Christian

Are we puppets without strings?

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A puppet is something that has no will of its own. It has no control over its actions. It cannot make choices nor can it change what is happening to it. There are those that think that this is how Christianity is at time. A group that mindlessly people that go about following rules not thinking, not changing our minds.
This is the furthest thing from the truth in most cases. Sure there are always those that go about in this world needing to have their hand held and to be told exactly what to do and how to act. In my personal experiences with people of all believes, faiths and lack thereof I have found that we are all exactly the same. There are those that think. Those that over think. Those that refuse to think, and those that do need to be led around like dog on a leash. Now don’t get me wrong dog lovers. I know for a fact having been a dog own that there are smart dogs and some downright stupid dogs. It is this latter version I am referring.
I believe all have the ability to learn and make an inform choice. I also believe that there are those that are religious and non-religious that wish to make it where no one can get all the facts. Note I did not say Christian and non-Christian. To me there are many in religion that are not Christian. To me they are closer to puppets or even someone that wants to be the puppet master.
Those that wish to be the puppet masters live for and within power. A true leader according to the Bible is someone that places all others before themselves. Puppet masters think only of themselves and how to increase their power by making it so those they wish to have as their puppets loss more and the ability to make an inform decision.
A prime example is those that are making it so that the symbols of Christianity and other religions are removed from public places. Their desire to remove God from the United States, the second nation to be form under God. The foundations of the laws for this nation were created by William Penn, a Quaker, for the Pennsylvania colony and then used to make the Constitution. What they do not realize is as they remove God from the U.S. they are removing their ability to be free. They strife to make themselves the puppet masters but in reality they are turning themselves into puppets.
All people must be given insight into all knowledge. The must have the ability to read religious material as well as material that counters it, but they must also be taught how to analyze what they learn.
I believe in God, but I am not a Creationist because I have studied the sciences. I don’t believe in Darwinism because I have read the Bible. To me the science that is presented to the world is flawed and corrupted by those that wish to remove God from all equations. Doing so makes some scientific theories look like the biggest joke I have ever been told and makes those that follow it blindly into puppets.
The main thing about scientific theory is the word “theory.” Global warming is nothing but a theory. There is no scientific facts to support it. In fact if they truly use fact they will look back throughout history and see that the weather goes through cycles of several warm years then several cold years. I remember be taught in school of the SECOND ice age. This states clearly that there was a first ice age and then there was a warm time in-between. All this was taught as proven scientific fact not theory, because it was fact and proven. Now they wish the world to believe without question that a theory is fact which is totally opposite what science is meant to do. To me those that go around screaming ”the world is burning, the world is burning!” Are in reality saying “the world is flat, the world is flat!”
To me science proves there is a God and that God created the entire universe. A universe that is so vast that the earth is less than a grain of sand within it. In fact I recently read an article in which they have identified the shock waves of the Big Bang, which to me is the moment when God did create the universe.
I have found that science is flawed, while the Bible is not flawed. My example is the Grand Canyon. Most scientist state it was formed over time by the Colorado River. More recently I watched a Nova episode where it stated it was formed by an ice dam that broke and formed it quickly. This is something I have felt was truer since it never made any logical sense to me since it eroded centuries of built up layers of earth in the exact some amount of time they state it took to erode this earth that should have been forming at the exact same time. So to me the ice dam theory is more factual.
Therefore all should be given an education that will allow them to make an inform decision. One that has all the facts not a select group of facts for when you remove facts all that is left is a lie. This then can cause people to become puppets without strings.

The dream that changed my life

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I was eighteen or nineteen at the time I had the dream that would change my life. It started me back down the right path in me even though I would not fully regain that path for another seven or eight years.
For the first time, since I was nine I had picked up the Bible and started to read it once again. When I finally fell asleep that night I encountered events I did not expect. I appeared before the throne of God that was so bright all I can say is that God sat upon it, but I could not get any details due to the extreme light. What words were said here are beyond me now to remember, but I do know that an angel appeared in front of God and was looking at myself and all the others that were with me. He was large and glowed but nowhere near the intensity coming from the throne, also no wings.
What I can say is that those with me and myself were given a task and in a blink I was gone from the presence of the Almighty and was floating in space above a planet. Darkness was all about save for the light coming from a sun. I leaned forward and began to fly down to the planet then over its barren surface as those that were just with me a few moments before God were doing the same.
With just a thought and an action from my hands the surface of the world changed into that of a living and habitable world.
Then I heard words, but these words I do remember unlike the ones from before the throne of God.
“Serve Me and this you can do as My servant.”
After I returned to God and accepted His Son Jesus as my Savior, I had other dreams as well, but none placed me before the throne of God ever again.

Is your church a place to glorify God or those within it?

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One thing I hated about High School was what they called “Clicks” in my time. I do not know what they are called nowadays, but a “click” was a group of teens that only associate with those of the same group. The “jocks” with the “jocks;” the smokers with the smokers; the druggies with the druggies.
I never fit into any of these and so was an outsider. This allowed me a unique perspective on things though. Sometimes I thought on it sometimes I did not.
This look from the outside view has allowed me to look upon religious organizations in the same light. It is a light I feel most of these groups would not like if more had such insight.
What I find most interesting is that Christianity has survived so long. However, I can say this without doubt, the very fact that it has is prove of God, for if it was something made of man it would have fallen long ago like many countries; for example Rome and the Soviet Union.
Religious organizations in my eyes take advantage of those that find God. In the time of Jesus, what made him the most upset was the religious organization of the time. He scolded the Pharisees and in the letters of the apostles there is references to rituals being made by men and not by God.
Jesus only gave us one ceremony, which was done on Passover, the taking of bread as a symbol of His Body and wine a symbol of His Blood. Men make all other ceremonies and rituals. So why do them?
Jesus did state that when two or more gather in His name, he will be there, but that does not say gather and perform ceremonies. Why? Because to Him this gave way for men to attempt to glorify themselves, be they at the front of the church or sitting in the pews.
That is why when I look at some “churches” especially the larger ones I have been to I see the “click” system in full swing.
I come into a church as an outsider seeking a place to call home in the sight of God and I am ignored. After several visits, I try to become a part of the “church” and since I do not dress a certain way or say the right things I am politely pushed aside, so I leave in search of a new place.
This is how many of those in today’s churches behave.
It is this behavior why many especially the youth seek other places to find that hole in the soul. It is a hole that is in all of us since we can only be whole through Jesus, but is Jesus present in these “churches” I have described? Maybe, to a degree, but I personally doubt it.
The church I attend now is small. At the max, there are thirty people in the Sunday service. Do I feel the presents of God there? Yes. Do I feel welcomed? Yes. Do I feel I can be a part of this church? Yes.
Why? Because all are there to worship God and His Son Jesus.
We are not there to be in a social club. We are not there to make ourselves feel that we are better than those outside. Many “click churches” say all the right things to make those that sit in the pews feel that they are better and separate from the world. Nevertheless, we are not. We still sin; we will always sin until we are dead or taken into the sky and given our immortal and incorruptible body. Until then we are corrupt. The only true difference in us is that we know this. We accept it and try to change it, but we know we cannot change it by ourselves. We turn to Jesus who died for our sins upon the cross. To be hung upon a tree or cross is considered a simple of the most deplorable of crimes. This was why Jesus was amongst us. To learn what it was to be human. To know what goes through our minds, but He being the Son of God did not give into the temptations that we go through every single day of our lives. We falter, we fall, and we give in, because we are human. Through Jesus’ actions, we can overcome this. When we fall, He is there to pick us up, brush away the dirt, and call us clean once again until we falter once more. Hopefully not for the same sin, and He is there once again. He wants us to learn and grow in our faith and believes. To honor Him by doing what He taught us while He was amongst us.
Therefore, the next time you are at church. Look about you. Is there a woman saying to another woman “I like your hat.” Is there a group that stands in the center of the entry not allowing other to get by? Is there a group of people talking about others within the church in a derogatory manner with their head turned in such a way that they are trying not to be heard yet eye the person they a talking bad about? Then this is not a church, but a social club.
We are to meet together to praise, worship and give glory unto God. How can those that call themselves Christian be able to spread the glory and love of God if all they care about is their own little world. The church is to be for the entire community, not just those that attend their particular social club.
We are to serve the community in whole. We are to honor God through service to others. Acts of selfishness and self-glorification does nothing for God and show those that do act in this fashion for what they truly are. Someone who has lost his or her way from God if they ever truly found Him.

Revelation Chapter 3
16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

Life— the free trail at eternity.

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We are promised in the Bible that when the time comes we will be called up to be with the Lord forever. We will have the body that is corruptible to be replaced with an incorruptible and immortal body.
This life is nothing more than a trial period to see how we handle the use of our Life. Like any trial offers you look to see if the product is to your liking.
It is also to see if you will care for the product.
Like all products there are certain rules and stipulations that need to be followed. If you do not follow them than when you return the product damaged you will have to pay for the damage caused to it.
This is what we are told will take place. In Revelation chapter 20 the user’s manual of our life will be examined and if damage was done and occurred to our life then we have to pay for the damage done to it at that time.
For those that took good care of their life they shall be rewarded with a life that will last for billions of years.
Do the laws laid down in Genesis, Exodus and Deuteronomy apply as the “rules and stipulations”. I would say yes. Since Jesus stated he was not there to replace the law, but to fulfill it.
Throughout the centuries certain acts were open and exposed to the world. In the last one hundred or so years many of these behaviors have been covered and hidden away. Now these deeds are returning to being exposed once again. Many decry their return from behind locked doors and whispers. I do not. I feel that if you wish to choose the fate of your life. Do so in the light of day. Allow all to know what you choose.
We are also told not to judge, for by the very standard we judge others so shall we be judged. What we are told to do is to pray for those that choose the life of sin. Teach them what is right. Allow them the opportunity to repent if they so choose. Love them as a brother or sister, for that is what they are.
As long as we try to instruct them, our fellow humans, on how to use the user’s manual then some will decide to treat their life correctly. Then when the time comes they will be able to get their new life. A life that will last beyond all time. A life that will allow them to witness all the wonders of the universe. A universe created by God.

Hit a rough patch

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Hit a rough patch today. Listening to my Christian music station at the moment trying to get my mind around the events of today. Trying to wrap it all up and hand it over to God. This is one of those things I have not quite figured out how to do though.
Last year I was so overwhelmed with so much turmoil that I nearly never stopped saying the Lord’s pray over and over. The Lord brought me though that and I give Him all glory and praise for that.
Last year is not this year. Today is not yesterday.
Just writing this is allow me to get my mind back on the right track.
Each day is different. Each day has different trials. Some you can face alone due to past trials that God has placed you through. But there are times when the weight of several events in one day just seem to hit you all at once. That is now, that is today.
Again and again I repeat “Praise you Lord God, Praise you Lord Jesus.”
It is a familiar place that I have been to be for and here I sit typing. I survived those past events. I will survive this event until the Lord decides it is time for me not to be here or the rapture occurs.
“All Praise and Glory unto God the Lord Almighty. The creator of the universe.”

Confessions of a screwed up middle-aged man

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What is it to love a woman? What are the factors that cause you to choose one person from another? I have cared for several girls and women since I first realized I liked the opposite sex. How old was I? Four?
The first girl I cared for was in Great Falls, Montana. Her name was Wendy. She was a brunette and she had blue eyes. She was rather beautiful to a five your old boy, but then she was five herself.
My first full-blown crush was when I was fourteen. Her name was Sue. I was extremely awkward. I did not know how to act at all at that age. I was shy beyond all measure because of my gawkiness. I do remember dancing with her. She had long brown hair and dark brown eyes. She had one of the sweetest personalities, but due to my ungainliness, possibly I was not her type. Therefore, it was an unrequited encounter.
As I look back on my relationships, I come to the uncomfortable realization. I have loved the women in my live more than they have loved me. How can I say this? My first wife chose to look for older men then stay married to me. My second wife admitted to me that she tricked me into marrying her and that she did not love me. Was I naive? I guess so.
In a way, I feel I deserve to be without a woman in my life. My first wife I met in my years when God was not in my life. That did not happen until six years later. Of all the women in my life, I miss her the most. Mainly because she left me not the other way around like in my second marriage.
One thing I need to learn to do, and apparently have not is place this in God’s hand. I know due to free-will we must make some effort in relationships on our own, but still I feel I should be praying more before I act.
Only time will tell. One thing is for sure. I do not want to spend the next billion years without someone by my side. There will be so many adventures in that time. So many wonders to see and I want to be able to share them.

Growing faith

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A recurring theme throughout my life has been the desire to respect others. Sure, some parts of my personality can be a thorn to some, but who amongst us can say that is not true for any person. In my early teens, I allowed my peers to turn my heart to hardness. This lasted until I was in my mid-twenties. One thing that I know marked these years was the mere fact that I had become selfish and self-serving.
When I became born again at twenty-six the man, what I should have been came back into existence. A man that God knew and recognized. (See my post “Overwhelming sin” to understand what I meant by this statement). The man returned to what the boy I had been before I allowed my peers to turn me into what I had become in the dark years.
I learned to give into my desires and wants in those years. I allowed myself to listen to only myself. Not caring if I hurt people. Many of these people were girls and women, especially when I turned eighteen.
Regret is one thing that has crossed my mind more than once over the last quarter of a century plus. Sometimes this regret causes me to do things that help others. Then there are times this regret has made me avoid situations out of fear they may be a repeat of something from my past that I do not wish to go through again. I feel these regrets are due to me trying to think of others before myself.
Too many times in the Bible we are told be humble, placing others before ourselves. The emphasis is too poignant that true faith requires humility, thus selflessness. When you are selfish, you are not acting for God. When thinking of your own desires no matter how little or big you have placed yourself before others.
I really think it is in all of us to be humble. I know I was humble when I was a child and had forgotten it due to pain and humiliation. How I returned to it is where free-will comes into play. I felt wrong from my behavior. I felt more guilt as I became more selfish. I do not know if others experience this and hide it, but it allowed me to face myself and realize this is not what God wanted for me or us for that matter. So I chose through the act of free-will to return to what I was taught in my youth.
I know I am not perfect. No human can ever be perfect. I know I have overcome sins that would have turned me into someone other then what I am. I know not only that it was God, but an inner strength that has allowed me to grow into the man I am today. Where did I get this inner strength? From my trials I have face throughout my life. Without these trials, I feel I would in no way be the man I am today.
All I do know is that the man that types these words today is in fact someone who deserves to be call a man, since there is a difference between being male and being a man. It is by God and for God that I am here, and I praise Him for that.

The eternal body

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What will it be like having a body that will last for all eternity? That is one of those questions that occur to me every once in a while. What will it be like? I know it will not be overweight, that I have no doubt. I know there will be no need for glasses. To live for millions of years will be interesting. Will we be able to travel throughout the universe with just a thought and suddenly we are there? That is one of those things we will have to see.
There are those that believe that the human race can in time reach the next evolutionary step, which can include an eternal body. Many of these though do not want to reach this next step through God.
The thing is it is promised to us already. Long before many even theorized the concept of the next evolutionary step is was already promised to us in a book many would deny is the truth. Even those in the church call the book of Revelation just a story.
I remember that day like it was yesterday, but I know I was nineteen at the time. I decided to go to a church that had been built directly behind my parents’ house where I still lived at the time. I will not mention which denomination. As I sat in the pew and joined in the service I wondered if I could make this my church home. Then the minister finally started to talk. The first thing out of his mouth was that Revelation was a fairy tale. I was dumbfounded. He went on to tell all those there that it was just a story filled with things can cannot happen. It is true that the event within the book of Revelation may not have happened yet, but I know the difference between fiction and prophesy.
The Bible has many prophesies. All that deal with events in the past have come true. Is there evidence that the prophesies in Revelation are starting to happen? Yes.
This then leads to those that desire for the day when we will receive our undying bodies. Bodies promised to us in the book of Revelation. Bodies that will be upon the new earth for all eternity, but there are those like me that desire to travel throughout God’s vast creation of the universe. Serving the Lord in His immense creation that is beyond measure.

The ongoing rebirth of the Church

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Since Jesus made Paul his thirteen disciple, we have witnessed more than once the rebirth of the Church. Sometime it changed by the simple posting of doctrines on a door. Other times with blood being shed.
This was not the promise to Israel though. They have been promised to be the first children of God and so they have not had to go through a true rebirth. Have they been through trial? Yes, and many would say they still are.
Since we Christians have been given the blessing of becoming the thirteen tribe of God. The true essence of free will has been reinstated.
Within Revelation in the second and third chapters are letters to seven churches. Each reflects the acts of free will and their results. Be they good or bad.
This is why the Christian church as a whole has gone through these rebirths. Now we can learn from the trials of Israel. Within this nation, there have been intercession. Usually by their leader or prophet. We within the Christian church have those that have intervened. For example Martin Luther. He intervened due to the corruption within the Catholic Church and as a result, the church was reborn, once again focused on God and His Word. This rebirth is seen in Israel as well, but it is not manifested as highly as it has been for those of the Christian faith.
It is now once again time for rebirth with in the Christian church on whole. We have pedophiles hidden and protected within the Catholic Church. We have churches that support same sex marriage, abortion and greed. Many teach that we are too seek reward from God now. That God is our servant not the other way around. Many just sit by waiting for someone to say something. Mostly though when someone does say something they are ignored and called troublemakers. Seems I have heard many in the Old Testament called the same.
It is now that there is a need for a rebirth of the Church. Once again, we need to return our focus unto God and His Word. Stop burying your heads in the sand as the world falls to those that do not follow the way of the light. It is now that we must shout our faith and stand for the teachings within the Bible

Have we forgotten this one?

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One of the big things that the government is pushing is taking from those that have and giving to all those that do not. Is this this the right way to do thing? There are those that would scream yes. There are those that would scream no.
Here is how it should be looked at. You go to what you should have been taught as you grew up as I was. There is the last commandment that states: though shalt not covet.
To desire that which is not yours is what the government is telling many they must do. In the Bible in both Exodus and Deuteronomy it is spelled out in even more detail.
Deut. 5:21 Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour’s wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour’s house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbour’s.
To want what belongs to someone else you are coveting it. From the wife to the property and their money.
As someone once commented in another of my post this would be considered a law that is subjective. A law made by humans to satisfy a human’s desires.
When humankind thinks only of humankind then laws are made that do not truly value humankind. Man is by nature selfish and self-serving. Many may argue this point, but if you look about you at this very moment and truly look at how these rules and regulations are causing what was once a great nation and turning it into at best a second class nation.
I grew up in the cold war. I practice drills in school that made you get under your school desk to protect you from first a nuclear bomb and then tornadoes. An act especially for the former that was a futile gesture to give children some sense of safety that didn’t truly exist.
I watched the news where it showed the U.S.S.R. a country that “prided” itself for giving to all their citizens equally. For that was the true meaning of Socialism. What I saw on the news was lines of the common citizens of the nation. (By the way, we are common citizens.) What were they in line for you ask? They were standing in line to get rationed out food. Rationed out cloth to make clothes.
Simply, men in power had made laws. Laws which took from the common people and gave it not to those that were in need, but to themselves. These laws were subjective laws. These are the laws that are now being placed upon those of the United States.
Laws that are made, which cause people to think beyond their own selfishness and desires, are laws which are written by people who are thinking about something higher than humankind. They are thinking of what lies beyond this life on earth. These laws would be considered inherently good law. These are the laws this nation was founded upon. Laws that were first formulated by William Penn for the colony of Pennsylvania. William Penn who was a Quaker.
He once stated:
“Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants.”
To be governed by God; Laws must be written not with humans as the goal of the law, but with God as the goal of the law. Those laws are inherently good for God is good. They are not subjective laws since placing God at the core of the law human influence is removed for the most part.
If one thinks: will this allow me to stand before God or not. It is then that the law will be formulated in the correct light that allows it to be equal and beneficial to all. It does this because it shows we are all equal under God, even if you do not believe there is a God you are still considered equal. When those that say there is no God rule, then the opposite will occur and all that is left is war, famine, and destruction.