In the Bible, however, some people seemed to get what they wanted when they complained.

I think if we are always in the mood of flower and sunshine, our prayers would lack power. We need to have a go-getter attitude. When we do, however, my experience taught me that it is easy to invest too much emotions into what we ask for, and when things don’t line up with what God promised, our anger or other negative emotions can overtake us.

It is not always a bad thing to feel bad about what we don’t get, because if we don’t feel bad at all, we might not get. We need to fight sometimes. Don’t back off everytime our prayers don’t get an answer.

At the same time, you can’t get too mad, because a whining attitude won’t get us far with God. The Bible shows what happened to some people when they whined. God let whiny people go. Sometimes God just doesn’t response to the whinning at all.

But, again, there are times when complaints seemed to work!

I compiled a list of Bible passages that illustrate this truth.

Samson

Judges 15:18

Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the LORD, “You have given your servant this great victory. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

Then God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived. So the spring was called En Hakkore, and it is still there in Lehi.Samson led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.

Samson was a servant of God, who had supernatural strength. He killed a thousand enemies of God, and got thirsty because of that. I was surprised he simply complained instead of asking respectfully first, but God still responded to him and gave him the water. He went on to be successful for 20 years.

Jacob

Genesis 30:29-30

²⁹ Jacob said to him, “You know how I have worked for you and how your livestock has fared under my care. ³⁰ The little you had before I came has increased greatly, and the LORD has blessed you wherever I have been. But now, when may I do something for my own household?”

Jacob had worked under his boss for 14 years, but he got crossed many times. Finally he complained to his boss, and God helped Jacob to get back what his boss wrongfully kept from him, and many times more. That night, God gave Jacob a dream, and taught him what to do.

It was when Jacob finally stood up to his boss, that God finally acted in his favor. (Genesis 31: 12-13)

Elijah

1 Kings 19:3-5

³ Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, ⁴ while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” ⁵ Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.

Elijah was one of the most powerful men of God. His prayers were powerful. He could order the sky to stop raining for a few years, revive a dead kid, and bring fire from heaven to burn the enemies of God. But when an evil queen sworn to kill him, he was burned out, and said quit. He asked God to let him die. God listened, but not before He used him to train a disciple to succeed him. It took ten years for God to grant his wish. He didn’t die, but God brough him straight to heaven.

Moses

Exodus 5:22 – 6:1

²² Moses returned to the LORD and said, “Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? ²³ Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.”

¹ Then the LORD said to Moses, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country.”

God asked Moses to see Pharaoh, and to request him to let the Jews (the Israel nation) to leave Eygpt and worship God, but instead of granting that request, Pharaoh imposed a harsher condition upon the people of Israel. Moses was angry and complained to God “you have not rescued your people at all”.

God once again promised Moses that he would save the people. I wonder how long would it take for God to say something if Moses took his sweet time, played it cool, and just sat there musing about “Sky isn’t always blue”, or “God has his own timing”. Would God wait another 40 years before he act? He had already waited for Moses until he reached age 80 before he called him to lead the Israel nation out of Eygpt!

Hannah

1 Samuel 1:1-19

¹ There was a certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite^[a] from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. ² He had two wives; one was called Hannah and the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none.

³ Year after year this man went up from his town to worship and sacrifice to the LORD Almighty at Shiloh, where Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the LORD. ⁴ Whenever the day came for Elkanah to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters. ⁵ But to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her, and the LORD had closed her womb. ⁶ Because the LORD had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. ⁷ This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the LORD, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. ⁸ Her husband Elkanah would say to her, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?”

⁹ Once when they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on his chair by the doorpost of the LORD’s house. ¹⁰ In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the LORD, weeping bitterly. ¹¹ And she made a vow, saying, “LORD Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.”

…

¹⁹ Early the next morning they arose and worshiped before the LORD and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah made love to his wife Hannah, and the LORD remembered her. ²⁰ So in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel,^[b] saying, “Because I asked the LORD for him.”

Hannah was bullied by her sister wife, because she was dearly loved by their husband. Let’s not get into the issue of polygamy and how the Bible dare to tell a story about a polygamy family. This was what they did, and when people wanted it that way, not even God could change that.

So Hannah was upset, and not even her husband could comfort her. The Lord “had closed Hannah’s womb”, and for what? I don’t know, but sometimes the Lord does irritating things to us for God knows why, literally. Hannah didn’t settle for that, but she went before God and wept “bitterly”. She poured her heart out, and the Lord gave her a son. Not only that, but later, God gave her more children (1 Samuel 2:21).

Job

I saw something inspiring for everyone of us though. Some kids understandably cried, while a few of the kids got rowdy and even violent, and fewer kids were perfectly cool about it.

In these videos I noticed something interesting. If the parents told this to their kids in a quiet and apologetical manner, the kids were more calm. Those who asked their kids “would you forgive me?” usually got forgiven for “eating all their candies”. To the parents who were used to being playful, the kids usually suspected if it was a trick, even though eventually they still got pranked and cried, they quickly recovered after learning the truth. To the parents who mentioned the words “forgive”, their kids were more calm and composed, upon learning this traumatizing news. This shows us visually the power of Biblical teaching.

I can’t judge the parenting skills of those parents in the videos based on the short clips, but I think the general pattern is there. Kids mirror their parents. If the parents always create conflicts at home, the kids would have lower EQ. If the parents set a good example, the kids are set for a smoother life. I believe in this principle as I myself had had very bad EQ growing up, due to the lack of good examples from adults. I was always a drama queen! I was used to conflicts all my childhood.

Later in life, I found out that there were better ways to deal with drama. I met a few people here or there who stayed cool when encountering problems that would have made me throw a fit.

Those were the embarassing times that I had. I have changed slowly over the years, but my drama queen self was stubborn. It took so many years. It is a much easier life for those who are able to manage their emotion well.

When we have a stable mind, we can avoid escalating a bad situation, and quickly come up with solutions. Most of the challenges that we are facing are fluff. They are ignorable. If we just let things go more often, and be patient, we would have bypassed so many unnecessary troubles. They would have died off naturally if we don’t feed them more negative energy. We will have another chance to make that money back. We will meet someone special next time. We will get another job. There will always be a second chance. It is never too late. God might tell us he ate all our candies, but we don’t have to throw a fit, just stay cool. There are always more candies.

By the way, we shouldn’t celebrate Halloween. It is a dark day. A lot of satanic rituals and human sacrifice are going on during October. Many evil things take place in the month. We should rather fast and pray for our nations, and the victims during October. Do not teach your kids to celerbate Halloween!

There are still too many people who are trying to deny the need for angelic ministry, divine dreams, and visions. They argue that we already have the complete Bible to follow, so we don’t need supernatural dreams and visions. For the reasons I am going to share, I don’t agree with the anti-supernatural stance.

Many Christians are afraid to talk about demons, although the reality of demons are very real. Almost every other person on earth has experienced demonic nightmares or other paranormal experiences before. The paranormal activities are so common, in fact, that any serious and honest scientific study actually proves them instead of debunking them. How much longer can we deny the existence of supernatural evil and suffer the consequences of such denial? We need angelic help for this time more than ever. For example, the Halloween is tomorrow, and informed people know that the Satanists and Luciferians abduct people for human sacrifices on the Halloween. On the other hand, there are quite a few reports that angels intervened and kept cult victims alive until they got out of the cult. Can we finally open our eyes and see the world as it is? i.e. Darkness vs Light

The world is hardly as boring as we think it is.

I feel that the Lord is leading me toward writing and researching more about the supernatural. Divine dreams and visions can give us life changing experience. They can help us break out of our shells. We as humans tend to be set in our ways. We love our traditions more than the truth, but almost every institutional Christian I talk to deny that, until I pointed out the difference between their churches and the churches in the Bible.

Even apostle Peter was part of non-Israelite, non-Jews discrimination until God told him through a dream that salvation was for everyone (Acts 11). It was already written in the Old Testament that God wanted to bless everyone, not just the Israelites, but human tradition of the Jew refused to accept that. They had the Bible to tell them the truth, but it was not until God giving Peter that dream that he started to change his mind.

Folks, we are a supernatural people, but we are so powerful that we can prevent the supernatural from appearing if we want to, by our negative faith and unwillingness to invite God and the angels to intervene with our life. We can make ourselves forget the dreams the night before, and in fact, many people do forget prophetic dreams, because in general we forget dreams. We can make our church a un-supernatural church through the lack of faith, and denial of anything supernatural. It’s like one of those characters in superhero movies and TV shows who have the supernatural power to supress/muffle the powers of others.

We need more than ever than before to embrace a go big or go home attitude. The truth is exciting. The sad reality is deceptive, boring, and mediocre. Which one do you want to choose?

How many more death can we prevent if we as people of God start having more supernatural foresights and stay away from dangers? How many more souls we can save if we allow God to direct us whom to talk to each day and present the Gospel to them? Our ministries will be much more fruitful than ever if we invite God and his angels to participate.

What about you? Have you ever had a supernatural experiences? Miracle? Dreams? Visions? Out of body experience? Angelic visitation? Feel free to write about any incident of you receiving divine help from God, or spiritual attacks from Satan and demons.

The idea of “colonization” has been on my mind, and I think God planted it in me. Churches are like colonies of heaven on earth. It is the most dangerous idea against Satan, second to God’s plan of Salvation. As I browsed through profiles of children waiting for adoption, I found quite a few of them stating on their profiles that they wish to continue their church life should they find a new family. A Christian family is a church in itself. If we give them a family, and let them function as a member of the family church, the spiritual potential is huge.

I believe that many of you already know that church isn’t just about going to a meeting twice a week, but it’s 24/7. When we adopt kids, it means doing life together with them. It requires giving up a lot of things. When we include them in our real families, not just helping through cold institutions such as charity organizations, we share our life with them. They become part of our daily errands. They get to see our joy, pains, embarrassed moments, weaknesses, hypocracies, road rages, and so on. Hopefully, we Christians will show a lot more christ-likeness than sinful nature to our kids.

This was how Jesus did it. He recruited disciples and lived with them. Wherever he went, they followed. Jesus didn’t hide from them behind the pulpit. They got to see him thirsty, hungry, tired, irritated, happy, sad… I guessed they had seen him peed too. It has to be true, because they didn’t had public washrooms at the time, so how else could Jesus take care of his human needs if not doing it behind the bushes?

Back to the idea of colony. I believe God wants big families for those who have the opportunities to, because big families are shining examples of how God bless his children with prosperity (health, finance, and wisdom), and the influence of big, godly families to society is huge. He commanded human kind to “Be fruitful, and multiply” (Genesis 9:1). It only takes a few big families to create a town, and a few generations to build a city. If you don’t think you are good at evangelizing to strangers, but are good at parenting and making money, then maybe God is calling you to build his churches through reproduction and adoption.

I believe in the command of “Be fruitful, and multiply” literally. I don’t believe in global warming and overpopulation. These demonic propagandas are just excuses that evil people use to increase their control over the people, and to murder. We see how the Western world  is deteroriating due to depopulation, dis-industrialization, and self-hatred. When we go in the opposite direction of the Lord’s commandment, what else could we expect?

If you want a good example, then take a look at Duggars’ family! They have 19 children and 2 grandchildren. You can see their reality show and interviews on Youtube. They are a very happy, fulfilled, and productive family, based on what I see from the TV. When the parents are skillful, it doesn’t matter if there are only 2 kids or 19 kids. Just imagine the contribution they can make to the kingdom of God if their offsprings continue to create large families. In just a few generations, they will become a Christian nation.

Colonization is probably the best way to transform a nation. When the number of people who believe in the same values reach a critical mass, and they live together in a community, their influence will transform the rest of the society. As a Chinese who had lived in a UK colony, Hong Kong, for 18 years, I know the power of colonization. For only 100 years, this city has out-wealthed the rest of China for a long time, and its culture has been a shining example that the mainland China sought after for decades. Today, many tourists from mainland China still commended the culture and prosperity of Hong Kong, and wished their hometown was as civilized and westernized.

This was why the early century churches had such a huge impact to the world in their time. God knew what he was doing when he sent his Son Jesus Christ to go about recruiting disciples, and later build the churches through them. Colonization was the idea that God had in mind. Too bad, that today’s churches have gone off track and become smart in their own eyes. They think they know how to improve doing churches, by using institutions, instead of families churches.

I want to adopt 20+ kids eventually, if the world hasn’t ended by the time I reach the skill level to be able to run a huge family.

Beside, many children are being abused as I am typing this. Time is running out. We need more loving Christians couples to rescue them and give them a home.

James 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

Matthew 18:10 See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.

See a very good video for a Christian single mom who adopted 7 kids, and some of them were heavily abused before.

The key is to believe that you really did forgive after you made that decision.

Forgiving someone doesn’t necessarily make us forget the pains, nor does it 100% prevent us from reliving the experience, though it is part of the healing. This is why it is so hard to believe that we really have forgiven the people who hurt us.

If I can forgive, I believe most people also can. Let me explains.

I Can’t Help But Have to Relive Hurtful Experiences Many Times

If not for God, I would be living with a full blown Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to my childhood. I am not going to share the details for now, but I want to tell you that even with my walk with God, the way my brain works is still different than those who grew up with a relatively unthreatening childhood. I had a hard time focusing on anything without reliving unpleasant memory, and intrusive thoughts that are upsetting. My conditions have a lot to do with many years of conditioning. For example, if you get repeatedly punished under certain circumstance, that circumstance will trigger a state of fear every time you find yourself in it.

When you are in a state of fear, you would have a hard time focusing, and thus couldn’t function well. For me, I have a lot of triggers because I got repeatedly punished for things big or small. Before I recognized my condition for what it is, I often kept trying to overcome it with more fears and self-punishment. I kept pushing myself to change and to be on par with other people. Sometimes, this appoarch only gives me self-fulfilling prophecies—the more I feed my fears, the more they become real.

For many years, I didn’t realize that they are symtoms of CPTSD, but during my many years of search for answers to my struggles, I have identified many symptoms that I recently came to understand as part of the CPTSD. They sabotaged my relationship, health, spirituality, career, finance, success, and so much of everything in my life. Many times I had to take long walks to cool down my thoughts. People don’t know why I am always alone, and am always thinking. I am always compelled by a strong, persistent need to think about my past, and to ask a lot of questions to many things in my life, especially the failures/disappointments. I have a hard time of letting things go.

I have decided many time to let go of my past, and for periods of times I was successful, but sometimes my condition would come back. Let me explain.

The Arhitecture of My Brain

It turns out that a child who had trauma or fears often enough would have a very different brain arhitecture comparing with a healthy child. Stress hormones surpass the growth of certain brain cells and promote emotional memory. It makes the child retaining emotional memory better. That brain would find it hard to distinguish what is threatening or what not (any emotional or hurtful experience would be perceived as threatening to my brain). It significantly surpass the learning ability of the child.

To me, it means that everything negative that people say or do to me tend to stick in my mind for a long time. My brain cannot distinguish and prioritize these experiences easily. It will relieve the experiences obsessively over and over again until I can find a satisfying closure to them. However, new hurtful experience will trigger the old ones, and the old ones in turns trigger the older ones. I have to find new closures to my experiences when new ones triggers the old ones.

This Trains Me to Forgive

If normal people experience some small hurts, they would forget or ignore them much easier. They would have to forgive just one or two times, or they would totally forget about it before it even gets under their nerves. For me, I often have to forgive everytime I relieve the experiences.

Not only that, since we have to live with the consequences of what other people did to us, we may from time to time discover that the extent of the damages are more than we thought initially. For example, when I discovered what I had to live with was in fact CPTSD, this new finding wound me in many new ways. I realize that the degree of hurts and handicap I have to endure is much deeper than I thought. I have to re-affirm my previous decisions to forgive my abusers, who gave me this long term struggle that has tormented me for so long.

While I did forgive them for hurting me then, I didn’t prepare to face so many negative consequences that I had been constantly discovering afterward. Each time I discovered a new collateral damage (sometimes the Holy Spirit brought that piece of memory to my mind to explain something to me), I have to re-forgive again.

Trauma Begets Trauma

An abuse victim tends to attract new abusers into his or her life. There are a lot of explanation to this, but this is a fact for sure. I can testify this in my own life. Thank God, because of His grace, I would say this is much less a problem than it could be, but I still have this struggle. I wish I am immune to bullies and abusers, but as of writing I still feel like an abusers magnet!

Attracting abusers is only one way of begetting new trauma. There are also other factors that make a victim’s life very difficult. This is like the rich gets richer and the poor and poorer. Sufferers of abuses are prone to addictions, financial struggles, illnesses, crimes, and other manifestations of trauma. They tend to reinforce and feed upon each other to create a living hell for the sufferers. For example, I have major struggle with focus in workplace, and when I was employed I constantly worried about getting fired. The anixety only made me even less functional in the workplace. Financial and career struggle wound my self-esteem continuously, make me doubt God, and make me financially dependent on others (who could be my abusers).

It is getting better because at least I now understand what caused my career and financial struggle, as well as other struggles, and knowing is a major key to healing. I am looking into Cognitive behavioral therapy, with the help of God, to unlearn my fear and anxiety.

So How to Forgive

I believe each time we discover something new about an emotional wound inflicted by someone, we should forgive. It takes faith, not feeling. If we wait for the right feeling before we forgive, it would be too late. This world is full of trauma and wickedness, so if we wait for the right feeling, there will probably be many more new wounds before the right feeling ever arrives.

Wounds that aren’t healed will fester. They will produce bitterness and curses. The unforgiving person will eventually become the same as the perpetuators who hurt him, because the bonds between the abusers and the victims will shape and mold the victims, unless the victims undo the bonds by forgiveness.

When you decide to forgive someone, believe that it is done. You may use some rituals to help convince yourself of that. You may say, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I forgive *name* for doing *details* to me”. I find it more assuring to clearly outline what and whom I forgive for.

Sometimes, the person who hurts us will be around for a long time. Forgiveness isn’t pardon. We can avoid that person to prevent him for hurting us more, take legal actions if necessary, and cry out to God to deliver us from our enemies if they are hard to get rid of.

It used to take repeated effort for me to make certain that I have forgiven someone. I might have to relive the hurtful experience against my will from time to time, but I make it very clear to myself, to God, and to Satan that I already forgave and the hurtful feeling is just a feeling. In my earlier years, I used to doubt if I was being bitter, but after many years of practice, I learn to distinguish between bitterness, and natural feeling that comes with memory. I am not God. I cannot make myself forget certain things at will, but when I forgive, it usually turns out that the memory doesn’t hurt as bad in the long run.

~~~~~~~~

Forgiveness is the beginning of healing and blessing. If we don’t forgive, God won’t forgive us (Matthew 6:14-16). If we live without God, we are the same as the sinners who hurt us. We will do something equally bad, if not worst, to people like what they did to us. Unforgiveness puts us on the same ground as our worst offenders.

It is only the first step. The healing process can be long and painful, especially for those who have lived through major or prolonged trauma, so let the healing start as soon as possible.

Let us all forgive. Unforgiveness is probably one of the biggest reason why people fail to make it into heaven. If you are a born again Christian, make sure you don’t let any unrepented sin, including unforgiveness, to hinder you in your walk with God.

God bless you and one day we will meet in heaven.

It bothers me that often times I had allowed self-limiting thoughts sabotage and stifle my potentials and successes. There were successes that I didn’t really understand how they happened, but I somehow achieved them. Looking back I can say with certainty that the principle of faith was the key that led to those successes. When I failed, or something that I dread would happen happened, the main cause was my “negative faith”.

“Negative faith” isn’t just the absence of faith, and it is more than just doubts. It is “faith in doubts” or “faith in the deceptions”. Instead of believing in the promises of God, negative faith places faith in the doubts, or fears. Negative faith believes that the things that one fears would actualize. It predicts the negative outcomes. It analyzes the situations or experiences, and concludes that the negatives will persist even though the words of God oppose them.

Negative faith rationalizes the existence of the negatives and looks for ways to cope with them. It lets the contradictions exist, even while they oppose the words of God.

Negative faith can be very subtle. Sincere Christians can have it but not realize it. In the last year, ever since I wrote the articles “Parable of the Mustard Seed“  and “Testimonies of Faith“, my eyes have been opened and started to recognize more and more instances of how I, and others around me, practice negative faith without realizing it. When I catch myself saying things or thinking things that contradicted the words of God, I rebuked the thoughts and words. The results are liberating. I understand the Bible more, and am able to recall and quote the words of God better.

Hopefully by this point you are already sympathizing with what I feel here. Maybe you are also thinking about times that you did what I did to myself. The fact is that almost all people do it to themselves in many different forms and ways. We truly have become the master of negative faith, and we have devised many subtles and creatives ways to think and say things that sabotage our destinies.

People practice  negative faith in different styles. They are really hard to spot. It took me a year to figure out the styles and there may even be more. Hopefully by the end of this article, you will pass on the torch and bring this battle into your own sphere of influence. Never let yourself or your loved ones to stay in these traps.

Styles of Negative Faith and biblical lessons that counter them:

1. The Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

This is a major one. Many of us are really good at predicting our predicaments. Somehow the images and scenarios in our heads often find their ways into reality. Have you wondered why? We talk about it and analyze it based on logics and past experiences. It seems very reasonable that the thing we dread could very well happen, and boy it does. What about this bible verse?

Psalm 34

⁴ I sought the LORD, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.

The Lord promised that He would deliver you from all your fears if you sought Him. If we don’t demonstrate that faith, but instead talk about our fears and groom predictions, He can’t save us from our fears. Faith is necessary before we can get anything from the Lord.

Numbers 14:26-29

²⁶ The LORD said to Moses and Aaron: ²⁷ “How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites. ²⁸ So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very thing I heard you say: ²⁹ In this wilderness your bodies will fall—every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me.

Don’t ever say things that prophesize the coming of unpleasant events, such as sickness, rejections, failures, disasters, betrayal, and the like. It might feel good to vent out the feelings, but do you really mean to contradict the words of God? If you do, the be prepared to accept that just as you say, so shall it be. This is why we need to consciously exercise active faith to reaffirm our agreement with the words. Not only do we have to read the Bible often, but we have to agree with what it says in our unique situation, all the time.

2. Rational Analysts

We can easily find out quite a few disadvantageous factors that could work against us in everything we do, if we apply our mind to those things. Whenever you analyze things, it can go both ways. There are negative and positive sides to everything. I think positive thinking is overrated, but negative thinking isn’t good either if it contradicts with the words of God. So what if you are too young? or too old? So what if you don’t speak English? People succeed left and right no matter where they are. People get rich in their 90s. An old man accepted Jesus at age 103, and had brought more than a hundred of people to Christ before he died at 105. Some become ultra successful before 16 (Justin Bieber?)

You can find a lot of weaknesses in these people, but they still made it despites many factors that work against them.

Humans tend to label. Somehow if we put a label on every single thing in our world, we feel safer. Sadly, we seldom double check our labels against the words of God. We labels people as dumb, unattractive, strange, lame, suck, fat, creep, old, immature, jerk, fob (fresh off the board)… These labels maybe true, but we should at least work on being more biblical (and accurate) when we try to label ourselves and others.

And don’t ask why all the time, “Why am I ALWAYS sinning?”, or “Why do I fail again?”. They are not really questions so much as complains and doubts. These questions will give power to the very things that you are trying to defeat or avoid.

Remember, everything can change right now right here if you exercise biblical faith. Every mountain has to move if you command it to move with the faith of mustard seed. Instead of wasting time and energy analyzing and labeling our situation, why don’t we look into the Bible and find specific messages from God that negate the negatives in our life? Everything is possible to him who believes.

3. Therapeutic Chatter

When people have destroyed their life enough with self-fulfilling prophecies and over analyses, they started to feel the weight of regrets and pains (such as depression or mid-life crises). If you are old enough, you know what I am talking about. At some points in our life, we will feel our share of regrets: things that we could have done, opportunities that we had missed, people that we failed to cherish, events and moments of rejection…

So we follow the good old advice of the experts and think we should talk about our past to ensure our psychological and mental health. We recall hurtful things and events, and vent them out to our therapists and friends. It always feel good at the moment, but the more we wail and talk about our past, the more we repeat it. Don’t talk in a way that  gives power to the things you talk about.

For example, don’t say, “I always get burned in relationship. This is my Xth breakup (or divorce). What do you think? I really don’t know what to do now! It’s very painful!” “I wish I am as lucky as she is!” or “I wish I am smarter, but I am so dumb!” At least stop using present tense when you talk about your negative in life. Don’t say “I always” this or that if it is followed by something negative that you don’t want in your life. Don’t talk about how you always sin or fail at doing something, and don’t label yourself as dumb or whatever, because these are totally at odds with what God says.

What did God say?

Jeremiah 33:3

³ ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’     (SK: Never say you don’t know! Because if you call God He will answer you and tell you what you don’t know)

James 1:5

⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. (SK: Don’t call yourself stupid!  Wisdom is free and you can have it right away if you just ask)

What if you don’t follow the advice and instead continue to speak doubts?

James 1:6-7

⁶ But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷ That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. ⁸ Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

You will get nothing from God! Nothing means nothing. Any good thing that the Bible says is yours will never come true for you if you don’t have faith to receive it.

So instead of talking about the mountains in your life, exercise your faith to remove them now. Instead of talking about how you got rejected by someone, pray for the special person that God thinks you deserve to have and believe that God will give you if you simply ask and not doubt.

Can you imagine the General of the army of USA speaking to the press with sobs when he updated them during the 2003 invasion of Iraq? No, it would never happen. He would talk about how fast it was going to be and how the Saddam’s regime would be over. He would talk about how amazing the plan was going to be executed and stuff.

A Christian is like the General of the heavenly army. We all have the entire heaven and earth in our disposal—if we only exerce our biblical rights to command them. It would be absurb to hear Christians talking about their circumstances and struggles with tears in their eyes, as if they can’t control it, but in fact they do have control. If they only knew.

However, we do can cry for sinners, because no one can control their will if they refuse to repent. Just don’t cry about the circumstances, events, or abstract things such as “talents”, “depression”, “success”, because these things don’t have free will, and therefore have to obey your command. Crying over these things is like a kid falling on the floor, and then get mad at the floor.

4. Step By Step How To

Just like how positive thinking is overrated, the how-to is also overrated. Today we have so many books, seminars, workshops, sermons, and etc that teach us the “How”, but like the negative faith, we can put too much confidence and faith into the “how”.

Should I call it “how faith”? Doesn’t sound like a good idea…

Ok, the “how to” really isn’t that important. According to the Bible:

Mark 4:26-27

And He said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how.

Though it might seems like everything that we care to desire comes step by step, but in fact it is not. The steps are just the way God choose to do things. He is organized and methological, but the ultimate reason that things come about isn’t the steps, it is faith.

You don’t really need to worry about the steps. They will manifest themselves at the right time in the right place if you simply have faith.

Be careful, because if you one day achieve wild success by hitting on the right spiritual note, but couldn’t see the real spiritual reason why, you may attribute your success to the “how” and the steps. Instead of giving glory to God, you announce to the world how you achieve your success by going through certain steps and hows. That would be bad.

Next time if you want to achieve something, pray and immediately act upon the spiritual intuition that you sense in your spirit. I find that God really answer this kind of prayer real quick. The steps that it really takes to reach your goal are really few and simple, but if you ask people, they will most likely complicate it and lead you to every direction except the most direct path that God impresses upon your spirit.

Some people do offer some good information, but you have to exercise your spiritual discernments. The good also come with the bad. Whenever people show you the straight path and the crooked paths, just take the straight path.

The shortest distant between point A and point Z is a straight line. Don’t go from B  to C, and then D, and then E F G H D C B D C… You will be lost in the labyrinth before you know it. To know more about what I am trying to say, go to point 6-7.

Isaiah 45:2

I will go before you and will level the mountains; I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron.

Hold on to Isaiah 45:2 firmly, and God will honor His promise if you believe. If you think this promise only worked for people in the Old Testament, or that it was only for  King Cyrus (See Isaiah 45) then it really won’t deliver for you.

5. Pride of Experiences

People seldom allow you to frog leap toward the destinations you want to go. They would give you all kind of guilt trips that they believe you have to go through. They think you should pay your due just like they do, before you deserve any success that they don’t have. Therefore, most of the time it is not wise to consult with normal people. They are normal, not extraordinary, because of their lack of faith. If you have to consult, consult those who actually have faith and demonstrated results.

People would talk about how they had climbed up the corporate ladder, how they had made many mistakes, how they had been through ups and downs, how they had put up with bosses and lived to tell the tales, but at the end of the day, they were only get-along-to-go-along. They were survivors, not conquerers.

In the Bible, however, God’s faithful people frog leaped into high positions and wild successes regardless of how old, young, experienced, or inexperienced, they were. The key is to have faith at all time regardless of what state you are in. Daniel was in his early 20s, maybe barely 19, when he became a governer of a major province.

Here are some biblical examples of what attitudes we should or should not have based on this familiar account of teenager David Vs  Giant Goliath:

Watch this quick video if you are not familiar with this Bible story:

Circumstance is scary:

1 Samuel 17:4-7

⁴ A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span.^{[a] 5} He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels; ⁶ on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. ⁷ His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him.

Should Not:

1 Samuel 17:11

¹¹ On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

Should:

1 Samuel 17:26

²⁶ David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

Should Not: (Experience’s talking)

1 Samuel 17:28

²⁸ When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, “Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.” (SK: David’s oldest brother told David to go back to pay his due. War is not for kids! It is not your playground here)

Should:

1 Samuel 17:32

³² David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”

Should Not: (More Experience’s talk)

1 Samuel 17:33

³³ Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.” (SK: More experience’s talk. )

Should:

1 Samuel 17:34

³⁴ But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, ³⁵ I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. ³⁶ Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. ³⁷ The LORD who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”

Should Not:

1 Samuel 17:38

³⁸ Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. ³⁹ David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.

Should:

1 Samuel 17:39-40

“I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off. ⁴⁰ Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine. (David got guts!)

So there you go. Experience could be harmful. Not only does it not help sometimes, often times the wrong people with a lifetime experience of mediocracy could conform you into their medocracies of the same.

6. I will do Y if I have X

“If I stop sinning, I will…”, “If I finish reading the whole Bible, I will…”, “If I become the leader, I will…”, “After I take this course, I will..”, “When I have money, I will…”

Familiar isn’t it?

We will never have enough X’s to do the Y’s. X is just an illusion that is never enough, and Y is always postponed as long as we think we need X.

The sad reality is, not only do we always think we need X before we can get Y, but we also think we need W before we need X.

The list will extend as we grow up or age and become more “mature”. Finally we will accept the “reality”. Instead of going straight for the X, we start from A, and then B, and then C, and so on.

In point number 4, I discussed we often place our faith in the hows. In this point, we imagine a list of steps and hows that we don’t really need. We dread the X, and therefore the brain imagines the A to W out of thin air, to make us feel comfortable with procrastination.

A biblical example:

Exodus 4:10-14

¹⁰ Moses said to the LORD, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”

¹¹ The LORD said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the LORD? ¹² Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

¹³ But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”

¹⁴ Then the LORD’s anger burned against Moses

When the Lord called Moses to work for him, Moses imagined he needed to be an eloquent orator, but the Lord was much more direct. God would give him what he needed to accomplish what he was called to do.

7. Labyrinth

The combination of some or all of the points here creates a labyrinth in the victim’s mind. He will never reach the destination because of the labyrinth he is getting lost in. He starts from A, then B, C, D, B, A, E, B… wandering in the desert. He will never reach X, let alone Z. Many spiritual traps and mental detours mentioned in this article will make sure his destiny is forever deviated from God’s plan for him.

This is why the Bible says:

Proverbs 23-27

²³ Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.
²⁴ Keep your mouth free of perversity;
keep corrupt talk far from your lips.
²⁵ Let your eyes look straight ahead;
fix your gaze directly before you.
²⁶ Give careful thought to the^[c] paths for your feet
and be steadfast in all your ways.
²⁷ Do not turn to the right or the left;
keep your foot from evil.

Problem is, instead of pointing out the truth, ministers and teachers would call it the “desert experience”, and say it is a blessing in disguise. However, deserts are never positive in the Bible.

8. The Tyranny of Majority

People like security. They think if most people do it, then it is safe. The Bible says otherwise.

Matthew 7:14

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Most people do not have faith, including many in the Churches. Going to churches doesn’t mean one is on the narrow road. Doing churches is still part of the broad road. The narrow road is to obey the Bible and do what it says.

It is the same for everything in life. Few people get the fruits at the tops. Few people find the right path to do things. Make sure you are prepared to walk alone, because doing the right things require us to walk alone.

We have all felt the need to copy someone and do what other people do sometimes, but when you get down into it, the wise ways to do things that make so much sense to us deep within are usually the best ways.

9. The Middle ground

The average between broad and narrow is still too broad. People think that if they take the average of every major position it would be safe, but it is not. Your life is at stake here. The middle ground between truth and lie is still lie.

This is why diversification and mutual funds will never get you retired early. If you listen to what most people say, and invest a little bit in everything, you will never come out ahead. The legendary investor, Warren Buffet, has lived in his hometown Omaha almost his entire life instead of the Wall Street, which is full of people who are at odds with the way Warren Buffet invests.

You don’t have to follow the crowd, nor do you have to take any middle ground in order to make it.

Don’t agree with what people say about you easily. You don’t have to agree to please. People like compromises and they want you to compromise as well. Take a stand in your belief and what you really want if it is biblical. Don’t ever let anyone put you through guilt trips or longer-cuts. You don’t need other’s permission to do what is right, as long as it is legal and biblical.

In the Bible, there are many stories that talk about how people were rewarded for standing their ground. (Numbers 14:20-25; Jeremiah 35; Daniel 1:11-20; Daniel 3; Daniel 6)

10. False Dilemma

Some of the most religious people often make this mistakes. Spiritual people are not exempted either. Both of them are not biblical believers, so this is why. They often think they can either have this or that, but not both. For example, many of them think they can only be humble if they are small guys doing small stuff for God. They refuse to reach out to the sick and lay hand on them to get them healed, because they think they would be proud if they can heal the sick.

The same faith that triggers the healing power of God is the same faith that enables us to be humble. We can’t truly be humble if we don’t follow God’s command and believe in His promises. He promised that “these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will…place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” (Mark 16: 15-18)

Same for the absurd belief that we shouldn’t pray for prosperity and health. Being rich doesn’t have to be selfish or greedy. If I am rich, I will give as much as I can until I have just enough to live and do what I have to do.

Same for those who refuse to consider homeschooling their kids because they think their kids should know what the world is like, and have normal social life. Truth is homeschool kids in general are more mature, happy, intelligent, accomplished, and socially developed.

11. The “I Don’t Know”

Peope like to say “I don’t know”. We have to realize that this is a self-curse. If you say it all the time, it will cause you to become brain-dead. Have you wondered where that “mind fog” came from? It causes distraction, blank state, memory loss, and lack of clarity. For some people, they often see the answers in their mind. They are able to accomplish so much in life. It also happens that they are often the people who believe they will find the answers to things.

Intuition is spiritual. Don’t block your intuition and brain power by cursing yourself with “I don’t know”. You can download knowledge from God anytime.

Jeremiah 33:3

³ ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’

James 1:5

⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. (SK: Even God doesn’t criticize you, so stop doing it to yourself, just ask for wisdom if you want it)

Ecclesiastes 2:26

²⁶ To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. (SK: Don’t be a whining sinner who works in vain for the his/her entire life)

Proverbs 2:2-6

² turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding—
³ indeed, if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
⁴ and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
⁵ then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.
⁶ For the LORD gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

Just cry aloud for things that you want. Don’t say sarcastic things. Don’t do double talks. Don’t self depreciate.

For example, if you want to learn how to sing, the first thing is to cry for skill, knowledge, and anything you need from God. Many musicians don’t take official lessons. They just play by the ears. It just comes to them. This is spiritual. You have to master this skill too.

No wonder even though I had learned playing piano for six years, I had totally wasted my time. Without the score sheet, I couldn’t play any song. With a sheet, I can play immediately, but only with one hand. I have never played a song perfect without making a mistake or two, and bad rhythmn. And I couldn’t wrap my head around the music theory. I had failed music class again and again. It almost caused me to fail my honor program. I majored in Math, but the music classes were just elective courses.

Of course back then I had done all the mistakes that I am listing here.

12. False Humility

To avoid being hated by people, or punished by God, or doing any real work, many Christians practice unbiblical humility. This is totally self-destructive. Don’t say, “I am nothing”, “I am a sinner and will always be”, “I am not perfect because no one is perfect”, because it shows a lack of faith and it contradicts with the words of God, just like what happens below:

Malachi 3:13-15

¹³ “You have spoken arrogantly against me,” says the LORD.

“Yet you ask, ‘What have we said against you?’

¹⁴ “You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What do we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the LORD Almighty? ¹⁵ But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly evildoers prosper, and even when they put God to the test, they get away with it.’”

If your words contradict God’s words, which words are right? If you dare contradict the words of God, then isn’t it arrogant? Isn’t that a rebuke against God?

To be fair, some Christians practice unbiblical humility only because they were influenced by the subtle, mixed teaching of the churches. This is a problem when people who fit the description of the previous paragraph become the teachers.

Again, God made it very clear what He wants for his people and from his people. He wants us to preach the Gospel, heal the sick, drive out demon, command the mountains to move, rebuke the obstacles before us, rule and conquer wherever we go, and live a life of excellence, (Mark 16:15-18; Mark 11:22-23; Mark 4:35-41;Joshua 1:3-9)

13. The Ever Mysterious God’s Will

People who don’t read the Bible say they can never know God’s will. People who read the Bible has said it too much while they still hadn’t read the Bible, and as a result it became a reality for them, and they kept saying it even though they have already read enough Bible to know what it says.

Self-fulfilling prophecies.

Saying we can’t know God’s will is a form of doubt. Without faith we can get nothing from God. (James 1:6-7) This is why many people could never finished reading the Bible and even if they do they are still oblivious to God’s clear will.

When I invite people to go out and pray for the sick, they would say it is not their style. When I tell them that God wants us to heal them, they would say they don’t know if it is God’s will for the sick to get healed. When I say it is God’s will, they say you can never know God’s will. It is a form of labyrinth thinking, see point 7.

Let’s see what the Bible really says:

Ephesians 5:17

¹⁷ Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. (SK: So God’s will is for us to know His will!!!)

Similarly, people have too many doubts and false belief when it comes to knowing God’s will, and it prevents them from achieving wild success like God wants them to.

14. The Ever Elusive Timing

People talk timing a lot. I think timing is also overrated. Usually when we are waiting for God, God is waiting for us too. Who is going to lose patience first?

Isaiah 6:8

⁸ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Ezekiel 22:23-30

Again the word of the LORD came to me…”I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none…

Isaiah 63:5

I looked, but there was no one to help, I was appalled that no one gave support; so my own arm worked salvation for me, and my own wrath sustained me.

2 Chronicles 16:9

For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.

Our Lord is indeed the one who has been doing most of the wait. If we insist to return the favor, when will the waiting be over?

Instead, God wants us to push the envelope as long as it is not sinful. He wants us to move the mountains with confidence and faith. He wants us to keep pushing when the situation is called for. In order words, I am advocating for pushing for the timing to come sooner, rather than later.

He wants us to pray persistently and unashamedly (Luke 11:5-8; Luke 18:1-8). Sometime we overlimit God’s will, and we keep retreating until we say every prayer that isn’t answered is not God’s will, or the timing isn’t right.

For many sincere Christians, the problem isn’t praying with the wrong motives. The problem is they over spiritualize everything and become wishy washy. They don’t take a stand anymore. If a sick person remains sick, it’s God’s will to shape his character for his own good. If a sick person get healed by a doctor, then God healed him through the doc. If a sick person is healed miraculously, then God healed him, Yah!

They think everything that happens under the sky is God’s will, or if what needs to happen doesn’t happen it is because the timing hasn’t arrived yet. Who are we to question God’s will? We have the Bible to tell us what God’s will is, and he doesn’t want us to take ‘no’ for answer so easily. (1 John 5:14-15)

Some people have greater faith, and they experience more miracles. They wait less. Some people have weaker faith, and they experience less miracles. They wait more. It is that simple.

To say that the timing isn’t yet is just as presumptious as to say that now is the time. We don’t always know the timing of everything because we are not God, but one thing we know is that we can pray and push for it now.

If you think you are too young, or inexperienced, just wait and see. Sooner or later, young people left and right who are indeed young and inexperienced will have extraordinary successes that you thought you could not have when you were their age, and by then you might start to think you are too old too late too unlucky or too something.

~~~~~~~~~

Ultimately, we have to understand the Bible and meditate on the words of God day and night (Psalm 1). It is important to never contradict the words of God no matter how you feel, what you see, and what your past experience are. Anything that contradicts the words of God is a lie. It doesn’t matter whether you could tell it is a lie or not. If you don’t understand why it is a lie, just ask and God will show you.

The list above is certainly not end all be all. The Bible has a list of curses for those who violate the words of God too, so one must be careful to avoid those curses by being vigilant and walking by the Spirit at all time. There are many times that you might unwittingly compromising the moral standard such as by voting for a politician who supports abortion. God says it is cursable to kill, or be bribed into killing the innocent.

Being in this world, one must set himself apart, while relying on God’s supernatural power to not only survive, but to conquer in this world. We cannot just merely survive. There is no such thing as muddle through. The world is Satanic, and it only allows you to survive in it if you are part of the system, whether you are Christian or not. If you are a biblical Christian, the world will spills you out, persecute you, enslave you, or disable you, until it is subdued by you. You have no choice but to succeed. Which fate do you want to choose?

They are prisons designed by Satan to enslave, disable, contain, and brainwash genuine believers. An organized church might have 99% true sheep of God, and even the pastors might be genuine believers, but as long as they neglect or ignore the teachings of the New Testament, and refuse to follow the examples of the early Churches, they are ineffective and unusable by God. They become an obstacle to the genuine followers of God.

In this article, you will learn:

1) That countless millions of genuine sheep have died at the hands of the “Mother of Harlots”, and some of her prominent daughters are the Mother Catholic Church, Satanic organizations and churches, and other occultish or cultish religions that are inspired by or connected to the Babylonian religion.

2) Why hypocrisy and apathy are so prevalent in today’s churches

3) The spiritual abuse, mind control, and religious persecution against true believers within the churches in the name of Jesus Christ

4) Many Christian leaders are “kingdom builders”, but it is not the kingdom of God they are toiling for. They are building their own kingdoms in the name of Jesus Christ.

You will also learn that restoring the biblical church is:

1) The real answer to your spiritual voids and love voids

2) The real answer to your bad habits, addictions, spiritual struggles, and financial worries

3) The only way to fulfill your true destiny and potential

4) The only effective way to save your loved ones and why

Mother Of Harlots VS Saints and Martyrs of God

The Blood of the Saints Is In the Hands Of these harlots, including the so called “Church(es)”!

In the Bible, God warns us against the mother of harlots, so that we will not share in her sins (Revelation 18:4). Who is the mother of harlots? The Bible says she is drunk with the blood of the saints.

Revelation 17:5-6

⁵And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

⁶And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

Since the beginning of human history, the Babylon religious system and her daughter religions have killed, deluded, tortured, and persecuted hundreds of millions of biblical believers (including the Old Testament believers), children, women, men, and non-believers since it began in Genesis (Genesis 10:8-10; Isaiah 47:12-13). The Catholic Church, for example, was essentially the Babylon religion in disguise, masked with the appearance of pseudo-Christianity. The Mother Church was an abomination cultivated by the power hungry people and the empire of Rome mainly to centralize and control religions, with the intention of using this centralized religion to control people.

Paganism have infiltrated Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Judaism (the Talmud), and other belief systems, and the end result of that was the plethora of daughters religions whose mother was Babylon. Babylon is the mother of many religions we have today. Basically, Paganism idolizes men and women of great statue in history, and makes them deities, and turns every prominent teaching into a paganized religion.

To See A Great Book on Babylon and the Roman Catholic Church and Customer Reviews on That Book CLICK HERE

In the last 2000 years, the Catholic Church had been a useful tool of the monarchs and power-mongers to control people and wage wars on their enemies, but this tool had grown to be unstoppable. Protestant churches were not immune to the manipulation of powerful men and states either. In fact, kings and queens had used the Protestant religion to counter the overpowered Catholic Church, which, ironically, had once been a useful, political ally and tool to their own ancestors.

See how the Catholic Church is the ancient Babylonian religion in disguise in this video:

No matter how one might try to defend his or her church, Jesus says it all: “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” Matthew 7:16

If any denomination or institutional church, or their spiritual fathers, have participated in any killings, religious persecutions, or perversion of the Gospel, then they are not our spiritual siblings, but false Christianity that serve as traps and diversions for the true sheep. My advice is, stay away from all denominations, and just fellowship with biblical believers in your neighborhood. This is what the early biblical church is about.

I need financial support to continue to freely publish articles that liberate the sheep from the firm grasp of the enemies. Click Here if you want to help

Who Are Your Real Spiritual Brothers And Sisters?

Jesus said, “For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Matthew 12:50)

Only those who do the will of God are the true believers. Denominational, centralized, state-controlled, or harlot churches should have nothing to do with the true sheep, because true sheep hear the voice of Jesus and recognize Him (John 10: 27). If you see perversion of the Gospel, or major differences between your Church and the biblical Churches in the Bible, then you should get out.

Revelation 18:4

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

Be courageous, you don’t have to be loyal to your church institution! Any group of people or individual can call themselves Christians. True believer or not, no one is immune to becoming self-centered instead of God’s centered. Many Christian leaders actually built their own kingdoms and instead of God’s kingdom. All it takes to deviate from the kingdom of God is to deviate from the Bible.

You see, today our churches have very little resemblance to the early Church in Acts, or any of the early gentile Churches that were planted by the apostles, nor do many of our churches make real efforts to follow the blueprint of the biblical Church. In fact, many churches are downplaying important elements of the New Testament Churches, such as miracle, prophecy, gift of tongue, important commands, obvious doctrines, and many other things.

If you make a check list of what the New Testament writers commanded us to do and follow, and compare it with what the churches are teaching and practicing, you will find that most churches doesn’t get even one thing right on the list.

Remember this warning from the Lord:

Revelation 3:1-3

¹And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.

²Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God.

³Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.

Many of them aren’t heeding this warning. Rather, they teach their congregation that the Rapture includes every believer, regardless of the conditions of their spiritual state. Jesus says in this passage that He will come like a thief and catch us off guard if we are not watchful. It entails excluding us from the Rapture.

And many churches are preaching the false doctrine of “Once Saved Always Saved“, which fits the description of the “Doctrine of the Nicolaitanes” that Jesus warns us against.

Many Churches Started On the Wrong Foot

Right teaching will lead to the right fruits. Wrong teaching will manifest the wrong fruits. The reason why many churches become a “neo” New Testament (NT) church instead of the biblical NT Church is because their teachings are not aiming to emulate the early church to begin with. They don’t even believe it is possible to build a church that walks in power like the early Churches did.

In the spiritual realm, what you believe in, seek after, and focus on is what you get. This is the principle of sowing and reaping (Galatians 6:7).

The leaders want the church to be huge, and so shall it be. The leaders want to be successful, prestigious leaders with their own TV station and private jet, and so shall it be. The leaders want their church to be such and such, and so shall it be. But who want to build the Lord’s church? I seldom see pastors talk about that. Their words reveal their hearts.

Church planters are like builders. They have to build the churches according to the blueprint of the Bible. The biblical believer(s) is God’s temple because His Spirit lives in them. The Bible says if anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him! By building kingdoms and prisons instead of the God’s Church, they are destroying God’s temple! (1 Corinthians 3:10-16)

Instead of building God’s Church, many builders are building fancy temples and mansions that glorify themselves, rather than God. How do I know? From their own mouths! These days, pastors and leaders either build their churches according to a targeted demographic and core values they comes up with at whims, or they are following the traditional blueprints of their denominations. They are not afraid to verbalize their plans right from the start. Their sheep don’t know the Bible enough to catch them.

As for how they come up with their own core values and demographic, they call it “prayerful discernment” or whatever. I wonder how they manage to come up with something drastically different from the New Testament Church, if they are so prayerful with this “brainstorming” session.

Human Driven Church VS Biblical Church

The difference between denominational/institutional/human-driven churches and the biblical churches is like difference between Satan’s prisons for God’s sheep and the true Kingdom of God. Note that I didn’t say “Satan’s kingdom”, but used “Satan’s prisons” instead, because there are true sheep in each of these pseudo-Christian organizations. Satan knew he couldn’t conquer the sheep with balant lies, so he used truth mixed with subtle errors to pacify the sheep. The pseudo-Christian organizations become prisons. Good sheep will sense problems, but seldom dare leaving the “church” because of false guilt or fear (of sinning by leaving the organization).

Most people don’t know what monsters they are creating when they build their human-driven churches. Maybe they think they are helping God. Maybe they think they can do away with some of the elements of the Bible that they deem “impractical” or “cultural”. Maybe they think their time is different from the time of the early church so they should evolve. The end result of their efforts is a thriving ground for hypocrisy, abuse, confusion, bondage,  and other common “elephant in the room” that church goers don’t talk about.

The early churches, however, walked in power. Their ministry was marked with regular, frequent miracles signs and wonders. Their leaders were filled with the Spirit and they were chosen by the Spirit, not men. The Lord added new believers to their number daily. There were no creative structure, program, and scheme. They ministered as they went about their daily life and fellowship whenever they could. (Acts 2: 42-47; 4:32-35; 5:12-16)

The NT Church isn’t supposed to tolerate abuse. Jesus taught us not to tolerate any offense. I can hear you say, “Whoa! What are you talking about?!” Jesus says if your brother sins against you, you should show him his fault! If he refuses to repent, take one or more people along. If he still refuses to repent, bring in the church, and if he still refuses to repent, then treat him as a non-believer! (Matthew 18:15-17)

When I left the human-driven church and started a biblical church, and followed Jesus’ teaching to the Tee, I sensed tremendous freedom! The air smells fresher! I found out that the NT church in the Bible is designed by God to be abuse-proof and heresies-proof, if you are willing to follow the Bible courageously. Any Bible reading follower can start a NT church in his area if he genuinely want a NT church instead of the pseudo churches.

I don’t care who the pastors are. Maybe they have a PHD in Theology or Divinity. Maybe they are ordained by a prominent church. The moment a pastor preaches false doctrine, no matter how subtle it is, you have every authority to correct him. If he refuses to listen, escalate it, until he leaves or you leave. If you are the one who leaves, then go find a NT church or start one if there is none in your neighborhood. If someone who is more biblical comes along, submit to him, otherwise, just fellowship with the people available. We are to submit to God’s words, not men.

I can imagine someone will go to you and re-enslave you by telling you that you have to submit to men. He will tell you that we have to be under someone’s authority before you can serve. Tell him that if anyone speaks the truth, you will listen and submit to the truth, but if anyone or anything disagrees with the Bible, you won’t oblige. We will do well if we learn from the Apostles’ example:

Acts 4:19-20

¹⁹ But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge.

²⁰ For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.”

Tolerating sins and false doctrines are reasons why today’s Christians become so weak and powerless, and remain in Satan’s prisons.

Therefore, don’t tolerate sins or false doctrine! Depart from them if they don’t follow God properly! The enemies have done a lot of work to disable real Christians. They make us feel guilty and un-gentle if we dare fight for truth. As real Christian, we fight for truth by disassociate ourselves with rebellious brothers and sisters who disobey the Bible adamantly, unless they repent.

Matthew 16:5-12

⁵ When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread. ⁶ “Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”⁷ They discussed this among themselves and said, “It is because we didn’t bring any bread.”  (Or “the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.” according to Mark 8: 14)

⁸ Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? ⁹ Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? ¹⁰ Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? ¹¹ How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” ¹² Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Today, we have an abundance of both the yeast of the Pharisees (human tradition and doctrines) and yeast of Herod (political power in churches), which have done a world of hurts to many people. Some people didn’t listen to Jesus and the daughters of Harlot were born.

What happens if we tolerate a little yeast in the church?

Galatians 5:7-10

⁷ You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? ⁸ That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. ⁹ “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” ¹⁰ I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty.

If we let a little yeast enters the dough, the whole dough will ferment. Similarly, if we tolerate human tradition and false doctrine, the Church becomes useless. In fact, if we continue to fellowship with carnal Christian and false teachers, the church will become a harlot church that devours God’s sheep.

See Form of Godliness? Who? to learn who are the modern Pharisees. They are closer than most think.

What Does A Biblical Church Look Like?

It looks nothing like most churches we have today, at least not the institutional/organized churches. Maybe some hidden house churches have manifested many characteristics of the early churches, and I have heard tales about it too. People are saying house churches have the most rapid growth compared with other churches. It makes total sense to me as to why.

It is simple. When a church isolates herself from influence of politics (Government) and denomination/Centralist, the church is free to practice the Bible. In the third world countries, where the churches are persecuted or controlled by states, hypocrites won’t join the underground churches because there are nothing to gain but persecutions, so the underground churches are free to practice the Bible.

In developed and free countries, there are no barrier for the hypocrites, so we must be the barriers ourselves. Like what I mentioned before, we must depart from anyone who has a slight trace of false doctrine or reluctance to repentance. Don’t wait for them to change! A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough!

Don’t overestimate yourselves. You won’t win them over by continuing to fellowship with them. Rather, they will compromise your standard and cripple your church if you stay with them.

Five Main Types of Elders in the Biblical Churches

In the apostolic/early/biblical churches, there are primarily five types of office: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.

Ephesians 4:11-13

¹¹ It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, ¹² to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up ¹³ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:27-31

²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. ²⁸ And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. ²⁹ Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? ³⁰ Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? ³¹ But eagerly desire the greater gifts.

The primary job of the apostles is church planting. When a church is built, the apostles remain at the top of the leadership. Today, we see very few apostles, and most who call themselves apostles have no signs that validate their claims. Their work is nothing like the apostles of the New Testament. (I do think that Curry Blake could be an apostle, though he never claim himself to be one. His teaching and understanding of the Bible are very solid, on tops of massive miracles healing he and his disciples perform that are the same as the miracles in the New Testament, unlike the “slain the Spirit”, “long and drawn out worship and then healing”  types of healing services we see in huge stadiums. )

Same for prophets. A lot of people who claim to be prophets prophecy things that don’t come true, and yet they continue to prophesy. In the NT, real prophets prophesied famine and arrest of Paul (Acts 11:28; 21:11).

What about the pastors? The problem is that most churches only have the pastors and teachers, but the apostles, prophets, and miracle healers are absent. Where did they go? They are our own brothers and sisters that are being atrophied in the confinement of our own pseudo-churches (Note: Women have never been apostles, but there were female prophets).

They are suppressed and confused. Many are stifled the minute they try to exercise their potential gifts. Their churches undermine them before they can mature. “Do you think you are Paul? or Peter?” “Have you studied in a seminary?”, and “There are no more apostle and prophet since the Bible is completed” are some of the common sledge hammers that are used against the new-born/potential apostles and prophets.

When a potential apostle tries to go out to the street to evangelize or pray for the sick, someone will admonish him with lines such as, “Are you under someone’s authorities?”, “Are you certified to do this?”, “It is a very serious matter! It will go bad if you are not properly trained (Seminary)”, “God can use doctors to heal!”, “What if you tell them God can heal them, and then they are not healed? Wouldn’t that damage their conscience and faith?”, “Have you ever been trained to counsel women who had been raped?”, “There are a lot of temptations with money and women if you start something up yourself”, “Your English is bad!”.

The lines I am using here are oversimplified. The real versions are often more subtle and relentless (sometimes rude and relentless). Many times the churches will remain silent and withdrawn to the “apostles” until they achieve something substantial, and then the religious persecutions start.

Since most churches emasculate their own spiritual gifts and potential leaders sent by God, they become powerless and irrelevant.

Also see Deceptions in the Evangelical Churches to see how a little bit deceptions here and there disable Christians in the evangelical churches. It’s a satire, but real.

What Was It Like to Fellowship in the Early Churches?

In the early churches, the church meetings were small-group-based in homely settings. There were no “certified” theologians or ministers the way we do today. The leaders were chosen differently back then.(Acts 1:23-26; Acts 6:2-6; Acts 13:2-3)

The believers met whenever they had the opportunities, because they all lived together and shared their properties as needed. They would work for their livings, and even Apostle Paul had a full time job, but they would immediately minister and fellowship when they were off work. They served God and each other around the clock. (Acts 2:42-46; 18: 3-4; 2 Thess 3:6-12)

When they gathered, the meeting went as follow:

1 Corinthians 14:26-33

²⁶ What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. ²⁷ If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. ²⁸ If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God.²⁹ Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. ³⁰ And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. ³¹ For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. ³² The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. ³³ For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.

There was no one man army in the early church. Unfortunately, today our churches are one (or few) man show. The sheep have very little chance to exercise their spiritual gifts. The pastors and teachers have hijacked the churches! For the churches who have self-proclaimed or “certified” apostles or prophets, they are the same. The leaders are dictating and suppressing the sheep.

In the early churches, the believers gathered in small group, and they took turn to speak as God led them. It was casual, but orderly.

I can hear you ask: “What if someone is speaking the wrong things?”. Let me ask you back: “How do you know your institutional/denominational pastors and leaders are speaking the right things?”. It’s the same! You “weigh carefully what is said” in a meeting. If anyone deviates from the truth, everyone in the church has a responsibility to determine what they should do—to accept? to tolerate? to fight for the truth? Everyone is accountable to God at the end (1 Cor 4:5).

Ideally, a biblical church shouldn’t put up with heresies so easily, and the leaders should protect the sheep, but anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Any church can get infiltrated. You are the ultimate guardian of your own soul.

Those who are deceived by the pseudo-Christian religion will be judged by God just like the false leaders. Being deceived is sin. No one can make sure you don’t get deceived. You are the only one who can do that, so you must read your Bible and exercise your faith carefully.

Sorry to be obvious, but your soul is yours. Your soul doesn’t belong to your pastor, teacher, or anyone else. In the judgment day, no one can blame their leaders for being deceived. Both leaders and followers will be judged.

We shouldn’t limit the congregation to sitting on the pews just because we are afraid of potential heresies. The majority of the professional ministers are pseudo church builders that confine true sheep anyway. We should empower the sheep to participate in a lively, interactive fellowship gathering.

Early Churches Met At Homes! There Were No Buildings

They didn’t meet at fabulous church buildings. The contemporary church buildings have more resemblances to the Roman Catholic Church than the biblical churches, and the Roman Catholic Church buildings trace their roots to pagan/babylonic temples. In other words, our church buildings are babylonic, rather than biblical.

The early churches didn’t have buildings until Emperor Constantine converted and permitted Christianity to exist without persecutions. In the first century, the early Christians would visit the temple and synagogues to evangelize, but they didn’t go there for fellowship.

One time, a woman asked Jesus where is the proper place to worship. Jesus answered her that it used to be the Temple in Jerusalem, but the time has arrived that true worshipers now worshiped God in spirit and in truth. Proper worship is no longer confined in a specific place.

John 4:19-24

¹⁹The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.²⁰Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.

²¹Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.²²Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.²³But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.²⁴God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

In fact, the early churches met in houses. It was flexible, comfy, and resistant to infiltration. It was easy to run away from persecution when the locations were flexible.

Colossians 4:15

¹⁵Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the church which is in his house.

The first century disciples were close with each other. They spent a lot of time together. Church meeting was not scheduled to be weekly, but was around the clock throughout the week. They helped those who were needy among them out of sincere love. They practiced communal living.

Acts 2:42-47

⁴²And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.⁴³And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.⁴⁴And all that believed were together, and had all things common;⁴⁵And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.⁴⁶And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple (Sai Kit: they met there to reach out to the people; they didn’t fellowship in the temple because it was owned by religious authorities who persecuted them and nailed Jesus on the cross), and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,⁴⁷Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.

We are the temple of God. We are the Church. When we meet together in the name of Jesus Christ, we have Jesus in our midst.

1 Corinthians 3:16

¹⁶Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

Ephesians 2:22

²²In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

Matthew 18:20

²⁰For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

God invented the Church as an answer to the current problems of the world. The Church will be effective if we follow the original blueprint and stop building our own kingdoms. We will become resistant to hypocrites and infiltrations. We will reach the lost more effectively. A lot of the common complains to the organized churches stem from us not willing to give up our fancy buildings and meet at home. For example, many people don’t feel accepted and understood in a cold church setting. They go to church for years lonely. I was one of them, until I somehow merged with the churchy culture.

Why should people conform to the unbiblical, man-made cultures of the churches before they will get accepted and loved? This is the sad reality of today churches.

It is easy to meet every Friday and Sunday, and then back to our personal life for the rest of the week. We are living a selfish life. Many people are hungry for love. We can’t give them love if we don’t spend more time as a real church like the first century church. They were available to the people. They met 24/7. They practiced communal living, which maximize their effectiveness to the people they served. Today church goers engage in worldly activities for the majority of the week, and “do church” once or twice per week to make themselves feel good. This obviously won’t work.

I feel tremendous freedom when I fellowship with genuine Christians who actually read the Bible and make efforts to obey it. However, when I go to institutional churches and attend their functions, I feel oppression in the air and having to sit through the whole thing gives me inner turmoil.

How Did the Early Churches Do Outreaching?

The Spirit-filled disciples went out and preached in the public. They argued with oppositions and performed miracles and wonders. They overcame their oppositions with convincing arguments that were Spirit-inspired.  What always followed was that many people believed and joined the churches. There were no special programs and schemes. They were no training classes for potential evangelists or miracles healers. The streets were the classrooms. Anyone could participate and join the Apostles at wills. If they had faith, they could go out on their own. (Acts 2:40-41; Acts 9: 22; 18:27-28; Acts 19: 6-12, 17-20)

Acts 2:42-47

⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ⁴³ Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵ They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. ⁴⁶ Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Acts 5:12-16

¹² The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. ¹³ No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. ¹⁴ Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. ¹⁵ As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. ¹⁶ Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.

A disciple named Stephen was not one of the 12 Apostles, but he also went out and performed miracles and wonders. He argued with the oppositions with Spirit-inspired words and prevailed. Shortly after, he was killed by the religious authorities he argued with.

If they can’t contain you, they ignore you. If you are too powerful to ignore, they oppose you. If they fail to win, they kill you. This principle has never changed a single bit, not even now.

Acts 6:8-10

⁸ Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people. ⁹ Opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called)—Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia—who began to argue with Stephen. ¹⁰ But they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke.

This outreach strategy of “preach, perform miracle, and then die” was laid down by Jesus himself. It has been a very effective strategy. Nothing the non-biblical churches do can compare with the result this single strategy has achieved.

Today, many religious people in Christianity argue that we don’t need miracles anymore. Some say that miracles and prophecies have passed away. Some say that they are not as important anymore. Some say God heals through doctors. Some say that the Bible was completed so we don’t need prophecies.

Maybe the real reason why they resist the work of God so relentlessly is because they have no faith, but refuse to let go of their ego and control to someone who is a real servant of God.

Luke 10:1-4

¹ After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. ² He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. ³⁴ Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.

Matthew 10:19-20

¹⁹But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, ²⁰ for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

Matthew 10:26-27

²⁶ “So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. ²⁷ What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.

Be bold. Find the most direct way to preach to as many people as possible. I know that public speaking is the number one fear for many people. This is easy to solve. Have faith and the fear will dissipate. This is not a coincidence that the single most effective way to reach the lost is also the top fear for many people. It is Satan’s plan to keep us ineffective.

Once you master this strategy, try to learn from Jesus the art of escape. Jesus was a master survivor. They never managed to catch him until he felt that his time was up and gave up his life. We might live beyond 100 years old like Apostle John did if we don’t let ourselves die too easily. I think one of the reasons why the Roman Catholic Church and other harlots churches has become so abundance was because biblical Christians have allowed themselves to be martyred so easily.

If we all live longer stubbornly and plant the New Testament churches wherever we go, and train up many biblical disciples before we die, how wonderful would that be? For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know!(Pilippians 1:21-22)

Sai Kit: More is coming… work in progress! Make sure you come back in a few days for more.

I need financial support to continue to freely publish articles that liberate the sheep from the firm grasp of the enemies. Click Here if you want to help

Today, many Christians would feel that this “me and God” vs “the enemies” attitude is uncalled for. They might think it’s only relevant for Christians from the third world countries or the middle East.

But it’s not. I myself can testify from experience that you can get persecuted anywhere if you strive to live according to God’s commandments and seek to manifest the full gospel and its power. (2 Timothy 3:12)

You will get a lot of persecutions from, first of all, the Christianity religion. Religion is never the true victim, but it’s often the persecutor to those who are the true followers of the true, biblical God.

If you are just being religious, going to church every week, being churchy and nice to people, and never do something that rock the boat, then not only will you not get persecuted, you might enjoyed the best of both worlds.

But you will not be relevant to the kingdom of God, nor to the world and the enemy.

Let Says You Are A Biblical Christian

Then you are a real threat to Satan, the world, and religious institutions, including some of our own Christian Churches and denominations.

Many church leaders will say harsh things about you and to you if you actually live obediently to God. Be prepared.

Satan, of course, will send his army from hell to harass you, to steal from you, and to destroy you if he can. And humans are one of the main type of instruments that he uses to attack us.

God’s Main Way Of Dealing With the Enemies Is To “Preparest a Table Before You In The Presence Of Your Enemies…”

Don’t expect the enemies to simply disappear and everything to go easy on you.

Rather, God has a wonderful plan. He is powerful enough to set you a table of feast in the middle of your enemies and make them watch you to eat, drink, and merry. They will say all kind of harsh things to you. They will growl, threaten, and insult you. They will do all kind of things to try to take away your peace. But who gets to enjoy the feast?

YOU.

But are you up for it?

Only those who understand the way of God, have strong faith, and are hardened by battles can participate in this. They understand that as long as they place their full faith in God, they will receive no real harm. (Unless their times are up and God let them choose to be a martyr, which only happens once in a lifetime)

Religious leaders might use slanderous talk to attack you, but God will make you a “fisher of men”. (Mark 1:17; Acts 2:46-47)

The world will attack your faith. They will call you stupid. And the modern pharisees will try to conform you into their denominational doctrines, but God will grant you the power of the full gospel and co-labor with you. (Acts 4:16-17; Mark 16:15-20)

Satan will try to keep you sick and poor. Religious people will try to brainwash you into believing that being sick and poor are spiritual. But God wants you to prosper in all things (3 John 1:2) See my post on Biblical Definition Of Prosperity.

God Won’t Remove The Enemies

God wants to demonstrate His power and glory to the enemies through us. If God makes our enemies disappear, then who are going see His power and glory? It is because of His mercy that He does this to the enemies, so that the enemies might repent and give glory to God when they see what God can do through us and for us.

Deuteronomy 28: 10

¹⁰And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of thee.

The world will hate us, but some can choose to follow our examples.

John 15: 18-20

¹⁸If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.

¹⁹If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

²⁰Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.

Jesus Christ is infinitely bigger than the world and the enemies.

John 16:33

³³These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

So what Should We do?

Knowing that God wants to prepare a table before us in the presence of our enemies, we should focus on our part— to merry along, have faith, and allow God to demonstrate His tremendous blessings through us by sitting happily right there at the table. If we succumb to fears and complains, we will fall right into our Satan’s scheme and he will overcome us.

It’s like being in a storm’s eye. On the exterior everything might look chaotic, but if you stand in the middle of God’s will, and place your will, mind, and emotion right there, you will enjoy great peace through it all. Don’t be mad about what people say against you, but let them see your supernatural prosperity and let it be your best vindication. If you take matter into your own hand you will lose it.

Remember, if you have enemies, that’s because they have a reason to be jealous of you. This is why you will get persecuted. Because if God is with you, favors will always go your way, and people who are not so close to God would feel bad about themselves so they will try to bring you down to their own level.

I have seen happy and successful people got bogged down by negative people. I myself was a victim of people who accused me wrongly when I had God’s favors on my side. I allowed myself to become negative because of some of the vicious things they said, and I complained (A lot), and at the end I was burn out and lost the favors.

Looking back, I wonder why I didn’t just sit at my table, relax, and let them see how much God had blessed me. A blessed life is a lonely path, but it’s better than the broad path of mediocrity and compromise.

If I hadn’t been negative and complaining at those times of favor, my life would have been continue to be a display of divine blessing. I might already have married, have kids, a successful career, and stuff. (I am serious, read my journals if you want to know more about my life. I mentioned a bit of my previous time of favor in this post.)

Once the enemy scare you away from your God-given table, you will lose your relevance and divine blessing. This is what the enemy is trying to do. So stop caring about what the world think, what carnal Christians think, and what your enemies think. Just enjoy your feast of blessing and prosperity! They will eventually reflect on themselves when they can’t stand your happiness and divine success, and some might turn to God because of that.

The ultimate causes of depression are spiritual.

The primary cause for depression is bitterness, and secondary cause is regret, and the third cause is the sum of the negative emotions that trace their roots to the spiritual causes such as a verbal curse, demonic attack, or generational curses.

Depression is just the symptom. Biochemical and genetic disorder that contribute to the depression phenomenon are also the symptoms, not the causes.

Drug for depression only suppress the symptoms, not curing the problem, but chemical drug always introduce side effects that might be just as bad as the depression itself, or worst.

The great cost of bitterness

Unforgivingness produces bitterness. In a parable, Jesus compared God to a master, who forgave his servant an enormous debt that he owed him, but that servant turned around and put a fellow servant in jail for a small debt:

³² Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. ³³ Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ ³⁴ And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. ³⁵ “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses. Matthew 18:32-35

If anyone refuses to forgive someone, God will deliver him or her to the “torturers”, which could be diseases, mental illness, demons, or other curses.

It might feel unfair to us, but we owe God even more. God is the ultimate victim of our sins. We sin against Him so much that we deserve to die for our sins, but He sent His Son to die on our behalf and the Son was tortured and humiliated by sinners.

If the problem of unforgiving persists, bitterness will soon develop a life of its own. From time to time it will come out and complain about what so and so have done to you, and how bad and how much the wrongs had cost you. The complains will repeat over and over again, lest you forget, and if you forget, it could be worst, because the repressed memory will continue to poison your system but you don’t know why.

It will manifest into different form of negative emotions, physical sickness, and mental disorders. It’s compulsive and contagious.

See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. Hebrews 12:15

In my first and second year in college, familial problems from the past re-surfaced and produced intensive feeling of depressions. It wouldn’t go out easily, but it just multiplied whenever I tried to analyze the problem.

Later, I also struggled with what some Christians did to others and God but they didn’t look like they understood the impact of their actions. I couldn’t accept some of the vicious things that some of the Christians spoke against each other, and when I was the direct victim, it was even more difficult because it became personal.

There was periods of time when I had to forgive hundreds of time a person who didn’t know he/she was sinning against me, or that person might be slightly aware but didn’t understand the impact of what he/she was doing.

As a result, that person kept repeating his/her attitudes and offenses and I had to keep forgiving him/her over and over again.

I know forgiving can be super hard, especially when you still feel very hurt even after you had decided to forgive a person and told God you already forgave. The hurtful memory might resurface again, and you forgive, and it resurfaces again, and you forgive, and so on for many times that you doubt if you had really forgiven that person.

Sometime you don’t really understand the depth of the offenses that someone has committed against you, so the first time you find it easy to forgive, but later your mind and heart might be able to slowly grasp the real extent of the offenses, or that the Holy Spirit illuminates how much the offenses have truly cost you so you realize the harm was bigger than you initially thought.

The Holy Spirit does that because He wants you to fully forgive.

It can take multiple attempts to forgive one offense.

The devil might also come and accuse the offender and try to make you dwell on the offenses. If you take the bait from the devil, which always seems appealing, you will fall into difficult battle with bitter thought, and even depression.

I had taken Satan’s baits too many times. I had had depressive thoughts and even suicidal thoughts, even though I forgave every time I was offended.

Finally, I learned that it takes faith to forgive. Satan will try to point to your hurtful memory and convince you that you haven’t forgiven someone, but you can call it a lie to make it stop. You must believe in forgiveness and God. If you decided to forgive someone before God, you had to have confidence that it was done.

Tell the enemy this, “I forgave that person for that already! Get thee behind me!” See My post, Quote About Faith, to learn how to fight the lie of the enemy with faith.

If you think this article blesses to you, please click this link to see why you want to donate & contribute to bible-verses-insights.com

Devourer that devours your joy and goods

If your productivity at work, ministry, or school get “regularly” destroyed due to reasons such as health problems, emotional problems, gossips, office politics, relational conflicts, bullies, distractions, or many other “misfortune” that seems to harass you on purpose, then it is normal to feel depressed due to ongoing loss of opportunities and mediocrity.

It might seems like there is a conspiracy against you behind the scene, and there is.

The Bible mentions a spiritual foe, the devourer, that can devour your produce – your bank account, your school GPA, or any other accomplishment:

¹¹ “ And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,” says the LORD of hosts; ¹² And all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land,” says the LORD of hosts.   Malachi 3:11-12

If you fulfill a certain condition, God can rebuke the devourer for you. The condition is in the follow:

⁶ “I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. ⁷ Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD Almighty.
“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’⁸ “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’
“In tithes and offerings. ⁹ You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. ¹⁰ Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. ¹¹ I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the LORD Almighty. ¹² “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the LORD Almighty. Malachi 3:6-12

The main condition is to put God first. Give your first fruits to the Lord, respect His Word, and obey it. If we do that, then He will rebuke the devourer for us.

We should give at least a tenth of what we earn to the servants of God, so they have the resources to expand the kingdom of God. Same for a church. If a local church wants to prosper, it has to obey the same rule, which means her members should share some of their financial resource to missionaries, and to other ministries for the sake of the Gospel.

A devourer is a real creature. It is a class of demons and fallen angels who specialize in sabotage.

Demons and fallen angels are always waiting outside, plotting and waiting for the chance to steal, kill, and destroy (Psalm 10:8-9; John 10:10). It is God’s protection that keeps them at bay.

God’s protection is the default mode, even for the non-believers, but sins can open doors for the devils and invite them in.

If they get the legal right to enter into any area of our life, they will enter and stay there and make it home.

If you have an intimate relationship with God, He will put a hedge around you and protect you

Everyone is born with a hedge of God, see the follow Bible verse:

⁸ Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” ⁹ “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. ¹⁰ “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. ¹¹ But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.” Job 1:8-11

For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless. Psalm 84:11

In the first Bible quote above, Satan literally complains to God for putting a hedge around his servant, Job. Job is a godly man who is informed about the spiritual reality, so he always pray for protection over his family (Job 1:4-5).

The prayers for protection really do work. Satan can find no legal right to attack Job.

If you are a child of God, your default mode is blessedness and safety. If you are depressed, it suggests the enemy might be present.

The enemy is present for a reason. Make sure you didn’t give them the legal right to attack you. A legal right opens a hole in the hedge to demonic force.

An example of demonic legal right is an unconfessed and unrepented sin.

Hidden sins will sap away your joy and strength

Guilt is one of the main causes of depression.

¹ Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
² Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
³ When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long.
⁴ For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer.
⁵ I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” And You forgave the iniquity of my sin.  Psalm 32:1-7

A hidden sin could be a forgotten sin. Sometimes I hear people said they have forgotten something they did to others and they prided themselves on their ability to forget the negative.

The sins are still working against their systems even though they have forgotten about them. Moreover, those who hide their sins will not prosper, which leads to depression due to ongoing failures and mediocrity (Proverbs 28:13).

¹³ He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. Proverbs 28:13

I observed that many people have been hiding their sins, but they still manage to tough it out through sheer willpower and positive thinking, and with some smiles on their faces too. They pride themselves on their willpower and positive thinking, but this is the way of the world, not the way of God.

There is a class of demons that specialize in guilt. They are called the spirits of guilt. If sin is not properly due with, a spirit of guilt could enter the sinner and cause excessive guilt, which opens door to other demonic spirits and ultimately bring about a total destruction of the person in the long run.

Repentance that leaves no guilt and sorrow

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. 2 Corinthians 7:10

Depression is worldly sorrow, but godly sorrow comes from conviction of the Holy Spirit. Godly sorrow produces genuine repentance. Repentance leads to reconciliation with God and allows the holes in the hedge of protection to be repaired.

If we want to maintain an intimate relationship with God, we have to repent on the spot whenever we sin. At first we might have to do it everyday, but as we mature in Christ, we will sin less and less.

If you still feel guilty after you repent, it indicates the present of the spirit of guilt. The last link above is linked to an article that shows you how to deal with false guilt that comes from the enemy.

Regrets?

Although you might have started living right before God, the past is gone and will never come back. Whatever wrong choices you have made and whatever was lost in the past might still upset you. I totally understand because I was also a victim of regrets.

Here is some of my other posts that will be useful on dealing with regrets.

Getting Over Regrets

How to deal with the thefts: Satan and his demons (Don’t regrets, get back what they have stolen from you 7 folds!! You can do that, click to see how!)

Still feel negative?

Many time Christians have to wander in the “desert” for a while. A desert experience is a trying time. Every Christian will have to go through a period or multiple periods of desert experience.

God designs the desert experience to test and train each Christian. If you are experiencing prolonged period of unanswered prayers, mediocrity, failures, illness, or other misfortunes, a desert experience could be the reason.

Of all the books on waiting for God while dealing with the desert experience, I found the ebook, Waiting For Your Ministry, by Grantley Morris, to be the most inspiring and encouraging.

The author himself went through years of desert, and had been struggling with depression. By praying and seeking God diligently, he found valuable insights in the midst of failures, mediocrities, and many negatives.

After he wrote the book, he was still in the desert! He had to read it over and over again to keep himself from drowning in depression! That’s why I found this book amazing. You can download the book here. (The webpage of Grantley might not look sophisticated, but the content is good)

Please don’t think that it is the end. You know that life isn’t that easy.

Generation Curses and Verbal Curses?

Curses can destroy your destiny in many ways. Most of the time you won’t even notice the effects.

There is an entire world on this topic. If you are unfamiliar with curses, then you might read an online text version of the book, Turning Curses to Blessings, by Carl Fox.

Here is my journal blog entry that explains how my life was cursed, even after I had long become a Christian, but was uninformed about curses: My life Was Cursed

And I highly recommend the book, Blessing or Curse: You can choose, by Derek Prince. Of all the books that talk about curses, that one is probably the best.

Finally, get on the offense!

Now we have discussed so much about how to cure depression, but they are mostly remedies. We need to get on the offenses too. See my article on Parable Of The Mustard Seed to start replace depression with blessings – tangible blessings that you can enjoy starting now!

If you think this article blesses to you, please click this link to see why you want to donate & contribute to bible-verses-insights.com

Why? Because you and I are the sources of suffering and evil.

We create suffering and evil for this world whenever we conceive evil thoughts and/or act upon them. The world can only be perfect if everyone obeys one set of law perfectly, and only if that law itself is perfect.

I believe we have the perfect law, which is God’s Law (Psalm19:7), but no one is perfect enough to obey it (Romans 3:20).

²⁰Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight [God's sight] by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. Romans 3:20

The Law makes us aware of how sinful we are. Try to act good for one week by following the Ten Commandments, and you will discover that you cannot act good for very long.

Even if you are not Christians, you can still act good according to your conscience. Many people have tried this experiment when they were kids. One must be disillusioned to imagine that they are good if they can’t even stay good for a few days.

It took us many years of education and growing up to convince ourselves that we aren’t sinners. Most people were successful in believing that.

If you think this article blesses to you, please click this link to see why you want to donate & contribute to bible-verses-insights.com

Can a boiled seed sprouts?

No, just as a boiled seed can never sprout, a fallen race can never be perfect either.

Have you ever wondered why we have tried for many thousands of years but we still failed at stopping murders, rapes, wars, greed, injustice, poverty, sickness, and other curses that are caused by human weaknesses?

The answer to the problems doesn’t lie in a perfect system or government. If the root of problems is human, you can never fix the problems through a perfected system or government.

People who thought they could change the world with their ideologies only created bigger suffering and evil for everyone. For example, communism and fascism. Communism alone had caused hundred of millions of death in the last half century.

When the first human couple sinned, they and their offspring were fallen and spiritually dead. It could never be undone.

Death had entered the world because of sin, and this was why we have had all kind of suffering and evil since.

The first transgression of Adam and Eve had contaminated our DNA and created a moral weakness, and since then transgressions in the world have only increased as the human race departed further and further from God.

Through generations, our moral weaknesses and hereditary diseases and disorders have been piling up. We have been degenerating, not evolving!

¹²Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— Romans 5:12

With each new transgression, more damage is done to our race and the world we live in. As we invent new ways to sin and grieve God, we also bring more and more suffering and evil into our world (Romans 1:28-32).

God delayed our punishments because of mercy

If God didn’t delay punishments for anyone, there would not be one single Christian on earth, because all would have died the moment they sinned.

Those of us who asked, “Why does God allow suffering and evil?”, might possibly be pointing our fingers to the “evil men” who do “evil”, such as Hitler. And we might be also pointing fingers to God Himself, and imply that He is the ultimate author of suffering and evil.

If you call someone Hitler, it is considered to be one of the worst insults. No one wants to admit that his or her heart is just as capable of evil as Hitler. However, the truth is we just don’t have the power and guts to carry out the evils in our hearts like Hitler did.

Who voted Hitler into power? The average people! Who carried out his orders? The average people!

Have you ever voted anyone who was pro-choice (pro-abortion) into any public office? If you voted for that person because he or she promised government handouts, you are hiring murderer for bribe!! (Ezekiel 22:12)

In you men accept bribes to shed blood [abortion for example]; you take usury and excessive interest [Illegal central banks such as U.S.'s Federal Reserve] and make unjust gain from your neighbors by extortion [Governmental wealth redistribution program, stealing from the rich and give it to the poor]. And you have forgotten me, declares the Sovereign LORD.

At least half the population of every democratic country have voted for murderers because of welfare or other ungodly reasons. As for totalitarian governments, they were given power by the majority of their people at one time.

There are at least a hundred other ways in which we have been participating murder and extortion, voting for murderers and wealth re-distributors were just two of the many examples.

“Thou shall not murder” and “Thou shall not steal” are just two of the Ten Commandments, and we almost break the rest of the ten commandments on a daily basis.

¹You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. ²Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. ³So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? ⁴Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance? Romans 2:1-4

God allows suffering and evil for you and I!!!! He is tolerating us for just a little while.

This is not the time to fold our arms and judge God and others, but it is the time to repent!!! The day of God’s wrath and reckoning is quick approaching.

God’s solution to our fallen state

If the seed is boiled, then replace it with a new seed! This is God’s solution.

The old seed is useless. Whatever you do to it it will not sprout. Many people try to do something to their nature to become better, spiritually enlightened, or whatever they call it. However, no amount of good work can compensate our sins and transgression, nor can it bring about a lasting change to our fallen nature. (Romans 7:5)

⁵For when we were controlled by the sinful nature,^[a] the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. Romans 7:5

¹⁴We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵I do not undehttp://bible-verses-insights.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=609&message=10rstand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. Romans 7:14-20

To believe we can change our nature, or evolve into a more enlightened being, is like watering a boiled seed and hope it would sprout.

God decided to give us a new nature. This new nature is the new life of Jesus Christ.

⁹No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. 1 John 3:9

³ Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” … ⁵ Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ John3:3,5

¹⁷Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17

Those who accept Jesus Christ as their personal savor will receive the new nature, but he must also follow Jesus as Lord and live by faith in God every moment to grow and manifest that new nature everyday:

My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. Galatians 4:19

Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 1 Timothy 6:12

For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last,^[c] just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” Romans 1:17

Faith is superior than willpower. Faith come by the Spirit of God speaking into our spirit (Romans10:17). When God speaks His Word into our spirits, faith is formed, and we response to this initial faith by confessing His spoken Word with our mouths, and believing it in the hearts.

As we do that, the power and faith of God are being released from the Word of God and we will be able to accomplish or receive what the Word of God says it will accomplish.

Holiness is the nature and work of God. What was started by God cannot be completed by our willpower or old nature, but has to be completed by God Himself:

³Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? ⁴Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? Galatians 3:3-4

What is our part then? Our part is to live by faith, speak words of faith, act upon faith, and hold our faith.

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. Hebrews 4:14

By exercising faith persistently, we substantiate the life of Christ until He is formed in us!

If you haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savor, go here to learn how to do so.

OK, I have become a Christian now, so when will the suffering and evil stop?

Congratulation! No matter you have become a Christin just a minute ago, or years ago, you have signed up to become God’s lasting solution to the problem of suffering and evil.

Hear this again! You have become part of God’s final solution to the problem of suffering and evil!!!

¹⁸I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. ¹⁹The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. ²⁰For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹that^[i] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.²²We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ²³Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Romans 8:22-23

After we have become children of God, it added new meaning to our suffering. Prior to knowing God, we suffer for the sake of suffering. After knowing God, we suffer for great purposes.

As we wait eagerly for the manifestation of our full inheritance as children of God (i.e. heaven, eternal life, and the whole nine yards), Christ is forming in us as we face our earthly challenges with godly faith each day (Galatians 4:19).

Suffering become purposeful tests that test our characters and faith. It actually help us grow if we respond to suffering properly:

³Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans 5:3-5

You may want to know why does it have to take so long? Why can’t we just go back to the good old days of Adam and Eve as if nothing happened? No more suffering and evil as soon as we believe Jesus?

What were God waiting for? Why doesn’t He stop the suffering and evil as soon as we become Christian?

In the good old days of Adam and Eve, everything was good –no death, no sin, no sickness, no aging, no evil, and no suffering – but good wasn’t good enough to prevent them from sinning!! (Genesis 1:31)

Think about it, it hadn’t been too long since God created the earth, the Garden of Eden, and the human couples, before they sinned. Everything was good, nothing was forbidden from humans except just one thing: they can’t eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Of all the good and juicy fruits in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve chose to eat the only fruits that they were not supposed to eat. God told them, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” (Genesis 2: 16-17)

They still ate it.

By choosing knowledge of good and evil, they chose to decide for themselves and be their own god. God planted the tree there because He had to give them the option to decide to stay with Him or to depart from Him.

You can’t really physically depart from God, because He is everywhere, but you can depart from God if you separate your spirit from Him and develop a strong sense of self and self determination. This was what our ancestors essentially did.

God already told them they will die if they chose that option, but they didn’t really believe it.

To this day, He still offer us freewill. Without freewill, we can never be perfect. A perfect being is a conscious, sentimental being.

If God simply revert things to the days of Adam and Eve, and stop the suffering and evil right now, what make you think that you won’t decide to sin again?

An eternity with God is too long and too perfect for us… if we enter it without proper preparation

If you have become a Christian long enough, you might have pondered this question, “Eternity… how does God make sure I won’t sin for that long?”

Even some of the angels sinned! In fact, they sinned before humans did.

One third of the angels rebelled against God. Their leader is Satan. They knew mentally what they were doing. They had been living in heaven and seeing God everyday prior to their fall, but still decided to rebel against Him.

They knew what they were doing mentally, but they couldn’t really understand the gravity and the eternal consequences of their choice because they were pure and innocent just before they sinned.

Even the angels, who can see God and dwell in heaven, have the need to learn and gain knowledge (1 Peter 1:12).

If you and I were born in a good state like the angels and Adam and Eve, we wouldn’t understand suffering and evil either. We could never understand the Word of God deeply by just listening to God preaching in heaven, for it is written:

A servant cannot be corrected by mere words; though he understands, he will not respond. Proverbs 29:19

Imagine talking to a healthy kid about death, crime, handicap, cancer, or evil, she won’t really understand if she had never experienced it. She knows no real pain. You can’t talk her out of harm’s way if she feels itchy and wants to entertain her “what if I do this?” kind of curiosity.

In order for a kid to learn to hate evil and love good, she must experience some real pains such as being lied to, get some small cuts, or volunteer for unfortunate people as she grows up in order to understand these things deeper.

God is omnipotent, but I wonder if even He is able to tell a “good” man what sin, death, sickness, murder, and other evil is like. What I meant by “good” was the Adam and Eve kind of good before they sinned for the first time.

God is a wise teacher, so He allows us to learn by experiences if we ask for it. His plan A was for Adam and Eve to never have sinned in the first place, but since that plan was forever gone, now His plan B was to replace our fallen nature and forgive our sin through His Son Jesus Christ.

That’s not all, God is able to bring good out of evil, so He makes use of evil instead of simply eliminating it all together. Therefore, part of His current plan was to raise His Church through present suffering and evil, instead of without.

³Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans 5:3-5

¹Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. ²As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. 1 Peter 4:1-2

By going through tribulations and temptations in this world, we learn God’s Word deeper than we would if things were good and perfect. (Psalm 119:71)

Nothing in our life is pointless, even the bad and evil. Everything is going to be useful even after we enter the other side of eternity, because…

Our life is an epistle! The Church is the perfect teaching material!

³ clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart. 2 Corinthians 3:3

The reason God let us live the rest of our earthly days after conversion is because He wants to write on us with His Spirit. We are His living letters, books, and tablets. Nothing is more touching than a real life story. God wants to co-author our life as much as we let Him to.

For those who are obedient, they enjoy more blessings and rewards in this life and in eternity, and maybe endure some persecutions for God on earth. For those who are goofing around and are disobedient, they suffer consequences and disciplines, and may become some of the “poorest” folks in the kingdom of heaven, if they make it there.

The suffering and evil that we endure through our earthly life will become part of the eternal teaching materials for the entire heaven and the rest of human race. Everyone will know how good good is, how bad bad is, and how evil evil is, by reading us.

The ripples of every good choice or bad choice made by us in this life will be revealed fully to all intelligent creatures, who are humans and angels, for eternity. God doesn’t need to teach us with “Thou shall not!” anymore. He will have plenty of living epistles to teach everyone.

⁹For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. 1 Corinthians 4:9

It would be like a multi-dimensional slide show (at least 3-D if not 4, 5, 6 D). The audiences will be able to know exactly what you have been through, feel what you felt, and know exactly how each person felt who had ever interacted with you.

We will be able to study each living epistle from all points of view and depths, gaining experiential knowledge from each epistle quickly and easily. We will be able to understand the Bible much deeper by watching epistle movies in relation to the Word of God.

Remember I established earlier that one of the main reasons why Adam and Eve and the fallen angels chose to sin was because they lacked experiential knowledge? Problem solved!

And that’s not all…

Without the Church, eternity is too big, too long for everyone

God doesn’t want a quick fix for suffering and evil. He wants a solution that guarantees to last!

Part of the lasting solution is to form Christ in each one of us, because only the very nature of God can guarantee to live for eternity without sinning. Good and innocent aren’t enough to ensure a 100%, eternal guarantee, but with the nature and life of Christ intertwined with the very fabric of our soul and spirit, we can have confidences for eternity.

That’s not all, every “Christ container” interconnect with one another as the Church! The Church is the greatest invention ever! Only God could conceive such an ingenious idea (Ephesians 1:8-10, 18-23).

God is huge. He is deep. He is intense. He is absolute and holy. And to think that anyone would live with Him forever, can you imagine that?

Remember, even angels sinned!

But now things have changed: we have the Church!

We learned that in eternity there will be living epistles to gain experiential knowledge from: Not a hundred, not a thousands, but possibly hundreds of millions of living epistles.

The Church is like a gigantic library of epistles.

The Church, which we are part of, will maintain intimate fellowship with God and with each saint for eternity.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:1-3

In eternity we will fellowship with every saint who once lived on earth and fought a good fight. They had gone through many suffering, evil, and temptations, but they have overcome with their faith, the word of their testimony, and the blood of the Lamb. (Hebrews 11; Revelation 12:11)

There will be no communication barrier like we have on earth. We can communicate with instant thoughts. The richness and speed we receive and share knowledge and understanding with in eternity will be far beyond our present earthly mind can comprehend. (1 Corinthians 13:9-12)

If temptation to rebel God exist in eternity at all, we have the entire Church behind each one of us. The moment a temptation fly by anyone, the rest of the Church, with all her heroes of faith and saints with different spiritual gifts, will come to our aid in the speed of light, literally.

If there is a Bible lesson to be learned, millions of “movies clips” from epistles that are relevant to that lesson, along with relevant Bible verses, will flash through the mind. There will not be any boring “thou shall not” or “one day you will understand” anymore.

Conclusion: There are more suffering and evil to come, but you can escape it!

The earth will soon go through the most horrible time in history. There was nothing like it before, nor will there ever be. That period is the Great Tribulation.

The Bible has long prophesied that final 7 years of the present world. The anti-Christ will rise. He will persecute those who follow the biblical God, and wage gigantic wars with factions, subdue them and cause mass scale destruction on many parts of the world.

There will be global disasters. People will will be extremely paranoid and frightful because of what happen during that period. It will not be pleasant to have to live with people at that time, because the Bible says the people grow cold because of wickedness, and they betray and hate each other. (Luke 21:25-26; Luke 24:10,12)

The worst thing is, the godly men and women will be snatched away by Jesus Christ into heaven: Christians who are counted worthy will escape the Great Tribulation (Luke 21:34-36). With all the godly and mighty men and women gone, the world lose its only true light.

And Satan will be given greater freedom to do his evil deed, for only worldly people will be left on earth and they have always been following Satan anyway. Satan will overcome the saints during the Tribulation, and those saints are Christian who are left behind and new converts.

The Escape event is called the Rapture. You can participate in it too if you are a true Christian and you meet the requirement for the Rapture.

I will see you in the Rapture! Let’s look forward to our glorious hope of heaven!

If you think this article blesses to you, please click this link to see why you want to donate & contribute to bible-verses-insights.com