When All Else Fails

It's been a tough three weeks since relocating this blog and deciding to take a stand for the Lord against the Devil and this world, the Devil's playground. I've been tempted, distracted, even hallucinating from the ordeal of tearing of the old man from the new. I've sinned too. I have been so wrapped up in my sinfulness that all I can really do is turn on the cd player and listen to hymns. It has helped when I was most helpless (and still am). Hymns bypass the mind's battlefield and makes the spirit sing, unites the various parts of ourselves under one banner of the Lord's. The Devil's goal is to lure the faithful away from the Lord Jesus and then when at their most reprobate, wipe them out. Join him or die: That is the Devil's ultimate motto and purpose. The accoutrements of human systems be it political, economical, technological, entertaining, and even religious, are just that--layers of sophisticated worldly gimmicks that the Devil uses to draw us into a conundrum, and distract us from God's glory. I don't have all the answers. But I seek alongside with you as a fellow pilgrim.

Music is extremely powerful. It bypasses logic, arguments and thought. It seduces you to agree with them in melodious blasphemy, or lifts you to higher planes of communion with Jesus, or merely breaks the impasse of the undecided and the hard-hearted. That's where I was this week. I have much to repent of. I've repeatedly avoided quiet time in the mornings for the entertainment of what distractions could offer. I've decided to ease into quiet time for this week by having 1 hour after waking in reading the Bible, praying and meditating on His Word. Then next week, I'll go for two hours. I know I've been wrong to turn on the computer looking for my e-buddies before looking for Jesus. Even to the point that I became depressed and the name of Jesus became offensive to me. There is no middle ground; you are either for the Lord Jesus, Messiah and King of the Jews, or you are against Him. I cannot help anyone if I am not first in the right relationship with Him and am cleansed and accepted in His Love. My writing is a futile endeavour unless I first commit my time to Him. That is all the Devil is fighting for: Time. The more he can distract you from what is important to God, the more time he has on his side to bring about your demise. And our physical death is the ultimate version of Time either being on the Devil's side, or Jesus' side.

When you are in that pickle of a situation, turn on some godly hymns. I don't mean fleshly hymns. Godly hymns, old, old hymns. If nothing else, revel in their witness. Learn to humble yourself before God and pray. Learn to love God again, because He is waiting for you invisibly and palpably. If you can do nothing else, then just worship, worship Him.

The Mystery of Why There is Abuse: Solved! (well I think partially?)

Any form of abuse, be it verbal, physical, emotional, psychological or mental is simply a means of attacking the person's chance of coming to Jesus. It is an assault on the spiritual well-being of that victim. Specific and devious, abusers will seek, at the prompting of the Evil One, to victimize a person where it hurts the most for the victim. It is the Devil's way of dragging one more soul to hell, or two if you count the attacker. However, it needn't be that way.

The Devil, you see, is a defeated foe. He can rage and scheme and taunt the weak, or tempt the strong. But, with Jesus' death on the Cross at Golgotha, there is final and eternal victory over the Devil. So why is he so active?

Humans suffer from curses and from occupying spirits which the Devil controls. The enemy is not humanity but Satan. The Devil tends to use the same old tricks that work throughout millennia and packages it nicely and appropriately for each new generation. Kairos is the best term for his deep camouflage. Really human beings only have so many limited ways that we can be tempted. The rest is simply non-existent since it is not in our human capacity to conceive of it. We know only what we are.

When we commit sin, or in other words, rebellion against God's basic principles of love for Him with all that is in us and love for our fellow man as we love ourselves, we allow satanic activity to bother us and enter us. We become demonized. It requires a lengthy deliverance and willingness on our part to obey God to get out of the grasp of the Enemy. Even then he will sound horns, bang on pots, taunt us with repetitious guilt and accusations. But Christ says of this, "Be of good cheer, little flock, for I have overcome the world!" We can ask the Lord to deliver us. We can pray in His name to cast out demons, and to make them stay out. We can segregate ourselves from the children of Darkness as their demons jump on us if we socialize with them. "Therefore come out from among them and be separated, says the Lord, and do not touch the unclean thing. And I will receive you." (2Co 6:17) To finally forgive our abusers does not mean necessarily to reconcile with them. As prayer warriors, we can pray earnestly for their salvation, but "what does darkness have to do with light?" (while they are still in darkness, that is).

But,

2Co 6:14 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship does righteousness have with lawlessness? And what partnership does light have with darkness?

2Co 6:15 And what agreement does Christ have with Belial? Or what part does a believer have with an unbeliever?

2Co 6:16

And what agreement does a temple of God have with idols? For you are the temple of the living God, as God has said, "I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people."

If we are His temple, how much more do we need to treat our whole selves with soundness! It is one thing to be persecuted for the sake of the Lord Jesus and the Gospel; it is entirely different and unbiblical to stay abused in an abusive relationship.

Abuse is meant to repeatedly cower us over time so that we recoil even from God. That is why so many abuse victims lash out at God. This is truly terrible. Thank the Lord for His Holy spirit. Without it we would not heal or find new life, and a new life. With the Holy Spirit, soundness of mind and of spirit return. May you find all you need in God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and whatever church body earnestly, faithfully and righteously, mercifully ministers to you. If we believe that each of us were created by God from the womb, that He has a plan to benefit us and not to harm us, and that Jesus is all the world needs as an answer, we will have insight and impetus to get out of abusive relationships and into the kingdom of light where God opens His arms to us and shines His warm love onto our chilled hearts.

Accepted in The Beloved

Forgiveness is a circular process. i.e. it has to start somewhere but once it does it goes round and round benefiting the multitude. Do we know that we are accepted in Jesus? He is our Husband, our King who rides on a donkey's foal to woo the daughter of Jerusalem, His people. Without truly absorbing this, we are merely keeping our hatred and passions at bay.

Know this: that you are accepted in the Beloved. Accepting this is like walking out of the dark, dank hallways of our haunted mansions with only a candle guiding us, and into the bright warmth of the noonday sun. The Sun! It completely swallows up the candle--our pitiful, hard, hard work--of grinding against our basic human nature, which seeks to ultimately kill our enemies, or at least do them just harm. The candle, our human effort, keeps the shadows from swallowing us up entirely, but it is vain effort. Eventually the candle must burn low and completely out. But if we pass through the threshold, if we dare, we will see, feel, and acknowledge a seemingly unnatural intervention to our maladjusted eyes. Who would have thought that God's love could be so good, so thorough, so complete and yet ever filling us up to overflowing? It is as Jesus says, "Woman, if you knew to whom you speak, he would give you the everlasting water welling up to eternal life." That is the promise of the Lord Jesus, and He does not lie.

All the promises of God are "yes" as Paul the Apostle says. To that we say gratefully, Amen, yea Lord Jesus, and Amen.

Humanly speaking, it is impossible to completely forgive our enemies, just as it is impossible to credit a man for having a big heart. It is the Holy Spirit who makes our hearts commodious. If we rely on ourselves, we will forgive sometimes out of our generous feelings, then other times, toward the same person, lash out in anger and projected self-hatred. And then forgive them again when we cycle back. It is hopeless and futile. We can only delude ourselves at best into thinking that the world is a good place and that psychopaths are a different species altogether. Really, the world and psychopaths are cut out of the same cloth. The Devil is in them both. And while we remain unsaved or in sin, the Devil is in us. What we need is a clean break. "You can't sew a new patch onto old clothing, or the unshrunk new patch will shrink and tear and the tear will be worse than the original hole. Likewise, no one puts new wine into old wineskins or the skin will burst and all the wine will be spoiled. Put new wine into new wineskins and you will have wine to drink." (my paraphrase) You can't use cognitive behavioural theory on people who are unredeemed and expect them to be good people. You can't fill an unredeemed, unrepentent person with the Holy Spirit. That is why the Lord Jesus must baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with fire so that we are committed and transformed, with the dross and impurities are burnt away. So look out! When people tell you that there are shortcuts, there are none. There is only the long, narrow, hard and straight path which many will seek, but few will find. Will you find it, fellow pilgrim?

Obedience Without Love Is Impossible

1Jn 5:2 "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments."

Joh 13:34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another."

Mar 12:30 "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'

Mar 12:31 "The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

We see here that the Word of God, the Lord Jesus, links obedience with love. That is a very practical thing as well as a sublime thing. It is also tautological. If you obey Jesus, you are loving Jesus. If you love Jesus, you would also obey him.

But one thing we cannot ignore: you cannot obey without love. Try as you might, you will fail, or you will become legalistic. Many writers have donned the theologian's hat, (myself included) and said that compromise is the greatest evil a Christian can possess. That is not true. To focus on this misses the mark. The greatest evil a Christian can possess isn't "compromise"; the greatest evil is the lack of love.

If we possess love, the acceptance that Jesus LOVES us, we will obey out of love. This is a great mystery for who can fathom the depths of love? To some degree, the exegete must leave room for the mystery of love in obedience. To analyze it is to reduce and denigrate its profundity. Yet it is also very simple - so simple that even a child can understand: If you are in love with someone, no matter whether it is a husband, a mother, a friend, a teacher, or a brother, you'd obey that person. The converse holds true. You can't obey him or her without love.

I've heard the great theme of obedience to Jesus expounded without this inclusion of love except to guilt the listener. "If you don't obey Him, you don't love Him." There is even a whole book written on the theme of compromise and yet not one word of encouragement to the reader on how much Jesus loves us! Terrible, terrible. The words of Jesus is true,

Mat 23:2 "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat,

Mat 23:3 so practice and observe whatever they tell you--but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice.

Mat 23:4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger."

The people of God are crippling under this weight of not knowing that Jesus loves them. How awful! But it is not the writer's fault in that he is deceived by the Enemy.

However there is a paradox: You won't know the Love of God until you obey. Once you obey, the love of God floods you. So you see, they go hand in hand. You can't and won't have one without the other.

Where there is divine love, there is no law, for the Love of God fulfills all the Law and the words of the Prophets. May the Lord Jesus bless you and show His love divine. In these dark and last days it is only the love of Jesus, and hence Jesus Himself, that can rescue us from unbelief and darkness into the kingdom of light where faith, hope and love reign.

That Christ loves...me!

No sweeter peace has pierced my breast than the realization that Jesus loves me, as I am, (though not to remain in sin,) forever and ever. What eternal security! What depth of mystery! What supernatural love!

A man said to me once that what he wanted most in life was security. He did not "know" God, for he insisted God was unknowable. I can tell you that as a woman, I looked for security in relationships, never finding it, not only because it didn't exist but because I wouldn't allow myself to feel it even if something seemly came along.

Watching the 2010 Olympics was a breakthrough for me as I heard the crowd roar for Canada. I burst into tears, wondering if and when I got to heaven, would I receive this applause too? It was too much for me. I wasn't looking for approval but an eternal welcome, an eternity I could call "home". I was looking for Love.

Then it happened. Someone mentioned to me about the 2012 end of world hype and I googled it, finding there too Christian eschatology. When I hit the wiki link I started reading about the Bride of Christ (the Church). I remember how the Catholic nuns vow to be Christ's brides and devote their lives in service or prayer of some sort. I also remember how I too thought of myself in that way. Then it came. If I am a bride of Christ, and He my Husband, then I must be loved by Him. Jesus loves me! And since Jesus never changes, (Jesus is the same Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow) then I have security! Praise God! Let us magnify our worship of Him. For though the mind fights otherwise to inject poisonous doubts and wicked blasphemies into the spirit and heart, that satanic attempt does not stop the truth that Jesus loves us, unconditionally and always.

It has taken me this long, and a useful servant of the Lord, one whom I'll name Sanders, to come to this point. After decades of building my house on the sand, the Lord let it collapse. I was a pretentious, deceptive, cunning and vain thing who only wanted attention. When I realized that I was so screwed up, in my desperation and without knowing how far this was to take me, I prayed that God would help me start all over again. I wanted to be genuine and build my house on the rock. Little did I know where this prayer would take me.

Over two decades of depression and other health issues caused me to come to a point of desperation. After bouts of dysthmic calls to the crisis lines this past year, I decided to stop running. God answered my prayers. Actually he answered it through Sanders. Sanders planted the seed years ago by asking me, "Who is Jesus to you, Vicky? What does the Cross of Calvary mean to you personally? First-person experience, not second-hand knowledge." I was stunned. Even during my feverent years I still ran away from the cross. I'd feel agitated and quite lost and bored whenever the cross was preached. I thought I was a good Christian girl. Really, I was a hypocrite playing as if I were a mature Christian. I wanted shortcuts to maturity. God said, "No."

Satan took full evil of my apostasy. He tormented and attacked me. He demonized me. Christ came to bear our infirmities away, and set us free so we can have life abundantly. Satan comes to steal and destroy. What battle he cannot win, he will take you down with him. But we are more than conquerors through Christ who loves us so. "Be of good cheer, little flock, for I have overcome the world," says Jesus.

I've learned that this life is one of a dress rehersal for the next life. This is a life of faith-building. We're put on this earth for the joy of turning our sight towards Jesus Christ and worshiping him. There is a cost though: the world and the Devil will hate you. Now, we don't mind that the Devil hates us, but our fellow worldlings? The people we used to game with or drink or gossip or shop or sup with? People in high places at school, that very microcosm of society at large that rejects Jesus' authority over them and makes every student find the need to assume there is no God of Jacob and Heavenly Father of Christ Jesus? Those who deny that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Saviour of all humankind but at the very most they accept Him as a historical figure, a deeply revered religious figure? These things, the rejection by the world and the persecution of the saints are the things of the narrow way. Few overcome it. It is like in John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" where the Heavenly Kingdom is walled and pilgrims must rush or "crash" the gate through spear-bearing, arrow-shooting, pebble-slinging, baton-wielding enemies who by their very presence shame and intimidate those not determined enough to make it in. Pilgrims who do not wish to be bruised and are afraid of the taunts and jeers and beatings are unable to pass. But the valiant, the men and women (and children) of great faith put on a helmet (salvation), grab a shield (faith) and a sword (the Word of God)--being buckled with Truth and fleet of foot with the Gospel--they run head first through the enemy territory. Those pilgrims who make it through are bruised and stabbed and wounded, but do not die. They are rewarded inside the walled Heavenly City of God with a thunderous applause and the Heavenly Father saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Now come and enter into your rest." That "rest" is the reward of eternal life in all the riches in glory that Jehovah has laid out for those who overcome, be it in life, in death or in the Last Days.

The purpose of life is to learn to enter into that unbroken and unceasing communion with God and the Lord Jesus. In Heaven and on Earth, it is this unbroken and unceasing communion with Christ that truly is the mystery of the meaning of our existence. "Behold, I stand and knock at the door. Whomsoever opens, the Father and the Son shall come into him, and he shall sup with Us and We with him." You know, that is the secret to the New Testament. We all complain about how tough it is to obey Jesus. Yet if we only knew how unfathomably deep and wide and long and high His love is for us, all obedience falls in its place because JESUS LOVES US.

Where there is love, there is no fear. Fear has to do with punishment...Indeed where there is love, the commandments of God are followed as a consequence because the law is now not only written on our minds and hearts, but the perfect love of Christ reigns in us. We are dead to sin as we mortify the misdeeds of the body through surrender to the Cross of Calvary. We obey because like that errant little lamb whose legs were broken to bring to heal on the Shepherd's shoulders, we have learned to love and trust our Lord Jesus. We know He is good and does not change. May we magnify His Glory and bring His Love to every nook and cranny of the world. May His Name be blessed among nations because we love one another and our enemies. May we reconcile our estranged relationships and bring the gospel, the love of Christ, the good news, to all whom we have ever come to know in our lifetime, and to whom we'll ever get to know. May we continue by His Grace to love others and receive His Calvary love.

“Obedience", The One Cherished Word

I realized something in my reading and meditations tonight: I am disobedient to Christ Jesus the Lord. It dawned on me, or perhaps more like the Lord Jesus revealed to me, that to be totally healed, I must first obey. I must forgive my enemies and pray for them. I must commit my life, my possessions, my resources to Him, solely. Most of all I must repent of my disobedience to Him and to my authorities who are in Him.

How I have hardened my heart! How I have given my mind to such poison that the Devil fights tooth and claw for that foothold! I must love the Lord with all my mind as well. I must choose Him and not the world.

How odious I will be to those perishing in disobedience! What a stench of death I shall bring to every family gathering and relationship not in Christ! My uncle's motto is in the likeness of Sinatra's mantra, "I did it my way."

But we are called to be "fishers of men", or in other words, soul-winners for Christ. We are to love them to the Lord Jesus. Let me never be ashamed of Christ Jesus as my Lord Saviour through His atoning sacrifice at the Cross of Calvary. Let me follow in His footsteps. Forgive me for the denial of Jesus as Lord in my past and present, O Lord, and help me to stand for you in times of testing. Help me to stand, after having done everything. Though they strike me down, though they ridicule me, YOU have my soul. So unto you, I commit my spirit. Let me make a difference for the people you send me to. Let me love them in You, and bring them the Good News.

I let go of my opinons. They are of little consequence in comparison to the Truth of Christ. I let go of my time. It is of little use to me or others right now, but you can make a joyful harvest out of some sorrowed sowing of seeds. I let go of my future. What good is it to me? If I write that book or should I ever win a prize, what good will that do me if it does not bring You glory first and always, and if it doesn't lead souls to Christ? I give up my possessions. People seem to think that this is crazy. Yes, it is hard, but not crazy--just hard. So I shall walk around like the stench of death to those perishing. For they know in the witness You are about to do through me that they are wilfull and wrong and sinful, just as I have been, and perhaps will struggle for a bit to be yet. O Lord, let me never despise a man/woman/child for their unrighteousness, knowing that I have been saved by your lovingkindness and eternal patience. Your Arm is not too short to save, and by Your Right Arm, You perform many wondrous deeds.

Do not let me fall into sin again, or again and again. Let me do a 360 and be renewed by Your Spirit. Let me stand steadfastly, fearlessly proclaiming the Gospel of Christ as taught by Your Holy Scriptures. Let me be a prayer warrior. Someone called this sort of uncompromising, unbending, unwavering stand "strident". I think this was Satan's scheme to unnerve and unseat me. It was so subtle I almost missed it, after all, it was from an intellectual. I see that there is no "commonalities" or ecuneumical "finer" points to bridge the gap between those who call upon You narrowly and exclusively and those who don't. There is no bridge between those who will go to Heaven and those who will go to Hell. What do light and darkness have in common?

We all know this. None of us dare to admit it because of the spirit of the world at work in us. We want to have both: to play with worldly fire and retain fire insurance. Some of us make up doctrines that are not taught by Christ or the apostles. Some of us believe what we want to believe. This is foolishness. Truth is outside of us in the Person of Christ. There is no such thing as agnostic or atheist. There are simply the rebellious and the obedient.

So let us throw off everything that hinders us, the things that weigh us down with encumberances, and run the race with Christ as our Prize. Let us look heavenward and leave behind us the sins that so easily entangles, and go foward. Someone once called me a "pilgrim" pejoratively, as though if he put enough effort into it, I'd find it an insult and perhaps lose self-esteem, faith, whatever, and then he'd win. I bear the mark of the cross willingly, though having yet to be tested, and bear the name "pilgrim" with much gladness, for ever since I could remember, I have never felt at ease in this world. I am a pilgrim looking eagerly for the Heavenly City, whose foundation and architect is God, and whom I shall see one day when I have finished the race and fought the good fight, be it tomorrow or forty years from now. In the meanwhile, I study His Word and let the Holy Spirit transform me, winning souls to Christ, witnessing faithfully, living uncompromisingly, and holding fast to what is true. May this all be so, In Christ's name, Amen.

Eureka! It's Love!

Both Romans 8:31-39 and 1Corintians 13 talk of God's love for us. You know, I have been complaining for about 2 years now that I don't feel anyone loves me, and I'm already 30something. I see what they do for me and how they treat me; I can identify the markers of their "love". But for my whole life, except for those brief, halycon days with my first beloved, I felt nothing. And for the last two years, it has been torturous.

And for good reason! God was starving me in order to prepare me for the revelation, the feast of all feasts, and it is this: That nothing can separate us from the Love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Now I know. I know that love is everything. Every psychologist's couch would be empty; the shopping malls would be sparsely populated; every book would be left unsold except the Bible and indeed remain dumb. My blog would also be obsolete. Love songs on the radio would be ignored, for "in vain the firstborn seraph tries to sound the depth of love divine." If it cannot do it, how much less the unsaved mortal? This is the secret: God loves you, unconditionally and for all eternity.

Knowledge would be deemed useless. Who needs to know more things where Love reigns? And you cannot separate Love from Jesus and the Father. The Devil doesn't want you to know this. The world does not want you to know this. All of Acadame doesn't want you to understand this, for its doors, its revenue, its plethora of vain publishings and research would disappear forever. Love triumphs over all.

Instead we'd walk purposefully to our neighbour's, our enemy's, our estranged relatives', our soup kitchens, our brethren to put our faith into practice. Societies would be changed. And despite worldly, demonic resistance, our hearts would be changed forever.

Let us then be faithful to the call of God's love. Let Him love you. Feel it. Cherish it. Praise Him who is the King of love who stoops to pick us up from our mire, who snatches us out of the fire of Hell.