Author: watchstandpray

190 – Keep Calm and Carry On

Don’t trust in your own resources—your schedule, your friends, favors whether owed or promised, your money, or your smarts, talents, skills, education, or looks whether ugly or gorgeous. Base your trust on God’s hand to hold and uphold you. Then, you will stand no matter what comes your way.

The center of every storm brings its own calm. You yourself can be that peace. If you bring your own peace, then you are like another storm against the storm. Peace itself is a weapon.

Never grasp hastily at opportunities. When an army attacks, it plans for the enemy to respond. A good war strategist will even present phony “escape routs” in order to move the enemy into an ambush. Your red carpet way out will always include peace. Wait for the peaceful and proper moment before you move.

One of the oldest tactics of demons is to contrive plans so evil and terrible that almost every human will try to deny that the evil plan is real. This way, only the wickedest people will take up such plans. Yet, discovering those plans will naturally scare good people into going frantic. This is part of the plan used by demons on a regular basis. “Being discovered” is part of a grand strategy scare tactic to take away peace from their victims. Don’t fall for it. Keep calm and carry on.

Jesus is the prince of peace. Of course, being the Truth himself, Jesus will draw controversy and divide even immediate family members. But, Jesus brings peace and calm confidence to those who accept him for the Truth he is. He settles conflicts that whole world considers too impossible to settle, bringing peace and making friends even between the greatest of foes. Jesus’s ministry to the world is that Truth and Peace come together in him because Truth and Peace can only come if they come together because the root of conflict is fear, which is not driven away by compromise, but by confidence.

Many problems only exist because we think they are problematic, arising from our imagination of fear and worry. Act like a thing is not a problem and it just won’t might be.

189 – Act Sentient, not Addictive

A tree follows the rules that govern its life process. Roots grow down toward water, branches grow up toward light. Those are the “morals” of a tree and the tree follows them automatically. If a tree were to search for water in the dry, hot sun or grow leaves for sunlight in the dark, damp soil, the tree would die. Trees depend on “tree morals” in order to thrive and survive. The rules must be something for the tree to grow, even if leaves were for soil and roots for light—the rules must be set somehow for the survival of the tree.

Our own human bodies have some similar rules about where to grow arms and legs. But, unlike the tree, humans have the option to obey or disobey many of the rules that our survival depends upon. Consider many communicable diseases as an example. Certain activities make people more vulnerable to disease, other activities make people less vulnerable—such as abstaining from more vulnerable things and, in particular, washing hands especially before eating.

Trees follow their “tree morals” without any problem. As a result, they live and thrive. But, we humans have the choice of whether to follow “human morals” that empower us to live, survive, and thrive. Too often, we run counter to our necessary morals and, instead, make self-destructive choices. This is because God, in His goodness, created us with a choice. When we follow the path of life, it is not as programmed minions, but as a choice. God does not program us to love Him and choose life. We choose love and life willingly.

Our tendency to run contrary to the path leading to life started with the sin of Adam eating the only forbidden fruit, thus planting sin into our bodies. Because of this, we sinfully-instinctively gravitate to object to morals, whatever they may be. If trees could sin as humans could, they would object, even if their leaves were for the soil and roots for sunlight.

Our ongoing tendency to object to our own moral needs—whatever they may be—is nothing more than an addiction to lawlessness—and addictions never help anyone do anything worth doing.

188 – Jesus Our Substitute

Jesus’s work at the Cross was a work as our substitute for sin. The reason we do not need to suffer Eternity in the Lake of Fire is because Jesus took that pain and punishment upon himself.

No one compelled Jesus to do this. The Father “commanded” it and Jesus “obeyed”. But, in this relationship that Jesus, the Son of God, is one in the Father, Jesus “commanded” his own crucifixion as much as the Father did, and the Father “obeyed” the will of the Son as much as the Son obeyed the Father did. They were in complete agreement without negotiation or compromise. For the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for that matter, there simply was no other option.

God would stop at nothing to redeem the human race which He created in His Image. We are so valuable to Him, so precious and beloved, that the Cross was nothing compared to the great joy and happiness that God has merely in enjoying us living with Him forever.

Jesus’s pain at the Cross was foreseen. The question has been asked in human history, “If God is good and knew Adam would sin, why would He create humans in the first place, knowing that they would choose Eternal damnation?”

But, this question is in error. Adam’s sin and millions of humans rejecting Jesus as their Substitute for Eternal damnation were not the only events that God foresaw before Creation. God also foresaw His Son—the Word of God made flesh—suffering at the Cross, and the Word of God nonetheless chose to speak Earth and the rest of Creation into being anyway. The proper question is: Why would such a God with foresight create a world knowing He would suffer so? The answer is: unimaginable love.

God Almighty will let none boast above Him. The Infinite, Eternal Son, during those Infinite hours of flogging, beating, and crucifixion, experienced the full weight of God’s Eternal wrath upon Himself. He suffered more than all souls Eternally combined. For Jesus’s work, he is perfectly just and fair in condemning any soul to a lesser pain for rejecting such a free and accessible gift as our Substitute.

Isaiah 53:5, Matthew 8:17, Mark 10:45, John 3:16-21; 10:11; 15:13, Romans 5:6, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Galatians 2:20; 3:13,  Hebrews 9:28, 1 Peter 2:21-25; 3:18, 1 John 4:10, Revelation 5

187 – Jesus’s Prayer: Love Each Other

In John 17, Jesus prayed that Christians would love each other. At the beginning of the 21st century, this remained Jesus’s great unanswered prayer. It’s not that God didn’t answer Jesus’s prayer, but that some prayers can only be answered by people.

Though God calls us to solitude at times, Christians need meaningful friendships with each other. Many of these are peer-to-peer while others are senior-junior relationships where one person is the “older sibling” helping along the younger, but everyone can learn from everyone.

The Bible commands us to love all people. “All people” includes everyone. But, petty squabbles between sectarian Christians seem to get a pass. Somehow, “Churchianity” Christians work it out in their minds so that this topic or that question or this other fact is some kind of an exception—some kind of an “excuse card” giving them license to fight and hate. That’s when you know someone has been swallowed up by a culture of “religious feelings” and understands nothing about the Bible.

When you see a Christian who thinks it’s acceptable to be disrespectful to anyone for any reason, to pass judgment before holding a thorough in-depth, face-to-face conversation, to be dismissive, to condescend while teaching, or to refuse general communication with other Christians—that person is the lowest of the low in Christian maturity and should be treated as a non-Christian in need of meeting Jesus for the first time. That person needs love as much as repentance, but isn’t ready for “Christian fellowship”, even as a junior, because welcoming basic love comes first.

Christians are a family, which includes people who annoy others. Siblings can easily be frustrating. When one family member snaps at another, that “snapping” does not address a problem in the recipient, but reveals a problem with the person who snapped. We all have our moments of folly, recognize yours and never make excuses.

Christians believe in the Jesus who answers prayer—the same Jesus who prayed that Christians would love one another and love all people, including enemies. Whatever ideas or notions lead you away from love are a lie from the pit of Hell. We all snap, but it is never excusable, never.

John 13:34-35; 17, 1 John 4:7-8

186 – Lawlessness & Legalism Are Mere Addictions

Rules are not in themselves automatically good, but having no rules at all is automatically bad. Humanity needs the right set of rules, just how rules of the road empower everyone to arrive safely and quickly. The inability to follow any rules at all—whether good or bad—keeps people oppressed by poverty. Anarchy itself is a tyrant.

Legalism has been wrongly labeled as “making absolute what the Bible does not”. Adding rules to the Bible is actually “man-made religion”; “legalism” is the belief that God’s rules are merely moot, serving no pragmatic, sensible, and quite understandable purpose.

Lawlessness, by contrast, is a quasi-religious worldview. Lawlessness applied to the Bible seeks what “sins” God doesn’t care if we commit in the name of “forgiveness”. Both legalism and lawlessness ask whether we should feel obligated or liberated concerning moral rules. The premise is wrong for both.

When Israel obeyed God’s command not to eat pork, they weren’t “mystically better” than other nations; they were less likely to get sick in a world without soap and therefore more likely to survive against attacks from evil nations that instituted human sacrifices. Banning pork had nothing to do with pigs having “less favorable spirits” than cows and sheep, but simple survival. It made common sense. Unfortunately, the erroneous teaching of the New Testament Pharisees was “legalism”, viewing these rules as having some impractical, ethereal value in and of themselves. Pork was simply unhealthy. By Jesus’s time, society knew how to cook. So, God declared it “clean” to Peter, thus the Jerusalem Council did too.

God’s rules in the Bible are not any part of some silly test. People need rules. But, legalistic religious teachers don’t understand this. They oppress people with rules, viewing the Bible as a club to smack people with. Legalism creates just as much anarchy as its lawless worldview counterpart. By not hitting the nail on the head, the nail gets bent. Regardless of whether the nail bends right or left, hitting it again will damage the furniture.

Legalism is an addiction to following rules as an end to themselves. Lawlessness is much the same—addiction to having the free-spirited, uncontrolled life of an wild animal.

185 – Purchase Is not Praise

Patronage is not a spectator sport. Don’t fall into the passive-consumer worldview, which presumes that being the customer of a business or the patron of an artist is a kind of “endorsement”. Your money and your bills are not notoriety, they are empowerment. There is a difference. If you struggle at all with confusing endorsement and empowerment, then money in your life will always hold a glass ceiling above your head.

Jesus taught us to exploit “wicked wealth” for the good purposes of Eternity. Buying products from a company owned by wicked men is no endorsement of what those wicked men do nor does it say that you “believe in” what they stand for. Buying a product is only buying a product. What wicked men intend for evil, you can commandeer for the good of God’s kingdom.

The plans of the all powerful God Most High are not thwarted because He appropriated the quality tools that some devil volunteered to create at no cost. Sure, demons do evil things with evil intentions, occasionally performing quality craftsmanship along the way. But, if God interrupts their work after they complete their craft, but before their evil is consummated, then evil squandered itself and God had the final word.

So, purchase your needed supplies from whatever supplier supplies you best. Go and spread the goodness of those products, multiplying their effectiveness with your own creativity and insight. Eat the worm off the hook, the cheese off of the mouse trap, and re-set it to snag the fisherman and the mouse trapper. Buy stock in unethical companies in hopes that millions of fair and honest people will do the same, eventually taking a controlling interest and converting that company from good to bad, rendering all the efforts of evil an absolute backfiring waste.

See yourself as the solution, not the self-important spectator sprinkling little rewards of money with your power game onto the players you deem best deserving of endorsement. That is not the way to make a difference.

Patronage is neither agreement nor dissent, blessing nor curse. March right down your enemy’s road, not because you bless the road, but in order to take over his wicked kingdom.

Luke 16:1-9

184 – Jesus and Him Crucified

Jesus’s crucifixion was the greatest game changer in all history, Eternity past and future.

He was the perfect human sacrifice, completely completing every part of every sacrificial Law from Moses. He was and is the literal Lamb of God. Because of Jesus’s death on the Cross, Moses’s sacrificial Law has been completed and fulfilled so that no sacrifices are ever necessary, ever again. His sacrifice is applied to anyone merely by believing that it is real and sufficient.

Jesus sacrifice was a human sacrifice, but it had much more power than any other human sacrifice. For those who have engaged in human sacrifices, Jesus’s self-sacrifice at the Cross is sufficient to break their bonds with the Devil, to completely forgive their evil, and to give them all the power and permissions available to anyone who believes in Jesus as the Messiah from God the Father.

The power of Jesus’s sacrifice was demonstrated in his resurrection from the grave. No one brought Jesus back to life; he brought himself back. In his crucifixion and completion of Moses’s sacrificial Law, death permanently lost its grip on humanity. Now, Jesus holds the grip on the grave.

Paul prayed to know Jesus in his suffering so that he could understand God more and to attain resurrection from the dead, just like Jesus. Paul also said that he should never hope to boast about anything except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Of all the accomplishments in this world, the greatest work in any of our lives is the redemptive work of Jesus at the Cross to bring new life in our own lives.

Jesus did miracles in his first lifetime on Earth. He also delegated the power of miracles to his disciples. He could do this because he had the Holy Spirit living inside of him. That was possible because Jesus was sinless and because he is the Son of God. In the Old Testament, some people had the power of the Holy Spirit, but it came and went at God’s will.

But, when Jesus finished his work at the Cross, the Temple curtain ripped and God’s Holy Spirit became permanently available to all who believe in Jesus the Crucified.

Matthew 27:51, Luke 10:17-20, John 14, Galatians 6:14, Philippians 3:7-11, Hebrews 10