Happy New Year

I don't know what to expect in the new year and I don't know what's going to happen, but I do know that God's will shall be done. Most people hope for a better new year, and in some aspects some things will be better than last year, but in reality this fallen world is accelerating it's slide into the abyss. This is both terrifying and exhilarating. Terrifying because we as Christians know what is in store for this world, and exhilarating because we as Christians know what is in store for us. 

¹⁵ Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶ For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. ¹⁷ The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever. (1 John 2:15-17)

When I look at the majesty of God's creation, and my favorite bit of the majesty of God's creation is the Rocky Mountains, it's hard not to love the world, after all He made it for us. It's dizzying to think that the splendor of those mountains - the trees, the rock formations, the minerals that have never been tapped, and the herds of animals that call them home - it's just a temporary thing God threw together in a matter of hours just for us. How much more spectacular is our true home going to be when He calls us to be with Him? 

I like to think that compared to what God has planned for us, this world is equivalent a plastic bowl with a plastic palm tree that we used to keep turtles in. This is not a turtle's real habitat any more than this world is the real home home God originally intended for us. I could go on and on about how moral values are being torn apart, how quoting the bible is now hate speech, and how even prayer is now illegal, 

For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come. (Hebrews 13:14)

So if I care to remember one thing this New Years Eve, it's that not only is it a special day in the lives of Mrs. WideAwakeChristian and myself, but to also discard the worries and fears of the approaching darkness. Yes, it's also one day closer to being with Him, and for that I'm thankful every day. As for looking to the future in 2014, the only thing I know for sure is that I will be seeking the lord

¹¹ For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. ¹² Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. ¹⁴ I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.’ (Jeremiah 29:11-14)

Don't Major In The Minors

This weekend Mrs. WideAwakeChristian and I were out of town and were blessed to be able to visit a church where the pastor was Pastor Al Pittman, a godly man whom we hear on the radio every day at 5:30 in our abode 100 miles away. Pastor Al's messages are always meaningful and poignant and have always been an aid in our walk with Jesus, and this time it was an extra special blessing to be able to learn from him as we sat right there in front row center. I don't care what anyone says, recorded sermons loose a little something that happens in a live setting. 

One of the points that Pastor Al made was "Don't major on the minors". To me this sounds like a military phrase that a good NCO will demand of his troops on the lines of "Don't get stuck on stupid", and considering that in the near vicinity of Pastor Al's church there are a minimum of 5 military bases and the fact that Pastor Al's father was a career soldier I didn't think much of the use of the phrase at the time, considering it a throw away "attention getter"that the military loves to use when making a point. But it's really an important concept to keep in mind especially for us Christians. 

Ignore The Breathless Hype

Ignore the hype and hyperventilation, this is the real Phil Robertson

The True Meaning of Christmas

When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all
But high from God's heaven, a star's light did fall
And the promise of ages it then did recall.

for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:11)

This is why we celebrate Christmas, to celebrate Christ's birth, but that's not the true meaning of Christmas. Babies are born all the time, in hospitals, in homes, in barns and in mangers. The true meaning of Christmas is why one very important baby was born in a little middle east backwater village on a lonely night, the date unrecorded in the depths of time so we had to settle on a day to remember why God took off his mantle of Holy righteousness and power and was born to a virgin in a rude manger. 

But the true meaning of Christmas is why God came to earth in the first place. He didn't come to heal the sick and walk on water and change water into wine, but he did that and more. The true meaning of Christmas can be found in the story of the lost birds.

The "Japanization" Of Christmas in America

Christians make up approximately 0.005% of Japans population (about 750,000 Christians in a country of 126 million), so I full well understand that the Japanese will have their own interesting twist on the Christian holiday of Christmas, or Kurisumasu. This is essentially a new holiday in Japan, picked up via radio and TV in the early '60's, and without a body of Christianity in Japan this holiday has gone off into its own direction.

Kurisumasu looks like Christmas in western countries at first glance, Santa Claus, reindeer, Christmas trees, buildings decorated with multicolored lights, the crowds shopping for gifts for their loved ones... but it's just a superficial resemblance. Kurisumasu is not a national holiday in Japan so schools and businesses remain open on December 25th, and the reason for the season is more cake and chicken rather than Christ and salvation.

Speaking with Dunamis

The shrieking hysteria over Phil Robertson's remarks continues unabated, but slowly the truth comes out. It now appears that A&E's shock over Phil's remarks is more contrived than concerned. While Phil was doing that interview an A&E representative was present during the interview and approved of his words. A&E had control over that interview but happily did nothing. Nor was there any surprise at A&E, as they knew full well of Phil's love of God and his distaste for sin long before they signed the Robertson's to a contract. 

As the backlash against A&E and GLAAD, The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against honest Discussion Discrimination, and their war against Christianity and their selective outrage grows across the country, the forces aligned against God realized that they need more ammo so guess what - they came up with even more contrived, imaginary charges against Phil Robertson.

Duck Hypocrisy

Lost in the media hysteria about Phil Robertson's recent remarks about gays is one important thing; Phil Robertson's recent remarks about gays.

In an interview with Esquire magazine Phil Robertson was talking about sin, forgiveness and redemption, which GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against honest Discussion Discrimination, sees as an attack on gay people. I know how these people work, you can say anything about homosexuality, and it doesn't matter what you say, if GLAAD decides you are a homophobe, you're immediately under attack regardless of what you've actually said, and they will lie about what you said to validate their point. However if they think you are of any value, they will completely ignore what you said, and maybe even praise you for it. 

I've been classified as a homophobe for the sin of (if you're easily shocked, please turn away) Telling People That John Shore Is Intentionally Misinterpreting The Bible. John Shore worships the words of Dan Savage more than the word of God, and that's his right, he can worship anything he wants, including Dan Savages bitter hate speech and child abusive rants. But because I pointed out the inaccuracies of Shore's message I am labeled a homophobe (and worse). However the gay community is utterly wrong, I'm not a homophobe, I fear no man, I fear God.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1:7)

Jeremiah - A Blast From The Past

God called Jeremiah to be His prophet in about 626 BC, about one year after Josiah, king of Judah, had turned Judah away from idolatry and toward God. However so thirsty for false idols was Judah that quickly after Josiah's death they immediately returned to worshiping the idols of foreign countries and returned to child sacrifice.

Jeremiah's ministry was one of preaching against false prophets causing him to become persecuted. He laments the difficulty of speaking God's word and is full of regret that being a prophet of the one true God has caused him to be a laughingstock and a target for physical persecution. He was beaten, put in stocks, and thrown down a well, all for preaching the word of God.

Random Stuff... and Things!

This world is not my home

Polygamy Utah style - The state of Utah has eased the restrictions against polygamy because the laws against  bigamy and multiple partner marriages are racist. The court states in effect ruled that banning polygamy was a way to get deviant white people to start acting white. What we end up with is a legal mish-mosh that's not really polygamous marriage, nor is it really monogamous marriage, it's a legal limbo called "religious cohabitation" It gets worse.

Polygamy North Dakota style - North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem filed a legal opinion confirming that North Dakota does not recognize out of state same sex marriages, therefore people already in a same sex marriage can come to North Dakota and marry a person of the opposite sex while still legally being married to someone of the same sex and now all three are in a legal marriage and our legal "guardians" stand to make untold millions of dollars untying the legal knots. No wonder why God wants to burn us.

Do you really trust Second Lieutenant Peachfuzz more than your Pastor? You never met 2Lt. Peachfuzz! I've met 2Lt Peachfuzz, we sent him over to the motorpool to get a bucket of jetblast so we could clean the chain stretcher on a B-52. You should have seen the look on his face when we told him that the empty bucket he brought back was full of propwash, not jetblast. What I'm saying is that most people don't know military officers, have never met military officers, and wouldn't know what to do with a military officer if they got one for Christmas, yet they trust military officers more than their pastor? Maybe if we would take Psalm 118:8 more to heart we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now. 

Little Gods

 “Here then is eternal life...to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you...To inherit the same power, the same glory and the same exaltation, until you arrive at the station of God”(Joseph Smith, History of the Church, Vol. 6, page 306)

“I’m going to say something, WE are gods, in this earth, and it’s about time we start operating like gods instead of a bunch of mere powerless humans” (Creflo Dollar, April 17, 2002 Changing your World, LeSea Broadcasting). 

"You're all God. You don't have a God living in you; you are one! ... When I read in the Bible where God tells Moses, 'I AM,' I say, 'Yeah, I am too!'" (Kenneth Copeland "The Force of Love," Tape BBC-56).

"I am a little god!...I have His name. I'm one with Him. I'm in covenant relation. I am a little god! Critics, be gone!" (Paul Crouch, Praise The Lord, July 7, 1986)

"God came from heaven, became a man, made man into little gods, went back to heaven as a man. He faces the Father as a man. I face devils as the son of God. Quit your nonsense! What else are you? If you say, I am, you’re saying I’m a part of Him, right? Is he God? Are you His offspring? Are you His children? You can’t be human! (Benny Hinn, Our Position in Christ #2—The Word Made Flesh  Orlando Christian Center, 1991)

And now a word from our Savior:

Sozo? Vas Ist Das Sozo?

While reading a post about false teachers at Spirit of Error a commentor mentioned the heresies of "Fire Tunnels" and "Sozo". Fire Tunnels? I figured that was some charismatic goat chow and when I looked it up every article started with the words "Toronto Blessing" in the first paragraph. Roger on that goat chow. However Sozo? At first I honestly thought it was a German brand of Coffee - "Haben leibchen, könnte ich noch einen Sozo Kaffee? (Honey, could I have another cup of Sozo Coffee?)"* Sozo however is goat chow of the nuclear variety. Sozo is the Greek word for save or deliver. Sozo ministries describe Sozo:

Sozo ministry is a unique inner healing and deliverance ministry aimed to get to the root of things hindering your personal connection with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. With a healed connection, you can walk in the destiny to which you have been called.

I don't know about you, but the words "unique inner healing" set off some major alarm bells in my heart. Then I found the Sozo web page concerning curses. According to the practitioners of Sozo us military veterans are cursed. Vietnam veterans have been cursed by Buddist monks who cause my older brothers to be angry men and women all of their lives and never find rest. My younger brothers, we sandbox soldiers, have been cursed with failed marriages and will be haunted by survivors guilt. My stint in the military covered both eras so I guess  I'm in serious Sozo trouble. And it gets worse, Sozo works like this: 

Cling To The Father And His Holy Name

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. (Luke 1:31) 

She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. (Matthew 1:21)

What is in a name? A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, right? I wish I knew how many times I've read Luke 1:31 and Matthew 1:21 and just blipped on by with never a thought, except possibly "Didn't Isaiah say His name would be Manuel or Manual or something like that?" The thing is that Jesus has a lot of names, or more correctly Jesus is called a LOT of things through out the Bible. However his name, Jesus, is obviously important as it's told to both Mary in Luke and Joseph in Matthew that they shall name the baby Jesus. The name Jesus is obviously important as there's just a ton of other, more awesome sounding, names used in the bible: 

The Bread of Life

Bethlehem

In John chapter 6 we see that Jesus was having a tough time with his followers. He started this chapter healing the sick and a large crowd started following him out of curiosity. He then took two fish and five barley loaves and fed the crowd of thousands which caused even more people to follow Him. First they were hungry, then they found there was free food to be had!

Now Jesus occasionally had to avoid the crowds to the point where he once took a shortcut across the Sea of Galilee (without a boat for much of the journey). The crowds can see Jesus performing signs and miracles, they can see the dumb speak, the deaf hear, the lame leap, the lepers cleansed, but they're concentrating on the physical here-and-now of the free food rather than the spiritual aspects of Jesus the Messiah. Jesus told them not to work for the temporary food of this world but the food which endures forever which He can give them. Of course they asked what kind of work does God want them to do and...

Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” (John 6:29)

The Three Wise Guys

In church this Sunday Pastor Lovejoy used a term I've heard in the past to describe the three eastern visitors to the Nativity. He was actually talking about the lack of representation that shepherds get in the nativity of the Good Shepherd Himself, they're rarely shown, meanwhile the "Three Wise Guys" get all the good press. 

Pastor Lovejoy has a good point, the angels announced Jesus' birth first to the shepherds who first visited Jesus, Mary, & Joseph, while the Three Wise Guys showed up who knows how much later. Every nativity scene shows one maybe two shepherds, and they were notified first! But the Three Wise Guys always get the grand entrance. Being from New York, the term "wise guys" might have a different connotation to me than west coast born and bred Pastor Lovejoy.

"Hey Joseph, nice manger you got here. Be a shame should sometin happin to it, ya know?"

Kind of a 'Guys and Dolls' nativity scene played by Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando and Morgan Freeman happening in my mind, well, at least that's MY impression of how The Three Wise Guys would announce their visitation. But what do we really know about these three kings... wise men... wise guys... 

The Greatest Prophesies That Ever Came To Pass

Sometimes I wonder why God made us, we've done little for Him other than cause Him pain and despair. How long was Adam in the garden with Him before being evicted for violating the one rule God laid down?

But create us He did, and when we fell He had a plan of salvation that would give us redemption and save us from ourselves and our sins. One of the best parts of this plan is that over the years God would give us more information in the way of prophesy to let us know what was coming.

In Genesis 3:15 God said to Satan:

And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

God is telling Satan that our Redeemer is not going to be a supernatural being like an angel but born of a human woman, a descendant of Eve, and that while Satan may hurt his heel and cause him to limp, our Savior is going to strike a crushing blow to our enemy.

How Did I Miss Matthew 11:6?

While bopping around in the bible this morning I was in the opening verses of Matthew 11 and read this:

2 Now when John, while imprisoned, heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to Him, “Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?” 4 Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and report to John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. 6 And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.” (Matthew 11:2-6)

I've read Matthew in its entirety four times this year and always loved Jesus' words of encouragement to his cousin, how better to say "Yes, I am He whom you have prepared the way for, thank you faithful servant." than offering the proof that John was so eager to hear. But verse 6 stopped me this morning for some reason - "And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me" I do not remember ever seeing this before, ever. 

False Prophet Dead - She didn't see it coming

Sylvia Brown, a self proclaimed celebrity psychic with a self proclaimed accuracy rate of 80% - 90% died at the age of 77, only 11 years short of her public prophesy of 88. She didn't see it coming. Her accuracy was much lower than her claim of 80% - 90%, in 1992 she was indicted on grand larceny charges - she didn't see that coming either. There's a lot that she didn't see coming until it reached a point where other false prophets were upset that she was giving false prophecy a bad name. Competing false prophet Craig Weller said "Some of the people in the intellectual community who lean toward the psychic side of things did not think much of her," In case you missed it, the punchline was "people in the intellectual community who lean toward the psychic side of things"

It would be so much easier for us if all of the false prophets were like Sylvia Brown and Craig Weller - outside of the church where they could be easily identified and, with the grace of God, saved if possible. Unfortunately it's not that clean and easy. I don't know the reasoning God used, maybe He did it to shake the goats loose from His true church, maybe He did it to bring us back to His word, but what ever His reasoning, many many many false prophets are claiming to be Christian leaders and the only prophesy I will ever make is that it's going to get worse.