BRASS TACKS'

     Okay, lets pull that mask off and get down to brass tacks. Who and what exactly is the being called Satan?  And what is the anti Christ?  And finally who are the true believers that will at all costs follow their Lord and die daily for him?  Let's be clear it is soooo much bigger than religious gatherings to fill a self desire for spirituality or have a nice and clean life filled with nice songs, nice playgrounds for our kids or any thing of the kind.  It is warfare. We are the ones who know our enemy. Yes we have an enemy look around at our world and open your eyes.
     First who is our God?  He is the one true God of the Hebrews revealed for all time and all generations a kinsman redeemer for our souls.  He is the one who saves.  From what you ask?  For one death.  And from the fallen state we we find ourselves in.  Do not be deceived, we are all in that kind of state the moment we are born. Like it or not.   Innocent we are not.  We were born into a bondage, and to a hard task master who would love to remain invisible and  continue to be a myth.
     If you believe that then he has won over you and you have no power to resist.  Jesus said to his disciples, beware the one who can cast soul and body into Hell or destroy the soul and body.  And who is the Anti Christ?  Any one who is against Christ and anything he stands for.  That being life eternal, joy, peace, forbearance, charity, selflessness, love, and bearing one anothers burdens.  Satan is for death, lying, deception, captivity, bondage, hatred, dominion, and to separate you from a God who wants you in his kingdom instead of Satans.
      I have witnessed personally those who have been so totally taken over with darkness  that they self loath themselves and anyone else to the point of such hatred that killing is relief for them and they think for others as well.  Where does this come from?  This twisted nature so inner entwinned with confusion and delusion that they cannot see clearly at all. And this is the nature of Anti....against life and Christ himself.  When Peter heard that his lord was to die, Peter said. No LORD,,,and Jesus said Satan get thee behind me!  Really?  Peter at that moment was allied with the anti mentality and against what Jesus had to accomplish for all Humanity for all time.  That's why Jesus had to rebuke him.  And so we live daily in a world that is not and cannot be for God.  Unless there is change from within, and that must come from God himself, drawing the spirit within and then adding his own in the form of the Holy Spirit to keep you safe and become his own peculiar possession.  Yes we are not our own when we surrender to Christ.  For now he lives in us and we now have new eyes and a new heart to perceive all that is going down.........Friend this is not arrogance or a preaching fire and brimstone message, just the truth of the way things are.
     This being called Satan, truly we cannot see with eyes but we can see what he has wrought among us.  Jesus said he was a liar and a thief from the beginning....Genesis.  he stole you and others to have dominion over. Jesus is our Kinsman reedemer.  Religion does not do it, going to Church does not necessarily do it either, crystals, astrology, chanting or meditating.   You must personally know beyond doubt who God is and what he requires OF YOU OH MAN...believe it, God wants you to know who he is.  He wants communion with his creation, he wants to fulfill in you all that his son was and did and showed while here on Earth.  Mercy triumphs over judgement.........That is his nature. Peace.
   

All of Us who call on the Name, and identify with Our Lord must rally in the Spirit and remain calm.

     Let us not for get that a light has gone into all the world.  That light is the light of all men. Jesus Christ.  Now let us not forget to take up the cross that he more than commanded that we do because he knows the depths to which we have sunk.
    There is a man who is center stage, a meglomaniac, and egoist, and man unfettered in his speech to rile and disturb the peace and use whatever he can to maintain the agenda and steamroll across this country and mash all common sense.  Really, "thousands and thousands" in this country worse than what we saw in the last few days.....ready to kill, these words are not words of a sane individual much less one to be elevated to the Presidency of the United States.
      What is going on?  And why have we let him get so far?  Rally for common sense, for now is the time to make change before it is too late.  Are the Politicians backrooming some grand idea, some secret agenda to deal with the likes of this man once he is in?  Much like the way a stagnant Congress reigned in the Obama Administration?  I hope so.  For our sake, we are entering a dangerous game if we let someone like him continue to foment hatred with words and agitate our senses with slander, bigotry, swelling words with pride written all over them.
      The media will do a service for us and continue to make transparent all of this so we can make intelligent decisions about one who harkens back to a bestial frame of mind.
     Has forbearance, love, self-control and all of the attributes of a nature of love gone out the window?  I sincerely hope not.  We who are looking at and with amazement need not too, for this is exactly the type of man who is predicted to come, and upend the normal.
   

The Things I Left Behind

My bazooka and hubba bubba buble gum

My baseball cards attatched to my bicycycle spokes

My pogo stick

My superhero comic books (now worth a small amount of money)

My boyscout knife

My baseball bat and glove

My cardboard box colored in to be a imaginary race car

My dirt fort containing all of the dirtballs so we could play war

My marbles, jax, and small pocket treasures( no frogs)

My favorite t.v. shows, Flipper, Walt Disney, My Favorite Martian and many others of that era......

Most of all my unending summer days filled with wandering through the woods and grass fields playing with childhood friends long gone.


"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see as only a reflection in a mirror"........

THE GREATEST

HE'S A SMOKING  STACK
AND HE'S PRONE TO ATTACK
DON'T YOU TURN YOUR BACK
OR HE'LL KNOCK YOU FLAT
HE'S GOT A MOUTH LIKE REFINERS FIRE
BUT HE SURE AIN'T NO LIAR
BEAUTIFUL AND BROWN
NOW DON'T YOU FROWN
HE'S BEAUTIFUL NOW
BESIDE THE ONE
WHO ENDOWED
REST NOW ALI,
FLOAT LIKE A BUTTERFLY
STING LIKE A BEE
IN THE COMPANY OF GREAT  MEN
WE WILL SEE YOU AGAIN
NOW AND FOREVER
IT'S  THE FINAL ROUND
              AMEN

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?'

     One of the greatest fears that man can have is the fear of death.  What happens after we leave our home we have lived on for 70, 80, 0r even 90 years?  That is the mystery that everyone should know about!  And many hold on to life whether grudginly in poor health or happy in wealth and plenty and good health.  We all go the same route but.....we are afraid to leave this earth and body that houses our life's essense.  Jesus told his disciples not to be afraid of those who kill the body but rather the one who can kill the body and the soul, and throw it ito hell.  Yikes!  So there it is, the sting of the true death, the second one after the body is no longer able to sustain it, and the destruction of all that we were in this life separated from any kind of salvation.  Now this is not to be construed as fire and brimstone preaching but I believe that Jesus wanted us to know the truth so we could make decisions.
    Now getting back to the sparrows.... Jesus said not one of them would fall to the ground outside of the Father's care.  So he is very instructive in the nature of the loving grace of his Father.  Read further down in the passage from Matthew and you will see that he warns those who disown him before others then, "I will disown them befor my Father."
     And vice versa whoever acknowledges Jesus before men, I will ackowledge before my Father.  Very clear.
    The Revelation of who he is and what he can do either for us or not, is a weighty matter for us to consider in relationship to him.  It is not a matter of religion or religious activity. It is the matter of the free will rejection of the revelation of the SON who was sent with purpose for all mankind...inclusive for all races, tribes and nations.
    So where are you going to go?  I don't relish the time to come when death overcomes this body but I pray that when it does, I can sense the other side with joy and the greeting of Angels, family and the Lord in  my body as it goes.

    P.S.  In case you missed it a penny is not very valued in our culture, and so sparrows are equated as of not much value.  But in God's eyes very highly esteemed.

In Opposition to Common Culture

      We resist the world every day. Every day we who are called Christians rely not on ourselves, or our teachers of the past or parental guidance from our early years. Why, because if we are still in love with the things of this world we are no good to Christ. Daily we resist the entrapments of those things that would constrain the Holy Spirit within.  THE very resurrection itself is the exact anthisesis of death, it could not hold Christ in the grave, and we should not be held in anything that is a bondage and contrary to the Holy Spirit's deliverance and living power within our lives.
     Are you in fear? There is perfect love that  will cast  it out.
     Are you in doubt? There is faith.
     Are you in sadness? There is the joy in the Lord.
     Are you surrounded daily by people, bosses, structures of corporate life that exasperate you on the inside, and tries to  define who you are and make you a conformist?  Then take heart, all of these things are examples of world pressures that we resist and ask God to help us in to be what we are supposed to be.
     Freedom, is what the embodiment of Christianity is all about.  It is the counter culture that was Christ.  Was he afraid of the Romans or their Government?  No.  Was he afraid to be with Lepers? No. Or tax collectors, or sinners or just about anything else you could think of that goes against popular thinking.  Our culture is stagnant, dead in it's ability to elevate anything of life's true values.  Just try navigating the world of internal politics of a job. and you would have to begin to become a lier, a gossip, a kisser upper or worse complacent and unaffected which I think doesn't exit.  It is impossible to love the world and Love Christ too.  So where do we begin  in navigating these treacherous waters daily.  On our knees asking continually to be empowered by something different.  Yes we cannot become radical or separatists or fight the system, but have to be in the world but "not of it."  Hard to do.  We will have to do what Christ did, and obey a different set of rules from a different kind of kingdom.  His kingdom was light, not dark, proclaimed, not hidden behind gates with security to keep those from within from escaping.  Or in other words cultish.  Note the popular show " The path."
    So today as you go about the things you have to, like me, ( and sometimes I feel like a rebel and want to take up arms!) but I don't I suffer in Christ knowing that he said we would be blessed when persecuted for his names sake.  So also, do not be molded any longer by the pressures, people, or structures that are acceptable but, take the freedom Christ can give, forbear what you have to, and trust even though it is hard.  There are thousands of us out there who are doing the exact same thing!