The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.”
― Ezra Taft Benson
You know those things from childhood that make you smile when you think about them? I always liked to walk barefoot on a dirt road. I grew up between two very large berry farms and the smell of berries would ride in on the breeze. Some things other's might find disgusting, for instance I found comfort in the smell of a sweating horse. The smell of dirt, leather and hay. Cedar branches burning. My grandma wandered around her yard raking up fallen cedar twigs and fed them into a small fire.
Then there are people. My cousin recently told me, he found comfort in the smell of our grandpa. Old Spice, beer and cigarettes? But to him it was comfort. I can still smell Grandpa if I try. My dad worked for an asphalt company and I can remember his smell after a long hard day at work. There are voices too. My head on my dad's chest when I was really tired. His deep voice would vibrate under my ear and I wanted him to keep talking. There are many different ways we find comfort in people. Everybody has those places and people that were safe.
There are also moments when things were bad and somebody showed up. I was about seven and had to have surgery. I had bad bladder infections and my kidney had become infected. I remember moments from that day. The drug they gave me while I waited on a bed in the hall. The nurse counting backward with me, while several student doctors stood around me and I fell into a deep sleep. I was scared to death. Waking up in a room with an old scary woman in the bed next to me groaning. I remember feeling very alone and scared and then I glanced over to the door and through the little square window, I saw my mom's face. She had not left me there. I was really going to get to go home.
You're a little kid, sitting in the lap of an adult that made your world a good place. Every muscle in your body relaxes, because you know that they won't let anything happen to you. And then it happens. They touch you, where they are not suppose to touch you. Your world spins out of control. There is the denial. "That did not just happen" There is the confusion, the desire to run, the fear of what's next. Safe just became insane. Safe just became scary. Heaven just became hell. There are all kinds of questions. How did I not know this person was bad? What did I do to bring this on? In that instance your whole world changes.
When I decided to follow Christ, I asked Him to give me dreams and visions. The very first dream was not visual at all. I heard a voice say, "Pray for discernment." I knew it was God, because I didn't know exactly what discernment was and when I found out, I knew the enemy didn't want me to have it, so it was God talking to me through a dream. I have and still do pray for discernment often. I also pray it over other people, because it is important in this day.
Years ago, my brother was in a group home and I went there with my mom. When I met the man who was running the place with his wife, the feeling I got was not good. I wanted away from him immediately. When we got in the car to leave, my first words to my mom were "Get him out of there." Mom didn't understand at all. I couldn't give her a real reason why I felt the way I felt, how I knew what I knew. Months later she got a call in the middle of the night to go get my brother. The man had been raping the disabled women in the home and beat anyone who tried to stop him. My brother received two black eyes. I always thought this was some kind of sixth sense I got from being sexually abused, but now I believe it was discernment. I don't blame mom, how could she know?
We as a society expect people to look a certain way. Even though I think we have somewhat gotten past the idea that perverts always look like perverts, we still expect crooks to look like crooks and Christians to look like Christians. There is a young man in one of my groups that I love to introduce to people. He is covered in tattoos and wears a short Mohawk. I could actually see how some people could be a little intimidated if they were to run into him in the dark, but they don't know what I know. This man is a follower of Christ. There is not one person or thing that could take him off the path he is on. He wants to be in a relationship with Jesus no matter the cost. He is not a man who smiles a lot until you get to know him. I know that I know if I was ever in trouble, he is the one I want beside me. He is willing to die for his country, his family, his friends, but mostly His Father, God. And yet at the same time, he is the one man who has allowed me to cry on his shoulder, literally, snot and all, right down his tattooed sleeve. He is not what most religious people expect a Christian to look like on the outside, but he is quickly becoming more and more what God wants on the inside.
Some people fit the bill. The scraggly neighbor kid might be the neighborhood thief. The unkempt old guy down the street may be the sex offender we expect. The elder in the church who is always early, wears a suit and prays over anyone who will let him, is likely the Christ follower we expect. But what if he is not?
What God has been talking o me about lately is how important discernment truly is. It is easy for us to believe that Al Qadea has sleeper cells in America and other places in this world, but we find it difficult to believe the enemy has sleeper cells in our churches. We should be able to spot a Satanic worshipper from a mile away, right? Maybe they don't worship Satan, but what if they are following him? What if they are under demonic influence that they don't even realize? It's easy to believe the anti-Christ will look evil, but if he does how will he bring peace? The man who molested me, became an elder in the church and was a medic. Who would have thought he would ever say something like, "God wants us to do this?"
Discernment is needed in every believer. We all need to be praying and paying attention. The Bible says in the last days many will fall away. I have heard stories of people believed to be dedicated Christ followers, turning away. I don't get it. I can't imagine ever going back. I know that I know that I know God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit are all real, they are love, and they are the only way. I cannot imagine walking away from Him, but people do, people are. That term falling away means they were once followers and the Bible says
2 Peter 2:21
New International Version (NIV)
21 It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
Scary, isn't it? The anti-Christ spirit is among us. It is a spirit of anger and rebellion that is making it's home in some churches. I'm not talking about the man who is supposed to come, I'm talking about the spirit that is infiltrating itself into the Church body. When a man makes himself his own God, and follows his own will instead of Gods will and disobeys Christ knowingly, like Satan did, I would say he is under the anti-Christ spirit. How do we know who it is? Discernment is the only way. Things are going to get crazy and we cannot trust people more than we trust God. The wounds from our past often times were inflicted for that reason, to come between us and God. We may love and trust someone for many years. We may be sitting in a leaders spiritual lap, feeling really safe, finding comfort in his voice, and believing we are his protected sheep. But, we are responsible to keep our eyes open. We are responsible to learn God's voice and trust Him over any man.
Let's go back to the little kid sitting in the lap of the safe adult and compare it to the leader's lap. The safe adult then physically/spiritually touches them in a way that should never happen. What happens next? We make excuses for the adults behavior. We blame ourselves. Very rarely does a child jump up from the perverts lap and say "No, that is wrong and I won't allow you to touch me again." More likely, they sit there with their mouths shut, believing the lies. They endure, while thinking there is something wrong with them. They don't want to cause a problem or be a problem. They choose hell.
I was born to expose the demonic. I am not about to sit still while a perverted man/woman is touching a child and I will not sit still while a perverted man/woman, misleads God's sheep. Will you?
“Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. 'The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared' (Luther).”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community
Scary, isn't it? The anti-Christ spirit is among us. It is a spirit of anger and rebellion that is making it's home in some churches. I'm not talking about the man who is supposed to come, I'm talking about the spirit that is infiltrating itself into the Church body. When a man makes himself his own God, and follows his own will instead of Gods will and disobeys Christ knowingly, like Satan did, I would say he is under the anti-Christ spirit. How do we know who it is? Discernment is the only way. Things are going to get crazy and we cannot trust people more than we trust God. The wounds from our past often times were inflicted for that reason, to come between us and God. We may love and trust someone for many years. We may be sitting in a leaders spiritual lap, feeling really safe, finding comfort in his voice, and believing we are his protected sheep. But, we are responsible to keep our eyes open. We are responsible to learn God's voice and trust Him over any man.
Let's go back to the little kid sitting in the lap of the safe adult and compare it to the leader's lap. The safe adult then physically/spiritually touches them in a way that should never happen. What happens next? We make excuses for the adults behavior. We blame ourselves. Very rarely does a child jump up from the perverts lap and say "No, that is wrong and I won't allow you to touch me again." More likely, they sit there with their mouths shut, believing the lies. They endure, while thinking there is something wrong with them. They don't want to cause a problem or be a problem. They choose hell.
I was born to expose the demonic. I am not about to sit still while a perverted man/woman is touching a child and I will not sit still while a perverted man/woman, misleads God's sheep. Will you?
“Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. 'The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared' (Luther).”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community
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