
today i was reading numbers 24 .
verses 17 and 18 seem to speak to me of Christs victory over satan .
it talks about a star coming out of jacob and a sceptre rising out of israel .
both this star and sceptre are said to crush the forehead of moab and break down the sons of sheth .
verse 18 speaks of one from jacob exercising dominion and destroying the survivors of cities
when scripture talks of Jesus destroying it means He permits destruction not that He enacts it .
we know that in the end Christ shall reign on the earth and He shall have victory over all the evil forces and individuals that come against HIm and attempt to exalt themselves above them.
those who humble themselves will be exalted and those who exalt themselves will be humbled .
i want to speak to you about a humbling experience i have had .
please dont make the same mistake i did.
when you love a woman please dont criticize her in public.
also think twice before you slag her off in private .
in expressing critical thoughts we must be careful not to condemn and dismiss all potential for redemption in others.
there are hills worth dying on and battles worth fighting and others causes which dont benefit anyone by getting involved in them .
i got a response to a friend request i sent to a woman who had blocked me on social media .
her reply was gracious to a certain degree but it also contained an unwillingness to make true peace .
if we only love with conditions or strings attached to our affection we cannot truly say we are exercising the holy kind of tenderness or loving in the truest essence of what love is .
i understand fully her reasons for not wanting to have anything to do with me and for only being civil and polite and attempting to control me by demanding my interactions with her be limited to offline ones only but as a fellow believer in Jesus she is supposed to walk in forgiveness just as Christ did when He subjected HIs arms and feet to be nailed to a beam for the sake of our redemption .
i am sure most of you wouldnt bother to hold their head in a fixed position to turn it in one direction and then force yourself not to move it but if you are considering doing so be warned it will cause your throat to be damaged so that you will only be able to swallow liquids not solids cos there will only be a tiny opening left in your throat as a result .
i may not agree with the way a woman is interpreting a song but i need to learn to keep my lips zipped and lock my opinion up behind them because it does neither of us any good for me to potentially make her feel horrible simply for choosing to show love to an artist by paying homage to them via what she recognizes as being the only form of a song she knows when she is unfamiliar with the original version and how it has been altered over time .
changes arent always bad but if you take away from a songs original meaning or dont express the entirety of the songs message just because you think its controversial and its controversy doesnt break the heart of God through blasphemy or inappropriate language then its erroneous thinking to mutate what never needed altering .
often i find myself being attacked by armies of wickedness when im in a low place in my spirit .
the pleasure the devil offers me ostensibly to take away my horrible feelings only cause me to feel worse cos i know i have upset my savior and creator with my sinful attitudes and compromising stances .
i go from a place where i dont want to have anything to do with any picture that suggests a hint of cleavage or the revelation of thighs to just mindlessly hearting pictures i know wreak havoc to my soul .
i dont want to cause my father to stumble by the pictures he catches me looking at on my computer when he walks behind me on his way to pick up some food off the kitchen counter .
he was eating raspberries last night when a most disgusting sight appeared before his eyes.
a black feather lay spreadeagled across his berries .
the offending berries were immediately rejected by my father which i then proceeded to eat .
i figured if i pray over my food i dont need to worry about it making me sick .
if i die i go to heaven so it doesnt matter if i get sick anyway .
just lately ive been going for walks with at least one member of my family every day.
i praise God for friends who have been used by God to keep me on the straight and narrow path .
i know if i had been paying attention to their messages i might not have stuck myself in a spiritual pickle this morning .
i know that christians shouldnt talk about any body parts that extend below the neck and in the case of those that are above the neck they should be cautious to make sure that they do not discuss the tangling of one tongue around another unless they are having discussions with their spouse or prospective fiance and such a topic is not the dominating trajectory of almost every conversation you have with them.
i know if i spend too much time looking at softcore pornography it makes it difficult for me to engage with women and see them as characters and personalities instead of sex objects .
i have never understood why some women like men pretending to choke them or why they like being dominated whipped spanked and prevented from moving by them .
i dont get why any guy would find this attractive either .
i know i should have been sensible and avoided talking to my friend about the meaninglessness of saying you have regards for someone when you want to pretend they dont exist or prevent them from contacting you every time you turn on the computer .
its stupid to block the ability of potentially wonderful friends from adding you and knowing when you are available to chill with them online simply because of one klutz who you were once fond of in the most platonic of senses .
we dont know when we might be preventing God from using the connections in our lives for HIs glory because of our stubbornness .
im amazed at how some people think they are in a good place with God when they have hearts that are full of bitterness .
you cant say you love God if you hate your president sultan emir king queen or prime minister .
you cant say you love God if you hate people of a particular ethnicity or those who identify themselves with a sexual preference that He disapproves of .
the sneaky thing about sin is the more we indulge in it the easier it becomes to make excuses for it .
those sins we once thought we would never condone in others suddenly become ones we consider looking the other way about cos we know that we ourselves have fallen short of the glory of God and we are so consumed by the fire of our own despicableness that we fail to see how God is able to use us in the midst of our struggle and how despite our mess He still wants to use us to point others in the right direction .
i received a compliment on my knowledge of religion .
as much as i appreciate that kind phrase i know i have so much to learn and so far to go before i am a true reflection of who God made me to be and before i am genuinely living out HIs destiny for my life in as authentic a way as possible .
some will go from the cradle to the grave believing all religions are the same .
even if we have told these people a million times before that Jesus is the only way to heaven we still need to say it a million more times because we never know when the truth will trickle through from their heads and drop in their hearts and they will awaken to the epiphany that Jesus is Lord and He is our only hope .
for some people the biggest challenge is believing God is real .
some may deny God is real but beneath the surface they know what they say isnt true and He most definitely is.
some of them have daddy or mummy issues .
the way we are treated by our fathers and mothers reflects the way we perceive God .
it can be said that we choose partners that are similar to our parents whether we intend to or not .
we may reject the church as an institution but we still believe in Jesus Christ .
we must be careful both in rejecting Jesus cos of the sins of HIs body the church and in choosing the equally ridiculous and misguided path some follow of rejecting the church but maintaining intimacy with the head of her body Christ .
as christians we are all threaded together in the body of Christ .
if one part of the body is sick the whole of the body is sick .
we all suffer together and we all rejoice together .
i pray for those churches and religious para church institutions in the united states of america that are under fire from atheists right now who are trying to use this global covid situation to turn the world against believers in Jesus .
some are trying to use the fact that hillsong was criminally negligent and somehow involved in the events which occurred on the cruise ship ruby princess where people spread sickness to turn eyes of animosity towards the church .
these same people would be the first to say that the salvation army or red cross or the blue nurses or rosies street teams are doing amazing things or the red frog people supplied by allens lollies are champions who deserve to be given their weight in gold .
some people only attack the church cos God is speaking to them through the sermons and songs and dances and art of the church and through its charitable donations its schools the hospitals it founded and the universities it formed and working HIs conviction on their hearts .
the devils that plague them are urging them to resist this conviction and take part in open warfare against it .
i often thought the devil was trying to break my neck when he causes my head to twist violently in one direction or another .
we are only a threat to the enemy if we engage in relentless opposition against him .
it is hard to understand the will of God .
my bud missy was talking to me about how sometimes God is obvious in the way He reveals HImself and His truth to us .
quite often we ignore what is plain as day and the noses stuck to our faces .
praise God vice president mike pence is doing his part to help out the churches in virginia .
virgina has faced lots of suffering after they dealt with a massacre at virginia tech .
i have a bud who studied there .
some massacres could have been prevented if those who committed them were treated in a more loving way .
one guy shot up people at a youth with a mission base after he asked for a bed for the night and he refused .
i am not saying his actions were justifiable just that there is a root behind every deplorable action .
sometimes there are things we can do to prevent evil from occurring .
perhaps if we try to be a little more understanding towards people they wont turn out to be so monstrous .
in the case of the columbine high school massacre there were christians cassie and rachel who reached out and showed love to the two boys who were fans of bowling and marilyn manson .
it wasnt the christians that were rejecting them but the devil compelled them to worship him by taking their hatred which they felt towards others out on the christians .
its interesting that they chose to target an african american as well .
perhaps this dude was the subject of their aggression because of all the african americans and those of african or caribbean or west indian ancestry out there who self identify as christian who comprise the majority of the worlds christian population .
it is wonderful to see how in developing countries where people have next to nothing there can often be found a great love for Christ .
this naturally is made evident in warm hearted smiles and hospitable behaviour towards strangers and even in the forgiveness towards enemies displayed by christians in nigeria after many christians were killed by muslims .
a vast amount of people in europe are being killed for their faith in Christ .
often the facts dont get reported because of the medias unwillingness to say anything negative about muslims and also because there is prejudice that exists against muslims so sometimes a christian might be killed by an anarchist and sometimes they might be killed by a muslim and often the facts dont get shared because someone might be prejudiced for or against muslims or anarchists or atheists who want to destroy the social order and replace it with a communist state or some hodge podge political creation of their own demented minds .
i thought the only book that hindus wrote was the mahabharata but apparently vishnu has a book dedicated to his demonic self too as well as the other demons they worship deliberately pretending they are gods or doing so out of ignorance .
numbers tells me that there is punishment by God for sinning out of ignorance that is why i must pray to cover those sins which i commit without knowing im committing them as well as the ones i know full well i have participated in .
often i criticize others for cussing or substitute swearing .
its better to use a substitute word instead of a swear word but penn and teller are right in standing in agreement with my friend sandy when she said that to say a substitute word for a swear has the same heart intent as if you say it out loud .
its better to keep that word shut up in your head where no human eye can see it and where no ears can snatch it and incorporate it into their own vocal or written output or psychic realm .
its more important for christians to stay away from soft or hardcore pornography or violent horrific movies full of monstrous villains which give glory to the devil than it is for them to pay attention to whether their stomachs are as big as a mansion or as small as a matchbox .
it is our spiritual condition that matters more than our physical one .
we can be morbidly obese and still be used by God to advance HIs kingdom .
He does want us to eat healthy .
diet and exercise are important but not the main thing we should be concerned about as believers .
there are christian filmmakers who have tackled horror themes and managed to bring the light out into our dark world .
some christians think its ok to swear in their movies to show context but there are ways we can express dissastisfaction or approval without taking the Lords name in vain or using dirty words .
it is a challenge for christian filmakers to express conflict in a realistic way without straying into the shadows and being absorbed by the world around us due to the urging of their contemporaries to be relevant and to maintain audience appeal .
if you talk to audience members in a cinema of any religious or so called non religious persuasion ( cos not having a religion is a religion in itself ) you will often find there is a longing within viewers for a presentation of the world that isnt dark and gloomy where suicide isnt glorified where people arent constantly being bombarded with cross dressers and homosexuals where people are loving to each other instead of hateful where people can make us laugh without showing portraying cruelty to others where every other word you hear out of somebodys mouth isnt a cuss word where mums and dads are respected instead of denigrated where husbands and wives are celebrated instead of mocked where kids are portrayed as intelligent instead of lazy and dimwitted where young couples arent always hopping in and out of bed with each other where superheroes dont nurture a secret dark side where righteousness prevails and corruption isnt displayed as a virtue for the earth to consume .
there are some in the minority who want to control what we see and hear who only want us to celebrate evil instead of speaking the truth about it but the majority of people welcome and champion the values of coexistence and desire to live in a world which is a reflection of heaven on earth .
parents these days are throwing their hands up in the air in despair .
they want their kids teachers to drill manners into them but some of them have never exercised restraint when planting the fruit of their lips and fingers in others eyes and ears at home or within the context of their family unit .
some want to change the world but they find themselves being more altered by their circumstances and surroundings than they are actively awakening righteousness within them .
it bothers me that cafe and restaurant owners arent seen as essential workers or that sitting and eating isnt seen as essential when doing so has a therapeutic effect on people .
many a fine book has been written in a starbucks .
careers have been begun and major financial deals made in the comfort of a cosy greasy spoon joint .
we should (as jefferson bethke does in his book to hell with the hustle ) take pity on those waitresses and waiters who are forced to subject themselves to a greater decibel level of sound on their average work hour or day than is recommended for most people to endure without protection .
its crazy how construction workers unions take more care of them in this regard than the hospitality industry does .
some people are fighting the wrong battles .
they are more consumed with making a certain amount of dollars or pounds per hour than they are about the emotional welfare or health implications of their work environment .
i do not believe in tipping and will never do so by choice until the day i die but i will gladly give presents to just about anyone .
i might be more reluctant to do so if someone slaps my mother in the face or tries to exploit my family or steals my girlfriend .
a former bully bought me a sub once but i never had the opportunity to repay his kindness and reversal in nature with anything other than a smile .
he was working at one of those places that exploits poor people by taking food bought from another group that exploits the supermarket industry by taking the food they are given for free and reselling it to community groups .
some of these groups in turn call themselves charities but essentially are just food stores which sell in bulk .
others like el shaddai ( down the road from us )run by margate baptist church and located on its premises have a different kind of heart .
it warms the heart to see people volunteering to help give food to the hungry during this time of global crisis created mostly by fearmongering and pointless regulations .
soon we will be able to sit and eat in restaurants again .
it wont be long before we can return to physical church .
its hard to take church as seriously when you are not physically in church .
its tricky not to treat it like just another t v show you watch then forget about .
we should never treat God like that though .
we should never be casual in our approach to HIm .
we should always regard HIm with holiness and reverence .
we fear HIs power knowing He can permit our destruction and revel in HIs awesome creative ability which never ceases to fill our eyes with wonder .
i praise God for HIs grace to me despite my blunders .
i know i am far from a perfect christian but i continually in the process of being perfected by Christ .
every day gives me the opportunity to see with a grander view and live a brand new life
often i am consumed by worry or sinful ideas when instead my thoughts should constantly be flooded with love for my creator and savior out of gratitude for HIs sacrifice not just when we honour HIm for HIs death on the cross once a year or when we rejoice at HIs arrival on the planet towards the years end but every day .
each morning offers fresh reasons to rejoice in the beauty and splendour of our God who is with us in every season of our soul
❤
selah
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