Bring on the Styrofoam Containers

Last night I was in prayer, and I spent some time thinking about the negative effects popular culture has on me. I thought about the things I still need to clean out of my life.

I thought about the nazirites. I don’t know much about the concept, but in the Old Testament, a nazirite was a person who was dedicated to God. They had to obey conditions going beyond the Jewish law. Samson was a nazirite from birth. He was not allowed to drink wine, let a razor touch his head, or touch a dead body.

It seems like Spirit-led Christians have to be a lot like nazirites. You can’t listen to rock or let your kids have a Pirates of the Caribbean DVD like everyone else, but on the other hand, you get to know God personally, and he gives you things like the ability to heal, prophecy, and the ability to work miracles. He warns you about things that take other people by surprise.

I thought about the verse in the 91st psalm, which says, “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.”

When I think about this verse, I am glad to know I’m protected, but I also think about the other people–the vast majority of the earth’s inhabitants–who are not.

In God’s eyes, “the wicked” can be defined this way: “those who have rejected Jesus Christ.” That’s all it takes. You can feed the sick. You can give a stranger a kidney. You can give to the poor. That’s not what God looks at. It doesn’t help. What matters is whether you accepted the sacrifice. It’s not about what you’ve done, because the evil you do is expunged from your record when you receive salvation.

There are reformed pedophiles in heaven, but Mother Teresa, who spoke against faith, may be in hell.

I am not a mushy person who cries at movies, but last night it disturbed me to think of the problems unbelievers are headed for. I felt the sorrow of the Holy Spirit. For a minute, I held my head in my hands and thought about the future of those who won’t listen.

It can’t be repeated often enough: hell is not for “bad” people. It’s for people who don’t listen.

Heaven is for bad people. Jesus was crucified for bad people. If people had been good, he would have had no reason to be crucified, so he would not have done it.

Heaven is for bad people because there is no other kind of person.

If it weren’t for bad people, heaven would be empty except for God, the angels, and people who either died before they could sin or had some issue that made it unreasonable to require them to accept Jesus. It would be full of aborted children, the retarded, and people who lived on secluded islands or in rain forests.

There are a lot of Christians out there who are in danger of hell. I’ve known plenty of Christians who lived in fornication even while serving at church. They thought it was okay to live with people they weren’t married to. I’ve known Christians who used drugs. The world is full of Christians who participate in other religions, such as astrology, fortune-telling, and yoga. I wonder what will happen to them.

I saw a testimony from a Christian who claimed she had visited hell. She said God had told her she was going there because she lived with her boyfriend. How many Christians would believe that today?

There was a young lady who used to sing at my last church. She was single. She had a baby. Okay; I could accept that. People who choose to fornicate repent, as I did. Sometimes people have children in marriage, and then they end up single. No problem. And it was good that she didn’t have her baby killed.

Then another baby popped up. I thought maybe she had slipped. Then she came in with a third one. I was only there for three years, so she was maintaining a high level of production. I can’t even guess how many kids she has now.

The pastor had no problem with putting her on the stage as a corrupting example, because he liked her voice. She must have thought she was doing fine, but she was continuing in a major sin, knowingly and without coercion, without repentance.

God forgives just about anything, but you’re supposed to repent. You can’t go to Jesus and say, “I plan to visit a prostitute this evening, so could you go ahead and forgive me now?”

We’re so terrified of “judging” that many of us have decided anything goes. That’s not how it works. For example, you can be a homosexual and be forgiven, but you can’t get saved, marry another homosexual, and then expect God to tolerate it.

Wrong is still wrong.

I keep seeing people on Youtube, talking about their recent rapture dreams. It’s shocking how many people are dreaming of the rapture. It happened to me in 2016, and now there is a wave of others who have had the same experience.

When I think of the way technology is destroying free will, the astounding filthiness of modern culture, and the tide of rapture dreams, I feel that time is very, very short, and only a small percentage of Christians are ready.

Missing the rapture is a big deal. You will have to live on a planet that isn’t protected by the prayers and presence of God’s children. The terrible things God keeps away from the world today will be released. Plagues that used to go away will rage without hindrance. Meteors that used to miss the earth will land here. Storms that would have missed major cities will strike them and rest over them. And if you profess faith in God, you will be executed.

This is all bad, but there is more to think about. If you’re not fit for the rapture, how can you think you’re fit to be saved when you die? It doesn’t make sense.

Many preachers teach people that all you have to do to be saved is to raise your hand and ask, and Christians like to believe it, because it means they can go on enjoying sin. It’s a very dangerous teaching. You’re supposed to change. The word says you’re supposed to become the righteousness of God. Should you really expect God to reach down into your bedroom and lift you off the earth while you’re lying in bed with your girlfriend, smoking a joint, and playing a violent video game?

We should be looking for ways to do a lot for God, but instead, we keep trying to find out how little we can do and still avoid hell.

Jesus said very clearly that we would not see him coming. He said he would return at a time when we did not expect it. That means we will not know when it’s coming. Any human being who tries to pin down the date will be wrong. But he did tell us there would be signs to tell us when the end was near. We keep seeing those signs.

What does “near” mean to God? To me, it would mean a year or less, but I’m just a man. For all I know, to God, “near” means a century from now. But with the end of free will approaching quickly, it’s hard to believe we will be waiting that long.

We shouldn’t be trying to guess the date so we can sin until the previous week. We should live as though he were coming this afternoon. Living for God is always the right thing to do. You shouldn’t have to be motivated by a crisis.

It’s a weird time to be alive. One way or the other, it will be a relief to see things reach a resolution.

I have to go get a turkey and a ham now. Friends are coming for Thanksgiving. I don’t want to cook at all, but I can’t stand the thought of a lame turkey with bones in it, so I’m going to bone and stuff a bird. My friends have agreed to supply the rest of the food. They’re planning to go to Cracker Barrel for it. I’m all for that.

There was a time when I would have rebelled at the thought of eating restaurant food on a holiday, but those days are done. I am somewhat tempted to abandon the turkey project, if the truth be told. Even without side dishes, the turkey will be a two-day effort.

I’m so tired of cooking and cleaning, I don’t look forward to the food.

I think we make too much of holidays. I know I’ve written about that before. People go into debt on Christmas. That’s ridiculous. We celebrate the birth of the one who told us not to borrow…by borrowing. Holiday meals are also over the top.

When my dad was alive, I had to cook a ton of stuff. He insisted on cranberry sauce, which is sad and inferior compared to relish, and he demanded oyster dressing, which is, quite simply, disgusting. I always made sauce, relish, oyster dressing, and normal dressing. Then there were the other dishes. Yams, potatoes, beans, two kinds of pie…it’s just too much.

I can’t understand why anyone would put nasty canned oysters in dressing. Why not toss a few slugs in there while you’re at it?

Maybe it tastes great, but I can’t get past the smell.

I have been asked to fix a sweet potato pie. I have no idea how to do that. I figure it’s a pumpkin pie made with yams. I think I’ll just crank out two pecan pies instead. They’re much better, and the preparation time is only a few minutes.

Someone asked me to make a sweet potato pie a few years back. They had invited me and my dad to Thanksgiving dinner, so I was happy to do it. I told them I didn’t know how to do it, but they were okay with that. I substituted yams in a pumpkin pie recipe, and everyone was happy.

Here’s something you need to know, if you can’t cook. When you know a good cook, and you want them to fix something for you, you do NOT ask for something they’ve never cooked. They’ll just open a cookbook and use someone else’s bad recipe. Being a good cook doesn’t mean you can cook anything anyone wants, on demand. It means you can cook certain things you’re familiar with.

I knew a professional chef who collected cookbooks. She was willing to cook anything on a one-off basis. It generally did not work well. It all depended on which recipe she used. She didn’t write recipes, so when she needed a dish, she just cracked a book. Most cookbooks are bad. When she happened, by chance, to find a good recipe, she did okay, but she couldn’t hit the gong consistently.

Make me work out of cookbooks, and you will get similar results.

The sweet potato pie I made was not good. It was sort of okay.

A good cook isn’t someone who can take a cookbook, follow it precisely, and make good food. A good cook writes or improves recipes. You can also fake being a good cook by collecting proven recipes.

I look forward to seeing my friends. That will be great. The food, I could not care less about. When I think of big meals, I think of dirty dishes and trips to the dump. I picture myself in the kitchen, alone, at 10 p.m., with a pot in one hand and a brush in the other.

The best holiday meal, to avoid hard work, is prime rib. You only use two things: a roasting pan and a serving platter. You salt and season the meat, roast it at 200° until it’s around 95° inside, remove the foil, crank the heat to 500°, and brown it. Done. Cleaning up after prime rib is easy. Of course, many people I know will not eat properly cooked beef, so prime rib can be a problem.

Women, especially, tend to reject beef unless you ruin it by serving it well done. When I used to give my dad prime rib, I had to put his perfectly prepared serving in the microwave and ruin it first. If you only eat beef well done, you might as well buy the cheap stuff, because you have the palate of a terrier.

I don’t care much about food any more. I don’t know anyone who can cook well enough to make me happy. I don’t know of any restaurant that prepares food that compares to my own. I am tired of doing dishes and cleaning the stove. It’s hard to get excited about a turkey.

Today I’m roasting a chicken because I could not think of anything else I wanted badly enough to work on. Throw it in the oven with seasonings and vegetables, take it out three hours later…done. Good enough.

We should really abolish mandatory holiday meals. It’s so much better when you can share a meal whenever you want, just because you want to. Making giant holiday meals and splurging on Christmas gifts is like going to homeless shelters to feed people on Thanksgiving and Christmas. If you’ve been a jerk all year, go ahead and ruin your holiday, because you deserve it, but we should be charitable all year long.

I wonder how people who run homeless shelters feel about folks who drop by to hand out food on holidays. I can guess. They resent them for not showing up the other 364 days of the year. It’s like going to church on Easter and Christmas to make up for backsliding. You just make the volunteers mad and jam up the parking lot. And those awful hats. No one can see around them.

Okay, okay. I will be grateful. I have wonderful friends. I have a beautiful house in which to host the meal. I can afford good food. I will work on my attitude. I really will.

I have to get up. The turkey and ham aren’t going to buy themselves.