Tag: error

Do You Know?

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

doyouknowRecently I have been watching a Netflix series documentary called, “In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal.” Basically it is about different so called religious leaders in Korea that led their followers on unimaginable paths proclaiming to know, amongst many other things, God’s will for their lives. These kind people were led astray despite having a humble, heartfelt desire to learn about God. The false leaders and teachers were successful in obtaining their allegiance by promises of love, fulfillment, a ticket to heaven and many other things that most people seek after. But, what struck me the most wasn’t the weird things people can unknowingly get into. It was how little of the truth of God’s Word these people knew. Using the Bible as their guide, the charismatic leaders introduced all sorts of things that are not found anywhere in the Bible. One claimed to be Jesus himself appearing for his second coming. However, unlike Jesus, he demanded sex from his followers as a token of their love for God, even reporting that he himself was God. As incredulous as that seems, if not outrageous, the people were led astray because of what they did not know. And like what happens to all people when they are ignorant, they were led down painful, disgusting paths as a result of it. All sadly, in the name of God. Which begs the question, do you know?

People that do not understand what the Bible says or have been taught erroneous beliefs supposedly based on it, are ripe for deception. People do all sorts of illogical things because someone falsely attached God’s approval and blessings to it. If you want to make people give you money, fall under your control, be manipulated by you, all you have to do is convince them it is somehow God’s will. But, let me ask you a question. How do you know what God’s will is? If you do not have a standard for your beliefs outside of yourself and your own thoughts, how would you know what was true? How would you know if you were really doing God’s will? You see, you wouldn’t and that is exactly what happens to so many people today. These damnable leaders and false prophets have people doing all sorts of things that are nowhere to be found in the Bible or maybe are in the Bible but not addressed to them today. It matters. Otherwise your sincere heart will be taken advantage of all in the name of God. How many good people live each day drowning in their sins and sinful nature completely unaware of God’s solution for them? How many tender hearted believers are living on antidepressants and other medications because they just cannot stand themselves? How much precious life and experience are people missing out on because someone convinced them that everything they like is wrong? Ignorance is not bliss. The reason so many people are living under the control of others (and I do not just mean at church) is because they have these wrong beliefs floating around in their heads. Wrong beliefs are built on error. And no matter how sincerely you work according to your wrong beliefs they will continue to produce bad results, i.e. more error. Then folks want to get mad at God. God is very, very clear in His Word about who He is, what He does and will do, and what He does not do! Do you know?

There is an opposing force in this life that does not want you to know. He overloads you with other options. He derides the Bible for its antiquated beliefs. He convinces people that what he actually does, God does and what God actually does, he does. He gets people to call the light darkness and the darkness light. He works in people and the world to put limits on what you can have and not have. He convinces you that certain things have no solution. He gets you to believe that either God can’t do anything or worse, won’t do anything. All outright contradictions to what God says in the Bible. See, do you know? In that same Bible God says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” If you knew for yourself what His book says and what it doesn’t say, it would be a lot harder to lead you down these calamitous paths. As soon as the first leader in the documentary said he was the second coming of Jesus Christ, I knew immediately it could not be true because of what God clearly says will occur before Jesus Christ’s second coming. Error! When he said they had to obey him in order to get to heaven, I thought – false, getting to heaven is based on what you believe, not on what you do! Again, error! The problem with not knowing is that you can be led down any crazy path the leader wants to take you down because you do not know for yourself. If the suggested beliefs and actions contradict what God says is true, they will always be error and if followed hurt you. There are dark spiritual forces behind all of the insanity, all of the illogic, all of the hurt and pain people experience in this life. ALL of it! The sooner you can begin to recognize evil, the sooner you can seek the truth that will set you free. Not knowing or relying on someone else to know for you won’t get the job done. If you know, you know. Do you know?

A lot of stuff is said and done supposedly in the name of God. Many things that defy logic and good sense are portrayed as the will of God. All manner of cruelty is done in the name of God, not just today, but all throughout history. And it happened because the people did not know for themselves or relied upon religious leaders to make it make sense for them. But, at the end of the day, some things simply do make sense. Some things are full of hypocrisy and contradiction. Another female cult leader in the documentary stated that all sex and pleasure was sinful and wrong and to be excluded at all costs, even between married couples, yet she herself could have sex with all of the young men because it was “pleasing to God” among other things. How do people reconcile those types of things? What kind of abject deception makes that concept plausible or remotely acceptable? God is the one that built sexual desire into people and outlines a perfectly acceptable expression of it. The sex was the least of the horrors that occurred all because people did not know for themselves. Although any of us can get caught up in things that seem good, but aren’t really good, the true acid test will always be found in what the Word says. If God says something is evil, no matter how many disguises you cloak it in, it will always be evil and will always involve deception at some level. It’s not that people are so bad, it is what is behind it that is so bad. Many things people proclaim to be evil or wrong are not evil or wrong at all. But, how would you know? Do you know?

Since all of life begins with God and exists with God, the best thing you can do for yourself is to learn what God really says in His Word. All of us have to start somewhere unless you were blessed enough to have parents that taught you. But even then, it still might not be true (smile). If you want to know you can know. If you have a hearts desire to learn you can learn. If you are tired of being so confused about life you can understand if you want to understand. I can assure you the Bible is neither complicated nor confusing, you just need someone to teach you. Someone taught me. How can you be sure that what you are learning is true? Simple, does it work for you? Are you happier as a result of it? Are you getting your needs met? Are you seeing your prayers answered? Are things improving in your life for the better? Or is what you are learning causing you more pain, limiting you and dogging you, condemning you and taking away your joy? That is not the results that come from the truth. Where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. But, not to worry, God looks on your heart. He knows that you are seeking Him and He knows if you want to learn. All that is required from you is a decision. Not a decision to live a bondage filled religious life as that is counterfeit, but instead to live the more than abundant life God promised us in His Word. If you want to know, you will be given a way to know. Trust me on that one. So my dear friends, do you know?

Just some good thoughts…

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The Happiness Riddles…

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

questionIt seems there are at least a million books that promote finding happiness, stumbling upon happiness or discovering happiness in one form or another. Many of the books, as varied as they are, approach the subject of happiness as being something you must strive to get, seek to discover or find in ways you may not have considered before. There are principles and keys and laws and techniques all designed, if you faithfully apply them, to bring you finally to that elusive happiness you are seeking. But, what if that is not how people find happiness at all? What if happiness consisted more of what not to do as opposed to a litany of procedures and processes to do? What if happiness was not so much focused on adding onto but rather letting go of something? What if happiness was more the natural state of a person before other things entered in and clogged the system? It seems there are some common pitfalls that almost all people fall prey to and as such thwart their own efforts in being happy. These pitfalls exist as riddles, confusing and complex riddles demanding they be resolved before moving forward. But, these life sucking riddles have no end point. They cannot be solved and in trying to solve them we move further and further away from that happiness our Creator intended. Once you engage in these riddles, which most people do, you become entangled and embroiled in them and it is hard to escape their sticky grasp. These riddles are the real thwarters of genuine happiness. They hinder, they stymie, they retard efforts. They take people down empty roads and further and further away from the true path. These happiness riddles work by deception with man as the unsuspecting victim. All three of these riddles work using the same tried and tested approach. These riddles are called fear, judgment and remembering the past. They are intertwined and interconnected, yet all lead nowhere. If you want to enjoy the happiness that is your birthright as a human being, you have to learn how to not fall prey to these tempting riddles.

In the world of cause and effect, you can expect a certain cause to lead to a certain result. The human mind generally functions based upon logic. But, the human mind is also limited in that it can only learn via the avenue of the five senses, absent spiritual truth. Spiritual truth has to be ascertained as opposed to fully comprehended because it exceeds the capacity of the finite human mind. When it comes to conflict or things that oppose happiness there is a right way to think and a wrong way to think. Similarly, if the starting premise is wrong, the end result will also be wrong. People are deceived because they begin with a wrong starting premise. This will become more clear as we look into each of the pervasive riddles that assault men’s minds. But, suffice it to say that the way our adversary tempts people into thinking incorrectly is by making an appeal to their ego using their human logic system. It seems when confronted with certain ideas, especially when those ideas are negative, the logical course of action is to figure out a way to solve the problem. That of course is logical. However, what is not logical is to try to solve a problem that does not actually exist but rather only has the potentiality of existing. This is a wrong starting premise. No person with their limited human logic will be able to solve a problem for which there is no solution. Instead they will spend their time and life engaging something that seeks only to steal, kill and destroy. This is happiness lost. This is engaging the riddle. 

A good place to start concerns remembering the negative past. This refers to the many mistakes human beings have made in their lives. All people on earth have made these mistakes. These mistakes range from simply painful all the way to catastrophic. Every mistake, every error, every sin a person has ever committed was due to the influence of evil in some capacity. Absent evil influence sin would not exist. Some people spend their entire lives remembering some big mistake they made or someone they hurt or something they didn’t do that they should have done. And because it was wrong they often hate themselves for it and live a lifetime in bondage because of it. However, this becomes a riddle from which there is no escape. The enemy of goodness talked you into doing something bad and then seeks to hold it against you for the rest of your life. Yet whatever you did, you already did it. It’s in the books. Logically there is nothing you can do to change it nor is there any way to remedy it. It only continues to exist in your memory. The moment is gone seconds or years after it occurred. It is gone. You can certainly seek forgiveness from God for it if you haven’t already, but it is gone and over with. So logically, if the moment or moments are gone now and there is nothing you can do about it in the present, why on earth would you allow it to continue to live on in your present day mind? This is a riddle from which there is no escape. No amount of thinking or lamenting or wishing or crying can do anything to change the situation. You certainly aren’t doing God any favors by hanging on to it no more than you would continue to hold your child responsible for a mistake they made a year or twenty years ago.  Thus again logically, the best way to escape the riddle, the thwarter of your happiness, is by refusing to engage in the riddle. You cannot find a solution in the riddle because a solution does not exist. The only reasonable solution is to forgive yourself and let it go forever. Do not engage the riddle. 

The next riddle from which there is no escape concerns judgment, especially self-judgment. All people are born into the world with a sin-nature. This means the seeds of sin and error have been programmed into people’s bloodstreams. We all came from the factory that way. (It was not God’s original intention!) So the propensity to make mistakes is born into us. The old nature in a human being could never be cleaned up because the old nature is inherently sinful. No amount of discipline or righteous behavior or adherence to commandments can ever make the old nature clean. Yet, all of religion claims otherwise and by a series of rules and regulations tries to make the flesh bring forth spiritual fruit. Again, wrong starting premise, i.e. you can become holy and clean up that which is already inherently sinful. The Apostle Paul knew this because he said by revelation, “I know that in me, that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.” God provided a solution to this dilemma in the life, death and resurrection of His son, Jesus Christ. When Christ was crucified on the cross, God said that our old nature was crucified with him. Everything that was ever wrong with you and me was nailed to the cross. When we believed God and got born again, we receive a new nature spiritually that cannot be corrupted and cannot sin. So, stay with me now, every time you make a mistake or sin or zig when you should have zagged it happened via your old nature which God considers dead. God paid for every mistake, every looney tunes thing we ever did by the life of His son. It is paid for. It is finished! Thus, when we judge ourselves for our every error or human weakness and frailty we are engaging ourselves in something that has already been covered for us. Our old nature cannot do anything but sin. When we judge ourselves or analyze our every move, inspect our motives and find fault in everything that we do, we are simply engaging the riddle from which there is no escape. It is a wrong starting premise. We cannot make our old nature clean by doing righteous things and we cannot pay the price with our own sinful old nature. The more we look for error and flaws the more we will find. Doing so leads us nowhere. Instead we must refuse it by refusing to judge ourselves any longer. God has already judged the old nature and it is spiritually dead. Rest in what God did for you. Stop judging yourself. Do not engage the riddle. 

The final riddle that thwarts happiness is the worst of them all. It is fear. Remember fear is a wrong starting premise. It is a temptation to solve a problem that does not actually exist. Fear is a riddle from which there is no escape. The more you engage the riddle, the deeper grip it gains on you. The more you, out of fear, try to find a solution, the more afraid you will become. You will suddenly find evidence that supports your fear. Engaging fear is not logical problem solving because you have already begun the discussion by accepting a starting position that isn’t true. In this life sucking riddle it always starts with doubt, progresses to worry then ends in fear. This riddle is the most dastardly because it doesn’t just waste your time and your life or steal away your happiness, but will actually bring bad things your way if you persist in it. Fear is a strong expectation that something awful is coming your direction and strong expectations often come true. Like remembering the negative past and judging yourself (your old dead nature), fear is another riddle that must be avoided. You will never defeat fear by engaging it. You defeat fear by refusing the temptation to think about it and solve it with your finite human logic. Replace fear thoughts which are not true with thoughts that are actually true. Do not engage the riddle. 

The happiness you seek for your life is already there for you. You don’t have to go on a search to find it. But, in order to experience it fully, you have to avoid the riddles, the pitfalls of life that take away happiness. Stop holding on to a negative past that is long gone. Stop judging yourself for being a human. Stop letting fear and its companions put you in bondage and reduce your life down to survival instead of thriving. Much of life and living successfully is found in learning to let go rather than gaining something. Get rid of all that false weight and the burdens and live each day as a new day. The experience of happiness is always on the other side of the happiness riddles because the riddles are not true. When things get complex and confusing, error is involved somewhere. Let it all go and live the day in the freedom that God provided for you. He already solved it for you. Just get on board. 

Just some good thoughts…

Barking Up the Wrong Tree…

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

00600640_1cfab8e5705ade4c407fcd6b966006c0_arc614x376_w735_us1One thing we all have in common as human beings is the desire to find things that make us happy. If you think about, we are all on a quest for happiness. And, far too many people seem to be unable to find it. It is probably the most written about subject in the whole world. Some folks think happiness exists as a direct result of their financial means. Others claim it is the direct result of extreme poverty and stripping yourself from all the entanglements of the world. Some say it is found in nature, while others want to experience it in the city. No matter where you find it, one thing we all agree on is our need to have it. So, when it comes to happiness, are you barking up the wrong tree?

The world we live in today or maybe those things behind the world seem to be well aware of our heartfelt desire to find happiness. As such, the world feeds us endless ideas about where and how we might get that happiness. Television shows promote a world where flawless beauty can be manufactured and purchased in order to “create” the perfect type. And once the perfect type is obtained it may be used to build incredible wealth through product offerings and appearances promising the same ability to obtain perfection. The stars live a dream life in dreamy locations complete with full time make up artists and staff that exist only to serve the needs of the exalted ones. They fly on private jets to exotic locations on a whim with unlimited resources that never run dry. And while these programs do provide a level of entertainment, they also paint a false portrayal of happiness. Like movie stars, it is a world of make believe. It sends a faulty message that promises something it does not actually provide. That is not to say that everyone in these situations is wrong or evil, but rather that the message portrayed to the world (by the world) is not true. True happiness is not found through fame and fortune, though the messages seek to convince us otherwise. What the world offers will always be found a counterfeit. It is a surface expectation that produces only a superficial result. It is barking up the wrong tree.

Social media feeds us an endless array of images designed to make us seek the wrong things. Money, or the love of it, rules the world. We define success primarily by the amount of money and subsequent influence an individual has been able to obtain. We conclude rich people have “made it.” We think that money can solve any problem. We say, he who has the gold makes the rules! But, sadly, money alone is never the answer. The answer is being able to get our needs met. We do actually need money and I’m guessing that we likely need more money than we might actually have. Having enough money and having the discretion to make choices or engage in certain activities is vitally important to our happiness. No choice is not happy. Scraping along in the world unable to get the things we want is not happiness. Spending our time doing things we loathe in order to get money is not happiness. Having every need that comes up becoming a catastrophe due to not having enough money is not happiness. Thus, we actually do need money and maybe more than we think. But, money alone will at some point cause us to fall short of our real happiness. Seeking to be rich is always barking up the wrong tree.

Happiness is not something to be obtained, it is something to be enjoyed in our hearts. The perfect partner will not be able to make you happy unless you are already happy yourself. The perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect circumstances, the perfect relationship all work only to produce a temporary happiness because they do not contain the actual essence of happiness. Happiness is always the result of having your needs met and as your needs change so will your requirements for happiness. Whenever you rely on another person or obtaining certain things in order to find happiness, you will sooner or later come up short. You work so hard to obtain the perfect house and then what? Once you get what you so ardently desired, then what? Happiness, enduring happiness has to be much deeper than that. Life has to be more than acquiring things and gathering up the most toys before you die. The pursuit of happiness by trying to get stuff is barking up the wrong tree.

God as the creator of life has built into all of us a desire to find out about Him. Whether we be simply curious or spiritually starving, all of us have a desire to know Him. In our hearts, we instinctively know there is more to this life than we may have imagined. We seek a universal goodness that guided our hearts when we were children. We dream of a life, an existence, that is totally secure and taken care of and is lacking nothing. We long for the carefree days of our youth when we were truly happy. We want the liberty and the freedom to do as we please. We want life where we do not have to be afraid and can be sure we will be safe and protected no matter what. In fact, many folks seek wealth in order to experience this reality only to find out it doesn’t work. We as a people have never connected the dots that He (God) is our happiness. We have been looking for love in all the wrong places. We have foolishly tried to provide for ourselves what only He could provide for us. We worry and fret and seek and strive to find safety and peace and rest. We have never considered that we are trying to find Him in material things or in money or in things. Even our relationships are centered in Him and without Him cannot be fulfilled. He is all that we could ever need and He is the solution to every thing that has ever gone wrong, the answer to every question. We miss Him because the world has convinced us otherwise and our experience of life has confirmed it. But, what if we are wrong? What if we have barked up the wrong trees long enough that we know something is missing? What if our system of trial and error has exhausted us and we have sought yet not been able to find? What if our happiness and blessedness in this life comes from Him and from Him alone? God as our Father wants to teach us and help us and guide us. He wants us to be happy with a happiness that is not dependent upon circumstances or favorable conditions. He wants to be our all in all in every conceivable way. To know Him is to love Him and He is the first place for which to expend our efforts. He is the only tree.

Just some good thoughts…

Hacked!

On By Papa TonyIn Thought3 Comments

hackedLast week I had the rather unpleasant experience of getting hacked. Basically, someone reached out to me on Instagram asking for support for their upcoming clothing line and I made the fateful mistake of responding to them. I didn’t click on any links or provide my cell number for a text as requested, yet still they got in. Once they got in, they changed my password, changed the contact cell phone number and email and added two factor authentication which made it almost impossible to recover my own account. They followed hundreds of new people and badgered all of my friends with the exact same scheme, leaving folks thinking they were talking with me. The experience was distracting and concerning to say the least. Besides learning that Instagram literally has no actual customer support, I understood how difficult it is to extricate yourself from deception once it gets its grip on you. How it got to you doesn’t matter. When it got to you doesn’t matter. What matters is how you can recover and get your mind (and account) back. Have your thought processes been hacked by a deception?

In life, we all have a mind and a heart and we are responsible to guard it from intruders. Intruders get in when we fail to control our thinking and as such allow deceptions access to our minds. Just as my downfall was engaging in a conversation with the hackers, your downfall comes from consideration of things that are not true. When Eve was deceived in the beginning, it wasn’t the existence of evil that defeated her, it was her consideration of the things evil said to her. (It was a heck of a lot bigger than eating a silly apple, but I digress). Eve’s downfall and eventually Adam’s downfall came as a result of considering and trying to figure out what the enemy of mankind was proposing. The same holds true today. The way that evil gets inside our minds and hacks us is by our consideration of what is being presented to us. Being human we think we can figure it out and as such give it space in our minds. We mull it over. We worry about it. We give it audience and the next thing you know we are all screwed up inside and confused. Have you ever noticed that no matter how much worry you give a thing you can never quite get to a solution? You analyze, you evaluate, you process it and it just leads to more and more distress. It is a trick and a trap from which eventually it will be hard to escape. The solution to fear producing thoughts is to refuse their entrance. Don’t scratch that itch! Do not try to take it on with your finite human knowledge. Instead you have to replace those thoughts with things that are true. God’s Word is true and has the remedy to everything that has ever bothered you or imprisoned you. You can avoid being mentally hacked by knowing what is true.

All of us at one time or another have been hacked in our minds and hearts. We have lived in fear and doubt and uncertainty for so long that we think it is a normal way to live. We dismiss it as being part of the human condition. We do all sorts of shenanigans to assuage our fears such as trying to be a good person or do good works or whatever it is we can think of that might help offset the bad things that are surely coming our way. It never dawned on us that someone or something has been lying to us. Our starting premise has been wrong. We have been communicating with a hacker. Fear is man’s only enemy. Fear has ruined more people’s lives than all the other things combined. It is our fears that allow our enemy access to us and it is our fear that brings bad things to pass in our lives. Fear is a believing expectation for something negative to happen and believing equals receiving. The things we so desperately fear end up coming into fruition in our lives. And then we exclaim, “I knew it” when in reality we helped bring it to pass. There is a reason the number one admonition in the Bible is fear not! Fear is a hacker attempting to gain access to your life and then infect the lives of others also. You get your mental account and your heart back by gaining control of your thinking.

So, what can you do once you realize you’ve been hacked? Unlike Instagram, you have access to something greater than any problem that has ever come your way. The first step involves terminating communications with the hacker. Stop giving those lies access to your mind. Stop trying to figure it all out. The basis of your troubles are spiritual and no amount of reasoning will make that clear. Instead steer your heart towards something that is true. Make the decision to stop trying to figure out your troubles and hand them over to God who is especially adept at problem solving. Just give them to Him and don’t take them back. Rehearsing your troubles hasn’t been successful thus far, has it? Quit beating that dead horse and try something different. Cast all your care upon Him for He careth for you! In other words, let it go. Pray about it and then let it go. Just the act of refusal sets on course the answers you need in order to prevail. God wants to solve every problem that has ever come your way and He has the power and ability to do so. Find someone that can teach you the truth. Don’t go to the world as it’s the world that screwed you up in the first place. Don’t rely on religion or philosophy or science. Rely instead on the truth of God’s Word which is the only thing that sets you free. God sent His Word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions. Learn to shut down the hackers and get your heart and mind back!

Have you been having a tough time lately and wondering what is the point? Do you find yourself distracted with cares? Have things become increasingly difficult for you? Does happiness and peace of mind seem to evade you? If so, you have probably been hacked. But, not to worry. With God there are always solutions and answers greater than the skill and cunning of any hacker. You can get your heart and mind back if you will only go about it the way God says to do it. Humble yourself and get your needs met. I finally was able to recover my account using the deeply hidden and obscured video selfie method which worked after 9 tries. Thankfully God makes it a lot easier than that.

Just some good thoughts…

God is in the Details…

On By Papa TonyIn Thought2 Comments

detailsThere’s a common expression used today, namely that the devil is in the details. Meaning, in order to track down the real source of problems and difficulties, you have to be able to look below the surface and see the things you haven’t seen before. But, if you really give it some thought, God is also in the details. You don’t have to look much further than the creation to recognize that details are very important to God. Too often we gloss over so many details and simply draw conclusions that are not true. We let a few cleverly planned circumstances and so called facts lead us in directions that are not the reality of a thing. The reality is what God says the reality is and everything that contradicts that reality is a lie. The devil has had thousands of years to perfect his craft and he is always counting on people to fall for the same tricks over and over again. Once you begin to learn that God is also in the details, you can begin to trust Him with the important things in your life. There is no part of your life that God is not aware of and He wants you to know that what is important to you is also important to Him. God is not too busy for you and He is infinite in His wisdom and His understanding. God is in the details…

One of the things I love most about God is that He looks on the heart of man. People, often deceived, think God is somehow concerned with everything they do wrong. How foolish to think you could separate yourself from your Creator because you used a swear word, chose a wrong path or acted with the wrong motive. God formed, made and created people and as such knows everything about them. Everything… Your human nature doesn’t escape God. He knows when you are being tricked and He knows what is behind it. I think people would have a much easier time wrestling with sin; missing the mark with God and all of that associated guilt and condemnation, if they realized that God is not deceived and sees quite clearly where you are being worked over and why. God’s heart is never to convict you of sin. His heart is that you learn which aspects of your life are causing you to miss the mark and as such, miss out on the blessings, prosperity and health that come from being on the mark. It isn’t morality for morality’s sake alone. It is doing things that don’t allow the enemy access to you and making choices that will lead you to your good. God knows all about you and still loves you. God has already seen your entire life through. He sent His son to save you (and me). Once you finally get past the sin issue (It is finished), you can really start to live for God. God looks on your heart. He knows who you are inside. He has heard your every prayer. He knows where you are strong and where you struggle. God is in your details.

The devil also is in the details. However, unlike God he does not know everything. He does not have foreknowledge and is certainly not infinite in his wisdom. What he is counting on is that you and I will behave like all other humans. His methods have worked for centuries and will continue to work. He plots and schemes and plans in order to present you with a picture of reality that is very hard to refute. (If it walks like a duck…) He works to close you off from life (and from God). He closes the doors, one by one and closes the windows, one by one, until finally you are alone sitting in a dark place convinced there is something wrong with you. He drives your focus back to yourself and your imperfections. He points out your flaws, reminds you of your errors and accuses you and your motives night and day. Yet, he himself and his cohorts, are behind your every flaw, your every mistake and every motive you have ever had that wasn’t good. These are the details we are missing. If there were no evil, there would be no sin. You did not make any mistake you ever made, no matter how grave, on your own. Every time you zigged when you should have zagged, you did so because of the influence of evil. That is certainly not to justify error, but rather assign the blame rightfully where it belongs. The devil was in the details, but God always is above him.

The real joy and beauty in life is when you begin to discover God in the details of life. He took the time to make that flower perfect in its perfection, but you think He doesn’t know what you need? He came up with electrical and chemical impulses that are able to tell your brain in a nano-second that you are touching something hot, in order to protect you, but still you insist on the idea that He is unaware of something you need, be it ever so small and seemingly inconsequential. I think often, the things you really need the most happen in your heart, which God both looks on and works in. You don’t need God to fix your circumstances. You need God to fix your heart, heal your heart, establish your heart. You need Him to help you track down those minute details, those bulwarks of error, those false notions you have been carrying around for years and years. I can always tell when God fixes something in my heart because my eyes react with tears. When I well up I always say, “thank you Papa” because I know you just repaired something for me. How foolish it is for us to reduce life down to such simplicities when it is so obvious how intricate and detailed the creation is; the creation God made for you and for me. There is a reason nature holds such a powerful appeal over us. We can scarce describe it or explain it but we know how much we need it. God does not content Himself with supplying our major needs or things we think most important. He seeks to supply our every need in every category of life. He sees your lonely heart and seeks to fill the void. He sees your fears and worries and seeks to make you feel secure. He sees your hesitation and encourages you to move. He sees what is behind your every problem and seeks to help you see and understand so that you can finally live the life He has given you. Indeed God is in the details.

There is a life available to us that is everything we always wished it would be. We have all had our share of heartaches and pain. We have all gone completely off the path and paid a price because of it. We have all spent years and years buried in sin and in the difficulties it produces. We have all been sick and suffered with imperfect bodies. We have all carried things in our hearts that are not true and led us to the problems we have today. But, we do not have to live that way any longer. God is in every detail of our lives and sees and knows all. He sent His son to save us and in his completed work we live. It does not matter what has gone on in your past. All that matters is today and the future life you build with God. God already knows the details and as such has a blessed life waiting for you. God is in the details. Enjoy your life today!

Just some good thoughts…

Stop Surviving, Start Thriving…

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

survival modePeculiar things can happen to you while you’re on the journey of life. You can lose the things you once possessed. Your path can imperceptibly become more difficult. The joy and the happiness you once enjoyed can be stolen from you and replaced with something less. Incredulously, you can even begin to work against your own best interests. What happens to a man or a woman that leads them to survive instead of thriving? It’s time to stop surviving and to start thriving!

No person alive would willfully choose to oppose themselves or work against their own best interests. Even animals instinctively know they have to fight for themselves; for their own lives. Yet this is what happens to people. They can become so broken down, so defeated internally that their only reasonable option seems to be survival. The reason this happens is because their opponent, who works in secret, develops and builds strongholds of error into their minds. These mental fortresses occupy and overrule their logic and paint pictures of life that aren’t actually true. Yet, because they appear true, their devastating effect is realized. People are defeated within the confines of their own heart. It’s no wonder God admonishes us to guard our hearts above all that can be guarded. Once these errors of thought take root, gain momentum and build strength, they render you as a drunken man, unable to discern with any clarity of thought. They rule with the iron fist of fear to the point that it seems more reasonable to limp along in life terrified of some potential outcome, more so than to take life on with its multiplicity of challenges and win. It’s the textbook definition of getting punked out; accepting failure and loss without even fighting back. Logic would seem to dictate that you only need to survive in life when you are out of all available options. Yet those in survival mode always have options as the the things they seek to escape aren’t actually a part of their reality, but rather a part of their imagined reality.

Once people find themselves in these self-made prison holes, it becomes very difficult to extricate themselves. They have been caught in the snare of the adversary and are taken captive by him at his will. In this they are captured alive like a bird that once had freedom of flight. They are not dead, thank God, but they may as well be in comparison to the misery they endeavor to survive day by day. A great teacher once remarked, “Choose your ruts wisely, for you may be in them for a long time.” Ruts are formed in the road by repeated travel down the same path to the point where a groove has been carved into the road. Try as you might, you just keep getting sucked back into the groove. Thus, the solution isn’t to keep going down the same paths over and over again hoping to jump up and out of the rut, but rather to stop traveling down that road altogether. The rut was developed within your own thoughts and you have to decide to make a new road. The reason we get trapped, myself included, is that we persist in thinking the same things that brought us down to begin with. If those things we continue to consider are a lie, our consideration of them, over and over and over, is not going to make them true. Rather, we strengthen the edifice; we build higher and stronger the opposing stronghold and suffer greatly as a result. There is no shame in recognizing that you have been captured, but rather in surrendering and choosing not to fight for yourself. God will always provide a way out, but you have to stand up for yourself and take it.

The only way to tear down those great citadels of error that exist in your mind is to begin to stand against them; to oppose them. It is the truth of the Word of God that sets you free and there is no other way to do it. You stop surviving by your refusal to go down those same paths. It is your human nature, your ego, your well nourished system of logic that is keeping you bound. Humility is the willingness to admit that you might be doing something wrong; that you might be working against your own best interests. The enemy of all goodness is counting on you to make the wrong choice by working on your ego, by those things you think that you already know. By the time you reach the rut; by the time you have become imprisoned by your own self, by the time that fear is the dominating factor in your life, you have already been captured. You’re in the trap! No amount of introspection will open the locks on the trap as it is your (and mine) incessant focus on yourself that got you there in the first place. Who told you that you were not good? Who convinced you that you have no power against the evil that has been threatening you night and day? It was a lie from the father of lies and the only reasonable escape is to stop your consideration of the lie! Stop surviving!

You can only begin to thrive when you rid yourself of the hinderances to your growth. You must cast down those reasoning thoughts against what God’s Word says is true and every exalted thing that stands in opposition to the truth. Once you stop going down the same path the rut will eventually fill back in. The smooth, flat road of the truth will encourage your forward movement. The truth considered and cleaved to will open every lock; break every chain or fetter the adversary has ever put around you and you will once again soar the heights of life where there is no fear. But, the starting point is your humility to God and the things He guarantees are true. Once you escape the false confines of self-made prison holes you can begin to recover yourself and return to sober minded thought that has no basis in fear, only love. And, as God lovingly and graciously gives you a change of heart to the acknowledging of the truth, you will be set free. You will be free to dream and expect and love and enjoy. You will be free to live your best possible life with accomplishment, success and exploits for God. You will stop listening to and acting on those damnable lies and will walk the new road of high endeavor. You will be the man or woman that God always wanted you to be, free to love, free to give, free to serve.

All of us are going to reach a point in our journeys where we have been deceived and suffer as a result of it. All of us are going to fall short. All of us are going to find ourselves in impossible ruts at times. All of us will find ourselves in despair, in survival mode. But the only good God of eternity is always willing to help us find the way back. God’s will is that we thrive. “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” Stop surviving and start thriving. It is God’s highest good for you. Thrive!

Just some good thoughts…

The Elephant in the Room

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

elephant-roomWhen I first began writing, “Just Some Good Thoughts” a number of years ago, my goal then was and my goal now is to help people escape the dark side of life; escape the suffering; escape the bondage; escape the pain. In that vein, my aim is to point people towards the light; towards the happiness and towards the joy. It has been my experience that life itself is not unhappy, nor should it be accompanied by difficulty as if by design, but rather those things come as a result of influences hell bent on making trouble for people; setting up and crafting hardships; obscuring man’s mind from the things he really needs to see. The reason a man or a woman cannot see is because their minds have been blinded to some reality. Further, it seems those evil influences don’t gain access to people’s hearts from many avenues, but instead a few areas craftily hidden from view. Complete catastrophe and disaster would render any heart humble in desperation to survive. But, the little things, the small compromises, the continued allowance of things that cause pain, they seem to be the chosen method for attack. Often these disturbances are easier for other people to see, but remain veiled to the soul of the one caught in the trap. Clearly there is an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed. What is the elephant in your room?

None of us needs any more judgment than we are already subjected to in our daily life. It is never helpful for a person, determined to set a matter right, to come crashing in pointing out our weaknesses with a wrecking ball approach. Wrecking balls, however efficient, tend to smash things down rather than build things up. Instead people need to arrive at their own conclusions. Pointing out the errors in someone’s ways needs to be reserved for the person with no error in their own ways and that lone person who lived above error, out of love, chose not to do it. And, if you’re honest, do you really know the source of the other person’s problem? Difficulty and distress have many different disguises. Some much like the ones you wear. The elephant in the room must be found by the one it affects. 

In order for a gigantic creature to escape a person’s view it must be deftly hidden from them. Or maybe it is something that can be seen, but is not seen correctly for what it really represents. All deception functions this way. And all of us have been deceived. Deception is successful because it covers the real causes and as such masks the real effects. No man, no woman would persist in error if they saw it for what it really was. Instead, the error is portrayed as something good ever offering the promise of good times and lasting pleasures. The measure, therefore, is the fruit it is producing in your life. If the fruit is good, God bless it and may it continue. If the fruit is bad leading to problems and difficulties and mental duress, it deserves your further inspection. That which you do and every time you do it, it leads to turmoil and unrest, is likely in need of some revision. None of us produce only good fruit and we all are in need of some revisions. It isn’t that all of our life is bad or evil, but rather some several areas are in need of repair. Those are our elephants in the room and often they can be remedied by slight modifications and changes, not complete life overhauls. It may be as simple as making the decision to exercise some control in an area whereby you formerly held no control. It may be ridding yourself of a trusted friend who is not your friend and serves only as a thorn in your flesh. It may be as nonthreatening as a shift in priorities. If our lives were a complete wreck it would be more clear to us by now. It is in the subtleties where the ruse takes place. It is error practiced for so long that it no longer appears as error. How much suffering has been engendered by an elephant we can no longer see or even discern?  

God is more than willing to help you spot these elephants in your existence. He not only sees them for the error they really are, but also sees what is behind them. He knows precisely how they got to you and even more precisely how to help you escape from them. In this you can always trust God. Unlike the many false reports concerning Him, He is very tender and long suffering in our lives. He brings you to a place only when you are ready to see it and even then leaves your freedom of will intact. His will for us is only the best things in life, though it often take us years to gain this recognition for ourselves. Like any loving parent, He does not want to see you suffer. It pains Him to see you rebelliously moving forward on things that will result in your own harm, but allows you to do so anyway, remaining ever present to pick you up when you fall.  What a glorious day it is when you finally decide to stop leaning to your own understanding and lean to His instead. God looks on your heart. He heard your prayers. He knows you don’t understand what is going on. He hears your cries to Him. But, in order to receive your answer, you have to begin listening to Him. Follow His gentle promptings and be assured He is not the one accusing you or causing you to suffer, ever! He is faithfully at work helping you to see and rid yourself of all of the elephants in your own rooms. He desires you be free from all bondage and hardship and pain. Is there an elephant in your room making your life less than what God intended it to be? If so, let God help you and guide you in not only beginning to see it for yourself, but also in helping you remove it from your life. 

What is the elephant in the room? Nothing if you trust God and let Him show you the best way to live!

Just some good thoughts…

I’ve Been Blind for Awhile Now…

On By Papa TonyIn Thought3 Comments

In life, just because you cannot see something does not mean it doesn’t exist. There are whole vistas of life and understanding to be discovered once you finally get the eyes to see. People trudge along their journeys lifeless and hopeless never quite discerning; never really seeing; never able to make sense of life with all of its varied and manifold twists and turns. And because they have not experienced it they don’t believe it and in not believing it, it escapes them. Often life is more about what has been obscured from your view than it is about seeing what is right there in front of you. Maybe there is more; much more, for you to learn still. Maybe you have been blind for awhile now…

In order to see what is available to see, your mind needs illumination. Darkness is always the absence of light. You will remain unable to see what direction you are traveling as long as you are traveling in the dark. To think you are already illuminated yet continue in futility is a sure indicator that you remain in the dark. To grossly assume that your limited life experience or past education has provided you with all that is necessary to understand life is to cut yourself off from the very essence and fiber of life. You do not know what you do not know. All of the natural, breathtaking reality of nature surrounding you serves to capture your attention. Whether it be the brilliance of a sunset or the intricate depth of a flower, all are designed to lead you to a question; the next question. That question urges you to the light. In the light life, real life, is found.

The reason people live their whole lives in darkness is because they do not know or understand the truth. They have unknowingly lived in darkness for so long that they cannot even consider that light exists. The glimpses of light they have experienced are quickly chased away by the darkness. They are led away unmercifully time and time again, herded with the masses into uncertainty and fear. They do not seek light because they have been sold on lies concerning the light. Religion, posing as the light, feeds them error upon error, producing only more darkness. Religion informs them of all the things they must do to find the light, then chastises them for being unable to find it, attributing it to sins or hidden faults preventing them from finding, seeing or experiencing. Every wrong path pursued, be it intentionally or out of ignorance, leads only to more darkness. Error works to harden the hearts of men, and once hardened, can no longer perceive. Darkness is a cruelty that can only be remedied by the light. Otherwise man remains blinded and unable to see clearly.

Light comes from God and from God alone. The light is found in the truth of God’s Word. Ask yourself how much of God’s Word you understand and you can accurately predict how much light you enjoy. Most people, sadly, know very little about God’s Word and worse much of it has been manipulated and distorted to be something it is not. In place of unparalleled freedom people are enslaved. Instead of being a source of encouragement and edification it is turned into a touch point for accusation and criticism. People falsely conclude that life with God is all about their behavior and what they are doing and shouldn’t, and aren’t doing, but should. They make God the morality police and as such avoid Him like the plague. I’m pretty certain God already knows how you are living, yet like any good parent worth his salt, loves you anyway. You pray for healing to a god that supposedly made you sick. You endure unspeakable tragedies and console yourself with some mysterious higher purpose. You daily assign evil to the only good and live in abject fear of destruction and loss. Brothers and sisters, you have got it all wrong. God is only good always! God will never do anything to harm you, no matter who you are and whatever you have done! That is love and that is light…

Once you begin to understand God’s Word and His purposes, you find the light for which you have been searching your whole life. God’s Word illuminates your path. The truth enables you to separate good from evil. God’s Word helps you to finally see all the things you have formerly been unable to see. Once able to see, you become free to experience real life. You find the love and the joy you have only heard of before. You discover the peace of God that surpasses all human understanding and in that peaceful state are able to quickly spot the imposters when they arrive. You no longer have to live your life terrified about what tomorrow may bring. When you have a need, God, not your human wisdom, meets it. If you are sick He will heal you. What you cannot understand He will explain to you. The parts of life that formerly enslaved you, will no longer hold you bound because of the light that lives within your soul. Have you been blind for awhile now? Well, now is the time to see…

If your heart is open and if you are willing to admit that maybe you don’t know, you can learn. You can both see and experience all that God intended for life to be. You can live on the high road. You can escape the clutches of religion and bondage and walk in complete and total freedom, never again held in by anyone or anything! You can discern error for what it is, error, promoted and espoused by evil to keep you away from the true light. God is not hiding any of this from you, but something else is and you owe it to yourself to figure that out. The life you are yearning for is yearning for you as well. Maybe you have been blind for awhile now. The truth will make you see…

Just some good thoughts…

 

Driving Ms. Daisy… (Are You Directing Your Thoughts or Are Your Thoughts Directing You?)

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

There’s a little known secret in the world today and it involves what you think about the most in the privacy of your own mind. Your day to day thinking forms the basis of how your life turns out. What you consider, what you dwell upon, what you incubate in the chambers of your mind turns into your experience of life (not simply your reaction to it, but your actual experience). As such, and this is why it remains a secret, you have a duty to control your thinking. You are responsible to actively direct your thoughts as opposed to having them direct you! Are you driving Ms. Daisy going where you are instructed or are you driving your own life?

Many, many people feel that their thoughts are something that just happen as they navigate life. They unknowingly just sort of let their thoughts run wherever the wind takes them. They wrongly assume “good” days and “bad” days are predetermined with their responsibility being simply to make it through the bad days. They hope tomorrow will be better. And in thinking this way, they become victims, cruelly tortured by an opponent they cannot see or discern. They are victimized because no-one ever taught them how to control their thinking, much less any reason to seek to do so. A life lived with uncontrolled thinking is a life being directed by someone outside of yourself. It’s a life filled with misery.

Your heart is the great citadel of your soul. Your heart must be guarded above all that you can ever guard because from “it” flow the issues of your life. Those things you have in your heart, be they wonderful or disastrous, will come to pass in your physical reality if they are allowed to remain in your heart. Your heart is made up collectively of the things you think about the most. The way that you guard your heart is by controlling what you will and will not think about. Failure to control your thinking, a human epidemic, leads to a heart filled with things you do not want, put in there by something that seeks to bring harm, defeat and loss into your life. Think about it for a second. If you aren’t driving, who is? God doesn’t do the driving for you, no matter how much you wish He would. Instead, God admonishes you to guard your heart. He tells you to control your thinking. He asks that you, by your freedom of will, make the decision to think how He says to think. Committing to controlling your thinking and thinking in terms of the things God says to think about, leads you directly to the abundant life He promised you!

Please allow me to clarify what I’m offering you in terms of your life experience! There’s a whole world of goodness and love and blessings awaiting you if you are willing to do your part! But, you have to do your part! I’m certainly not suggesting that you walk around trying to find the good in bad things or simply putting a smile on your face when things go terribly wrong. Nor am I asking you to ignore negative events or act like things are okay when they are not okay. Instead, I’m suggesting that you fight to remain positive in your expectations. Allowing the world to define your experience and decide for you whether or not you are going to be okay leads only to more and more defeat. As such, your duty, your solemn duty is to not stake your existence on what things look like or seem like, but rather on what God’s Word says is right; what God’s Word says is true. Holding fast to what the Word says; to what God has promised you is the only way to escape your present circumstances and turn things around for the better. Your expectation for the future is just that, “your expectation!” You can expect for things not to work out or you can expect that they will, no matter what is going on in your present experience. If you’re honest you already know how negative the world is and the people and the circumstances. Controlling your thinking means knowing the preponderance of negativity, you still remain positive, because God is bigger than any circumstance!

Controlled thinking isn’t walking around all day holding onto a certain thought as life doesn’t work that way. You aren’t a robot! Instead, you go about your day to day experience and pay attention to what you are thinking about. When you notice you are afraid, for example, you think about some promise from God that counters that fear. Then, as your duty in controlled thought, you decide not to entertain those fearful expectations. Oh it’s not always easy as you will find yourself real tempted to consider those negatives, but controlled thinking refuses it. All of your reasoning and mental ability are no match for what’s behind that stuff. You take it on by not taking it on! Refuse it. This pattern applies to every negative thing that limits and tarnishes your life. If you will commit yourself to doing as I suggest, you will begin to experience a joy and happiness you have not ever experienced before. You will find the peace that passes understanding and find yourself right in the middle of all of God’s goodness, available for you…

Determine now that you will begin trying to control your thinking. Think about what you are thinking about. Thoughts that give you agitation or unrest are sure indicators you are thinking about things you need to stop thinking about. Don’t overcomplicate things with your human reasoning. Simply refuse the negatives and replace them with the positives of God’s Word. Do this faithfully moment by moment throughout your day. As you become more accustomed to it, it will get easier to do and you will experience for yourself the blessedness.

Are you driving Ms. Daisy to destinations you didn’t choose? Direct and control your own thoughts and arrive at the place where all your dreams come true…

Just some good thoughts…

 

Problem Solving – You Dig…

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

_86151558_istock_000024638881_largePeople often find themselves drawn to a standstill by some problem or problems they cannot find a way to overcome. These are the deep issues in life that have no quick fix or simple remedy. People unknowingly end up struggling with these issues for years and years, sometimes over a lifetime. Underneath every obstacle that ever confronted you and boasted of its impenetrability lies some error in thinking or believing or action. You can’t easily spot it because it has been craftily buried outside your awareness then layered and layered with other errors in your logic and heart. Thus true problem solving requires removing the wrong thoughts and wrong beliefs, one shovelful at a time, you dig? (pun intended…)

The root of this human dilemma is your enemy, the devil. He is a real thing. The reason people don’t believe he exists is because he’s done an excellent job convincing people he doesn’t exist. He is breathtakingly cunning and crafty and in competition with your human logic you are no match for him. For him, human beings are easy to defeat because they try to apply natural knowledge to overcome supernatural problems. They say things like, “there is no evil” or “evil only exists in your mind” or “things are only evil because you’ve made them so,” all the while getting their asses handed to them by the same one deftly concealing himself. He runs a tight operation using former angels that fell to completely screw up and ruin people. He is the author of all that crap that you can neither understand nor explain. He is anarchy, confusion, discomfort, fear and dread. He is every problem you have ever struggled with and the reason for every wrong, hurtful thing that ever happened to you! Yet, he can be defeated, and if you are going to be successful in life, must be defeated, one thought, one decision, one action at a time.

How could you ever hope to remove error while you remain unaware of what is error? Error is simply the wrong way to do something. Error is riding the bike with the crooked handlebars for so long that you accustom yourself to their crookedness. And eventually, if you practice error long enough, start to believe that the crooked is actually straight. Error is 1+1+1 not equaling 3. Error is cause and effect where the cause is always hidden.  Error is the poison in the flower that concealed it. Error is the alluring bait with a hook in it, that you won’t discover until you are already on the line. Error is always some compromise on the truth, some absence of truth or some twist on the truth. Error makes you miss the target! Error is darkness that is only overcome by light, one spark, one sheen, one glimmer at a time.

The sunshine of a man’s soul is the truth of God’s Word, which is the only source of light sufficient enough to cut through the bullshit and get to any real remedy. The rest will consist only of a mental masturbation never leading to anything substantial, ever leading to more and more darkness and confusion and loss. God’s Word, the Bible tells you how to think and as such is without error because its Author is without error. The logic of light cannot be defeated with illogic as its Creator, Light, sees through every scheme, every shenanigan, every misstep, sidestep and step back. Thus the logic of God’s Word is the only thing that will work successfully against your spiritual opponent. It is the light sufficient for you to see so you can dig, so you can remove, so you can rebuild on rock and not on more sand.

People were never designed to function as free agents, living their lives according to their own rules and on their own terms. The design for people included the great freedom to choose for themselves in every conceivable way after being presented with the choices. Conjuring up rules as you go or following the rules your parents taught you by their parents who taught them and their parents who taught them, leads inescapably to defeat. Making up your own mind by using only your own mind about what is good and what is evil is as insane as jumping off a building because you decided you wouldn’t get hurt! Gravity preexisted your thought processes. God gave you free will so that you could choose Him, not have to choose Him. He presents you with a way to live abundantly if you choose to live that way, not because you have to live that way. God even has to let you walk down those slippery slopes to your own demise when you are bound and determined to do it, but remains ready in an instant to save you should you earnestly request it!

Can’t you see it? God wants to help you solve your problems. He wants to help you take out the trash from your head, one bag at a time. He wants you to find a better way where there is no fear, no anxiety, no trepidation about living. He wants you to finally understand that your big problems are easy for Him to solve and that He will turn you on to the answers when you come to Him, with empty shovels in hand. He wants to rescue you and deliver you from that evil despot that has been running roughshod over your life and heart! He is willing! Are you?

Those gigantic obstacles to living, those great mountains of defeat, those solid walls of despair that have been built into your heart may be removed, one chisel, one rock, one brick at a time. You might not destroy the structure overnight, but you can tear them all down if you will persist. How you got there doesn’t matter. What matters is whether or not you are going to stay there. We have all zigged when we should have zagged, so stand up tall, throw your shoulder’s back and get what you’ve got coming to you!

Get your problems solved, you dig?

Just some good thoughts…