The lesson in this story is so roll-your-eyes simple, but how many of us have learned it, and, do it.
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What is the consequence of using the name of the Lord in vain (Exodus 20:7)? Remember Satan the devil also knows the scripture (Matthew 4:6, Luke 4:10). It is the Lord’s battle not ours. All we have to do is stand on His side. Do you know where to stand? Here is a clue in Matthew 22:1-14 and Luke 14:16-24. Be sure to wear the wedding clothes which shows who you are.
Also why do you think Jesus said what he said to Martha in Luke 10:38-42? He prefers Mary, who wants to be Jesus’ disciple, over Martha who wants to serve.
And to those who are not awake/woke, Jesus said in Matthew 13:13-15, Mark 4:10-12 and Luke 8:10, quoting Isaiah 6:9, this people be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.
To those who care about view counts, Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:13 not to take the wide road, for many will enter through it. Jesus himself preferred to be anonymous (Mark 7:36).
And Jesus said let the dead bury the dead (Matthew 8:22 and Luke 9:60). Real martyrs don’t have a funeral procession because they don’t die, they sleep and resurrect.. -
To those who have no fear of God, I rest my case.
To those who fear God, it is now August 2026, I still haven’t gotten my money back.
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I keep feeling like you’re trying to break me, to see me down on my knees, to see if I am human enough to feel pain. Maybe it isn’t you, but in my mind it can only be you.
I don’t want to fight. If you like to win, I declare you a winner. But I can’t go down even if I want to. The One in me is too strong. I do feel pain, but the pain goes away quickly. The light in me can become weak but can never be put out.
Yes every day is like Sunday, it’s silent and grey, but my inside is warm, with all kinds of sounds, even if it’s just my own voice talking to my Father in Heaven.
I have all I need to live a long time, until even the end of time. But I also have desires. I desire a hug, maybe even a kiss, a fire at night, someone to dance with, someone to take me out to places too scary for me to go alone.
Please don’t fight me. You’re a lion, I’m only a lamb. You may tear me into pieces and swallow me up, but I won’t go down.
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I’ve finally settled down to focus solely on gardening. You’d think life should be peachy, it’s not.
The truth is, the more success I achieve, the harder I work and the more scrutinizing I become of my plants – is this one droopy, why does this one develop yellow leaves, is bugs eating my buds, why are these growing so slow?
Well, today I came across a never before published essay that hits the mark. I have to stop being so constipated.
It’s titled “Smile from face verse heart” written in 2017 –
The man on stage was pacing back and forth, like a caged animal, full of unreleased energy. His shoulders hunched slightly, neck thrusting forward, eyes bulging with a gleam, face stretched into a smile. It was an intimating sight. Yet, I had seen tears streamed down his cheeks. He commands a presence on stage. He also has an uncanny awareness of everyone off stage. This made me uneasy. He might actually know where I sit.
I wondered about his heart. What kind of heart does he have? All that is revealed about him seems perfect, even the imperfection he admitted about himself. He knows the Bible well. He came from a white pastoral family background. He has all the right answers. Do I trust him?
Sorry pastor. I needed to confess so that I can get rid of this negative thought. Jesus please help me purge this distrust.
At the food shelf last Sunday, I met two more volunteers, Sammy and Han, both black. Sammy was round, his face smooth, a silver stud sparkled on his left ear. When he talked, he flicks his right hand upward. His voice an octave higher than a typical man. My experience with gay men volunteering at the food shelf is that they are straight forward.
Without beating around the bush, I said, “Are you gay?”
“Very.” Sammy answered.
“That’s too bad for me.” I said.
“And you?” I addressed his companion.
“I like women.” Han said, with a little smile.
Better stop the flirting, my inner voice told me.
Han had on a gray sweatshirt with the hood over his head and a rusty brown skullcap over the hood. A pair of black headphone semi-hidden under the hood. When he smiled, a few missing teeth showed. He was about 5’10’’. The thick sweatshirt hung lose on his frame. There was a calm, humble and self assured presence about him which does not fit his appearance of dark skin, missing teeth and hooded sweatshirt.
During a break, I found him outside leaning on the concrete brick wall in the sun. It was a frigid day. The sun did not take away the chill in the air. Unlike others, Han was not smoking. He was still wearing only his hooded sweatshirt with the zipper half down.
“Aren’t you cold?” I said.
“Nop.”
“You want to go to church with me after work?”
“No thank you. I don’t need to go to church. God is right here.” He touched his heart.
“How do you know God? And which God?”
“The one true God. Jesus saved my life.”
I was somewhat surprised.
He took off his headphone and gave them to me. I put them over my ears. Celestial music calmed my soul.
“Wow, I like it.” I said. He smiled, this smile came straight from the heart.
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These two essays were originally posted on Facebook in August 2022, repost here because it is so relevant today.
Aug 27, 2020 –
I watched Slumdog Millionaire and loved it.
The lesson I learned is in the game show itself. During the game, the main character’s life experience helped him come up with the answers, he remembered something in his life or in books. He used his reasoning skills to eliminate wrong choices. The best part is the other options – 50/50, ask the audience or ask a friend. In the movie, the main character’s motive for going on the show is the right one. He didn’t go for fame, fortune or power. He was going for love. So of course God would grant him the win. I believe this may be true in general for real life contestant winners.
In life, it is the same. Even after we are saved by Jesus, we still have to work out our salvation. To win in life, we can use the same methods as the game show contestant winner. We use our life experience and learned knowledge. We use our reasoning. We ask the machine (our worldly system of internet, technology, books and so on) to eliminate wrong choices. We ask the crowd. We ask someone we trust.
More importantly I learn the proper way to use the crowd, not to control or manipulate (like dictators or politicians do), but for help.Aug 28, 2020 –
Reading Revelation and trying to figure out how it applies to our lives today is like solving riddles. It makes sense that the problems to solve are at the end of the Bible. It is our take-home, open-book discussion-allowed final exam. It also makes senes that we have to stay-at-home now. It is exam time. This exam is so hard, it is not possible to cheat, because other people’s answer is not my answer and vice versa. God can’t be fooled. It is like trying to win the million dollars in the Who Wants to be a Millionaire game show. It takes everything I’ve got (like Erin Brockovich or Charlie’s Angels using their boobs if that’s what it takes), and all the help I can get. This is also why Jesus tells us to go to the ends of the earth and make disciples of all nations. And also why it is bad to marry close kin. Like in statistics, we need a lot of good diverse data points for our lab experiment.
The answer has to be consistent with the rest of the Bible (text book) and with the reality of life (lab results). I feel like our Abba Father is looking down on me sternly saying, “I give you a lab to experiment and learn. I give you your personal tutor the Holy Spirit. I give you a text book. Now have you goofed off, partied and wasted your time, or have you learned? My course is the toughest and the only course you need to pass. You pass or don’t come home.”
I don’t know about your dad, my dad certainly would say something like that.
Well, audience, what to you think of Revelation 14? I’m stumped. It started with a “new song,” so I don’t want to read what the theologians have already published, those may lead me astray, like the sweet words that can turn my stomach sour as described in Revelation 10. My experience has been that the smartest most knowledgable person in my whole company can send me down the wrong path if I don’t know my stuff. So I have to stick with the Bible, the Holy Spirit and my “lab result.” When I do ask, I have to know what to ask, how to ask, and how to process the answer.
What is burning sulfur? Smoke of torment and no rest? The harvest normally would be a good thing, but here in Revelation 14, it is talking about blood out of the wine press, whose blood? The blood of the Babylon’s adulteries? I know Babylon symbolizes a rich and powerful country. Who are her adulterers? I know the 144000 are virgins so they are not adulterers. -
In the middle of the night, I heard, “Dang, you are totally healthy.” The “dang” woke me up enough to hear the rest of that sentence. The voice reminded me of a round black woman who gave me the warmest most welcoming hug during service at ICCM Minneapolis. I miss those times when we could hug each other for as long as we wanted.
Then this morning, I saw a vision of a left hand, with a string loosely looped around the base of each finger.
The image reminded me of my childhood string games. So after I got up, I googled “childhood string games.” Cat’s Cradle came up. I watched one on YouTube from Kidspot. It’s exactly the same as the one I played as a child in China. How is this possible? China was closed off to the rest of the world during that time. I was in a small town where no foreigners ever visited. How could we be playing the same Cat’s Cradle?
So now I got myself a loop of yarn to relearn how to do Jacob’s Ladder, The Drum and Cat’s Whiskers.
Retirement is not boring at all!
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Today I went for my first eye exam since August 2016. In 2018, I ordered enough contact lenses to last me until now. Of course they lasted so long because I wear the same pair for two months, instead of two weeks. Now, I’m finally down to one pair left, so I’m forced see an optometrist, because they won’t refill my prescription without an eye exam.
To me, going to an optometrist is like going to the doctors. Since my mental hospital discharge, I have avoided doctors’ clinics. I’m afraid of man in white coats who has the authority to give me a sentences. You are sick! You need medication. You need to see a specialists! With COVID, I’d even avoided dentists and optometrists.
Today my eye exam result was A+! Seriously the doctor showed me images of my eyes, and explained my retina has a healthy thickness, it has the perfect contour, the nerve fibers in the back are numerous and spread far and wide.
“How did I do with the reflex test? It’s like a video game. I want to know my score.”
He didn’t give me a score, but he said, “You did really well. Your prescription remains the same. Your eyes have no degradation in four years. Everything looks healthy.”
Now I remember what Jesus said in Luke 11:34, “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light.”
This means my whole body is healthy and full of light! My eyes have not aged at all in four years! For a 58 year old grandma living alone during a year of COVID and political riots and bickering hell, it’s remarkable, don’t you think? Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise, I’ve spent the last four years with Jesus.
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Schizophrenia, source Mayo Clinic. My comments in brackets.
Overview
Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally.
[[This is spirituality and believing in heaven and hell on earth. You atheists won’t understand. If you say you believe in God but have not experienced it, you may not have the Holy Spirit in you.]]
Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior that impairs daily functioning, and can be disabling.
[[Yes, but what about absentminded professors whose teaching is too difficult for the un-educated?]]
People with schizophrenia require lifelong treatment. Early treatment may help get symptoms under control before serious complications develop and may help improve the long-term outlook.
[[This is to ensure revenue for Big Pharma, income for the quack doctors and their accomplices. The system is designed to kill God’s people by first killing our minds with drugs and electrocute treatments. You are to fix us with love and compassion, not with weapons to our heads.]]
Symptoms
Schizophrenia involves a range of problems with thinking (cognition), behavior and emotions. Signs and symptoms may vary, but usually involve delusions, hallucinations or disorganized speech, and reflect an impaired ability to function. Symptoms may include:
Delusions. These are false beliefs that are not based in reality. [[How would you atheists know?]] For example, you think that you’re being harmed or harassed; certain gestures or comments are directed at you; [[We are more sensitive, not like robots. Social rejection towards us makes this worse.]] you have exceptional ability or fame; another person is in love with you; [[God is in us. He is in love with us. If God so loves us, how can we not feel exceptional? No self imposed humility can hide it.]] or a major catastrophe is about to occur. [[People (God’s people) do predict catastrophe to help people avoid or cope.]] Delusions occur in most people with schizophrenia.
Hallucinations. These usually involve seeing or hearing things that don’t exist. Yet for the person with schizophrenia, they have the full force and impact of a normal experience. Hallucinations can be in any of the senses, but hearing voices is the most common hallucination. [[It’s called hearing God’s voice, and Satan’s voice too, but we are equipped with the Bible to defeat Satan.]]
Disorganized thinking (speech). Disorganized thinking is inferred from disorganized speech. Effective communication can be impaired, and answers to questions may be partially or completely unrelated. Rarely, speech may include putting together meaningless words that can’t be understood, sometimes known as word salad. [[It is called poetry, like song lyrics. We are trying to tell you emotion and truth with poetic language. It is the only language capable of such expression. How about legal language, is that not word salad? Why don’t you put them in the hospital?]]
Extremely disorganized or abnormal motor behavior. This may show in a number of ways, from childlike silliness to unpredictable agitation. [[It is called spontaneity and innocence, the opposite of being a drone.]] Behavior isn’t focused on a goal, so it’s hard to do tasks. [[It is because we have no goal to control or manipulate others, or to conform. We are true to ourselves and others.]] Behavior can include resistance to instructions, [[Whose instruction? God’s instruction or quack doctors?]] inappropriate or bizarre posture, a complete lack of response, or useless and excessive movement. [[Who define appropriateness? If you use force and medicine to hurt us, is it appropriate?]]
Negative symptoms. This refers to reduced or lack of ability to function normally. For example, the person may neglect personal hygiene [[We don’t bother to shave, put on deodorant, makeup, perfume or clothes to conform to the culture. We don’t like to be artificial.]] or appear to lack emotion (doesn’t make eye contact, doesn’t change facial expressions or speaks in a monotone). [[We don’t want to show our vulnerability to those who are unsympathetic.]] Also, the person may lose interest in everyday activities, socially withdraw or lack the ability to experience pleasure. [[Staring into space to listen to God is more important to us than eating, drinking, shopping, sex or social activities.]]
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