May I Introduce Joan of Arc, Noah’s Wife!

Knowledge of the Old Testament seems to be a passing fancy with some and an enigma to others. The Old Testament (OT) – what does it really have to offer most modern day Christians? Many of us avoid the OT, rife with rape, murder, pillaging, slavery, buying of wives and a great deal of suffering for those less fortunate. You would think it was a book about pirates or barbarians in the jungles of the Amazon.

Today, the only ones who really spend much time rooting through its pages are seminary students, pastors or evangelicals searching for the nugget of gold to add to their New Testament philosophies. Kids get the Ten Commandments in Sunday school and of course the ever popular story of Noah and his ark; glossing over ever so slightly the global genocide that took place once the doors were closed. The OT is a hard read and often avoided due to its hard hitting theme’s, raw humanity and God’s obvious desire to eradicate all those who oppose His tyrannical rule.

The church is doing an appalling job at teaching those who sit in its pews the real word of God. Half of all adult American’s can not identify Genesis as the bibles first book and fourteen percent think Joan of Arc as Noah’s wife. (Barna Group) I think our churches as a whole are doing just as bad a job educating God’s “students” as our public schools are doing in educating their student’s. It is this reason I am against biblical education in public schools….they would come out knowing less or more misleading information about the bible than they did when they first went in.

So I think these are the real questions: Why read the OT at all? What’s in it for “me”? Who can answer those tough questions? Why did God want to kill the Amalekites? What did the Amalekites ever do to God anyway? What kind of God would let some celestial bully nearly destroy a man that loved Him? If God allows this kind of barbaric torture, what chance do I have? With theses questions swirling around in our heads, we simply decide to stick with the peaceful New Testament to learn about our God. We feel that this Jesus of the New Testament IS God and, well isn’t that all we need to know.

In reality, what we really miss out on is the Jesus of Revelation; the One who comes in power and strength, overthrowing a world terrorized by the Antichrist. THIS is the God that will be seen next, doesn’t it benefit us to know who that will be?

Sorry, back to my point…why read the Old Testament if we can’t relate and we don’t understand all its rules, regulations and genealogies? Who will help us to understand it? Who will answer our questions? It isn’t like the church we attend will have a question and answer session following the service. So we do what we usually do when things get too hard: we avoid it all together.

I would like to challenge you today to not “avoid” what is difficult, but to immerse yourself in it. Write your questions down and take them to God Himself. You may be surprised and humbled by what you learn. You may learn about your own humanity and God’s infinite kindness and patience as you take this journey through the OT.

I would like to start with Job. Job is one of my personal favorites and you will discover why as we look at its pages. (I hope you will join me) Much to the disappointment and extreme panic of all the Pastor’s who read this blog, I did not go to seminary, I have no formal training in the OT and just like the rest of you, will be discovering and uncovering some of the OT’s painful truths. The issues that have us questioning the love of a self proclaimed God and who may be described as mystifying at best and narcissistic at worst.

Job is considered one of the oldest books in the bible. It begins amazingly enough with a matter of fact statement that Job was “blameless and upright. He feared God and shunned evil.” Job 1:1. The next paragraph may stun many of you who think evil can not exist in the presence of God, another untruth perpetrated on the fabric of Christian believers. Satan appears in heaven before the Lord, charging God with not seeing Job for who he really was. Satan claims Job would curse Him if God did not protect him so completely. God knows what character that His friend Job has, so God allows Satan to systematically destroy his family, his fortune and his health, leaving Job with nothing but a complaining wife and three know-it-all friends.

The questions posed by the book of Job are vast and for God, very incriminating. What kind of a friend is God that He would allow His upright and blameless friend to be devastated in such a complete and atrocious way. In our minds, it is unthinkable. God is such a menace!

Let’s start with the obvious one: What kind of a friend is God that He would allow Job to be broken in such a way, and by what we think as God’s most virulent enemy. It begs the question: whose motives are being exposed here: God or Satan’s?

Job’s brush with Satan tells us a great deal about Satan than maybe it does God. Let’s look at what God tells Satan: "Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger."Job 1:12.

Interesting! God gives Satan limitations on what he can do. What would Satan do without limitations forced upon him by the God of the universe? I don’t think Satan would restrain himself in the least. He would completely destroy anything he could get his hands on. Wait, does Satan have hands? I thought they were removed in the curse in Genesis? Oh dear, more questions.

So God doesn’t allow Satan to destroy His friend Job, but He does allow Satan to kill his family and his fortune. Some of us look at this as being the ultimate price to pay. To loose a son or daughter would so completely devastate us we would never recover emotionally. But to God, who thinks eternally, this is not such a big deal. To Him we simply return to Him, the God from where we came, who knew us before He formed us in the womb.

Next Satan destroys Job’s health. For many of us, that is also something that we think we just could not bare. For me, and here is a little flashlight shining into my own soul, having a chronic, debilitating illness, and like Job’s, not fatal, has stolen a great deal of my earthly happiness and wellbeing, as well as being a tremendous burden to my family. Unlike Job, I was blessed with an understanding husband. But aligning myself with God’s eternal thinking, what is 40 or 50 years of pain, when I will, if I make it through the trials in life with my salvation in tact, spend eternity cleaning Mother Theresa’s toilets…just kidding, I’m sure my eternity in the presence of unimaginable beauty and peace will far outweigh the momentary anguish of my earthly existence.

It is not clear if Job while he sat in sack cloth and ashes scraping his open sores with pottery shards, if he had the Holy Spirit to comfort him. I have to be honest, I don’t think if I did not have the Holy Spirit along side of me as I encounter my own personal drama, that I could really hold up as well as Job.

In all of this, it says, Job did not sin by charging God with wrong doing. It is not clear either if Job even knew it was Satan who was the personal perpetrator of all this evil. Job only pleads for the chance to present his case. God hearing it all eventually addresses Job, face to face, and restores all that Job had lost and more.

This book of Job presents us with a God who sometimes allows pain in our lives to test our character. God ALWAYS has the eternal in His sights. But what I think we can take away from this book, the portion that is often overlooked, is the true character of Satan.

Satan isn’t the one interested in our well being, it is God. It is God that holds Satan back from COMPLETELY destroying you, your family, your good fortune and your health. For every blessing we have we should give all the glory to the God who watches over us and protects us. The One who sends a Comforter to help us in our trials, and we WILL have trials. It is just the way of our world.

We just need to remember that the prize is eternal. But why all the emphasis on good, upright character anyway? Who, other than people immediately in our own little sphere of influence really benefits at all? Why should God care a wit about whether I’m an “upright” person? Another question we will answer next time!

 

My Favorite Headlines:

Well if sanctions don’t work on Iran, we can always send Roseanne…Comedian Roseanne Barr Seeks Green Party Presidential Nod (CNS News)

That is not a good endorsement of us as followers…Christians Clash With Jesus on Abortion, Gay Marriage, Survey Finds (Christian Post)

Top place to move…Entire Spanish village wins lottery (Slideshow)

As always, email me YOUR spiritual questions, top favorite headline picks or your “off the record” comments to NoShoes@charter.net. I will include your name and city, and if the headline pick is interesting, appropriate and not offensive, I will post them!

Ultrasound Bill Goes Before VA Senate

Very soon Planned Parenthood will have its giant maternity panties all in a wad. Why you ask? On Thursday the Virginia Senate Education and Health Committee passed a bill that would require all pregnant women to undergo an ultrasound prior to an abortion. This bill will now go before the Virginia Senate on Monday for a full vote.

SB 484 says that before a pregnant woman gets an abortion, an ultrasound exam must be performed and the woman must have an opportunity to view the sonogram image of her fetus and hear the fetal heartbeat. ( Suffolk News Herald, Jan. 29, 2012)

Currently the law only requires that the ultrasound be offered but the actually exam is not required.

Opponents say the proposed law would interfere with a woman’s right to have an abortion and with the doctor-patient relationship. ( Suffolk News Herald, Jan, 29, 2012)

How anyone could object to this astounds me and the lame reasons sighted above are ludicrous. If you are wondering why Planned Parenthood would really object let me tell you a little secret (which really isn’t a secret to those of us who follow this issue). Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in the United States. It’s their cash cow. They would do just about anything to make sure their little abortuaries stay in business and giving women the opportunity to see the precious baby growing inside would stand in the way. Simple as that; just follow the money.

It looks like SB 484 may have the votes it needs to pass in the VA Senate. It has a few more hurdles to get over, but be prepared those of you on their newsletter list….Planned Parenthood is going to be hitting YOU up for more money…you know to take care of their giant panty problem….

Just thought you ought to know!

 

[Sources: Ultrasound Bill Advances ( Suffolk News Herald, January 29, 2012); Nation’s largest abortion provider: Planned Parenthood ( Washington Times, April 18, 2011)]

 

Favorite Headlines:

Great story….Wounded Soldier Gets War Puppy Back (MSNBC)

Heads up….Failed Russian Space Probe Plunging to Earth (Newsmax)

As always, email me YOUR spiritual questions, top favorite headline picks or your “off the record” comments to NoShoes@charter.net. I will include your name and city, and if the headline pick is interesting, appropriate and not offensive, I will post them!

 

A Mystery Even Paul the Apostle Couldn’t Solve

World renowned physicist Steven Hawking and Paul the Apostle walk into a bar, sit down and discover they have something very profound in common: Women are a mystery. Okay, okay…Steven Hawking didn’t actually “walk” into the bar. But it is amazing how much believers and unbelievers have in common, isn’t it?

I guess what I find interesting about Steven (we’re on a first name basis now you know) is that this is what he thinks about most?!? Really??? This is what the smartest man alive thinks about the most?? Now that is a profound mystery to me. I guess if you are a man, it goes with out saying that we are in fact a huge mystery, but Steven Hawking is supposed to be one of the most intelligent, gifted man in the world. You would have thought he could have found something more mysterious than us to think about in his 70 years on this planet?!?

Paul the Apostle shared a similar opinion. When talking about marriage he had this to say about the whole mess…

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:31-32, NIV, bold emphasis mine.)

Isn’t it the “mystery” that makes couples fall in love and stay in love in the first place? Eh, I don’t think so. If you are brave enough to remain married for an extended period of time, the mundane things in life beat the mysterious stuffing right out of you. But what Paul was talking about is the “oneness” of marriage and how two seemingly different yet similar creatures can get married and do more than just make it work.

I would like to take a few minutes here to clear up some of the mystery, for the rest of it you will just have to be content with the fact that even some of the biggest minds in the world don’t have a handle on it.

Theologically speaking it all goes back to Genesis. Genesis 1:26-27 to be exact….

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, in Our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

 So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created Him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:26-27, NIV

What these verses actually say in Hebrew may help to make it make a little more sense. ‘Ha adam’ in Hebrew can be translated into ‘mankind’ or ‘humanity’, like that universal use of ‘man’ to mean the human race, and in this verse I think it would be more appropriate. “Then God said, "Let Us make humanity [ha adam] in Our image, in Our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. Genesis 1:26.

This “let Us make humanity in Our image” doesn’t leave a lot of room for the creation of woman as an afterthought or that women weren’t also created in God’s image. The woman was originally created as a part of the human race to rule and reign along side her husband Adam.

Now Adam was created first and he embodied both himself and Eve. Adam created in the image of God had both the male and female attributes of his Creator. For those of you who think this isn’t possible there are many organisms in God’s creation that are created in this way…but this is a blog for another day. Moving on…

So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:27, NIV

Do we see this anywhere else in scripture so we can get a second witness? We see this in Genesis 5:1-2 and again it shows that the spirit of this person was both male and female.

God created man, in the likeness of God made He him; Male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. Genesis 5:1-2, KJV, underline emphasis mine.

If you look at the last part of this verse it says God called “their name” Adam.

When God separated these two components of Adam He then created Adam’s counterpart, Eve. Eve, now physically and spiritually separated from Adam, now embodied all the female attributes of her loving Creator, a Creator who gives life.

This is a profound mystery, but men, when you look at your wife or the women in your life and think they are just “crazy”. Please remember, she is the just the other half of you. Or you are just the other half of her. You have very complimentary features and when you dismiss her feelings and emotions as just silly, feminine twaddle, you are essentially saying that the feminine aspects of God are irrelevant and unimportant. And YES God has distinct feminine attributes! I would challenge you to look them up. Unravel this mystery for yourself. I’ve at least pointed you in the right direction.

And as a small side note, there is another important component to this mystery and that is the spiritual trinity that makes up a husband and a wife. Of course there is the well known Father, Son and Holy Spirit; THE supreme trinity. And then there is the husband, wife and Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is also a part of this union, the marriage will be a smashing success…albeit, still a mystery for most.

And for those of you who think I should be tackling (pardon the pun) this whole God in football thing; this media contrived controversy with Tim Tebow? Well I just think it is too stupid for even me to comment on…and you know me, I have very little fear of being stupid!

 

[Source: Women are a mystery to British physicist Hawking (Yahoo/Reuters))

 

My Favorite Headlines:

PANIC!!!! Three Friday the 13ths, 13 weeks apart, a rarity (USA Today)

Ryan Seacrest was top answer to whom will be running against Obama…Poll: Many voters clueless about 2012 (Politico)

Wigs sold separately…Bald and beautiful...Barbie? (MSNBC)

Don’t judge her, you know you’ve wanted to bite a few yourself…Woman bites kids at bookstore (WBHX/CA)

Significantly narrowing their choices….Fat Corpses Not Wanted for Donation (MSNBC)

Harold Camping conspicuously unavailable for comment…Doomsday Clock pushed one minute closer to mankind's end (CNet)

As always, email me YOUR spiritual questions, top favorite headline picks or your “off the record” comments to NoShoes@charter.net. I will include your name and city, and if the headline pick is interesting, appropriate and not offensive, I will post them!

It’s New Years Resolution Time!

I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas and New Years. I know you all were expecting me to write some pithy (yeah I stole that from O’Reilly and I still don’t know what it means) little Christmas story, but I spared you again. Again, you are welcome.

So moving on into the New Year. I never make resolutions, at least I try not to, but I looked over the “Most popular New Years resolutions” (see below) and I had to admit, they were all lacking something interesting. Say for instance, the first one is to drink less alcohol. I guess I could see that one but where is the fun in any of the rest of them. “Reduce, reuse, recycle”??? WHAT??? Who resolves to do any of these stupid things?

Here is what I thought should be on my New Years Resolution list this year, if I were to actually make one:

1.	Learn to tell better jokes. Mine really stink. Oh wait, you already know that.
2.	Work harder at offending those ultra sensitive aethists.
3.	Learn how to spell atheist.
4.	Stay up later.
5.	Watch more episodes of Big Bang!
6.	My personal favorite: EAT MORE JUNK FOOD!!! Especially chocolate!
7.	Hang out more with people I love, just having fun. I kinda do that already, but I’m thinking I should do more of it.
8.	Stop condemning myself for those few extra 40 pounds. I mean really who cares but me anyway.
9.	Kiss my husband a lot more often and a lot longer.
10.	And this one if for your benefit: learn to write something interesting. No promises in this department.
11.	Enjoy life, more abundantly (John 10:10)

 

 

My Favorite Headlines:

Is yours included? Most Popular New Years Resolutions (USA.gov)

Hope they supersize the horse too….Supersized saddles find home on the range (Yahoo/Reuters)

How many drinks does it take to care….Would booze nutrition labels make you drink smarter? ( South Florida Sun Sentinel)

As always, email me YOUR spiritual questions, top favorite headline picks or your “off the record” comments to NoShoes@charter.net. I will include your name and city, and if the headline pick is interesting, appropriate and not offensive, I will post them!

 

History Channel's Ancient Aliens Exposed!

This program on the History Channel, you may have seen it, called Ancient Aliens really bugs me. The most important aspect of this show is to make you think you were created by THEM; NOT Yahweh (the God of the Hebrew bible). Of course, they would dismiss Yahweh as one of these ancient aliens. In fact, they would have you believe that it was them who created you from their own DNA. If so, who created their DNA?

Whatever God is, He is NOT an alien who flies around in some space craft kidnapping people to do experiments on them or sucking cows and other wildlife into their space ship to do….well who knows….and then dumping them back into some field somewhere with various parts surgically removed.

In fact, I did an entire series in October 2010 on what I think all this alien manure really is but since the producers of this show have become a little more emboldened with such statements like “human beings were genetically engineered” by these so called gods; Ancient Aliens even goes so far as saying that the Anunnaki of ancient Sumeria were the creators of all mankind. I feel, because of these ridiculous statements, I need to speak out more often about this incredibly deceived little series. What makes it almost believable is it does have an element of truth.

God said “My people perish for lack of knowledge.” Hosea 4:6

I’m here to set this incredibly misunderstood and distorted piece of biblical history straight. The God of the bible, Yahweh, is NOT an Anunnaki. The Anunnaki were fallen angels. The Anunnaki weren’t here to make our lives better or improve our living conditions. They came to pollute mankind by interbreeding and creating creatures that we continue to talk about to this day in our myths and fables. If you think it isn’t possible I would like to present my case to you….then you can decide for yourself.

“You [God] have made him [mankind] for a little while lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, and have appointed him over the works of your hands; You have put all things in subjection under his feet.” Hebrews 2: 7-8

This New Testament verse is harkening back to this one in the Old Testament….

Yet You [God] have made him [mankind] a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty! You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, Psalm 8, 5-6 ( NASB)

But what we see very clearly here is that mankind was made a little lower than the angels and God and we were appointed to rule over all the works of His hand. We know from simple observation that this is indeed the truth. We rule over our planet unlike any other species out there, with exception of angels and God; which leads me to my next point, if we are created a little lower than the angels and we have made nations and cities with all the technology that our little human minds can produce. If we can do all this incredible stuff, why can’t angels or let’s say for speculations sake, fallen angels do the same or even more? Do we think we have a corner on the Universes’ market on technology? Here is what God (Yahweh) himself had to say about mankind….

The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” Genesis 11: 6 (NIV)

This comes from a very well known story in the bible; you may have heard of it? It takes place in ancient Mesopotamia somewhere very near to where the ancient Sumerians lived and where the Anunnaki supposedly “created” us. The indigenous people of the area built a tower in Babel (a.k.a. Babylon) that “reached to the heavens” and God, in His wisdom, came down to confuse their language and scattered them all over the earth. By the way, this “tower” in Babel was no ordinary tower, but, this an extremely lengthy blog for another day…..

So with that said, the human race is now coming together again all over the globe with one common language, the computer language, with communications that reach well into the heavens, that orbit the earth and send signals so that we, as the human race, can communicate each technological achievement with absolutely no perceivable reduction in time. With each achievement comes even more exciting technological advances. The only limitations put on these advancements are our own imagination and the inability to properly foresee the future. I’d like to put out there that if we can do all of this, then don’t you think angels and their progeny who were made a little higher on the intellectual food chain can do the same, if not more?

Let’s talk our genetic accomplishments here for a minute. The advancements in this field are again, only limited by imagination. For instance, students at the University of Washington won a genetic engineering contest in early November after they built an enzyme that could convert simple carbohydrates into diesel. Awesome!! But it doesn’t end here….

Earlier this month, researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN released a study in which mice had been genetically modified so that their senescent cells self-destructed when the mice were dosed with a specific drug. Senescent cells are those which continue to survive after they've lost the ability to divide. These old cells accumulate in the aging tissues of the body; in arthritic hands and cataracts in the eyes. The immune system regularly removes senescent cells from tissues during an animal's life, but does so less efficiently as it grows older. Through gene engineering, researchers at the Mayo Clinic were able to purge the mice of their senescent cells, effectively slowing the aging effect these old cells have on the tissues. The mice did not develop cataracts, were able to run for longer periods on a treadmill at older ages, and retained the fat layers that would have otherwise thinned and caused the wrinkles we recognize in older people.

"I am very excited by the results," said Dr. Norman E. Sharpless, an expert on aging at the University of North Carolina. "It suggests therapies that might work in real patients," he said. From Chuck Missler, K-House ENews.

Now scientists from Singularity University suggest that we will be procreating in a lab in the future using synthetic and designed DNA. Designed by whom you may ask? Why us of course.

“We’re going to make synthetic human genomes and edit them, and we’re going to end up with IVF technologies that can boot them. It will make cloning look organic, and the ways we have babies today quaint.” Singularity University bioinformatics and biotechnology co-chair Andrew Hessel. (Forbes, Nov. 14, 2011)

But mankind (and fallen angels) can only create out of what is already created; we can NOT create out of nothing, as God did. But since we are a little lower than the angels, does it really need to be said that if we can create biologically superior species out of what is already here, can Satan who leads a band of fallen albeit slightly superior angels, a.k.a. ancient aliens or Anunnaki or whatever name our ancient ancestors chose to give to a seeming more advance race of beings than ourselves create something similar? They have now retreated with their far more superior technology to the outer recesses of the cosmos or possibly some other dimension in order to perform their horrendous experimentations.

What they are up to really is no secret. They don’t want to help us by genetically altering our DNA in order to make us a better, more productive race. They don’t want to make us a more green planet or make a more harmonious society by eliminating religions or even making us all “coexist” (a little bumper sticker humor here). They really don’t have our best interests at heart at all in their ruthless little bodies. By the way, these greys and other so called alien creatures are nothing more than the left over Nephilim of Genesis 6:4. Yes, I know I say that with a great deal of conviction and certainty, but it comes from years of research into this area and I say it with a great deal of trepidation that you may not understand the full sinister desires they have for you and the human race. Many of these “things” they are creating through their own mutilation of DNA is not for your benefit; it is for theirs. It is also nothing new. If you really look deeper into ancient historical records, mythology and the biblical account of Noahs flood you will see a pattern emerge. These myths and ancient historical records are painting a very vivid story of what these fallen angels were up to the entire time. In Genesis 6:4 they deliberately manipulate human DNA by attempting to become a part of our DNA. They didn’t want children because they wanted to be great dads and take their kids to baseball games. No they really just wanted to pollute what God had made in order that Satan could create a race for himself, something that would worship him and no doubt an attempt to derail the coming of Christ. An attempt that failed and those Nephilim that managed an escape left this world, only to return later but were ousted by Joshua and Caleb in what is now modern day Israel. For those of you who doubt me and think I’m crazy (another observation that has some ring of truth to it) this is what the bible said about the Nephilim AFTER the flood….

They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.”

Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”

But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” Numbers 13: 26-33, NIV

For those of you unfamiliar with the time frame in which this took place, it was THE reason the Israelites spent forty years in the desert. This is the time in which God sent them in to take all of Israel for Himself and to rid this planet of the remainder of the Nephilim descendents, but they grumbled and did not want to go. God then banished them for forty years to wander the desert. It was their descendents and Caleb who returned forty years later to do what God had initially wanted them to do in the first place. A side note: the Hebrew definition of the word Nephilim comes from the root word Naphal which means “fallen ones”.

They were eventually defeated and have retreated somewhere into the cosmos of our universe (or some other dimension only accessible to angels), but they are not gone from the world’s stage. They will make their appearance at the end of the age; another useless attempt to thwart God’s plan and take captive the rest of mankind. Satan really just wants to BE God. Which we know can’t happen, but he is still going to give it his best shot. This also explains all those horrible little so called “gods” of the Old Testament and the “mystery of Babylon” which is mentioned in Revelations. So don't be decieved, they are not aliens, simply a few fallen angels and their offspring.  Like I said, you think about it and decide for yourself!

 

Sources: For Synthetic Biologists, the Lab is the Place to Procreate – Forbes; Koinania House Ministry ENewsletter December 2011

Definitions: Nephal - http://www.studylight.org/lex/heb/view.cgi?number=05307

 

My Favorite Headlines:

Staying with the theme of this blog, I thought you might find this little piece interesting…Most liveable alien worlds ranked ( BBC)

Again, staying with the theme of this blog and don’t forget to check Snopes to see if this one is for real….Is this an alien skull? Mystery of giant-headed mummy found in Peru (Daily Mail)

I bet you didn’t know I could find so much of this dung in the news did you? Researchers propose system to find life elsewhere (Seattle Post Intelligencer)

Blah, blah, blah, and some hum drum lab experiments have yielded yet again, another who knows what it’s made of news report….Scientists probe Earth's core, make mystifying discovery (The Register)

As always, email me YOUR spiritual questions, top favorite headline picks or your “off the record” comments to NoShoes@charter.net. I will include your name and city, and if the headline pick is interesting, appropriate and not offensive, I will post them!

An Irreconcilably Different Plan

I’m never sure if I am the right person to ever give advice on marriage, let alone write about it for all the world to see, but I’ve been following this series of articles called “The Unraveling of a Christian Marriage”. For those of you who don’t know why I would ever hesitate to write about marriage after being married for 15 years to a wonderful man of God, it is because before this wonderful man of God I was married and divorced not once but twice. Both before the age of thirty. One of those little marital escapades happened in Las Vegas…..and BELIEVE ME…what happens in Vegas follows you home. No hangover remedy can cure you of that! So moving on to the story at hand….

I read all of Elisabeth Corcoran’s very gut wrenching articles. She bears her heart and her soul in this series. All of the articles firmly held to the belief that both of these individuals are believers. And I’m certain that there are counselors and pastors out there that would hold to that firm belief that this ex-husband was indeed saved, just broken and in need of help.

I’m not so sure about that. After being married to a true man of God for the past 15 years I can honestly say, a REAL man of Jesus doesn’t give in or give up when the going gets tough. And believe you, me my husbands life has been very hard being married to me. Not because I am difficult or hard to get along with (like I’m sure many of you may think), but mostly because I brought a great deal of extra baggage into our marriage. My mother lived with us for 9 long, difficult years of varying degrees of failing health before her passing in addition to having a sick wife with fibromyalgia for nearly the entire marriage. He is the sole bread winner in our little household and he is not working in the field in which he went to college. He has stepped way outside his dream career zone and is living in the harsh reality that life tends to throw our way. He chose to handle this with a great deal of dignity and inner strength; which, by the way, comes straight from the throne room of God, I know, I’ve seen him bow his head, many, many times and ask God to “give him strength”! Sure most of the time it is just a musing, but hey, God can work with that! I’d like to mention here that he is not perfect, in case I am giving you the wrong impression. He very rarely ever says he’s sorry. Although he will throw a curve ball my way every once in a while and apologize for something that wasn’t his fault. I think it is just to keep me on my toes.

I guess what I’m saying here is that I’ve seen a true man of God who has all the messy past that tends to make us hard, work at being a little softer. I saw him submit to Christ when all he wanted to do was run. I saw him submit to me even when he thought I might be crazy and in need of psychiatric attention; he even suggested I might want to get help. That fight ended with an “I will if you will”. Those never end well do they?!?

Of the 15 years we’ve been married, I don’t think we’ve ever had an easy one. Life always has a little something to throw our way. In all honesty, I think God allows it in order to see what kind of stuff we are made of. Which brings me back to the husband in question, you know, the one from the series of articles. There weren’t any questions raised that this man might not be a Christian after all.

I would like to be the first one to raise this question. I submit, for the record, that this man was a Christian in name only.

She writes: “A fairly standard belief in Christian circles is that there are only two biblical reasons for divorce: if your spouse is unfaithful and if your spouse is not a believer and he abandons you. My situation did not fit those criteria.” And this is in fact what most Christians believe to be the biblical criteria for divorce. But I would like to present her with this, he was not a believer as shown by his actions inside the marriage and in the end, he filed for divorce, abandoning her.

She admits she wasn’t perfect and came with her own set of baggage into that marriage. But let’s be honest. What man in his right mind marries a woman (ME) who had been married twice and divorced twice and thinks it will all turn out okay? Well, my husband did, and so far so good. We actually love each other more today than we did when we first met and are pretty happy with each other most of the time. We are just like every other couple out there in the world, struggling to raise our kids in an upside down world and not loose our sense of who we are in the process. It really isn’t because we are just unusual or so deeply in love that we couldn’t live without each other. It is really because we share one very important thing in common; we both love Jesus and we put biblical principles to work in our marriage and in our lives.

For instance, Ms. Corcoran’s husband had a drinking problem. The bible says we are not to give a foot hold to the enemy by habitual sinful behavior and clearly getting drunk may have been a higher priority than his relationship with his wife or with Christ. Does this mean he is not a Christian? It does if you continue in that sinful behavior destroying the things in life God says you are responsible for; a.k.a. your family. The bible says to not grieve the Holy Spirit because a sinner, and it lays out a whole list of sinful behavior, does not have “any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” (Ephesians 5:5) I don’t know if you would have to look for any more justification as to whether this husband was a believer or not.

My husband would walk across hot coals, naked and doused in gasoline in order to preserve what is honorable in God’s eyes. My husband has had issues in our marriage he has had to deal with, they were hard for him, maybe as equally difficult as Ms. Corcoran’s husbands drinking problems, but he dealt with them. And every time we get over one hurdle, our marriage is even that much stronger, and low and behold, wait, there is another issue to deal with. We aren’t fazed by it much any more; he will say we’ve been through harder stuff. Or if I’m feeling like the stronger one at that particular moment, I will tell him with God’s help we can get through this too. Sometimes we retreat to our separate corners feeling dazed and confused, but in the end, we manage to come together and solve whatever crisis is heading our way, always with God’s help.

I think what I’m trying to say here is that Ms. Cocoran’s marriage is an example that BOTH spouses must submit to Christ for a Christ centered marriage to work. If one goes off the deep end, then so will the marriage. It is not the woman’s responsibility to keep the marriage together. Nor do I feel it is solely the man’s responsibility. God designed marriage as a partnership of two equal, but different members that have to work together in order to keep it together. Most of you probably already know that, I mean, come on, doesn’t that make common sense.

Sadly though, many pastor’s and Christian counselors tell the women to “submit more” and the husband to try and be more understanding. In an area where abuse, like alcohol abuse, is involved, “submitting more” won’t help the women and the husband trying to “understand” his wife’s feelings with out the removal of the sin in his life won’t make any marriage a peaceful, happy coexistence.

In fact, God didn’t design marriage to make us happy; He designed it to make us Holy. And not everyone is willing to submit to His Holy plan. A little known secret is happiness and peace follow closely behind holiness. In the case of Ms. Corcoran, it wasn’t irreconcilable differences that caused their split, it was her husband who had an irreconcilably different plan than God’s Holy one.

My hat is off to Ms. Corcoran for the way she exposed her self in order to help others and the length to which she was willing to go to remain right with God!! She is definitely a Godly example to us all.

[Source: The Unraveling of a Christian Marriage: Part I, II, III & IV (Crosswalk)]

 

My Favorite Headlines:

Tell us something that we don’t already know….Pedophiles infiltrate respected institutions to find victims (USA Today)

Sun won’t go super nova next year! You can stop panicking now….NASA: World Won’t End Next Year ( USA Today)

Another excellent reason not to get a tattoo…Carjack suspect’s tattoo led police to him (Chicago Sun Times)

As always, email me YOUR spiritual questions, top favorite headline picks or your “off the record” comments to NoShoes@charter.net. I will include your name and city, and if the headline pick is interesting, appropriate and not offensive, I will post them!

To Zen or Not to Zen, That is the Question

A few years ago I sat in a pew listening to a sermon, not too unlike the sermons you hear on TV, and the pastor made some interesting statements. They went a little something like this….. “it’s not as if anyone puts an idol on their mantle and worships it anymore”. And that got me to thinking. Is that really true? Are only the weirdest of the weird out there worshiping little glass, metal, wood or concrete statuettes? I mean, no one is making them life size or the size of the Sphinx or anything anymore, right?

Well I would beg to differ with my pastor friend who was really talking about the idols that we build for ourselves. It is true that we can make idols of just about anything but the real question here is do any of us purchase them, bring them home and pay homage to them?

You bet ‘cha!! You can’t go to any of those little import stores or garden centers without seeing at least one Buddha or Hindu Goddess sitting peacefully in the crossed leg position, promising us that if we put him/her in our home or garden we too will have the peace that seems to radiate from them.

Do we purchase these little figurines to worship them? No! Most people realize how silly that is to worship a statue. We all know it’s just made of wood or concrete. What I think is shocking however, is they do not realize what they have invited into their home. Although the statue may be made of something worthless, the spiritual ramifications can be far reaching. These little worthless pieces of artistic expression have now opened them up to all kinds of false, pagan philosophies.

As I discussed in my last blog, “Almost Rite” where I did a short review of the movie The Rite, the young women who is possessed is wearing a charm on her wrist which gives this particular demon the authority to remain in her life. This is one of the more accurate details of the movie. There are many who come to visit a deliverance minister because strange stuff is happening to them, their loved ones or in their home that they can’t explain. If a good deliverance minister is doing his/her job they will take a look at what items they have in their possession. What type of tattoos they have put on their bodies. What kind of books, movies and even friends or family members they are close to or who have come into their life. They may be involved in the occult and this fact alone can invite these spirits into their lives. Sometimes it can be years and years and a lot of very bad stuff happening to them before they get any kind of relief.

And even though you may not actually worship these things, simply bringing them into your home, tattooing them on your bodies and/or participating in some silly, seemingly innocuous occult ritual is enough to, forgive the pun, put you in their possession.

 

My Favorite Headlines:

Free Big Macs for life would have done a better job….McDonald's Bans Mother Who Warned of Germs in Children's Play Areas (CNS News)

Christians don’t be confused; they are just demons looking for a new home…Ghost Stories Leave Lingering Questions About Afterlife (Christian Post)

Never judge a book by its cover; oh wait, by its vulgarity….Profanity is making a splash in book titles (USA Today)

As always, email me YOUR spiritual questions, top favorite headline picks or your “off the record” comments to NoShoes@charter.net. I will include your name and city, and if the headline pick is interesting, appropriate and not offensive, I will post them!

 

 

Almost Rite!

Every Halloween season brings out all the nutty movies that some Hollywood investors poured large amounts of money into and all they had to show for it was, well, a stupid movie. This season seems to be no different.

There are a lot of folks out there that absolutely love scary movies; I for one am not one of them. But what in the spiritual world that we all live in (although many choose to deny) could the purpose possibly be for making a movie that makes you scared to shower alone, turn the lights off or even go to sleep (especially alone)? What purpose could the evil spiritual world have in foisting upon us the most ridiculous and asinine scripts to ever be shown on screen?

Most deliverance ministers (myself included) would agree, it is simply to make you afraid….VERY AFRAID….of the occult. It also places deep inside your mind the curiosity to continue to watch them and maybe even participate in some of their evil, yet seemingly innocuous, practices if only to ward off the evil forces that you are attracting in the first place. I know, a vicious circle.

This brought to mind a movie I watched not too long ago called The Rite. I waited for it to come out on DVD because I simply refuse to give any of these leftist, liberal loons any more of my money than I have to. Yeah, yeah, I know most of you think I’m a loon too….I’m going to ignore the fact that you think that….and move on. Okay, so I rented this movie called The Rite in which we find a reluctant Priest named Michael Kovak who hooks up with (in the nonsexual way of course) Father Lucas (no relation to myself, but awesome name anyway), who just happens to be a seasoned, professional deliverance minister. In Catholic circles this is referred to as an exorcist, but you probably already know this from all the other freaky movies you’ve been watching, huh?!?

As crazy to you as this may sound the request for exorcisms around the world has multiplied astronomically, however, the process to actually go through the ritual of exorcism has become increasingly more difficult and the number of priests authorized to perform this rite is not sufficient to meet the demand. With that said most people who have exhausted every other avenue and feel they need some help in this spiritual area often go to a local Protestant deliverance minister, if they can find one, or they seek one out on the internet.

This movie wasn’t completely out there in its accuracy. I have been in attendance during many, many deliverance sessions and I find them to not be quite as melodramatic as what is portrayed on the movie screen. A little known fact is that you can forbid them from doing their shenanigans and if you are in fact baptized in the Holy Spirit and living a holy and righteous life style, they will reluctantly obey. They don’t like it, but they will obey. This movie shows us Father Lucas as he begins this ritual on a young woman who has been coming to him for quite sometime with relatively little success in ridding her of the thing that torments her. She is wearing a bracelet with a charm that gives these demonic spirits the authority to be there, however the movie doesn’t go into this little detail, it just skims the surface of the problem. Then she ends up dying because this spirit takes her life in a nasty and violent manner. This upsets Father Lucas so profoundly that he questions his own faith and ends up with a nasty little demon of his own. Which Priest Kovak ends up delivering him from with the assistance of a reporter who is writing an article on the topic. Priest Kovak has his own doubts but is drawn into the mayhem that ensues. This story, by the way, is based on the book The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist, and is supposed to be a true story. I read this book many, many years ago in preparation for entering my own ministry. It does an okay, but not great job at showing how difficult it can be at times and how weird life can get when you attempt to be obedient to the Word of God, well in this area at least.

The reality of a deliverance minister or one who performs exorcisms is a very unique calling in the Christian faith, but they do not get “possessed”, like this movie depicted; by someone else’s demon unless they ask for it. And yes, there is this very small subset of demonic deliverance ministers who will take the demon “upon themselves”, in other words, tells the demon to enter them because they feel they can get rid of it easier than someone who has very little experience in dealing with demons. Needless to say, it is these ministers who leave the ministry very quickly. I unfortunately met a healing minister who did this, but this is a blog for another day.

Another interesting aspect of a deliverance ministers life that is not dealt with in this movie because Priests are not permitted to marry or have families, is that demons will often go after family members of the deliverance minister, unless otherwise instructed not to or whose family members have not been taught how to protect themselves. This is usually a short lived phenomenon and is more annoying than it is dangerous, but it is an important and often overlooked aspect of the ministry.

Another often overlooked part of deliverance ministry is it is one of the most rewarding and gratifying ministries in the Christian walk. When combined with Holy Spirit led Christian counseling, it can set people free in ways that can only hope to be attained in secular counseling. However, it certainly isn’t for everyone or the faint of heart. You will encounter things that will surprise and amaze you. If you know who you are in Christ then you won’t be afraid when they go blowing through your house knocking things over or waking you up in the middle of the night or giving family member’s nightmares or attempting to scare them in some bizarre manner.

Many of you out there who think that all this stuff is made up piles of manure that are only there to make Hollywood a pot of money, in some aspect you are correct, but on the other hand to deny they exist at all is like sticking your head in the sand. And as my favorite line from the movie goes…..

 “Choosing not to believe in the Devil won’t protect you from him”, Father Lucas (again no relation to me), played by Anthony Hopkins, in The Rite (R)

 

My Favorite Headlines:

Proof positive that the government wants to control YOUR children….Michelle Obama: ‘That's Why We Start With Kids, Right? We Can Affect Who They Will Be Forever’ (CNS News)

I don’t know what teeth are going for these days but $15K seems a bit much for one tooth…Buy John Lennon's Tooth for $15K ( BBC)

Harold Camping’s (the man who knows more than Jesus) Rapture that was postponed due to extenuating circumstances (like it didn’t actually happen the first time he predicted it) has been rescheduled to Friday, Oct 21; are you over it yet? Rescheduled Rapture Occurs Friday ( Washington Post)

As always, email me YOUR spiritual questions, top favorite headline picks or your “off the record” comments to NoShoes@charter.net. I will include your name and city, and if the headline pick is interesting, appropriate and not offensive, I will post them!

Demonic Awareness Month is Back!

It’s October and you all know what that means…..It’s Demonic Awareness Month! Okay, okay, I know I’m a few weeks late, but better late than never right? I am really excited about this because it would seem that I am not alone in my quest to uncover the tactics of the enemy; for those of you who forget who that is, it is Satan and the occult. In fact I am being joined by some far more legitimate bible teachers than myself. Let’s face it, I am just a chick with a big mouth, can type fast and some nice folks at HamptonRoads.com gave me a place to drone on endlessly. These men have far more sway in the Christian community than I could ever hope to have, so I am going to stand next to them or behind them or maybe a little off to the side so I don’t get in the way, and CHEER THEM ON!!!

So all you PhD theologians out there in cyber space who have written me off as some crack pot house wife from the ‘burbs, okay I am, but you should still sit up and pay attention to what these men have to say! In a recent article published on Christian Newswire, men like Chuck Missler, Gary Stearman, Noah Hutchings, Gary Bates, John McTernan and others are now taking a stand against the occult and have suggested that “perhaps even using the month of October and the season of Halloween as opportunity to address congregations on the dangers of occult activity.”

There is this saying, attributed to Thomas Paine and used frequently in the military, it goes something like this, “lead, follow or get out of the way”. I am also challenging you all out there who are Christian believers; get informed about what the enemy is up to. Get informed about Halloween and why it is so dangerous to our families. Here is a hint, it celebrates something that God considers in complete opposition to who and what He is. It is a celebration of death and the occult, it doesn’t matter if you think it is just some silly, harmless holiday where we dress our kids up in funny costumes. I mean, hey, most of you don’t dress them up like Jack the Ripper, the devil or Freddy Krueger or anything, right? No harm, no foul. Well, that isn’t the way God looks at it. If you think Halloween is some harmless holiday, maybe you should take a look at what God says about participating in unholy things.

Start by taking a look at the following verses: Lev. 19:26-28; 20:6;  Deut 7:25-26; Oh, this one is quite harsh…Deut 17:2-5; 18:9-14; Another seriously harsh one…1 Sam. 15:23; John 3:19; my personal favorite….1 Cor. 10:16-21; and last but not least Eph. 5:5-11.

I know there are very, very few pastors out there who actually read this, so I am appealing to those of you who have your pastor’s email address….send him the link below! At the end of the source article there is also a link to download some educational materials! Please pass the word on to your pastor, bible teachers and anyone else in a leadership position that will listen!

 

Source: This Halloween, Christian Leaders Challenged to Take a Stand, or Stand Down (Christian Newswire)

 

My Favorite Headlines:

Need a husband? Can’t take a road trip, but you could take a plane…..China’s One-Child Policy Expected to Produce 40-Million ‘Surplus’ Males by 2020 (CNS News)

Obvious…..Materialistic couples have more problems (MSNBC)

Peaceful Muslims again showing their gentle, more sensitive side….Christian girl, 12, kidnapped, raped and beaten until she converted to Islam (Daily Mail/UK)

Good to know we are working on those incredibly important health issues…Black Death Genetic Code Built ( BBC)

As always, email me YOUR spiritual questions, top favorite headline picks or your “off the record” comments to NoShoes@charter.net. I will include your name and city, and if the headline pick is interesting, appropriate and not offensive, I will post them!

Peace is Underrated!

It’s been nearly a year since I began to take care of my elderly mother on a full time basis and sadly, after a long battle she finally passed away last month. I’ve taken these weeks since to really evaluate our life together. It’s never a good time to loose a loved one, even if that loved one had a relationship with the Lord and you have a peace of knowing you will see them again. I guess I’m writing this to just simply make known that peace has seriously gotten the short end of the stick. We all think we have been put here on this earth to “pursue happiness”, I mean hey, isn’t that what our Declaration of Independence says?!?

This year has been one of the hardest of my life. There is very little “happiness” in watching someone you love go from bad to worse. And I’ve been asked that if I had it to do all over again, would I do it the same way? And my answer is YES! Choosing to be a full time care giver wasn’t easy but, my relationship with God grew stronger, the strained parts of my relationship with my mother were healed, and I got to watch her give her life to Jesus and have her own peace in one of the scariest moments of a person’s life. I’m not writing this as a memorial to my mother, although she deserves one, she would not want one. I am writing this to all of you out there who have been searching for happiness and haven’t found it; all of you who just can’t seem to find the joy in life. Everyone else please continue with your life as usual, but the rest of you, please think about this…..

Real joy and happiness comes only AFTER you have found peace. Some think peace follows happiness, but that is not so. While others say that it is in finding and knowing the Prince of Peace. And it really is, that certainly makes it easier, but for those of you not ready to make that commitment of giving your life over to someone you can’t see, just start by considering doing the right thing; finding the moral principals that make ones life peaceful. For instance, God does give us some guidelines on what that is, some of us use the Ten Commandments, while others go beyond those and really include other long lasting principles of “doing unto others as you would have them do to you” or simply considering others before yourself. Does this really make for a happy life? Well, if you keep in mind that you can never find happiness and joy UNTIL you have peace, then yes!

Finding peace in your current circumstances is not always easy, you might even say that it may not be making you happy at all. In fact, doing the right thing may feel more like water boarding or bamboo shoots under your finger nails. It may mean a great deal of sleepless nights, sacrifice, disappointing friends and family, not being able to take vacations or accepting jobs or promotions because it would mean taking you away from more important responsibilities. For my family, we have made great sacrifices in having me stay at home and not bringing in an income so I could take care for my family. There have been days that I’ve looked down at another broken nail and can’t afford the nail salon, or ooooops, another stain on the last shirt that was stain free, or cars that rattle, squeak and seem to always be low on gas, but really, at the end of the day, with all it’s daily annoyances, I’m at peace because I am doing the right thing for my family.

Now that I am on the other side of “doing the right thing” I have not only found peace, but my happiness is returning and my joy will be sustained! And if YOU do the right thing too, you will have peace. You will sleep better at night and in the days to follow happiness will find you!

 

My Favorite Headlines:

Can’t beat ‘em, then have your own party…..Liberals seek to muster Tea Party-style fervor (Boston Globe)

Okay, okay, there is a positive in those unsightly underwear muffin tops (let’s clarify, ON SOMEONE ELSE)…Burglary Suspect Tripped Up By Red Underwear (Smoking Gun)

And what exactly were they flooded with anyway? Condoms rushed to Thai flood victims (Perth Now/AFP)

Just in time for those pesky holiday parties where relatives and coworkers badger you about being single….New Service Offers to Pose as Fake Girlfriend (Globe and Mail)

As always, email me YOUR spiritual questions, top favorite headline picks or your “off the record” comments to NoShoes@charter.net. I will include your name and city, and if the headline pick is interesting, appropriate and not offensive, I will post them!