Back up the Truck

I’ll tell you what. If you walk by faith, and you pay attention to what happens around you, you will see God’s confirmation all the time.

I wrote about the food drive at my church. It wasn’t going well. The congregation got lectured for it, and we were urged to fix the problem. I did what I always do. I asked the Holy Spirit if I should give. The answer was “no,” so I drove my happy behind home and didn’t stop at a grocery store.

Here’s what a church member posted on Facebook today:

It really breaks my heart when people who got it, takes from the poor! Yesterday I saw an individual at church getting a turkey. Come to find out him and his wife have at least 7 turkeys at his house already. My God you don’t need it why be greedy and take from the ones who really needs a turkey? Stop acting like you ain’t got it, where infact you have more than 90% of the world that is homeless or have nothing! Where is that persons heart and compassion?

The church gave away a giant pile of turkeys. Hundreds. I didn’t know about it until yesterday. I’m sure they mentioned it in the announcements, but I’m usually working when those things air, and I have no attention span anyway. Apparently, there was no accountability. You want a turkey? You got it. So some turkeys went to the poor, and some went to God knows who. Turkey collectors, I guess.

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein makes a good living running a huge charity, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. They pass out hundreds of millions of dollars per year. They don’t whine. They don’t air video of poor Jews and ask you how you can live with yourself if you don’t give. They just point out the needs and remind us that our gifts please God and make us part of prophecy. They put out an annual report. I know where the money goes. I know what the Rabbi earns. SOLD. That’s how you do it.

Ask Noah

“Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12

This weekend, my church held its long-anticipated Fight Club men’s conference.

To understand what a big deal that is, you have to consider a few facts. First, most people who attend our church are female. Second, the women have a gigantic annual “Girlfriends” conference which lasts several days and draws maybe a thousand people. Third, the church is located in an area where men tend to do very badly compared to women. There are a lot of single mothers, and there are a lot of underachieving men.

Our last men’s conference was in 2009, during the summer. It has been very hard to get the church leadership interested in doing another one. They know there isn’t much money in it, and they have other irons in the fire. It may also be that they find small conferences embarrassing. I can’t say.

One of my friends, a former Muslim named Suliman, was affected very strongly by the last conference. He talked to the church leadership, and he started walking around with a sheet of paper, collecting names of men who were interested. In my prayer group, we talked about this a lot, and in our small 5 a.m. men’s meetings, we prayed for God to help us get another conference.

My friends and I are very conscious of the need to get men into relationships with God. My church is on the border of the ghetto, where the problems with irresponsible men are very obvious, but coming from a more affluent background, I can tell you the problem is universal. It’s just harder to spot in the suburbs. Wealthy men ignore their sons. They don’t go to church. They chase skirts. A lot of them are alcoholics.

The sons tend to pay the price for their fathers’ selfishness and ambition. They are often less successful. Many end up gay. They take drugs. They commit suicide. But as long as a man provides money, he is considered a model dad.

Women need male leadership. It’s unfashionable to say it, but it’s true. When women lead, they take us down the wrong roads. We end up with leftists in power. We exalt the environment above the people who live in it. We become more tolerant of perversion. We get into sick cults. We attack the positive aspects of masculinity, forgetting that men built the world, and that much of human progress would never have taken place, had women had control.

If you want to see what happens in a feminized society, look at a video of the Occupiers having a pow wow. It’s disgusting. Spindly, effeminate, manipulative men appeal to the crowds for approval, with scary lesbians at their sides. As a result many of our parks are now full of sewage, discarded needles, empty beer bottles, and kids with brand-new incurable venereal diseases, not to mention pregnancies.

The world got this way because men thought leadership was a reward for their amazing awesomeness, not a burden and a responsibility to be carried with honor and humility. It got this way because many women like to rebel and take charge. Aggressive women filled the leadership vacuum, and the enemy whispered ridiculous ideas into their ears. See Genesis 1 for more information.

Apart from a desire for a men’s conference, we wanted more of the Holy Spirit. My little group has been having a tongues revolution. We are getting increased faith, power, cleansing, and revelation. You would have to see it to believe it. But our church is very worldly, so the services don’t have the same fire or authenticity. There are probably people in our church who would strip naked, paint themselves blue, and run in circles in the parking lot if they thought it would increase attendance and tithing and get us on TBN. We hear a lot about self-help and positive thinking. We hear about the wonderful government money we get from time to time, as though it came from God. We hear crude language from the pulpit, and we see crude videos and hear secular music from depraved artists. It’s frustrating, because a few of us are really getting to know God, and it should be happening to everyone in the church.

I was excited when I heard there was a decision to have a conference. My friends and I got behind it. We pushed it on Facebook and in our daily routine. We talked about it. We prayed about it. We had very high hopes.

God did not let us down. I’ll just put it that way. We were getting very tired and discouraged, but when he came through, he came through in a big way.

We could not afford big names, with something like $6000 in ticket sales. We got a young evangelist named Tim Ross, and we got a Florida pastor named Jim Raley. Tim Ross has worked with T.D. Jakes. That doesn’t mean much to me, but it got him in the door. I’ve seen Jim Raley preach before, and it didn’t do a whole lot for me.

On the first night, we were told our pastor had a word, so Tim Ross would not get to teach. I am not going to say I was happy. Instead, he gave a testimony. He told about his life. He was the product of an ectopic pregnancy, and he was a breech birth, but somehow he made it. He said God told his mother about him before he was born, and that he told her to name him Timothy. He said he had fallen into promiscuity, pornography addiction, and pride. But one day, at the age of 19, he came forward in church, testified, gave his life to God, and started crying like a baby.

I’m not doing it justice. You had to be there. It was clear that the Holy Spirit was speaking through him. He gave men hope. He reminded us that God is real, and that he redeems. He can turn us around and change our circumstances. He made us believe it. The crowd was very moved. They were ready for more. This is the kind of thing they had been thirsting for.

Unfortunately, it was too short.

Our pastor delivered his sermon, which was very long. I believe it was about listening to the Holy Spirit when he tells you to do things at inconvenient moments. He told us about going to a hotel lobby early in the morning to work on a sermon. He ran into two toughs who were not believers, and he started talking to them. One of them wandered off, and the other rejected everything my pastor said. I have to say that I was not inspired.

There were problems with the lights on the stage. He was clearly angry about it, and he scolded the lighting people twice, which was not pleasant to hear. Toward the end, he was supposed to read a blog post his cousin had put up on the morning of his death, and it disappeared from his Ipad. A long, uncomfortable time passed while he tried to find it. People were fidgeting.

It was as though the Holy Spirit had given him a public reprimand. Tim Ross revived us and gave us hope and motivation, and then we got the long, strange sermon with the awkward interruption.

The end came as a relief. After the sermon, we had some boxing matches, but as usual, the church played dance music so loud no one could talk. The kids like it, you know. I went up to the guy running the sound panel, and I reminded him that the church was not a gay bar. Three hundred men did not need dance music. I got nowhere with that. People told me how frustrated they were with the noise. So we gave up and enjoyed the fights.

The next day, we started off with Tim Ross. He told us about Joseph. He reminded us that Joseph’s problem wasn’t that he was favored by God, or that he didn’t conceal it. His problem was that he was proud of it. He rubbed people’s noses in it. He had no compassion. He didn’t see that he was created to fill needs, not to receive admiration and praise.

Again, I don’t do it justice, but he preached the doors off the place. It was very obvious that he wasn’t speaking by his own power or intelligence. God was with him, and that won the men over. He gave them what they were really thirsty for.

When lunch came, I knew the men needed to talk to each other. This was our chance to help each other. We could discuss what we had heard and benefit from it. The church had tables set up outside, and there were hot dogs, and there was pizza. Then I saw the dreaded PA system being set up. I knew we were about to be subjected to obnoxious dance music at subway-wreck levels. I asked if there was any possibility they could keep it low enough so we could talk, and the request was dismissed instantly. I said it was too bad, because we wanted to talk about God. A young pastor said, “It’s a big church.” No respect whatsoever. So if we wanted to talk about God, we were supposed to forgo lunch, hide in a corner somewhere, and whisper to each other.

Later in the day, Jim Raley took the stage. His subject? The Holy Spirit. I could not believe it. We don’t get Holy Spirit manifestations on the stage at my church. We are discouraged from freaking people out. We talk about things that make people feel good, and we urge them to give money. So when he got up there and started telling us about the importance of the power of the Holy Spirit, I sat up and listened.

I have a friend named Alonzo. A year or two ago, he started noticing the things that were happening to me, and he listened when I said it was all the result of prayer in tongues. He decided to try it, and before long, he was teaching people and delivering powerful testimony of the things God was doing in his life. For months, we’ve been talking about the need to put the Holy Spirit first and get people praying in tongues. We’re minor figures at the church. Very few people pay any attention to us. If they put us on stage, no one would listen. But Pastor Raley was what we (sadly) call a “VIP.” Unlike us, he was not without honor, so people paid attention. And he said exactly the same things we wanted to say. We were sitting in the back row, cheering and clapping. We were amazed. God was coming through on those long months of prayer. He had remembered.

Pastor Raley got the men extremely wound up. They could sense the presence of God. They knew he was right. When he invited people to approach the stage, and he told people to lay hands on them and help them receive the baptism, the place went nuts. Every man in the church was up there. People were crying. One young man who trusted me and Alonzo, and who had been wanting the gift, got transformed beside the altar. A highly disturbed kid who had roamed through the church cursing earlier in the day–a kid we had to take aside and talk to after he called me a honky–ended up praying in tongues with both hands in the air. A problem kid we have been after for months was by his side.

You have to appreciate the contrast. One red-hot testimony. One disturbing and awkward sermon. A teaching that got people on their feet. And then a visit from God, which had people screaming and getting on their knees.

The church served chili outside at the tables. I prayed we would get relief from the screaming and loud drums. I saw a young man working on the sound system. The young pastor was nowhere around. I talked to the sound guy, and he agreed to turn the racket down. He understood completely.

About eight of us took a table by a speaker. We had an amazing conversation. I guess the oldest one of us was 70, and the youngest was 18. We shared our testimony. We talked about what worked for us. We encouraged each other. I can’t describe it. If only we had had the chance to do the same thing at lunch. But our church likes noise. During the time between services, it’s like a strip club at 4 a.m. Sometimes you have to go to the parking lot to talk.

The following morning, the regular crowd was in church. Tim Ross taught again. He taught about the difference between religion and a relationship.

I don’t think he had any idea that he was handling live wires. Had he been familiar with my church’s teaching, he would never have said what he did. Or maybe he would have. I don’t know him.

He talked about the men who tore tiles off a roof to lower a paralyzed man to Jesus to get healed. He talked about the need to get to God, in person.

He said religious people have to have things their own way. They have to have a certain type of music. They think that people who want to get delivered have to come forward in front of everyone and then fill out “decision cards.” He said Jesus could deliver them right where they were sitting.

The upsetting thing about this is that my church started using decision cards last year or the year before. And we have altar call after altar call. We tell people they have to come up and acknowledge God publicly. In other words, it was as if God had given Tim Ross a list of the things we were doing wrong–the obstacles we were putting in front of people–and had him read them out in front of the people who were making us do them.

I felt sorry for my pastor. He wants to do the right thing. He has busted his hump for God all his life. He could be getting rich selling cars somewhere instead of dealing with this. But it seemed like God was addressing him directly, before the church, in order to get him to change his methods.

Unfortunately, the pastor followed Tim Ross and raised Cain with the church for failing to fill the Thanksgiving food drive bin. He was clearly angry at us, and it brought us down to hear it. I felt like he was blaming us for a blessing that may have been blocked by his own mistakes. If a ministry does right, God blesses it with success. I had completely forgotten about the food drive, and I’m sure other people had forgotten, too. After hearing the scolding, I asked God what I should do, and the answer I got was, “nothing.” So I didn’t drive to the store to get food.

Then the next service came. And Pastor Raley got up.

The last service usually ends at 2:30 (2:35 when then speaker is in love with his own voice and forgets that people in the crowd have lives). Pastor Raley quit at 3:07. I was standing the whole time. I got stuck working a position where I was not allowed to sit. I could not have cared less. It was worth it. Nobody wanted to leave. It was “Holy Spirit this” and “Holy Spirit that.” The crowd was on fire. We just don’t get this stuff very often.

Then he prophesied over the pastor, which suggested to me that God is going to get him on track and do great things through him, which would be tremendous. And we got hollered at a little more about the food drive. You take the bad with the good.

I can write this stuff because no one I know down here reads my blog or has any interest in what I think. And if I got in trouble at my church, the penalty would be to go to a church closer to me, where they would ask very little of me.

I felt like we got rain this weekend, but it came in two flavors. When Tim Ross and Jim Raley spoke, I felt like we were withered plants getting a long-awaited drink. I literally felt like my thirst was being satisfied. But at other points, I felt like a plant being beaten down by a cloudburst. When rain is too harsh, it can break a plant down when it’s trying to grow. Some of the things I heard were discouraging, and they hurt. They seemed to reveal a lack of empathy, humility, and gratitude. When the Spirit is blocked, things don’t work, and people get frustrated. And frustration leads to misdirected anger and blame.

I am growing less concerned about finding a good church. I used to think more in terms of what the church could do for me, but more and more, I feel like what I do for others makes the disappointments worth tolerating. I used to see myself as someone who went to church to be taught and to get his needs met, but I have given up on those goals. I watch Perry Stone. I pray. I read the Bible. I talk to Spirit-filled friends. I barely notice the sermons in the sanctuary, unless it’s a guest or one of those times when God gets through the defensive line. I almost feel like a missionary. I guess that’s good enough.

While Alonzo and I were in the back row on Saturday, yelling and clapping, I told him, “This makes all the crap I’ve gone through here worth it.” And it was true. Satan fights Christians wherever they go, and that includes church. Maybe it’s a life-giving spa for some of us, but for others, I guess it will always be more like a courthouse. A place where you go to put your foot on your enemy’s neck.

We made huge progress this weekend. We didn’t have a huge crowd or a big profit, but lives were changed permanently, and the men who were changed and empowered will change and empower others. God proved he had heard us. He had given us this dream. He had moved us to pray about it. He wasn’t going to have us tread out the corn and then muzzle us.

We’re getting rewards. One of us got a revelation that he was called to be a pastor. While he and his wife were in church, she got a vision. She saw the angels, and Jesus, beckoning. She’s probably the one who would have shut him down if he had tried to become a pastor, so this was a great gift.

I feel different now when I pray in the Spirit. I feel like I’m drinking. That’s appropriate.

This stuff really works. If you let it. If you don’t choke the kingdom of God with your own worldly manure, it will grow. Bad doctrine and bad policies can hinder things, but the Holy Spirit’s flow is called water for a reason: it finds its way around and through obstacles. It will fill any container, regardless of the shape.

Fake Blessings From a Fake God

Last night I watched an interesting TV show. It was called “Engineering Evil.” It was about the nuts and bolts of the Final Solution. In order to exterminate millions of human beings, the Germans and Austrians had to plan, and they had to be efficient. The show gave details.

I watched because the Holocaust is part of the inevitable unfolding of prophecy, and because I know we can learn things about Satan by studying what the Nazis did.

Satan is an abortionist. He wants to get rid of us as early as possible. He likes it when we waste our seed. He likes contraception. He loves surgical abortion, miscarriages, and RU486. He likes killing children. He likes killing grown people before they accept Jesus.

The universe is like a garden, and to Satan, the godly are weeds. He wants to get rid of us as early as possible.

You can see this over and over in the Bible.

In Genesis, Cain murdered Abel and prevented a godly nation from arising from him.

In Exodus, Pharaoh killed the Hebrew firstborn, because Satan knew the Messiah would come from them.

In New Testament times, Herod murdered babies in Bethlehem, because he believed one of them would become a king.

When the church came into being, Satan arranged the crucifixion, hoping to cut off the message of the Kingdom of God. Then the religious establishment sent people like Paul out to arrest believers and have them killed.

When Christianity reached Rome, the Romans tortured Christians to death in order to prevent the church from growing.

The Holocaust was an effort to get rid of the Jews and prevent them from taking their place in prophesied events.

In the future, unbelievers will rise up to slaughter Christians and Jews again. You can see the sentiment sprouting already in the hate spewed in the Occupy Wall Street protests. We might as well look at the past to gain some insight.

Last year, I went to the National Day of Prayer, and I visited the National Holocaust Memorial. I wrote about it last May. I will try to connect that experience with the things I saw last night.

I felt the Holy Spirit moving powerfully when I visited DC. For example, when I entered the Memorial, I felt his grief washing over me. I know it wasn’t my grief, because I’m not that sensitive. I also learned things from him as I looked at the exhibits.

Three exhibits come to mind. One was a scale model of the death camp at Auschwitz. Another was a pile of desecrated Torah scrolls piled on the floor. The third was a Torah ark which had been vandalized with an axe.

The model and the scrolls showed me that Satan does not have original thoughts. Maybe creativity is reserved for God and human beings. I don’t know. But Satan apes God faithfully, twisting his methods into spiteful, vengeful reflections. If you want to learn about God, look at Satan’s tools and try to figure out what their holy counterparts are.

The model showed me that the death camps were Satan’s parodies of the Temple.

At the Temple, animals (purely flesh) were killed humanely, and their parts were put to use. They were burned, to symbolize the punitive burning the sin offerings deflected from human beings.

When I looked at the model, I saw something very similar. Human beings–more than flesh–entered at one end. Their belongings and even their gold teeth were harvested, like the meat of animals. They were stripped naked in front of each other, because Satan knows God disapproves of public nudity (God even required the priests to wear underclothes on Yom Kippur to hide their genitals from the stones of the Temple). Then they were killed, and after that, they were burned, like souls condemned to hell. Like sin offerings.

Jewish law requires burial. Why? I believe it’s because burial symbolizes the planting of a seed. Trash is burned and disappears. A good person is planted; he will eventually grow again.

How were they killed? Satan used their own breath. The Nazis surrounded them with gas, and they breathed it in. This is also a parody. We know that life entered man through breath. Life is spirit. The word “spirit” means “breath.” God breathed life into us, and in the camps, Satan breathed death into Jews.

The desecrated Torah scrolls taught me a lot. The Torah was written on the skins of kosher animals, like cattle and sheep. These animals symbolized God’s people. They symbolized flesh. The Torah was written on their skins, which are the outsides of the animals. The Torah was given on Pentecost (Shavuot), in the time of Moses. After the crucifixion, again on Pentecost, Christians received the baptism with the Holy Spirit, which put God’s laws inside us. For 1700 years, we have failed to put this gift to use, and we have done stupid and disgraceful things, but it’s still true.

The Nazis removed skin from some of their victims and profaned it by inscribing tattoos on it. They also removed tattooed skin from Jews and used it to make novelty items. Why? What possible reason did they have? I believe the reason came from Satan, the compulsive satirist. God had men write his law on the skins of animals, so Satan had men create his own Torah, in the form of human skin. It was just another way of belittling God’s more favored creation.

Perhaps the Jewish law against tattooing has its roots in God’s objection to mocking the scrolls.

They also made lampshades and soap from Jews. That makes sense. The lamp of the Holy of Holies symbolizes the illumination of the Holy Spirit, and soap represents cleansing.

What about the ark? I believe its destruction symbolized the hatred the ungodly have for the godly. An ark is a box in which the Torah is stored. It symbolizes the human body. If you’re a godly person, God’s law is inside you. And what does the Hebrew inscription on the ark say? “Know before whom you stand.”

The ignorant Pole who desecrated the ark thought he was destroying a box, just as a persecutor attacking a believer might think he was harming a mere human being. But when you attack someone precious to God, whom do you really stand before? We are God’s flesh. When you touch us, you touch God himself, and he will not let it pass.

Last night I saw the great effort the Nazis made to catalog and organize their victims. They used files. They used books. They used vast numbers of aluminum plates with the vital information of slaves pressed into them.

That reminded me of something. Satan is weak. He can’t see the future. He can’t read minds. He can’t be everywhere at once. He doesn’t know everything. He is God’s plaything. God fools him all the time, as the second Psalm shows. In order to work against human beings on a large scale, Satan needs things like files and numbers. God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and omnipresent. He ties us together with the Holy Spirit, so we can act as one. Satan can’t pull those things off, so he has to use cheap parodies of the Holy Spirit.

Satan had to put tattoos on people’s arms in order to keep track of them. He had to have lists.

This limitation is still on him. Satan is working to raise a coordinated army of unbelievers, to persecute and kill us, and to prevent God’s people from introducing the lost to the Holy Spirit. Satan can’t do it with his own inferior abilities. What’s the answer? It’s the same as it was in Germany and Austria. It’s technology.

The other day I saw a photo of a new type of cell phone interface. It wasn’t a surprise. I had expected something like it. It was an interface projected onto a hand. Instead of holding a phone and tapping the screen, you use your own palm. This kind of thing is inevitable. Computer interfaces are bottlenecks. They are barriers to sales. Men will keep working to make them simpler, so it’s only a matter of time until they become part of our bodies.

Last night, I thought about the arm tattoos, and I thought about the new phone technology, and it confirmed something I’ve suspected. Portable electronics, like phones and tablets, may be the means used to apply the Mark of the Beast.

Think of the arguments in favor of implanted technology. It will end identity theft, or so they’ll tell us. It will do away with the need for money. It will improve security by making universal surveillance possible. It will allow us to exchange information at a rate we have never experienced. It will improve education. It will tie us together and allow us to act as one.

Every year, it gets harder to get through a week without using electronics to do business or communicate. Eventually, it will become impossible. We will be told that it’s selfish to stay off the grid. Worldly people will listen. They’ll love their new toys, just as we love Iphones and tablets today. They’ll think people who resist are crazy or evil.

That’s what I expect.

This will be Satan’s sad counterpart to the Holy Spirit. Believers will have unity, universe-spawning power, perfect knowledge, and supernatural virtue available instantaneously, all the time. Everyone else will have something handed down from Steve Jobs. It will be flashy, and it won’t require humility, faith, or patience to get it to work. But it will be inferior, sort of like the dark side of the force.

Maybe Apple itself will be involved. That would be fitting. A fruit to make us wise.

In Florida, the state is already persecuting people who resist technology. We have automatic toll collection now; overhead machines scan our cars as we go by. At first, the electronic lanes were optional, and tolls were increased for people who paid cash. Lately they’ve been phasing out toll booths, so you can either buy a device or stay off the highways. Now the state knows where you drive, and when. Either that, or you drive forty miles an hour and put up with traffic lights.

Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like this is the way we’re headed. Liberty will decrease as efficiency and convenience increase. Slavery will begin with helpful gadgets. At first, they’ll serve us. Then we’ll serve them.

My advice is to avoid becoming addicted to technology. Use it, but be ready to abandon it if you need to.

Sooner or later, though, there will come a time when the price for resistance will be life itself. If seductive technology is what Satan will use to hold us captive, we will eventually be forced to choose between the grid and the Kingdom of God. If you don’t know the Holy Spirit, you won’t have much motivation to resist. Gadgetry and convenience will look pretty good, if all the church has to offer is hard work and unanswered prayers. This is why I’m so disappointed in people like Rick Warren, who preach about effort and character instead of faith and love. There is only one way out of this mess, and Warren doesn’t know the route.

Make Way for a Surprise Guest

I continue to learn more about the Holy Spirit.

Last night I watched a video by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein of The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. They send these things out to people who are affiliated with the charity, and you can get them on the IFCJ website. Probably.

He used the word “shekhina.” Christians sometimes refer to this, pronouncing it “shuh KYE nuh.” They talk about “the shekinah glory of God.” Sorry for the mixed spellings. I’ve also seen “shechinah.”

I have always thought this was an impersonal thing. A sort of glow that has appeared to people in God’s presence. But it looks like I was wrong. I felt something telling me to get up and turn on the PC last night and Google it, and I learned a few things.

Shekhina refers to the presence of God, when he is perceptible to the mind and senses. So it’s not just a shiny light or something similar. It means God has shown up in a way that makes his presence undeniable. It used to hit the prophets and cause them to prophesy, and Moses’s encounter with the burning bush is believed to be an example.

Here is what I believe. I believe Jesus himself came to me on two occasions. Once I was in a car, and the other time, I was in bed trying to sleep. In the car, he sat next to me and reassured me. I felt love and peace and confidence about the future, radiating from his location like heat from a lamp. On the other occasion, he appeared as an invisible warm beam that played across my bed like a spotlight, and wherever it touched me, I felt the same sensation I felt in the car.

He didn’t speak or tell me he was Jesus, but I was sure it was him. I did not think it was the Holy Spirit.

As for the Holy Spirit, I perceive his presence every day. It’s not the same. It’s less intense, and I don’t always feel the emotional components of the his nature, the way I felt them when Jesus appeared. It’s somewhat more businesslike. I do feel peace and comfort, but it’s less aggressive.

Having read up on the shekhina, I believe the term applies to what I’ve been experiencing. It’s generally applied to the presence of the Holy Spirit, but I would guess that it applies to any manifestation of God’s presence.

That’s pretty exciting. I had always thought the shekhina was something that turned up on rare occasions, for major events. Parting the Red Sea, or maybe the Transfiguration. Evidently I was mistaken. It is something that can happen to you several times a week.

I know the Holy Spirit lives inside charismatics, but I have been taught that you shouldn’t expect to feel his presence all the time. It’s a strange idea. God is so powerful he can speak galaxies into existence, so it’s strange that he can be inside you and not keep you in a constant state of amazement and awe. It’s surprising that we can entertain it and not be consumed.

We are taught not to wait to feel his presence. We should have faith regardless of how we feel. I think that’s right, but on the other hand, it can give you the impression that you should not expect to feel anything, ever. That appears to be wrong. From my own experience, I would say that you should strive to feel God’s presence as much as you can. Surely he will help you when you can’t feel him near, but it also seems likely that the more strongly you can perceive him, the more his power will flow through you.

I’ve seen bumper stickers saying something like “Practice God’s Presence.” I have a feeling the people who wrote that don’t really know what God’s presence is. I would be willing to bet that they think concentrating hard on God will do the trick. That would be a carnal approach. Much better than nothing, but not the best way. I have found that copious prayer in tongues, on a daily basis, is the key. Over time, it gets everything aligned so the presence will appear, and the result is that God becomes perceptible more and more often.

Lately I’ve been feeling that love is a big part of the equation. God’s two big priorities are faith and love. Without faith, you are not going to get anything from God. Once faith is in place, you should use it to get God to fill you with the Holy Spirit’s love, for God and for other people. Once love is at work, your motivations will line up better with God’s, and that means you will get more power.

Love is a good thing to have.

We build walls around ourselves because outside of God’s path, love is dangerous. It will allow people to use you up and destroy you, and you can count on them to do it. That’s their nature. But God intended for us to love without fear. It helps us to do the things we should do. It takes stress and combativeness out of us. It helps us to quit squabbling over idiotic conflicts. It allows us to do good. Just about everyone has a deep-seated thirst to do good, and with love, there is some hope of satisfying that thirst. I believe that when the Holy Spirit transforms you, he makes it safe to love.

These are the things I believe God is telling me, and if they are true, then love has great power. That, in and of itself, makes it worth pursuing.

It’s a tremendous honor to be able to perceive God. It’s great to read about him and to pray to him, but how can anything compare to having him show up on the scene? If a President or a celebrity knocked on your door, you’d tell people about it for the rest of your life. God makes those people, from dirt. How much greater, then, is the honor when he comes to your house?

The Psalms tell us God will honor us if we set our love upon him. I think now I know what that means. There is no greater honor than having God come to see you.

The ancients understood this. When God or his angels showed up, they tried to prepare feasts for them, to show how honored they were.

Last night I read that many Jews think of the shekhinah as the feminine side of God. I would not say that. I have never felt any hint of femininity in God’s presence. I would say that when he shows up, you feel things that are commonly associated with femininity. You feel nurtured and comforted and safe. But it’s not the same as being held by a mother. So maybe femininity is one thing on earth and another thing in the supernatural realm, or maybe “feminine” is a term that applies to God in some ways but not in others.

I can only speak from experience. I haven’t read the Talmud, and even if I had, I would not trust it. I haven’t studied the old Christian scholars. I believe the Bible, and I believe what I have witnessed. I also believe what I have heard from other credible witnesses.

Human beings have a bad habit of turning unqualified people into authorities. You can see it in the wrong beliefs that have worked their way into Christianity. People pray to saints. They pray for the dead, who are beyond our reach. We have ended up with a lot of counterproductive traditions because we listened to people who did not have firsthand knowledge. So I think there are great advantages to my way of approaching God. Whatever I witness personally has to be true. I’m not going to make things up in order to deceive myself.

Abraham didn’t have teachers and books to tell him about God. When God wanted him to know things, he showed up and taught him. Like Moses, Abraham knew him personally, so it would not have worried him had his doctrine disagreed with something coming out of the Vatican or the Temple. I always say it’s better to know God than to know about God.

Abraham was called “the friend of God.” What do friends do? They visit each other.

The Bible uses the words “testimony” and “witness” a lot. That’s significant. In a court of law, a witness is not allowed to speak of things he did not witness personally. That’s the general rule. There are exceptions for certain types of hearsay, and for expert witnesses, but an ordinary witness can’t take the stand and say his next door neighbor saw Lee Harvey Oswald shoot John Kennedy. Ideally, knowledge of God should come from firsthand witnesses.

Our wrongheaded traditions are so strong, if Jesus showed up in the flesh, we would apply them to him and reject him. Christians would be trampling each other to be first to drive a nail into him.

I have good confidence in what I am writing. What I’m doing is working. I believe it comes from God, not from me. I would encourage other people to give it a shot. So far, the people who have listened to me have gotten big dividends from it. Pray in tongues. Ask for faith and love. Go from there. You will probably make progress a lot faster than I have.

I’m Trying to Cut Down

I’ll tell you what. I am tired of hearing about Rick Warren.

I belong to an Assemblies of God church. That means I’m supposed to believe in the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, which increases as we pray in tongues. I’m not supposed to believe in self-help or life coaching. That stuff is nonsense. It’s the kind of thing Paul referred to as “dung.” It’s fine to work hard and try to get things done, but the central message of Christianity is that we have to humble ourselves, admit we can’t achieve on our own, and seek God’s help.

Last year someone in my church asked a group of us to read The Purpose-Driven Life, which is Warren’s big bestseller. I read a few chapters and then threw it out. In good conscience, I couldn’t give it away. I didn’t want anyone else to be harmed by it.

It was full of stuff about effort and character. The message was that we had to keep ourselves motivated, through carnal thoughts, in order to endure the extraordinarily difficult challenges of Christianity. That’s just wrong. It’s not helpful at all. It actually pushes us away from God’s truth.

When I say “carnal,” I don’t mean he was telling us to be full lust and greed and drunkenness. I mean he was telling us to rely on our little monkey brains, which are made of plain old meat. The word “carnal” refers to meat. Think of chili con carne. Without God, we, including our brains, are just meat machines. Anything we do without the help of the Spirit is meat-based, or “carnal.” So opening an orphanage can be carnal. Giving your last penny to a bum can be carnal. The fact that you do things out of a desire to please God does not mean those things are not carnal. Far from it.

Saul got shot down because of something he did to please God. He performed a sacrifice. The Spirit had made it clear that only the priests were allowed to do that. God was not interested in the good intentions residing in the meat between Saul’s ears. He removed him and his seed from the throne of Israel forever.

In 2 Samuel, God killed a man named Uzzah for doing something he thought was right. The Ark of the Covenant was on a cart, and it shifted, and Uzzah reached out to steady it. God killed him. BANG. Game over. No apologies. Why? Because the Ark was not supposed to be on a cart. The Spirit had given clear directions on the right way to move the Ark. Uzzah was trying to help, but he was doing it his own way, not God’s way. So God killed him.

God killed two priests for bringing strange fire to the altar. Fire was needed to perform the appointed rites, so these “helpful” priests got some fire and brought it. God killed them. They didn’t listen to the Spirit.

The stuff Rick Warren preaches is very carnal. He doesn’t know where the door to the kingdom of God is, and he is preventing other people from finding it. If self-help and effort were the answers, heaven would be reserved for people like classical musicians and Olympic athletes; only people with extraordinary self-discipline would make it. That’s just not the way it works. Paul himself asked the right question. If you have begun in the Spirit, will you finish in the flesh? Of course not. You’re not pleasing God by relying on yourself. It’s sin. It’s pride.

Rick Warren puts non-Christians in front of his church as teachers. That’s just wacky. Imagine Jesus doing that! But it’s the natural thing to do, when you think the flesh has all the answers.

Christians are not the strongest or most informed people, in the flesh. Think of Navy SEALS. Think of Orthodox rabbis. Scholars. Martial artists. Buddhist monks. Motivational experts. Behavioral psychologists. In the flesh, people like that are stronger than Christians. So what? In the flesh, the Assyrians were strong, but the Angel of the Lord killed 185,000 of them in a moment, and the relatively weak Hebrews, who obeyed God, got the victory. In the flesh, Gideon’s men were few and therefore weak, but God told Gideon to send most of them home, because he didn’t need man’s help to get the job done. In the flesh, 1.2 billion Muslims are stronger than the Jews, but they will always lose.

Zechariah 4:6 says it all. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit.” If you don’t think the Holy Spirit will come through and give you real victory, here in the real world, when you need it and how you need it, you are not a good Christian. You are a man of little faith, and we know that God calls faith righteousness. Faith is what pleases him. If you have to look outside of God for help, relying on Oprah and life coaches and so on, it proves, conclusively and with no possibility of dispute, that you do not have faith in God.

Don’t listen to anyone who tells you to take from man those things you should only take from God.

I’m not saying you should never learn anything from anyone other than God. That’s crazy. You can’t withdraw your kids from school because they teach the Pythagorean Theorem instead of Noah’s Law of Angles. You shouldn’t refuse to take worldly advice, when it isn’t related to morality or your relationship with God. But if you make it an idol, it will destroy you. If it gives you success, that success will be hollow and meaningless. It will eventually be taken from you. At judgment, it will not be counted toward your achievements. It may count against you.

My own church has been polluted by Rick Warren’s backward teaching. That distresses me, because it shows we are not experiencing God’s power. If we had the treasures God wants us to have, we would not be foraging in Rick Warren’s dumpster. And if we become convinced that Warren’s way is right, we will waste time in a blind rathole. Some of us will die while we’re still in there, looking for nonexistent success. And the real horror of it is that God’s way is easy as well as profitable. It’s easier to pray and listen and have faith than it is to get up every day and force yourself to be perfect. You could waste 20 years fooling with the Warren Gospel and get nowhere, but a few minutes of listening to the truth could put you on the right path forever.

Christians point to Rick Warren’s success. Swell, but does that mean he’s right, when his advice conflicts with scripture? Pharaoh was successful until he ran into Moses. Jim Bakker was successful. Jimmy Swaggart was successful. Real success means listening to the Holy Spirit and doing what he tells you to do, his way. If you give one person a doughnut at the request of the Holy Spirit, it means more than building a cathedral in the flesh.

We won’t know who is really successful until judgment. At that time, we’re going to see a lot of big-name preachers with very sad faces. They will learn that they actually hindered God with their jets and charity hospitals and crusades. In Jesus’s time, the Sadducees were the most successful people in Israel. They were the TBN personalities of their day. They disappeared after 70 A.D., because God disapproved of them. If you want to know what pleases God, you have to ask him. You can’t judge by looking at a bank statement.

God tells us how to get things like love, wisdom, guidance, and success. If you look to anyone other than God to get these things, you are making a mistake. This is why life coaches, motivational speakers, seminar leaders and other purveyors of worldly “wisdom” are so dangerous. When you come to rely on them, you fail to know and rely on God.

God is not a reptile. When a lizard hatches from an egg, it looks around and sees nobody. It’s on its own. It has to lift itself up by its own bootstraps and take care of itself. That’s what the Rick Warrens of the world are telling us to do. God made us mammals, and mammals care for their young. Jacob and Esau lived with their father until he died, absorbing his wisdom and love. God wants to feed us and watch over us. He does not want us to be self-reliant. It’s not possible. It’s an illusion. There is no such thing as a self-made man.

God has told us that love is his biggest priority. This is probably the reason why he wants us to reproduce. No one understands love as well as a parent. Real love will push self-interest out of your mind. This is probably why the Bible tells us perfect love casts out fear. When Jesus agreed to be crucified, where did he get the courage? Surely it came from love. His love for us was so strong, it pushed fear out of his mind. If God loves us, then surely he wants to give, and he wants us to take. If you insist on doing things on your own, you are thwarting God’s desire to give. You are making his love of no effect.

I tell people around me about faith and love. These are the keys to the kingdom. I hope God will do the church a big favor and raise people up to spread the message and kill the weeds of self-help and greed. For 1700 years, Christians have been trying to push the car, when we should have turned the key and driven off. I’m sorry to criticize a popular guy, but Rick Warren does not know what he’s talking about. I don’t care if he becomes a billionaire and builds pyramids for himself. He’s not it.

Ancient Lessons for Modern Morons

I got invited to a new kind of event this week. A Christian bachelor party.

I didn’t expect it. A friend has a friend who is getting married. He would like to develop some kind of connection between God and his marriage. My buddy had a hard time finding people to go, so he called me.

I thought it was a great idea.

I know how much damage a traditional bachelor’s party can do. A few years back, a female friend of mine got married, and the groom insisted on a bachelor party. The bride-to-be was pregnant, so she was not too stable, and she was understandably offended by the idea of her fiance prancing around drunk with naked women. He had to have his way, however.

She tried to spite him by having a bachelorette party with a male stripper, but I doubt she enjoyed it, and I don’t think the groom cared.

I was at the bachelor party. Two prostitutes who called themselves strippers showed up and removed every stitch they had on, and there were full-contact lapdances and so on. Somebody tried to buy me a dance, and I ended up having an argument with a very stubborn woman who was totally naked. She actually picked me up and tried to carry me to a chair. Later in the night, at a club, my resolution failed me, but that’s another story.

Naturally, every man who went to this thing let a few details slip, and before we knew it, the bride’s female friends had reported every word. They told her about the disgusting things we all did at the party, and she threw a fit that lasted for days.

The groom had to have his selfish party. The bride had to pick at the scab instead of moving on. Neither accepted any blame for what happened, although they were solely responsible. They blamed some of us and put us all on trial, as though we were somehow accountable for the success of their marriage. We all suffered because of the groom’s immaturity and the bride’s stubborn insistence on spying.

I suspect that I was eventually blamed for some leaks by other men, but in the long run, it shouldn’t have mattered, because we didn’t make the mess, and we were not the ones who would eventually pay the price. What was it to the rest of us if information got out? It wasn’t our problem. We went on with our lives. We weren’t sentenced to relive the night a thousand times with angry spouses. When you do things this stupid, you should man up and take the blame. You shouldn’t run away like a toddler who knocked over a vase. You shouldn’t try to put the burden of your future happiness on well-meaning friends who merely helped you with your own suicidal plan.

Hard feelings and even a silly and immature threat of violence ensued. Brilliant bits of wisdom such as “bros before hoes” were uttered in total seriousness, as though they came from the mouth of God. Friendships deteriorated. I have no idea how the marriage worked out, but it certainly started out in the hole.

I don’t know where Americans got the idea that an evening of fornication was a good way to start a holy relationship, but somehow it has become part of our culture. It’s like we’re betting Satan he can’t make us divorce.

Anyway, when I heard about tonight’s plan, I thought about the pathetic party I just described, and I realized it was a chance at redemption. If I can be part of a gang of fools who help screw up a marriage, why can’t I help a marriage start correctly?

Tonight I’ll be sitting in a restaurant with stable people who are making mature choices. I won’t be grappling with naked hookers. I won’t be paying topless strangers to grope me in the back room of a tawdry club. I won’t be so drunk I can barely see. We’ll be trying to help a man and woman build a stronghold that will last until they die and produce wonderful fruit. In the morning, when I wake up, I’ll know where I am. And in the days that follow, no one will be spying on me or threatening anyone with a baseball bat. No one will be wondering if he or she has herpes or if a prostitute is pregnant. No older men will be living in terror, wondering if their wives are about to find out what they’ve done. No man will be waiting by his mailbox, trying to intercept incriminating credit card bills or bank statements.

Instead of all that, we will be talking about the things God requires of married people. We will be discussing the power of prayer. We’ll talk about the obligations the couple will have toward their children. We’ll give advice to help them defeat the attacks that are sure to come. We’ll tell this young man things that will help him grow closer to his wife, and I guarantee you, no one will say, “Bros before hoes.”

Call me crazy. It seems to be the better way.

Maybe the O’Jays Were Prophets

Sometimes it’s hard to find the answers to questions, even when God has already provided them explicitly.

It’s important to know God’s top priorities. We’re supposed to do everything in his name, which means we’re supposed to do the things he would do if he were in our shoes, so we need to know what’s important to him.

We screw this up all the time. We talk about being good and so forth. We talk about fasting and prayer and giving. But God has given us a very straightforward statement of his fundamental concerns. Here it is, from the 22nd chapter of Matthew:

But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

It all boils down to love, first between man and God, and then among men.

I think about this a lot, because I am aware that I don’t love God or man enough.

Many years ago, I felt God’s love firsthand. Every Christian who is in contact with the Holy Spirit will sometimes sense God’s love; that’s not what I mean. I mean God came to me, where I was, and while he was with me, I felt his love and peace and reassurance, radiating toward me like heat from a lamp. I physically felt it.

I have a certain amount of love for God and for people, in my own right. But when I walk by you in a store, you’re not going to turn around and say, “What WAS that?” That’s what you would do if God himself walked by. You would probably follow him so the feeling wouldn’t leave you.

I believe we are supposed to have that kind of love in us. Jesus’s commandment makes it clear, and there are many references to it in the Bible. But how do you get it? You can’t just decide to love. It’s certainly a good idea to try, but without God’s help, we are just monkeys with good intentions.

We are supposed to develop God’s virtue inside ourselves, but we can only do it through supernatural means. The Bible tells us that prayer in tongues builds God’s character in us, just as a father’s traits develop in a baby in the womb. Prayer in tongues brings us the fruit and the gifts of the Spirit.

The fruit of the Spirit make up God’s virtuous nature, or his “righteousness.” They are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness and self-control.

The gifts of the Spirit make up God’s power, or what the KJV calls “his kingdom.” They are wisdom, supernaturally imparted knowledge, faith, the ability to heal, the ability to work miracles, prophecy, the ability to perceive spirits as we do natural objects, the ability to speak in unknown languages, and the ability to interpret unknown languages.

Faith appears in both lists, which shows how important it is to God.

If you look at the fruit of the Spirit, you can see that much of the list is related to love. Things like patience, kindness, and goodness are necessary, if you want to love others. And of course, love itself is mentioned expressly.

This suggests that real love is only possible through supernatural impartation. That makes sense to me. Have you ever tried to love God, as you love another human being? You can’t see him. You can’t hear him. You don’t know what he looks like. Can you really say you feel a deep, warm, emotional attachment to him, or that you have a heartfelt desire to do good things for him? It’s easy to feel obligated to him. But can you really love him, the way you might love your father or mother? Be honest, now. It’s not natural. You can be grateful to God. You can respect him. But to love him from the heart? I think it’s beyond most of us.

I thought about this, and I decided to admit I didn’t love God the way Jesus told us to. We’re supposed to be truthful with God and confess our iniquities to him. He knows them anyway. I did what he said to do, and I made a practice of asking him to help me love him as well as other human beings. I felt it was better than pretending everything was fine.

I did this partly because I already knew he could do it. I recall an occasion when I drove to church, and while I was in the truck on I-95, I felt God’s love welling up inside me. The whole night, I felt a heightened emotional warmth for other people, and I know it didn’t come from me. It was certainly better than trying. You can only hold a weight up for so long, and then you have to drop it. It’s much better when God removes it entirely.

Lately, the prayers have been paying off, and the results have been unanticipated.

Last weekend, I felt discouragement. I felt that I was not getting anywhere in life. I wondered if I was committing some fundamental error that was leading me down a blind rathole. What if I was wasting my time? What if I was headed for disaster? I don’t give a lot of thought to planning and calculating, because Jesus told us not to think about our future needs. I wondered if I had taken him too literally.

One night this week, I was lying in bed, and I started thinking about trains. Have you ever slept on a train? Provided it’s a nice train on a smooth track, it’s very peaceful. The sound of the wheels on the track is soothing, like a mother’s heartbeat. You don’t worry about what’s happening around you. You know you’re going to end up where you should. I thought about this, and I realized that walking by faith is like riding a train.

Many times, I have said that praying in tongues “puts your life on rails.” The Bible refers over and over to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which is enhanced when you pray in tongues. The 37th Psalm says God will order our steps. The 35th chapter of Isaiah says God will provide a highway in the desert, and that a man who walks on it, though he be a fool, will not err.

The Greek word for “faith” is “pistis.” It doesn’t seem to mean “belief,” the way we think of belief. It appears to have more to do with assurance or trust. To me, that sounds like the kind of trust you have when you’re sleeping in a railway car. It is the sense that you are on track, headed to the right destination, free of worry.

Now when I lie in bed, I feel that I am on course, with someone who cares about me steering me to my destination. So love and faith are connected, and so is freedom from fear.

The Bible tells us perfect (completed) love casts out fear. We toss this scripture around, not knowing what it really means. I believe it means two things: first, if you believe God loves you and can be trusted to take care of you, you will not fear for your future. Second, if God’s powerful, complete, supernaturally imparted love for others is in you, you will not be afraid to love others, no matter what has happened to you in the past.

I am starting to feel closer to God, and I sense that this will make it possible for me to love others better. This must have been what Jesus was talking about when he said that a person who doesn’t love others doesn’t love God. The Spirit makes it work both ways.

It’s an encouraging revelation. Anxiety and anger are heavy weights. Everyone wants to be relaxed and confident. Everyone wants to love instead of disapproving. If the Holy Spirit will enable us to reach these goals, think how different life will be. Think how different Christianity will be. We’ll still have a duty to point out and correct sin, and we won’t always be able to agree with others or give them what they want, but we’ll be able to feel love for them even as we reject their ways. Love will be in the forefront of our minds, not the background. That would be a good way to go through life.

It also means that prayer will be less selfish. The more your heart is filled with concern for others, the purer your prayers will be, and the more likely they will be to receive favorable answers.

All the things I suspected about tongues are turning out to be right. It’s paying off, over time. I’m growing like a plant. I can’t become perfect overnight, but I never stop improving. I think this proves my ideas came from God, not man.

It would be nice to be less connected to human squabbles. This is why I resist writing about politics. We get so exasperated by the barbaric behavior and attitudes of our adversaries that we lose sight of the obligation to love them. Conservative morals are superior to liberal morals. No doubt about it. But at their root, good morals come from the Holy Spirit, and they aren’t compatible with a loss of love.

I believe the message of supernatural love is extremely powerful. I think it’s one of the keys we’ve been missing. Spirit-filled Christians have been squawking for years about money, money, money, MONEY. We have forgotten the prime directives Jesus gave us. No wonder our leaders bring so much humiliation on us. They dedicate their lives to using God’s power to serve the flesh. No wonder they fall into scandal and crime.

I look forward to seeing where this leads. We need to get back into the flow of true, lasting power, and this is probably the fastest way.

This is the Harvest TBN Should be Talking About

I keep telling people to pray in tongues. It increases your faith. It brings you understanding. It gives you peace. It allows you to pray for the things God wants, even when you don’t know what they are. It helps you know God personally.

Last night I learned something new about it.

I was in bed getting ready to sleep, and as always, I spent some time in prayer. Part of the time, I prayed in tongues. Part of the time, I wasn’t praying at all. Every so often, I felt faith pouring through me, very forcefully, like water through a fire hose. It has been doing this a lot lately. I’ll be lying in bed minding my own business, and I’ll feel faith rushing through me, even when I’m not praying.

I believe I know what’s going on.

We know that a person who prays in tongues is actually repeating what God says. Jesus speaks to the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit speaks to us, and we repeat it. We know that these prayers are perfect, since God himself decides what to say. We also know that we may never find out what we’re praying about. The words come, but we may not understand the language.

If you’re a charismatic, you believe all this. But here’s something you may not have realized: if you can pray words you don’t understand, you can also have faith without knowing what it is you’re having faith FOR.

It only makes sense. Prayers that aren’t accompanied by faith generally fail. That means faith has to accompany prayer in tongues. Since you don’t know what you’re praying for, if you have faith, it has to be faith for things you can’t name.

This conflicts with the idea that faith is belief. I don’t think faith and belief are exactly the same, any more than gravity and weight are the same. If I tell you I’m going to meet you for lunch, and you believe it with all your heart, that’s not faith. Obviously, belief is not the whole story. I believe what we call “faith” is really a supernatural substance, and when it runs through you, it PRODUCES belief, as well as results.

The Bible tells us that our faith comes from God, not from us or our efforts. It’s a gift of the Spirit, and it’s also named as a fruit of the Spirit. If it came from us, a person who tried really hard to believe would be able to get great things from God. Practical experience tells me that’s not how it works. In the past, when I tried to believe, I felt resistance, and I usually lost the battle. These days, the resistance often gets washed away, like a tiny pile of sand being hit by a huge wave. That’s not natural. That’s not something my little monkey brain produced. That comes from God.

Last night I wanted to sleep, but it occurred to me that if God was choosing to shoot faith through me, there had to be an important reason. There had to be something he wanted done in the earth, and he was honoring me by using me as an instrument. That’s a bigger honor than the Presidency. That’s enormous. I decided to stay up and go with it until he seemed ready to let me go.

Weak Christians and unbelievers think God is supposed to do everything directly. This is why weak Christians are always asking, “Why did God let this happen?” Their theology is completely wrong. God doesn’t let bad things happen. We do.

God put us here to be managers of the earth. He put us here to be his flesh. If the world is screwed up, it’s our fault. We were supposed to fill it with his power. We are not supposed to do everything in our own strength, without God’s help, but we are not supposed to be passive, either. We matter. We have to contribute. So in all likelihood, when God wants something done, he will often choose a person who is full of the Spirit and lead that person to pray and exercise supernatural faith.

I think prayers I prayed in the past are coming back to me now, as they came back to Cornelius. Prayers are like seeds, and faith given by the Holy Spirit is like water. Eventually, they bring a harvest. I prayed a lot in the past, especially in tongues, so now, even at times when I’m not praying, the Spirit will come to me and act on my old prayers. That’s my suspicion. I believe prayer is like music practice. When you practice an instrument, you have to remember that you’re not trying to solve your problems instantly. Very often, you’ll practice something and find that you still can’t play it at the end of the session, but you’ll be able to play it the next day, as soon as you pick up the instrument. When you pray, sometimes you’ll see an immediate result, but often, it will come later, even after you’ve forgotten the prayer.

The sensation of supernatural faith is wonderful. When it’s with you, it’s like a drug that sustains you. You will want to keep it going, just like a coke user who will dig under couch cushions at six in the morning hoping to find one last rock. You will want to stay in God’s presence. When it waivers, you’ll feel like a satellite-dish owner who has lost the signal. You’ll want to fiddle with the antenna (you) until it comes back. I think I understand why so many ancient Christians allowed themselves to be martyred rather than give this up. It’s too good to do without.

I truly believe this is what Christianity is all about. Humble yourself, connect to the power, and try to listen and obey. The rest–the rules and the admonitions to be good–that stuff flows naturally once the juice is flowing.

If you’re praying in tongues regularly, don’t quit. I don’t believe I’m special. I think the things I’m experiencing will happen to anyone who persists.

Costco Jones Gets Worse

This is an exciting day. I’m about to make sausage. Using ELECTRICITY.

A couple of years ago, I bought a hand-cranked grinder from Northern Tool. It works, but you would be surprised how hard it is to use. I made twenty pounds of phenomenal sausage, but then I put the machine away.

Since then I’ve gotten myself a Bosch Universal Plus mixer. I got one because I had been using one at church, for pizza. If you make bread–in LARGE amounts–this is probably the greatest machine in the universe for less than a thousand dollars. You can make dough for 14 pizzas at once, which is beyond amazing. In a Hobart Kitchenaid, you might be able to make three. In the biggest Cuisinart made, the number is six, if memory serves. I routinely made dough for nine pies at once in the Bosch. I’m talking about nine pounds of dough.

The mixer is not that great for other things. For example, if you use it to make cheesecake, you have to make sure the batter is very warm and loose, or else a lot of it will get stuck to the bowl and fail to mix. Live and learn, I guess. But it’s a versatile machine and a real workhorse. You can even use it to make pasta and berry juice.

I broke down and got the hideously expensive grinder for it. I could have gotten a stand-alone grinder for the same money, but the Bosch has stainless extruder plates (if that’s what they’re called), and it serves as the basis for other attachments, and it will take up less room. Could be a bad decision; we’ll see.

When I started making sausage, I originally intended to can it, but I froze it in vacuum bags instead. I can’t recall why. It may be because I learned that canned sausage can’t have sage in it.

I was hoping to duplicate the sausage my grandmother used to can. This is a real Appalachian treasure. You make sausage balls and can them in hot lard which is full of sausage flavoring. Best breakfast sausage I ever ate. The stuff I make is about as good, but slightly different.

I had a hard time finding fat. If you use lean pork, the sausage will toughen up like rubber in the skillet. I solved this once by adding pure lard, but you can also grind bacon up in the sausage. It’s very good.

Today I’ll be using Costco boneless shoulder. I can’t believe they sell this stuff. It’s a dream come true. It’s $1.89 a pound, and it’s a lot fattier and tastier than loin, so I’m pretty excited. I have a frozen cured jowl (jowl bacon) I may throw in there just to get rid of it.

It’s irritating that we have come to hate pork fat so much. It’s a wonderful part of good food, and the Nazis have made it hard to find.

I’m about to pop the shoulder open. I hope I don’t smell anything “off.” If I do, it means boar taint, and I’ll have to brine the meat with baking soda to get rid of it. I’ll post the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

10 lbs. pork (shoot for 40% fat)
3/8 cup brown sugar
3 tsp. pepper
2 tsp. cayenne
2 tbsp. sage
1/4 cup salt
1 tbsp. paprika

I’ll be using apple juice concentrate instead of sugar. I’ll need about half a cup. I found that when you substitute apple juice concentrate for sugar, you have to add about 25%. OOH! I have some snooty Hungarian paprika from Penzey’s! Guess I’ll be using THAT today.

I ought to make some Italian sausage for pizza. Mike suggested it. I am too lazy to use casings. I don’t think that would matter. Truthfully, they tend to detract from the sausage-eating experience, and they shink and cause problems when cooked.

I wonder if I could make chorizo. I’m pretty sure most chorizos are made from things like belly buttons and tonsils. I know how Hispanic businesses like to save money. Surely real meat would be better.

This Sunday my church is doing a play. I got buttonholed on the way out last week, so now I have to make food for the cast. I’m planning to make a pineapple upside-down cake using banana nut bread batter. This is really good. When people found out about it, they got on me to make a spare cake, so now I’m making the cast cake plus a stealth cake.

Pineapple upside-down cake is one of earth’s greatest foods. I don’t know why we don’t make it more often. I’m seriously considering making some for myself and serving it hot, with rum raisin ice cream. That would be sick. Also wondering if it’s a good idea to add rum to the cake. Surely it would be. It’s like a pina colada, and those go with rum.

I have like 12 pounds of frozen bananas to get rid of, and this is a great way to do it.

I’ll post sausage photos if it’s not too much work.

You should try this yourself. Play with the ingredients. Add garlic or whatever. Start with one pound, get the recipe right, and go to town. If you start with what I’ve written, you won’t make anything that isn’t fit to eat unless you go completely nuts. Give it a shot. You might change the world.

More

This is stupendous. This thing ran through 10 pounds of pork shoulder and 1 pound of bacon in about 15 minutes. Most of the time, I was cutting the meat so it would fit in the hole. If it had been pre-sliced, I think I could have done two pounds a minute with ease.

The machine rocked a little. I think I failed to tighten something. But it worked. Here is the meat after I mixed in the seasonings.

I used chipotle instead of cayenne. I had a couple of chipotles lying around, so I ran them through the coffee grinder. It seems like chipotle is milder than cayenne. I used about three tablespoons. I added an extra teaspoon of sage and a second tablespoon of paprika. I used half a cup of apple juice concentrate.

It smells wonderful, even raw. Costco is extremely picky about quality. Perhaps for that reason, the shoulder I bought had no boar taint. Here are the “loaves,” ready to go in the freezer to firm up. When they’re frozen, I’ll vacuum-seal them. I’m keeping one out for immediate use!

Next time I’ll use two pounds of bacon and eight pounds of pork. It’s slightly lean this time. I used a ratio of roughly 1:10. I ended up with eleven pounds. I believe the final cost is around $2.25/pound, before factoring in freezer bags. That’s not bad. This stuff is even better than Winn-Dixie, which is the best bulk sausage I’ve found around here.

The good Lord has given me all sorts of fun skills and hobbies. I really love doing this.

The Cat Poop, You Can Pitch

When it comes to bad news, human beings have the same attitude that cats have about poop. Bury it and walk away.

Unfortunately, this works better for cats than people. If you’re not honest with yourself and others, you will not get rid of your problems. Instead you will encapsulate them in a scab of lies, and over time, the problems will fester and grow.

This is what the ancient Jews did when the prophets told them things they didn’t want to hear. Often they also put the prophets in jail or murdered them. The practice of shooting messengers is probably about one day younger than the practice of bringing messages.

Later on, after the guilty parties were dead, the Jews talked about the greatness of the prophets. They honored them. Over time, people come to see a prophet’s merit, but when this happens the prophet is generally dead, and the awful judgments he tried to prevent have already befallen the folks who killed him.

We always look back and say, “Wow, I wouldn’t have persecuted that guy. Those people were stupid.” Christians love taking this attitude toward Jews, but we are exactly the same. In fact, we are probably worse. Many of us have had personal exposure to spiritual gifts and supernatural wonders. The baptism with the Holy Spirit has been available to us for 2000 years. The Holy Spirit himself will testify against us when we try to explain why we drove him away and didn’t listen.

Last night, I had a fresh revelation on the similarity of Jews and Christians. I was reading the gospel of Mark, but the point is better illustrated by Matthew 23, which refers to the same material at greater length. Jesus railed against glory-starved, power-hungry, greedy religious authorities who served their own bellies at the expense of the expense of the poor and the kingdom of God.

Here is part of the chapter:

But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.

Think of the TV preachers we deal with today. Sure, they preach the gospel, and they help people get salvation. But some tell us things that are not true, in order to make money. They tell us we have to give cash offerings three times a year, to get “seven blessings” from God. They tell us we’ll get a “hundredfold return” if we give money “above the tithe.” I have never heard one warn us to pay our debts first. I have never heard one warn us not to borrow in order to give.

What’s the result? Faithful Christians who think they’re doing the right thing shovel out money, and it’s not always money they can afford. Some of these people are seniors on fixed incomes or living on savings. So we have preachers who are quite literally “devouring widows’ houses.”

This is the cat poop I was talking about. If you point out the problems with the strange doctrine we hear today, you may get thrown out of a church. I think you can pretty much count on being excluded from any type of promotion from within the Christian community. You’re not likely to be invited to speak on TBN.

God tells us to give. He says we should lend without expecting a return. He says he will keep poverty away from the righteous, and he will return money we give to the poor. He implies that he will listen to our cries for our help, if we listen to the cries of the needy. But he is not so gung-ho on giving outrageous gifts to ministries.

We have to support ministries. We have to give to our churches. No doubt about it. And I believe God rewards this, WHEN we are guided by the Holy Spirit. But will he reward us when we’re simply giving in order to get money back? Will he reward us because we’ve given to ministers who have whined and begged and made us feel guilty? Will he reward us when we give rashly, without consulting the Holy Spirit, or when we force our creditors to bear the true burden of our generosity?

I get tired of ministers complaining about low offerings. On the one hand, they tell us God will bless his servants, and they say they practice what they preach. They tell us they give, just as we do. On the other, they say their ministries need help. Am I the only one who sees the inconsistency here? If God isn’t blessing your ministry, why should I? Maybe you need to be chastised, and if I block God’s judgment, you’ll be deprived of a valuable lesson. If God wants you to have my money, why isn’t he urging me to give it to you? He urges me to give all the time. If you’re not on his list, isn’t it kind of a heads-up?

There are some ministries that seem safe. Perry Stone is very successful, and he never begs. John Bevere doesn’t beg. Both of these men talk about the Holy Spirit all the time. As far as I know, neither one has a megachurch with tacky furnishings and a jet. I’m sure they live well. So what? Congratulations to them. I can find no fault with them, so I don’t care if they live in the Taj Mahal. I think God will quite literally bring plenty to people who support such individuals. But these other characters…the guys who say “seed gift” fifty times an hour…there is no way I’ll ever give any of them a dime.

Right now, mindless, greedy people are protesting in our streets, and they’re learning how powerful mobs can be. Mayor Bloomberg bows to them. President Obama says he supports them. The cops are afraid of them. And these people do not like God or Christianity. There have already been rumblings about protesting outside megachurches.

What’s going to happen as the economy gets worse and we continue to encourage these grown brats? They’re going to get bolder, and their numbers will increase. We’ve seen this in the past. Look up “Bonus Army.” Look up “Hooverville.” And thanks to technology, todays mobs are much more adaptable and coordinated than the mobs of old. They’re way more dangerous.

Sooner or later, Christians who have obliterated their savings giving to false prophets will start popping up in the crowds. The mobs may follow through on the church protests. We won’t be able to get rid of them without the National Guard. What will we say to them? “Your hundredfold return is in the mail”? Testimony is a powerful thing, but what if we start hearing testimony proving the prosperity preachers are wrong?

I know a person who gave a lot to ministries and ended up broke, deeply in debt, unemployed, nearly friendless, afflicted with incurable cancer, facing felony charges, and mentally ill. Is this the only such person in the United States? Seriously, now. There may be millions. They’re not going to stay quiet forever. Sooner or later the cat poop is going to pop out of the sand.

Christianity is not about getting rich. It’s about improving by means of submitting to the Holy Spirit. It’s about power and blessings, but it’s also about righteousness. The other day, I thought I heard God telling me, “Righteousness IS power.” We’re supposed to be praying in tongues, listening to the Holy Spirit, and learning to walk by faith. Sending foolish people big checks is not the central practice of our religion.

The world is descending into economic chaos. Things are going to get bad. Riots are a certainty. We are going to make ourselves targets by promoting self-serving nonsense. We are going to legitimize anti-Christian sentiment. We need to look at the long view. Building a few ridiculous megachurches right now will not save us at a time when we need to be able to show people God’s power and love. No rioter or home invader is going to respect a preacher in a $5000 magenta suit when he tries to explain himself. Only the angels and the Holy Spirit will be able to defend us, rescue us, and help our persecutors become like us. We are supposed to be lights to the world, and if we were, God would make some effort to preserve us. But if all we teach is greed and success, we are of the world as well as in it. Why would God intervene to help one worldly person against another? If we’re not invested in him, what is the point? It’s just one person who trusts and lusts after money, fighting his brother.

If a prosperity preacher had been advising Moses, he would have told him to snuggle up to Pharaoh. “He’s a man of influence! He’s powerful! Let’s network! Let’s see if we can get him to tithe! Our problems will be OVER.” That’s not how we’re supposed to live. The powerful person we’re supposed to get close to is God.

Some of our preachers are putting nooses around their own necks. The Kristallnacht spirit is getting strong, and when the dam bursts, the most tempting victims will be those who are clearly hypocrites and scoundrels. And the rest of us will be splattered by the fallout.

We need to turn from this foolishness while there is time. We need to repent and distance ourselves. The innocent will suffer along with the guilty, but innocence is still an asset in and of itself, and it may be a help to us. And if we start taking care of the poor instead of spoiling celebrity preachers, we know God will be on our side, because he has promised it.

Keep an Eye on the Canaries

I am not the most self-confident person on earth, regardless of how I may come off in writing. For this reason, I am often shocked to see how right I’ve been. I was right when I called Obama “Carter II,” before other people were predicting it. I was right about Pajamas Media, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the housing market…I don’t want to make a list, but I have been right about a whole lot of things.

Today I realized how right I’ve been about anti-Semitism.

I was driving home from church this afternoon, and I saw a well-known graffitti wall beside I-95 in Miami. I can’t recall the exact words that were painted on it, but the gist of it was that we should kill the “Wall Street Bankers.”

That’s the whole message. Not, “Adjust the law to reduce corruption.” Not, “Find those who have committed crimes and give them fair trials.” No, this was more of a Cambodian-style distillation of mob sentiment. “Let’s kill an entire class of people, without trial, based on a vague suspicion that some of them are doing things we don’t like.” This kind of thinking is what put over a million bodies in ditches in Cambodia, for crimes such as reading books and wearing eyeglasses.

For a long time, I have predicted a worldwide increase in anti-Semitism. I’ve also predicted that the blame would spread to Bible-believing Christians, but that’s another issue. I saw what was happening in the appeasement-crazy world after 9/11, and I realized it’s always easier to slap the good child than the brat who is causing the problem. I knew people cared more about oil than morality. Israel and the Jews would ultimately pay for the savagery of Muslim terrorists.

Then I saw Jewish names in the news, associated strongly with economic failure. Stearns, Salomon, Madoff…soon to be joined by Bernanke and Geithner. I knew the Jewishness of the names would not escape the notice of the mob.

Now it’s okay to call for the murder of “Wall Street Bankers.” It’s okay for Occupy Wall Street to threaten to storm the homes of people who have money. They discuss it openly. Essentially, the left has sanctioned Kristallnacht. They’re just waiting for a surge of momentum to get the movement out of the potential well and into an unstabilized state where it can run away like an atomic pile.

What has “bankers” historically meant, in the mouths of mob criminals? “JEWS.” Perennial losers and effete antisocial opportunists with bullhorns are gaining sudden, unmerited prominence and power, and they’re using it to tell our mindless, rebellion-loving children that “bankers” have cheated them. More importantly, they’ve cheated the underprivileged. So killing the bankers isn’t revenge. It’s social justice. It’s altruism. Barging into a rich Jew’s home, beating him to death, stealing his valuables, and raping his wife and daughters isn’t debauchery and mayhem. It’s karma. It would be wrong NOT to do it. So, like Che Guevara, who used economic disparity as an excuse to sate his preexisting love of cruelty and murder, our urchin vigilantes are becoming convinced that any act of sadism, covetousness, or bigotry is a mitzvah, as long as “bankers” are the victims.

Democrats are fanning the flames. Our elected representatives should be recoiling in horror at the hatred and obvious stupidity of the Occupy movement, but they’re not. Elections are won and lost by paper-thin margins these days, and the unanticipated result is that politicians will sink to levels that, in the past, were too low even for those inclined to seek public office. Democrats know they’re unpopular. They’re losing the Jewish vote, the centrist vote, the Latin vote, and even some of the black vote. They don’t think they can sell us the same product that got them through the last few election cycles. Not to the same people. But now they have a glimmer of hope. Dirty, spoiled kids and equally spoiled union hacks will sit in parks and get free media attention for the left. Who knows? Maybe they’ll gain popularity. There are plenty of people out there who would like the government to take other people’s money and give it to them. There are probably millions of deadbeats who don’t want to honor their student loans. Maybe this will pay off at the polls. So our President and many prominent Democrats in Congress are backing the mob. It’s shocking. They’re pouring gasoline on the fire, simply because they think the wind is blowing it away from them.

What do you say when your President applauds the actions of a hate-crazed mob that has no respect for the law and knows no fear? Who protects you when the executive branch is against you? These are the people who look after us. The G-men. The DOJ. The FBI. When our supreme authority says you’re fair game, who are you supposed to run to? Anne Frank could tell you.

Here is our situation. The left is telling us the Jews are the reason for Mideast tension. They cause high gas prices. They cause “unnecessary” and “illegal” wars. They steal land. They enforce apartheid. Now “bankers” with Jewish names have brought our country down, taken all the wealth, caused the real estate collapse, and killed all the jobs. And the message from the media is that the right has gone crazy. The “Jesusland” nuts in the Tea Party want to bring back Jim Crow, starve babies and old people, take away our medical care, and, I guess, kick puppies in the stomach. The President has given this worldview his blessing, and half of Congress agrees.

It’s going to get worse. Within a year, we’ll start hearing the word “Jew” as well as “banker” and “Zionist.” At first, it will be “isolated” incidents. Sooner or later, the cowards will see that they have sufficient numbers to justify boldness, and then we’ll hear it more often. What then? It probably depends on the polls.

Liberals will probably sell the Jews out gradually. Rich Jews who work on Wall Street? I guess we can afford to let them go. Conservative Jews who want an undivided Israel? They’re just troublemakers anyway, and they’re off the DNC plantation. Professional Jews who make good money? Well, this country gave to them, so it’s time they gave a little back. And if Jews start voting conservatively, in self-defense, it will just prove they were on the wrong side all along.

With luck, we’re about 15 years from yellow felt stars, and from there, it’s a short step to Zyklon B.

And of course, Jews will be prominent in the Occupy movement. Until it decides to feed on them. That’s always the way. They helped Russia go communist, and then the state turned on them and gave free rein to endemic Eastern European anti-Semitism. Jews who have no relationship with God have a long history of serving their worst enemies.

I’m glad this disgusting mural went up. I hope to see more of them. I hope they start illustrating them with cartoons of “bankers” being disembowelled. Those who are capable of being educated need a window into the mind of the sleeping (or more accurately, stoned) giant.

Satan hates God’s people, both Jewish and Christian. He will try to kill the Jews to prevent prophecy from coming true, and he will try to get the rest of us so no one will remain to restrain him.

Laugh now. In five years, it won’t seem so funny.

I Will Never Have a Parking Space at TBN

Last night I wondered if I was getting too confrontational with my comments on today’s churches. Then I sat down to read the Bible, and I asked God to guide me. I landed on Thessalonians 1. Here is what I saw:

But even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict. For our exhortation did not come from error or uncleanness, nor was it in deceit. But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts. For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness—God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, when we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children.

It’s amazing that I even needed to read this, but I know the reason. Modern churches are being brainwashed with a tactic taken from cults and authoritarian governments. They are teaching that all criticism is evil. They say we have to be “under authority.” They use the word “positive” all the time. They condemn anything “negative.” This is exactly what the Soviets did, except they backed it up with Gulags and firing squads. It’s what the Scientologists do.

I’ve learned a lot by subjecting myself to authority. It’s important to learn to listen to people God places above you. For this reason, I have been affected by the positivity campaign. I saw some true value in it. But when your human authorities blow it sufficiently badly, and your prayers don’t change them in a reasonable amount of time, you need to speak God’s truth, without fear or hesitation. Only the Holy Spirit can tell you when to open your mouth and when to shut it, and you have to pray for guidance.

Over and over, I see confirmation that God’s true servants need to speak up. The greatest figures in the Bible were critics. Jesus, Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Samuel, Nathan, Stephen, Paul, Peter, James, Micaiah…the list is very long. Here’s the list of people who are revered because they told everyone that what they were doing was just fine:

Can you think of a single one? I can’t.

It’s not that God likes to beat people up. It’s just that human beings require constant correction. It’s a mathematical certainty. There is only one right path. There are an infinite number of wrong paths. At any given moment, chances are, you’re starting to head in the wrong direction. Think about driving. What do your hands do, several times a second? They make tiny corrections in the path of your car. The nature of the universe makes it unavoidable. It’s not a commentary on your worthlessness. It just how things are.

Look what that material from Thessalonians 1 discusses.

1. Paul was mistreated in Philippi. Of course he was. He’s referring to other believers who didn’t want to listen. The church has always hated critics.

2. Paul spoke BOLDLY in MUCH CONFLICT. He didn’t go up on the platform and receive hugs and encomiums from the pastor and elders (or the synagogue bigwigs, if it was a synagogue). He offended, but he stuck to his guns. He didn’t worry about the resulting hard feelings, any more than Elijah worried when he cut the throats of the prophets of Baal. It had to be done.

3. He did not seek to PLEASE MEN. He wanted to please GOD. And in his work, he did not resort fo FLATTERY (seeker-sensitivity), nor did he use the gospel as a pretext for MAKING MONEY. Even though he was entitled to take payment (we know this from other scriptures), this was not his motive for speaking.

4. He did not seek GLORY.

What if you tried this approach today? All I can say is, thank God flogging is illegal, because a person with Paul’s attitude would infuriate a lot of people.

These days, preachers who have learned to trust in money and glory show up in churches, holler platitudes and slogans having little application to their own lives, receive praise and big offerings, and leave. Young people look at them and think, “Wow, I want to be a preacher.” They think all the old scriptures about self-denial are obsolete. TBN canceled that stuff twenty years ago! Now you’re supposed to be rich, and everyone is supposed to love you.

Preachers show up and tell us over and over that God wants us to be rich. They tell us we can be just like worldly people, listening to the same dirty music, dressing the same way, and obsessing on wealth. They lap up praise. They’re pampered and treated like royalty. And these things happen at churches where people in need are treated like flies. Shoo them away; don’t let them bother the pastors!

These days, preachers NETWORK. It’s just like being a lawyer. If you want clients, you go to parties. You speak at seminars. You pass out business cards. You join organizations. You suck up, basically. And it works. These days, many charismatic preachers want giant churches and TV cameras, and they know the short route to these goals is man-pleasing. They use every networking and marketing method known to man, instead of developing God’s power to the point where it draws men all by itself.

Jude spoke harshly of those who flatter others in order to gain advantage; even in his time, the principal was understood and exploited. You’re probably never going to be on TBN or Daystar if you disagree publicly with the herd. So instead of leaders, we have followers. “What is the crowd saying? Okay, that’s what I’ll teach.” It’s the Pontius Pilate method.

We’re becoming so worldly, we are no longer under God’s direction. We talk about how much we love him, but we don’t walk in his ways, and our excuse is “SOULS!” Anything that brings people into the church must be good! This is how the ancient synagogues ended up with altars to Ashtoreth beside the altars to Jehovah. Seeker sensitivity. The masses led the rabbis, when the rabbis should have been leading the masses.

It’s not about numbers. It never was. Besides, the gospels show that only the Holy Spirit can show you where to cast your net. The big harvest you get by listening to your own peanut brain will turn out to be very small, when the false positives are weeded out.

I’m going to make a better effort to refrain from hiding the truth. If I make people mad, so be it. I’m used to that. At least I’ll have some self-respect, and I won’t be helping to keep people from knowing God.

Almost Literally

Last night I had a real “wax on, wax off” moment.

Ancient individuals who, like me, were formed from the Permian mud, will recall that there was another Karate Kid movie, made back in 1984. The clever old Asian character was Japanese, and his name was Mr. Miyagi. When his student, Ralph Macchio, showed up for training, Miyagi made him wax his cars, sand his deck, and paint his fence. Ralph figured Miyagi was going to get his house fixed up for nothing, teach him no skills, and let him be beaten to a paste at the tournament.

Ralph got fed up and said he was quitting. Miyagi made him demonstrate the movements he had learned while fixing the house, and it turned out they were useful in karate. So he had improved more than he thought. And fortunately, the screenwriter helped him, too, seeing to it that he pummeled several bigger kids who had been taking actual lessons for ten years.

Then Ralph went on to a supporting role in “My Cousin Vinnie,” after which, Marisa Tomei got an Oscar, proving that not all competitions come out the way they should. I don’t know if Martin Kove coached the actresses who lost.

Anyway, I was in prayer last night, and I was feeling discouraged, but then I thought about the stuff I was praying for, and I thought of the way my attitude and behavior had changed over the last few years, and I realized I had made great progress. I am still not quite perfect (wonderful though I am) but things have changed a lot. I have very powerful faith. I get into God’s presence every day. I know much more about God than I used to. The Holy Spirit has taught me and changed me. My goals are different. My desires are different. If perfection is 100%, I would give myself a good solid D.

That’s a big step forward.

I am improving in most ways, but I am losing patience with misguided teachers. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. Sometimes anger is the right response.

I’m very tired of people who talk about money all the time. You know what? Trusting God with your money is only a small part of Christianity. And he will not honor you if you give your money to a fool who preaches nonsense and lives in rebellion. Maybe God will return the cash to you if you acknowledge your mistake and ask for another chance. I don’t see why not. But I don’t think he’s going to give you “a hundredfold return” on the Social Security checks you’ve been endorsing over to Benny Hinn. Not unless the Holy Spirit told you to do it.

Once again, I have to ask: if these guys are so keen on giving, why don’t they talk about giving to OTHER HUMAN BEINGS? Seriously, does every megachurch need its own airstrip, while people in Africa are starving for food as well as God? Could we maybe have a ten-story church instead of a twelve-story church, if it means helping more people? Do we have to be ostentatious and tacky every single minute of our lives?

The Bible mentions charity and generosity over and over. In comparison, the obligation to give tithes and offerings gets little play. The Bible says God will ignore our cries if we ignore the cries of the poor. When was the last time a charismatic preacher mentioned that? I can’t recall hearing it a single time, but I can’t even guess at the number of times I’ve heard “pressed down, shaken together and running over.”

“Oh, but the megachurches have charity programs.” Please. They won’t even open their books. Generally, we have no idea what percentage of their money goes to the poor. Real charities have open books and annual reports. Why shove your money down a blind rathole, when you could be giving to an above-board outfit like World Relief or the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews? Seriously, do you want your money to pay for new Pirellis on a preacher’s Benz, or would you like to lift someone out of a refugee camp in Ethiopia PERMANENTLY and move them Israel, in fulfillment of prophecy?

Aside from that, the more you walk with God, the more opportunities he will give you to do good on a personal level. You will meet people who have sudden financial needs. You will meet people who need prayer. Someone will need the old laptop you put in your closet. Someone will need a pair of shoes. You won’t always have to look for an organization to distribute your money for you.

I am angry because I know a little bit about God’s goodness, and churches are preventing other people from getting what I have. God is wonderful. He’s warm. He’s reassuring. He’s generous. He’s invincible in dealing with your enemies. He wants to give you peace and success. He wants to spend time with you when you’re all alone, not just in church. He will do great things for you, BUT ONLY IF YOU COME TO HIM HIS WAY. You’re not going to get there by transferring your parents’ estate to some greedy character who thinks God wants him and his current wife to have matching Bentleys parked in front of all their homes. The garbage they preach has almost nothing to do with meeting God or being transformed by him.

Many preachers won’t talk like this. They’ll be ostracized. They won’t be asked to go on TBN. They won’t get filthy rich. They might offend other preachers. What does it add up to? They’re gutless and greedy. Two great characteristics to combine in a man of God.

Sometimes you have to offend man in order to please God. It’s wrong to offend people without justification, but sometimes it has to be done. And the world will not reward you for it. Carnal Christians won’t, either. They’ll buy the nails and the wood for the cross. They’re so thrilled to be told they can be just like ungodly people–that they can live like ungodly people and be accepted–that it infuriates and threatens them when anyone bursts their bubble. Nobody likes a spanking.

I don’t know what’s going to happen. I pray for God to wake the church up and cleanse it, and I know he will, but will he be able to do it on a big enough scale to make the church his? Probably not. God always ends up with a remnant, not the whole enchilada. He gets Gideon’s tiny troop of left-handed men. He gets 120 disciples praying in the Upper Room. He gets David’s cave army, or the Jewish minority that left Egypt under Moses. He gets 144,000 Jews in the last days. That’s not going to change. Not unless Biblical patterns have lost their predictive validity.

Sooner or later I will fall out of favor with the TBN/megachurch/seeker-sensitive movement. I’m a nobody, so no one notices me (or reads this blog), but if the enemy sees me as a threat, he will eventually alert his troops. I’m glad I haven’t been embraced and promoted. It would be hard to give that up. You have to live in a tabernacle, not a building of stone. You have to be ready to move at a moment’s notice. You have to eat the matzah standing up, and you have to rebuild the temple with a weapon in one hand. Fortunately, I have nothing to lose. I do things for ministries. They do almost nothing for me. They have nothing to hold over my head if I leave.

These days I pray for direction. I am not pleased with the direction my church is taking, and I really miss sitting in services and being bowled over by God’s presence and wisdom, so I would like to move on. On the other hand, I am very attached to some of the people there, and we are definitely succeeding in introducing believers to the Holy Spirit. Maybe this has to be a time of giving and not receiving, at least with regard to my relations with human beings. I just don’t want to get weary. Every so often, you have to feed the ox that treads out the grain. I am not a person of great character, so I can’t run on empty all the time. Once in a while, I need a return on my investment.

Last night I got a little reinforcement. I will get by on that until I reach the next oasis.

Wrong Holiday

More interesting stuff about the bizarre “Seven Blessings” doctrine taught by Steve Munsey: it turns out he didn’t even get the holidays right. I didn’t know this until just now. I’m no Torah scholar; I just assumed he had a clue when he picked three holidays for his “Seven Blessings” drives. He promotes himself as “Dr. Steve Munsey.” That suggests expertise, does it not?

In Biblical times, there were only three holidays which required Jews to travel to Jerusalem. Those holidays were Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Pentecost), and Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles). Yom Kippur was the holiest day of the year, but it did not require a pilgrimage.

Take note: Sukkot and Yom Kippur are two completely separate events. Sukkot is not the second half of Yom Kippur. It’s not a continuation of Yom Kippur. It’s completely different. I say that because I can already hear the apologists trying to draw a nonexistent connection, in order to save face.

On the three pilgrimage holidays, Jewish males (not females) had to travel to Jerusalem and participate. They did not have to give big cash offerings, although I suppose a freewill offering could take place on any calendar date. Nobody promised them seven blessings.

And of course, Gentiles could not participate in these festivals, so even if Steve Munsey had it right, it would have no relevance to Christians.

It disturbs me that TV evangelists are promoting the Munsey events. It shows they don’t know much about Judaism. Why didn’t they research before committing their flocks to this business? Where is the stewardship? My hope is that they were simply so conditioned to believe that they slipped up. But the obvious self-interest angle raises questions. They are preaching a doctrine that brings them money, so is it possible that the prospect of big offerings caused them to rationalize instead of studying?

This is going to blow up in the faces of preachers everywhere. People will eventually start wondering where their seven blessings went. They will obey. They will believe. Then God may or may not give them what they thought they had coming. When people lose jobs and homes in the upcoming economic disaster, will they sit back and take it on the chin, or will they get on the web, find out the truth about the Jewish holidays, and demand accountability?

This is the kind of thing that destroys the reputation of the body of Christ. Why can’t it be about the Holy Spirit, prayer, repentance, love, service, and giving? Why do preachers have to talk people out of their savings and build monstrous churches? No wonder people think we’re suckers. I guess we are. You can’t be teachable and faithful without swallowing a few lies.

God is real. The baptism with the Holy Spirit is real. About 85% of what the money-crazed churches teach is real. But the other nonsense is like a dead rat on a birthday cake. It’s hard to get to the good stuff when so much filth is in the way.

More

Speaking of dubious authorities, here is Wikipedia’s entry on the three pilgrimages Jews were required to make.

Not the Kool-Aid

I had an interesting experience yesterday.

Background information: I am not happy with the “seven blessings” doctrine many churches are teaching now. Supposedly you give a big cash offering to your church on Pentecost, Passover, or Yom Kippur (“the Atonement”), and in return, God gives you seven blessings. This is supposed to come from Judaism, which required all believers to show up in Jerusalem three times a year and give their “very best offerings.”

Problem: Judaism only required men to show up.

Problem: there were no big cash offerings.

Problem: God didn’t promise anybody seven blessings on the Jewish holidays.

Problem: Christians are not under the Jewish law, and even if they were, it would be unlawful for them to show up among Jewish men during Jewish holidays and try to horn in on the observance.

The “Seven Blessings of Passover/Seven Blessings of Pentecost/Seven Blessings of the Atonement” fad is completely invalid. Near as I can tell, these doctrines were made up fairly recently by a pastor named Steve Munsey. They were never part of Judaism.

With all this in mind, I’ll write about my experience.

I went to Ayts Chayim Messianic Synagogue in Boca Raton, because I wanted to see my friends there and enjoy their Yom Kippur service. I got some friends from church to go. The service was amazing. First of all, there was no mention of big cash offerings. In fact, I don’t they mentioned money at all. Second, the rabbi taught about the real meaning of Yom Kippur, and he discussed appropriate teachings from Hebrews, linking Jesus to the most important Jewish holiday. Third, the Holy Spirit showed up like a thick cloud of peace, and we got to spend some wonderful time in his presence.

At one point, the rabbi said that people could present themselves as offerings if they wanted. They were encouraged to go to the front of the room. I went up there with the rest, and while I was there, I talked to God about the inadequacy of the things I do for him. I said any offering I might give him was tainted and corrupt, and I said I was offering myself, because it was “the best offering” I had.

Of course, when I heard that phrase in my mind, I thought of the Seven Blessings nonsense. “Very best offering” is what they tell you to bring. I wasn’t thinking about that when I went forward, but after the phrase appeared in my prayers, I could not miss the similarity.

I believe the Holy Spirit was underscoring the difference between dying charismatic churches and the synagogue. Many charismatic churches are losing God’s presence and favor. They’re wooing people by offering worldly garbage instead of the power and cleansing of the Holy Spirit. They have to rely on gimmicks and drives and so on. God isn’t blessing them, so they use worldly means to get what they want (usually high attendance and bigger collections), and then they claim God did it. Godly people who know better are growing frustrated, and they are leaving churches.

While the Holy Spirit was resting on us, I marveled at the difference between the synagogue and my church. We just don’t get that kind of response from God any more. I get it at when I’m alone, and sometimes it happens in my prayer group, but not in the services. I had forgotten what it was like to experience it in a service.

Now, naturally, I’m wondering if it’s time to change churches. Pastors like to say, “Grow where you’re planted,” in order to discourage people from moving around. They call people “church-hoppers.” In reality, the Bible doesn’t back them up. Over and over, great Biblical figures moved around. Abraham left. Noah left. Jacob left. Moses left. The Jews had to leave Israel for Babylon, and God told them they would suffer if they remained. Jesus left Israel for Egypt. Paul left Israel for Arabia. Lot left. How many examples do you want? Ruth left. Peter left. Timothy left. Jonah left.

“Grow where you’re planted” is something pastors say to keep people–and their money–from leaving. There is nothing godly about it. They ought to say, “GO where you’re planted.”

My friends are telling me I’m getting a lot done right where I am. They’re telling me I’m helping the church change. Maybe so. I would really miss the people. Maybe the answer is to start going to the synagogue twice a month, while cutting back at church.

It’s very refreshing to see that there are healthy houses of worship out there. No church is perfect, but some are very good.

If you don’t sense God in a very direct and palpable way in your church, you are missing out. His presence is something you need, and you should not hesitate to work hard to find it.