The Rational Rabbit Hole no. 16

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

Luke 10:27 AMP“For this commandment which I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it [c]out of reach. 12 It is not [a secret hidden] in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us and bring it to us, so that we may hear it and obey it?’ 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us and bring it to us, so that we may hear it and obey it?’ 14 But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may obey it."

Deuteronomy 30:11-14 AMP

I was really frustrated yesterday and that frustration was then harnessed to impatience which then led to anger. Sometimes these spirits of anger and frustration and all types of evil come upon us and direct our actions when we lose focus on God and start to look at what is going on around us in the temporal world. And I admit I was caught up in time. If there is one thing that always weighs heavily on my mind, it is the constraint of time. I am not a fan of feeling rushed or short on time and that compounds these feelings even more. BUT it did not take very long for me to see the error of my actions and my thoughts and apologize for the mistakes I made in that moment of thoughtlessness. And I think a lot of sin is tied directly to the actions that happen without thinking. The actions that happen when we feel like the options are inevitable.

But, as Moses said, “the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart”. The same place that the teaching and instruction of the Torah says that we should also love the Almighty. God is in our heart, our soul, our strength, our mind, all of our being. So when we are aligned with love for God, ourselves, and our neighbor, we are quick to recognize when we step out of that path. And walking in that alignment more and more makes mistakes so much easier to see. I am looking forward to a lessening of those mistakes and I believe that will come with time and working the Way. None of this is difficult, however, none of this quite so easy as well.

There is a process of getting in alignment in your heart, soul, strength, and mind to work as one in obedience to the law. And that is a process I am still working. I am in no way perfect in these matters BUT I am working on getting better in my heart, soul, body, and mind. I started this journey fourteen days ago with no real goal BUT getting healthy and taking control of my life. And though I have many things working in the right direction, my journey is not complete and my path still lies ahead of me. No matter the way I think things are going to go, no matter what plans I thought I had, there is a path that lies ahead that I trust and believe will work out the way it is intended by God.

Peace to your home. Bless your being. The reign of God is now. Have the day you want. I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #MyNepheshMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain #EmbracetheWithin

The Rational Rabbit Hole no. 15

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace on the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword [of division between belief and unbelief].”

Embrace the Within.

Jean-Baptist Alphonse wrote this phrase in French back in 1849 and how much of the truth is contained in these words, “The more things change, the more things remain the same.” After my return recently to Christianity, I see that even though I have changed in my faith and understanding of God, there are many folks still playing the same games with God and the world of mankind. I see that many are still missing the warning of Christ present in both Matthew and Luke about serving two masters or two gods. If you are unfamiliar with that warning, then here are two translations of those warnings:

“How could you worship two gods at the same time? You will have to hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t worship the true God while enslaved to the god of money”(Matthew 6:24 TPT).

“It is impossible for a person to serve two masters at the same time. You will be forced to love one and reject the other. One master will be despised and the other will have your loyal devotion. Your choice between God and the wealth of this world is no different. You must enthusiastically love one and definitively reject the other”(Luke 16:13 TPT)

And I see that folks are still trying to follow the ways of the world while saying they are following the ways of Christ. That doesn’t work out well in the end for your soul. My time away from Christianity was in my failure to see that the problems I had with Christianity were not problems with the Father, Son, or Spirit, these problems I had were with people getting caught up in things that were not Christian. Now, after my return to the Word, I see that much of those same problems are still evident in folks playing church. Over the past two decades, I see this played out in Catholic churches in the Easter and Christmas Catholics. I see folks online posting scripture and still morally confused. I see folks professing Christianity BUT lacking a love of God which lies at the core of both the Ten Commandments and Christ’s Two Commandments. Without loving God, the path forward is problematic.

In my days away from Christ, I wasn’t the most immoral of beings. I was looking for a set of guidelines that made sense for my life. I found a lot of those moral guidelines in libertarian, stoic, voluntaryist, and anarchist philosophies. BUT those ideas were not the end of my journey as I thought they might be. My journey for truth led me to the Truth. You can live a moral life. You can do good without being a Christian. You can practice the nonaggression principle, you can respect the right of choice, you can live a life where you do not hurt people and do not take their things, BUT that is not enough to make you a Christian. Being moral isn’t enough to make you like Christ.

You can be a good enough person without being a follower of the Almighty. You can do well enough as an atheist or an agnostic to be morally centered and not filled with hypocrisy. Then what’s the point of calling yourself a follower of Christ and not being morally centered and being a hypocrite? I just don’t get it. You can’t serve two gods.

There is no peace within your nephesh when you are playing games with God. There is no peace within your nephesh when you are trying to do right by the kingdom of men and the kingdom of God. The great thing is that you can stop. You get to choose your level of involvement. You get to choose if you are all in for Christ or if you want the approval of the world of mankind. BUT you are not going to get both. Your nephesh, your choice.

Peace to your house. Bless your being. The kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Have the day you want. I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #MyNepheshMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain #EmbracetheWithin