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Next part...

I promised to finish telling you my conversion to Christianity story so I will.

(There's so much more to thanthan I can write, but I'm trying, I really am.)

As we left our hero last time, he was explaining a few basic, yet extremely important concepts of Christianity. That said, the average person can make a pretty simple arguement against Christianity nonetheless.

"It's still a bunch of fairy tales." I can't blame people one bit for that, especially based on the impression most Christians give.

I'll try and do better. We've all seen the Bible thumper running around telling people what they should believe. They've chased each of us out of at least one conversation and ruined our opinion of Christians. I'm related to two of them. They can tell you what to believe, but never give you a reason why.

I'll go one better. It's not what you SHOULD believe, it's what you CAN believe. That makes more sense, doesn't it? Christ told his disciples that the condition of a person's heart is critical to understanding him and having a relationship with him. Some people are just not ready, some just don't want to.

God gave us free will. That means he won't just force you to do stuff. Your will is his door into your life. You ask God to reveal himself to you. You do it honestly. If you're sincere, and you're ready, your life will change. At the very least, you'll see things happen that you can't write off as coincidence. People will show up in your life and guide you, help you. All sorts of things. Or you could write this off as a fluke. but he makes it hard.

Take me for example. After I had looked everywhere for answers concerning my life, and after leading my own personal charge against the Bible and organized religeon, I came to a startling conclusion. I knew every reason it was a bunch of bull, but I'd never looked in a Bible. Not really. Any self respecting know-it-all at least has to see things from both sides to make a valid arguement. So as I told you earlier, I joined a men's Bible study and it changed my life immediately. I prayed. I really prayed to God and to Christ, telling them that if they'd led me there, I was ready to believe.

The results were stunning.

 I'll give examples. One day I was shoveling snow and contemplating doing something stupid. I was going to sell off a laptop computer I had and buy a guitar. I was going to sneak. I deserved the money. Never mind that I have three kids and a wife, bills and responsibility, I deserved it. This type of thinking was nothing new to me. I tried every which way to stop it, as I have for years when I get a dumb plan in the gears of my mind, but it wouldn't go away. They never have.So I prayed. I asked Christ for help. I told him I'm just not able to work this out for myself and I can't stop. I hate myself. I prayed for a while as I shoveled and the seventeen  voices in my head continued to argue the matter. My head was a deluge of noise as it always has been in those situations, but then something happened. My voice came into my own head. Clear, calm and simply silencing the rest. It said "Satan's tempting you, he knows what you're weak for." That was it. It was not my thought process finally coming to a valid conclusion, either.

 It was an answer given to me. I know that because within four seconds the thoughts I had fought for years just drained away. Their power was gone. Christ took it away. Believe me.

Another time I was having one of my bad brain days. You guys read about three years worth of those. Anger, fustration, fear, confusion, inability to concentrate and worse. Once again I prayed. I did it a lot. The five hundred pound Gorilla in my head got madder and madder. It went on for about three hours until I began to think I was going crazy again, which scared me silly. I thought perhaps all of this Christianity stuff was a dream, maybe it was driving me nuts. Once again, an answer. "Satan wants you to think you're going insane because he knows you're afraid of that." Once again the power went completely out that process. Gone.

In the sum total of about ten seconds Christ took the power of two of my worst mental afflictions away from me. I'm not a completely normal guy by any means, but my point is that Christ did for me what he did while he was here on Earth. He showed me first hand his authority over evil. He healed me of things that I've fought for my whole life. You can't reason that away. I asked for it, I got it.

But praying real hard for my mortgage to be paid won't work. He gives you what you need, not plasma televisions.

Also, this came after I'd prayed to Jesus and asked him to work in my life. Once you do that, Satan turns up the heat on you. Once you choose sides, he wants you bad. Until then, he doesn't even have to work at it. I was warned about that and it happened. It's true folks, it happened.

The thing is this. You don't just DECIDE to believe in Jesus. It's not possible. We're not built for it.You seek him and he reveals himself to you. That's how it works. Lots of Christians spout scriptures and protest abortion clinics but never really seek Christ. That doesn't work.

God paves the way for you when you decide to come to him. He brings you to his Son, the only way to heaven. Once your heart is ready, he'll show himself to you and there will be now way to deny him. That's the truth.

You don't pick up the Bible and read about how the Jews slaughtered cows and birds and ran around in the desert and somehow buy into the set of laws in there. Although people do it all the time, they don't get it.

Christ reaches you and then you have to reach out for him and take up your own cross. That means you have to bear the burden of following him in this world. You lose friends, you become unpopular you're not one of the crowd. But in my case, he did things for me that I could never have done, things that all of you have seen me go through.

 The job of a Christian is to tell others about this. He said "Freely you have received, frely give." That means his word. It does not mean become a preachy unbelievable antisocial Bible weaponizer. It means share his gifts with credibility. Be believable. Show people, help people, work at it, but don't think for an instant that you can heal anyone because you can't. You can help lead them to him, and that's your job.

He and His Father do the rest. We're still sinful, imperfect people and we're all going to face him one day. He can be our friend or our judge, it's up to us. We're not above one another, not Christians, not Muslims, not Jews not anyone anywhere. So for now, I think I've said all that I can. I sincerely hope that in some way some of this reaches some of you, even just a little. I won't lord over anyone or thump them with my righteous sword of truth, because I don't have one.

 I just hope that what I say here makes more sense to you than what you've seen and read. My words are truly inadequate. But if he'll reach me, he'll reach you. This is something I was guided to, not something I intellectually chose and it's unexpected, powerful and humbling.

 I'm doing what he told me "Freely you have received, freely give." It's more than words and stories. Anyone that wants to talk to me about it, I'll take all the time you want.

 /-)

sgr



{ 12:53, 2008-Feb-12 } Posted in Spirit { 5 comments } { Link }

Why is the sky blue...

I'm back.  It was a long week, a sad one and also a good one.  We buried Karen's grandmother Monday.  It was sad to let go of a loved one, but good to have the family togehter.  She lived 98 years and did more great things than I can mention.  A loss for sure,  but her life was good, and 98 years is nothing to sneeze at.

******************************

Back to my ultra interesting conversion story.  I know you can't wait.

My brother had told me that our conversation was no accident.  I felt that it could be possible, but it's pretty easy to convince yourself of things if you want to.  But his answers to some of my questions were what woke me up.  Subsequent conversations with other people went the same way. 

Having been attending church regularly, I talked to the pastor about some sort of study program to help me understand what it was they were talking about and he sort of blew me off.  I wasn't too happy about it, but another guy referred me to a Bible study group at a local church.  I agreed to go.

Church, up to that point had seemed empty-ish.  There was nice music, nice people, some good sermons about how much God loves you, but it just didn't do much for me.  I'd met too many empty headed Christians  spouting off memorized Bible verses telling me how if I prayed enough and loved Jesus enough, my life would be great.  They'd tell me what to do and what not to do, but none of them seemed to grasp the meaning of any of it.  They couldn't even tell me what Christ dying on the cross did to save me from sin.  They couldn't tell me what being saved meant or what sin meant.  It just all came across as ineffective memorized propaganda.

Then I went to the Bible study.  One night changed everything.  The leader gave a sermon that was apparently written for me.  It answered a lot of my questions in clear, unflinching terms and not all of the answers were pretty.  I'll give some examples.

What is a sin?  I'd always thought it as just something you should not do.  God said so, period.  Not exactly.  Sin is defined in the Bible as an act that separates you from God.  It's against our intended nature.  We sin now because back in the days of Adam and Eve, our trust in god was broken by deceit.  After that, God withdrew his GIFTS from us.  Gifs of freedom from death, sickness, pain.  The gift of his presence among us and a spiritual life.  He left us alive, but we inherited the spiritual separatiojn from him.  It's why we're failing.

Jesus never said he'd make things easy for us.  He even said "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."  He said that because he knew just how much pain those who truly accept him will undergo.  Those of his time learned that fast.  At least the lions ate well.  He knew that his pepople would suffer for him and his only promise was that it would not go unrewarded.  He came to save our souls, not our lives.

Christ died on the cross as a ransom.  God sent him here.  Here's why.  In the old testament, God required blood sacrifice in atonement for our sins.  Those Jews killed incredible amounts of bulls, lambs and doves, all to atone for the sins committed that day, not the ones we inherited.  No matter how many animals we slaughtered, there would never be a sacrifice worthy of our redemption.  We were created to be far greater than we are now, and we've fallen a great way.  God created a way to buy us back.  If he just wiped the slate clean, he wouldn't be keeping his word, he wouldn't be trustworthy, and God never betrays you.  So he sent his son (apparently he has one, I don't understand everything) and allowed his spirit to dwell in him.  Christ lived a perfect, sinless life, one devoted entirely to his father, one devoted entirely to saving the sould of his beautiful creations: mankind.  His life, ministry and horrible, suffering death were the sacrifice God made for us to redeem our souls. A perfect sacrifice, and God sent him for us.

After Christ left us, His spirit has stayed here, and the ministry he began continues.  Not necessarily in the Catholic chrch or any other organization, but in his PEOPLE.  Real Christians strive to live as Christ lived.  Our job is to bring souls back to God. 

How?  First, through example.  Change.  Jesus knew we can't do what he did, but he told us to come to him and ask for help.  He'll give it.  It's real.  Second, a truly humble servant of Christ often has the Holy Spirit speak through them.  It's not fake.  He'll use you if you let him.  There's so much more, but I'm not a qualified teacher.

There's more, but that's enough.  Well, not quite.  The Devil.  Who is he?  A spirit that used to be in the order of God.  When God made us in his image, he really did it.  We were magnificent and innocent and perfect.  Satan was ordered to admire us along with all the other Angels, but he resented it, since he was here first.  He came to one of us (Eve, the race of Eves, I don't know) and deceived us into disobeying God.  He just came to one of us as an Angel of light, told us he was here on behalf of God and apparently we did what he said.  God was not happy, and he took back all of his blessings. That's the punishment.  We die. We suffer, we work endlessly and get very little.  We live here without him unless we accept Christ, and then we have to earn what was once our birthright.  That's the little grain of sand in everyone's shoe, the little rubbing sensation in the back of their mind saying "There's just something wrong with this world, I'm not sure what, but I know there is." God's not here like he was.  It's Satan's world.  Yep.

If your spirit isn't fed by God, Satan has plans for it.  He wants us and he takes delight in our decadence, that's what's wrong down here, that's why we kill each other and people starve while others pee in solid gold spas worth enough money to feed countries.  You don't have to be a child molester do wrong.  It's a world fed by a destructive spirit, and that's why Christ knew haw hard it would be for his people.  It's incredibly insidious. 

That makes more sense to me that.  "Jesus loves me yes I know, 'cuz the Bible tells me so..." 

So for now, there's what I've learned so far.  Next, I'll tell you guys what I mean by "learn..."



{ 12:31, 2008-Jan-10 } Posted in Spirit { 7 comments } { Link }

This should be good...

Alright, it's time to tell you guys about what's been on my mind that I kept so secret.  Prepare to be surprised and underwhelmed.

I became Christian. 

I know, you're surprised that it happened to me, ME, the super cynical outspoken antagonist of conformity.  Mister anti-everything.  I don't blame you.  You're underwhelmed because you thought I'd come down with a case of the cancer or black lung.  Finding Jesus is not what you'd expected.

So why the fanfare you ask?  Frankly, because it's a big deal to me.  It didn't happen because I'm tired and scared and want to believe in the bearded man in the clouds that will make everything all better. I was drawn to him.  I got called.  If you're still with me and are interested to hear more, read on.

Before you do, don't get the idea that I'm gonna get all preachy and high minded on you, because I won't.  I have better things to do, and nobody likes a super religeous, smiling  moron lording over them, offering to pray for them every time they disapprove of the actions of another.  We've all met them; they're the reason I hated religeon for so long.  They're ineffective, annoying and deluded.  That's not me.  That's not what works.

But I do want to let you in on what's happened.  I want to give you insight into my journey, which is what I've tried to do honestly from the start.  Who knows, I may offer someting of use to one of you.   I hope so.  The only credible witness to Christ is a person who has accepted him with wisdom, someone that can allow others to see their choices were made intelligently, not based on fear, boredom or as a passed on tradition, one where the spiritual nature of faith is drowned out in the background noise of religeous repetition.  Here we go.

There are about six of you left reading this blog with any regularity and you've been with me a long time, so you know my history.  Raised in a religeous cult full of hatred and fear, I ran from God, or at least religeon for about 25 years.  It makes sense.  But, like most people, I still believed in God, Buddha or at least some othe Supreme Being of good in the universe.  The fact that we all have a conscience is testament to that fact. So there was that.  God's real, but nothing I can ever grasp or touch through mankind.  We're just too rotten to get it.

Add to that, the fact that I've always resented our culture on some level.  You've read it here lots of times.  The hypocrisy, the greed, the apathy.  So, true to my nature I began to read about it, to figure out what's going on.  I've rep[orted to you what I've found on numerous occasions- the banking schemes, the advertising blitzes, the pop psychology, the distracting political issues.  It seemed like a constant attack on my consciousness.  The more I read, the more desperate the people assaulting my eyes, ears and soul appeared to me. 

The guys that tell us our family is under attack are the same ones funding the attack.  The politicians spout about family values and how they will revive them, while they are the ones funding and associating with the media moguls, pumping more and more moronic fodder in front of us. 

Wars are the same.  No matter what you believe, wars are funded on both sides by the same parties.  I won't go into a rave here, but it's true.  If you'd like, I can point you to a single credible source to authenticate this fact.  Write me if you want to know.

So there is an "us" and "them" scenario going on.  My way of learning is looking at names, places and information.  It solidifies things for me.  I could now put a face to a name to an organization and an agenda.  Their agenda is not mine or yours.  We all know this.

As I began to look into things, it became apparent that these people belong to organizations with agendas not made public.  Agendas that were devised long ago.  These people have funded and built our society for a few hundred years, they've set up our schools, their curriculum, passed students through them and taught them how to play this game.  It's their world for now.

The ultra secretive, elite of our society belong to secret religeons.  It's really true.  Freemasonry at it's top levels is  a religeon although they deny it.  They have a Deity, rites and they swear incredibly terrifying oaths of secrecy and brotherhood to the lodge.  It's their first priority and everything else is a tool to make that happen.

Their symbols are evreywhere if you know what you're looking for. 

So now you're thinking "Steve's gone off the deep end.  This is all crap.  He's gotten Jesus because he's scared of the Government."  Not true.  In  finding out all of this, I had to weed through a lot of crap and decide for myself what is true.  I noticed that this assault on my consciousness was real, and that it was following a definite pattern.  It's leading somewhere.

To make a long story short, they, meaning the politicians, bankers, media moguls and cultural elite all work very hard at destroying one thing: Christian values.  It hit me like a brick.  I even read it a few places.  This became apparent to meat a time when I didn't want to hear it.  It was just there.

More on that later. 

Religeon.  Man have I bashed that one over the head.  In fairness, most popular exposure to religeon is negative.  The Catholic organization did some very nasty things, as have lots of others.  Their history paints a grotesque picture of hypocrisy.  I looked at Buddhism, but frankly it left me flat after a while because try as I might, I got nothing out of it but psychology and some good stories.  So now what?

Here's where it gets wild.  I've read the Satanic Bible.  More or less it's a psychology book aimed at selfishness.  I wasn't impressed by it.  But sure as I'm typing this, I felt things happening around me when I owned it.  Scary things that had no explanation.  For example, during that time I felt things in the room with me that I couldn't see.  They were there.  I heard my name whispered close to my ear.  I had dreams that creatures came to me and urged me to come with them.  I saw small lights flash past me in the dark a few times.  This is all true. The worst, most distressing thing was that I felt with complete certainty that there was a struggle going on around me.  A real one and I was in danger.    This was not my mind playing tricks on me.  I know in my heart there was a battle going on around me and it was over my soul.  Take it for what it's worth, but it happened.

I threw out the book and slowly it went away.  I let it pass and continued my life.  This was a while ago, and during that time I was still reading and blogging to you guys.  I began to come to the realization that there was a concerted attack against the good people of earth when a thought hit me: "You've taken so much time rallying against Christianity, but you've never read the Bible.  Maybe you don't know what you think you do."

That hurt.  I think I know everything, so that hurt.  But the truth is the truth and I decided to plow into the Bible.  All I really want is a meaning in my life and answers.  It didn't go so well at first.  Have you ever just picked up a Bible and dug in?  It's boring, there's no plot and you have to figure out what nearly everything means.  It did no good.  So I prayed for help.  Why not?

Then people started appearing in my life.  People for whom I have respect, and it just so happened, Christians.  Not smiley faced church people who have the robotic answers for everything that make no sense, but alive, functioning spiritual people.  They just sorta came out of the woodwork without my asking them or letting them know I wanted to talk.  Yep.  Just like that.  The conversations were absolutely otherworldly.  Not just because of the answers, but something else.  The feeling I received as we talked.  There was a presence with us I can't explain, but I can tell you this much.  My brother was one of them and we discussed this for about six hours on the way to a wedding.  His words were "This conversation is no accident."

He was right.

I think I'll leave you hanging for now.   I want to give the old fingers a rest, and I want to do the second half of this justice.  It's worth reading.

/-)
sgr

{ 12:29, 2008-Jan-2 } Posted in Spirit { 7 comments } { Link }

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