I am perfectly comfortable being asked in a church service to pray,  play, or preach, but I will only commend “for effort” those who take an opportunity to lead in prayer as a photo-op for pretense and abuse.

Read my lips – naymen

You won’t catch me gleeful over something God is doing in response to a request more than gleeful about what God has done in Christ.  Sometimes I think that believers are on the walls watching for something to outshine the Lord’s passion.

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If you get the impression that some people who are asked to pray see themselves as customer service representatives you are not alone. I have no idea where the idea (is it African or Russian?) of making the answer to prayers immediately visible comes from, but someone needs to ask for “no more stupid decrees, please”.

However, if two or three agreeing on a matter does not make prayer requests appear immediately then the request is either (a) off course or (b) the answer is already in place or (c) the answer is delayed. God hears every prayer but we shouod not think he is busy shuffling gifts around to match our desires. Believe it or not, God has a plan for each life and he can afford to be selfish because his self is totally – at a supremely high price – committed to helping humanity.

Whose decree is it when someone decrees what God has decreed?

We cannot decree something just because we want it. We do not declare things even when they are legitimate needs. I suppose we are waiting for a prophet or some similarly endowed person to declare the end of police brutality and discrimination. Well, get a prozac prescription. Father God is not Santa Claus, handing out gifts to the good boys and girls. Why go through the motions of asking God a question or asking him for today’s needs when one is going to (or can) simply decree and declare them (met)? Abuse is knocking at the door when prayer becomes a tool for something than a conversation between God and his people. Thank God for eyes to see that decreeing and declaring is pure and empty theatrics. It is enough to pray with confidence and wait with grateful hearts. Abuse in the secret place – prayer- is quite public. Please, think about stopping the drift from being in touch with God to scoring points with the audience.

In that “Old City”, the visual backdrop for the American Secretary of State’s political convention contribution, the state of Israel continues a criminal and sinful campaign to rid Zion of its citizens. That old city is where David built a tent for the ark; it is the place where holiness precluded the residence of an Egyptian princess.  It is a crime against humanity for Zion not to have Egyptians,  Babylonians,  Philistines, Tyrians (Lebanese) and Ethiopians and an abuse of privilege for the American Secretary of State to use David’s City as a backdrop.

Contemptible, despicable, and evil

Neither Israel with all its Torah soaked patriots nor the United States with its evangelical parrots can escape the zeal of the Lord of the armies. Neither technology nor psychology nor extreme prosecutions in the toolbox of these two these prostituting twins can avert the darkness than is about to descend on their unsuspecting citizens.

They are not watching the ball. They are stuck in traffic watching a broadcast about a traffic jam in their immediate vicinity. Pompeo has turned out to be a vacuous sycophant, enjoying the grandiosity of any viral moment, while he has nothing to say about the criminal enterprise that has been in the daylight since Ornan sold David the threshingfloor and since the pilgrims pretended to have been given the land of the First Nations of Turtle Island.

CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE IN ZION

4) “I shall mention Rahab and Babylon among those who know Me; Behold, Philistia and Tyre with Ethiopia: ‘This one was born there.’” 5) But of Zion it shall be said, “This one and that one were born in her”; And the Most High Himself will establish her.

Psalms 87:4-5

Criminal enterprise is written all over the evangelical fornication with politics

The average citizen needs no investigation to conclude that a Wisconsin police officer just showed his criminal intent.  The authorities have to investigate the incident, but citizens have to investigate why there are no videos of white people being brutalized by white police officers.  I am interested in discovering the motivation that makes so many people of integrity oppose the reigning in of police powers and the redirection of taxpayers’ money to services that demonstrably save lives and protect people.

God save us from civic and religious leaders who reject knowledge!

Using the “three strikes you’re out” pattern police services should have long ago been brought under stricter civilian control.  But no! Governments, in addition to being afraid of sabotage by forces opposed (including the official opposition) and always facing the prospect of losing power have used the police services to intimidate and harrass all Native Canadians, and old and young Black Canadians. Now the religious people are shaking in their boots, because they have adopted police tactics – our pastors have become cops who can’t and don’t read the signs.

Law and order has got to be the most vacuous political plank. How does the snowball of less government survive in the hell of strict law and order? The White Paper and Royal Inquiry into the failure of religions have shown that law and order are – not God’s recipe for life and living – but the necessary protections for juveniles and the immature.

Black lives matter more than ever because the powers that be and religious people have conspired to create a western version of the Taliban and ISIS Caliphate.

The bigots in the political parties and organized churches cannot see the problem of bad policing because they never cared about women, the oppressed, and the marginalized except to have a miracle, a viral moment or photo-op.

Which part of the protect and serve mandate did that cop in Wisconsin read?

Sorry, boys. Salem’s king is not riding his donkey into Washington or Ottawa.

We knew that, but the miracle seeking, unrepentant, religious people are so easily duped it takes 4 years for them to see their image in the mirror.

if there is a religious alliance or some kind of awakening or catastrophe it happens “in the middle of the week”. The history of the United States, if aligned with 70 years of Israel’s exile, amounts to 3.48 cycles (244 years). Next year, 2021, will be the year to watch. It is the year “God bless America” gets exposed and the rain, long withheld, begins to fall.

1 Corinthians 3:2

I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able,

Paul wrote to the Corinthian church complaining about their reception of the word of God.  The problem he seemed to identify was the strife arising from factions and probably what we call  cliques.

1 Corinthians 3:3-5

3) for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? 4) For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not mere men? 5) What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one.

Thousands of years later we can be sure that the condition and the behaviours continue, but Paul would be shocked to see that what he called milk is the last thing on a lot of minds.  The milk of the first century was the fresh message about Yeshua’s person and work in a language people understood.  Milk then is the untranslated, unvarnished, and unadulterated message of the gospel.

How strange and disturbing it is that the vast majority of preachers today want nothing to do with the milk! How dangerous it is that Paul confirmed that the condition persuaded when he said “even now you are not able”! The large number of factions we have in the 21st century contributes considerably to the rejection of milk, especially when the fresh milk is made out to be a strange thing. It is a high level operation to plan to get away from your starvation diet.

It is much more than merely surprising that there are people who say that God’s plan for the world is the same as the plan for Israel. The gospel is not an item in the marketplace with versions for everyone with an idea or a set preferences. We, 2000 years after God took the lid off the world’s salvation, have to consider that if Judah, with its many detailed instructions, had a problem changing its mind, then the Gentile world crosses the river of repentance much more easily.

Mark 7:7-13

7) But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. 8) Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.” (Compare Isaiah 29:13)

9) He also kept saying to them, “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition”.

FOR EXAMPLE

10) For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, is to be put to death’; 11. but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God),’ 12) you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother; 13) thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.”

Mark 7

Signs and goodness

Alas, even when the Lord puts his miracles of kindness on full display to both Jew and Gentile people stuck to what their ancestors passed down. Our Lord’s evaluation of several Judean cities (including his chosen hometown) should shake us awake to the dangers of holding up any tradition as contributions to the kingdom way. All the prophets and the law do defer to the Incarnate Word (Acts 3)

EVERYTHING HE SAYS.
22) Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren; to Him you shall give heed to everything He says to you. 23) And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’

Acts 3

Repentance and Miracles in the Gospel

PRIVILEGED AND RESISTANT COMMUNITIES

20) Then He began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent. 21) “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22) Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. 23) And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day.

Matthew 11

Performance and accountability

Finally, we cannot embrace Yeshua as the Way and at the same time lay hold of other ways, especially a ton of them, with a straight face. There is only one “way” to the Father, not a multitude of ways. Human pride keeps insisting on bringing a wide variety of performance and accountability issues to the table, but those issues are all filthy rags, to use a popular and prophetic description. Separating the divine from the human is essential both for our access to the kingdom and our enjoyment of elect privileges.