Recently 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…
Mental health has become a popular topic nowadays. People are becoming more and more aware of the importance of their mental health and how it positively or negatively affects their lives. It might surprise you to know that as long as there have been human beings, mankind has endured mental health problems. As thinking beings and the only thinking beings as we know it, man is forever impacted by the thoughts he chooses and the thoughts he entertains. To separate the mental health issues that plague mankind and his thoughts serves only to make man a victim and not someone that has control over his thoughts and thus his mental health. A healthy mind must be fed healthy thoughts and the thoughts that contradict health always lead to sickness, first in the mind and later in the body. Have mental health issues got you down? If so, listen to my mental health musings and see what you think.
One 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?
Last 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?
It wasn’t too long ago that I rejected the notion that you had to do your best in order for God to do the rest. Basically, I was reacting to the idea that God was somehow limited in helping people according to what people did or didn’t do. The phrase certainly isn’t found anywhere in the Bible. However, the more I considered it, the more I recognized that we have also a responsibility in getting our prayers answered. We aren’t our own source of blessings for sure, but we do play a part in the equation. It seems it is not natural nor does it fit within the reality of living life to think that we simply offer up prayers and then expect God to deliver what we need with no efforts on our part. And while “best” is certainly a subjective term, we do have some responsibility in pursuing the answers and results that we need. Do we need to do our best for God to meet our need or is it rather that we need to apply the necessary actions in accordance with what we are believing for God to do for us?
I think all people have that little inkling inside that softly urges them towards finding out about spiritual realities. We have all sort of heard of God and maybe have some questions about who He is and why things happen the way they do. Unfortunately, when you begin your quest, you realize that there are so many choices out there to consider; all of them claiming to have a corner on the truth. So, you try this one and check that one. You go to your friend’s church, your parent’s church; try an online thing and maybe do some additional reading. The more you search the more you realize that each group claims to be right and has some shade to throw on the other groups. Assuming you are sincere in your quest, how would you know? How can you be sure you are making a good choice and not something that leads you down the road of heretical tyranny? Lord knows we have all heard of cults that start good then end dreadfully bad. Of course we have the Bible which seems like the logical place to start, but other folks have their own bibles as well, some as reported additions, others as completely separate works. Again, how could you possibly know? Well, I think there is one thing that all the counterfeits have in common and one thing that points you to the truth. The real deal is the truth and there is only one truth.
There’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…
Having just recently entered my second year in my sixth decade (happy birthday to me), I thought it might be good to reflect on the past year. Something about the sixth decade that causes you to take pause and think about things more than you have ever done in the past. Not thinking you would ever actually be this old, you start to learn some things you probably should have learned years ago. Last year was a year of intense learning and untold insights for me concerning life and living. And, at the risk of bringing you into an idea mosh pit, I’m going to share some of those things with you. 
Have you ever confessed that you have been working on yourself as if you needed some type of repair? Or, have you used phrases such as, “I’m trying to be better, or I’m a work in progress?” Well, these things may actually be true in some sense. We all could benefit from some revisions, some adjustments I suppose. After all, we are all imperfect creatures in one way or another. But, have you ever considered that you might be just fine exactly the way you are? Behind all of our noble and sincere efforts to be better, hides an enemy whose goal is to make us feel less than who we actually are. He assaults our hearts with accusations and endeavors to write a narrative about our lives that isn’t true. He seeks to point out what is wrong with us instead of all the things that are right. And, in the end, we end up feeling bad about ourselves and searching for ways to improve. So the question is, are you really in need of repair or have you simply been focusing on the wrong stuff?
One of the great hallmarks of a confident person is their ability to trust themselves. In order to be successful at anything, you have to learn to trust yourself; your judgments; your feelings and to maintain that trust in the face of opposition and the naysayers. Prosperous businessmen and women are so because they had an idea and also had the holy boldness to see it through to a positive, profitable end. Good parents are those that know and understand their children and also know what is and isn’t good for the child, regardless of what anyone else seems to be doing. In our world of endless information and advice, people have relied less and less on what they think and have instead defaulted to what everyone else thinks. People have stopped thinking for themselves and severely limited themselves in the process. It would seem to make the most sense that you, living in your own body, experiencing your own life, knowing what turns you on and what turns you off, having your own unique and personal background, would serve as the expert of things pertaining to your own soul. Do you trust yourself?
justsomegoodthoughts 