Spirit of Truth/The Bible on Trial

"Lighten up!" We have all heard this phrase directed at us from time to time, because there are times when we feel that life becomes slightily more intense than our ability to cope. In these situations sometimes our friends can see solutions that we can not because they are not 'inside' that situation. That being said, I cannot imagine any of the disciples of Jesus saying that to Jesus, except for Peter. Matt. 16:22-23 describes Peter 'rebuking' Jesus for suggesting that He must go to Jerusalem, where He would suffer humiliation under the leaders of the Jews, be killed, and be raised from the dead on the third day. In other words Peter said, "Jesus, lighten up!" The response of Jesus was epic, ""Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's." (Matt. 16:23).  In a forceful way Jesus was was reminding Peter that in order to be in the Kingdom of God you must THINK differently than those people that are in the world. The world is in darkness, the Kingdom of the Heavens is in the light. Jesus reminds us as He did Peter that,  "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. "For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.  "But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God." (John 3:19-21) Here Jesus is saying to us, "LIGHTEN UP", by living the Truth, living the Way, and living the Life that Jesus came to earth to show.

Fraud is such an ugly word. I think all of us, at one time or another, have experienced some form of fraud; Bait-and-switch in buying a used car, credit card fraud, charities fraud, check fraud, pyramid schemes, and now online fraud, to name a few. Genesis 29 speaks of a fraud Laban perpetrated upon Jacob in giving him Leah instead of Rachel to wife, after seven years of labor in payment. Yet as horrible as these fraudulent activities are the most evil and indeed terrifying is identity fraud. Identity theft is the fastest growing type of fraud in the world today. Millions of people have their credit card or bank account information stolen and used to buy products and services for someone that is masquerading as you. For those of you that have had this happen there is almost nothing that is worse than realizing that someone has taken over your identity and acted AS you for the purpose of robbing you of your money, or worse, your reputation. Now just imagine how God must feel knowing that Their identity has been stolen from Them, for the purpose of getting the people of earth to give a being that simply 'says' he is 'God' the worship, praise, honor, devotion and obedience that rightly belongs to Them. "Impossible", you say; God would NEVER ever allow this to happen. After all, He is sovereign of the earth, and would protect 'His Word', the Bible, at all cost, from ALL assault. Yes, God IS sovereign, BUT He IS NOT the ruler of this earth, Satan is; and Satan is allowed by God's own law to do what ever he wants to trap and defraud the people of the earth of their eternal life. Satan HAS stolen the credit card of God's words of Truth, and His sacrifice and death for His Kingdom, and substituted the lies that the Commandments of God no longer have anything to do with salvation, and that the words of Paul are the words of God. Imagine how God must feel about this!

My son's very best childhood and high school friend got married to an Austrailian girls and moved to New Castle in Austrailia about 5 years ago. Zach and Shane don't see each other very often in person, but they do Skype regularly to keep in touch. Whenever Shane comes to the USA with Krysta, Zach will go to extraordinary lengths to be able to visit them. This involves considerable time and distance in the car from Los Angeles, where Zach now lives and works, to Cherry Valley Ca., where Shanes parents lives. This weekend Zach came out Friday afternoon to play golf with Shane and another long time friend, spent the night with Shane's family, will drive to Santa Monica for work, will drive BACK out tonight to prepare for church tomorrow in Redlands Ca. (organist/choir master at 1st Presbyterian church), only to drive out immediately after the worship for another shift at the hotel at which he works in Santa Monica. He is doing this simply because he wants to be with his long time best friend even for just a short time. Why? Because Zach knows Shane, and loves him like a brother, and will do what it takes to be able to be with him. Is Jesus your best friend? What are you willing to do to be with your best friend, Jesus Christ? What lengths are you willing to go to KNOW Him, and therefore be with Him, not just for a few hours every few years, but forever? Are you willing to leave behind your pre-conceived thought processes and conclusions about how salvation works, and take the time to really know and understand WHY Jesus came to this earth?  If learning and knowing the truth about the words and testimony of Jesus and the salvation He offers is a bother for you, and you don't have the humility to find out if what you now know to be true actually IS true, then you will miss out on that wonderful time when the redeemed get to spend eterninty with Him.

People worry about a lot of things. The top of the list for most would have to be money, or the lack of it. But this is by no means the only worries to whihc people have become accustomed; health, relationships, children, pets, cars, vacations, TAXES, ad infinitum. And if that were not enough, when we have run out of those we will invent worries if we don't feel as if we have enough to keep us busy. It's no wonder we don't sleep well, and often get sick. Worry is a disease that many believe has not cure, but they would be wrong. There IS a cure, and that is TRUST. THE Merriam Webster Dictionary definition: a) assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. A more spiritual definition might be: the reliance on that which was performed in the past will be the same in the future. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. We can rely on Their great love to accomplish in us and through us that which will benefit the Kingdom of the Heavens.  When we have reduce our 'faith' in God to the smallest component possible, that of a mustard seed, we will indeed have developed our TRUST in God to the point where we can move mountains for His Kingdom. We can Trust that which God has done for His Kingdom in the past They will continue to do in the present and in the future, and we will have no need to 'sweat the small stuff'.

How do you wake up in the morning from a very deep sleep? What is the process that allows you to come to the realization that you are awake, and not still dreaming? This process is essentially the same as when you wake up to truth. And waking up to truth uses the same kind of process as using a metaphor to explain a spiritual truth. In waking up to truth we all use the same process, we just use different examples to process the information that we need to come to the truth. So keep listening to Spirit of Truth Ministry at: blogtalkradio.com/sot. At some point you will hear a metaphor that will trigger the awakening, and you will find truth.

"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." John 15:7. If you are a Christian, or even a bondservant of Jesus, there that times when you pray and ask God for things. Things like protection for you kids, or a career change, or healing for a friend, or even money. In the words of Jesus seen above there is a condition to receiving those things. But you say, 'God loves me unconditionally; He puts no conditions on His blessings'. Yet there it is, right there for all to see and hear, "IF YOU ABIDE IN ME, AND MY WORDS". And I find myself in this same condition, and I EXPECT God to keep THEIR promises when I pray at need for 'all these things'. So when they DON'T come, when I have needs that are not met, and expectations that are not fulfilled, I/We blame God for our troubles, instead of looking a myself/ourselves, an recognize that ABIDING means LIVING IN. So we must in honesty recognize that if we are not receiving what we believe God wants for us it might just be that we are not living in the condition that God has stated is the requirement for receiving His Blessings. Just something to think about.

Most people take a casual and even cavalier approach to the searching for and finding truth because of the things they have been taught about truth from their earliest childhood; things such as, there is no such thing a a perfect truth, that no one can actually know truth, that 'my truth is just as good a your truth', that we are all going to the same place, we are just taking different paths. These 'excuses' for NOT trying to search for and understand truth inherently limit the thought processes of those that subscribe to them, which is why Satan invented them, and why he promotes them through philosophy and religion. And this applies even to the IDEA of a 'Satan'. The Evil One is perfectly happy and content to have 'elite thinkers' discount his very existence, which allows him to work in the place where he is most effective, that is, in the shadows. The most effective way of combating these ideas is to test the truth by beginning the investigation with the premise that 'Truth is singular and absolute', that truth CAN be known, and accepting the personal responsibility in finding the truth. Spirit of Truth Ministry is dedicated to the proposition that by using the words of Jesus that He gave to His own eyewitness disciples while He was here on earth, and the words of the Almighty God in the Old Testament Law and Prophets human beings CAN (and indeed must) KNOW THE TRUTH. This is a worth goal in itself, but also comes with a substantial and unique reward, ETERNAL LIFE.

"Here be Dragons" is a phrase that in ancient times and on ancient maps means 'dangerous or unexplored territories, in imitation of a midieval practice of putting illustrations of dragons, sea monsters and other mythological creatures on uncharted areas of maps' (Wikipedia). In Bible prophecy a 'red dragon' is used as a metaphor for the Devil, or Satan, who is not a metaphor, but a real being who wants nothing more than for people to shy away from the unknown and uncharted parts of the TRUTH. Truth exposes Satans schemes, so if the Devil can scare someone into willingly believing a lie because it is comfortable for them, this will keep that person from going into the 'uncharted territory' wherein truth resides. To find Truth we MUST go into areas of thought that makes us uncomfortable, and might even scare us because we 'think' that what we find will be a dragon, when in fact what we will find is the Lamb of God, the Lion of the house of the Lord, the Bright and Morning Star. If we don't "screw up our courage" and face the danger of the unknown God can not reveal truth, so that we can be prepared for the mortal combat that is to shortly come upon the whole world "to test those that dwell on the earth" (Rev. 3:10).

Have you ever been shooting with a pistol? It can be loads of fun when done using range safety standards that protect everyone from accidental discharge and errant targeting. You must know the safety rules AND PRACTICE THEM in order to avoid potentially deadly problems. The reason for practicing with your firearm is to be able at a moments notice to tranfer your mental image of a 'target' to a 'threat', and place your rounds accurately and effectively to counter that threat. Acronims such a FSP, or Flash Sight Picture, describe the last thing that you look at before you release a round downrange. Target Fixation is  also a problem when to stare at a threat for too long, and loose sight of what is going on around you, causing you to potentially miss the threat and hit an unintended target. A fired bullet hits something 100% of the time; you want to hit what you are aiming at, not what you are not. The same is true when you are involved in spiritual warfare; the kind of warfare where you are confronted with lies that someone believes are truth, and you have been given the opportunity to counter those lies and reveal the truth. We often get fixated on the target (the lie) and forget that we must place the truth where our 'threat' can actually be refuted. What is that LAST thing we need to look at (or FSP) before we squeeze the 'trigger of truth'? If we are looking at anything but the WORDS OF JESUS then we will certainly miss heart of the target. Knowing and understanding the words that Jesus brought to this earth is the very last thing that must be in our eyes and minds before we open our mouths, because that is the ONLY way to aquire the target an defeat the threat. Our ammunition is the Words of God, and we must place it where it will do the most good. If not, the threat will remain.

Many years ago the founder of the Bible On Trial, Rich Humpal, named himself 'Rock Roller' on several internet forums. Rich would take great glee in pointing out fallacious and sloppy thinking in people of 'faith'. He was an investigating lawyer that said of himself that he would look under every rock to find the truth. We would have discussions from time to time on his front porch over coffee, that ranged through a myriad of topics, all of which would try to define truth withn that topic. But 'rolling rocks' can (at times) be dangerous, because one never knows what might be found when what is under that rock is exposed. There might even be a snake.  The mind set that a person must cultivate in order to be a spiritual rock roller includes an adventurous spirit that seeks to test EVERYTHING, and looks below the obvious to that which at first may seem heretical. This type of person is never satisfied with their current understanding, and continually tests what they believe to be true against an immutable source for truth. In the case of Sprit of Truth Ministry that source is the words and teachings that Jesus gave to His own eyewitness disciples while He was here on earth 'in the flesh'.  What type of person are you? If you are satisfied with what you now believe to be true, then Spirit of Truth Ministry is not for you. If you love the challenge of testing Truth, they join us in our effort to find it. You are welcome with open heart and open arms.