All posts filed under: z169

Deceived!

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Spiritual warfare uses trust to deceive. Subtle deception is the direction our culture is taking. A direction that will deceive even the most faithful if one is not careful. This whole deceit thing could be solved with one single question: Who knows more, man or God? The answer is obvious. Then we ought to trust in God and only believe Him, right? So why don’t we? Spiritual warfare is not just us as individuals being attacked and harassed by unclean and evil spirits. Sure we get tempted to lie, cheat, and steal among other things. And yes, the voice of the evil one is louder than the whisper of God or our own consciousness. I personally have gotten my butt kicked a few times by these things. There is a wider spiritual war happening at the same time. The war for our trust. And this is where mass deceit is possible. Remember the saying; “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”? This is true because the squeaks gets our attention. Let’s bring that into the spiritual …

Impeachment, Brexit and Armageddon

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It’s impossible to miss the two endless arguments about impeaching the President of the United States and removing Britain from the European Union, Brexit. The impeachment argument has continued for months and Brexit for years. Armageddon is a popular cultural concept of a final battle that will bring an end to human history. Are they all related somehow? In the Bible, there is a persistent reference to a final battle that is prophesied to come. We are told that the nations of the world will attack Israel, to completely destroy it and God will defend Israel. The combined armies will assemble in the valley or plain of Megiddo, a wide space in northern Israel, Hor Megiddo in Hebrew. Megiddo is a town and our word ‘Armageddon’ is from the Hebrew name of the flat space nearby. “Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon. The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, “It …

The ‘Act’ of Forgiveness

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How do we forgive? I seem to have forgotten because this past week I was triggered twice and found myself engulfed by emotions that had not been there 30 seconds before the incidents.  And, I struggled by first reacting and then instinctively trying to push the thoughts out of my mind. I knew I needed to forgive and wanted to forgive but the angry thoughts swirled in my mind and the more I tried to get rid of them, the more they kept resurfacing. It was out of control, and I was not handling things well as I spouted off to my husband how I felt. I thought I knew better and also believed I could handle these unexpected triggers. But obviously, I was wrong. I immediately recognized that my emotions had a hold on me and were pulling me into an unhealthy state of mind. I asked myself, who was in charge at this moment? Well, it obviously wasn’t me. The Bible talks about our need to forgive, because our Heavenly Father knows that …

The importance of finding God’s purpose for your life

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Viktor Frankl, who died in 1997 at the age of 92, was a holocaust survivor. He and his wife along with his parents and other Jewish family members were sent to Nazi concentration camps in 1942. Frankl, who even endured Auschwitz, was the only member of his family to survive the holocaust. After the war, he developed a form of therapy called logotherapy that was based on his time in the concentration camp. He along with others were able to mentally and physically survive their concentration camp experience by finding a purpose and meaning in the midst of the horror. In fact, he even wrote a book on this entitled “Man’s Search for Meaning” based on his concentration camp experience. He believed that within people there is an instinctive desire for meaning. We all need a purpose for our life and people attain happiness when they find that sense of meaning. He went on to suggest that many forms of mental illnesses such as depression can be attributed to this lack of meaning because without …

Was anti-Semitism behind the Jersey City attack?

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It was described as a battle scene involving hundreds of shots being fired in a two-hour gun-battle between police and two suspects barricaded inside a Kosher market in Jersey City. Six people were killed including, the alleged suspects, a police officer and three people inside the Kosher store that serves a large Jewish population in Jersey City. The confrontation started at a nearby cemetery, when a police officer went to the scene as part of an investigation of a murder a few days earlier. The two suspects shot the officer, killing him, and then fled the scene in a U-haul van and drove to the KC Kosher Supermarket and open fired on the Jewish store. According to reports, two police officers near the market engaged the two individuals who then ran inside the store, set up barricades and started firing back. After a two-hour stand-off, the police stormed the market with an armored vehicle and killed the two suspects. Inside they also found the bodies of three Jewish people, who had apparently been killed by …

Joseph and Mary traveling to Egypt by Gentile da Fabriano (1370-1427) Credit: jean louis mazieres/Flickr/Creative Commons

The Jewishness of Christianity

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Two recent articles speak to a divide, that exists in some parts of Christianity. The first involves the Mayor of the Norwegian town of Strand, Irene Heng Lauvsnes, who asked the Klippen Pentecostal Church to take down the star of David that was on display as part of its Christmas celebration in a local municipal park. The church has held ceremonies in the park for years and traditionally used the Star of David to symbolize the star that informed the magi of the birth of Christ. But this year, the mayor asked the church take it down because the Star of David symbolized the state of Israel and the Jews, and apparently some were offended. Writing for the Dagen Daily, editor Vebjorn Selbekk noted: “Municipal Christmas bureaucrats obviously do not want a Jewish or Israeli mark on their Christmas. Then we almost have to remind them of some key facts about why we celebrate Christmas at all. [Christmas] is marked by the fact that a Jewish boy was born to a Jewish mother in a …

I’m Offended!

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What do we do when one of our deepest held beliefs offend another person’s deepest held belief? In the world viewpoint we used to just go to war. Some cultures still do. Most just compromise their values in order not to offend. It is easier to give up truth than stand firm. In Canada, we have a government that legislates such things and tells us we are to compromise our faith and beliefs to accommodate others. The second problem is even deeper. When we are forced to compromise our values, we erode our belief system and eventually our world view is taunted as wrong and even criminal. Then what happens is we start believing these lies and the truth of Christianity is no longer perceived as truth. We compromise our faith and allow the world to determine what is right and wrong. Unfortunately, the world is a fallen place infested by sin. Quite simply, the world does not know the truth. How do we then hold to the truth without offending others? We can not. …

That Peloton Commercial: Live Better, Lose Arguments

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When was the last time you had a good argument? Were you convincing? Did you win? If the answer is yes, you lost. Possibly you won the argument, but you lost, if you won. You might have heard about the video commercial for “Peloton” exercise bikes. I only lasts for about thirty seconds, and it is very well produced. It’s easy to see the professionalism in the production; the script writing, the camera work, and the acting are all excellent. This piece of skilled professional work should have boosted sales for this popular product, this Christmas. But there is a problem. People hate this commercial. The value of the entire corporation fell by ten percent after it was published. That is a huge problem for a business that wants to sell us things. Take a look and decide what you think: Many experts have many things to say, and they know more than me, but I see one spiritual lesson in the Peloton commercial. Notice that the message is basically religious; the woman has a …

The difference between giving and pleasing

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Recently, a group of women met in my home for a time of fellowship and  the topic of our conversation was about the difference between giving and pleasing. I started out by asking this question: Is there a difference between giving and pleasing? Some thought there was a difference, while others looked puzzled. In my life, I did not understand that there was a difference between the two, because they both look the same on the outside. But there is big difference as they each come from a different motivation of the heart and knowing the difference will help us put in place the proper boundaries that we need to stay on track with our priorities and what is really important to us.  I remember years ago, when my kids were still in high school, receiving a vision or mental picture of my life. I was holding a basket of flowers in my hand as I was walking on a beach covered in small to medium-sized stones.  As I walked down this beach I was …