will come.

The antichrist will sit in the Jewish Temple, and he will say he is god.  He is NOT! This beast is a great deceiver. The whole world will be amazed and follow him. People will be drawn to this remarkable, charismatic, dynamic, compelling, nearly irresistible man as he masquerades as a saviour, forming a one-world government for a world craving for direction and order. The world will hail him as its savior. He will set himself above all else and will deceive many into accepting him as the supreme dictator.

He will want to control everyone and modern technology can now easily accomplish that. With the world in chaos, perhaps more terrorism, and missing people, keeping track of everyone will sound necessary for the world to become stable and safe again. He will institute a new way of things, including demanding that all people, everywhere, get a special mark on their right hand or forehead. This is the manifestation of the mark of the beast; 666.  At the time of this writing, we do not know exactly what form this mark will take. A lot of people think that it will be some sort of implantable microchip. This makes sense because of the ability to track purchases electronically is commonplace. It could be that the microchip will be tied into a huge database that verifies the person’s bank accounts and automatically deducts the funds. Also, the antichrist may pitch different selling points of the mark like the ability to track lost children, the ability to catch criminals very fast, the ability to safeguard your money. However, I believe the main point of the mark will be to show your allegiance to the antichrist. You will know it is the mark of the beast because you will not be able to buy or sell ANYTHING without it; not food, water, clothes, shelter; nothing. This will control all your financial transactions. More than likely, money will be obsolete and any funds you may have in the bank (or stocks, etc ) is worthless unless you take this mark. Living day to day will become difficult without the ability to buy or sell anything. Once someone takes this mark of the beast they cannot take it back to make a choice for Christ.  The stakes are high and the decision that you make will determine where you will be for eternity.

DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, AGREE TO TAKE THIS MARK!!

TAKING THIS MARK WILL SIGNIFY THAT YOU ARE A SATAN WORSHIPPER, YOUR SOUL WILL BE LOST, AND YOU WILL SUFFER FOREVER.

I won’t mince words about what this system (the mark of the beast ) means to you. Your chances of making it alive to the end of the tribulation period is slim. It will likely cost you your life here on earth but will give you eternity in exchange.

The whole world is going to hate you and it will be a daily struggle to just to stay alive. The only way I can see for you to get from where you are now to where we are now is that not only will you have to pass through great tribulation, but also you will probably have to suffer a martyr’s death for refusing to worship the “Image of the Beast.” It’s a shame. It really is. But you had your chance, just like the rest of us. It would have been so much easier back when the Church and the Holy Spirit were on earth for you to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior. It’s going to be hard now, really hard, but you can do it. YOU HAVE TO DO IT. Look at it like I used to look at my life on earth. Even if I lived to be 100 years old, that compared to eternity would be like one tiny drop of water compared to all the oceans. It’s the same with you. Even if you have to suffer 7 years of hell and even if you have to die a martyr’s death; compared to eternity it is like a tiny drop of water compared to all the oceans.

Let me assure you that your reward in heaven is incomprehensibly better than any temporary safety you may garner from accepting this mark. I want to leave you with this verse:

Revelation 21:4

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

If you happen to have read this before the rapture, here are some of the site I highly recommend you to visit on a regular basis to keep yourself informed as the hour draws nearer:

NOW THE END BEGINS

ACTIVIST POST

WHATFINGER

RAPTURE READY

GERI UNGUREAN

LISA BOYD

JASON A ON YOUTUBE

THE CORBETT REPORT

SPIRO SKOURAS

BREITBART NEWS

THE JERUSALEM POST

ZERO HEDGE

Till the glorious appearing,

🤍

ctto

[keliareauchel]

Love Is The Key To Just Starting Over

A while back, I wrote a series of blog posts about just starting over. Soon I will write this again from a new perspective. 

The older posts were written back when I was starting over in many things and afraid. 

Today I’m not much less afraid, but I am more courageous. 

I’m physically healthier every day—my iron is way up, my weight is going down again, patience with myself and personal healing is increasing, I’ve got more client work, and I’m making new friends online. It’s a little over 1200 right now--I had less than 200 on Friday.

That’s a big deal to me because it’s fantastic to connect with people and encourage them! I’ve sought to connect with the people who are meant to connect with me. It’s what I’ve wanted to do all along, but I was afraid to try for various reasons, even though I know God goes before me.

Do you truly know that God goes before you?

I didn’t used to know it deep within me genuinely. Deuteronomy 31:8 was simply a good scripture to recite and declare over myself or others. These days it's part of the foundation on which I stand!

Agreement with God matters—it helped me meet all those new friends and do all the new things I’m doing. What helps is not just acknowledging that God goes before me or saying it out loud before trying a new thing, but really believing it.

A couple of days ago while reading a pastor’s social media post about protecting your anointing and discerning when you might be used by the enemy to weaken another person and vice versa, I felt so deeply within me that I am grateful God is always wherever I may go. That no matter what it appears like, I'm not alone. I need God so much, and I'm thankful I don't have to wait for him to choose to be with me. He's like that with you too! Even in the same instant since he can be wherever he wants at all times. He's GOD--not Spiderman!

God can ask us to go someplace, do something, be something. If you're like me, you might take it at face value and just do it, not considering much of the other things that could come up till those things actually are manifested in some way. I'm learning to recognize how the world works now to speak specific prayers and take better actions. I do not want to flit around like a dove who doesn't know nets are swooshing through the air to get her at times. The enemy can grab hold of people in a God-thing if they are completely oblivious.

Our futures are too bright for us to permit this. We cannot and must not let that happen.

How can we entirely prevent that? We probably won't. But we can show great regard for one another by being discerning and acting on what we understand to be true always—God loves us and values each person and their utmost well-being and purpose in life. He goes before them and is always with us. He gives us wisdom and grace to love as he would.

Love like Jesus would love

I always want to see people happy and healthy. Blessed and not stressed. It’s not that I believe I have “the answer” to everyone's problems or that I’m some awesome person. It's just part of my purpose so far in life, part of what drives me.

I am learning in life that each person has many people around them who can and will step up and help them, if only it’s known that they need it. 

We sometimes need to let go of a tight hold on our ideas about things so others who have the grace and right to do so can come in and help how they are meant to.

A person can start over with a clean slate. We need to stop scribbling old notes on it. If we would write anything, let it be love.

To love as Jesus would love is not always to love as we think we should love.

People could be suffering immensely from pain or fears about which we have no idea. From other types of mental health issues or emotional or spiritual issues we could not guess because sometimes on an everyday walk, good people can go to great lengths to “be okay” when they’re suffering so profoundly. 

Holy Spirit can help us know some things. Every person can go through something they need help with, something that requires compassion and prayer.

We can’t see other people as so high above us in our minds that we miss hearing their unspoken prayer requests. They could be smiling with their mouths and words and crying in their eyes. They could be serving hundreds of clients with the utmost care and attention while sincerely needing to know and feel that God is with them. They are loved, cared for, worthy of effort from others, a good influence on others, and worth being influenced and treated kindly. That all the good things they do for others are things they deserve too.

Hurt people are not purposely hurting themselves and others for the most part, and often are working on it in the best ways they know how to do. 

They are in desperate need of God’s love. 

Love is the key to just starting over. Loving God, loving others, and loving yourself. There is no need to live in fear or regret when we are connecting with others in the way we are made to do, living like we know God goes before us, and loving like Jesus would love.

#an every day walk #just start over #starting over #new beginnings #keep going #social media

[albertfinch]

FOUR WAYS TO TAP INTO THE GLORY OF GOD BY FAITH

1. Look for the Glory “But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God.” –Acts 7:55, NKJV If we aren’t expecting to see the glory of God, we probably won’t. Just like anything in the kingdom of God, it takes faith to see a manifestation. The glory of God is a visible power. In the Old Testament, the glory appeared as a cloud, smoke or fire. This visible power is also known as Shekinah glory, which is the Hebrew name given to the presence of God dwelling on the earth.

The nation of Israel saw the glory when God came down to meet them on Mount Sinai. Exodus 24:17 (KJV) says, “The sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mount.” The prophet Habakkuk got a glimpse of that fiery glory, too. He described it as like the sun, blazing in the sky: “His brightness was as the light; he had horns [or shafts] coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power” (Habakkuk 3:4, KJV).

The same glory that raised Jesus from the dead was manifested as fire by night and a cloud by day in the wilderness (Exodus 13:21). This same glory separated Israel and the land of Goshen from the rest of Egypt when there was light in the land of Goshen, but not in Egypt (Exodus 10:23). What was that light? The glory. The glory of God’s presence.

Can we see those same physical manifestations of God’s glory today? Yes! There are countless testimonies of individuals and groups of believers having seen visible evidence of God’s glory. 

2. Pray for the Glory “For I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” –Romans 8:18, NKJV

How do you pray for the glory of God? First, pray that the glory will be revealed to you and in you. You can see and experience the glory of God, but you must diligently ask and seek for it to be revealed. When we pray the glory into the earth, miracles, signs and wonders will occur in the Church and in our own personal lives. When Moses saw the glory of God, he asked, saying, “Please, show me Your glory” (Exodus 33:18, NKJV). When believers gathered together in a spirit of unity, seeking the Lord, the glory appeared in the upper room on the Day of Pentecost, and sat on the head of each person there (Acts 2:1-4). Each born-again believer has the ability to manifest God’s glory here on earth, but we must believe when we pray. That’s why Jesus told Martha that if she would believe, she would see the glory of God (John 11:40). Finally, pray Ephesians 1:17-18—that you would know the hope of His calling, which is the hope of His glory. Pray that you will understand the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. When we inherited Him, glory was deposited in us, but we have to receive revelation of what it means to walk in that glory.

3. Prepare for the Glory “…the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” –Romans 5:5, NKJV

Did you know there are degrees of the glory? If you want to experience the fullness of God’s glory, you must prepare your spirit. How? By walking in love. It takes faith to receive and operate in the glory—and faith works by love (Galatians 5:6). That means the glory of God will increase in you in direct proportion to how you walk in love. So, to increase the amount of the glory in your life, you must walk in love. Put simply—more love, more glory. The spirit of strife and division is always there, lurking and looking for an opening and a way into your life. Never, ever let your love guard down! Then you are on your way to being filled with the glory!

4. Walk in the Glory “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” –2 Corinthians 3:18, NKJV

The glory of God looks for a dwelling place. The original house for the glory of God was the tabernacle. But under the New Covenant, the Holy Spirit builds a temple in every believer. First Corinthians 3:16 says, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (NKJV).  We are God’s house—His temple. Only, this temple is no longer in a fixed location. This house can walk and talk and preach the gospel!

Now, it’s one thing to have the glory, but it’s another to know how to walk in it. The good news? You have everything you need inside you to do so. When the believers experienced the glory of God at Pentecost, they didn’t just go back to living normal lives. They emerged from that place as separate from the rest of the world and as light in the midst of darkness. They went out and started turning the world upside down for Jesus. They preached the gospel; and worked miracles, signs and wonders; and the Lord added to the Church daily those who were being saved (Acts 2:47). That’s the glory we need to be operating in!

The early Christians were no different than Christians today. But here’s the key: Those first believers received the same Spirit you did when you got saved and baptized with the Holy Ghost. Christians today are carriers of God’s glory just as surely as they were!

[dailyaudiobible]

11/05/2018 DAB Transcript

Ezekiel 12:1-14:11, Hebrews 7:1-17, Psalms 105:37-45, Proverbs 27:3

Today is the 5th day of November. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It’s great to be here with you today as we launch into our work week together. So glad that we can spend a few moments orienting ourselves to God and allowing God's word to speak to us as we head into this part of the week. So, we’re reading from the Names of God Bible this week. Ezekiel chapter 12 verse 1…I sound like I was calling my son. I hear myself in headphones. My son's name is Ezekiel…so it’s like E-ze-kiel. Anyway, Ezekiel chapter 12 verse 1 through 14 verse 11 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of Hebrews today we read of a man named Melchizedek.  And I remember going into this last year, we spent several days on this. We won't do that this year but we will try to figure out who Melchizedek is and why he’s important. And this brings up something else that's important. Hebrews is written to Hebrews, right? And I have already said it a number of times and probably will continue to say that a number of times because, even though we can go like, dah, okay, got it, it is so important to this book. This is a Hebrew context of Jesus and His mission and what He has done. And, so, it's brought in through a Hebrew religious context, right? I mean if we’re Gentiles, which most of us are Gentiles and we never knew anything whatsoever about Judaism, we never had any context for the Torah, we’ve never read the Old Testament, we’ve never read the New Testament for that matter, right? We just opened up the book and we start reading about some high priest name Melchizedek and how Jesus blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? We have no idea what's going on. However, if you're a first century Hebrew and these terms and terminology and discussions theologically are brought up, you do understand what's going on. Your life has been shaped by these things. So, since the writer of Hebrews made a direct correlation between Melchizedek and Jesus, we should at least explore he was. The interesting thing is once you open up the cover of that book the myth and the lore around him would take hours…hours to begin to unpack. And since we don't have a time for that let's just look at what connects the dots between this obscure person who is mentioned twice in the Old Testament and then suddenly appears and materializes in Hebrews as a figure not unlike Jesus. So, Melchizedek first appears in the book of Genesis with Abram. And we read from Genesis chapter 14: And Melchizedek, the king of Salem and a priest of God most high brought Abram some bread and wine. Melchizedek blessed Abram with this blessing. Blessed to be Abram by God most high Creator of heaven and earth and blessed be God most high, who has defeated your enemies for you. Then Abram gave Melchizedek a tenth of all the goods he had recovered. Okay. So, that's from the book of Genesis. And the only other time Melchizedek is mentioned in the Old Testament is in Psalm 110, which was composed by David. And it reads: The Lord has taken an oath and will not break his vow. You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. Okay. So, we know that there was a significant span of time between Genesis and Psalms, right? Between Abraham and David. And then we also know that there’s a significant span of time between David and the first century book of Hebrews. So, we can deduce then that Melchizedek had longevity somehow. Like, he certainly captured the imagination of the Hebrew people over thousands of years, but this would have been extra biblically, which means it would've been traditions outside of what is captured in the Bible. And I say that because…because of the fact that outside of…what we are talking about now in the book of Hebrews…we just read everything there is to read in the Bible about Melchizedek. And, you know, even though he shows up with Abraham and even though David refers to him, which is no small thing. There's not enough information there, right? Like to hold thousands of years of fascination. So, who Melchizedek was and why he’s important. This has been the topic of spectacular conjecture over the millennia and you literally…if you wanted to dive deep into…spend massive amounts of time following all the differing ideas. And you can do that that and it’s even interesting, but it will not bring us to the context of why Melchizedek shows up in Hebrews. So, let's like stick to that thread. Melchizedek's name, Melchizedek or Melchi Zedek means King of justice or righteousness. And he was the king of Salem according the book of Genesis or Salem, which means peace. So, he was the king of justice or righteousness and he was the king of peace according to Hebrews and he's the very first priest of the most high God or El Elyon who shows up in the Bible. So, that fact alone would surely bring him notoriety, right? The very first priest of God that shows up in the Torah would be a person that was considered important. So, we could say then that Melchizedek was the first righteous priest of God most high, who was also the king of Salem or the king of peace. So, all of that can make perfect sense to us and we can even understand why people would be fascinated by Melchizedek, but how we connect these dots to Jesus. So, Melchizedek is fascinating because he's a priest of the most high God. In fact, he’s the first priest of the most high God that we know about, but he was not a Levite. And the tribe of Levi was the tribe that God appointed under Moses to be set aside as his priests. Melchizedek couldn't have been a Levite because Levi had not yet been born and his priesthood couldn't have been contrary to Mosaic law because Moses had not yet been born. So, if we jump forward about a millennia from Genesis we come to King David's reference in Psalm 110. And in David's time the Mosaic law had certainly been given and priests were absolutely, and indeed only Levites; however, David was from the tribe of Judah. So, why did David get to be a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek? So, like we just said, Melchizedek was a priest of the most high God wo was also the king of Salem, which means that Melchizedek was a priestly king and David was king in Jerusalem. Jeru Salem, the same city. So, in Psalm 110 it appears that David was being set apart to be a priestly king like Melchizedek, regardless of his tribal affiliation or regardless of the Mosaic law. So, interpreting it like this, then the order of Melchizedek was a special exception. And Jesus came from the line of David. And according to the book of Hebrews, like to close that loop, Jesus is a priestly king in the order of Melchizedek, a king of peace or as the writer of Hebrews says it, that person is a priest, not because he met human requirements, but because he has power that comes from a life that cannot be destroyed. The Scriptures say the following about him: You are a priest forever in the way Melchizedek was a priest. So, I mean, you know, you can Google Melchizedek and you can go all day. So, there's a lot more nuances to the story and the mythology surrounding Melchizedek, but this gives us like a basic context for what it is were reading in the book of Hebrews, why he shows up in the book of Hebrews and why it matters to our understanding of Jesus, especially as our great high priest, right? We can say Jesus is our great high priest all day long but if we do not understand that in a Hebrew perspective, which is what we‘re trying to do as we move through the Hebrew the book of Hebrews…I mean…then…it's just kind of a lofty thing to say: Yes, Jesus is my great high priest. But we’ve never had any other kind of high priest so we don't even really know what we’re talking about. And, so, this is why this…this is why we explore what we explore as we go through the Scriptures and this is why Melchizedek shows up in the book of Hebrews.

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the life that it brings to us, the awareness, the revelations, the aha moments, and the way that it completely does an end run around our intellect and we can't even think straight because you've just invaded our hearts and spoke something true that is beyond words. Your word has the power to do that Your word has the power to reach as deep as soul and spirit. And, so, we welcome that. Come Holy Spirit we pray. Plant the words that we've read into our lives today. We ask in Jesus’ name, amen.

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And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

[bibledictionary]

Angels

Spirits – Made by God in Light

What is spirit?  Spirit is non-material essence.  Merriam-Webster Dictionary shows fourteen definitions for “spirit”.  The first two are: “An animating or vital principle held to give life to physical organisms; a supernatural being or essence.”  Scientific theories regarding aether, vacuum energy, neutrinos, which some relate to “spirit”, won’t be discussed here.  This topic mostly discusses supernatural spirit beings.

God is Spirit.  Holy.  Jesus said in Jn.4:24, “God is (a) spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.”  Father God is Self-Existent spirit.  God isn’t physical matter.  No physical object or image can adequately represent God.  The Godhead or God Family is spirit essence…invisible (1Ti.1:17), ethereal.  2Co.3:17 “The Lord is that Spirit.”  The ascended Jesus is spirit at His Father’s right hand in heaven (He.1:3).  In Lk.24:39, Jesus said that a spirit being doesn’t have flesh and bones.

God is Light.  1Jn.1:5 “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.”  Jesus said in Jn.8:12,”I Am the Light of the world.”  cf. Jn.12:46.  The Old Testament (OT) prophecy quoted in the New Testament (NT) Mt.4:16 refers to Jesus, “The people who sat in darkness [in Galilee] saw a great light.”  1Ti.6:16 God dwells on His heavenly throne in brilliant light which physical human eyes cannot behold or approach.  (Also see the topics “Godhead in Prehistory” and “Jesus Is God…Jesus Has a God”.)

Psalm 104, written by David, is about God’s Creation.  Ps.104:1-3 Septuagint/LXX “Bless the Lord. You are very great. Who robes Thyself with Light [Ge.1:3] as with a garment; spreading out the heaven [Ge.1:8] as a curtain.”  Compare the Creation account sequence in Ge.1:1-8.  After Light was brought forth, lesser spirit beings were then made.

God makes His angels spirits.  After Light, continuing with Ps.104:4 LXX, “Who makes His angels spirits.”  The angelic order is composed of spirit beings.  Cambridge Bible “It is clear that the spiritual nature of angels isn’t in question here.”  He.1:7 of the NT quotes the Ps.104:4 LXX “angels”.

God’s heavenly host includes angels.  Ne.9:6 “You are the Lord, who has made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host. The host of heaven worships You.”  Cambridge Bible Ne.9:6 “Most probably means the created spirits.”  Benson Commentary “All the inhabitants of heaven.”  Poole Commentary “The angels, who are so called.”  Ps.148:2-4 “Praise Him, all His angels; Praise Him, all His hosts! Praise Him, sun and moon; all stars of light! Praise Him, highest heavens!”  Angelic voices on high praise the Lord.  At Jesus’ human birth, in Lk.2:13 the heavenly host was seen extolling God, “Suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God.”

Angels serve as messengers, agents, and helpers. They can make themselves visible to man as need be, appearing as humans.  The writer to the Hebrews admonished in He.13:2, “Don’t neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

The Hebrew term rendered angel in our OT is maláwk, Strongs h4397.  It means messenger.  The term malawk occurs over 200 times in the OT.  It also refers to human messengers and the Messenger of YHVH.  (see “Michael in the Bible”.  The only archangel so-named in scripture is Michael, Jude 1:9.)

The Greek term for angel in the LXX and NT is ággelos g32 (pronounced ángelos).  It occurs 185 times in the NT.  It can also refer to human messengers (e.g. Ge.32:3 LXX, and John the Baptizer in Mt.11:10).

The Lord Christ shared in the Creation.  Col.1:16 “By Him [Christ the Son] all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, rulers or authorities.”  The Creation includes the heavenly host of beings, normally not visible to human eyes.  JFB Commentary “Invisible – the world of spirits.”  Barnes Notes “The angels we cannot see. Inhabitants of distant worlds we cannot see.”  Gill Exposition “Angels were made by him, Heb.1:7; and, as the Jewish writers say, on the 2nd day of the creation, though some say on the 5th.”  Benson Commentary Col.1:16 “The different orders of angels, both those that stood and those that afterward fell.”

According to Jn.1:1-14, Jesus was the primordial Word or Logos (Greek) of God.  Jn.1:3-9 “The Word was God. All things came into being through Him [Christ the Word/Logos]…That Word was the true Light [g5457].”  “All things” included lesser spirit beings.  Bengel’s Gnomen Jn.1:3 “All things, which are outside of God, were made; and all things which were made, were made by the Logos [Jesus, v.14].”  Expositor’s Greek Testament Jn.1:3 “In 1Cor.8:6 “Paul distinguishes between the Father as the primal source of all things and the Son as the actual Creator.”  Christ the Light was Executive Creator.

He.12:9 God is the “Father of spirits”.  Barnes Notes He.12:9 “God is Himself a Spirit [Jn.4:24]. Angels and human souls [or spirits] may be represented as especially His offspring.”  JFB Commentary “God is a spirit Himself, and the Creator of spirits like Himself, in contrast to men who are flesh.”  Meyer’s NT Commentary “God, who is Father in regard to the higher spiritual domain of life.”  Pulpit Commentary “It isn’t human spirits only that are here in view. God is the Father of all ‘the spirits.”

The cherubim (plural) or cherubs are another class of spirit beings.  Telus.net: Cherubim “Cherubim are spiritual beings.”  They serve as God’s guardians.  The Hebrew term cherub (h3742) occurs 90 times in the OT.  Ge.3:24 God cast Adam & Eve from the garden of Eden, and then stationed cherubim on the east side to guard the way to the Tree of Life.  Scripture doesn’t depict cherubs as chubby human babies with wings flying around!

Ex.25:16-22 Moses was to construct the mercy-seat of God’s Tabernacle with two winged golden cherubim atop the Ark of the Testimony; there the Lord dwelt with ancient Israel.  Ellicott Commentary Ge.3:24 “The office of the cherub here is to guard the Paradise [Garden], lest man should try to force an entrance back; and so too the office of the cherubs upon the mercy-seat was to protect it, lest anyone should impiously approach it, except the high-priest on the Day of Atonement.”  In 1Ki.6–8, figures of cherubim were later carved & embroidered (2Chr.3:14) in Solomon’s Temple.  (This wasn’t idolatry.)  In the Greek NT, cheroubim g5502 occurs only in He.9:5.

Ezk.10 is Ezekiel’s vision of cherubs at the Lord’s portable throne.  Ezekiel calls them “living beings”.  Ezk.10:20 LXX “This is the living being [g2226] that I saw below the God of Israel by the river Chobar, and I knew they were cherubs [g5502].”  How did they appear to Ezekiel?  Ezk.1:1, 5 “I was by the river Chebar among the exiles. There were figures resembling four living beings.”  Ezk.1:10 “The likeness of their faces was the face of a human…the face of a lion…an ox…and an eagle.”  Compare the appearance of the four living beings (g2226), but having six wings, that John envisioned at God’s throne in Re.4:6-9…lion, ox, man, flying eagle.

Winged sphinxes resembled cherubs.  Wikipedia: Sphinx Both the Egyptian and Greek sphinxes “were thought of as guardians, and often flank the entrances to temples.”  An ancient sphinx composite had the head of a human, the paws & tail of a lion, the hind body of an ox, and the wings of an eagle.  Dr. Raanan Eichler What Kind of Creatures Are the Cherubim?: “The prevailing opinion is that the cherub is a winged sphinx…such as that depicted on the sarcophagus of the late 2nd-millennium BC Phoenician king Ahiram.”  William Finck Cherubs Are Sphinxes “A sphinx is a variation on a cherub.”

Fiery seraphim (plural) or seraphs h8314 are another class of spirit beings.  They are celestial attendant worshipers of God, having three pairs of wings.  In the OT, seraphs only appear in the vision of Is.6:1-7.

They were around the Lord’s throne, praising, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.”  Then with a glowing coal of fire from the altar, a seraph figuratively purged Isaiah’s unclean lips & iniquity.  Fire purifies.  Ellicott Commentary Is.6:2 “This is the only passage in which the seraphim are mentioned as part of the host of heaven. ‘Burning ones’…with six wings.”  cf. Rev.4–6.  Gill Exposition Re.4:8 “Cherubim…like the seraphim in Is.6:2.”  Nu.21:6-9 Moses made something like a bronze replica of a seraph, and set it on a pole to aid in healing Israelites bitten by serpents.

The watchers (Da.4:13-17, 23) were another group of spirit beings.  They are discussed in the two-part topic “Watchers and Gen. 6 ‘Sons of God”.

Also there were “24 elders” at God’s throne in heaven.  They are mentioned specifically in Re.4:4, 10; 5:8; 11:16; 19:4.  The apostle John envisioned them in Re.4–5.  Re.4:4 “Around the throne were 24 thrones. On the thrones were 24 elders sitting, dressed in white garments, with crowns of gold on their heads.”  Theologians and Bible commentators have put forth various explanations as to their identity.

The elders wear crowns of gold.  Barnes Notes Re.4:4 “These elders…are of a kingly order. They are human beings.”  In the Bible, elders refer to men.  Gill Exposition “In allusion to the 24 courses of the priests, into which they were divided by David [1Ch.24:4-19].”  Re.5:10 Young’s Literal Translation “And [the Lamb] did make us to our God kings and priests.”  They were as a royal priesthood (ref 1Pe.2:9).

Compellingtruth.com “Information in scripture most likely identifies these 24 elders as representatives of the church.”  Expositor’s Greek Testament Re.4:4 “Heavenly beings, angelic figures corresponding to the ‘thrones’ of Col.1:16. The significance of the doubled 12 has been found in the 12 patriarchs or tribes [of Israel] plus the 12 apostles, or in the 24 classes of the priests.”  Cambridge Bible Re.4:4 “They act as priests in Rev.5:8.”  The Pulpit Commentary Re.4:8 lists possible interpretations, including…“The 24 elders represent the great and minor prophets; higher angels – the celestial priesthood.”

It seems the 24 elders could be redeemed humans who are spirit beings serving on God’s council or court in heaven.  I’ll leave the choice(s) of interpretation to the reader.

[Aside: Hierarchical angelologies (and demonologies) developed over the centuries in the traditions of Judaism, kabbalah, and medieval Christianity.  That isn’t discussed here.]

God has given each of us humans our human spirit, the “breath of life” (Ge.2:7).  Is.42:5 God the Lord gives breath to people on earth, “and spirit to those who walk on it.”  Job’s countryman Elihu said in Jb.32:8, “There is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding.”

The human spirit is a vital incorporeal component within our body which imparts consciousness and intellect to our brain.  We are a spirit, dwelling in a physical body on earth.  1Th.5:23 man is made up of “spirit, soul, and body.”

We communicate with God through our spirit.  At conversion, the Holy Spirit (HS) of God joins with our human spirit.  1Co.6:17 “The person who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.”  Paul wrote to Timothy in 2Ti.4:22, “The Lord be with your spirit.”  The HS becomes part of our persona.  1Co.3:16 “The Spirit of God dwells in you.”

At physical death, our human spirit is to “return to God who gave it”, Ec.12:7.  The dying Stephen said in Ac.7:59, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”  (Ja.2:26 “The body without the spirit is dead…our physical body is then a corpse.  Also see the topic “Life and Death – for Saints”.)  Php.1:23 Paul said it was better to depart our physical body and “be with Christ” in heaven with a spiritual body (1Co.15:44, 50).

Jesus prepares our heavenly abode for us.  He said in Jn.14:2-3, “I go to prepare a place for you.”  He.12:22-24 dwelling in heaven are the spirits of men (righteous).  Lk.16:22 God’s holy angels will escort our spirit too, returning it to God who gave it…for His disposition and use.  Lk.16:8-9 as the “sons of light”, we’re welcomed into eternal dwellings.  Our spirit returns to the Light.  1Jn.1:5 God is Light [g5457].  Paul/Saul saw it from afar…Ac.9:3 “Suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.”

Jn.3:20-21 those who do truth don’t fear the Light.  But the spirits of those who do evil or are unbelieving are afraid to go to the Light at death, to return to God (Ec.12:7).  They stumbled in darkness (Jn.11:10), not receiving the HS.  These may remain for a time as earthbound spirits (ghosts), stuck.

Those who believe in Jesus and repent of sin won’t abide in darkness (Jn.12:46)!  Ps.36:9 “In Thy Light, we shall see light.”  After death, we shouldn’t fear to return to God…going to the Light!  Trust in His destiny for our human spirit.  God is good (Lk.18:19)!  Medical personnel confirm numerous Near Death Experience (NDE) cases where patients saw the light.

Ja.1:17 God is the “Father of lights [g5457].”  He made spirit beings, and human spirits (and stars too).  Bengel’s Gnomen Ja.1:17 “He is the Father even of the spiritual lights in the kingdom of grace and glory.”  Pr.20:27 LXX “The spirit of man is a light [g5457] of the Lord.”  Gill Exposition Pr.20:27 “The spirit of man…was a bright and burning light at first, but through sin is become a very feeble one.”

Yet Christians whose human spirit is joined to God’s HS are able to figuratively “shine as luminaries [g5458] in the world” (Php.2:15).  Jesus exhorted the disciples with Him in Jn.12:36, “While you have the Light [g5457], believe in the light, in order that you may become sons of light.”  It’s our destiny too!

Re.22:5 “The Lord God has given them light, and they shall reign forever.”  Col.1:12 Father God “has enabled us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light [g5457].”  Prepared by God, it is the future for our spirits on into eternity…in His heavenly Light!

[dancingingold]

ty’s story

When I think of a testimony, I don’t believe it is this one-time, big world-changing-moment, and then it ends there. No, it continues on and has stories added to it as your life continues. My own testimony continues to grow with each day. I have a whole part of my story before I met Tyler, I added to it when he became a part of my life, and I have told that story. Now, I have Ty, and he has already added to it as well. But this story is for his own testimony that he will one day tell. His testimony started before he was born. (This prayer I prayed over him as soon as I knew he existed - Psalm 139:13-16). I want him to be able to tell that part that happened before I even knew his name. Now I am writing it down so I won’t forget one single detail, and he will be able to share it.

Going back to July of 2020, right in the midst of the chaos this world was in... I was in New Orleans, celebrating my little brother Michael’s birthday with our family. We were finally able to take a little trip since COVID had begun. Tyler, dad, and Trace had to head back home for work that Monday, but Mom, Maggie, and I stayed an extra night at our AirBnb. This was about 2 weeks before I found out that I was pregnant. I couldn’t go to sleep that night for some reason. I just FELT different. I knew something about me was different. I sat up in bed that night and had the literal thought, “I am pregnant right now, and it is a boy.” I just knew it. Just in case anyone questions this, I did tell several of my friends who asked what I thought baby Sully was going to be. I shared this story with many people way before Ty was born, because I knew it was God that told me. 

So fast-forward to two Fridays later. We had just had our first day of school I think - August 7th. I was on my way home from MRA. I bought a test to take when I got home. I didn’t tell Tyler - I wanted to surprise him because I just KNEW it was going to say positive. I prayed on the way home, my heart racing. I was just praying that whatever happened, God’s hand was in it, that I trusted Him, and that this child’s life was already his whenever he decided to bless me with him. I had this completely random thought while praying. I knew it was God, because I had no idea why I thought of this. But I remembered this random part of a story in the Bible. I couldn’t remember a lot of the details, but I did remember the father of the child couldn’t speak. An angel had come to him, and the angel closed his mouth so no words could come out until the child got there. I remember the exact location I was in when I thought of this - I was getting off 55 onto the Adkins-Beasley exit. 

Of course, I immediately had to look up the story -- it was the story of Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth. They were old and had followed God’s laws, but they were still missing a child. They thought they were too old to have a child. One day while he was praying in the temple by himself, there was a bright light and by the fire, an angel appeared. The angel told him his wife Elizabeth was going to have a child, that the child would be a boy, and that this child would be filled with the Holy Spirit and many lives would change because of him. The angel also told him to name him John. Zechariah doubted him and told them they were too old (which I mean, who can blame him? We all sometimes forget the power of Christ.) Then the angel is basically like, well here’s your proof - you won’t speak until he is born. Well, of course, as we all know, Elizabeth did become pregnant and have a child - a boy! Elizabeth was actually the one who wanted to name him John. Others thought they should name him after Zechariah since people named their firstborn son after the father. But Zechariah agreed as he got his voice back - his name would be John, later known as being John the Baptist who baptized Jesus and changed many lives…. So my word from God at that point was that I would have a great responsibility in raising this boy (who was still not confirmed to be a boy at this time - I didn’t even know for sure if i was pregnant yet!) and that this boy would be filled with Spirit and make a difference in His kingdom, just like John the Baptist. 

All this happens before I’m even parked in our driveway (sorry Mom, was reading Bible stories in the car while driving). I get inside and immediately take my test. Negative, it said. “Seriously, God? Why would you give me that whole vision for me to get my hopes up?” are my thoughts. I had a few minutes to just take it in and doubt started creeping in already. I just couldn’t understand why He would do all this and then the test be negative. I go home to Yazoo to spend the weekend with my best friend, Anna Rose. We had a great weekend, and I finally had accepted the fact that I was not pregnant. I raced home on Sunday to make it to Fondren Church with Tyler was caught in 45 minutes of standstill traffic because of a wreck. I didn’t make it in time to get to church, but Tyler did go so I was home by myself at this point. He texted me about going to golf with his friend Hunter, which was great with me. I thought I might have a beer while we are out there, so juuuust in case, I wanted to take another pregnancy test before we head out. I expected it to be negative so I didn’t tell Tyler but just for peace of mind, I took it. And it was positive. OKAY GOD, I’M SORRY. I SEE YOU. 

Throughout my pregnancy, we didn’t know much about that baby that was growing every day. We decided not to find out what we were having. Well, I decided and Tyler was forced to jump on with that decision, lol. We also never could get a good, clear image of his face because his hands were always by his face in the sonograms or his foot faced the camera. But, Ty was already a blessing. He was the first grandchild and great-grandchild on Tyler’s side of the family as well as the first grandchild on mine. My mom has lost all of her immediate family members - her dad, mom, and her sister. To finally have an addition of joy brought a healing of sorts for her. For the most part, during my pregnancy, I was very calm, not stressed, and trusting of God. But then, after the due date came and went, I started to have anxiety. I kept thinking, what if something happens to my baby after this due date and if I would have just gone ahead and induced, I could have avoided it all. So the day after he was due (April 18th), I wasn’t feeling him move as much. We went in to the ER to have everything checked. I had started having very small contractions, but baby was okay. I could actually sleep that night. The following night, baby was moving so much (constant moving for 2 hours) that I had a meltdown that he was caught up in the umbilical cord. I called the nurse several times that night to be sure my baby was okay. She assured me that lots of movement was okay. I just had to pray through that night. So, the following night was a Tuesday. I told Tyler I really wanted to go to our Jesus group that night. I didn’t need to sit around the house to worry and fret. I needed some Jesus time. And Jesus showed up again major that night, the night unbeknownst to us, the last one before our angel came. And there was a reason he held on one more night to make his little grand appearance. 

A little background on this Bible study - it isn’t necessarily a “study” per se. It is more of a get-together for believers to share their testimonies, what God is currently doing in their lives, a time of song and worship, of sharing verses and prayers that God has put on your heart, and lots and lots of prayers - individual prayers, prayers over others in the group or their current situations, prayers in groups of 2 or the entire 20ish people there. It is simply a time to spend with the Lord, there is no set time. It starts around 7, but can come and go. There is no need to stay until the end, and no one cares if you come in at 7:45, so it is not your typical prayer group. The group probably has 70 people, but there may be 10-25 people who attend each Tuesday. It is a group that has made a distinct impact on Tyler’s life, and he is the one who introduced it to me. It has been nothing short of a blessing. 

So, back to Ty’s story. We decided to come this night, despite this baby being due any second now, because I knew I needed God at this time of fret and worry. And He showed up. That night, this group prayed over me, Tyler, and this baby. It wasn’t the first time they had prayed over us, but it was the first time they delivered these specific messages to us. As each of our friends prayed, God spoke through them for plans He had in Ty’s life. As I cried listening to each of these prophecies, I had such peace in knowing that this child would be okay, because God indeed had big plans for him or her. Here are their words… 

“He hears the voice of the Shepherd. He will know and follow it. Even now he knows the voice of God.”

“He is aware and surrounded by His presence.”

“His identity and purpose is in Him.”

“This baby will recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit.”

“This child will teach us (Tyler and me) a new level of love, discernment, his life message.”

“The words that Jesus has spoken tonight are true.” “Jesus has given you all that you need. You (the parents) are modeling what it is to seek the Lord.”

“Never forget the power of words. Actions are powerful, but don’t forget also the power of words.”

“Seek, ask, and knock.”

“Visions and dreams will be given to this baby.”

“He will, too, seek for himself.”

“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the Good News. Where those feet might go and what those feet might do…” 

“May this child come to Jesus early and carry no baggage. May this child have no memory of when he did not know Jesus.”

“Jesus’ hand is on his life.”

“He will be a disciple to the nations, a leader, a speaker, a diplomat.”

All of these words were spoken and claimed over Ty before we knew he was Ty. And if that wasn’t enough from Jesus, I had one friend from this group, Bethany, come up to talk to me before we left that night. She asked me about getting induced the next night. I told her yes, we were supposed to be induced. She said, “Well, do you want to be induced?” I told her that I had really wanted the baby to come on his or her own time, honestly. I would much rather him come on his own time than be induced. She then asked if she could pray that over me. I was like, “Sure, go for it!” So she placed her hands on my stomach and prayed a very quick, simple prayer asking God for the baby to come on his own and not have to be medically induced. Lo and behold, the next day at 2:00, 6 hours before I was supposed to go in to be induced, I started having contractions on my own. The night before, I told Shawn Dean, who was hosting that night, that I truly think the baby was waiting so that we could hear these prayers God wanted us to hear first before he decided to come. Seems to be the case.

The next day, after I left the gym, the contractions started coming (shoutout to burpee box jump-overs!) I called the hospital, and they told me to come in. I was SO excited to finally be able to meet this baby. Finally, after 9 long, long months plus an extra 5 days. It was only the labor and delivery between me and my little angel to finally meet. Well, lemme just say, the labor wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t simple. To me, it was yet another piece of proof of children being miracles. The contractions were the worst pain I had ever felt in my life (and I have a pretty high pain tolerance). They are beyond what I can explain. I just remember the time between them, I would be so extremely thankful to just feel normal. I had to grip the hospital bed just to have something to take my pain out on. Tyler was in tears just watching me, because he knew the pain was beyond anything I had experienced, and he couldn’t stand it. (And look, any woman who gives birth a child, you are a superstar.) Also, the worst of these contractions lasted for THREE HOURS. After the epidural blessedly comes (I wanted to tackle-hug the anesthesiologist!), I spiked a 103 fever, which means the baby also spiked a fever. There were decelerations in the heart rate of the baby. Tyler knows way too much about things that can go wrong and lots of things were going wrong, so he looked like death frozen over every time I looked at him. I had to have antibiotics for the infection and fever going on, penicillin for the Group B Strep that my body had, and when Ty came out, the umbilical cord was wrapped 3 times around his neck. To say this child is a miracle from all of this happening and still being able to survive a regular birth without a c-section is a true understatement. He is a gift from God, and I will never take that for granted.

I wrote this story mostly to share with Ty,, so that he can read this one day and know fully that God is completely in love with him and wants the best for him, that he was prayed over so much before he was ever born, and that he has big things ahead of him always. But I also wanted to share his story as proof of God’s power and love over his children, that no person is a mistake, and that he cares for each person reading this as much as he cares for this angel baby of ours. God is so faithful. May Ty’s story continue on as he grows each day. Lord, thank you.

[johnhardinsawyer]

What We Have Heard, and Seen, and Touched

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

4 / 11 / 21 – Second Sunday of Easter

1 John 1:1-2:2

John 20:19-31

“What We Have Heard, and Seen, and Touched”

(Ear-and-Eye-and-Hand-witness Testimony)

If you are of a certain age, you might remember band called The Monkees, who had a number-one song in 1966 called “I’m a Believer.”[1]  Many years later, the song was used in the movie Shrek, which came out twenty years ago this year, if you can believe it.  So, if you are of a certain age – from Boomer to Millennial – you might be very familiar with “I’m a Believer”.  If you know the song, you also might get the following joke, recently told by my wife’s uncle, Jerry, who happens to be of a certain age.  Here’s the joke:  “My wife asked me to stop singing ‘I’m a Believer’ by the Monkees.  At first I thought she was kidding. . .   But then I saw her face!”[2]  

Then I saw her face, now I’m a believer.

Not a trace – of doubt in my mind.

I’m in love (Oooooo), I’m a believer

I couldn’t leave her if I tried.[3]

I’ll spare you the rest. . .

Today’s story from the Gospel of John is all about seeing and believing.  You heard the story a moment ago:  it is evening on the first Easter day and the disciples have just gotten the news from Mary Magdalene that she has seen the risen Jesus.  Mary Magdalene is the first eyewitness to the risen Christ.  Maybe you can imagine that everyone is excited by this news, but, among the disciples, there are probably a lot of questions as to how, and when, and whether this has happened or not.  

As the story goes:

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the [ruling Jewish authorities], Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” (John 20:19)

Jesus – who had recently been killed on a Roman cross and whose dead body had been laid in a tomb – is now standing in front of them. . . alive.  Suddenly, the disciples probably have even more questions about the how’s and when’s of it all, but the question of whether it happened or not does not need to be asked by them anymore.  The answer of whether it happened is living and breathing right in front of them.  They see his face, and they hear his voice.  Now, they are believers.  

The scriptures tell us that Jesus shows them his wounded hands that had been pierced by the nails and his side that had been stabbed with a spear.  And, again, he tells them “Peace be with you.” (20:21)  I don’t know about you, but if I were in their shoes on that first Easter evening, I would likely need Jesus to tell me, “Peace be with you.  Calm down.  All is well.  I’m just resurrected, just as I told you I would be.”

Anyway, here is Jesus:  living proof.  And all the disciples are the ear-and-eye-witnesses.  Well, everyone except Thomas.  Many of you might be familiar with the nickname “Doubting Thomas,” that comes from today’s story.  For some reason, Thomas is not present when Jesus appears.  And then, a full week passes, and, all week long, Thomas has had to hear his friends talking about how Jesus appeared to them, and how it’s some kind of miracle, and how everyone is so happy.  And Thomas is so tired of all of this that he says, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hands in his side, I will not believe.” (20:25)

You know, people often talk bad about Thomas for his seeing-and-touching-is-believing mindset.  All of us can be this way, from time to time, though.  If it can’t be experienced through our God-given senses of sight and touch, or sound, smell, or taste, we won’t believe.  Our own human experience will often have a tremendous influence on what we might or might not believe to be true.  Sometimes, if someone we trust tells us about something, we’ll believe it, but sometimes, we won’t even believe that.  

Who, or what, do you believe?  Who, or what, do you trust?  These are a big questions – especially because there are so many things that you could believe.  And, especially, because it sure can be hard to trust anyone these days.  

There has been a lot in the news recently about so-called conspiracy theories about politics, and vaccines, and the moon landing, and UFO’s, and any number of other things.  In one radio report about a certain conspiracy theory,  I heard a woman who said something like, “I’m a naturally skeptical person, so I’m always questioning everything.”  Now, there’s nothing wrong with being skeptical or asking questions about the things that you may hear, read, or see.  But too much skepticism can leave a person unmoored to any one particular reality and leave them susceptible to a whole lot of misunderstanding or even to being led astray. . .  not necessarily by those with good intentions, either.  

So, what are we to do, especially when it comes to the Christian faith?  Because, Lord knows there’s plenty of skepticism to go around when it comes to trusting the word of Mary Magdalene and the disciples.  

On the surface, all that we have is the story that they tell.  So, in today’s reading from the first letter of John, we see someone trying to lovingly and gently tell the story again, from the beginning.  Eugene Peterson translates it in this way:  

From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in — we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands. The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen! And now we’re telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this: The infinite Life of God himself took shape before us.  We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy![4]

For the author of First John, hearing and seeing and touching the resurrected Christ goes far deeper than any “proof” – any physical evidence.  What seems to matter most, here, is not something experienced by the physical senses, but by the human heart and spirit.  “I was there,” the author seems to be saying.  “I heard, and saw, and touched.  And I want you to know the joy that it all made me feel.”  There is more going on, here, than just a story.  

Have you ever heard someone tell a story and they get part-way through it and end up throwing their hands up and saying something like, “Well, you just had to be there.  Then you’d know what I’m trying to tell you.”?  This is not what the author of 1 John seems to be saying.  Instead, they are telling us that whether we were there in the room or not on the first Easter, it doesn’t really matter.  What does matter is the joy and wonder that extends beyond that resurrection moment, beyond a locked room in Jerusalem long ago, and into our lives right here and right now.  There is more than just the story.  There is something Holy at work – over, and under, and through the story.  

If there is any one thing that has helped to extend the joy and wonder of the first Easter through the ages, we find it back in that room with the risen Jesus and his disciples.  Here is Jesus, showing his hands and his side to them.  Here are the disciples rejoicing.  And then, here is Jesus, saying, “Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. . .” (John 20:21-22)

Now, I know that in this pandemic year, we have been trying so hard to not have anyone breathe on us or breathe on anyone else in return.  But, what Jesus is doing in today’s story is revolutionary.  He is, essentially, sending his very human followers, with all of their weaknesses, and worries, and doubts, out into the world as people who are empowered to share his good news.  And, in “breathing” the Holy Spirit upon them, he is giving them the essential ingredient to do their good news work.  As John Calvin writes, and I’m paraphrasing here,

No one is qualified for doing the difficult job of ministry, and therefore, Christ prepares the Apostles for it by the grace of his Spirit.  To govern the church, to represent the eternal salvation of God, and to raise people to heaven is a task far beyond human capacity.  We shouldn’t be astonished, therefore, that no one is found qualified unless they are inspired by the Holy Spirit; for no one can speak a word concerning Christ unless the Spirit guides their tongue. . .[5]

For those disciples – who are frightened, then astonished, and then joyful – Jesus gives them the Holy Spirit so that they can carry the joyful and grace-filled story of Easter beyond the locked doors of the house where they are,  and into the wide world where they soon will be.  And, down through the generations, the Holy Spirit has been passed along, wherever people of faith are living and breathing and telling the story of life that conquers death, of grace that overcomes sin, and of faith that brings assurance even in the midst of doubt.  

You and I may not have been there to hear and see and touch on that first Easter, but so many of us have heard and seen and touched the good news of God’s grace that has been shared with us through the loving voices of parents and grandparents, Pastors and Sunday School teachers and other Spirit-filled-and-Spirit-led people who have had an impact on us in the ways they have told us the story, and brought us healing and wholeness, and shown us what God’s love looks like.  Each one of them has been the loving face, and hands, and heart of Christ to us and for us.  And, because of them, we are part of God’s loving fellowship[6] through the Holy Spirit – the infinite life of God right here and now, in your life and mine. . .  in your heart and mine.

As Jesus tells Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” (20:29)  But I’m here to tell you that even if you haven’t seen the actual resurrected body of Jesus, but you have seen God’s grace in your own life, then you have seen, and heard, and known God’s resurrection power.  And if you have seen, and heard, and known God’s resurrection power, then – through the wondrous power of the Holy Spirit – you can be a believer.  You might have plenty of other questions, but may there be no doubt in your mind of God’s love for you and God’s call for you to share that love with all people.

Let us pray. . .

May we, O God, by grace believe

And thus the risen Christ receive,

Whose raw imprinted hands reached out

And beckoned Thomas from his doubt.[7]

. . . And beckons us from our doubt, too, and into believing what we have heard and seen and touched through the grace of God and the gift of the Holy Spirit – the Spirit that sends us out into the world to share God’s love. . .  

In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

--------

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_a_Believer

[2] Uncle Jerry Trachsler – telling “Uncle and Dad Jokes” since 1977.

[3] Neil Diamond, 1966.  https://genius.com/The-monkees-im-a-believer-lyrics

[4] Eugene Peterson, The Message – Numbered Edition (Colorado Springs:  NAV Press, 2002) 1687.

[5] John Calvin (Paraphrased, JHS), Calvin’s Commentaries – Vol. XVIII (Grand Rapids:  Baker Books, 2009) 267.

[6] See 1 John 1:3.

[7] Thomas H. Troeger, 1984.  “These Things Did Thomas Count as Real”

[dfroza]

we have to be our True selves

identified by who we are as children of God who reside in a world that isn’t our “Home”

and so we stand in this truth in Love no matter what people may threaten against us. we don’t have to fear this world, but God alone.

Today’s reading of the Scriptures is chapter 12 in the book of Luke where the Lord describes the division of people that will occur over His message because people will oppose God and His truth, yet we who believe are to stand our ground anyway by sharing its grace:

“I have come to set the earth on fire. And how I long for every heart to be already ablaze with this fiery passion for God! But first I must be immersed into the baptism of God’s judgment, and I am consumed with passion as I await its fulfillment. Don’t think for a moment that I came to grant peace and harmony to everyone. No, for my coming will change everything and create hostility among you. From now on, even family members will be divided over me and will choose sides against one another.”

(verses 49 to 52 in The Passion Translation)

and the whole chapter in The Message:

[Can’t Hide Behind a Religious Mask]

By this time the crowd, unwieldy and stepping on each other’s toes, numbered into the thousands. But Jesus’ primary concern was his disciples. He said to them, “Watch yourselves carefully so you don’t get contaminated with Pharisee yeast, Pharisee phoniness. You can’t keep your true self hidden forever; before long you’ll be exposed. You can’t hide behind a religious mask forever; sooner or later the mask will slip and your true face will be known. You can’t whisper one thing in private and preach the opposite in public; the day’s coming when those whispers will be repeated all over town.

“I’m speaking to you as dear friends. Don’t be bluffed into silence or insincerity by the threats of religious bullies. True, they can kill you, but then what can they do? There’s nothing they can do to your soul, your core being. Save your fear for God, who holds your entire life—body and soul—in his hands.

“What’s the price of two or three pet canaries? Some loose change, right? But God never overlooks a single one. And he pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head! So don’t be intimidated by all this bully talk. You’re worth more than a million canaries.

“Stand up for me among the people you meet and the Son of Man will stand up for you before all God’s angels. But if you pretend you don’t know me, do you think I’ll defend you before God’s angels?

“If you bad-mouth the Son of Man out of misunderstanding or ignorance, that can be overlooked. But if you’re knowingly attacking God himself, taking aim at the Holy Spirit, that won’t be overlooked.

“When they drag you into their meeting places, or into police courts and before judges, don’t worry about defending yourselves—what you’ll say or how you’ll say it. The right words will be there. The Holy Spirit will give you the right words when the time comes.”

[The Story of the Greedy Farmer]

Someone out of the crowd said, “Teacher, order my brother to give me a fair share of the family inheritance.”

He replied, “Mister, what makes you think it’s any of my business to be a judge or mediator for you?”

Speaking to the people, he went on, “Take care! Protect yourself against the least bit of greed. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot.”

Then he told them this story: “The farm of a certain rich man produced a terrific crop. He talked to himself: ‘What can I do? My barn isn’t big enough for this harvest.’ Then he said, ‘Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll gather in all my grain and goods, and I’ll say to myself, Self, you’ve done well! You’ve got it made and can now retire. Take it easy and have the time of your life!’

“Just then God showed up and said, ‘Fool! Tonight you die. And your barnful of goods—who gets it?’

“That’s what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not with God.”

[Steep Yourself in God-Reality]

He continued this subject with his disciples. “Don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or if the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your inner life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the ravens, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, carefree in the care of God. And you count far more.

“Has anyone by fussing before the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? If fussing can’t even do that, why fuss at all? Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They don’t fuss with their appearance—but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. If God gives such attention to the wildflowers, most of them never even seen, don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?

“What I’m trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don’t be afraid of missing out. You’re my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself.

“Be generous. Give to the poor. Get yourselves a bank that can’t go bankrupt, a bank in heaven far from bankrobbers, safe from embezzlers, a bank you can bank on. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.

[When the Master Shows Up]

“Keep your shirts on; keep the lights on! Be like house servants waiting for their master to come back from his honeymoon, awake and ready to open the door when he arrives and knocks. Lucky the servants whom the master finds on watch! He’ll put on an apron, sit them at the table, and serve them a meal, sharing his wedding feast with them. It doesn’t matter what time of the night he arrives; they’re awake—and so blessed!

“You know that if the house owner had known what night the burglar was coming, he wouldn’t have stayed out late and left the place unlocked. So don’t you be slovenly and careless. Just when you don’t expect him, the Son of Man will show up.”

Peter said, “Master, are you telling this story just for us? Or is it for everybody?”

The Master said, “Let me ask you: Who is the dependable manager, full of common sense, that the master puts in charge of his staff to feed them well and on time? He is a blessed man if when the master shows up he’s doing his job. But if he says to himself, ‘The master is certainly taking his time,’ begins maltreating the servants and maids, throws parties for his friends, and gets drunk, the master will walk in when he least expects it, give him the thrashing of his life, and put him back in the kitchen peeling potatoes.

“The servant who knows what his master wants and ignores it, or insolently does whatever he pleases, will be thoroughly thrashed. But if he does a poor job through ignorance, he’ll get off with a slap on the hand. Great gifts mean great responsibilities; greater gifts, greater responsibilities!

[To Start a Fire]

“I’ve come to start a fire on this earth—how I wish it were blazing right now! I’ve come to change everything, turn everything rightside up—how I long for it to be finished! Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Not so. I’ve come to disrupt and confront! From now on, when you find five in a house, it will be—

Three against two,

and two against three;

Father against son,

and son against father;

Mother against daughter,

and daughter against mother;

Mother-in-law against bride,

and bride against mother-in-law.”

Then he turned to the crowd: “When you see clouds coming in from the west, you say, ‘Storm’s coming’—and you’re right. And when the wind comes out of the south, you say, ‘This’ll be a hot one’—and you’re right. Frauds! You know how to tell a change in the weather, so don’t tell me you can’t tell a change in the season, the God-season we’re in right now.

“You don’t have to be a genius to understand these things. Just use your common sense, the kind you’d use if, while being taken to court, you decided to settle up with your accuser on the way, knowing that if the case went to the judge you’d probably go to jail and pay every last penny of the fine. That’s the kind of decision I’m asking you to make.”

The Book of Luke, Chapter 12 (The Message)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is Joshua 9:

[Gibeon]

All the kings west of the Jordan in the hills and foothills and along the Mediterranean seacoast north toward Lebanon—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, Girgashites, and Jebusites—got the news. They came together in a coalition to fight against Joshua and Israel under a single command.

The people of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai and cooked up a ruse. They posed as travelers: their donkeys loaded with patched sacks and mended wineskins, threadbare sandals on their feet, tattered clothes on their bodies, nothing but dry crusts and crumbs for food. They came to Joshua at Gilgal and spoke to the men of Israel, “We’ve come from a far-off country; make a covenant with us.”

The men of Israel said to these Hivites, “How do we know you aren’t local people? How could we then make a covenant with you?”

They said to Joshua, “We’ll be your servants.”

Joshua said, “Who are you now? Where did you come from?”

They said, “From a far-off country, very far away. Your servants came because we’d heard such great things about God, your God—all those things he did in Egypt! And the two Amorite kings across the Jordan, King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan, who ruled in Ashtaroth! Our leaders and everybody else in our country told us, ‘Pack up some food for the road and go meet them. Tell them, We’re your servants; make a covenant with us.’

“This bread was warm from the oven when we packed it and left to come and see you. Now look at it—crusts and crumbs. And our cracked and mended wineskins, good as new when we filled them. And our clothes and sandals, in tatters from the long, hard traveling.”

The men of Israel looked them over and accepted the evidence. But they didn’t ask God about it.

So Joshua made peace with them and formalized it with a covenant to guarantee their lives. The leaders of the congregation swore to it.

And then, three days after making this covenant, they learned that they were next-door neighbors who had been living there all along! The People of Israel broke camp and set out; three days later they reached their towns—Gibeon, Kephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath Jearim. But the People of Israel didn’t attack them; the leaders of the congregation had given their word before the God of Israel. But the congregation was up in arms over their leaders.

The leaders were united in their response to the congregation: “We promised them in the presence of the God of Israel. We can’t lay a hand on them now. But we can do this: We will let them live so we don’t get blamed for breaking our promise.” Then the leaders continued, “We’ll let them live, but they will be woodcutters and water carriers for the entire congregation.”

And that’s what happened; the leaders’ promise was kept.

But Joshua called the Gibeonites together and said, “Why did you lie to us, telling us, ‘We live far, far away from you,’ when you’re our next-door neighbors? For that you are cursed. From now on it’s menial labor for you—woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God.”

They answered Joshua, “We got the message loud and clear that God, your God, commanded through his servant Moses: to give you the whole country and destroy everyone living in it. We were terrified because of you; that’s why we did this. That’s it. We’re at your mercy. Whatever you decide is right for us, do it.”

And that’s what they did. Joshua delivered them from the power of the People of Israel so they didn’t kill them. But he made them woodcutters and water carriers for the congregation and for the Altar of God at the place God chooses. They still are.

The Book of Joshua, Chapter 9 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for monday, August 10 of 2020 with a paired chapter from each Testament along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart.

The Book of Hebrews, Chapter 4:12 (Amplified Bible)

and a post by John Parsons to accompany this:

Shavuah tov, chaverim! Our Torah portion this week (i.e., parashat Re’eh) begins, “See (רְאֵה), I give before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing (הַבְּרָכָה), if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, and the curse (הַקְּלָלָה), if you ... turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known" (Deut. 11:26-28). We obtain God’s blessing (i.e., berakhah: בְּרָכָה) when we obey the LORD, and our decision to obey manifests the blessed state of walking before the Divine Presence (the direct object marker et (את) before the word “the blessing” alludes to the blessings of “Aleph to Tav,” that is from Yeshua, as described in Lev. 26:3-13). As King David said, “I have set (שִׁוִּיתִי) the LORD always before me...” (Psalm 16:8). David made a choice to “set” the LORD before his eyes, for he understood that opening his eyes to Reality was the only path of real blessing.

On the other hand, we obtain God’s curse (i.e., kelalah: קְלָלָה) when we close our eyes and “forget” that the LORD is always present.... Suppressing God’s truth invariably leads to idolatry, that is, to self exaltation. Note that the root word for the word “curse” (kalal) means to be treated as of little account, and therefore “ratifies” the rebellious heart’s attitude toward God. This is middah keneged middah - we are ignored by the LORD as we ignore Him, just as we seen by Him when we truly seek His face (Isa. 55:6-7). So we see that the blessing or the curse really comes from our own inward decision, and God establishes the path we have chosen. As King David said, “God supports my lot” (Psalm 16:5), and Solomon wrote, “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps” (Prov. 16:9). [Hebrew for Christians]

8.10.20 • Facebook

and Today’s message by the ICR:

August 10, 2020

Stewardship Conflicts

“Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.” (Psalm 8:6-8)

The commission to rule over Earth was never withdrawn from humanity by the Creator. That dominion mandate implies authorization for the following human enterprises:

Discovery of truth—science, research, exploration

Application of truth—agriculture, engineering, medicine, technology, etc.

Implementation of truth—commerce, transportation, government, etc.

Interpretation of truth—fine arts, literature, theology

Transmission of truth—education, communication, homemaking

When that authority was first delegated by the Creator, Earth was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). However, Adam’s failure in his first assignment created an ongoing conflict with humanity’s efforts on every front. Now, the “whole creation groaneth” (Romans 8:22) as the very ground from which all things are made conflicts with the environment (Genesis 3:18). Sin and death are the conditions of existence (Romans 5:12), and ignorance of God’s ideas, apart from God’s revelation, is rampant (1 Corinthians 2:14). Humanity’s drive is to serve ourselves, not God or others (Ephesians 2:1-3), and the ability to obey comes only through God’s new creation (Ephesians 4:17-24).

One day, all these wrongs will be righted with the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Until that day, our mandate remains as stewards over Earth. HMM III

[gdlywmn]

Taking Up His Cross and Follow Him

“And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” Mark 8:34

I wish I’d understood the meaning of this question earlier. Most Christians love to wear the cross as a necklace but I don’t think we understand what it really means, because if we do, we probably don’t even need to wear it in the first place.

In Mark 8:34, Jesus says “If anyone wishes to come after Me,” - note the words “come after”, meaning that the first step must come from us. Many of us, including myself on my younger days, won’t know what this means, as we all think that going to church, give offerings and following the basic ten-commandments make us all qualified to be a Christian and to be Jesus’ follower. As long as we don’t steal, don’t murder anyone, and we respect our parents, we’re all good, correct?

Not even close.

Do you remember how annoying it is when our parents or pastors or teachers used to tell us to read our bible? Or for some of us who are more stubborn, to go to church? How often do our minds wander during the sermon thinking of other stuff we would rather be doing? Some of us can’t even keep ourselves from getting distracted by social media while we are in the church.

So the important question is probably this; How do we come after Him when we don’t even feel like it?

Coming after Jesus can only happen when the Holy Spirit guides us to do so. We receive the Holy Spirit after we have been baptized. This Holy Spirit will guide us and show us the ways we can come after Jesus.

So why, even though we have been baptized, we still don’t feel like coming after Jesus?

The answer is plain and simple - because we don’t believe in Him.

Yes, yes... we say we believe in God, we believe that God sent his son, Jesus, down to earth to redeem us from our sins and he died for us so we could be saved. Basically all the stuff written in the Bible, we acknowledge it all, but we consider those as just information. Facts. 

We don’t believe Jesus when He told us to forgive other people’s sins, just as God has forgiven us first. In principle it is a wonderful idea, but try telling this to a girl who has just had her heart broken by her two-timing boyfriend. Try telling this to a husband who has never been appreciated by his wife and therefore he decides to divorce her instead. Try telling this to a man who’s son is murdered and the murderer stands right in front of him.

Not easy.

We don’t believe Jesus when He told us to love our God will all our heart and soul and mind - it says so in Matthew 22:37. In reality, we love ourselves more. We love getting likes from our Instagram followers. We love getting praises and admiration from strangers who think we look good. We love it when people stare at us because we drive a fancy car. We love it when people feel intimidated by the luxury stuff we carry. 

We don’t believe in Jesus - we believe in ourselves. As shocking as it may sound to you, we are not supposed to believe in ourselves. 

What good would come from believing ourselves, who think we will feel better by obeying our desires to come after fame, or fortune, or power  - to get admiration, praises and control?

If we don’t even believe what Jesus tells us, how can we let the Holy Spirit guides us to come after Jesus? That is like acknowledging the fact that working out is good for our health and we subscribe to a gym membership but never set foot in the gym at all. It’s good in principle, but we don’t feel like doing it so we don't do it. 

Many of us - including myself before I realise this - do not understand the implication of refusing or delaying to take up the cross to follow Him.

Is it Hell, you may ask? 

I’ve never been to hell, but yeah, if we, say, murder someone and continue to do so, we will go to Hell, that I’m sure. But being a lukewarm Christian will not guarantee that we will not go to Hell, because it does not guarantee that we believe in Jesus either, apparently.

For me, it is Hell when I try to keep up with appearances, covering myself with branded items just so I can get acceptance from my peers and end up running myself up in debts. 

It is Hell when, instead of forgiving those who have hurt us, we keep it in our minds and let it occupy ourselves until we are consumed by hatred and vengeance. 

It is Hell when we let our pride and ego make us thirsty for more praises and admiration for strangers, only to get surpassed by others later on. 

Hell does not need to wait until we die. We bring it to ourselves the more we let our desires take over our hearts, minds and soul.

God does not want that to happen to us, and he gave the answer through Jesus, and yet... we don’t believe Him when he tells us to deny ourselves.

Now I want to picture something that is close to Heaven.

If you have read the story of the Prodigal Son on Luke 15:11, you probably get the jist of it - this kid asks for his dad’s inheritance, he threw it all away wilding it out and spent it all and went so broke he ended up eating pig’s food and thinking, “My dad’s servants eat better food than this! I have to come home!” and when he was approaching home, his dad saw him from afar and was so overcome with happiness he ran to meet his son halfway.

Let’s put ourselves in this kid’s shoes - let’s pretend we’re him, okay?

With all the awful stuff we’ve done - throwing away all our inheritance and wasting our lives - our dad, instead of punishing us, is so consumed with happiness to see us coming back home that he throws a huge party just to show everyone how happy he is.

Imagine - us, with all our flaws and failures and the stuff we keep accusing ourselves with “You’re not good enough! You’re a failure! You threw away your dad’s money and you’re so stinking poor! You’re an embarrassment to the family!” - those things don’t matter to our dad.

He loves us today, tomorrow and forever. It is indeed a wonderful story that depicts how perfect a father's love is. And this is what our Father, our God's love is really like.

All our lives we chase things that we think will make us feel better - fame, fortune, power, status - and end up feeling empty.

A tragic example that I can think of is Michael Jackson, the King of Pop. He died at age 50 of Profopol and Benzodiazepine overdose - both are antidepressant drugs. One might wonder - “if I had his fame and fortune, I wouldn’t be depressed”. But he was, and I can tell you in confidence that many others have gone through the same tragic path. Whenever a famous person end up committing suicide or die of drug overdose, we can’t help but wonder why.

The truth is fame and fortune and power and everything else we desire will never be enough. There will always be someone better-looking, more successful, more powerful, richer, etc. and off we go seeking for more acceptance, wanting more to feel good enough, and we go round in circles, doing the same thing again and again until we are spent.

Taking up the cross means to leave all those things we are chasing.

I always think to myself - when I die, I won’t bring any of those with me, so it doesn’t matter anyway. And isn’t it ironic that because of this pandemic, all those luxury stuff we’ve spent our money on don’t even worth a thing when it is compared to our health? The lifestyle we’ve worked so hard to achieve, doesn’t even mean anything because we can’t go outside and show it off anyway.

Taking up the cross means to continually believe that God loves us as we are, and people’s admiration and praises that stroke our ego and make us feel good - those are temporary, but God’s love, that’s forever.

So the choice is up to us - do we want the love that is forever, or do we want to keep chasing what our hearts desire, knowing that it leads to nowhere?

Do we want to believe in Jesus, or do we want to believe in ourselves?

(Theresia Warsito, 24 May 2020)

[metalshea]

A Perfectly Doomed Christmas Carol: A Reflection on A Perfect Circle Through Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”.

Reflecting on the holiday season, I’m a little surprised at myself.  Maybe it’s because the lead up to Christmas was shorter here in the United States than it usually is.  The Thanksgiving holiday, our historic kick off for the Christmas season, was very late this year and so in some ways it doesn’t quite feel like Christmas time, yet. And so, I have yet to watch what is easily my favorite Christmas movie, A Muppet Christmas Carol.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are a TON of great Christmas movies: Die Hard (YES IT IS A CHRISTMAS MOVIE—I WILL FIGHT YOU!), Elf, A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, The Santa Claus, Miracle on 34th St., It’s A Wonderful Life, and, of course, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original with Boris Karloff, not that Jim Carey nonsense), but there’s something about A Christmas Carol that resonates so clearly and seems so relevant beyond the holiday season.  I can’t say that about many Christmas movies.  

Ok, maybe Die Hard.  Yippee Kai Yay!

Maybe it’s because I share a birthday with Charles Dickens, but I really love and appreciate his writings. There is a clear moralism running his body of work that is still pertinent even today.  He continuously tries to call attention to disaffected working peoples, structuralized disadvantage, and implores his readers to simultaneously feel empathy and outrage.  A Christmas Carol does this as well.  I won’t spend long summarizing it because, really, who hasn’t seen or read it in the English-speaking world?  If you haven’t, go check out A Muppet Christmas Carol, it’s surprisingly accurate to the original text and Michael Caine plays a great Ebenezer Scrooge.  Or just read the novella and prepare to be shocked at the surprisingly unsettling atmosphere of the book.  What, surprised that the original is actually pretty creepy? It’s supposed to be a ghost story!

“Dude, when are you going to get to the music?”

We’re getting there, I promise!

A Christmas Carol follows Ebenezer Scrooge, a deeply flawed and emotionally insecure man who insulates himself from his insecurities by devoting himself entirely to his business.  He takes an “I got mine” approach to life, disparages and ignores the outside world—often at the expense of those in his employ or influence, and in the process begins to literally damn himself. Not to mention his name is literally synonymous with miser.  Scrooge’s deceased friend appears to him in spirit form and basically sets him up for a round of speed dating with 3 ghosts who show him the error of his ways by bringing him through his past, the present world around him, and the very not too distant future.  

Sounds familiar, right?  If you speak English, it should ring a few bells even if you haven’t read any Dickens. The literary device he uses is pretty common in Western literature because it basically invokes Dante’s Divine Comedy: the idea of a character being led by around by spirit and shown a picture of the world around them or the world that awaits them.

“Dude, now you’re shifting to Dante Alighieri?!  When are you getting to the metal music??”

Right now.

Just like Dante and Dickens, Maynard James Keenan uses the same literary trope in the writing of A Perfect Circle’s, The Doomed.  

Did I just blow your mind?

Before I go further, if you haven’t heard the song, you probably should.  Otherwise none of this will make much sense.  If you have heard it, give it another listen.  Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDvfbvuJtS8

When this song dropped in 2018, it immediately resonated with me because of it’s use of religious symbolism, particularly the invocation of the Beatitudes.  When I started actually reading the lyrics, I realized just what Maynard did in it’s construction and started to get excited, he basically alludes not only to the Beatitudes, the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Gospels, but the narrative structure of the song alludes to Dante.  This religiously-raised, English-majoring musician and metalhead in started bouncing for joy.  Not only is the song pretty damn good, but it has a freaking point!  Hold me, Maynard!

But it’s Christmas, dammit, so we’re going to ignore Dante for now and instead examine this through the lens of A Christmas Carol.  

Truth be told, I actually think A Christmas Carol is a better lens to view the song than Dante, anyway, but I’m pretty damned sure that Maynard wasn’t even remotely considering it when he wrote The Doomed, let alone the absolutely glorious Muppet version.  Alas!

Ok, let’s start with the song itself and maybe some context. 

The Doomed is a damning portrayal of our current societal state.  You could probably make an argument around equality or neoliberalism, Trump’s America or capitalism, or the global refugee crisis, but I don’t think it’s meant to be so narrow a commentary, and for our purposes, I’d rather focus on the religious language at play here.  

The song was released in 2018 and was probably written closer to, if not in 2017.  At the time there was a growing on focus on the plight of the disaffected and a growing dialogue about how people interact with others with different life experiences.  There was a Huffington Post OpEd from around that time that this was likely being written titled “I Don't Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People” that sums up the broader societal dialogue quite nicely.  I wonder if Maynard read it as well?

Before going too far down that particular rabbit hole, let’s actually break down the lyrics.  The vocals open:

Behold a new Christ    Behold the same old horde  Gather at the altering  New beginning, new word And the word was death  And the word was without light  The new beatitude "Good luck, you're on your own" 

To my eyes, the song opens from the perspective of Dante’s Virgil.  Or, since this is Christmas, the Ghost of Christmas Present (GCP).  In my head, I picture the scene where Scrooge and the spirit stand outside the window looking into the Cratchit’s kitchen.  The spirit explains to Scrooge what he is seeing, an impoverished family making the best of what they have.  In Maynard’s retelling though we aren’t greeted with a touching Christmas scene, but rather a new Sermon on the Mount.  In the opening lines of the song, he immediately calls to mind the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John.  But it is the last two lines of the verse that are the most striking and set the tone for the rest of the song:

The new beatitude "Good luck, you're on your own" 

For those who are not Christian, or for those Christians that never learned about The Beatitudes, it helps to have some extra context.  The Sermon on the Mount is a scene from the Gospel of Matthew and elaborated on in the Gospel of Luke.  Jesus Christ gives a lengthy sermon to a crowd and during this famous speech, he issues The Beatitudes.  You can kind of think of them as the New Testament’s answer to the Old Testament’s 10 Commandments and be kind of in the right ballpark.  For all the hype and focus in Western society on the 10 Commandments, the Beatitude are often overlooked by a lot of Christians.  Which is kind of bonkers if you think about it and may hopefully become more apparent by the end of this article.  

Christianity is big on layering imagery and call-backs to earlier Biblical writings.  Seriously, Christians love that shit.  It adds a feeling a depth and purpose to The Scripture.  We can sort of view the weightiness of The Beatitudes through the doctrine of the Trinity.  Basically the idea that The Son, The Father, and the Holy Spirit are all one in the same being.  Ergo Jesus Christ is the literal physical manifestation of God.  Just as God the Father literally wrote the 10 Commandments in stone, Jesus Christ, The Son, issues a new set of Commandments, The Beatitudes, in the Sermon on the Mount.  

Yeah, they’re supposed to be THAT important.

Most Christians can name probably 6-7 of the 10 Commandments without too much thought, but they probably don’t know The Beatitudes, at least as a term. That being said, almost everyone would recognize them:

Blessed are the poor in spirit; the kingdom of heaven is theirs.  Blessed are the patient; they shall inherit the land.  Blessed are those who mourn; they shall be comforted.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for holiness; they shall have their fill.  Blessed are the merciful; they shall obtain mercy.  Blessed are the clean of heart; they shall see God.  Blessed are the peace-makers; they shall be counted the children of God.  Blessed are those who suffer persecution in the cause of right; the kingdom of heaven is theirs.  Blessed are you, when men revile you, and persecute you, and speak all manner of evil against you falsely, because of me. (Matthew 5:3-11)

The Gospel of Luke, a later chronological writing than the Gospel of Matthew, further expounds upon The Beatitudes, adding a bit more flavoring and essentially turns them into action items rather than just virtuous states of being:

27 And now I say to you who are listening to me, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you; 28 bless those who curse you, and pray for those who treat you insultingly. 29 If a man strikes thee on the cheek, offer him the other cheek too; if a man would take away thy cloak, do not grudge him thy coat along with it. 30 Give to every man who asks, and if a man takes what is thine, do not ask him to restore it. 31 As you would have men treat you, you are to treat them; no otherwise… 36 Be merciful, then, as your Father is merciful. 37 Judge nobody, and you will not be judged; condemn nobody, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and gifts will be yours; good measure, pressed down and shaken up and running over, will be poured into your lap; the measure you award to others is the measure that will be awarded to you.  (Luke 6:27-31, 36-38)

Luke also offers a complimentary set of warnings to accompany the Beatitudes, known as the 4 Woes:

Woe upon you who are rich; you have your comfort already. Woe upon you who are filled full; you shall be hungry. Woe upon you who laugh now; you shall mourn and weep.  Woe upon you, when all men speak well of you; their fathers treated the false prophets no worse.  (Luke 6:24-26)

When I was growing up in a very devoutly Catholic household, I remember my mother telling me that as important as the 10 Commandments are to the foundations of what was then my faith, The Beatitudes were absolutely critical to my being a good Catholic and, what’s more, no person could ever hope to have a shot at entering heaven without ascribing to them.

Something about a rich man, a camel, the eye of a needle, and the prosperity gospel, amirite?  But I digress.

It’s funny, re-reading the Sermon on the Mount and Luke 6, after I don’t know how many years, I really am struck by how the Beatitudes really are positive action items.  The quotes I provided above don’t really delve too deeply into how the broader context of the Beatitudes demand positive action.  This is article is going to be long enough as is without dissecting the full text of the Sermon on the Mount from both Gospels of Matthew and Luke, but they’re interesting pieces to read from a moral philosophy perspective even if you’re not religious.  Where the Commandments say essentially, “Don’t do this or else”, the Beatitudes basically say: “Do these things, act this way, and you will be rewarded; don’t do them and you won’t be”.  That is a MARKED difference in tone from the Commandments, and it is baffling why as a religion Christianity focuses so much on the consequences of negative behavior as opposed to the positive outcomes for good behavior.

Getting back to the song, it is through the Beatitudes that all people are called to approach and treat others with compassion and empathy.  As the GCP shows us though, this is no longer the case: you are no longer expected to care for others, and you should not expect them to care about you. You’re on your own now.

As The Doomed progresses, we get a better picture of scene the GCP shows to Scrooge.  The underlying music shifts to more of a march feel.  There is a call-and-response at play between an unnamed preacher, the New Christ, and his followers, The Same Old Horde:

Blessed are the fornicates May we bend down to be their whores  Blessed are the rich  May we labor, deliver them more Blessed are the envious  Bless the slothful, the wrathful, the vain  Blessed are the gluttonous  May they feast us to famine and war

Maynard covers a lot of ground in these two short verses.  He’s alluded 3 Gospels already--2 of which we’ve dug into, I’m not getting into John here, but yeah that allusion to the Word comes from there (among other places… Christianity is big on scriptural call-backs, what can I say?)--and now he’s inverting the Beatitudes by referencing the 7 Deadly Sins and even the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Damn. Maynard’s smart.

Like the Beatitudes, the 7 Deadly Sins are familiar to most Christians, but they’re fundamentally misunderstood. They are not explicitly Biblical, and their legacy mostly comes down to us through early Christian mysticism and through the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.  They are: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride. What sets these apart from sin as it’s normally understood is that they are not actions.  According to Aquinas, sin is a moral evil that is not in accord with reason or Divine Law and it fundamentally requires some type of decision and action.  The 7 Deadly sins are more states of emotional being that lead us to moral evils. Through wrath and anger, we’re prone to violence and poor decision making.  Through sloth, we’re prone to inaction in the face of evil.  And so it goes.

The 7 Deadly Sins are inherently selfish mindsets.  They are considered so in Western culture because allowing ourselves to fall victim to our lust or greed is  the same as saying that we are sating ourselves potentially at the expense of others.  Such a mindset is in direct conflict with the words of Christ vis-a-vis the Beatitudes. The contrast is so strong that, in a way, you could look at The Beatitudes and the 7 Deadly Sins as extremes on the end of a spectrum. It is the human condition to err towards the Sins, but it is imperative for all humans to move towards the Beatitudes, not only for their salvation but for the betterment of society (anybody else catching a whiff of Freud here?  Id/Ego? Just me?).  Maynard flips the script: the worst impulses of humanity now guide us.

The music shifts again, this time to something more innocent sounding, and we hear our Scrooge speak for the first time:

What of the pious, the pure of heart, the peaceful? What of the meek, the mourning, and the merciful? 

It’s a little difficult to tell if it’s our Scrooge or GCP who utter the next two lines, I like to think it’s the latter, but the sentiment is the same either way:

All doomed All doomed

In this new world, those that embrace the values and actions embodied by the Beatitudes are left behind.  

The music picks up again and the GCP again address Scrooge.  The atmosphere almost feels more somber and reflective:

Behold a new Christ  Behold the same old horde  Gather at the altering  New beginning, new word And the word was death  And the word was without light  The new beatitude: "Good luck"

This repetition of the earlier verse brings us back to Dickens’ scene outside the Cratchit’s: The spirt echoes the earlier words of Scrooge while Scrooge solemnly considers Tiny Tim’s health: “’If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.’”

The music shifts, again, this time back to the innocent, meek section we heard earlier in the song. Scrooge interrupts GCP:

What of the pious, the pure of heart, the peaceful?  What of the meek, the mourning, and the merciful?  What of the righteous? What of the charitable?  What of the truthful, the dutiful, the decent? 

Once again Scrooge directly references the Beatitudes, but this time he expands beyond them, alluding to people that embody other parallel virtues to those referenced in the Gospels. There’s a sense of pleading and desperation to his words as Scrooge tries to capture the gravity of the implications of GCP’s descriptions.

The music shifts again to the marching beat, with a dissonant guitar lead, purposefully played off key. GCP is becoming angry and annoyed. “You’re not getting it, stupid”.  He responds through Maynard, who now sings with a clear edge to his voice:

Doomed are the poor  Doomed are the peaceful  Doomed are the meek  Doomed are the merciful 

For the word is now death  And the word is now without light  The new beatitude:

GCP directly calls out a number of the virtues of the Beatitudes, but this time his cynicism is crystal clear. He finally exclaims to Scrooge, anger boiling over:

Fuck the doomed! You're on your own.

Again, I’m reminded of Dickens and the final exchange between Scrooge and GCP.  Scrooge laments the state and health of those whose lives he has just seen.  The sprit, angry that Scrooge still seems to be missing the big picture—that Scrooge bears responsibility for their state, let alone their opinions of him—uses Scrooge’s own words to drive the point home: “’Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?’".  It’s a final, damning rebuke for Scrooge to ponder before being confronted by the most terrifying spirit of the night.  Just as we are left to ponder the implications of the “New Beatitude”.

See, I told you there was a good reason to use GCP as the narrator as opposed to Dante.

Plus, Christmas.

So there.

Some final thoughts:

I’ve been struggling how to relate the two children that accompany the GCP in A Christmas Carol, named Ignorance and Want, back to “The Doomed”.  In some ways they could be tied into the 7 Deadly Sins as they are both expressions of pure human selfishness, but, you know, square peg/round hole. Still food for thought though.

Even as I have moved in my own faith journey from Catholic to absurdist (a la Albert Camus), I still refer to myself as “philosophically Catholic”, and have been known to reference Luke’s version of The Sermon on the Mount in casual conversation, specifically this gem:

By what right wilt thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me rid thy eye of that speck, when thou canst not see the beam that is in thy own? Thou hypocrite, take the beam out of thy own eye first, and so thou shalt have clear sight to rid thy brother’s of the speck. (Luke 6:42)

I love that image.

The Beatitudes, The Woes, the 7 Deadly Sins, and their larger roles as measures of personal morality are really meaningful to me.  Even though I don’t consider myself Christian, I still ascribe to them.  They are guideposts towards achieving The Golden Rule—if such a thing could be considered a state of virtue—and in their broader context they are calls for us to engage of certain types of action, especially considering Matthew 25:36:

I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.  

Re-reading The Beatitudes for this post, I’ve also been so struck by how little sense of primacy there is in them compared to the Commandments.  There’s no explicit demand that we follow the Christian God, but that we embrace the Beatitudes and their broader contexts as moral bedrock. Christ reflects later in the Gospel of Luke that not using them as the basis for our personal morality would be like building a house in a flood zone on dirt instead of bedrock.  There’s a lot of truth to that, and that message transcends a lot of the nonsense that tends to lead people away from the religion.

I think Maynard might be coming from a similar viewpoint.  The values that we are supposed to espouse and embody are outdated in this New World. Kindness is obsolete.  Those that embrace virtue are kicked aside just as readily as those that we would otherwise consider to be lesser than ourselves.  The Doomed urges us to reflect on this and consider how we view the people and world around us.  Like Scrooge, in order for us to make a substantive change in ourselves and around us, we need to really consider what we’re seeing before us in the present moment.

And it’s not a pretty picture.

But it’s not all bleak. The last line of the song uses the conjunction and pronoun “You’re” and “your”, respectively.  Both variations of “You”.  We could spend hours discussing and dissecting the grammatical implications of the lyrics, but suffice it to say: as much as a condemnation as the last line is, it’s also a recognition that it’s on us to act.  No one else.  

I’ll end this 3500-word beast on that note.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Let’s do a little bit better every day.

Shea \m/

#a perfect circle #a christmas carol #maynard james keenan #eat the elephant #charles dickens #Christianity #sermon on the mount #beatitudes #seven deadly sins #heavy metal #metal #alternative metal #catholicism #thomas aquinas #aquina

[theessaflett]

Wicca & Whispers: My Unexpected Month as a Pagan Convert

My first and, to date, only, experience of a spiritual revelation happened in the summer of 2017.

Half an hour into a meditation session, eyes closed, legs crossed, I had a startlingly clear image of a gigantic oak tree growing out of the ground in front of me, unfurling its leaves and stating in a deep voice: I am Mother Earth. I am the one true religion. Convert to the Wiccan Faith.

This spiritual revelation, crystal clear in my mind’s eye,  was a little unexpected…not least because that meditation session was part of a Christian retreat. When we went round the circle afterwards sharing any godly moments we’d had during our prayerful meditation I, unsurprisingly enough, kept quiet. Right sort of experience. Wrong religion.

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With no small amount of trepidation and some curiosity, I recently asked around my friend group and requested that they describe me in one word. Some responses were:

Focused Self-Assured Unique Creative Warm   Versatile Funny

And, my favourite: “Essa” …Fair enough.

Now, this is a wide reaching list, but there was one word that didn’t make a single appearance from anyone: religious. I am not surprised by this. I am generally known as the cynical one, the sardonic one, the pessimist, the sensible thinker, and rightly so. (I am Scottish, after all.) Essa the logical. Essa the skeptic. Many, if not most, of the people who meet me in my day to day life would probably expect me to be agnostic, even atheist.

And yet.

And yet the institution of the church and Christianity itself has had a profound and far-reaching importance in my life. My mother is a lay-reader, church organist and choir leader. My dad is also a church organist. My Mum’s family are Church of Scotland Elders, My Dad’s folk are Salvation Army, some of them even founding members of the London branch of the institution. My family tree is heaving with religion, my own childhood spent in church buildings and prayer meetings. I was playing violin in the praise band at aged 4, playing the organ and helping run local church summer workshops by age 12, arguing on theological issues with church camp youth leaders by age 13. When people ask what my relationship is with the church, I usually just say, “I grew up in the church and my family is very involved with our local church community” and leave it at that. At that point most folk presume this to mean that I have given up on religion myself and leave the matter be, much to my relief.

And yet.

And yet I do still go to church, when I can. I am a congregation member of a very liberal C of E church in London, the type of church where God is referred to by female pronouns, people don’t guard ‘their spot’ on the pew and metropolitan gay couples bring their aesthetically flawless children with them every Sunday morning. I don’t tend to experience much great spiritual uplifting during the service but I enjoy the sermon, which usually has a disruptive, feminist slant, the sense of community, the feeling that here is a group of people who care about each other and are trying to just generally be nicer to everyone. I’ve told myself for years that there isn’t a need for a powerful sense of the otherworldy, of godliness, to make church worthwhile: surely a sense of that community and a reminder to be kind is a generally good thing, worthy in of itself.  

I was the church organist for this tiny yet friendly congregation in Tayport between the ages of 15-17. They did excellent cups of tea. I’m the one with the ginger hair.  (2013)

And yet.

And yet since I was very small, I have yearned for that ‘aha!’ moment. That euphoric experience of spiritual enlightenment where I would know that God was out there in the world. An unmistakable KA-POW. 

“You just need to send one sign!” I remember fervently bartering late one night when I was about eight during my bedtime prayers. “Just send one sign to show you exist and I won’t ask again and I’ll be extra good!” I was unaware then, in the midst of my doubt, of the irony of my paternal grandmother’s maiden name: Thomas. (Theology joke).

Years passed, and my wish for clear ‘godly proof of life’ faded into the background but didn’t entirely dissipate. From the ages of 10-13 I went to increasingly evangelical church summer camps where everyone else and their pet dog had seemingly had a personal meeting with Jesus, throwing myself into bible study groups and arm-waving to cheesy pop worship songs in the desperate hope that some sort of visitation from the Holy Spirit might eventually happen by Day 9 of camp. Nothing.

              ------------------------------------------------------------------

My teenage diaries are filled with fears of a malignant God, or a long-dead God, or a God that simply had decided that I personally was worthy only of being ignored. By seventeen I had given up on God entirely and announced myself agnostic. …This proved to be a very short-lived phase. Homesickness and a wish to find that specific sense of belonging that only churches can truly give led me to my current  liberal C of E church in 2014, but that wish for that ‘just one sign’ was still a background hum.

You can perhaps appreciate my frustration, then, when I finally got my sign in that prayer meeting in 2017. This was it. The visitation I’d been waiting for since eight year old me had laid down the gauntlet, demanding proof. It was just such a shame that it was the wrong bloody religion.

What would you do? On the one hand I was a church goer, who came from a church family, who had been brought up in the Christian faith.

On the other hand I had been wanting a spiritual sign from the heavens for about 14 years by this point and there it was. Ridiculous in nature and almost certainly brought on from a combination of severe sleep deprivation, high caffeine intake and end-of undergraduate-degree existential stress, but there nevertheless.

Reader. I went for it.

As my girlfriend at the time watched in mild, and then moderate alarm, I went out on what can only be described a ‘Wiccan Spree’, where in the space of about three weeks I obtained four spell books and a brand of incense called ‘Dragon’s Blood’, started following about eight different ‘Witchy Aesthetic’ Instagram accounts, watched countless YouTube spell videos, joined a Facebook group called ‘Divine Goddesses’,  signed up for a MeetUp event where you joined a ‘coven’ and casted spells in woods, guilt-read a blog called ‘So You Used To Be Christian And Now You’re Pagan: An Introduction To Your New Faith’, collected leaflets for a Pagan festivals that included activities such as ‘Tree Yoga’, drew my very own pentangle, made a wand and repurposed tea-light holders as containers for random household items that I decided represented the four elements. I was, in retrospect, almost certainly having some sort of small nervous breakdown, but at the time the sense of sudden purpose was truly wonderful. Wonderful, that is, until I got to the chapter about gender roles in my new, shiny Wiccan textbook. 

The enthused, evangelical pages about the powerful, strong energy of men and the sensitive, delicate energy of women left a sour taste in my mouth, particularly when it became clear that male and female energies were always expected to ‘intertwine’ exclusively with each other. I’d thought I was pursuing a fresh, exciting new way to explore my spirituality, a way that left the more archaic views and beliefs of the church behind. It was a disappointment, then,  to discover that heteronormative expectations of gender and sexuality permeated more than just the ‘mainstream’ religions. Wicca wasn’t going to be my ‘true path’, after all. The vision of the tree suddenly seemed like a silly figment of my imagination, and I was glad that I’d kept it mostly to myself. The spell books quietly and sheepishly went to the charity shop.

…And yet.

As I write this here in late 2019, there is still, somewhere in my brain, that eight year old child who is waiting for the moment of indisputable proof of a higher power. I am, of course, in good company, as countless Christians have searched for exactly that proof right from the beginning of the faith: the New Testament is chock-full of disciples needing massive, indisputable signs from the Heavens before they’ll believe practically anything, much to Jesus’ frustration. In John 20:29 a newly resurrected and very irritated Jesus says to Thomas, a disciple so skeptical that he’s known as Doubting Thomas (…told you my earlier Thomas joke was a theological one) and who has refused to believe in the resurrection of Jesus right up until the moment Jesus literally appears in front of him, “ Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed!”

…A phrase probably written into the Bible for the early Christians, encouraging them in their belief in a Messiah they hadn’t personally met, and a phrase that still holds comfort for Christians around the world today.

It’s one of those deceptively easy-sounding sayings, ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed’.

I’ve always been someone who’s a stickler for facts  - for instance,  I worked out that Santa didn’t exist when I was five and then couldn’t understand for the life of me why everyone else was perpetuating a lie that was, in my mind, simply unnecessary. (It took quite a lot of persuading from my parents for me not to share my newfound knowledge with my friend group. I settled for pitying looks and pointed questions along the lines of, “But how exactly does he get down the chimney, Karen?”)

People who are Fact People don’t like the concept of blind belief. We don’t like it at all. It makes us feel exposed, and icky, and foolish, and like we’re being played for suckers.

I am a Fact Person. I am also not many people’s typical idea of a Christian.

I have tattoos. I am openly queer. I believe abortion and birth control are fundamental human rights, I don’t believe Mary was a virgin or that non-believers need ‘Saving’, I consider the Bible to be a fascinating tapestry of sociological history best read with the expectation of cross-culture misunderstandings rather than it being the undiluted Word of God, and I think that in institutionalised religion there is often too much fixating on a possible future Heaven when Hell is already happening now, in this lifetime, to so many people who need Earthly help rather than lofty prayer.

I am, in short, too much of a questioner to ever be a ‘true believer’. Blind Evangelical faith is just never going to come easy for this Doubting Thomas.

And as for my tree vision? My queer, feminist relationship with gender and gender roles stopped me from identifying as Wiccan, the restricted binary expectations making that path an instant no-go.

And yet. I am far from an atheist.

Me (now with blue hair) at a spiritual retreat with members of my current church community (Spring 2019)

              -----------------------------------------------------------------

As I move away from my teens and deeper into my twenties, I can slowly feel a subtler understanding of what God might be beginning to lap at the edges of my understanding of the world. Be it Mother Earth, be it the Holy Trinity, be it whatever you want to call it, I have noticed the small things I do in day to day life to honour the unexplainable.

The fact that I knew that lighting a candle and conducting my own small service for the flat I was about to leave after living there for 3 years was absolutely the right thing to do, despite the fact that that building was theoretically just bricks and mortar? Unexplainable.

The fact that I sometimes enter a house and go “yep, this is good” and sometimes am like, “ABSOLUTELY NOT, NOPE, DO NOT WANT TO STAY HERE THIS HOUSE DOES NOT LIKE ME”? Unexplainable…and ridiculous to witness.

The fact that, every so often, in the woods or on a deserted beach, I get a strange sense of flickering connection? A sense of an electric undercurrent that could be sparked into life if only two wires were connected? Unexplainable, unexplainable, unexplainable.

Celtic Christianity, that ancient and now largely forgotten Spiritual meeting-place between Christianity and Paganism, has a term for these moments where the Other can be felt, if only for a half-second: they are ‘thin places’, the places ‘in the world where the walls are weak’.

In the words of 1 Kings 19:12,  

         After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.          And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

I’m beginning to suspect that perhaps in all my straining, in all my looking for divine ‘massive earthquakes’ and ‘impressive firestorms’, I’ve missed countless gentle whispers.

My relationship with faith is destined to wax and wane. The only certainty is that it will never stay the same. That, I’m beginning to realise, is allowed. Normal, even. For now, unsure of what the future may bring, I am content to search for those thin places and whisper into the quiet. 

You never know. I might hear a whisper in return.

[hymnrevival]

Sermon Given on JULY 4th 1988

“We need more troublemakers in the church! I pray that every member of the body of Christ would become a troublemaker! We need an army of troublemakers who have become so full of the Holy Ghost they will stir up and trouble New York City and every other city around the world; trouble their wicked institutions — challenge the established dead churches — trouble the leaders, the mayors, the city councils, the community leadership! In other words, we need Holy Ghost troublemakers moving in the Spirit, proclaiming the kingship of Christ so effectively that whole cities are stirred!”

Read Full Sermoun Here: <a href="http://tscpulpitseries.org/english/1980s/ts880704.html" rel="noreferrer nofollow">tscpulpitseries.org/english/1980s/ts880704.html</a>

We Need More Troublemakers In the Church! Plain Text File + Home Page + Subscribe + Copyright By David Wilkerson July 4, 1988 __________ We need more troublemakers in the church! I pray that every member of the body of Christ would become a troublemaker! We need an army of troublemakers who have become so full of the Holy Ghost they will stir up and trouble New York City and every other city around the world; trouble their wicked institutions — challenge the established dead churches — trouble the leaders, the mayors, the city councils, the community leadership! In other words, we need Holy Ghost troublemakers moving in the Spirit, proclaiming the kingship of Christ so effectively that whole cities are stirred!

Paul and Silas were two of the world's biggest troublemakers! The Bible speaks of "men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 15:26, NAS). Paul, Barnabas, Silas, and Timothy were such men, walking in the power of the Spirit. As seen in Acts 16, when the Holy Ghost forbid them to speak the Word in Asia, they obeyed. When they tried to go to Bithynia, but the Spirit would not permit them, they went instead to Troas, under the Spirit's direction. Paul then had a vision of a man calling them to Macedonia, so they set out immediately to Philippi, the chief city of Macedonia. When they arrived, a fortune teller followed them about, crying, "...These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation" (Acts 16:17). After enduring it for many days, Paul turned and "...said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour" (Acts 16:18). Suddenly the whole city was in an uproar: this fortune teller was apparently a big tourist attraction, but now she was healed and praising the Lord!

Paul had upset the status quo. He had challenged the devil who had been having his way for years. The slave-owners of the delivered woman then dragged Paul and Silas into the marketplace to stand trial before the city magistrates. The charge was, "...These men...do exceedingly trouble our city" (Acts 16:20). "And the multitude rose up together against them: and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison...and made their feet fast in the stocks" (Acts 16:22-24). It looked as though Satan had won. The new converts must have been stunned!

But all the power of God is with Holy Ghost troublemakers! "And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God...and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed" (Acts 16:25-26). The jailer, seeing what had happened, even fell down before Paul and Silas, saying "...Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" (Acts 16:30). Those city officials and religious leaders went to bed thinking, "We did it to them! That's the last we will hear of those vagabond troublemakers. We really shut them up and scared them!" But what a commotion the next day! I can imagine sergeants knocking on the doors of the mayor, city council members, and the religious leaders, telling them, "Quick! Get down to city hall — we've got a big problem!" In a state of shock, the officials probably responded, "What? An earthquake? The prison doors opened? Their chains all fell off? They didn't even try to escape? The jailer joined their faith? They're Romans?!?" Now, they were really afraid. It was a crime to beat Roman citizens (Paul and Silas were both Romans). "What do you mean they won't budge from our jail? They demand what? For us to come down and apologize and escort them out of jail?" And they came...and brought them out...begging them to leave the city" (Acts 16:39 NASB).

I love it! Here they were, not flaunting their spiritual authority, but merely acting as ambassadors of King Jesus. As they had witnessed Christ's power being mocked, Paul and Silas now wanted that little riverside prayer group to see how God manifests His power to those who stand up against the forces of hell. They went directly to the house of Lydia — and what a meeting that must have been! I would think Paul told that house group, "See! The devil can rage, the powers that be may threaten — but God has all the power! God will stand by you if you take a stand!"

I preach a great deal on prayer and I believe in the effectual, fervent prayer of the righteous. But praying alone, praying by two's and three's, or even in a large prayer meeting will not alone shake a city! Elijah was a man of powerful prayer, but it was more than his prayers that shook Ahab's kingdom and enraged Jezebel: He called the false prophets to Mount Carmel and challenged them. Jezebel had slain God's prophets and led Israel into apostasy and the horrible idolatry of Baal worship — and no one had challenged her! Seven thousand believers had not bowed, but they were silent, unknown, and afraid. So along comes Elijah, the troublemaker! Ahab called him "the troubler of Israel!" (1 Kings 18:17). Elijah ended up at the Brook Kishon with a sword in his hand, slaying hundreds of Baal's false prophets "in the name of Jehovah."

Elijah was not a polite gentlemen with the devil and his crowd. While "...they leaped upon the altar...Elijah mocked them [derided them]" (1 Kings 18:26-27). The church of late has cowered before the powers of darkness due to the lack of holiness, for the Scripture tells us, "...the righteous are bold as a lion" (Proverbs 28:1). Some will say, "But Jesus was meek — He never opened His mouth or resisted when they took Him to be crucified!" But that was because the hour of darkness had come, the hour He was to be given into the hands of the enemy. He was not silent in the temple when driving out the money-changers. He was not silent when calling religious leaders serpents — blind guides — whited sepulchers — a brood of vipers (see Matthew 23). He even told some boldly that Satan was their father!

Many churches today are full of silent, gentlemanly diplomats, not wanting to make waves! Nobody wants trouble! So the devil's kingdom goes unchallenged. We have more than enough smiling, mousy Christians! I heard the raging of a man who said to me, "Let's you and me make a bet — any amount of money! You people in the church can't stop anything! You'll get a little publicity, but nothing ever changes. You can't shut anything down! You're powerless in this league!" He was speaking of abortion and I could detect the mocking of Satan in his voice. It was a dare! It was as if to say to all Christians, "You're all spiritual wimps. You won't last — you'll give up when the opposition comes. You'll just run back inside your safe walls and hide!"

Let me show you how and where the apostolic men of God challenged the powers of darkness — the areas where we too must act.

Paul and Silas Challenged a Dead, Corrupt Religious System!

"...they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and...reasoned with them out of the scriptures, opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ" (Acts 17:1-3). The synagogue at Thessalonica had probably conducted quiet meetings for years, undisturbed. They diligently taught Scripture and in outward appearance they seemed very holy.

Then Paul, the troublemaker, came on the scene and in just three weeks of preaching the kingship of Jesus, he turned that whole area of Thessalonica upside down! He knew from experience that only a few devout ones would listen to Christ's demanding word, that the majority would not give up their hard-shelled religious traditions. He also knew they would be filled with envy and hate towards anything that disturbed their way of doing things. Paul declared that the preaching of his gospel caused contention: "...we were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention" (1 Thessalonians 2:2). The New American Standard says "with much opposition."

What caused the contention, the violent opposition? Paul and Silas were not loud or provocative — they were not robbing churches? Later, in a letter to those in Thessalonica who went on with the Lord, Paul wrote, "For our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile...not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts. For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness; God is witness.... But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children...we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because you were dear unto us" (1 Thessalonians 2:3-8). These religious people who had for years acted so demure and God-loving are now enraged. They became an angry mob, assaulting the house of Jason and troubling the people and rulers of the city. (See Acts 17.) The cause of all this contention was this one uncompromising word: "There is another king...Jesus" (Acts 17:7).

Paul's preaching on the lordship of Jesus was not like what we hear on that subject today! It was not a cheerleader's slogan or emotional hype. I believe Paul stood for hours before those religious Jews, laying down the whole cost of following Jesus as King. He preached the laying down of all idols and giving up the pleasures of sin. He preached self-denial and suffering for Christ's glory, even to martyrdom. His message of Christ's kingship included a warning to no longer follow men or teachers or their doctrines, nor be led about by men who make merchandise of others; but rather, to adopt a life of holiness and separation from all appearance of evil, having no fellowship with evil men.

I know of Christians who are absolutely in love with their pastor and church, even where it is known for certain there is pride, domination of spirits, manipulation, and flesh. But they say, "We hear the right message. We hear about holiness, about the lordship of Jesus! Sin is not condoned in our church! If that is so, why do those same ministers and congregations become so enraged and hostile to those others who begin to preach and live out the true cost of making Christ king in their lives? Why is there such opposition to believers who faithfully practice the Lord's uncompromising commandments?

"These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also" (Acts 17:6). Whose world is upside down? It is that religious circle where nobody takes the kingship of Christ seriously. A minister's wife here in New York City told me, "Times Square Church has upset just about every charismatic church in the city! You know that, don't you?" I did not know that. I don't know if in fact it is true. But if it is, and if it is because of arrogance in this pulpit or from people going out bragging that this is the only church preaching real holiness, then we would be in great error! But on the other hand, if ministers and congregations are getting "turned upside down" because we preach the uncompromising kingship of Christ — if people are leaving some of those churches because their sin was not exposed and challenged — if people go from here, becoming more like Jesus, walking in His purity — then we are Holy Ghost troublemakers of the right kind!

I can assure you from the Word of God that nothing shakes up or angers dead, compromising churches and preachers more than someone moving in the fullness of Christ who lives and preaches Paul's demanding gospel of holiness. It's a reproof! In every church you will find those few "devout Christians," as Paul called them. But the day you say with Paul — "The things of this world are as dung. I have turned from idols to serve my King. I will no longer serve two masters. I have seen a great light and have come out from among the wicked, the unbelieving, the apostate, the workers of iniquity" — that is the day you are marked as a troublemaker! Are you also to "go in unto them" as Paul did and share the light you have received, to pull others out of deception? Absolutely, yes! By phone, by visits, by tapes, in every way go in unto them, willing to even lay your life down for them.

"The brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night..." (Acts 17:10). Once again it looked like Satan won the battle with the two of them having to sneak out of town in the dark of night. Just imagine the proud boastings of the people on the next Sabbath: "Some revival that was! We were here before they came and we're here when they're gone. People just don't want that kind of preaching around here! Let us go on with God with no more interruptions from these holiness troublemakers!" But Paul and Silas had so turned the converts eyes off themselves and onto Jesus that they could leave town and the body still flourish there. Under persecution the church in Thessalonica became so strong in faith that they became a powerful witness to all of Asia — and the joy of Paul's heart!

Paul Stirred Things Up in the Market Place.

Paul stirred things up right on the job by preaching Jesus the King with resurrection power: "...in the market daily with them that met with him...he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection" (Acts 17:17-18). If there is any one place Christians hide their light more than any other place it is on the job, in their workplace. There are multitudes of Christians in this country who sit in God's house proclaiming their intense love for Jesus, yet when they go to their jobs, they're timid and ashamed of Christ! Like Peter, they say by their silence, "I don't know the man!" They fear losing their jobs as well as being ridiculed or rejected.

Why is there such cowardly silence about Jesus on the job by Christians who pray, devour the Word, and walk in holiness? It is because, unlike Paul, our hearts are not stirred, as we see all around us a people given to idolatry. (See Acts 7:16.) We dare not say, "But Paul was a preacher. He was called to this work!" We are all ambassadors of Jesus Christ and are all commanded never to hide our light under a bushel.

These Athenians were exactly like the people you work with nowadays, spending "their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing...in all things...too superstitious" (Acts 17:21-22). Many Christians were led to believe that the President was a born again believer in Christ, while all along it appears he and his wife were following stars! It is now apparent that those who live in the White House are superstitious and have been guided by spiritualistic channelers! I believe God is angry about it because we lied to the whole world by proclaiming "In God we trust." God's anger is expressed in Isaiah: "Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance...for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments. For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness: thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee...Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth.... Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries.... Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee" (Isaiah 47:3, 9-13). "Though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down..." (Obadiah verse 4). According to these Scriptures, such leaders will be put to shame!

So it is throughout this nation: the majority of those around you on the job are given over to idolatry, gossip, and superstitions of all kinds. On Wall Street the newest thing is "crystal power"! Intelligent, rich power brokers put thousands of dollars into a hunk of crystal or jade and place it in their office to receive "radiant rays" and "vibes" to imbue them with secret knowledge. Others are into yoga, meditation, the occult, and many now won't do anything until they consult their guru or stargazer!

Athens was a city wholly given over to idolatry. Their sin and wickedness had to be even more overpowering than what we have here in New York City because there was no gospel light, no church there. The population was under the sway of two powerful doctrines of delusion: the Epicureans and the Stoics — twin doctrines of devils! The Epicureans did not believe in life after death. They believed that death is the end of all things and that happiness is achieved by a meditative detachment, and joy is to be found only in friendship. The end result was sensuality, gluttony, and exotic pleasures. The Stoics, on the other hand, had a religion of human reasoning, of closeness to nature. They reasoned that to serve one's fellowman through love would cause one pain and sufferings; therefore they urged each one to find his salvation in nature, by aligning the will with universal wisdom." It was so hopeless that it often led to suicide. [Today we call it "new age" as Satan seeks to become the universal mind.] The Athenians ultimately degenerated into blood-thirsty sadists, finding pleasure in the gladiators' slaughterings.

In its time, Athens was one of the most modern, advanced, and intellectual cities in the world. It was palatial, busy, powerful, and godless! I can imagine Paul, a tentmaker, as he waited for Silas and Timothy to arrive from Berea, going to the marketplace to look over the latest needles and thread, comparing canvases. Paul had visited many cities and had seen it all: the drunkenness of Corinth, the homosexual spirit that ruled Rome, the spiritual darkness of Jerusalem. But he never let his heart get hard; he could still be moved by it all. As he walked through the Athens marketplace weeping, "his spirit was stirred in him..." (Acts 17:16). Paul had no strategy, no plan of evangelism, no scheme or tactic. He had only a broken heart full of the burden of Christ. He said to himself, "They're all going to hell. They're all lost, all blind. Someone has to do something!"

For those of you who live in New York City or who have visited, have you never stood in Times Square at midday and looked at the multitudes, at masses of business people going helter-skelter, or at night seen the wandering dregs of humanity? Have you not wept, "Lord, they are lost! This city is going to hell — the devil is having his way and no one seems to be challenging this mess!" Or have you become so used to the darkness, so burned out with all the beggars, the poverty, the crime, and the filth that you are no longer stirred? I know how it feels to be bombarded on all sides with beggars, knowing that handouts are going to drugs and alcohol. You can't keep up with it all; but there is the danger of allowing callouses to form over your heart, so that on the job you're no longer stirred by the sin and hurt all around you.

Paul Focused on the Resurrection Power of the Gospel.

Paul was not put off by the immensity of the problem. He wasn't overwhelmed by Satan's hold on the city because he knew he had a secret weapon against it: the gospel of resurrection power! Paul took his eyes off what the devil had done and focused on what Jesus could do in the resurrection might! It did not matter that they called him a "babbler," meaning a sponger, a loafer, a preacher of nonsense. Have you ever been called "a troublemaker babbler"? Has anyone ever said to you, "Stop infringing on my rights. Stop pushing your religion on me. Stop trying to make me believe like you do!" None of that kind of mockery could stop Paul because his heart was bleeding. Let them say what they will or call him any name they please — he knew if he didn't take his stand for Christ they would die in sin without a witness.

It is not enough to just live right or to "set a good example." For too long we have hidden behind the old cliche, "Actions speak louder than words." We claim to be silent witnesses living His life. The testimony must include the spoken Word: "Thy watchman shall lift up the voice..." (Isaiah 52:8). "...How shall they hear without a preacher?" (Romans 10:14).

There is a "Philip" Ministry for Every Believer Who Walks in Christ's Holiness.

"Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed. And there was great joy in that city" (Acts 8:5-8). Philip was a layman, full of the Holy Ghost. He was not a pulpit man, but a lay person who simply believed in Christ's power of resurrection life. So he went everywhere expecting miracles. He was a man of the marketplace. We will never impact this city or any other until every member of the body becomes a Christ-consumed Philip, a lay evangelist with faith to cast out evil spirits and with faith to pray for the salvation and healing of fellow workers. We can and shall stir up this wicked city!

If We Do Not Obey the Lord's Command to Preach the Gospel We Will Become Self-Centered and Obsessed with Our Own Problems.

The Plymouth Brethren started in Plymouth, England many years ago. They were a godly group who took the gospel to the streets. What a burden for souls they had! A great revival broke out and Christ was revealed to them as a glorified man in heaven. But they became so consumed in studying Christ, so focused on their form of worship, they lost their burden for dying souls. They split up into two groups, the open and closed brethren. The closed brethren ended up permitting no one to partake of fellowship with them except by invitation. Today all that is left of the original movement are the great writings of men like Darby, Stoney, Mackintosh, and Raven, all of which are wonderful teachings on Christ and holiness. But spiritual elitism had crept in, with no burning passion for the lost. We need the deep, pure Word and the burning passion for the lost.

You can hear so much preaching and teachings that you become "dull of hearing" (Hebrews 5:11). I receive reams of prophecies, long involved "spirit" writings, from Christians who claim to be spending days and weeks and even months in prayer. It is a barrage of "thus saith the Lord," much of it with no meaning at all! One husband asked me to set his wife straight. She had been telling people how she supposedly died and went to heaven, danced with Jesus, and went skydiving with Him! She claimed her revelation came to her after praying for hours.

Why are these dear ones not out among the people, preaching a resurrected Jesus? Why are they spending all their time reproving others, with no brokenness for the lost? The best cure for "flakiness" is getting out among sinners, preaching, healing, and casting out devils. We pray, "Holy Ghost, come!" But for what? To simply bless us and meet our needs? Or to equip us and reveal to us the broken heart of our Lord? The last words of Jesus before leaving this earth were, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15).

We have been praying that God will close down the transvestite bar next door to Times Square Church. The proprietor said to us, "You people are in real trouble. You don't know who you're dealing with?" No! He doesn't know with whom he is dealing! Jesus said, "All power is given unto me..." (Matthew 28:18). Therefore, "we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me" (Hebrews 13:6). Paul prayed that "ye may know...what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ...far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under His feet..." (Ephesians 1:18-21).

"My brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might" (Ephesians 6:10). Satan has made some of you afraid: afraid of falling, afraid of a besetting sin or a hounding habit, and afraid of men. But the Word says, "...Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7). You are not the one who runs! "And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus..." (Acts 4:33). "Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.... For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in His pavilion...he shall set me up upon a rock" (Psalm 27:3,5).

--- Used with permission granted by World Challenge, P. O. Box 260, Lindale, TX 75771 USA.

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader- “Without Wings”

Each villain gets a protective spirit, kind of like a guardian angel but…not really. The Joker is a handful, that’s why nobody wants the job. Lucky him you love challenges so you’ll take him under your wings (so to speak since you don’t have any; it just sounds nice).

When the Ace Chemicals incident happened, The Joker’s guardian just left him, fed up with the difficult task of keeping him out of danger so there was nobody watching over The Clown Prince of Crime. You felt the urge to help and stepped in right away because you absolutely love tough assignments.

He almost drowned in that vat but you pulled him out in time. J didn’t see too much before he lost consciousness: just a shadow he assumed it was one of his henchmen (not too much to see anyway since you’re shapeless). You felt so bad about his misfortune – no villain is supposed to be without protection at any given time. You tried to make it up to him by making his eyes a more intense blue and blessed him with a lot of eerie beauty. A guardian spirit is not allowed to change anything about a villain’s personality so you didn’t.

Holy crap, is it hard to keep him out of trouble or what? He’s so reckless, impulsive and temperamental now you realize why nobody wanted him. But you never lost a villain on your watch and you’re not going to start now.

At the present moment you are very concerned about his girlfriend: she was actually sent to assassinate him and he has no clue. For once somebody got under his skin and it worries you. Things are really getting out of hand: she already tried to kill him twice last week.

When she gave The Joker the poisoned grape juice, you tripped him and he spilled it all over his new suit. Man, he had such a fit and it was fun to watch: you always enjoy his tantrums. When she tried to inject him with the toxin in his sleep, you slapped her hand and she dropped the syringe. You broke it to pieces and she was so intrigued: how can plastic shatter like that?!

Bitch, don’t mess with someone under my safekeeping!!

Tonight she will try again and you are so done! You are seriously considering taking over her body, this way you can watch J all the time: he certainly needs extra care and attention. Last time you did this for somebody was about 200 years ago and you recall you didn’t enjoy your mortal adventure too much. Plus, if you decide to do it, you’ll be stuck like that for a year, then you have only a two days window to go back to the Shadow World. If not, you’ll be confined in the body until it dies.

Not very nice options but it’s nighttime and she will make her move soon.

Shit, might as well.

You materialize by their bed and float there for a while, considering all the alternatives and finally determine:

HERE WE GO!

You open your eyes and blink a few times, adjusting to your new status. The Joker senses you’re wiggling around and moves his hand from your waist to your breasts, mumbling something in his sleep.

Watch it, mortal! And you move his hand lower. J feels that and slides his fingers down your tummy, trying to get inside your bikini.

Seriously, human, keep your hands at home. You move his hand away.

A very low growl and he shoves himself into you, opening his eyes for a few seconds. Since you can see in the dark, you have to congratulate yourself: you did such an amazing job on that shade of blue!

“Why are you still awake, Princess?” J yawns, snoozing shortly after.

I just got here, you want to say but you don’t. You never sleep anyway. You turn towards your protégé and carefully remove the blanket off him to admire that eerie beauty you blessed him with a while ago. Yep, you did very good: that pale skin is flawless and all those tattoos amplify the whole ensemble gorgeously.

The Joker is such a light sleeper: you were cautious yet he felt you move the cover and woke up, reaching over to kiss you.

How weird, you back out a bit and he wraps you in his arms.

“What is it, Doll? Wanna go again? I am tired as hell but I can make an exception for you,” he grins, taking a deep breath.

Go where?! It’s in the middle of the night.

“Nooooo,” you mutter because you can tell he needs to rest. Why would he want to get up and go somewhere?!

“OK then, Pumpkin, just let Daddy know if you change your mind, I’m not gonna let my girl hanging,” he stretches, groping you and placing your arms around his neck, this way his head rests on your cleavage.

“U-hum,” you agree, confused, not having a clue what he’s referring to.

He suddenly kisses you one more time and it irritates you: keep your lips at home, mortal! Such a strange sensation; it’s been forever since you’ve been inside a human body. Very interesting, what is it really?! Without even noticing you kiss him back and he moans, groping you again.

“You’re such a naughty girl, Y/N; come on, let’s go again then, you’re making Daddy all worked up,” he purrs, breaking apart from your lips with his eyes closed.

Where does he want to go?! He’s worn out and it shows.

“We can go tomorrow, um… baby,” (that’s how that woman addressed J and it appeared he liked it).

What’s the rush? Just sleep and you can take me wherever you want in the morning.

“Are you sure, Doll?” he nuzzles in your long hair (well, hers), not really wanting to give up on the opportunity.

“Of course I’m sure, we can go tomorrow, you’re exhausted,” you reply, playing with his green locks, completely oblivious at the meaning of his statement. All these things you feel are overwhelming but so far it’s not as bad as you remember. Probably need to get reused to everything.

“You know we will!” he promises, cuddling to your chest while you keep on caressing that green hair and you have to admit you’re happy he’s going to take you somewhere  fun on your first day as a mortal.

********************

He keeps on staring at you all day, intrigued.

“What is it?” mortal, you want to add but decide to skip it.

“Something about you changed, Doll. You look sooooo beautiful,” he licks his lips, enticed.

Of course I’m beautiful since I blessed this body with my presence, duh. “Did you change your hair?” he evaluates your assets, trying to guess on what it is.

“Nahhh,” you keep on playing with her cellphone, mesmerized. Wow, this is absolutely fabulous! This piece of technology must be the greatest invention ever on the planet!

“Did you change your makeup?” The Joker insists and walks on the street, trying to get in the limo and you follow, scrolling down all those interesting pages on Google, catching up with what’s going on with humanity these days.

“No, baby, I didn’t.”

“What is it then? Drives me nuts! What changed?” J is not even paying attention to the cars passing so close by and he still stands there, keeping the door opened so you can get in.

“Watch out,” you calmly warn, yanking him close to you just in time before a car almost hits him.

“Jesus, that was close!” he cracks his neck and slaps your butt as an encouragement to enter the limousine. “Thank you, Pumpkin.”

“It’s my job”, you admit, not taking your gaze off your phone.

“What was that?” he grins once he gets in the car by you.

“I said no problem,” you repeat, changing your tune. J takes the cell out of your hand and hides it in his jacket.

“Stop playing with it, Princess, and pay attention to me.”

You whimper, unhappy your toy is gone for the moment.

“Tonight you’re in for some special treatment, Doll,” he winks and you lean your head on his shoulder, bored. “I’m in the mood for some crazy stuff.”

“You’re taking me to that place you wanted to go last night?” you innocently inquire.

“Ahhhh, I love it when you tease me, Kitten,” The Joker roars in your ear, biting it.“Daddy will take you to places you’ve never been before,” he slaps your thigh, aroused.

How cool, my human will take me somewhere awesome tonight.

“You swear?” you double check, excited, unaware of what’s in store for you.

“Always,” J pulls on your bottom lip and you move closer to him. “Lemme take a picture of you, Y/N,” he takes out his phone, “I need a new screen saver… … … Hm, I think there’s something wrong with my phone,” he frowns at the image and tries again. “I need a new one,” he puckers his lips, unhappy. “Look!” he shows you the image and you see the dark shadow covering half of your face.

That’s me, silly, you smile and encourage him to take another picture, making sure your ethereal being doesn’t show this time.

“See? I told you there is nothing wrong with your phone,” you giggle and he is very content with the new screensaver of his pretty Doll.

********************                        

Ohhhhhhhhh, so that’s what your villain meant when he said he’ll take you places: probably an understatement anyway. Wow, that was really wild! It seemed he enjoyed himself immensely and you don’t know where you stand yet; can’t say you disliked it though. I guess something else to get used to in a human body, no big deal.

Your head is resting on his abs, your feet high on all the pillows while you examine all the bites and hickeys on your body, not pleased with what J did.

“My God, Y/N, you were so feral !!! You scratched me quite badly, look!” he proudly shows you the marks you left on his pale skin.

You asked for it mortal; you can’t do that to me and get away with it!

The Joker messes with your hair for a little bit, then you try to get up and he won’t let you.

“Hey, Pumpkin, wanna go again?” he purrs, attempting to snatch you but his left hand is still handcuffed to the bed so he can’t move too much.

“Go where?” you pout, not in the mood to get out of the penthouse.

“I love it when you tease me, com’ere!” J signals you with his finger and you crawl on top of him because he seems to like that along with the kissing thing. “You can take advantage of me, hm? Go crazy, I’ll let you!” he lifts his head to bite your neck and you dodge his lips, annoyed:

“You’ll let me??! I don’t need your permission, mortal!” you snarl at him, biting his shoulder, calling him that out loud.

“That’s a good one, Y/N; are we playing roles? I can be the mortal and you can be…”

“Kind of like your guardian angel, no wings though,” you give him an evil glance, actually saying the truth but he wouldn’t know.

“Oh, goody, yeah, that works,” he moans, too horny to concentrate on what just came out of your mouth.

Ohhhhhhh, so that’s what your villain meant by “going again.” You really need to get up to speed with all this earthling talk that seems way to unnecessary complicated sometimes. As soon as you get your cell phone back, you’re on it!

** He wakes up in the middle of the night and distinguishes your body shape by the window, mumbling words he can’t understand and softly chuckling to yourself.

“Prinnncessss,” J whines, rubbing his eyes, “what are you doing?”

“Nothing, go back to sleep, I’ll be there in a minute!” you urge him, taking a deep breath, not thrilled you got interrupted.

You are actually communicating with another protective entity; I guess in human words you could call IT best friend and IT is assigned to safeguard Jonny Frost.

“My mortal needs me, “ you whisper in the Shadow World’s language not meant for human ears anyway. Your “friend” understands and vanishes, not that anybody can see IT to start with; only you have the ability since you’re the same.

You crack a few bones and go to bed, which is dull because you never doze off.

“I can’t sleep without you,” The Joker grumbles, and you oblige, taking him in your arms and squeezing him really tight. You even have one leg around his waist and you cling to his body like there’s no tomorrow.

I like my human, he gets so needy but he can’t help it, you reckon, placing soft kisses all over his forehead; you know he enjoys this kind of stuff. You hug him even tighter and he chokes, coughing a few times.

“Baby Doll, I can’t breathe,” he complains, half gone, and you loosen your embrace a bit.

“You’re a great villain,“ you praise in a very low voice but he can’t really understand since he’s snoozing.

“That’s nice, Kitten,” he mutters and you crush him in your arms again.

I really like my mortal, you smirk with such a devilish smile he cannot see and protectively watch him like a hawk all night, even if you don’t really have to.

*************************

“Watch out,” you smoothly move J with your finger just an inch to his right and the bullet shrieks by his ear, ricocheting in the wall behind.

“What… the hell?!” he snaps at the hostages, pulling his gun out and shooting the rebel officer that dared commit such atrocity. “Anybody else wants to be a hero?!” he screams and has the worst temper tantrum ever during the heist.

Wow, you think, bedazzled.  This is even more fun to witness from so close, certainly one of the greatest villains ever.  

“Y/N, “ he comes in front of you, panting, super pissed from what just happened, “remind me to thank you tonight, yes? We can go as many times as you want,” J winks at you before restarting his rant and wreaking some havoc he makes sure they’ll never forget.

I know what that means, you gasp, proud you learned the difficult subtleties of this planet’s vocabulary.

*******************

“Batsy’s coming, we should go right now,” you tell him, raising your voice so The Joker can hear you over the deafening music in the club.

“No, he’s not, he has no clue about this place,” he keeps you in his lap when you alert of the imminent danger.

“Batsy’s here,” you emotionlessly speak, bored to the maximum and you push him on the floor.“Watch out,” and the explosion in the front of the club makes the ground shake, a few pieces of sharp glass falling right on the spot where he sat a few seconds ago.

“Holy shit, Doll,” J gets all startled, both of you carefully creeping out of the VIP room and take the back exit before things worsen. Batsy really raided the place on a tip from an anonymous source but the evasive King of Gotham was nowhere to be found. AGAIN. How irritating!

**Nothing is going to happen to him under your watch, no way!

His impulsiveness and recklessness gets him in trouble very often, but you can manage: you’ve protected worse before.

One year will just fly by, half is already gone. YOU GOT THIS! **

******************

“Check out my new tattoo, Princess,” J uncovers his shoulder and you gulp, taken by surprise. He got two angel wings on top of your name tattooed on his collarbone. He likes to joke you’re his guardian angel because you bring him good luck. Pretty close, but not quite.

“I …I don’t have wings…but I like it,” you stutter, telling the truth, but The Joker believes you’re being funny.

“Since it seems you are my lucky charm, I thought you would appreciate this more than anything else, am I right?” he licks his lips when he notices how hypnotized you are with his new ink.

“Are you going to be ok when I’m gone?” the unexpected question comes and he rolls his eyes, scoffing.

“Bad mood again?” he wants to know and forcefully pulls you in his arms. “Look what I did for you, be grateful! You’re not going anywhere. Got it?”

I have to, my year will be up tomorrow and I don’t want to be stuck in this body until it dies. You really wish you could explain to The Joker but he won’t understand nor is allowed to know anyway.

“Stop talking nonsense, Doll, you’re making Daddy mad.”

“Why do you keep on calling yourself that?!” you inquire, gazing in his blue eyes.

You really, really did a great job with that shade!

“Because I’m your Daddy and you should call me that more often, you naughty little minx,” he kisses you roughly, grossly groping your butt.

The arrogance this human has! But he’s a good villain, that’s his forte.

*******************************

“Pumpkin, I can’t breathe,” he moans in his sleep and you loosen your embrace again.

You kiss the tattoo he got for you and he squirms a bit, ticklish.

My mortal likes me, you caress his green hair, getting ready to flee the body. She will take over again but won’t remember too much. That woman won’t have a memory of her mission to kill him so J should be safe. Plus, you’ll always watch over him since you are determined not to fail at your task.

“I’m going now,” you whisper and peck his cheek, ready to get out. “Don’t make my assignment of keeping you secure too hard… Daddy,” you softly laugh and he nuzzles in the crook of your neck, growling.

“You’re not going anywhere,” The Joker barely manages to hum.

“You’re awake?” you test the waters, intrigued.

“Nope,” he sniffles because he just heard bits and pieces, being so tired he can’t even wake himself up to properly talk to you.

Batsy chased him for a full hour around Gotham but he managed to escape since you were in the car also. Yeah, strange how he gets away when you are around; a real mystery!

“I have to go but…”

“No,” he opens one eye and since you can see in the dark, you notice.

“Sleep… you won’t even realize I’m gone,” you trace his Damaged tattoo with your index finger and he closes his eye, purring under your touch.

“I would notice…” J yawns, more awake but having a hard time focusing.

“You don’t even know what I’m talking about,” you giggle, amused he’s such a stubborn mule.

“I need my guardian angel,” he grumbles and you squeeze him really hard again, contemplating your choices.

“I don’t even have wings,” you widely smile but he’s in his trance and really speaks without knowing at this point.

“That’s fine…” and then tugs on your t-shirt. “Pumpkin… I can’t breathe…”

Right, you keep on forgetting you hold him too tight. Just being overprotective, that’s all. It’s your job.

I like my human, you grin, wanting to stay because he’s a good villain and I guess won’t be too bad being trapped alongside him in this body.

Heaven knows The Joker needs all the help he can get.

Even if the help doesn’t have any wings.

Also read-MASTERLIST

http://diyunho(dot)tumblr(dot)com/post/153664676321/joker-x-reader-masterlist

#the joker x reader #the joker imagine #the joker fanfiction #the joker jared leto #the joker suicide squad #the joker #jared leto #jared leto fanfiction #jared leto imagine #the suicide squad #puddin #dc #dc comics #mister j #mistah j #mr. j #sexy villain

[aperplanes]

Expect to Win

Many people expected me to feel hurt, disappointed, and defeated after running for Miss New York but not receiving the title. But let me tell you: I was probably the happiest woman there besides the winner herself.

When God put the desire to run for the title of Miss New York USA 2017, I was very surprised. I had not done a pageant like that since I was young (2nd Runner Up 2003 Miss Outstanding Teen California woot woot!), and the pageant world had not been on my mind in years! I knew nothing about the New York pageant scene. Even still, God kept bringing it up at the most random times, so I decided to at least Google it to find out more. After taking the steps to apply and passing the first interview by phone, I was informed that I had the qualifications to run for the title. And there I was, suddenly a State Finalist faced with the reality this quite possibly could change everything. I kept thinking about the fact that I did NOT ask for this, and God must want me to be Miss New York 2017 for some reason that I wasn’t aware of yet.

The months to follow were fun and busy. I was really excited to have a “project” of sorts; something to look forward to and work on for awhile. My friends and family were extremely helpful and encouraging… from helping me put together a wardrobe (evening gown, swimsuit, interview, and opening number, shoes, accessories, etc.), to helping me perfect my responses to potential interview questions. I even got a spray tan for the first time in my life - boy, what a naked adventure that was! :D

As the days quickly passed, I realized that the following year may very well be a year filled with speaking engagements, more community outreaches, public appearances, and opportunities to expand my endeavors as a role model and humanitarian. I realized that the work God had been doing in my life during the years prior may very well find a way to filter through to the world around me on a greater scale as “Miss New York.” It was exciting, as well as sobering to realize the incredible honor and responsibility such a wonderful title would be to steward.

The date finally came. We all arrived for the preliminary interviews in Purchase, New York. The interviews (being that there were 169 total contestants) lasted a whopping 3 minutes each. It was a whirlwind, but I felt fairly confident with how mine went. I told God, “If this is your plan for me, you will make this happen, and I don’t have to worry.” We proceeded to a FULL day of rehearsals for the pageant to be held Saturday and Sunday at the Purchase Performing Arts Center (which was the most beautiful venue I’ve ever performed at.)

The preliminaries on Saturday were a blast - we began the show with a fun, sassy opening dance in black cocktail dresses, and introduced ourselves one by one to the audience. We each then strutted the runway in our bathing suits, then evening gowns as the emcee described each of us according to the words we thought best described us, what our live’s aspirations were, and other fun facts about ourselves. I had so much fun as I was surrounded by gorgeous, accomplished, amazing New York women who all easily could have held the title with excellence. I was honored and humbled to be walking among them.

But let’s get down to the nitty gritty.

I was there to win. Many of my friends, leaders, and trusted voices of influence in my life seriously believed that I would win this title. I hadn’t even let myself go down the rabbit hole of considering another option. I knew that, yes, I was surrounded by women who were probably more qualified than me to win, considering they eat, sleep, and breathe pageantry (often times vying for the same title multiple years in a row). However, I trusted that my Father God told me to run, and assumed up till that point that that meant I was there to win. But I began to get a little edgy when the reality hit me that there were 169 of us, and yet only ONE winner would be announced on Sunday night. I began to get frustrated with the fact that I had spent so much time NOT getting to truly plan the year ahead of me, since I was waiting to find out the results of this weekend. I actually told God, “If I don’t win, I’m going to be mad at YOU, because you let me think I was going to win.” But the thing He had been telling me the weeks prior was the same thing He replied to me then: “Expect to win.”

(Hahahaha I’m tearing up even as I write this because the ending of this story is just so good.)

So I said, “Alright, I’m expecting to win.” Immediately I got my head right, strapped on my heels and started practicing my runway walks again.

But let me pause to tell you what happened during the first show on Saturday. Most of you know that I am a dancer in New York City, although I hadn’t performed in awhile. When I walked on the stage to dance for the opening number, I’m telling you… I got *wrecked* by God’s presence - just from being on a STAGE. As I exited the wings, I began weeping under the heavy weighty glory of God’s presence that met me when I was dancing on stage, to the point I had to turn my face to a corner so no one would think something was seriously wrong lol. But I was smashed by God’s tangible love and was a mess, trying super hard to not fudge my make up that had been professionally applied to my face!!!  I was totally undone. I remembered how much I’m made to be on stage, especially to dance in front of large audiences, and to inspire people. Another encounter that day was before the show even started, when I was walking back to my dressing room about an hour before showtime. Out of the blue I was made aware that God was walking with me… I don’t know how else to describe it except that it felt exactly how Genesis describes that God “walked with Adam in the cool of the day…” I said, “Hi God” and He just smiled and told me He just wanted to be with me. I was suddenly aware that God decided for me (and the rest of humanity) to be His Bride; the Bride that HE pursues - not the other way around. He is the Pursuer, and I am the Pursued.

(There are many other beautiful experiences I had with the Father that I’d love to tell you about… too much to write here!)

The next day was the day of reckoning… the day we would all find out who would be in the finals. We returned to the stage in our evening gowns for the great announcement. My last name meant that I was among the first to enter the stage, which meant I landed in the very back platforms while the rest of the contestants made their way to fill up the entire stage. The only things I could see as we awaited the fate of the competition, were the tops of beautifully styled heads, fog, lights, and audience chairs. At that moment, Holy Spirit began reminding me of prophetic words I had received… like how I would be a dancer and impact audiences in big ways, how I’m made for the stage, that I’m a leader… I was reminded of my desperate love for dance. At that moment I became aware of how much I missed dancing, since the last week of preparation had demanded all my time and I hadn’t been dancing much, nor had the opportunity to dance all pageant weekend, and I began to get a little antsy knowing that dance/talent was not a big part of being Miss New York USA.

Then it happened: they began to announce the Top 20.  Names rolled out of the Emcee’s microphone as anticipation covered the stage. The first few names were announced and we were all pretty relaxed - we had plenty of time to be potentially called!  But the weirdest thing occurred to me as I was standing there: I thought in my mind to Jesus, “I don’t really mind if I don’t get this title. YOU are my Treasure… If I don’t get this I won’t be heartbroken. In fact, it’s not as dire to me as I thought it was! So if this is You, then let it happen. But if not, You’re still the Treasure of my life and that will never change.” I was surprised that that was the reality of my heart. As I kept looking up, entranced by my current view of glitter and fog and stage seats, God spoke to me as clear as day. He reminded me of a very real, very deep desire that I knew to the core of my being that I DO want. “You want that this year, don’t you?” He asked me, with a big smile in His voice. “Yes,” I nodded, trying my best to hold back tears. And that thing just happens to be something I wouldn’t be allowed to have, if I were to hold the title of Miss New York for the entirety of my reigning year. He said, “Okay,” and we listened together to the remaining names for the Top 20. My name was not announced.

I’m telling you this with the greatest gratitude, and deepest peace: God wants me to expect to win. He wants me to be aware of what those real, core desires are, and doing the Miss New York pageant revealed those to me! He wants me to expect to win at my most Raw, Honest, Authentic DESIRES that HE deposited into my heart. I’m not saying that being Miss New York wasn’t a desire, or that it wouldn’t have been an awesome experience for 2017. What I am saying is that, there are desires that have been engrained in me from before time that I had not given myself permission to fully embrace - to fully own and run towards with everything in me, out of fear of failure or disappointment. This was a BREAKTHROUGH I entered in because of doing this pageant. I learned through this beautiful experience, that when we become AWARE of our truest desires, we can EXPECT to WIN at them, without a doubt. I was MADE for GREATNESS, and the DREAMS and DESIRES burning in my heart are there for a REASON BEYOND just me. EXPECT TO WIN - not just at the temporary, obvious things, but at the MOST HONEST, DEEP, RAW, ETERNAL desires He has placed inside of you since your life began.

Let’s just say I left that stage with a grin beyond ear-to-ear. My heart went out to those who were disappointed by the outcome… the women who put their whole lives into something that didn’t work out for them. I am so thankful that I had Jesus to lean my head on, and that I got to have this experience WITH Him the whole time. This was not by myself, nor of my own accord. I did not feel an ounce of disappointment. I felt refreshing winds of gratitude, hope, and eager anticipation for the year to come, as I get to run towards and CATCH my deepest dreams… full speed ahead, no turning back :)

THANK YOU to my family who flew out from California to be with me for this event, and to everyone who had a part to play in this magical journey. I hope this encourages you to expect to win at the desires in all of your hearts!!!

Xxo, Kelsey