A Sad Time of Tribute

We received very sad news this morning that is very painful for us. Our most recently adopted daughter who we have lost contact with for the past few months has died in a diabetic coma. She died last Wednesday after spending two weeks in a coma. This was after going into six comas over the previous month and being involved in a high speed car accident just days before her last coma.

We loved Julie very deeply even though she had abruptly left us and cut off all communications with us after being encouraged to believe false insinuations about us. We have considered her a precious daughter and an intimate part of our close family through all the good times and the bad. We are going to miss her very much.

Julie was a very unique and special girl. She had a spirit of kindness and gentleness like I have never seen in anyone before. She was so sensitive in her spirit that even many animals, even wild animals at times, seemed to respond very quickly to her and would come to trust her in amazing ways. She also had a natural and strong attraction with children who felt very comfortable in her loving presence.

She was very gifted with artistic skills and longed to expand her abilities. She dreamed of going into a career in high-fashion clothing design. She was definitely not a conformist stuck with boxed in thinking in many ways but she also struggled to know how to deal with a lot of internal pain and confusion in her life. Because of very painful past experiences, beliefs and relationships she often did not know how to express her feelings consistently or perceive circumstances or other people's actions accurately. We realized that her perceptions of reality were often confused by misunderstandings or misinterpretations and were very easily influenced by her intense desire to please whoever was in her immediate presence.

Julie spent much of her attention in concern for others who might be in pain or going through difficult times even though her own life was often as bad or worse than theirs. She had a very high level of sympathy and compassion that was surprising at times. She had a sweetness and softness that would immediately invite the trust and friendship of anyone open to her influence and was almost always welcome everywhere she went.

Julie had very deep struggles that she never resolved in her attitudes and beliefs about Jesus. Her heart had received so many negative messages and lies about Jesus throughout her life that she had come to view Him with deep suspicion at best. Based on this misinformation she understandably wanted nothing to do with Him though her attitudes about God were very different. She felt that she could hear God in her heart and often learned things from Him that she would apply to her life.

She realized a few years ago that it was important for her to let go of the bitterness and resentment from many of her past experiences and relationships or it would destroy her heart. She relayed to us that at times when she was in a coma she would feel immense peace and would sometimes feel impressed with truths like embracing a spirit of forgiveness and releasing all negative thinking so that she could enjoy true freedom. She said that there were times that she felt so good while in a coma that she sometimes did not really want to return to consciousness.

She is gone now and is at peace. The repercussions of this untimely death will affect everyone who loved her for some time to come, but the deep love that we feel for her has never changed. The beauty of Julie's life will glow in our hearts and memories for the rest of our life.

Revivals

I woke up just after 2:30 with the alarming thought that the false revivals in the last days will not only be that of emotionalism and false doctrines, but that the even more deceptive false revivals will look very pious and religious and fervent, but very much filled with the intensity of legalism that I grew up with. That will make it extremely difficult to resist because it will focus on perfection of character, Godliness, holy living and strict adherence to the standards of righteousness. These things are impossible to argue against without placing one's self on the wrong side of the logic from the get-go. So it will be assumed by default that this kind of revival is the true one as opposed to any other thinking or activity going on. This is the counterfeit that will be so convincing and compelling because it appears to have all its ducks in the right order and is enjoying the power of heaven.

This will be presented to be in contrast to other false revivals where there is much display and focus on emotions, feelings and outward attractions and entertainment. Even today both of these camps tend to point to the other as the justification for what they choose to focus on and both use the Bible to defend their positions. Anyone not agreeing with their viewpoint is considered in the enemy camp and is likely outside of salvation. This logic is all too familiar to me, but what is very unfamiliar is what the real revival will look like.

I sense that God is slowly trying to get me to become familiar with the true attributes of the genuine revival so that I will not be deceived and distracted by compelling counterfeits or when it is time to embrace it fully. But even more and beyond knowing some of the subtle differences between the true and the false, I must have the right spirit within me and most of all a right concept of God or there will be no way that I can avoid deception from one side or the other. Both sides specialize in focusing on one assumed side of God's attributes while discounting other's which is why both sides are so dangerously unbalanced. But the true is not a mingling of the right percentages of both sides to achieve equilibrium, the true is going to be, I believe, something of a completely new nature that is not easily defined with the measurements we are used to using.

We have always gaged the truth of a belief system or a group's experience by almost exclusively measuring the externals with what we believe we see in the Bible. That is not all wrong or bad but because it is so filtered through our pre-conceived paradigms and cultural prejudices and because we usually don't have enough of the sweet Spirit of Jesus and a right picture of God in our hearts, we end up judging by our own internal standards instead of allowing judgment to take place spontaneously by waiting for the natural exposure that always occurs when God shows up.

There is simply no way we can accurately judge anyone or any revival without first having major corrections to our perceptions of what God is like. The nature of any revival will simply reflect the beliefs about God that are held in the minds and hearts of those indulging in whatever style of revival endorses those beliefs. If we want to believe in a permissive God that is tolerant of sin in our lives and willing to indulge us for eternity half-perfected or coerced into perfection, then we will focus on doing whatever we can to excite our emotions through any means possible to create the God we want to worship.

If, on the other hand, we believe in a stern God who is very demanding, exacting and unpredictably sometimes harsh and that we are certain is someday going to run out of patience with sinners and exact revenge on them in terrible assaults of pain and torture to satisfy His justice, then we will promote fear and dread as the best motivations to whip up emotions to cause conformity and control among ourselves in the name of inducing perfection at any cost. We will dwell on the terrors of the last days as a means of frightening ourselves and those around us away from any displays of emotion and will cultivate a paranoia against anything that makes us feel too good so that we can avoid becoming tainted with the deceptions of the other camp. Our joy will be forced, our unity dictated and manipulated and our enthusiasm will be mingled with a fervor for fear and foreboding. We will necessarily use redefined religious words so that they fit nicely with what we are experiencing.

Of course, we will not know we are redefining our words because we have been doing that all of our lives already. Anyone who dares challenge our assumed meanings for words or texts will be viewed with deep suspicion at best and considered a threat to our purity and unity. Emotions too, will be considered a threat that must be repulsed and stifled at all cost so that we can perfect ourselves into the stern image of the God that we have created and worship.

Both of these camps contain much truth that has been argued endlessly for centuries against each other. But both camps also have left out important understandings about the true nature of God that has left them inadequate to bring about the kind of transformations that God intends to accomplish in the real revival and refreshing that He is going to bring. But to achieve justification for their beliefs about God each side will become more and more adamant and even militant in their defense and promotion of their views in antagonism against the other until the animosity on both sides breaks into war. But ironically both sides share many of the same lies about God's character and personality that keep them entrenched in a blindness that will prevent them from entering into real grace if they are unwilling to reconsider their fundamental assumptions and paradigms and allow God to reveal the real truth about Himself, addressing the deepest longings of their hearts.

What is certainly not so clear to me at this point is what the true revival will look like. I sense that some vague truths and important points are starting to emerge in my heart and mind but since it has so seldom been observed in this world there is very little to measure it against. But there are a few things that I am starting to feel more aware of that I believe will be hallmarks of a true revival.

For one thing, there will be much more focus in the lives of anyone involved in true revival on the glory of God rather than on their own feelings, beliefs or even perfection. I believe that a true follower of Jesus will realize acutely that they are only a mirror and as such there is no way they can ever for one second live in righteousness without constant reception and reflection of a true picture of God. One of the fateful flaws that I think is emerging in the conservative camp is the belief that someday we will have to live in a self-contained perfection developed through hard, stern struggles against external sin in our life until we have repressed all our evil desires enough to eliminate or at least consistently control them. They believe we will be required to live for a period of time on our own perfection because it has been clearly stated that our Intercessor will no longer intercede for us in the presence of the Father and we will have to live in a perfection and holiness without Him making up the differences between our righteousness and His.

While there is technically some truth in this belief, again it engenders a spirit of self-dependence and fear and much self-focus. It does not recognize that we are only mirrors but somehow believes that for a period of time we have to be originators of righteousness, even if we believe that we achieved it with help from God. With this spirit we are compelled to work very hard on outward perfection of appearances and strict control of our emotions and thoughts so as to please a very demanding, strict God who is waiting for a people to perfect themselves so He can take them to heaven. Since sin is viewed as external violations of rules and laws, then to eliminate sin from our lives means much striving to conform ourselves to the most strict understandings of that law. Of course to try to accommodate much in the Bible that indicates other facets of grace we are taught that we must utilize God's help and power in some way or other to accomplish this task. But the primary focus is always on perfection of behavior, speech and strict thought control. The intensity and fervor with which this is carried out will appear to be how much we are experiencing revival.

But I believe that true revival will be found in those who realize the futility of going about trying to establish their own righteousness, even with a lot of help from God, and spend their energy and attention deepening their hearts into an intimate relationship with God's heart and constantly learning more and more truth about His goodness, His faithfulness, His kindness that leads them to repentance, etc. And as they focus more and more exclusively on God and the true glory of God becomes more and more evident to their hearts, they will simply reflect that glory in natural and spontaneous outflows of righteous living that will surprise even themselves if they can even see it. They will not be obsessed with their own perfection nearly as much as they will become totally enamored with the perfection of the beauty and attractiveness of God.

Because they are not self-focused, either on attempting to perfect their outward behavior or to look to emotionalism to satisfy their deepest cravings, they will be free to enjoy the intense emotions of God without fear or guilt or shame, at least from Him. They will be entering into a whole new dimension of living and reality that will appear to be rigid and law-based by the one camp and dangerously emotional and fanatical by the other camp.

But they will not achieve this by working hard to change their life or by entertaining themselves into bliss, but by unlocking every compartment of their hearts and minds to the refreshing, cleansing, life-giving presence of the One who loves them with a passion they have never imagined before. Their fears, shame and pain will be swallowed up in fresh revelations of His love, forgiveness and purity. They will learn to be led by the true Spirit and will live with God's real presence burning like a fire in their bones. They will begin tasting what it really means to enter into the joy of the Lord.

Father, I am only scratching the surface of what I think You have in store for us. I feel that I have only vague inklings of what a true revival is going to be, but I want to be a part of it. Please keep me from deceptions both on the right and the left of what You want me to truly experience. I want to enter into the genuine joy that You created my heart to experience and I don't want to settle for any cheap imitations or be intimidated by any fear-based theology that demands conformance. I choose to keep looking to You for a transformation of heart instead of being squeezed into someone's mold. I want to be freed from all the fears and lies and triggers that are embedded in my heart instead of masking them over with pleasure or denial. Fill me with Your light of love and truth today.

Please give me glasses made in heaven so I can see reality and others around me the way You do. Please give me hearing aids manufactured by angels so that I can more clearly hear Your still, small voice on a continual basis. Please sensitize my fingers, my lips – all of my senses to feel what You feel, to sense what You value and to become more alive with the abundant life that You promised to give to me. Fill me with Your sweetness, fresh revelations of Your goodness and more capacity to appreciate Your perfect kindness. Help me to realize the danger of denying the truth about You and the fatal consequences of unwillingness to be brought into perfect synchronization with Your heart, not because you will punish me but because it is inevitable from close encounters with You. I choose to allow You to align me with the powerful forces of life through submission to Your loving discipline and mentoring. Make me one of Your successful experiments of grace for Your reputation's sake.

Brand Name Locks

Last night another analogy came to my mind that helps me understand issues of the heart and of the Kingdom a little better.

I was for some reason contemplating the problem of lust and seduction and wondering what the real force is that keeps the two apart most of the time. In my mind it sort of appears like a house or some container that has inside of it a craving that varies in intensity depending on the mood and conditions and stimulations at the moment. I think most people are familiar with inner desires that are not right but are present anyway. Some acknowledge them and others try to hide them or suppress them or deny them. But they are still present in every person who is born as a sinner onto this planet.

This desire, according to James, is called lust. It does not mean that it has anything to do with sexual issues although it very often does. But it is certainly capable of great intensity at times and we are very fearful of it getting out of control, usually because of fear of what others will think about us.

On the outside of the room or enclosure there are at times situations or people that may be calculated to intensify and draw that lust out into the open. I see this outside force as seduction. These two forces act like a pair of attracting magnets that naturally pull toward each other to create a close union called indulgence. What happens after that is not yet part of what I am considering although it always has consequences. (Study James 1)

What I began pondering is; what is the element that usually keeps these two powerful forces from joining immediately together? What prevents people, at least for a time, from indulging immediately in whatever evil desire comes up in their imagination and desires? Now I know there may be some people who do not wait long at all to try to indulge their fantasies, but I am talking about the majority of people who we generally consider “normal”, whatever that may denote. What keeps most of us from simply doing whatever crosses our mind at the moment no matter how shameful or repulsive it may be?

Some might say self-control, and that is technically accurate. But there is always an underlying reason as a motivation for that self-control and I am looking for the real motivation, not the idealistic ones that we want others to believe is our reason. I believe that if we are completely honest with our hearts that most of us, if not all, would have to say most of the time that the door that keeps us from allowing the cravings inside from joining the opportunities on the outside is fear. Fear is most often the main reason for most self-control. Fear is the motive for outside control as well. Look around at nearly everything in this world and it is obvious that fear is the most common tool used to keep order and organization and “harmony” in this world.

Fear is counted on to keep potential criminals from committing more crimes. There is non-stop debate about how severe punishments have to become and how effective they are as a deterrent against more crime. Fear of economic loss is counted on to control the speed of traffic and pretty much every other one of the millions of increasing laws and rules and statutes multiplying in this world. Along with that is fear of loss of freedom in the threat of jail for those who get caught violating most of these artificial determinations. Most of the judicial system is largely unimaginative in its use of fear in this respect. Fines and imprisonment is about the only punishments employed in keeping levels of fear very high in order to intimidate people into complying with societies decisions.

But outside of this there is also a great deal of fear potential that keeps nearly everyone in some level of apprehension all of the time and affects their decisions and behaviors. One of the biggest of these fears is fear of what others think about us. This involves shame which is one of the greatest motivators used in this world to keep people in fear. Shame is the devaluation of a person's worth. It is stripping them of things that make them feel valuable and intentionally trying to make them feel more worthless. Because we all tend to depend on our clothes, our looks, our possessions and our reputations to define our value to some extent, we are all vulnerable to the fear of being stripped of some level of value when these things are threatened to be removed or discredited.

So this is the system of checks and balances set up in our world to keep us more or less in line with the rules determined by society, the rules set up as the way we want to live with each other. This is really the world's solution to the sin problem which is the inner cravings of selfishness and the desire to exploit others for our own pleasure and benefit. We make rules, assign artificial values to people and things and then threaten to strip anyone of some or all of those values if they do not live up to our standards. This is counted on to keep each person's inner cravings of lust from linking up with the temptations or seductions from the outside and disrupting our group standards. Fear is the door, or more like the lock on the door, that stands between the sin inside of us and the expressions of that sin outside of us.

We often do create many smaller outlets to satisfy or reduce the pressure of the lust inside of us that are socially acceptable. We even provide many avenues of seduction to intensify the attractions outside of us that often are supposedly to counterbalance and equalize the pressure inside of us without completely opening the door to full-blown indulgence. Depending on where you live and what crowd you hang out with it is often acceptable to have measured amounts of indulgence as long as the behavior is deemed not too harmful to everyone involved. As long as the door is not allowed to completely open then people are considered to be acceptable in their expressions of lust and are viewed as having enough self-control to avoid coming under the total control of the state.

This whole set-up and way of reasoning has pretty much completely infiltrated all of religion as well. Fear is counted on to be the reliable barrier to keep us from sinning too much and to be the basis for our self-control. Religion uses guilt and shame even more effectively than the world does and believes firmly that this is what God's plan is as revealed in the Bible. They point to centuries of God's interactions with His people and conclude that the balance of power must always include guilt, fear and control as the main ingredients for achieving success, perfection or whatever goal a person happens to believe in.

So we live our life depending on the locks of fear to keep the doors secured that prevent our inner urges from consummating a relationship with the seductions outside to result in conception of open sins of indulgence. We install and key these locks of fear around our hearts and memories and are careful who we give spare keys to so that we feel confident we can pass through times of increased seduction without the doors and locks failing us. As long as no one outside can pick our locks we feel that we are secure and can maintain the security of our souls. We are striving toward perfection and our security must be very tight.

Many people spend a great deal of time tinkering and trying to redesign the combinations inside their locks. They want to be sure that the ratios and formulas that make up their fears are just right so that no one else will be able to break in and expose what is securely hidden away deep in their hearts. In fact, they have multiple doors and passageways and inner chambers and security systems with separate fear locks to make sure that no past pain or trigger will be able to be accessed by sympathizing, arousing seductions from the outside. And the longer their security system keeps them unexposed the more their confidence grows that they have perfected the right security system that will keep them safe and secure all the way through any times of trouble and will assure them a place in heaven.

But what came to my attention like a flash of light last night was this thought: if I depend on the brand of locks called Fear to keep my heart and soul safe from outside violation, who might potentially have access to a master key for this brand of locks? Who owns the company that produces this line of security? And wouldn't it make sense that quite possibly the owner of the lock company might just know more about how those locks work far better than I could ever know? And if so, then might I be potentially vulnerable to being compromised by an outside master key when I am counting on my locks the most to protect me under the most dangerous circumstances? What if this is something I have not taken into consideration in my attempts to assemble my vast network of security designed around this brand of locks? No matter how many locks and doors I have in place to keep my reputation and character in line with what I believe to be truth, if those locks are using security equipment from the supplier of the brand called Fear, then potentially I may be basing my confidence and my soul's security on a system of locks that might be easily compromised when I least suspect it.

I have had a growing awareness over recent time of the danger of counting on fear to be the safety and security apparatus for any part of my relationship with God or my readiness for heaven. I am repeatedly warned about the danger of fear throughout the Bible. To not be afraid is possibly the most frequently given command in all of Scripture. So if this is such an important issue to God, why is fear still the brand of choice for nearly all Christians that I know? I know it has a very high reputation and it has a long history of holding things together externally, but if it is a spirit that does not come from God then how reliable is it to keep me safe when the times of testing explode on my life? Can I really afford to mingle the locks invented by the enemy of God into the building that God is trying to assemble as His temple?

Trusting in Fear

This is a collection of a number of thoughts I have had over the last few hours. I woke up at 2:30 this morning wide awake and decided that it must be an invitation to meditate and commune with God. The effect of my varied thoughts was fitting many of the pieces together that I have been learning lately into cooperating with the way God does things in stark contrast to how we usually perceive that He does things.

We are addicted to coercion and force. God never uses these things. That is very baffling to us and almost incomprehensible. But it is essential to accept this truth if we are to become free of the roots of bitterness.

My thoughts had been stirred up last night by reading an email from a person who I believe to be very close to God and living a life of faith. I was a little surprised to find that he was utilizing the teachings of another person who, upon investigation into his web site, is promoting some of the favorite topics used by radical, right-wing conservatives to induce fear in people. I was disappointed because, even though I believe in the importance of relaying warnings from God, I don't believe that reinforcing those warnings with larger and larger doses of fear is God's desire. It is mixing in ingredients from the enemy of God that dilutes the real truth about God.

It is far too easy to indulge in fault-finding instead of God-finding. Something I remember James Rafferty saying long ago comes back to my mind. We will never bring about the fall of Babylon by pointing out everything that is wrong with it. Babylon will collapse of itself when the real truth about God is revealed in all its glory. Then the deceptions and errors of Babylon will simply be revealed naturally in the light of the real truth about God and no one will be able to camouflage their lies any longer.

I know that it is very hard for me to shift my own paradigms from what is so familiar and is constantly reinforced by many around me to viewing things the way heaven processes them. But I also am confident that the song I am being taught in the dark, like the bird being instructed over and over with a certain whistle in the covered cage, I will be able to sing with confidence and harmony once the cover is removed and I am placed into position with many others who may presently being taught their own parts in the dark. I do feel somewhat isolated from the cacophony of opinions and arguments going on in the religious world right now and I consider that a wonderful blessing. I don't want those distractions to slow down the personal mentoring and paradigm realignment that needs to continue in my own heart and mind. I have enough distractions in my own small world right now that keep me occupied learning to resist them.

I need to keep my primary attention focused on learning God's ways more thoroughly right now. They are so different than what I am used to that it takes a long time for them to become more clear to me and settle deeper down into my subconsciousness where they can influence my reactions to circumstances.

God's ways are far more natural and consequence-based than man's ways. But grace is always present to prevent many consequences or we would not have opportunity to learn and grow.

A thought that came to me in the shower was about a possible 7-layer sequence of good-news, bad-news events in the history of the Great Controversy. Since seven is a perfect number it can denote the perfection of either good or evil depending on what assumption you start with. If you start out believing in the innate goodness of God and then cycle through the switch seven times you will end up with the last news being very good. If you start with the assumptions that there is a dark side to God or there are flaws in His governance like Lucifer inferred, then you will end up with bad news at the end and it will be very bad. There are many questions raised in the meantime but the most important thing to know is that what you start with is what will be perfected in the end.

I want all fear to be eliminated from my life, my conversation, my writing, and my thinking. God has not given us a spirit of fear and so it always must come from another source. I don't want any contaminating spirits from any other source infecting my mind with roots of bitterness. I already have far too many to dig up already.

I am still thinking about the effect on the spirit that dwelling on all the potential disasters coming soon has on us. I am not advocating living in ignorance about what is really going on in the world. But I believe there is a subtle deception that we are not aware of in somehow believing that if we just have the knowledge of what is going on in the darkness behind the scenes - like what the pope is up to, all the details of the latest conspiracies, what the government is about to spring on us, etc. – that somehow this knowledge will somehow empower us to escape. That is utter nonsense when flushed out into the light but why does it maintain such powerful influence over so many people? The solutions offered by most people who are promoting these inside scoops are even more absurd in light of the overwhelming power behind the forces preparing these disasters.

I am sensing more and more that the answers are fatally flawed because they depend on elements only found in that same view of reality. The fundamental assumptions that we hold about how relationships work in this world and what is real power derail us from discovering the only real way of escape offered by God. If we believe that God is going to use the tools of the enemy to fight the enemy we are already heading down the wrong road to finding an effective solution.

Babylon is all about force and deception and fear. If we employ those same tools in our explanations of God's plans for these times just ahead of us, we are contaminating and polluting the true nature of His ways and His character. We confuse ourselves about what is really going on and the true nature of the controversy. Man's ways are not God's ways – when are we ever going to believe that? God's ways are so radically different than what we extrapolate from most of our Bible study and from other sources that we continue to promote a false image of Him in our teachings and excited, urgent news bulletins.

It is time to begin pre-screening everything we publish or preach or teach through the filters of the real truth about God's nature and His unfailing love. We must radically rethink all of our end-time scenarios in the light of the absence of force and fear in the ways of God. I believe that the intensifying drumbeat of fear found in much of what is being promoted today by excited conservatives may actually play into the plans of the enemy. For his ultimate purpose to to entrap our minds and hearts in the atmosphere of fear which will create our greatest vulnerability to being overcome by his even greater fear.

Fear-bonding is highly effective for manipulating people for a time but it is also very unstable for healthy relationships. Fear-bonds used for allegiance are easily overcome (but often to our astonishment) by simply presenting the person with a greater fear to induce them to switch their allegiance. No amount of determination and will-power and good intentions have any real affect on these kinds of bonds. A person may be ever so certain that they will never waver in their determination to follow “the truth” whatever that means to them. But if they are depending on fear-bonds to keep them anchored when the testing time comes they will be caught off guard and will be blind-sided by overwhelming pressure that will easily change their whole perspective of reality. Fear-bonds may be powerful but they are not stable enough to get anyone successfully through the events about to crash into our lives. They are too rigid and stiff and as such are all too vulnerable to cracking and collapse.

That is also why Babylon will ultimately fall as well. Because Babylon is built as an empire founded on fear and deception, it too is vulnerable to collapse when that fear is reflected back to them in the image they have created in their ideas of God. Fear is not a reliable building material in our life and the sooner we quite depending on it and utilizing it the sooner God can build a safe fabric of protection around our hearts. Love (and joy in its true meaning) alone is the only antidote to fear. We have no business mingling fear and love in our presentations about God because we are distorting God's image in the hearts of those we are trying to save. Perfect love casts out fear.

I am afraid that maybe we are playing right into the enemy's hands when we use fear to motivate ourselves to prepare for the Second Coming. The purpose of Babylon is to teach people fear by any means possible and to weave it into the fabric of their lives. This reinforces the lies that keep us afraid of God, whatever they may be. If God's own people are presenting pictures of Him tainted with fear then they may in fact be simply pre-conditioning hearts in preparation for the greatest assault of fear this world has ever witnessed. By subscribing to the legitimacy of fear as a valid tool for getting people's attention and allegiance we may be inadvertently conditioning them to follow the path of fear wherever it leads them. If fear itself becomes our master, the thing we are trained to pay attention to, then we will follow it to places we never dreamed we would allow ourselves to go.

Someone recently commented that the most often repeated command in the Bible is to not fear, not be afraid. I have noticed this in my own study of the Bible over the past few years and it has caught my attention. If God repeats something that often it may be because it is so very important for us to understand and also because it is likely something we are not learning very well. We cling to the mistaken notion that we must have at least some fear to make our messages effective. It gets such immediate results and we quickly become addicted to its power to wield influence over others. We dress it up in religious clothes and justify its use by compiling many proof texts to support our assumptions. But none of these things change the fact that the spirit of fear never comes from God.

That is not to say that God will not allow fear to motivate people to move toward Him. God can use anything and anyone to coordinate circumstances and influence hearts to change direction if they are willing. But just because God uses things the devil does against him does not justify our employing those elements as correct representations of what God is really like. The closer we get to God in our character and thinking the more dangerous it is to mix into our thinking an element of the enemy. We must never pick up the weapons of the enemy to use against him. He invented those weapons and knows their potential and inner workings far more than we can ever know. If we choose to continue to use the enemy's weapons we will sooner or later be captured by those same weapons. Our only true safety is in keeping our minds and hearts aligned with the ways and heart of God.

When God delivers warnings it is very true that fear is usually produced as a result. We should not necessarily work to reduce this legitimate fear directly for it has the effect of dislodging our complacency and causing us to be ready to reconsider our assumptions. But only the Holy Spirit has the skill to know how to use this opportunity to turn hearts toward the real truth about God. We have no business trying to preempt the Holy Spirit and bring conviction or fear into people's hearts. Our primary business is to focus so clearly on the attractiveness and truths of God and the purity of His nature that fear will be melted away in the heat of His passionate love for all of His created beings.

I am coming to realize that the only way I can address the fears deeply embedded in my mind and heart about the coming end-time events is to obsessively focus on filling my mind and heart with more and more truth about God's glory. When God's glory fills the whole earth then Babylon will fall. And when God's glory really fills my own heart with the light and beauty of God, then the many lies and fears and excuses and resistance I have toward God will also melt away and Babylon will fall in my own heart.

Only when Babylon is conquered by the refreshing revelation of God's real character within myself will I be fit to take the battle to those around me using the same method. Truth exposes falsehood naturally just as light dispels darkness. You cannot get rid of darkness by describing it in detail or attempting to force it to leave. It simply melts away instantly when light is introduced. It works in the heart just as surely as it is going to work in all the world.

In Revelation 17 John is shown the great deceiving woman, the great whore representing false religion symbolically. John wonders at this woman, and this word also means to admire. The angel with him immediately asks him why he did this. This woman is shown to him riding on the back of a great beast which previously in Revelation 13 is described as the one the whole world wonders after. In essence John is feeling the same magnetic draw of awe and attraction that the rest of the world is overwhelmed with and I believe the angel's words are really warning John about the danger of even starting down that path of wonderment and fear.

If one examines the characteristics of this symbolic woman as well as the beast she ride on and is in close collusion with, it becomes clear that the primary means for gaining control over people's minds and hearts is fear, deception, lust and intimidation. Using these ingredients the power of this pair is irresistible unless one is internally divorced from indulging in the attractions the fallen heart has for these things. And the real fatal attraction that makes us vulnerable to them is the desire to use them ourselves. It is part of our fallen human nature and only the presence of the Spirit of Jesus in our heart can deliver us from this most alluring temptation.

Faith like a Cat

My cats have given me pause to think about my own attitude and relationship with God. As I lay in bed this morning working up the energy to get up and going one of our oldest cats continued to pester me to give her affection. She would scratch at my shoulder wanting me to caress her and pay her attention no matter how sleepy I felt. Once I started giving her what she wanted she would settle down inside my arm with her head on my shoulder and soak up all the attention she could extract from me.

This cat exhibits a very deep trust in me unlike any other cat we have right now. She enjoys not only being petted the normal ways but thoroughly relishes having her chin scratched and then rolls over to have her stomach and chest rubbed from top to bottom.

When she gets into this mood she also enjoys me massaging her shoulders and legs as she relaxes and allows me to move them freely with very little resistance. She just soaks up all the affection and rubbing that she can get and completely allows me to do whatever I want in our interaction.

I thought about this trust that she has in me as we interacted this morning. She exhibits implicit trust and faith in me that I will not hurt her, that my intentions are good and that we are close friends. As a result she is able to receive far more affection and interrelate with us much more freely than any of our other cats are able to do.

In contrast, our youngest cat is a long ways from having a stable relationship of trust with us. Although she certainly enjoys receiving attention at times and even desires petting, she has so much fear and distrust inside of her that our relationship seems more one of exploitation at times than of friendship. I have to admit that I have seen much improvement over the last year but she has a very long way to go before she can receive much of the affection that is available for her.

She will sometimes come up onto my lap while I am reading or typing in the morning and settle herself down to get some petting. But I have to be extremely careful where and how I pet her for she is like a little hyperactive tiger that is often quite unpredictable. A few minutes ago she was sleeping in my arms curled up and purring while I was typing looking very peaceful and calm. But I know that the motion of moving my hands beneath her is an irritant for her and she likely was internally about to come to the end of her very short fuse.

Sure enough, she suddenly lost patience with me and started biting the palm of my hand and going into one of her dangerous fits of rage that I am too familiar with. I am usually a pretty laid back person but there are times when my own fuse can run out rather quickly and this was one of them. I decided that there may need to be times when she doesn't get away with this kind of behavior without consequences and so I held her from escaping quickly (as she usually tries to do after such an attack) and gave her a sharp swat before she made a hasty exit. She can now spend some time alone until she changes her mood again which is her usual pattern.

Many people who know this cat believe she is incurably psychotic and there is no hope for her. I believe differently and think that over a lot of time and with the right mix of affection and discipline along with some very needed maturity from age that she could yet become a much more stable and reliable friend. But she is presently missing out on most of the advantages that she could be enjoying with us and may even herself desire, because of her unpredictable moods and our need to keep a careful distance from her claws most of the time.

The reason I spend time thinking about this this morning is not so much to talk about my cats as it is to reflect on how much they are teaching me about my own relationship with God. From my perspective I sometimes think I have a pretty good relationship with Him and that He shows me affection that makes me feel very special at times. I'm sure that is true, but at the same time I am seeing, from the descriptions above, that it is very likely I am too much like the later cat than the former in my way of relating to Him. This younger cat may actually think that she has a pretty healthy relationship with me and that we get along just great most of the time. That is true compared to many other people in her life, but she has no idea how much better and deeper it could be if she were not so paranoid about life and everyone around her. She is so suspicious that others might be out to hurt her that she keeps her defenses at a very high level all of the time which does not allow very much intimacy and interaction that we could be enjoying together. Her life is governed by many fears and it severely limits many of her options and opportunities.

I suspect that God may very well feel the same thing about me. While I may view our relationship as something very positive – and it is as far as it goes – I likely have very little comprehension of how much deeper and closer He wants it to be if I would just let go of my resistance and mistrust whenever He tries to do things in my life that I misunderstand. If He tries to move me around into a different position so that He can access me better I am liable to complain or pout or resist His plans. He may allow me to have my way many times but the results are much the same as the tense but slowly growing relationship I have with our youngest cat.

I want to change that situation. When I think about the faith that our oldest cat has and the resultant enjoyment we are able to share I also want to have that kind of faith with my Father in heaven who has far more exciting plans and feelings and opportunities for me to enjoy than I can ever imagine. But my lack of faith causes me to often use my claws to keep Him at a distance when there is really no reason to do so. The only reasons for these fears are the lies about Him that still lurk in the dark recesses of my mind causing me to doubt His goodness and His love for me so that I try to stay in control of my own life instead of trusting Him fully to shower His love and blessings on me.

Lord, teach me to relax in Your arms and just be ravished in Your love like our mature cat does with us. Thank-you for using her to show me Your heart a little better today. I don't know what it will take to remove these fears and doubts about You from my heart, but do whatever it takes to discipline and transform me so that I can be more compliant and safe in Your embrace.