caring

 And the wolf will dwell with the lamb,
And the leopard will lie down with the young goat,
And the calf and the young lion and the fattened steer will be together;
And a little boy will lead them.
Also the cow and the bear will graze,
Their young will lie down together,
And the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra,
And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain,
For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea.

 

Unfortunately that is not the reality we live in now.  The world is cursed because of Adam's disobedience.  The logic of that I honestly don't understand, but that's the explanation The Bible provides.  My pastor talked about the Old Testament sacrifices and how the altar was a bloodbath day and night.  He said it was supposed to give people a hint; SIN IS REALLY BAD!  And we're all guilty of something, even those few of us who have clung to righteousness for dear life from the very moment that the light of God's special revelation began to awaken the soul onward, we all have something in our past that is worthy of condemnation.  Maybe not the utmost condemnation, I don't presume to know how God deals with people who haven't been consciously delivered the knowledge of the requirements of God (Romans 5:14 [specifically the reference in the center of the verse]) but we all deserve condemnation.  THE GOOD NEWS is ultimately that God offers a way out.  The unfortunate reality is that so many people are going to refuse and find all kinds of excuses for doing so.  They'll cite the supposed scientific inaccuracy of The Bible, they'll cite the lack of perfection of Christians as supposedly proof that The Bible isn't trustworthy, they'll cite the myriad of disagreements that Christians have over various subpoints that scripture speaks of, and most of all, they'll cite the fact that so many Christians just aren't much to speak of, despite the statement that Jesus made to Nicodemus -- you must be born again!.  I touched on that in my most recent post (btw)...
Ultimately, if you really don't want to do something, you'll find a reason not to do it.  You might even find 8 or 9 different reasons.  But if you don't want to do it, that's really the reason.  And I can understand that; self denial is a hard difficult road and at this juncture in my life, I'm having difficulty imaging that my long standing sin patterns will NEVER EVER EVER rear their ugly head again and defile this clay jar that God The Father has sealed with The Holy Spirit until the day of redemption.  Honestly, that's not what kept me back for so long.  I spent many years just not wanting to believe in Yahweh because believing that God, as described in The Bible, IS real, would mean believing that Hell is real and that everything God says about Hell is true.  And I just could not find peace with that.  Ultimately, I realized I was being pretty darn stupid, and I simply acknowledged that maybe there was just something I wasn't getting.  My mom was asking me shortly after I gave up fighting Him how I feel about God commanding the annihilation of the amorites.  I told her at the time - It doesn't matter how I feel about it.  I'm going to have to find a way to make peace with it.
So, ultimately, I can say with pretty darn near certainty, just from what I know within me to be the truth, that I myself don't see sin the way that I should.  How I feel about sin cannot compare to the agony that Jesus faced on the cross.  The life that most Christians live in the US, even the most zealously faithful ones, the "persecution", the rejection, the scoffing, the various trials and testings, they don't compare with what Jesus faced.  But even if they did, it is only temporary.  It may be what seems like a "long time", BUT -- it is only temporary.  Honestly, I'm glad Jesus loved us enough to die for our sins, but I would be unable to live with myself if His death was ongoing and permanent.  I'm glad God didn't leave him to hang that way.  Realistically, that's just not feasible.  God staying dead, if that's even possible, would be unnecessary and, quite simply, NOT on His agenda, nor part of His obligation toward us.  Some people insist God has no obligation toward us.  In a manner of speaking that is true.  We certainly haven't earned anything FROM God, other than His wrath.  BUT -- God, being rich in love and abounding in mercy, is personally invested in us.  He's even invested in the animals of the earth (Matthew 10:29).  IF God wanted to be callous and flippant, we certainly would not be able to hang anything over His head, but that's not the God we worship.

a static

 My confidant confronted me head on with something that had occurred to me from time to time, and had actually gone through my mind a couple days before we met up.  He emphasized that Christians are to be born again.  I of course recall this being spoken of by Jesus in the Gospel of John (chapter 3) and being a bit perplexed by that because I often feel like a lump of fat and not much else.  I don't recall ever feeling different except on brief moments where I'm pumped up about something.  I don't ever recall being overwhelmed with grief or its flipside, gratitude.  I don't recall my state of being ever changing.  My mom said she could see a difference after I accepted Christ's calling and was saved, but I never did.
While discussing this, he pointed out some verse that "should scare me".  And I finally got down to it -- "OK, so what if it does scare me.  What am I supposed to do about it?!"  He said to ask Christ to save me from this deadness.  As far as I know, He hasn't done that, but if He had, I don't even know if I would be able to identify it.  He makes a good point, although I'm honestly a little confused as to how to being scared for my life fits into it.  He said I should "tell Him" that I'm "tired of" living in sin, and ask for Him to deliver me from it.  Which is a bit different than "I'm scared, please help me".
Anyway...  to be continued....

HELLRAISER (1987) & its marketing

 The poster graphics are appropriate for the film.  The tagline is absolutely stupid.  Pinhead, as he's known colloquially (he never had a name in the actual movie) was not THE villain.  It's debatable as to weather he's even the LEAD villain.  He seemed to be the spokesperson for the group of 'cenobites' that were seen in the movie.  It's not even clear if the movie features ALL of the 'cenobites' that exist in the set-up that Clive Barker conjured up.  Of course, it's possible that even Clive Barker would not be able to answer that, but usually a well made movie is the result of rather immersive understanding of the content within the movie, and that usually includes details that are not explicitly stated in the script and / or the movie itself.  But that only goes so far.  Someone was asking the writer of FALLEN DOWN (1993) as to weather the main character would have voted for Trump.  The writer of that movie didn't seem to have a definitive answer.  There's just some things that are left up in the air like that.  Characters in a movie I suppose can live on in the writers' imagination to where the writer can pinpoint exactly how they may have changed and where they would be in their life if they were in fact real people, but I can't imagine that being the norm for a writer.  Especially writers who write about people other than themselves...  SPOILER AHEAD: Of course, the writer of FALLEN DOWN may have just had difficulty answering the question because you have to wonder given the trajectory of the character and his downfall how it would have played out differently...  Aside from the cops just letting him be...  which is a question I ask about myself sometimes and never am able to answer.  Given my influences and personality etc., what about my life could have really been different, realistically?

 Anyway....

The film (HELLRAISER) will tear your soul apart.  "Pinhead" will not.  He's not even going to tear apart the soul of anyone in the movie.  The tagline really should have been IT'LL TEAR YOUR SOUL APART, not HE'LL TEAR YOUR SOUL APART.  I guess they were trying to reel in people who were conditioned to thinking a horror movie had to have a mascot type villain.  Even "Leatherface" from THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE is often thought of as "the villain" in that movie, although he, like "pinhead", was only a piece of the terror that ensued in that movie.  I think somehow the barrage of FRIDAY THE 13TH and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET sequels pretty much cemented that mentality of there being one central bad guy in the movie.  I think that's largely what made the ending for SCREAM (1996) so surprising, originally.  The identity of the killer was otherwise pretty obvious from the beginning and never stopped being obvious.

progrrrrrrrrrrr

 Been overall much better behaved the past couple weeks.  Still all too frequently stumbling and falling.
....   Here's to the future ;

Expulsion , almost (.../)

I have SO much more grace than I deserve.  Grace of course is never "deserved"....  That's actually an oxymoron.  We don't deserve to have God Almighty ruling over us, but that's how it is.  We don't deserve to exist.  We don't deserve to be treated with respect, we also don't even deserve the suffering that comes upon us in some cases.  Children who grew up in abusive households can attest to this.  Even an adult doesn't usually deserve the kind of crap kids sometimes put up with.  I, however, deserve that.  I have not been engaging in the conduct that caused the amorites to be spewed from the land, but I have laid eyes upon it numerous times by choice.  I had read Leviticus 18 but I apparently failed to meditate on it and somehow it just got tucked into some incredibly foggy section of my mind.

Granted, even watching a heterosexual married couple's homemade recordings would still be questionable at the very least.  The Bible isn't very specific about what constitutes a violation of Jesus' expounding of Exodus 20:14.  I'm fairly certain I've been guilty of that more times than I can count, not always or exclusively during my demonic internet dabblings.

Hoping I can KEEP all of this in view.  More importantly, I'm hoping my sensitivity to it will increase exponentially and that I can at some point have the affection for Jesus that has been dulled incredibly over the years.

Rev.

 Revelation is a really stirring beautiful display of God's power and preeminence.

It is ultimately a writing of promise; a culmination of the statement that He is working out all things for the well-being of His people and His glory.  It is rather disturbing in the first few chapters of prophecy, when God's wrath is being out poured, unless you assume that all of the Christians are not going to be here when it happens, which I don't see in the text anywhere, but maybe I'm just ignorant.  It will be darkest by far the closer the dawn approaches.  But dawn is approaching.

"But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved." (Matthew 24:13)

God has been gracious to all of us, and most of us, at least in the US, who haven't had any period in our lives where we were at the hands of some sadistic presence, haven't had to eat the family pet to survive a few more days, and who haven't had to debase themselves for an income, have had it rather easy.  Sure, poverty is by no means any kind of picnic and we don't always feel like going to work, and sometimes we downright hate our jobs, and get unfairly treated because of misunderstandings that could easily be cleared up if both sides tried, but how many of us have been unable to get away from insects?  One thing I dread about the possibility of homelessness is the inescapable presence of spiders.  But God will one day punish ALL of us, all of the world -- for nobody living here is truly innocent -- with an inescapable presence of locusts.  

"Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire." (Revelation 20:14)

"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death." (Revelation 2:11)

"Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross. For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,

 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Peace, in a fallen world

 It's unfortunate that this level of distrust is so pervasive in the gop these days. Both parties play fast and loose with the facts and take credit for stuff they didn't do and blame each other for stuff they had minimal if any involvement in. Neither party is beneficial when their policies are taken to the extreme. Tax cuts are not a bad idea, they're probably beneficial in fact, but even when the federal government is trillions of dollars in debt?? Raising taxes is also not an ideal scenario. But does anybody have a better plan for getting the bills paid? These tariffs that have been implemented have had minimal if any impact on that although they're not a bad idea in themselves... The border should be more secure although I understand why it isn't. Going by the legit means of entry is way too time consuming and confusing for someone that needs to flee their land. People would rather believe it's all orchestrated by some assortment of fantastically evil people than believe that these people are here in search for a better life. I don't think prochoice makes much sense either, but that's only if you acknowledge God as truly sovereign. If you're strictly trying to minimize child abuse and things like that, then of course prochoice makes sense. And God's sovereignty is not as clear cut as a lot of people who have tried to broach the subject seem to think it is. If God truly is sovereign then all sins - including any and every kind of murder imagineable - are subject to Him and He will deal with them however He sees fit. So, it ultimately is a matter of theology and to what value you place on the sheer existence of people. I personally can find holes in the arguments that pro lifers use but that doesn't mean I should just dismiss the gop as a bunch of judgmental busy bodies. That wouldn't be any more fair than the gop dismissing the DNC as a bunch of murderers who relish in every kind of destruction imaginable. Life without God does lead to destruction. It's unfortunate that so many people these days can't or won't see that.

In other news ...

 I don't think I posted about this here.  I had to put my cat down Aug 20th.  I've been mostly just going about life like usual, but there's a song by The Smiths that takes on new meaning, at least for me, in light of my cat being put down and the fact that I really just can't say what, if anything, happens to animals when they die.  My pastor noted that a lot of the indifference toward religion these days is due to the manufactured society we're living in.  People at least had no choice but to face the death of the animal they were eating once upon a time ago.  Nowadays, in most consumers minds, food doesn't come from animals, it comes from a store.  Peta type people of course act like it's some new thing they've stumbled upon and I do have to wonder how much less meat I'd be eating if I knew my food.  My pastor observed how some people would not be able to help but observe the fact that something had to die so that we could live and not think there is something wrong.

And in that respect, peta are right.  There is something wrong.  Jesus died so that we could live.  We'd be subject to eternal damnation for all the times we judged and spat on other people!  But Jesus WILLINGLY laid aside paradise for 33 years and suffered unjust scorn and bitter rejections so that we can have the option of having an eternal home, with an eternal father, where everything will be safe.  If on the EXTREMELY slim chance that atheist scientists are right and The Bible is just a bunch of poetic guesswork, I still don't see the point in believing that.  I don't believe I'm just being strung along.  But even if it turned out that I was, it's an encouragement to live a kinder life in pursuit of Christ likeness and in turn do my part to make this world a better place.  No body has a perfect track record in that, but it is possible to keep pushing the envelope, increase in generosity, courtesy, empathy, etc..  (I do believe I could do better at all of those things.)

Anyway....

Before typing this I created an existential/grief playlist.  Figured I'd post it here.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1CNV5sNf1ZOF98QmB21dNx?si=gSXmx3NQT8ORUyH3XzKYdQ&pi=bqzkCtyyQ0Cta

Unsatisfied, now what of it ..

 We are the world, saving each other's lives 

We are thus disappointed.

I have to wonder how much of the increase in kidnappings, mass shootings, and other heinous crimes would have been avoided if people entrusted themselves to God rather than people. This culture at some point let its' guard down. I don't know exactly when it started, but it's gotten worse and man's inclination to rebel against God has been unattended to and thus many kids have been growing up with minimal guidance. People have a false sense of security, instead of pummelling sin into the ground, people give it an inch and it begs for more rope for us to hang ourselves.

Seek Yahweh, The Heavenly Father, of The Resurrected Jesus Christ — while you still have the opportunity to do so. He will give you the power to live uprightly, for the most part, more and more so the more that you seek Him.  

cities of refuge

I emailed this to my inlaw  but i thought this might be some food for thought for other people as well.

----------------------------------

Deut 19:11-13

11 “But if there is a man who hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and rises up against him and strikes him so that he dies, and he flees to one of these cities, 12 then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die. 13 You shall not pity him, but you shall purge the blood of the innocent from Israel, that it may go well with you.

Matt 5:21-22

21 “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.

Matthew 5:21-22 was not meant to impersonalize the act of ACTUALLY KILLING someone.  The death penalty was indeed there for bloodshed.  It was there for other crimes as well, but hating someone was not one of them.  Hatred and anger are often passing emotions.  There was/is the sacrificial system in place for Christians (fka Jews) who fail to be loving and generous all of the time.  The death of Jesus is not primarily a payment for crimes that are so sick they stink up the earth for generations infinity.  His death is for crimes that we ourselves often undermine and overlook, crimes that, collectively, cause far more stench than anything Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy ever did on their own.

I can't find the verse, but it says somewhere in the law of Moses something to the effect of

if he killed his neighbor and did not hate him in his heart, he shall go free.

I think it might have been Deut 19:11-13 but I'm pretty sure there were others, and I'm not finding them at the moment.

If nobody is aware that the killing man had hatred for the victim, then this law can't possibly apply.  There is no indication that the assembly needed to kill or should have killed the hating man prior to the point of killing.  And usually, although exceptions abound, like always, a death does not get inflicted upon someone because of one singular event.  A person who gets to be 9 years old and hasn't learned enough self control for that not to be true of them will probably get a nasty reputation well before they get inducted into adulthood.

You also might notice that the death penalty is there for people that physically murder whereas the disregard for our fellow man as God's image bearers, although it carries consequences, is not treated with the same severity.  That, to me, indicates that God cares far more about us than we might sometimes be tempted to think He does.   Of course, the consequences for a person who intends to spit on the pattern that Jesus set for us and does not reconsider and have some semblance of belief in the provision of God to rescue from that...those consequences are actually much worse than those a person who sheds blood faces.  We can't make ourselves love God, but we do have the power to avoid hardening our hearts and at least be open enough to listen to what people are saying and be sincere in our evaluations.

  Praise be to Jesus that although the stench of our sins is indeed far more than any elite Hollywood Hills air freshener can cover over, Jesus Christ has paid for it, and not only that but He has given us a hope for a future so bright we'd need shades just to be near it, and a peace that endures through whatever dust and decay we experience in the meantime.