Month: November 2022

Nothing better than carving out sovereignty

eejoseph

Here is incontrovertible evidence that an Alberta Conservative politician can bamboozle Albertans with legislation defining hypothetical fights with the government of Canada. Launching a sovereignty shield is pure thumb-twiddling that takes the place of real work for citizens.

Sovereignty act segways to chaos

Don’t Canadians see, in bright letters,  where the pride and passion of sovereignty ends?  How many sleepless nights are Albertans going to endure to have this Quixotic shield against the Federal government up and functional? I am pretty sure that every regional leader in Canada, with a vanguard of lawyers at their disposal, knows exactly where the lines of federal, territorial and provincial authority intersect, and I am no lawyer.

Honestly, Canada tries

eejoseph,

Canada’s new Indo-Pacific strategy represents the best of a modern nation’s honourable venture in international affairs. Canada can put no aircraft or aircraft carriers into the Pacific ocean to deal with the People’s Republic of China’s belligerence and manipulative practices, not to mention it’s atrocious human rights record. I dare to say it would be difficult to find the Canadian who has not wondered why are there so many Chinese products on our shelves including our groceries when we know that the Chinese government has made no attempts to join the family of nations who treat their people with dignity. The People’s Republic of China is not what it wants the world to believe it is. Canada is one of the few nations that tries real hard to do the right thing with as much transparency as possible. KEEP UP YOUR PRAYERS FOR THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT – that a life of peace and wellbeing be extended to more and more people continually.

A simple faith

eejoseph

Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.

Mark 11:24, NASB

This saying should excite the believer. It will do nothing for the unbeliever. It comes on the axis of a request for faith to continue.

“Have faith in God.”

Mark 11:22n
Ἔχετε πίστιν θεοῦ· targets a faith already in possession.

The disciples, like us, were amazed at the effect of Yeshua’s disappointment over a tree that had no fruit. They heard him curse the fig tree, and seeing the tree the next day was truly eyeopening. It had withered!

On the next day, when they had left Bethany, He became hungry. Seeing at a distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see if perhaps He would find anything on it; and when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” And His disciples were listening. (Mark 11:12-14, NASB)

Being reminded, Peter said to Him, “Rabbi, look, the fig tree which You cursed has withered.”

Mark 11:21, NASB

This instruction is not about getting the faith, drumming up the faith, or letting faith rise to get something we want. It speaks about the faith one already has and how, in pursuit of a normal satisfaction, in this case, a fig snack, faith might bring on unimagined consequences. Significantly, Yeshua’s faith did not bring him a fig snack.

Blessing a fruitless tree may produce fruit next time you go looking for a snack.

Saint Mike of McPence

eejoseph

How many pence there are in the wallet of political character making up the profile of the former Vice-president Pence is hard to tell. If the only response evoked by St Mike’s president’s criminal tweets and vulgarity is anger at the coup attempt on January 6th 2021 a shilling is too much.  If a VP did not serve to keep his commander-in-chief from offending the people he swore to serve his stash is meager indeed.

A shameful fawning sycophant

VPs are more than yes men, and St. Mike did not even try to find a way to erase the stain of “Mexicans are rapists”, “Muslims are unfit immigrants”, “Nazis are very fine people”, and “Black people have nothing to lose”. Christian faith may figure in St. Mike’s speeches but it can have no more divine credentials than the goals and messages of white nationalists. God did not help the insurrectionists in the civil war and he slammed the door on the attempt to crown a criminal TV personality as American saviour on January 6th.

St. Mike is the smilefree and anger-free face of American Christofacism. No synthetic entity of this kind will ever pass muster. If people keep thinking that there is an essential nexus between politics of any brand and the faith of Jesus Christ then there will be no difference between America and totalitarian regimes like the peoples Republic of China or the Islamic republics or cross-eyed Democratic states like Israel and Hungary.

The insurrectionist and their crimes

If you want to know how many pennies there are to St. Mike you should hear him say that Congress has no right to his testimony. He speaks of the coequality of the executive and the legislative bodies in the United States government but fails to recall that the Congress can impeach the president and can call any person in the United States to give testimony when crimes have been committed. We must wonder if Saint Mike forgets that his life was in danger in plain sight and with audio on January 6th. St Mike is hanging himself, clinging to the scam that 45 was good for America except for his coup attempt. The GOP is felled tree. Turn the page, all ye Pences and Farthings.

A smidgen of humility

eejoseph

Along with distancing herself from her predecessor’s contribution to Alberta’s progress the premier of the province is drumming up dissension in Canada with talk about provincial sovereignty. Is she jealous of the treasonous Bloc Quebecoiss? Is she angry that Canada’s First Nations are enjoying a new season of sovereignty over their lands? Every Canadiwn should hear the word sovereignty and shudder because of what Canadian sovereignty, exercised from the birth of the nation, has done. Canadian approaches to exercising sovereignty must have a healthy dose of caution and humility.

Sovereigns of industry and business

If a Conservative party is going to drive in the lanes of grievance, empowerment of business and small government Canadians need to be very afraid. That combination of policy or plan does not end well for the party or the people it claims to want to govern.

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8

Unstoppable life? Kidding aside!

eejoseph

I would venture to say that evangelicals will sell you a book about winning in all circumstances apart from faith in God, but they will not confess that such a victorious life happens in the soup of disaster,  discomfort, disease,  weakness, and loss.  Their children will grow up and mouth the same lies and fables.  The treasure of all God’s people in every age has been his presence.  Genuine Christians are not obsessed with winning.  Joseph was not revered because he won every battle or defeated every assault, but because God chose to be his companion.  David was comforted by God’s presence in the valley of death’s shadow.

The victorious, unlike the Lord who bought them, never weep. They will say that poverty is wealth, and that disability is on no-one’s ticket.

The life of gospel-lit people is going to show the imprint of the king.  The graphic display will be both embossed and engraved.  Eternal life, however, is primarily encrypted and out of sight, so the extent to which God puts the believer on the stage of public witness will depend on the believer’s private cooperation with the Holy Spirit.  People should not expect to be recognized as spiritual because of their food, drink or clothing. A person speaking in a public setting breaking into tongues is a truly puzzling phenomenon.  If a sentence in tongues does not get translated immediately then we can assume that the speaker is engaging in self-edification.  It is obviously a way for some people to affirm their spiritual status.

The forgotten flavours: prayer and help

It would be sheer madness to expect to find oneself decked out with greater works than Yeshua.  There are people whose imagination takes over when they see the word possible.  What disease is there which, like biblical leprosy, is incurable, is subject only to observation, and is practical death sentence? If we do not know what disease(s) meet those criteria we should know with certainty that amputees are not receiving their limbs back, and there is no miracle required to turn guns and ammo. A prayer life is perhaps the best spice for Christian life, and it is noit a public deal. Sadly we have forgotten how to pray. Instead of petitioning God we are decreeing and declaring. If Christ approached the business for whcih he came into the world with a request and tearful cries, we can do no better than to approach the same Fathetr and not seek the Father’s help through our daiily prayers. We have forgotten what it means to be spiritual. God allows us to miss the mark even when the best Helper is prresent, Many believers take no cue from the Spirit’s mission of helping us into our witness to the world. Salvation is hjelp, loving the ungodly is help, and the Holy Spirit is Help in name and mission. All thr miracles we have seen and can operate do not mean we have our ears perked to the voice of God, or that our hands and feet are bonded to work for others. It is love that never fails, never falls to the ground, is the infallible quality that identifies God and us as His.

Good mornings are amen-activated

eejoseph

God’s morning to us could be spicy, bland,  any colour, hot, cold, unless we think, like the perverted 45th loser president that we can just think things into being.   Maybe we believe like Solomon that a person is whatever he thinks he is.  Well, pinch me!  People think all kinds of things that never see the light of day and for that I say thank God for staying in charge of every day and night.

Every day has its evil and divine love

“So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Matthew 6:34

The night when evil flies

If we could change a lock of our hair by thinking or feeling we would not age, and we know  like he just thinks about declassifying highly secret documents and they are the classified. Let’s live joyfully and with grateful hearts even when tears cloud our vision. We operate in the day as the night approaches, and the season of evil’s comfort is being welcomed. We are not afraid of the adversities of day or night.

“You will not be afraid of the terror by night, Or of the arrow that flies by day; Of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, Or of the destruction that lays waste at noon.”

Psalms 91:5-6, NASB

Votes for incoherence and money-numb jokers

eejoseph

If the people of Georgia can make sense of the slurred speeches of Herschel Walker they deserve a Nobel Prize for humanity. Let us hope that before that completely unhinged choice of almost 2 million Georgians says another word to sink his own boat that a few courageous voters will tell the world how employers have been leaning on them to vote GOP. Georgia’s reputation as a place great musicians reject as a destination is not cooked up. What else can explain people voting for trumpettes?

If the people of the United States can see intelligence in the flip flops and criminal behavior of the super rich there is redemption in the world turning to a diet of locusts and honey. What kind of society survives turning a blind eye to rising abuses of labourers cheered on by prosperity seeking religious people? None. People’s lives are hanging in the balance, and difference between Rev. Warnock and Republican Georgia might well come down to the reputation for finding votes after the people have voted.