365 – Page 50 – Watch. Stand. Pray.

344 – Prophecy Is…

There are two types of prophecy: canonical and particular.

“Cannon” is a big, fancy word for Bible, meaning that it can always be trusted as having “authority” as God’s Word. That “authoritative” teaching power can help, guide, correct, and explain life to all people in all times in all circumstances. (Of course, God’s Word must be translated and understood for people to receive it, but that opens the separate discussion of the need to translate God’s Word out of concern for all Mankind.) “Canonical” prophecy is prophecy in the authoritative “canon”, God’s Word; it carries the power of God’s Word and is useful for all people.

“Particular” prophecy, however, might also be called “particular revelation”. It is not for all people and is not part of the Biblical “canon”; it’s prophecy outside God’s Word. This is an idea that you might have while you are praying silently, listening for God to give you an idea. It could also be a simple message that God has a friend deliver to you.

Prophecy, whether canonical or particular, can be “foretelling” (about the future) or “forthtelling” (a simple message from God).

Foretelling is a prediction of the future. God’s Word says that foretelling might be wrong, which does not make the “prophet” (the person who told the prophecy) a bad or dangerous person. God commanded ancient Israel to put to death a prophet who performed miracles while also endorsing immoral behavior. Samuel was special because all of his foretellings came true; Nathan made a simple mistake and corrected it.

Canonical prophecy is part of God’s Word, so it doesn’t need as much “wiggle room” on our part to accept it. But, when someone has a message (particular forthtelling) for us, or we get one from God directly, it is easy to misunderstand.

Particular forthtelling almost never involves directing another’s “domestic” decisions, such as personal finances, possessing a home or car, marriage, and choice of a school. God usually indicates those matters directly with us and endows us with “wisdom” to make our own decisions.

All prophecy must be interpreted through God’s Word, even prophecy in God’s Word. Always keep praying and studying God’s Word to understand any prophecy.

Deuteronomy 13:1-5; 18:15-22, 1 Samuel 3:19, 2 Samuel 7:1-17

345 – Secrets, Societies & Business Clubs

Never depend on cronies to boost your rise in the ranks. Earn your way, charge on your own steam. Progress by your merits and good work. If you end up artificially near the top of an institution or are thrust into the spotlight—without crawling and clawing every inch of the way on your own—then you won’t have endured enough character-building experiences to know what to do once you’ve arrive.

So, never join a group or club or frat or local church or donor group with any goal of advancing your career.

The Chinese philosopher Han Fei Tsu was against “secret societies” because they create dual allegiances. One cannot serve two masters. If you want to gain privileges and club points through your day job, your day job career will suffer. If you exploit your friends and coworkers for an MLM, your career and friendships will suffer. In all of your work remain loyal to that work.

It’s alright to have multiple companies and jobs, even to join local do-gooder clubs, but when it comes to footsie and secret handshakes at the negotiation table, your businesses and strategies won’t hold their own water. Never accept “career help” from any group that offers it. Never. They need you more than you need them.

Don’t expose them, their destructive wake is easily located—people who don’t have any explainable reason for being in charge probably don’t have one. When a company is failing and people ask how “that idiot” got into power, whether conspiracy or not, he is probably in that power seat because his friends helped him get it.

In the Bible-based worldview, Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He can provide you with whatever favor you need. Even when you are surrounded by cronyism, those collapsing institutions need uncompromising, singly-loyal “wise counselors” like Daniel and Esther to help keep their self-sabotaged structures from completely falling down.

Jesus stands unique, not only among religions, but also in contrast to fraternities. Jesus already owns every institution on Earth. Loyalty to Jesus doesn’t carry any conflict to normal, healthily operating institutions that society relies on to function. So, let Jesus be your Mentor.

Matthew 11:25-27; 28:18, Ephesians 1:20-23; 5:12-14, Philippians 2:9-11, Colossians 2:9-10, 1 Peter 3:21-22

346 – Render to Caesar

Pay your taxes.

Jesus was clear about the need to pay taxes, as is the rest of the New Testament and even the Old Testament. Governments—however immature and corrupt they often are—provide for overall peace and oversee basic functions of leadership. Even wicked and evil leaders will provide basic structures for society, such as Mussolini, who made the trains run on time. This is no moral endorsement, but structures need funding. Notwithstanding, whatever doesn’t pay taxes might not be ethical.

If taxes are too high, find a legal way around—give away your money if you must! Another way is to incorporate—a “corporation” is just a piece of paper, not some ginormous conglomerate as a child’s guess might suppose.

One big problem of our ever-smaller-after-all world is tax turf; nations can’t agree on who owes taxes where. When you visit a country more than 30 days, you probably owe high-rate income tax to the country you visited on your personal earnings, but your home country may also demand normal rates, effectively leaving you with only a quarter of your own hard-earned income. There is no need for this, one simple law solves it all: “When any of our citizens are present in another taxable territory and they thus owe personal income tax to that authority for that time beyond our borders, all income so taxed shall be exempt from taxes here.”

If childish countries play tug-o-war with your bread and butter, earn nothing to pay nothing. Ask your employer to suspend your salary, pay you early, late, quit, or find another way. Or, incorporate, restructure the papers so the governments like the pretty picture it makes on their desks, live below the poverty line, sleep in a box, and keep re-investing your “corporate” money like a good financial steward.

If you must find ways to survive, still find a way to pay taxes. Drop some deductions so you can “owe” income and keep government funded. Donate what you would normally pay if laws were actually normal.

Don’t live fat and lavish, paying slim or zero tax. Structure your accounts responsibly, but keep the roads and bridges funded. That’s also part of stewardship.

Numbers 31:25-31, Ezra 4:20, Matthew 17:24-27; 22:15-22

347 – Be Hardy, for Too Much Help Insults

Few social gestures say, “You can,” like turning someone down from help. The message isn’t always received, but there are fixes for that. If you need to, say it outright, “I’m not going to help you because that would imply that you can’t do it on your own. You can do this. I did it under similar circumstances,” and make sure your statement is true.

To be hardy at the right time you must have been through hard times. You are only able to encourage people who go through hard times as easy as your most difficult times. If you’re serious about life and want to be an encouragement, hard times are coming. But, that’s okay. You’ll get through them. I did.

The social implication of Jesus’s crucifixion says it all. He doesn’t only “try” to understand—though sympathy is virtuous—but he truly empathizes with our levels of difficulty. He saw the demons, angels, sin, wisdom, folly, and disease, yet he was perfect, ridiculed, loved, and ultimately crucified. His patience alone (not yet considering the beating and crucifixion) needed to endure such a wide distance between his own perfection and the wickedness of his enemies. That earned Jesus first place in the competition of “who has been through harder times” (which every human secretly yearns to compete for).

Since Jesus went through worse, I can finish today.

Don’t insult or spew degrading words. Don’t be cynical and describe only the air in the glass. Just say, “Oh, you’ve got enough water in the glass to get through this.” If someone needs help, give just enough so that they can still claim their own victory.

Don’t do everything for children, students, or subordinates, lest they never learn to do things on their own. Doing something correctly requires doing it oneself. Coaching requires patience. Failing strengthens muscles, which empower capability. When a toddler falls on the floor, best to act like nothing happened. Babies are born with extra padding and adults to make sure they don’t fall down the stairs.

In America’s version of chivalry, hardiness was the vital virtue long forgotten for the new obsession with pretentious piety. We badly need a resurgence of hardiness.

Job 2:11, 2 Kings 2:2, Proverbs 14:4; 18:24; 24:5; 27:5-6, John 16:33, Philippians 3:10-11; 4:13

348 – God’s Word Is…

The Bible is best known as “God’s Word”. The WORD is the Son and spoke Creation into being; Jesus is the WORD made flesh. God’s “words” are messages from God to us in prophecy and life.

God’s Word was inspired by the Holy Spirit through the writings of godly men addressing the matters of their day, containing their personalities and language styles, but because the Holy Spirit “inspired” those writers, God’s Word is perfect in its ability to supercharge your heart for an optimally effective life.

God’s Word might be compared to an operating system of Heaven, written for us, in the human language of history and literature. Poetry is code—the code of the human psyche—and God’s Word is written in that code. We are best able to understand Heaven’s ideas for helping us on Earth by reading ancient history, ancient law, ancient poetry, ancient prophecy, and ancient correspondence. God’s Word is a window back in time to the pivotal points in human history, interpreted through the worldview of our Creator God.

Concepts of “software updates” belong to our human progress in technology, not God. God’s Word updates our “software”, the “update” does not need updating.

Our DNA structure, human patterns, basic survival needs, and nature as the Image of God has not changed at all. The operating system we need today is neither more nor less able to suit our needs today than it was with Adam and Eve. We do not need any “update” to God’s Word since our hardware has indeed not changed. To say that we have “improved” to any point of needing an improvement on God’s Word would suggest that God didn’t know what He was doing, that we were partially an accident, that we were partially incomplete and imperfect when God made us.

God Most High’s instructions for us cannot be improved upon. To say so denies that God is Most High.

By taking in God’s Word daily, we steadily progress a supernatural transformation—beyond the metaphysical existence of our minds—giving us wisdom and virtue to make us strong for every other area in which we hope to improve. Only God’s Word makes self-actualization even possible.

Psalm 33:4; 119:130, Matthew 4:4; 24:35, Luke 11:28, 2 Peter 1:21

349 – Four Seasons in Christian Life

There are many seasons of Christian growth. It would be ridiculous to attempt to number them since they would be different for each person and could arguably change multiple times each day. Generically, there are a few seasons we must expect, some of these are celebrated by most Christians, some are rarely taught about, some are even scorned by the majority of Sunday morning Bible teachers.

When a person first comes to grips with the reality of God and Jesus, there is a basic learning phase. This includes becoming familiar with the Bible, godliness, and Jesus’s command to love one another as we love ourselves. This season is exciting, energetic, and comes with “bratty”, bad manners and daily “epiphanies” (that other Christians already know). In a sense it’s like being a snot-nosed child all over again. Enjoy it while it lasts for you; be patient and excited with other people while it lasts for them.

Another season is “dryness”, when we don’t seem to feel God at all—at all. CS Lewis wrote “I have never for one moment been in a state of mind to which even the imagination of serious pain was less than intolerable.” Medieval Christians called this season “The dark night of the soul”. It’s normal. Mine lasted about 15 years. In the end, it became nearly impossible to make me sad.

Less celebrated is the season of solitude, when God takes a Christian away from nearly all—if not absolutely all—other Christians. This can be imprisonment, persecution, or difficult life circumstances. “Established” Sunday morning groups will usually scorn these people, basically invalidating their own legitimacy since their purpose is to help people learn about God, while some lessons require absolute solitude.

The last phase listed here is almost unheard of: “Sending out”. The Church—all Christians everywhere—is unhealthy if Christians stay put forever. At some point we need to travel, visit, write letters, somehow reach to others over distance. Too often, “travel” is misinterpreted by Sunday morning establishments as “rebellion”, but if those congregations celebrated the desire to have wider fellowship, Christians in this phase would be able to lead the overall Church to more maturity and happiness.

350 – We Need Judges So We Can Be Fair to Our Enemies

God’s morals are for God and God alone to enforce. He gave His morals in clean and no uncertain terminology. But, no one becomes a judge above his fellow man by knowing God’s moral law anymore than by being a law school student. God alone writes the laws that govern Life’s course and God alone judges each and every one of us for how much life we cultivate by complying with His laws.

In society and family, even in business, we need judges to navigate us through murky waters toward justice. We need someone to speak with authority to pronounce a verdict and exact a punishment. We need injustice brought to finality so wrongs may cease and discussion may end rightly. Judges do not only condemn, they explain through “opinions of the court”.

Without judges, society, family, and business break down. Judgment is so important that courts are often the first branch of government society raises up in regions of anarchy. It was the first office in Israel, even before there was any king.

God calls everyone to exercise “good judgment”—not to appoint ourselves judges above our peers, but to practice and improve methods of giving justice and fairness to those around us. When God judges us at the Great White Throne Judgment, ushering in Eternity after, He will judge us individually by our ability to be “unofficial judges” in the small things of day-to-day life with each other. We will answer for our morals, for our choices, for our love, and for our ability to exercise good judgment.

Jesus considered it a matter of justice when he said, “Love your enemies.” He meant that we should have affection and positive emotion for our enemies, but he also meant that we must give justice to our enemies. While God has rules and morals we try our best to understand and conform to, it is the duty of the Christian to give justice to others without making God’s moral code a prerequisite to receiving justice.

Justice is fair to those who aren’t fair. “Justice” is no excuse to strongarm others into obeying any moral code. Giving justice includes being fair with everyone you deem immoral.