Tag Archives: Jesus Christ

Wanting to Believe Makes the Difference

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A lot of folks don’t claim to be spiritual, so one might consider it a waste of time to do posts about Jesus Christ, but I’m beginning to realize that people who don’t know about Jesus are more likely to pay attention to the conversation than those who’ve heard of Him but allow the behavior of hypocrites to influence their opinions, about religion in general, but more specifically, Christianity. This is especially applicable to people who insist on following after the ways of this world.

For a lot of people, the antics of charlatans who, in the name of Christ, set about amassing personal wealth and worldly possessions, has negatively influenced their regard for the spiritual which has a bearing on the fate of their eternal souls. After seeing the sacrilegious behavior of some of the “evangelists” in business today, it’s hard to blame someone who hasn’t experienced first-hand the providence of God if they reject religion outright, but there are other ways to seek Him. In fact, this post has set out to proffer a different view altogether from that which some have become accustomed.

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The Almighty God has given us a lot of choices, a lot of forks in the road on this journey we have before us, but one thing that gets overlooked regarding the choices we make is that we are allowed to believe what we want to believe. God gave us, as human beings, the freedom to believe what we will – it is an inalienable right – we believe what we WANT to believe, and disregard that which choose not to believe. That said, whatever choice we might make to believe a thing does not in any way make that thing correct, nor does it make a given belief false, that is beyond the scope of this conversation. We can truly believe the highway ahead is straight and decide to drive 100 miles per hour, but there may be a right-angle turn ahead that we can’t see, so although we are allowed to believe it’s straight, the curve we fly into proves our belief was wrong – the point is that we were allowed to believe what we did, regardless of the veracity of the belief.

In the same vein, we are allowed to believe that God doesn’t exist if that’s what we want to believe. The important thing is that it’s what we want to believe. A person cannot get away with, “Well, I wanted to believe in Jesus, but there just wasn’t enough evidence.” This person did not want to believe at all – the allure of the lusts of the world established in his heart that he did not want to believe, otherwise he’d have to change his lifestyle and become the righteous person Jesus expects His followers to be. If he had truly wanted to believe in Jesus, he could have – as mentioned earlier, God allows us, and has wired us, to be able to believe what we want to believe.

The evidence for God’s existence is at a nominal glance, a reasonable expectation for the rational mind to be able to accept that He is real, but the absence of it is too often used as a justification for not wanting to believe. If we choose to look into the covenant that Jesus has given us, however, we find that essential requirement that God demands, faith, must be exercised in order to find Him. Therefore, if there was evidence of God’s existence, we wouldn’t need faith to believe in Him. So what comes first, faith or desire to believe? I believe it is the “want to”, because when we stand before the judgement seat, we won’t be able to claim we didn’t believe because there was no evidence – if we come to that unenviable point as unbelievers, it is because we wanted to be unbelievers, and God allowed us to be so.

So, if I’m a person who has just stepped into the world and have heard there is a God, what is my motivation for wanting to know more about Him? There’s a reference book that’s several thousand years old that explains what we can expect in the hereafter, after we die, a subject of great interest, which incidentally isn’t understood or explained anywhere else. We live our lives here on earth and watch people die over and over again, never hearing from them anymore, and the staunchest atheists, who practically demand that you don’t believe in God, can’t give you any hint of what happened to them, A big problem for people in this world today is that there are more and more unbelievers, and in our interminable efforts to be like everyone else, we reject the only Truth out there. That person who seeks understanding can listen to the prophets who came before, he can listen to old bloggers on the internet, he can listen to the words of Jesus Christ Himself, but the key to all of this is that he first must want to know the truth. If he wants to believe, God made him so that he can. The first step in the right direction is to decide that believing in Jesus is what you want to do, then let Him do His work. There will come a point where you understand in your heart that you made the correct choice.

The truth of the matter is this: We shall all, each and every soul who has ever lived on this earth, come before the judgement of Jesus Christ. Does our disbelief condemn our souls so that we will hear Him say, “‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”? That ensuing departure from the everlasting glory of His presence will be the most unimaginably painful, heart-wrenching event to ever be endured by a human soul. Or conversely, will He tell us, [Matthew 25:34] “‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. “? I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m opting for the latter!

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Blessings to all,

MK

A Hopeful Climate of Peace to Come

We got some much-needed rain here in the holler yesterday and last night. Heavy storms around midnight and thunder kept going till the early morning hours. Maybe saying “much needed” is an exaggeration because we’ve actually had a nice, lush spring and summer and we’ve only been low on rain for a few weeks. This old farmhouse needs some work too, because the mud room is starting to flood when we get that kind of downpour, but our situation is not nearly as bad as some places in the world that are getting devastating floods.

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Flooding in Africa

The weather is changing everywhere, and it seems like wherever you look, someone has a perfectly reasonable explanation for it. There is undoubtedly some kind of climate change(s) going on, but whenever someone’s theory as to why it’s happening gets into politics, the theory becomes suspect – at least to me. For instance, there’s a sizeable movement that wants to declare war on fossil fuels because they see the increase in CO2 as coming from mankind burning too much of it. Then among the most ardent opposition to that turns out to be folks from the oil and coal producing entities. I’m not going to get into that fight, because I don’t know the particulars, and from so much suspect motivation for their positions, it’s hard to believe that anybody else does either.

The most compelling argument concerning fossil fuels is that they are responsible for way too much death and destruction from peoples and nations fighting over them. Most of the wars and hatred stirred up for the last several decades have been because of the wealth that stands to be obtained over the control of oil and natural gas, so when you take into account the ginormous pollution that occurs as a result of wars, then the dots could reasonably be connected from the burning of fossil fuels to the harm done to the climate.

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Is this what the Amazon will look like in a few years?

If someone from one of the excessively wise think tanks were to stand up and say, “Hey, you know what? If we shut down all the wars going on, we wouldn’t need to burn so much fuel for our tanks, jet planes, oil burning ships, and other military vehicles.” Maybe that kind of thinking could lead to, “Since we don’t need as much oil for wars, maybe humanity could stop throwing wars over oil.” Maybe then the oil used for killing each other could be reserved for agricultural equipment and nations blessed with good soil could set to trying to feed hungry people.

With those notions in mind, it might make more sense where the book of Revelation mentions as the seals are being opened where the voice in heaven says, [Revelation 6:6] And I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine.” Maybe that verse is talking about crude oil, I’m not sure, and it’s hard to understand how we can harm oil; maybe sinking tankers full of it. Maybe it is warning conquering armies to try and save oil fields and wine stocks when they capture enemy possessions as they enjoy their wars. At any rate, the two items mentioned, food and oil, are among the most fought-over commodities in today’s world.

We know from the scriptures that we will endure wars right up to the end of the world, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if humanity could find it within ourselves to figure out a way to stop killing each other? Of course, we cannot, and a prescient commenter reminded me recently that it’s because we do not struggle against flesh and blood, but other entities: [Ephesians 6:12] For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

If we were left to our own devices and if our struggle for survival was left to us as a species, who knows? Maybe we could figure out a way to exist peacefully, but we are being controlled by monstrous spiritual entities who will not allow us to go in that direction. We have access to Jesus Christ, who is perfectly able to defeat them and lead us in the direction of peace, but for some reason, most folks seem to enjoy lives of sin and debauchery so much that they ignore the One Who is able to save us, both from ourselves and the demons who control some. So, as with many other human defects, we kill each other over the wealth that comes from oil as one of the many lame reasons for our wars.

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Jesus said [Matthew 5:9] “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” I don’t know about the reader, but this old man considers being called a son of God to be the highest honor that can be bestowed on a human being, and we should strive to be regarded as such, hence this post espousing and encouraging peace. There are many organizations, people and groups who preach peace and try to make it happen. People with the opportunity to be called children of God.

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If a person is a stockholder in any of the multitude of “defense” industries and contractors who are vested in death and destruction, that person is the polar opposite of a peacemaker, and will be in no position to try and justify his financial ties to weapons of death on that Day when he has to give an account of himself before the Almighty God. [Hebrews 10:31] “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God”; and the greatest blessing that could come into that person’s life would be to understand what that fear will be like, now while he has a chance to repent and rectify his pursuits. In this day when the weapons from which you make money are being used to slaughter innocent children before your very eyes, you cannot say you didn’t know of the horrific travesty from which you were getting rich. From what we know about the justice of God, ignoring your future recompense ain’t going to make it go away.

As the sun comes out and the humidity monster begins to prowl in the Ozarks, we are reminded that August is in mid stride and the colorful, brisk world of autumn is still a few weeks out, but any time is a good time to consider where we stand with God. If a person chooses to ignore the events taking place in the world that are obvious and ominous signs of the impending end of things, then it’s all the more urgent they be stirred into seeking Jesus, the only One Who is able to bring them to victory over the evils of the times and bestow upon them an everlasting existence of unimaginable joy. For to those who are willing to believe, victory awaits, climate change or no.

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God bless all.

Mike K

Guard Against the Enemy’s Flanking Maneuver

The flanking maneuver is a time-tested technique on the battlefield. It has been successfully employed in many battles and if properly executed with ample surprise, is very effective in warfare. The surprise and deception of such a maneuver contributes immensely to its effectiveness. When an enemy is focused on an aspect of the battle, especially caught up in a head-on battlefront, he can be susceptible to defeat by surprise from unexpected directions and/or from undefended areas such as the flanks, or ends, of his columns. We can get so caught up in our abhorrence of in-your-face evil, we can get distracted from unexpected tactics, and our tendency to allow our anger to become hate is one that leaves us open to an insidious defeat if we aren’t careful.

The enemy has been around for a long, long time. He is wiser than us, but not wiser than our Master. Those who do not know or care to know the Creator, are destined to be a type of pawn of the enemy, even though they may consider themselves to be good, upright people. The enemy knows well that if people reject Jesus Christ that he already has a certain amount of control over them, it’s just a matter of how much of a toll he wants to exact on them in the meanwhile and creating situations that foment hatred in decent people is just one of the many ways he does battle. As far as Christians are concerned, one of our less defended areas may be our control, or lack thereof, of our anger.

For instance, we all see what’s going on in Gaza, and most of us rightfully are disgusted by the murder of innocent people. Now the kind of people who support the genocide going on over there are already in Satan’s firm control, so that’s a whole nuther issue, but this post addresses folks who are repulsed by it. The problem comes in for us when we allow ourselves to hate these people doing the murder who are so completely under the control of the enemy. That’s his plan – to use his servants to perform evil, but equally as important, to invoke hatred from onlookers, because even though we are totally against what they are doing, we fall into his trap by hating them for it. When that happens, he wins on both sides of the battle, he controls those who commit murder, and when otherwise good people see the gross injustice and unmerciful treatment and allow hatred into their hearts, he has them where he wants them as well. That’s why Jesus admonishes us to love our enemies, to prevent us from falling victim to Satan by allowing hatred into our hearts. This may well be one of the most difficult things to avoid, even for good people.

Satan has complete control of many very wealthy people here in our country, who in turn have gained control of the leadership through bribery and extortion with the riches Satan has entrusted to them. These “elite” servants of Satan are the same ones who own all of our media organizations. They also own Hollywood and have tremendous influence over the content of entertainment, thus are able to influence many who are unaware of the power that entertainment has over their world views. When people see filth and violence, they tend to believe that because so many people are entertained by such, it must be ok. Of course, the wealthy do not see themselves as such, but in the grand scheme, they are no more than simple pawns for Satan to use as he sees fit – and destroy when the time is right. Animosity towards them is growing steadily as more and more citizens come to realize the degree to which they are manipulated and propagandized. For now, suffice it to say, the wealthy elites mentioned here generally support the genocide of the Palestinians, so their influence over our politicians tends to make them support what’s going on as well.

These same wealthy people completely own all but a precious and exemplary few members of our government and its institutions, especially including the military. They decide who gets to run for president, and it’s well known by now that no one can become president of the United States without showing proper fealty to them. There are required demonstrations of obeisance for a presidential candidate in the US nowadays and we’ve seen them. The same fealty demonstrated through various other rituals, is to be expected from legislators and from the benches of this country as well.

It looks as though Satan’s plan is to allow some light to shine on these individuals so that everyone sees who’s behind the evil that is apace in our country and the world. A lot of this has been practiced behind the curtain up to now, but normal citizens, including Christians who let their guard down, are starting to see who’s behind the rampant evil. That in itself is a good thing, but the enemy intends to use that knowledge to our destruction by causing us to hate these people. His wealthy servants? Sure, they don’t give it any thought, but he’ll drop them like a hot potato when it suits his purpose even though they are smug for now in the deception of their master’s loyalty. A perfect example is the French revolution and what happened to the elites of that day. The revolution itself may have been successful, but the devil won out when Louis and Marie were executed, because that resulted from the hatred he fomented and the ensuing sinful violence it caused among the French peasantry.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that as Christians we have to be careful to stay above the fray and not allow ourselves to be sucked into the maelstrom of hatred and violence that is bound to happen as the servants of evil are revealed. When we do that, we unintentionally do the bidding of the evil one and allow him to win a carefully conceived battle he planned out long ago and is once again setting up right now. We can certainly – and have a Christian duty to – disapprove of the evil that is going on, but we have to do it without falling into the trap of allowing hatred into our hearts, because when that happens, he wins both ways. Even though I firmly believe that Heaven will be an expansive place, nevertheless, there won’t be any room for hatred there.

Hate the sin but love the sinner. Pray for them – all of them, the oppressed, but just as importantly, the oppressors. It’s hard to do, but we have to give it our best shot, and with Jesus’ help we can prevail.

May God’s blessings find and keep us all in these trying times.

MK

The Final Day When Paupers Become Kings

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Today is Saturday, August 3, in the year of our Lord 2024 and things are shaping up to get really ugly in the Middle East – likely the whole world – as I write this post. The status of the world, though shocking to many, does not come as a surprise to Christians. We’ve long read about world events that are to come upon us in our Bibles. We know about most of the things that will take place because we believe the God-given prophecies of guys like Daniel, Ezekiel, and John, and if you haven’t read up on the things that are predicted, you should so you can get ready – it’s going to be quite the ride!

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When you decide to start checking into the events that are happening and are yet to happen you will undoubtedly encounter the undercurrent of it all which is the ongoing battle between the forces of good and evil – between God the Creator and His enemy Satan. There are way too many aspects of this enigmatic confrontation for any human still in the flesh to be able to comprehend. We cannot begin to enumerate nor understand all of the issues and their effects even though a lot of people, especially the charlatans that try to pass themselves off as preachers, would have you to believe they are able to. Suffice it to say there is an incomprehensible spiritual battle happening and like it or not, all of us – even those on this side of the void – are involved. We have to choose a side, and unfortunately most of humanity has already done so although many do not even realize they have. That’s where studying your Bible comes in.

Ignoring the words and the person of Jesus Christ is the same as opposing Him. Jesus Christ is the only Way we have out of this mess that the servants of evil have made of the world. There are many who claim to know how to confront Satan and his minions, but Jesus said that He is the ONLY way we can succeed, [John 14:6] “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one comes to the Father but through me.” There are many people who try to reach God, but if we believe Jesus is truthful, we must recognize His authority as the Son of God and follow Him to get where we need to go. Once we submit our hope to Him, we begin a journey that will lead us to an unimaginably joyful and indescribable victory. It will be the ultimate victory over the evil that today plagues this world, and in the end all of those servants of evil who seem to be so invincible now will actually be the servants of Jesus’ followers. According to this doctrine, Netanyahu, Dick Cheney, Jacob Rothschild and all of the evil figures who have seemed to be so untouchable, will be bowed at the feet of those who are for now, humble and innocent travelers, those who trust Jesus to bring justice upon all who practice iniquity today, for the servants of Jesus will inherit kingship in the reign of Christ.

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Imagine the shock and disappointment of those who would control the world today when they discover their whole earthly existences were no more than that of the grass of the field, and when they get to the Great Day of God’s judgement and see their master groveling before the True King. Those who wield the great swords of war, the dark and powerful weaponry that destroys nations, will be struck with fear and awe at the inimitable power of the real King when He appears in His unimaginable glory. In that moment they will realize the futility of their former allegiance to Satan, his wealth, his earthly control. If they had the mind to do so, they could look through those powerful telescopes and see great stars exploding, destroying everything in the millions of miles of space all around – that’s only a sample of the kind of power the Lord has. Their servitude to the evil one will all mean nothing, but those of us who have been faithful to our Lord Jesus will attain kingship and share His inheritance of all things.

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Just in case you haven’t noticed the world powers coalescing around the middle east and the open and unabashed slaughter of all those innocent people in Palestine, the warships congregating, and all the other portents of destruction and annihilation gathering like some dark cloud, you might want to open your eyes before it’s too late. It’s going to get really ugly, but when it’s all over, those who will be left standing will be our King Jesus Christ and His followers – and ONLY them. Everything He said would happen has either already happened or is happening now – that should be all the evidence we need to understand the Truth of what He says. Get on the right side of things before it’s too late. The clouds are rapidly closing in…

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God bless all.

MK