"Why, God, why?"

There is nothing that puts Life into perspective quite as jarringly as an unexpected death. That happened to a neighboring family here recently. The impact of a death is only intensified when those involved are just at the threshold of adulthood.

When one reaches young adulthood, the blood, sweat, and tears investments in growth and development have been made, the bulk of schooling and training is complete, and it seems as though there "ought to be" a season for establishing one's place in the Divine Order of Things. Death does not belong on the schedule. But it happens.

That life-perspective slammed into my life at the age of 20. It was a consequence of a drunk driver, two lanes left of center, slamming into my brother's car.  One day I had a brother; the next day I did not, at least not in this earthly space-time dimension.

Much of the next week has since slipped into foggy, healed-over memories. But some things remain clear. For one, apparently I did not meet other's standards of grieving properly. I remember an aunt saying, "It just hasn't hit Emily yet." I suppose she wanted more public tears like my brother's school friends, but part of me was experiencing relief from the incessant teasing. Horrible to feel relief perhaps, but true nonetheless. The controlling effect of his teasing was one of those things that my parents were oblivious to, but while he was alive, I certainly was not going to whine about it and be told to toughen up! And after his death, it was easy to let it go.

Such absurdities, paradoxes, and oxymora as relief in the mix of emotion seem to be, if not normal, at least common when Death comes to claim a young adult. And in a struggle to make sense of the senseless comes the universal question, "Why, God, why?"

Questioning is a part of the grieving process. When my brother was killed, my mother's first words were, "The LORD giveth, and the LORD taketh away." Unsurprisingly, that Jobian response did not satisfy my dad. I don't think it would satisfy most people. And the way my mother said it was out of context with the way Job had pronounced it. Previously he had torn his robe, shaved his head, and fallen to the ground in worship. (Job 1:4,5) My mom had turned that verse into a platitude.

Over the years, I have learned a thing or two about platitudes. They should be accepted more with the idea that the speaker is at a loss for words than as advice. A lot of bromides suck at giving advice. Here is another one that is frequently heard at funerals:  "No one knows the ways of God," or its counterpart, "God works in mysterious ways."

Yes and No. 

Yes, scripture does say, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts, Isaiah 55:9." 
But since Isaiah's day, the Holy Spirit has been sent to Earth to enlighten us. Jesus predicted this:
Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." John 13:7

How thin the veil

We are allowed to have answers! In fact, if the information is crucial to our salvation, I think God has obligated Himself to tell us. But more than obligation, God desires to make Himself known. He is willing to talk to a seeking heart. Of course, communication is a two-way street.

When my brother died, I asked God why. I wanted His perspective on it. Some of the answers, (yes, there was more than one reason,) were surprising to me, some were a deeper development of things I already knew, and some were none of my business!

• God "told" me, (and this "told" was an inner witness or knowing that came during a time of prayer,) that the main reason that my brother died at that time was between Him and my brother, it was a relationship thing that was none of my business, so He was not going to answer that part. Even though this was a non-answer in some regards, it made me love and respect God more because it showed that he can be trusted with personal information. I am grateful that He explained why He wasn't answering, and I learned a lot about why some prayers don't appear to get answered.

• There was a second "non-answer answer" too. The same inner witness showed me that the reason could be revealed someday; He wasn't hiding it on purpose but that he could not explain algebra problems when I was still working on the basics of addition.  That was over 40 years ago. I had a similar conversation with God recently and the answer was He could not explain calculus when I'm just now mastering long division… I guess that is progress! 

• One answer was reflective, but involved my mother, so I don't feel at liberty to discuss it in an Internet blog.

• The chief "teachable moment" answer for me at that point in time was profound. I had already had some teaching and read a book on the importance of our words. God really expects His kids to respect and weigh their words. Jesus will never be able to trust us to reign on the Earth if we keep spouting off every idle thought that floats through our heads. He also expects us to keep our word:   Promised is promised.

The night my brother was killed, my mother had said, "Be home early." He replied, "I will be home by 10, mom." Notice how he had set his own boundary; this was not a curfew under someone else's authority. Yet at 10 o'clock that night, instead of honoring his promise to his mother, he headed out of town to help a new friend. A noble goal, but a broken promise. In those days, he would have had to use a pay phone to call home, but he did not, even though he walked past one on the way to his car. The Holy Spirit explained to me that this broken promise had restricted his guardian angel's ability to help him.
If that does "not seem fair" to you, let me remind you that this was only one facet of a complex structure—one element in a perfect storm, so to speak. But this was the part of the greater picture that I needed to heed; the part that I could learn from so that my brother's life was not-quite-as-much in vain.

God then said that these reasons should be sufficient, and indeed they were. Since then, I have come to realize that I could have pressed in and asked for more, and he would have answered; but I also know God is more pleased by accepting some things on faith without my having to have details.

Writing this blog has been my "Algebra Moment." I'm being graduated from long division to a better understanding of the workings of God, but I'm humble enough to know that my astrophysics level is still very far away! Living is a process. Things have been brought into a perspective that I could have no way grasped four decades ago.  And again, I would not have been writing this today if it had not been for Lane DeCicco. I am sure that he had no clue that he would be used to give a neighbor, whom he may not even have remembered ever meeting, a deeper appreciation for the complexities of the workings of God.

The UN's Convention on the Rights of the Disabled — A Double Edge Sword

United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)

Sounds nice, doesn't it? What heartless soul could be against the UN codifying rights for the disabled? Keep reading, and if I make my point effectively, that person will be YOU!

Of course, the under-informed will call you heartless; in reality, you will have gained the wisdom needed to identify a two-edged sword. And the CPRD is truly a double-edged sword that curses our nation, even as it attempts to bless the disabled.  It is a paradox, but with a stated goal of helping the needy, it puts us deeper into ungodly control and bondage.

First, a bit of boring history:
The CRPD was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 13, 2006. It took a year and a half, until May 3, 2008, for 20 nations to ratify it, at which time it went into effect in those countries.  President Obama signed the CRPD on July 30, 2009, but because the Senate never ratified it, it has not gone into effect in the US. Technically, the U.S. Senate could vote to ratify this treaty at any time.

But before you jump in and squeal, "Those politicians just don't care about the disabled!" let's review some of the fine print. Because when you do, you will discover that it is not about caring at all. It is about power over others. The disabled are being used as pawns to manipulate Western society's human compassion into a peaceful surrender of human rights.

1.  The UN treaty requires that all American law that deals with disabilities be conformed to the standards of the UN. This means that a body of people, most of whom did not grow up in America and whose native cultures have different standards of what is normal will be the judges of our laws dealing with the disabled.  This may seem "fair" on the surface, but hang on…

2. Subversion of Authority. Article 4(1)(e) remands that “every person, organization, or private enterprise” must eliminate discrimination on the basis of disability.  This is a wild over-reach of power that not even God demands from His servants! It actually is in direct opposition to the Word of God on at least two levels. (a) Jesus taught that we should discriminate, in a good way, and show extra kindness to those in need, and (b) to ratify this this treaty would be saying that we agree with making the United Nations tyrants over us.

But Jesus called them over and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles dominate them, and their superiors act like tyrants over them.  But it shall not be so among you… Matthew 20:25, 26a

And did you catch that part of the quote above where the treaty says "every person?"  Let me explain how that works: You may think that a globalist body, even if they have access to all your cell phone conversations and data, isn't going to be micro-managing your personal life, but that phrase will be used to "make examples" of a few unfortunate souls in order to keep the masses in line. It will lead to propaganda and public brainwashing that will deceive many into making idols out of ungodly mandates. You will be surrounded by people who think that way.

3. Education. The satanic deception in this area is to use the "good idol" of education to achieve the surrender of God-ordained parental rights.  Article 7(2) of the CRPD gives the government—acting under UN directives—complete oversight in determining what is "best" for all children with disabilities. This means that a government panel in some city miles away that has never seen the disabled child will have more say-so over the path of that child's education than his parents do. This is so ungodly! The scriptures clearly state that responsibility lies with the parents. This means that parents will often be thrown into a conundrum where obeying the Lord will mean they must oppose the government.
Current American law is pretty good; our federal law requires public schools to offer special assistance to children with disabilities. But we also have the safeguard that no parent is required to accept such assistance! Parents have the legal option of choosing alternative therapies, private schools, or homeschooling, which can often better accommodate individual needs.  Under CRPD, it would be a matter of only a few years before parents would be ordered to accept the program offered by the government school, a situation which openly discriminates against parental rights!  In the early decades of the UN, any document such as this one would have included a statement recognizing parental rights. CRPD does not.

4. The Pocketbook.  You must realize that when the United Nations says "international cooperation," it really means that the wealthier countries must give the poor ones a free ride.  Under the dictates of Article 4(2), the United States will be obligated to fund programs for disabilities in foreign nations.

This is something that many Americans would probably want to do anyway, BUT Americans wouldn't be able to select which countries or have much oversight to ensure that fraud is minimized. It would be handing over our taxpayer's money to organizations with histories of abuse of funds. 

Not only would CRPD use American money overseas without American oversight, but we would also be told how we must spend our own money here at home.  Article 4(2) requires the United States to use its "maximum resources" for compliance with UN standards.  On record, in the past, the UN has looked at other countries budgets and told them that they are spending too much money on military programs and not enough on social programs.  If you haven't figured this out yet, then let me put it more plainly: This is a deceptive, long-term strategy to pressure nations to disarm and weaken their national security under the false pretext of helping the disabled.
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United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is indeed a two-edged sword, both blessing and cursing.  However, the two blades are not equal in their acuity. The propaganda machines of the media make it easy to see the blessing side, but they hide the cursing side that will slowly rob us of our freedoms of self-determination.

One final point that I did not include in the list above is a "boiling frog" curse—one that can happen so slowly that it is hard to notice and therefore it is hard to show the evidence that this is happening. The structure of the CRPD is such that any lawsuits which arise because of it are likely to be "resolved" by taking power away from state legislatures and putting the authority at the federal level.  With the disabled, especially with disabled children, this is a disaster. Those decisions are almost always better made at the lower levels; the more local the better. But the CRPD takes it the other direction.

Currently, President Trump is being petitioned to toss the CRPD out along with other documents that Obama signed. It will be a blessing for disabled Americans if he does.

A Look at Refugee Politics based on 1 Kings 11 (draft)

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The Facebook Post that I REALLY Want to Make

 Facebook subscriber —

 You know very little about my "religion." That fact is abundantly evident in a wide range of acerbic comments in your posts.

The enemy of my "religion" is apostasy. Apostasy can be either abandonment or defiance of God's declarations. Jude defines it as "ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ."
Paul tells Timothy that the apostate are those who "depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared."

As such, feminism, homosexuality, abortion, islam, false witness, lewdness, anarchy, uber-intellectualism, and the plans of man are all apostate ideologies. So while Grace covers a certain amount of tolerance of those who are ignorant and uninstructed, tolerating apostasy within the the Church leads to a loss of Power.  This is why we have not seen more of the Supernatural in action: we have been busy serving the natural. 

You see the Church as ineffective precisely because too many apostates want to be tolerant of these sins. They are deceived into believing a false "love" that cripples the Church because it loves men more than it respects the Holy God.

Tolerating things that are known to be affronts to the Lord keep the Glory Power from being released. God is not going to entrust His Glory to those who want to serve the ideas of men.  That would be casting His pearls before swine!

Biblical instruction is clear: Seek the Kingdom of God first. Pacifying the lost is not on the list.

When the Church rediscovers her first love, a passionate relationship with Jesus, then the brightness of that Glory will cover the Earth and you can either accept it or run and hide.

A New Look at the Fiery Furnace

Even if you did not grow up with a lot of religious training and you had post-modern parents who thought they'd let you choose your own religion when you were older, if you were really an All-American Child, then at least once during your childhood somebody invited you to either a Sunday school class or a VBS (Vacation Bible School) and at some point in your youth you heard the story of the Three Hebrew Children who were thrown into the Fiery Furnace by the King of Babylon because they refused to worship an idol, and they came out unscathed.

If you were raised by a progressive atheist, you may have heard the expression "fiery furnace" used as an idiom in classic literature meaning "an ordeal successfully survived." 

Or if you did go to church regularly as a kid, you may have heard the story taught something like this one The Wonder Book of Bible Stories — Logan Marshall — The Story of the Fiery Furnace   You would have had fun trying to pronounce the foreign sounding names:  Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and King Nebuchadnezzar.  And you were probably told that being thrown into the furnace was a "punishment" for not obeying the king.

It is that "punishment" worldview that opens up a crack of wiggle room just big enough to miss the bullseye.

At least, that is the way it was taught in my Sunday school. We looked at the fear of punishment, not the passion of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to serve their God. They had a fiery furnace of intimacy with God, not a fire of affliction.  It became a reward where they met God face to face. They stood. God said, "Well done!"  The only thing that burned were the ropes that bound them. It did not cause them to stumble but to reap reward. Standing in faith set them free, but even that freedom turned out to be the second prize. First reward was being with the Lord face to face.
How often is such intimacy with the Lord taught as the Biggie?  In my experience the answer is "rarely."

  "What god is there who can deliver you out of my hands?" Nebuchadnezzar had pompously demanded, Daniel 3:15.  But Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were passionate. They spoke with united wild abandon:

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter.  ~Daniel 3:16

Obviously, once viewed from the reward perspective instead of the punishment perspective, we see that there ARE things that we MUST NOT BOW TO. Popular culture is full of things that we must not bow to. False religion must not be bowed to. We cannot trade off our souls for political correctness.  

Sure, it is great and all to teach that God can deliver.  But why did He deliver? On a whim? No. A lucky spin of fate? No. He delivered in response to the men's passionate desire for intimacy with their God, a desire that been practiced all along and built into a steady relationship; not newly discovered as the logs for stoking the furnace were being removed from the storage crib. God acted in response to the men's refusal to bow to the world and the appeasement of men. This really is a two-sided coin. One cannot serve two masters. They chose to love one and not give a flip about the other.

As we move into 2017, the knowledge that God can deliver does not get us to the finish line. It is a good first step, but hey, I know a guy who can fix cars too! It does not mean that he will fix mine.  For that to happen, we need a contract, a covenant, a relationship, or such active love for each other that not having a functional car is unthinkable!

The deliverance of the 'Three Hebrew Children,' (and it could be just as accurate to call them college students,) was not all 100% God.  They knew their covenant, They had built a relationship. They made a decree that God could use and act upon. It was a co-labor situation. They supplied their testimony; God supplied the supernatural.

My First Revelation of 2017

I am excited about my first special find in scripture in 2017! The year was still so new that folks on the West Coat were still back in 2016 when I discovered this jewel.

I found it in what is sometimes called The Doxology of Jude.  Beginning with verse 24, it is probably the most well-known part of the book of Jude, and in the King James Version it goes like this:

     Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

When I encounter a somewhat familiar scripture like this one, my brain will tend to click over into standard interpretation mode and hear what I expect to hear. In this case, I'd usually hear kept from falling and presented faultless. But this year I was reading The New English Bible, a translation that was commissioned by the Church of Scotland back in the 1960s.

Now where King James' men structured their sentence to emphasize how we are presented—faultless, the scholars from Cambridge and Oxford organized it to emphasized where we are presented—before the presence of His glory. Here, read it for yourself:

     Now to the One who can keep you from falling and set you in the presence of his glory, jubilant and above reproach, to the only God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, might and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all time, now, and for evermore. Amen.

 Jesus can set you in the presence of his glory, jubilant and above reproach! 

What a revelation of perspective! Set in the presence of His Glory!

This is where I want to be for 2017!  Not simply kept from falling, as great as that is, but set in the Presence of His Glory.

I know there are dire warnings about that place. "God is a consuming fire." Regarding it with a casual attitude can result in casualty. "None shall see God and live."  But I am moving closer to a state of wild abandon—and I no longer think it takes a leap of faith to get there. It is possible to just step into it. Enoch did. Moses did. Isaiah did. Elijah did. Paul did. John did. Many have. And Jude clearly believes it is possible for everyone.

I want to be set in the Presence of His Glory and I want others to share it with me.

Seven Fruits that Identify a Jezebel Spirit

By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
Matthew 7:16

Scripture instructs that the safest, most reliable way to form a correct judgment is by looking at the fruit, the resulting product. From the Luke's Gospel, 6:43, we learn, "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit."  In the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel, 24:13, we are instructed that  "As the proverb of the ancients says, 'Out of the wicked comes forth wickedness'."   King Solomon commented on the flip-side of that sentiment in his Proverb, 20:11, "It is by his deeds that a lad distinguishes himself."  And Paul wrote to the Galatians that "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness;" so you see, as humans we are permitted to assess and recognize even the Holy Spirit by his fruit. Awesome.

It Works Both Ways
   Just as we can identify God by delightful fruits of love, joy, and peace, we can identify foul spirits by their unsavory fruit.  As noted above, ‘Out of the wicked comes wickedness.’

Before I start my list, I want to point out that this is a list of fruits—things that are produced. There have been hundreds of articles written about character traits—things that the Jezebel spirit "is." Admittedly, seed "produces" after its own "kind;" the offspring is like the parent. In many ways they are the same. So at one level it may look like I am splitting hairs, but the distinction is important because this blog post is about making legitimate judgments with eyes unveiled and ears cleared. God's prescribed instruction for making assessments is to look at the fruit.  

1. A Jezebel spirit will display feelings of entitlement. This will often show up as double standards; one set of rules for "us" and another set for "them."  A spirit of hypocrisy could be Jezebel's best friend, (and demons are known to run in packs,) because when they are not trying to manipulate but are speaking how they really feel, then their words will sound elitist.

2. A Jezebel spirit displays a coldness to human life. It will destroy others without remorse. It will knowingly make a false accusation for "a greater good." It gloats when its enemies are destroyed, even when the enemy was innocent. Someone under the influence of a Jezebel spirit is likely to support abortion-on-demand, which shows a coldness toward human life.  The Jezebel spirit ; (indeed, the Jezebel spirit and a spirit of Feminism is another common paring).

3. A Jezebel spirit will act as its own law; it does not regard civil laws. When you see laws being used as weaponry rather than to promote the public welfare, you are seeing the fruit of a Jezebel spirit. It is a steely mix of hatred and force, of illegitimate authority and abuse of power. 

4. A Jezebel spirit can be seen in a pattern of rigid belief that it is right. This fruit manifests as the unwillingness to admit to a crime (looking backward) or as a dogmatic insistence to carry out a course of death, destruction, and terror (going forward).

5. A Jezebel spirit will exhibit a resistance to Godly authority; actually, this is true of most all demons, but a Jezebel spirit is more likely to resist through misrepresentation rather than direct confrontation. Lies are used regularly, both to profane the character of God and to deceive others into opposing God as well.  

6. A Jezebel spirit will, if pushed, demonstrate a willingness to fight anything that threatens its control; but more typically it prefers to manipulate behind the scene or order others to do the dirty work when possible. People who work for a boss who is possessed or oppressed by a Jezebel spirit often see a bipolar display of control in "office politics" that may not be apparent to the public. 

7. A Jezebel spirit eventually reveals a "princess complex" that needs admiration. Although this spirit will put on a false thick-skin to achieve a short-term goal, it craves appreciation, and even worship. Denial of this affirmation can sometimes result in mental breakdown, but usually they are good enough at manipulation to thwart that.

When you see these fruits, it is not only legitimate, but wise to be asking if this is a Jezebel spirit. You will need spiritual armor to protect and defend in a spiritual battle.

Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. 
Ephesians 6:11,12