Demons Carry Hands Full Of Stones

"At stonings angel stand apart

And weep above the martyrs' groans.

But demons always grin, and keep Both hands grasping - filled with

stones."

- Calvin Miller. The Singer Trilogy

With Wounded Hands.

The Great Invader breathes upon you 

as a man. 

Of Holy Fire, from that far land 

we're all 

Horizons meet. He knocks 

with wounded hands

Upon a the soul. And penetrates 

the wall."

Calvin Miller 

The Song. The Singer Trilogy 

We Like Big SHOW FAITH

"Modern American Christianity places great value and trust in the "big event," the spiritual conference, the rally, the Revival, and the concert. If we truly desire our children to study our methods, they are likely to learn that significant Kingdom Ministry takes place only on the stage before thousands of people.

The classic Christian witness has been that spirituality takes place in the everyday events of Life. . . .

Responding to those who hope to find God in spiritual conferences and the ecstatic meetings, Eugene Peterson quips in 'The Wisdom of Each Other' that one is more likely to find a spiritual readiness for the uniqueness of the Christian message among those who are dealing with the basics of daily existence than among those who are trying to escape them. We need God, not in the hyper emotional experiences that the North American Christianity has come to expect, but in the common, everyday stuff of life.

- Leslie T Hardin -

The Spirituality Of Jesus

Who You Working For?

Rules For Radicals

Saul Alinsky

(One of several epigraphs on introductory pages)

"Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins — or which is which),

the first radical known to man

who rebelled against the establishment

and did it so effectively that

he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer."

Burn Down Our Church We Worship

"If you burn down the church building and drive away all the people, you have not disturbed Christian worship at all. Keep a Christian from entering the church sanctuary and you have not in the least bit hindered his worship. We carry our sanctuary with us. We never leave it."

- A.W. Tozer -

Faint Desire

"The reason we are not able to see God is the faintness of our desire." 

- Meister Eckhart -

He talks about Daniels  pagan education in Babylon at the best university with Nebuchadnezzer.

"Babylon has one simple goal to eliminate Daniels distinctiveness as a god follower and absorbed into the values of their culture."

- Peter Scazzero. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality 

Expectations

"We all know the unpleasant experience of other people having expectations we never agreed to."

- Peter Scazzero. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality -

Lies About Love

We talk like love comes naturally and we have nothing to learn. Same attitude about motherhood and fatherhood. Because we birthed a child we naturally could not have any level of incompetence, or lack of knowledge on the subject. We were born knowing how to raise chuldren.  

"Many of us believe loving well is learned automatically. 
We underestimate the depth of our bad habits and what is needed to sustain long-term... change in our relationships."
- Peter Scazzero. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality -

Forsaking What Assembly?

Assembling Yourselves Together

Of all the scriptures used to unsettle or even to condemn those who have chosen to worship "outside the camp", this one is supreme:

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. (Heb 10:25)

Does this verse not command regular worship in church? Let's see. We do see here that the first Christians "gathered together". But look at what this verse DOES NOT tell us:

• how often they gathered;
• on which day they did so;
• how many there were,
• what they did,
• where they gathered (though other verses explain this was in their homes as we have already seen).

Why do people read into this verse a command to "go to church"? Perhaps it is that word "assembling"? But the word simply means "gathering" nothing more or less. It is not talking about going to a church on Sunday mornings!

We must certainly gather together with other believers, but I do believe there is no lack of desire and willingness to obey that scripture amongst the Remnant. Why else would they be desperately seeking for fellowship?

Decentralized And Destructured Church

"It is also becoming plain that God himself is taking his beloved children on a journey, that involves a different type of fellowship with HIM and with EACHOTHER, an informal destructuralised Church.

This has been likened to the Church "Outside the Camp""

Swallowed Up Lives

"We go through the motions of doing so many things as if there is no alternative way of spending our days....... Any sense of Rhythm in our daily, weekly, and yearly lives has been swallowed up in the blizzard of our Lives. Add to this the storms and trials of life that blow into our lives unexpectedly and catch us off-guard, and we wonder why so many of us are disoriented and Confused. "

- Peter Scazzero. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. 

Why Church Leaders Might Apologize.

"A problem of my leadership has been that I often desired you to join my ideas? affirm my program, my vision and my calling.

Yet I did so incredibly little to affirm you in what you are doing for others in your sphere of life, for family, and at work outside of this structure.

I apologize!"

- A former ministers confession to his congregation after going off salary and working a regular job just as they do and volunteering like they do.

Be A Source of Joy

BE A SOURCE OF JOY

Be someone people will really miss.

Be someone, that when the skyhook of mortality yanks you from this mortal corpse, people will miss you like they had a ventrical ripped out of their heart.

Be someone that people will miss.

Be somone that people will treasure so much that if you're gone, they will ache.

Be someone who people will miss.

Fill people up, so that when you are gone they will notice.

Don't be one of these people the neighbors have to wait for the flies to gather and the stench to spread before they call the body removal people.

- Stefan Molyneux -

Repugnant Interpretations

39 Articles of Religion

Anglican Church

VI. Of the Sufficiency of the holy Scriptures for salvation.

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. 

XX. Of The Authority of the Church

"Controversies of Faith: And yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another."

When Darkness Is Our Friend.

What is Up With Some Psalms?

Like the Darkness of Psalm 88?

"The very presence of these prayers in scripture is a witness to God's understanding.

God knows how men speak when they are desperate."

- Derek Kidner -

We Are Limited - Accept it!

Embrace the Gift of Limits

We will finish our lives with unfinished goals and dreams ...

Our egos tend to be so inflated that we act as if we were God. Often we have larger fantasies and wishes for ourselves than our real lives can support....

Getting off our Thrones and joining the rest of humanity is a must for growing up. A part of us hates limits. We won't accept them.

- Peter Scazzero. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

We must Believe The Resurrection!

“Anyone can be sentimental about the nativity; any fool can feel like a Christian at Christmas. But Easter is the main event; if you don’t believe in the resurrection, you’re not a believer.

“If you don’t believe in Easter,” Owen Meany said. “Don’t kid yourself—Don’t call yourself a Christian.”

― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

We Are Cups

"We are all cups.

Whatever we are filled with on the inside

is what comes

spilling out

when we are jostled."

Familiar With Scriptures

"But there's really only one thing I see that gave Paul such an intimate knowledge of the word of God:repeated exposure. Paul nowhere speaks of any discipline of memorizing scripture. He never commanded it, never mentions it, and never chastises anyone who can't recall the text that will. But he knew the text. He could recall it at will, just as Jesus could, and not just the favoured proof-texts. Paul knew the words, the context, the meaning, the situation, the direction toward which scripture was pointing, and it's intended goal. And he knew it because he had repeated exposure to it, from his childhood to his "college" years to his preaching and teaching as an apostle to the Gentiles. Paul new scripture thoroughly because he was constantly around it."

- Leslie Hardin. The spirituality of Paul

When We Don't Care To Know God.

The study of theology is considered by many to be dry, boring, irrelevant, and complicated. But for those who want to know God, the study of theology is indispensable. The word “theology” comes from two Greek words, theos (“God”) and logo: (“word”). The study of theology is an effort to make definitive statements about God and his implications in an accurate, coherent, relevant way, based on God’s self-revelations. Doctrine equips people to fulfill their primary purpose, which is to glorify and delight in God through a deep personal knowledge of him.

Meaningful relationship with God is dependent on correct knowledge of him. (Editors note: understanding a person for who they are, not a fabricated illusion we have created about them. My husband/wife is not an abuser... he/she is like this because they want me to produce the best within me.)

Any theological system that distinguishes between "relational propositions about God" and "a relationship with God” fails to see this necessary connection between love and knowledge. The capacity to love enjoy and tell others about a person is increased by greater knowledge of that person. Love and knowledge go hand in hand. Good lovers are students of the beloved. Knowledge of God is the goal of theology.

Knowledge without devotion is cold, dead orthodoxy. Devotion without knowledge is irrational instability. But true knowledge of God includes understanding ev-

erything from his perspective. Theology is learning to think God’s thoughts after him. It is to learn what God loves and hates, and to see, hear, think, and act the way he

does. Knowing how God thinks is the first step in becoming godly.

Many would like to think that just being a“good” person and “loving” God, without an emphasis on doctrine, is preferable. Bit being a good person can mean radically different things depending on what someone thinks "good" is, or what constitutes a “person.” Loving God will look very different depending on one's conception of "God" or "Love". The fundamental connections between belief

and behavior, and between love and knowledge, demand a rigorous pursuit of truth for those wanting to love God and to be godly."

ESV Study Bible Doctrine Notes in back. 

When Church Buildings are a Target

HOUSE CHURCHES

The uniform evidence of the NT is that the church in the first century met together for worship in domestic houses (cf. 16:19). Houses were used not because other options were unavailable (for example, a lecture hall) but because the house provided what was necessary for the gathering: kitchen space to prepare and serve the common meal. Houses were also by definition private space, allowing Christians to gather together as a community and drop the social boundaries that otherwise defined their daily lives. The host may have only provided

the space; this is the case in Philippi, where Lydia hosted the

"brothers" while Paul was leading the assembly (Acts 16:40).

Almost any house could have hosted a gathering, from small

flats in large Roman block apartment buildings (insulae) to

expansive urban villas. The size of the available rooms would

dictate the size of the worshiping congregation. Only once does Paul explicitly state that the whole church in a city was present in a single house (Rom. 16:23).

A house church was a domestic residence used at least weekly by the Christian community; therefore, by definition. a house church would be almost impossible to identify archaeologically unless it was altered to accommodate

Christian worship. A possible house church has been identified

in Capernaum, venerated in later generations as the site of Peter’s home The first architecturally defined house church known in the Roman Empire is from the mid-third century in Dura-Europos, a frontier city on the Euphrates River. This house was altered to include a large assembly space, a special space for baptisms, and special decorations. A third-century prayer hall has been found in a Roman military camp at Kefar Otnay in Israel. A floor inscription mentions “the God Jesus Christ.”

Born Married

Meryl and I are sitting side by side in our wing-back chairs tonight.

She turns to me and asks, “so... tomorrow makes 37?”

Me: “yep”.

Meryl “LORDY!! I shouldn’t even be that old yet, much less married that long!”

Me: “we were born married”.

Meryl: “oh, ok”.

With Meryl Vogh. Still.

Cliff Vogh.

The Leveling Effect Of Hell

OVERHEARD ON THE ISLAND

“Belief in hell was a great leveller. The Protestants believed the Catholics were going to hell, and the Catholics were just as sure the Protestants were headed there, so there was pleasure in it for everyone.”

- David Weale

WHY I Desire To Experience Good & Evil

An Intimate Knowledge & Experience With Good & Evil

Genesis 3:5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

1) Serpents Lie About GOD to Humanity (Eve)

A. God Lies - Contradicts God "will SURELY not die."

God just lied to you Eve! He's holding humanity back from improving themselves. From came creative powers and decisions. Liberate yourself!

But God said double verb emphasis in Hebrew "dying you shall die"

B. You are Not Made In God's Image. (Serpent isn't)

God lied! HE in fact held back the most important part of the "image".

Therefore;

C. It's Most Beneficial Not To Believe God.

If you eat the forbidden fruit.

Eyes will be opened - Liberated, see more clearly. GOD DUPES HUMANITY. It's a grand Delusion! You can gain knowledge and wisdom apart from God, if you pursue the opportunities.

Will be like God - He's holding back his key to success. Humans have incredible creative ideas and power. We are gods. Just realize it.

Know both good and evil - Knowledge and experience are power. Indulging in evil is power, it gains human insight. Deny no experience! Try it all - seek every last experience!

"Know Good and Evil" Meaning of KNOW. ??

Hebrew Know - יָדַע YADA - Verb.

Means to experience, to understand, to bring forth,

Serpents View of God.

1) God is Evil & Good.

God knows, experiences, and brings forth both Good and Evil. Typical ancient Pagan view of vindictive, petulant deities. This God is no different... like all others. God does some good, but is the cause of much evil in the world. Humanity should understand this, we are better than a God of evil. We are like God in Good, but we are unlike God in evil, we are better. God expressed Deceit & Selfishness by trying to knowlege to himself.

2) God stands in the way of Human enlightenment. Prefers their naivete!

Prefers unknowing, not understanding, not seeing, eyes shut puppets with little knowledge.

3) Humans Can Break the Boundary. Be Gods equally Creative as God.

4) God uses threats to gain Compliance.

Result of Human ingenuity

1. Relationship with Environment Broken 3:17-19

2. Relationship between Men and Women Strained 3:16

3. Relationship With God Distanced. 3:22-24

4. Free Will became a source of too many selfish and evil desires and acts.

5. Following Human Wisdom is Always a possible Choice. All actions have significant consequences, many of which we desire not to bear!

Adam and Eve Got exactly what they wanted. An intimate knowledge of both Good and Evil.