Spirit of Truth/The Bible on Trial

Royal Funeral~ Today marks the Royal Funeral for Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. He rides to his grave in a Land Rover that he helped design, followed by a royal limousine that carries his wife of 73 years Queen Elizabeth, and on foot by Prince Charles and the other Royal Family members. It is a sad day for both England, and the the Royal Family. There of course is also a church service that has all the trappings of a High Church funeral befitting the Prince.  I find it interesting that over 2000 years ago on Wednesday March 22, 30 C.E., The Passover, before sunset in Israel, another Royal Prince died and was buried, but without fanfare, and without any of the trappings of a Royal funeral. If anyone deserved a Royal Funeral it was this man, Jesus of Nazareth, who had been executed by His Father for the purpose of paying the penalty for the disobedience of His own Kingdom, the death of whom made it possible for His righteous Kingdom to access Eternal Life through that payment.  Instead, Jesus was removed from the cross, and hurried into the tomb by certain of His followers, in order to have His body at rest before the sun set, that began the Passover, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (a Festival Sabbath). No fanfare, no solemn service, no acknowlegement of a job well done. Nothing. Yet those of us that know that Jesus is the King of the Kingdom of the Heavens, and know what He did by coming to this earth and bringing the truth about how salvation works from the Father, and offering eternal life to His Kingdom as a reward for the obedience to the Commandments that was lost in Eden.  It is HIS words that bring life eternal, and those words must become a part of those that would be in His Kingdom. By His resurrection His words are made real in our lives. We will live as long as His words live in us.

Making the Cut~ When a professional golfer has a low enough two round score on the first two days of a tournament he/she is said to have 'made the cut'. When an actor reads for a part in a play, and beats out the other actors for that part they 'make the cut'. This expression can be used in nearly every field of endeavor for meeting a minimum standard of performance sufficient to do a job.  It can also apply to the medical field, where a medical doctor has to 'make the cut' in order to perform a surgical proceedure on a patient. Having just gone through four MOHS surgeries recently for skin cancer, I was wondering if this could also apply to a patient that is the 'cutee' as opposed to the 'cutor'. I will have the scars to prove that I was a cancer survivor - more like a cancer crusher. And maybe this could also apply to life in general, where we all have the scars to prove that "Life is not for sissies" - that we all carry scars that may not show on the skin, but may only be 'known but to God'. In order for salvaton to operate effectively in our lives,we must all allow God, the Great Physician, to perform surgery on our hearts and minds (intellect), and show us those things that we need to cut out of our lives that will keep us from being wholly righteous in fact, such that we can experience the healing power of that righteousness in our lives. This is incredibly difficult to do, because anyone that goes under the knife that they themselves wield knows how painful an experience this can be, by cutting out the cancer of lies that keeps us from learning and knowing the truth that leads to salvation.  By doing this we show God our willingness to withold nothing from Him/Them. And after we 'make the cuts' God will remove the scars and we will be holy, righteous, and gain eternal life through Him.

The Difference~ "Life is hard for kitties!" (Or doggies). I use this expression to emphasize how lucky my animals are to live in our house. I will say this to them as I am feeding them their breakfast, or as I am getting Maggie ready to go out for a walk, or even as I am cleaning the cat box. Yes, I know they don't actually know what I am saying, and even if they did they would have no sense of the irony of the situation, but I will say it anyway, simply to remind myself how fortunate I am to have animals to care for, and not expecting anything in return for my efforts. My animals have no idea how fortunate they are to live in my house, and I am perfectly fine with this. There is a Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times!" We are certainly living in 'interesting' times right now, and we are also living in uncertain times as well. This can be very frustrating and uncomfortable, as we know what we would like to happen, yet it is looking more and more as if what we are expecting and what we will be getting are two different things. We here at Spirit of Truth Ministry have been studying the differences between the prophecies of the Life Road and the Death Road, as a function of what we are going through right now in our lives. Expectations are that we will not experience the horror and distress of the events of Revelation that we see in most of prophecies in this book, yet what we see in 'real life' is that it is clear that the set up for these fulfilments is happening as we watch events unfold. But what looks to be real can be much different that what actually IS real. And there is the irony of the situation. We KNOW that the time for the events of Revelation has come and gone, so that what we are seeing is a fiction and not what is real. We cannot yet see the peace and prosperity that are the future for the world, but it is there. And THAT is the difference.

Masters~ The most imortant golf tourmanemt in the world is The Open Championship in England; the most important tournament in the USA is The Masters, that is played a the Augusta National Golf Club, in Augusta, Georga. The reason that it is the most important tournament is that like The Open in order for a player to win The Masters you cannot play your own game, and try to fit the course to your style of golf. To win the Masters a player must humble himself and learn to fit their game to what the course is asking. If you try to overpower the course by trying to force course to fit your game you will find yourself on the short end of the stick.  Just as with all golf the 'Rules of Golf' always apply, and are the framework that allows all players to have a chance to win. But the Rules don't dictate whether you do win, as it is up to you to understand what shots need to be played, and when, and what shot is required in any and every situation. Whether you actually are able to take what the course is giving you on any particular day is up to your level of practiced skill in making the shots necessary to shoot a low score. Jesus did not come to earth to reiterated and how to keep the rules of the game of salvation. Those 'rules' were establishe a Sinai when God gave Moses the 10 Commandments, and those rules always apply in everything that has anything to do with salvation and eternal life. But just as with golf, simply knowing the rules does not make you a winner; you must Practice the truth of the words of Jesus in order to become righteous in fact. It is doing this that gives you the opportunity to access the payment for the penalty for sin that Jesus by His death offers His Kingdom. We must MASTER the words of God that Jesus brought from the Father in Heaven and gave to His own eyewitness disciples in order to win through to salvation.

Are we there yet? ~ Anyone that has become a parent, and has a child that is 3 years or older has heard from your child the expression while traveling in a car, "Are we there yet?" Whatever you answer, it is never the correct one for a bored child. This was particularly true in my time as a child, and ever for my own children, because there were no iphones, or video screens in automobiles at the time, so there were no movies to keep us busy on long road trips in the car. Parents had to plan ahead by having coloring books, puzzles, word games, and the like, ready to go the moment their children figured out that traveling by car with brothers and sisters is both boring and frustrating. Children have no concept of time as a factor in the trading of time for distance while traveling in a car. 400 miles at an agrigate of 60 miles per hour (including rest stops) is an eternity for a child, and even longer for the parent that has to ride with them over that distance. This is even true for people that have taken an interest in Biblical Prophecy, and want to know where they are in time with respect to End-Time events. The expression "Jesus is coming soon" gets pretty old after 200 years of unfulfilled expectation that we are actually living at the end of time. It is particularly frustrating when your grandparents told your parents, and your parents told you that Jesus could come at any time without notice, so you better be 'good', and you better be 'ready', or you could miss out on eternal life. Will there come a time when the 'signs' line up, and the timing is perfect such that we will actually KNOW when and where we are in time, with repect to End-Time prophecy. Actually, yes. This is why knowing what the Life Road and Death Road prophecies are and how they work is so important.

Backstory~ With all of the issues presenting themselves constantly in the news today, it is sometimes easy to get so caught up in the minutia that our 'reason for being' (raison d'etre) gets lost in the clutter. Even when we do keep perspective and don't give in to worrying over the little thngs, the temptation is still there to lose consentration and let our thoughts wander hither and yon, taking 'main force' to bring us back to what is important, that 'thing' that keeps us on track and functioning at a high level. There is a peace that comes from 'knowing' that the thing that you worship is actually and unequivocably the truth, undiluted with lies that act as truth in our intellect, and keep us from accomplishing the process that will end with that very 'knowingness' that brings the peace of salvation via sanctification. This describes the 'backstory' of salvation, and is the 'thing' that Jesus brought from His Father in Heaven to earth, and taught His own eyewitness disciples, who wrote that 'thing' down, and that God preserved for millenia, that makes it possible for those of us that now live in this modern and confusing world with all it's distractions to use as a filter that allows us to de-clutter our intellect in order to not just know truth, but to actually become the TRUTH by placing that 'thing' in our very being, such that there is no recognizable difference between us and the bringer of that 'light to the world'. So what is that 'backstory', that 'thing' that Jesus brought to earth over 2,000 years ago, so that we could "have life, and have it more abundantly"? What is that 'thing', described as "the Light of the world", a dwelling place wherein we live. That 'thing' is the WORDS of God, brought to earth by Jesus His Son.

Think and Grow Rich~ 'Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.' Rev.3:17. In 1937 Napoleon Hill published on of the greatest personal growth books ever written - Think and Grow Rich! The title belies the content, because on the surface one would think this book was only about making money, but it isn't. The author was a great friend of Andrew Carnagie, who was a business magnate in the early part of the 20th century, and later became a recognized philanthropist. The author condensed years of research into the habits of success into 14 principles that became his "Philosophy of Achievemnt", that when diligently applied will suppress negative thoughts, and allow a person to become successful in all areas of life. And although there are a few dated ideas that are no longer acceptable by modern standards, this is an important 'read', and well worth the time. There is a correlation between these princlples defined in this book and what Jesus taught about becoming 'rich' in the spiritual sense. The idea that 'faith' should be a guiding principle for success is outmoded from the standpoint that "Faith allows a person to believe a lie as if it is the truth, without accountability." We all start our journey to truth using faith as the basis. But if we stay 'in' faith, then we will never be able to tell whether something is actually true or not, and that decision is made moot by believing something is true, when it's not. Just believing that what you know about salvation must be true because others believe it is not sufficient to actually achieve salvation. We must KNOW the God in whom we believe by knowing and understanding the Words of God that Jesus brought to earth from the Father through His eyewitness disciples.

Learning truth heals~ Those of you that have had to go to the hospital for a proceedure or a medical issue you know how uncomfortable it is. For the price of a night in the hospital you could stay at the Burj Hotel in Dubai in one of their better rooms, and still have money left over for a nice dinner. Yet the reason we go to the hospital is not for a vacation, it is because we have a serious medical condition that cannot be dealt with any other way. In my case I had a condition in my left hand called Cellulitis, which is a bacterial infection of skin and underlaying tissue, that causes swelling, redness, is hot to the touch, and quite painful. I came down with Cellulitis. I was prescribed antibiotics, but this was too little too late. On Thursday I was meeting with Rick, and he told me that this condition was now severe, and that I should go immediately to get it dealt with. I did. That is why i missed helping out with last weeks program. A fairly short stay in the hospital, good Doctors, heavy antibiotics, and two sleepless nights and I was home again, with the Cellulitis under control. We will go in hospital for a medical condition that is life threatening, but where do we go when we have a spiritual 'life-threatening' condition? There are churches, but these are not spiritual hospitals, they are more like 'play grounds' where people go to be entertained, coming away feeling good, but no closer to being healed spiritually than when they went in. The place where you must go to become spiritually healed is not a physical place, because healing the spirit is not a physical issue. We must recognise that the disease we are fighting is one where we believe a lie to be the truth, and when we are shown the truth we believe it to be a lie. The Words of Jesus are the antibiotics that will heal us from the disease of lies we believe to be true. We must innoculate ourselves from lies, by learning His truth.

God told the prophet Jeremiah that He would make a covenant with the Israelites when they were restored to the land of Israel after the captivity. Jeremiah 31:34 (JB) There will be no further need for neighbor to teach neighbor, or brother to say to brother, 'learn to know Yahweh!' No, they will all know me, the least no less than the greatest... The Son of God speaking to the religeous leaders of the Jews said: "You do not know Me, nor do you know my Father; if you did know Me, you would know My Father as well" John 8:19 (JD) To the woman at the well The Son of Man said; You worship what you do not know... But a time will come-in fact it is here already-when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth: that is the kind of worshipper the Father wants. God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth. John 4:21-24 (JD) Philip said, 'Lord, let us see the Father and then we shall be satisfied. 'Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know Me?'  To know about the Father, is not the same as "knowing" the Father. To know the Father we must know come to know His Son. The only way this can be, is to learn the truth. To learn the truth is the way to the Father and the Son. The Spirit of Truth will teach you, but you must be willing to learn. The only way this will happen is by setting aside everything you have learned that is not 100% consistant with the testimony of God's Son.

When I would ask the question; why would God tolerate rebellion and insurrection to continue, the answer was usually; because God is putting "wickedness" on trial for all the world to see. Many people are asking the same question now, except not only about God, but about what is being allowed to continue in the United States. The answer is, people need to see the depths of wickedness in order to admit or acknowledge that it is truly taking place. Wickedness happens behind a facade of "philanthropy", people need to see what is behind the facade before they will acknowledge that it is true. God is exposing all the wickedness that has been going on for centuries so the people of earth will want Him to punish the wicked. We are about to enter into a time of peace and prosperity the likes of which the world has never experienced, but there is something else on the horizon, God will let us know what that is soon..