13/09/2019
Where is God in all this Bullshit?
We’ve all heard the argument that “If God is real, He must be a douche to allow all the horrors of this world to happen.”
This is such a cliched and somewhat ignorant stance… because WE chose this… us humans.
We were warned this would happen, patiently pleaded with to avoid it.
But…
We decided we don’t need to have a relationship with God. We decided not to heed His warnings. We decided not to participate in His agreement. We devalued His promises to bless and protect us, because instead we used our free will to choose to decide right and wrong for ourselves, whatever suits us. And really who can blame us, if institutional religion is our alternative! Sadly, the damage done throughout history in God’s name has warped our understanding of God and many have completely rejected the principles of scripture, and decided we are better off deciding right from wrong for ourselves. We’ve used this freedom to Judge God… How self-righteous we are! In the process we have created a busy indulgent world and cut ourselves off from the still small voice of God within. This is what Eve fell for in the garden, when she was told “the instant you eat it you will become like God, for your eyes will be opened—you will be able to distinguish good from evil.”
The enemy is a dead-set Liar! Of course we aren’t simply able to distinguish good from evil, not perfectly, not without total self-awareness first! (and that is one hell of an undertaking!)
To those who use the argument that God allows dysfunction to happen, I’ll ask; When the offer comes to choose for yourself what is right or wrong, do you take it, or deny yourself and trust God?
Eve didn’t deny herself or trust God. Only a handful truly have. Those who have denied themselves and trusted God, steered western culture towards freedom and unity, towards blessing and healing, prosperity and protection, but many many more have not…
And here we are…
Its an unimaginably hard thing to trust God, because its not until we test Him that we learn of His trustworthiness. In order to test God, we must play our part, and that means denying ourselves.
OUCH right!
Think of it this way…
As a wellness instructor, I see people everyday who are battling one health concern or another. And its easy to become bitter and blame God for dropping us into these defective bodies. In today’s day and age, we have so much information and awareness about how to look after our bodies, and yet we continue in our unhealthy habits. We refuse to deny ourselves the ease, indulgence and comfort we’ve convinced ourselves we deserve. How can we blame anyone but ourselves when we experience preventable health issues?
We are living longer than ever in human history and yet are riddled with chronic disease (many of which are preventable), we would rather live forever and shake our fist at the sky when we suffer, than accept death as part of the human condition and TRUST GOD with our eternity. So we resisted and chose a different reality than the one God wanted to bless us with, and again here we are.
Its the same as with our faith, if we spend our days ignoring our prayer life, ignoring the scriptures, ignoring the still small voice of God within us, and avoiding giving thanks for all that we DO HAVE, How can we expect God to keep up to His end of the agreement? How can we blame God for the dysfunction we asked for, by thinking we can do a better job of deciding right from wrong than Him? How can we expect God to swoop in and fix everything for us, when we chose to go down the road that takes us as far from Him as possible?
Seems pretty simple to me, but what would I know, I’m only human.. I could be wrong, and so could you? And that’s precisely why we need God.
As believers it is up to us refresh the faith of this world. No more gimmicks, No more manipulation, No more threats of a future HELL! Use the hell we experience right now as evidence that we need to change our ways. Those of us who are genuine in our faith walk will have plenty of actual lived experience and testimony of how AWESOME God is, without having to bully people. They don’t fall for the fear tactics of the media. They walk in faith between the blessings and the curses. Remember, it makes no difference what the state of the world appears to be, because God is still faithful to His word even when we aren’t and we know who wins in the end. Yeeeew!
04/07/2019
Folau’s Poor Doctrine & a Media Shit Storm!
I know I know, If you’re an Aussie you’re probably sick of hearing everyone voice their opinions on the recent scandal surrounding Australian Rugby Player, Israel Folau.
I’m sorry, but I promise this won’t be like any of what you have heard so far!
But for those of you across the pond around the world who are unfamiliar, here’s the highlights as far as I can tell.
- He had a contract to play Rugby Union for Australia.
- He used his position as an influencer to share some meme’s on social media that were deemed homophobic, hate speech.
- He was warned he would lose his contract if he did it again.
- Oops, He did it again.
- He lost his $4million contract.
- He started a #gofundme page to raise the money to fight Rugby Australia in court under grounds of Religious Expression.
- #gofundme closed his page and refunded all his donations to the contributors.
- Most of Australia laughed at his page closure, saying “serves the homophobe right”.
- Australian Christian Lobby used their platform to reopen his campaign. Folau received more than triple the refunded donations in two days (over 2 million AUD).
- Rage ensued across our nation as arguments were voiced on either side, for Freedom of Religious Expression and Freedom of Speech vs Hate Speech, Homophobia fury and defense of Contractual Law.
So what did he post that sparked this media fire?
I’ll not bore you with the typical arguments that “he broke the terms of his contract” vs “Religious Expression is Constitutional Law and therefore overrides contractual law” and I won’t get into the fact that the word “homosexuals” was picked up and ran with as “hate speech”, when clearly the message was for everyone, as ALL of us are guilty of at least a few things on that list.
Even one Atheist was quoted saying “Folau’s post was no more filled with hate than smoking warnings on cigarettes is hatred against smokers”.
Yep as you can see, Everyone has an opinion!
This blog is called Inner Angels and Enemies, So I’d like to take a deeper look under the hood of what’s really going on here.
This meme is a classic example of poor doctrine, and theological ignorance, and clearly touches on a sore spot in our current societal climate. However, as I’ve written many times before, in my posts The Beauty of Hell and Are You Chasing People Away? and Religion Vs Relationship, if you want to be obliterated in open debate, then tell someone they’re headed for Eternal Burning Hell in front of me!
We are not in the dark ages anymore people… Most of us are more scared of what our friends and peers think of us, than where we will spend our eternity after this life.
It’s time we realised that manipulating and blackmailing people into the Christian faith is a cheap trick which fills church pews with inauthentic mask-wearers who become the very reason people are flooding out of the church and away from God in droves, and lets face it, these threats are not Christ-like in any way, shape or form.
Yes I know that the scripture’s talk of ‘Hell’ where the ‘worm never dies’ and ‘eternal fire & brimstone’, but until we actually die, we don’t really know what comes next. Surely, if your a genuine believer, who has a true relationship with God, then you will have plenty of actual personal testimony to encourage people into the fold, without needing to resort to playing God!
Yes it is playing God!
The exact thing that apparently got Lucifer kicked out of the heavenly courts.
No wonder, institutional faith is riddled with so much corruption.
We are all human, and God alone is God who reads the human heart and looks not to external behaviour. Lets leave the big rulings to Him hey!
Folau didn’t exclude anyone and he doesn’t have the keys to the kingdom so lets drop this ridiculous argument! PLEASE!
So perhaps you might be thinking after reading all this, that because I’m against Folau’s meme that I must hope he loses in court? Just as the rest of the haters do!
But you couldn’t be father from the truth.
For some time I have noticed a hidden conspiracy, lurking under the surface of this world, deep in the spiritual sub-structure of weak men’s hearts.
It is a war against words.
The word LOGOS is the Word of God, which in spoken form, has the power to bring creation into existence. His word in written form, or scripture, has the power to overthrow strong holds, divides soul from spirit, and discerns the intentions of the heart. Scripture explains that the power of life and death are in the tongue.
Words are a mighty and powerful weapon!
As Voltaire said so beautifully “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” I may not agree with what Folau said, but I will defend his right to freedom of speech, even if it severely damages the reputation of the God I know and love, even if I believe he has missed the truth entirely. I just simply trust God to sort each of us out and I know I will be in agreement with whatever He decides, even if its at my own sufferance.
I defend Folau’s right to speak because I feel with all the attacks against freedom of speech, and the increasing limitations due to shifty concepts of “hate speech”, before long none of us will be able to voice our beliefs, our opinions, and debate the very issues like this that need some discussion!
As someone who has spent their entire life trying to stop speaking my opinions and having no such luck, if I don’t speak now while I still can, very soon I too will be silenced, and so will you.
This Folau incident was nothing more than a media propaganda shit storm trying to incite anger within the LGBT community so they will fight to change laws, handing over more and more rights to our government, and less rights to the people, because of nothing more than a knee jerk, emotional reaction, without any genuine freedom for ALL in sight.
The LGBT community might recall that it wasn’t so long ago when they weren’t allowed to speak their opinions and belief’s in public, or how many Christian’s actually died to fight for their right to share their faith publicly, but oh how quickly the rights of others become fodder for the crowd mentality when you’re on the other side of the argument!
Inner Angels & Enemies 