Hell's Beautiful Lie

“He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.” John 1:10

We see hell’s lies everywhere we look. The lie of hell is present in all things. Hell is full of many of the best liars that the world has seen. These guys are big on PR and marketing, that’s why Hell looks so beautiful these days and heaven seems like such a boring place. It’s a big PR campaign instead of a war like we see on the news every day.

Hell has everything you are looking for. Hell has everything you need. You do not have to restrain yourself or do anything that you don’t want to do. Sex, drugs, parties, yep it has it all. Fame and fortune you can have that too. Remember to be a Christian you have to sacrifice all of that. Sex, yeah that’s the first thing you have to give up. Only for kids that’s it, just like the other animals. You like sex don’t you? Of course you do, why would you want to be a Christian then?

PR has even hit Christians enough to make them believe it. I know a lot of metal heads that will tell you that will tell you God loves to rock. Sex is a gift from God that we have been given to share with our spouse. But that’s not what Hell’s lie is. No their lie goes deeper than that.

You want to be successful? Well you got to be of the world to be successful and well you just can’t do that being Christian.  Hell will use God’s own works against the followers and believers. When I was a Satanist I read the bible quite a bit. Why would a Satanist use the bible? In the bible there is a lot of stuff that men do not understand without God showing them what it means.

Why would God ask anyone to give his son up as an offering? Better yet, and pagans love this one, why would God say to hold no other gods above him if there were no other gods? Without the understanding that anything that you put above god is an idol or another God their statement would hold water. So using the same words that Christians use against them puts a lot of Christians in a spot where they do not know what to say or do.

That is part of the point, doubt. If one of the lost see this moment of doubt, that is a point for the devil. But again, many times the beautiful lie is not targeting the soul and faith directly. Let’s just occupy you with things that you love. Idle hands are the devil’s plaything, not anymore. Let people become so busy they have no time to even consider God.

Both parents are now working, and can still only just make ends meet. If you are going to be successful, you have to dress the part. You want your kids to be successful, well they have to have a good balance of extracurricular activities and go to a good college. Well that costs more money so we have to work more. Busy, busy, busy…

But hey you got that McMansion. You are driving the latest and greatest SUV this one getting a whole 19 MPG. You’ve got the iEverything. You have it going on. You’ve got everything just like Hell promised. So why are you so unhappy that you find yourself finding a reason to drink, always arguing with your spouse and have no idea what your children actually like, so you buy them the lasts iThing.

You are feeding the machine, just like Hell asked you to do. That’s what you got to do to be successful right? Well you’ve come this far, next you are going to have to join a country club to network with more people. Yep we can make a few sacrifices so daddy can join up to make a little more.

Don’t forget that perfect lawn. What you have is a new law that you cannot fulfill. As Grace Life International would say, you have all these ways that you try to fill your buckets, but they have a whole in them. Hell has you. But you go to church, but do you have the love of God within you. But I always vote republican and fight abortion. Good for you, but you are missing the cause. Do you share love?

The world tells you things, and it doesn’t matter if you are Democrat, Republican, Socialists, Tea Party or Communist, if you take that walk without the Love of Christ you will fall short. If you are doing all these things to be successful, but do it without God you will fall short. You fill your time with bake sales, choir, and helping the homeless, great, but do you do it with the love of Christ in your heart or so people will love you.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. We tried for a long time to live by the law and fell short, that’s why Grace was given to us. Hell’s beautiful lie does not hold water against the one truth of God. You like heavy metal, keep it, God still loves you. You like tattoos and piercings, keep them, God still loves you. You like to play Dungeons and Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, and Shadowrun, keep doing it, God still loves you. If any of these things inhibit your faith, discard it, but let God guide you in that, not man.

Hell’s lie is that the only way to have fun is to not be a Christian, their boring. Hell’s lie tells us that they are the only way to be successful. Hell’s lie is that if you are going to be a Christian you have to do all these things, keep up the law, never sin, be perfect, be a cookie cutter of those church kids that look so perfect. Hell’s lie tells you that’s the only way.

That’s exactly why it’s a lie. There is so many Christian Rock, rap or metal bands out there. Right now there is an organization that is taking up a fund to get oneof their pastors a tattoo, but it’s a 50/50 split between tattoo and supporting a homeless organization. God doesn’t want you to sacrifice fun for him. He wants you to bring him into your fun. If you focus on God and allow him to guide you, you will be successful in ways that you may have never through been possible.

Christians are meek and cannot fight, tell that to Fedor Emelianenko, Matt Hughs, Wanderlei Silva or Chris Weidman. The list is long for Christian MMA fighters, and then there are thousands of Christian men and women in the armed forces. I will quote Pastor Bob Beeman when asked a question of do I have to give up metal music to be Christian, “I think you will find that your love of music will only increase, I know mine sure has.” He also went on to say that the bands specificly that will be a personal conviction.

I know in my walk from Satanism to Christianity there were only a few bands that I stopped listening to and they were Cradle of Filth and Diocide. Later I have replaced them with bands like Demon Hunter, War of Ages and many other Rock groups. My taste in music did not change as much as the taste in what substance I was taking in.

Now I did cut out a lot of things that were not healthy when I converted to Christ, and still fight with cutting a few more things out. Let me let you know a little secret, none of us are perfect. The preacher on stage every Sunday, nope not even him. We are perfected through Grace alone. Through Jesus we have been perfected, not through any act of our own. Don’t believe Hell’s pretty lies, there are a lot of actors, PR guys and lawyers down there to help them out.

God loves you, let him celebrate with you and you will find that Christians can have quite a bit of fun, when they let themselves.

“There should be only one philosophy: Living by God’s commandments. Then people will treat everybody how they would want to be treated.” Fedor Emelianenko

GodForgives.Us

Dungeons and Dragons, a Gateway to Evil?

“But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when fully grown, gives birth to death. Do not be deceived, my beloved.” James 1:14-16

In a recent conversation I was asked about what influence Dungeons and Dragons had on my fall from Christianity to Satanism. Now for a lot of people this is simply an absurd question, but there are many people that remember the Satanic scare and the blame of Dungeons and Dragons in some murders and such. These things have taken hold in the mind of some Christians to the point that they can see D&D as a gateway drug to Occultism and Satanism.

For me, this was not the case. Yes I grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons and reading fantasy novels of swords and sorcery, but I don’t think that these things had that much impact in my life choices to follow the road to the Occult. There were a lot of reasons and influences in my fall from grace, if you will.

I was raised and taken to church by my mother up until I was five. We lived in Eastern Kentucky at that time and we moved to Tennessee at that time. When we moved my mother did not find a church so we stopped going to church until I was asked if I wanted to go to a Youth Group at a church when I was in 5^th grade. Mrs. Harris I thank you for that. Women English teachers have been some of the most influential people in my life.

I started going and by the time I was 11 I had been saved and baptized, but even by this time I had seen things that I didn’t talk about because people thought I was a weird enough kid as it were. I didn’t think that telling people that I have seen people walking around bridges and I knew they weren’t really there would not help my case for being normal, whatever that really means. When I was baptized things were not exactly as I had expected them to be.

I was attacked spiritually with waking visions, audible voices and typical schizophrenic activities. Of course when an 11 year old kid tried to explain this to my preacher, he thought I was telling stories or acting out for attention. Whatever the reason, I was not believed. If my preacher would not believe this spiritual thing that I was going through there is no way that my mom and friends would believe me.

So I felt isolated and alone and tried to deal with it on my own and eventually gave up. I thought at that time it was a Baptist thing. So I started researching on my own and learning what I could, but I was not going to church anymore. I was angry at God the situation and everything else about what I had gone through.  Eventually I just let go and gave up.

I would come back to it every few years but at that time I was seeking a higher understanding and enlightenment. I was changing and had a reputation for being an angry boy who would get into fights. I didn’t have too many friends and ended up reading more about Dungeons and Dragons than playing it.

My searches and studies had taken me to looking at the older religions. I was trying to find a truth among what people believed as long ago as I could find. I would look for themes and understanding and I found a few “truths” about the power that human beings have. A few of these are validated even in Christian thought. The biggest was that humans have dominion over spirits.

Humans have power of spirits. So spirits are real, and I can make them do what I want. I knew that spirits were real; I had seen them and felt them. By this time I was focused more on the power of the mind and not really concerned with fantasy stories. Then someone told me another truth that I knew but was looking for validation for. Magic is real.

This was not the sorcery magic from Fantasy novels. It was more akin to force of will and the ability to affect the world through your will. So I tested it, and it worked. I didn’t realize at that time I was already prey to demons and other energies that were leading me down the road to Satanism. The only thing that Role Playing games did for me was put me in touch with my wife.

I had studied magic and occult for a while and got involved with a few guys that practiced the darker arts, which showed me how to spot demons for the first time. Well these demons were just tormented spirits mostly, but I was still naïve. It would be years before I would be calling myself a Satanist.

What role did these games have in my fall? Not much of anything really, in fact that was the first thing to completely go when I converted to Satanism. The sinful man knows only toil. There is no rest for the wicked. All those saying are very true. I worked, lived and breathed sin. Rolling dice on Friday night and eating Cheetos did not condemn me. My actions and belief condemned me.

Video games did not corrupt my spirit. Rejection, judgment and condemnation corrupted what was supposed to be love. Isolation allowed me and the demons to do all the harm in the world to me. An abusive first marriage didn’t help things, and a lack of having time to play games and have fun certainly didn’t help. I had no release and was so obsessed with what I had become that I was blind to how stupid it all really was.

1^st Corinthians chapter 10 holds a truth I learned on that path as well. The deities that pagans worship are demons. I found that truth when I was a Satanist and it was an essential passage to help draw me back to Christ. That truth was very much needed for me at that point.

What got me on that road? Being isolated, judged, condemned, hated, outcast, different, and too smart for my own good without the wisdom to see how foolish I was. There is a whole list, but movies, video games and Dungeons and Dragons are not things on the list. Could it for someone? Yeah, but more times than not it is a collection of things.

I fully believe that it is not one thing that drives people from Christ and into any other direction they go. It is a collection of influences that draw us down into the darkness. For without the light of God we live in darkness. I am always nervous talking about my fall. I used Christian writing to learn more about demons many times. I know that temptation and curiosity can lead to further studies into the dark, and it’s dangerous.

In several movies, philosophies and stories there is a message that has led to the warning that I give now. Nietzsche I think says it best, “And if you gaze for long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” Don’t go there… just don’t. Not for the sake of understanding. Don’t open those doors, leave them alone because each one you open lets something know who you are and gives you more you have to fight.

Spiritual Warfare is hard enough without a Smite Evil spell in our back pocket. No matter how long you play D&D you will not be able to throw fireballs. No matter how many times you read Harry Potter you will not produce the patronus charm. And if you think these things are evil, but approve of Narnia because the author was a great Christian Scholar I feel you may want to reconsider the prior. Stories, games and movies do not make people evil.

If you do not know love, you will replace it with hate. A bully will create more evil than every book that has been written. A bully can be more dangerous than the “Satanic Bible” by Anton LeVey. The story that the Satanic Bible preaches is one that we hear every day. We are in control of our lives and can do what we wish. We are an army of one.

We hold the true power, and thus our own little gods. But let me tell you friends, there is only one God, and his son died for us all. He came to tell us to love God and love others. You can try to drive the car all you want, but if you want to get where you’re going, you might want to give dad the wheel.

“D&D was a training ground for our imagination.” Vin Diesel

Don't Fear the Silence

“Happy is the person who meditates on wisdom and reasons intelligently,

Who reflects on his heart and on her ways and ponders her secrets,

Pursuing her like a hunter, and lying in wait on her paths;

Who peers through her windows and listens at her doors;” Sirach 14:20-23

That old saying, “You have two ears and one mouth because you are supposed to listen twice as much as you speak,” is great advice. Today we are a people that have every kind of impulse and distraction in front of us. You could say that it is so hard to get a quiet moment, let alone a quiet moment with God.

All through the bible we are told that we are supposed to be quiet and meditate on God’s word and listen to his voice, guidance and instruction. Today we have T.V.s with hundreds of channels and have access to distractions and noise at the click of a mouse or a swipe of a smart phone. Knowledge is right at our fingertips and we are a culture of ADHD. In all of that how are we supposed to find quiet?

This topic brings to mind one of my favorite books, Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk. In this book the author writes about how we are addicted to noise and sound and has some really great quotes about life in general. It is a great philosophical read about the human condition. One of my favorite quotes from the book is a reference to 1984 by Orwell:

“Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you are fully absorbed.”

With propagandas in our face every second of every day it is no surprise that we have become so absorbed with consumerism. Marketing says that we have to get the message, ploy or product in front of as many people as often as you can afford to. The world wants your attention and we give it to the world. To raise our children we must make sure that they not only go to school but have one or two after school programs that keep them busy and four hours of homework every night. That’s what they need to stay out of trouble.

If we are to meditate on God’s word daily, what does that mean? Does that mean Yoga? What is the draw of yoga besides the things the world tells us? It is a stress reduction technique and much more. It is a way to relieve stress, tension and offer peace. It is a really healthy thing that is needed in this world right now. Many people that cannot take time out to just have some peace and quiet to be with themselves and the ones they love will sit and be quiet in this activity.

At least they are getting a few moments of peace. When is the last time you sat and listened to the rain fall outside? When was the last time you just sat quietly and cleared your mind of everything that was going on in it? We need quiet. It is in this quiet that we hear God’s voice most clearly.

The man in the bible that is thought of as being the most wise human being in the bible is Solomon. God poured wisdom into him like a fount. I find it funny that he says more than anyone else the word Meditate. Webster defines Meditate as spending time in quiet thought for religious purposes or relaxation. Be quiet and listen.

You cannot listen when you speak. You must hold quiet so you can hear. Turn off the TV, close the computer. Turn off the phones, tablets and game systems. Take a deep breath and as you exhale clear your mind of everything you are keeping track of. Say a prayer to God and then just sit quietly for a minute. May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance (Jude 1:2). It’s there for you, but you just have to be willing to accept it.

Peace is a gift from God just as Salvation is, but like Salvation we have an obligation to seek it and hold quietly upon it. With a world of distractions how can we as a people be listening to God? Do we wonder why the world has grown so far from God and we hesitate to call ourselves Christians because we don’t want to be associated with some people that call themselves Christian. Oh I’m Christian but I’m not that kind of Christian.

We cannot serve the world and serve God. We cannot listen to the world and listen to God at the same time. We cannot talk and hear at the same time. Stop waiting for your turn to speak and take your long past turn to listen. God is waiting on you to turn your face to him and you can’t if your face is staring at Wolf Blitzer, the latest reality show, or the stock market. How hard is it to kiss your spouse without looking at them?

How hard is it to love someone that you are ignoring? It’s impossible. It is also impossible for you to receive love when you are similarly distracted. Take a walk and be with God. Maybe you need to start a little closer to the flesh and take a walk with your family, or just have dinner with them. Spend time with them by spending time with them, not occupying the same room with them to be distracted by, “Whoo hoo new building!” or checking what crops need to be harvested in Farmville.

How can you draw closer to the blood that you share in your home if you have no interest in learning about them? We are noiseaholics and have allowed ourselves to become fully taken in by the distractions of the world. You are strange when you say that you don’t watch TV or don’t have Netflix. We must share the love of Christ with others, but we also have to have the time to receive it ourselves. The importance of being quiet and sitting with God and then being with other people is without paramount.

How can we Love God with all our heart and Love others as we love ourselves if we do not take the time required to actually love them? I’m not talking about dedicating more time to study of God’s word, but that helps. What I’m saying is for one day, one night, one hour turn off all distractions and just be. Take a minute or hour to be with God and then do the same with those around you. Loving others requires interaction with others.

No matter how successful you are, you can still find yourself lonely and alone even when you are surrounded by people. No matter how poor you are, you can spend a little time with the Lord or with another person to share the love that we all have been given. Love doesn’t cost any amount of money and money can only complicate it.

The greatest gift that you can give your wife is love and affection. The greatest gift you can give your husband is love and affection. The greatest gift you can receive from God is Love. Love is all that God asks in return. Can Candy Crush love you? Will Farmville teach you anything about God’s plan for us? Can WoW give us peace, mercy and love? What is distracting you from being in love? What is keeping you from peace today? Turn it off. God has a plan for every problem. No matter how big the bug in your code, you won’t figure it out until you step away from it. God’s there in that too.

One hour, give it a try… at worst you just wasted an hour of the day, we do a lot more than that flipping channels or on youtube watching cats do silly things. How bad can it be to waste it on God?

“There are worse things you can do to the people you love than kill them. The regular way is just to watch the world do it. Just read the newspaper.” Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby

Lord Cleanse Me, Again...

“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Matthew 3:11-12

Baptism is one of the acts that we go through in order to become a Christian. It is the recreation of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. It is the symbol of us being washed clean of all sins. We all agree on baptism being something of an important thing, and if you have gone through it, you have felt why it is so compelling.

Many times in life we wish for the slate to be washed clean, a fresh start. Sometimes we move across the country to start up again. Other times we change churches, spouses or hair color. Something that marks us as a different person than we were. We are trying to do something different to break a cycle that we feel we are stuck in. With the information age in full swing, this is becoming harder and harder to do.

There is one place we can always turn to get a fresh start and that is God. Bathed in his glory and his grace through the death of Jesus Christ, we are washed clean through him. We get a fresh start every time. We can screw up every day and ask for forgiveness and we get it every single time. That is fact, but this does not always carry over to the rest of the world.

The world says, “Hey I know you, how about another drink? No? Oh, come on for old time sake. That a boy, I knew you had it in you.“  The world knows the flesh, and all the weaknesses. That cute redhead that has your number; the buddy that has the hook up or that website that is just a click away, we all have our weakness or addiction. Sometimes it’s food. Sometimes it is something that happened years ago.

We have shown the world that we are not the same, but it doesn’t care. God does, and those that see you through the eyes of Christ will notice it. God forgives, the world forgets. The world even puts in little ways to help itself forget. Expunging your criminal record, if you can, is just like it never happened. That is why we were given Grace.

The Law holds record of all of our wrongs. Through grace our wrongs are forgotten. There are so many times when I was walking lost that a yard stick was put up to me and I was told how many ways I fell short from God’s Grace, which was a lie. No one falls short of God’s Grace, you simply have to allow yourself to receive the gift of forgiveness and Grace. The law condemns and grace redeems.

The sentiment of God Forgives and the World Forgets is this, God gives us grace and wishes us to be part of his family, but the world has built little boxes and containers for everyone to be in, and these boxes are exclusive. You have to be part of the club to be accepted. Look at country club membership. You have to pay a lot of money to just apply and even then most are invitation only. To be part of God’s Country Club you have to accept a gift given freely. Everyone can afford that, but not the country club.

“Oh I see here that in 1984 you had some domestic violence and a DUI in 1992. I think this might be a problem, we can’t let your kind in here.” Having a problem can get you put into boxes that the world easily puts people in. You are a criminal for getting caught for something that many people have done but not gotten caught. You had a girlfriend that was 2 years younger than you in high school. Daddy got mad when he caught you with his little girl, now you’re a sex offender.

Well now you and she are married, but you are still a sex offender and have to report it when you move to a new area. You can’t even pick your own kids up from school. But hey in 10 years you can petition to get it forgotten.  In the meantime you struggle to find work, face judgment around every turn, and even some churches ask you to find somewhere else to worship.  

You killed a couple when drinking and driving, and well that put you in a place that you had never thought you would be. You’ve got friends at the country club that can help you out, but still you killed two people. You are now a monster. You call your buddies at the country club and they have turned their back on you. Your perfect life just crumbled, but I’ve got good news. You want some help getting the vision of those two people lying dead while you were waiting for the police to arrive.

 You want to remember, but be forgiven. You remember to keep you from doing it again. But now that you know the cost of your problem, you want to be forgiven. God will forgive you, all you have to do is ask, he’s waiting on you. It is your choice. All you have to do is accept him and he will cover you. He will help carry your burden and help you make better choices.

Does that mean that those two counts of vehicular homicide go away? No the World wants to ensure that you are punished for that. What can you do with this now? How long will this follow you? Welcome to the bad box, criminal. But inside that box is where you go, murderer. But God tears those boxes apart with his forgiveness.

Those of you that are reading this that are not in those boxes. What can you do to help people that are? The world wants to keep these people in pain and suffering for as long as it can. The world has policies to protect the world through harming people that made a mistake in life, sometimes very large mistakes. Where is God’s grace in the earth? Through his people.

This is the message I have today. If you are in HR or a policy maker at a company, what can you do to give people a new chance? A bar fight can cost people for up to 8 years. Having sex before marriage at crucial ages can cost you 10 to 15 years. How did this world become like this? We must protect ourselves because everyone is trying to hurt us. We must save what is ours because the world is evil. If we give Bob another chance he’ll do the same thing, and we covered it up well this time, but twice… we can’t do that.

The world is an evil place, but that does not mean that grace is not there. That does not mean that Jesus is not here with us. No, it just means that we have to fight a little harder to get God’s light to shine through. Fear is a tool and a weapon that keeps us in darkness, but where God is darkness must flee. I want to call out to each and every Christian. Do what God has called us to do; let his light shine through in everything we do and everything we touch.

The world can change, but it takes people to fight for the change. And a fight does not have to be one of violence, in fact that way will assure that we will lose. Grace, mercy, peace, love, compassion, these are the tools that we must use to make the changes to make this world a world that knows the true voice of God.

How can you help? Before you hold up a ruler to the strange boy that decided to go to church today, try talking to him. Before you condemn the girl that you have seen walking down the roads and getting into cars with men she does not know, talk to her. How many weeks do you tithe time?

16 hours and 48 minutes is 10 percent of the time that we are given each week. That’s before sleep. That’s a lot of time right? How are you going to get that in? Well church probably takes care of 2 to 4 hours of it. So let’s put that down to 12 hours to get covered over 6 more days.

 So you mean that to tithe time you have to give 2 hours a day and almost 5 on Sunday? How long is your morning commute? Give it to God. Now you have one hour a day to give to God. 30 Minutes over lunch, hey you were going to McDonalds anyway, why not get that lady counting pennies some food and talk with her. You may be surprised at what kind of Good you can do for someone with just a couple dollar burgers and a little time.

You want to impact someone on a level that is massive? Write a few letters to people in jail offering them a chance to talk with someone that doesn’t know them. Some of these people are cut off from everyone as soon as they go behind bars; families turn on them, isolated. Be Christ for them. Offer them conversation and allow it to lead to more.  Instead of protesting an abortion clinic, how about spend time with a girl that is facing a hard decision. Find out why she would be willing to kill her unborn child. Why her life is so desperate that she feels that this is the only place she can turn.

We are not promised tomorrow. How can we not do something for God every day? God gave it to us, what can we do with it? Who can you take to the river and baptize? Who can you show the light of God? You know how good it felt to go under the water and become a new person. How can you not share that with someone who needs the Love of Jesus? What can you do? Write a letter. Take a homeless person out to dinner. Pray for an open heart and open eyes and God will give you a chance to serve.

John had no idea that Jesus would come to the river and bless him with the chance to take him under the water to be cleansed and freed from the sinful body that our perfect God was encased in. John was blessed that day, because John got to be the hands of God and baptize Jesus to set his feet upon the path to the cross for us. We all were blessed by the living water. So what’s next? You like it? Share it.

“If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.” Zig Ziglar

Power of Words

It’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man. Mat 15:11

The power that our tongue has is one that is hard to understand. How such a small part of our body as a whole has so much power that it is a constant warning throughout the entire bible. This is something that I did not understand until after I began going through counseling and preparing for Deliverance Ministry.

The topic of Deliverance Ministry is a touchy one for a lot of people, but it is one of the reasons I’m doing as well as I am doing right now. During my life wandering spiritually I spoke many things that harmed me and my soul. There are things that I allowed for the sake of understanding, knowledge or power that wounded me deeply.

I profess with my word that these things were wrong and I know that now, but when you are wandering in the dark it’s hard to tell friend from foe. My first steps were in tests. If this flame will change color then there is truth to these words. I wanted to see a response, and I received one. Well if that worked what else will work?

Down the slope I went until I began to allow spirits, demons, into my being. I swore oaths turning myself over as a vessel for the evil ones to use. With these words I allowed them to do with me what they would. It was depravity after another as I carved out sections of who I am and who I was becoming to allow them to do with me what they will.

For my seeking I did receive knowledge and wisdom through my folly. However, by knowing the names of demons, they also learn yours. As you go deeper and deeper into the abyss you see things that you cannot unsee. You learn things that you cannot forget. And you do things that you cannot undo. I had become a man filled with Hate, Lust, Anger, Destruction and filled with dreams of a truly violent death and being happy with it.

I am very glad that things happened when they did. God is good. He warned me to turn away, but I would not listen. Who knows how many demons where walking around in my flesh at any point in time. Was I hearing voices? No… just thoughts. Was I schizophrenic? No… Possession is much different from that. When you open yourself up to the demonic host, you get what they want… not what you want.

All of this was done with words. I swore oaths. Dedicated myself to thoughts and uttered blasphemies. Many of them I can still bring to mind even now. I have not spoken those words in over 5 years, but I still hear them. I denounced my salvation, my right and privilege as a child of God. But even with that, God did not give up on me.

I was the wayward son, lost in the depths of the ocean. He was waiting on me to make my choice and to say the words that he told me to say. All I had to do was ask for forgiveness.

As a fool’s tongue leads to strife and folly (Proverbs 18), only with wisdom gained from folly did I see how much of a fool I had become. I had to be put in a situation where there was nothing to distract me from the truth. I needed my Grey Door.

Upon my release from my Grey Door, my journey was only still beginning. I was a new child of God once more, but my tongue had still opened doors that were not yet closed. I had not done this alone either, and because it was with a union of souls with my wife. We had to be separated for God to begin working on us.

We began receiving counseling. We had a church that supported us as we were a challenge to the leadership of the church. Thank God for Providence Road Church of Christ (http://prcoc.org). We were going to Celebrate Recovery on top of the therapy. Our counselor quickly realized that we were outside her area of expertise and had found someone in the area that works on people with Occult pasts.

Clay Barnes met with us. He was the one that shined the light of the true power of words. In the first session I found myself renouncing oaths with the same verbiage that I used when speaking them. They had to be the same in order to close the doors that were opened. He too felt that we needed something rare. He suggested Deliverance Ministry.

We went into it and again had to be separated. The spirits within myself and my wife could not be removed is we were together. We went through six one-hour long sessions before we were turned back over to Clay. It was a very long process and we came a long way. Still It’s been three years since we finished with that and only now am I speaking about the power of words.

Still now, still so young in Christ with everything that I have seen and gone through. James knew what he was talking about:

“So too, though the tongue is a small part of the body, it boasts great things. Consider how large a forest a small fire ignites. And the tongue is a fire. The tongue, a world of unrighteousness, is places among the parts of our bodies. It pollutes the whole body, sets the course of life on fire, and is set on fire by hell” James 3:5-6

So what’s next? It is time for the truth to spew forth from my mouth. With that said. Mind your tongue; do not let it become wild and untamed. My journey is not one I wish any of you to follow. I was Christian, then nothing. I then became Wiccan then a practitioner of Witchcraft. From there I became a Satanist. I became a leader for the enemy. Then I became nothing once more, which was better than what I was, and then once more a Child of God. I came back home and the Father was waiting for me.

If I can blaspheme his name, renounce his gifts, spit on his image, walk with those that would stand against him and make friends among the demons of hell and he forgives me…. I know he would forgive you.

Change of Season

24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life[f] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.Matthew 16:24-27

As summer gives way to fall, we enter a change of season. The term change of season is something that we can overlook fairly easily, but what does a change of season in one’s life truly mean? I have been talking and praying about a lot of things in my life. Upon writing this I have been a Christian for 5 years, and God has done so much for me during this time.

Has this five years been easy? No, but they could have been much harder. Something has begun stirring within me over the past few weeks and it goes back to my trip to visit my parents and the place I called home for years. It was a good reminder for me to see where I came from once more and see just how far God has taken me. Much more than that; it was pointing to me just how far that I still need to go.

We each carry with us stories about our faith, our lives and who we are. These stories are parts of who we are today and who we have come to be in Christ. However, they do not define us. They speak to who we were and the journey that we have traveled. It is how all of these come together and what we allow God to do with them that truly begin to define us.

Even then it’s not a true image of who and what we are and who and what we are to become. Only God knows the path that we are to walk and still with that, we have the choice to go forward or stay where we stand. Each crossroad that we come to can potentially become a change of season within our hearts and souls. Each person that we come in contact with is another chance for us, or them, to do God’s work. The trouble that many of us have is seeing the path in which we are to walk, or even hear that we have something to do.

God speaks to us in many different ways; sometimes it is bold and loud and cannot be ignored. Other times it is a mere whisper. How do we know? How can we tell what is our own mind and what is the voice of God? For that sometimes we have to go back to our roots. Sometimes the only way forward is to look to the past.

Looking to the path that I have traveled; to reading the words that God has blessed me with before; has helped me focus on the journey. I look to my parents. I look to my challenges in life. I look to the times that I failed. I looked to the times I thought I had succeeded. I have looked and realized that some of my failures where not truly failures, but they were things that God put in my path to help build me to be the man He needed me to be. The same goes for successes, influences, people, places, experiences and even when I became a Satanist.

All of this has purpose, all of these things built upon the prior to help shape me as a person. As I bear the cross that is my sins of the past, those sins that I have been forgiven of, but I am still held against them. The world is of Sin and will hold onto sin as long as it can. I have something the world does not have however; I have the Grace given to me by God. I also have a rare experience that many do not have, and with that it gives me a rare responsibility.

It is not an unusual thing that we are given an interesting path and story to help do the things that God wants us to do. God will use these things to lead others to him. With this also comes a truth. We all must face the demons we know to bring light to those in the darkness. We all must take up our cross and follow God. It is a command that was given to us by Jesus to become his disciples. I have a great group of Christians around me to provide me encouragement and guidance. One of these men was a man that reached out to me when I was locked away in Jail and was trying to relearn who Christ was. One of the biggest things he speaks about is dying to yourself.

You must die to yourself to become more like Jesus. You deny what the flesh desires to look at things more like Christ. It is great advice. But with this comes another truth. When you die to yourself, you must not forget who you are either. Your identity in Christ is very important, because it is who God has made you to be. Sometimes it is harder to find out why God has made you go through things like he has and even harder to accept it. Harder still, seeing the path that you must walk to do what God wants you to do.

Sometimes all we can do is Pray and delve into God’s word. Through this attunement we can see and hear God’s voice and plan a bit better. All of this comes together to build the world around us. What has God blessed you with? What skills have you been given? How can you use these gifts to do what God wishes you to do? I leave with a quote that holds more than a little truth for me, and if one truly thinks about it, it probably does for you as well.

“The path to paradise begins in hell.” ~Dante Alighieri

Inclusive or Exclusive, the Christmas spirit

The holidays bring out a lot of things in a lot of people. For many it's a time of joy and cheer, for others that cheer has turned sour with hurt and loss. For those that are alone it can be a time of great pain. For us Christians it is supposed to be a time for us to reflect on the birth of the one that died for all of us.

During this time of reflection, it is easy to get caught up in what Christmas is NOT about. Shopping, greed, everything but the spirit of Christ. It can also make us loose sense of purpose and why God left us here and think that this is our time. No one else that does not worship this time for the same reasons as us do not deserve it. This is a big reason why there are not more of us.

This is a time for us to celebrate and truly get into the spirit of giving, it is not about consumerism and it is not of elitism. It is a time to be with family and friends, it is also a time to reach out to those that are hurting because of this time. Those people need a reason to make this time of year something worth celebrating. Times are turbulent, as they always are, we do not need more fighting, war and strife. We do not need any more lessons in greed, coveting, lust and deceit. What I call for is for each of you to reflect on one thing. Was Christ inclusive or exclusive?

Jesus was a man that none of us are capable of being, but we should not stop trying just because it's hard. It's easy to have friends that are like you, it's hard to spend time with people that you are not like. Look in the bible and reflect on the places that Jesus had dinner at more than not. He spent more time with the lawyers, tax collectors and thieves when he was living his ministry. He lived by example, he wanted all to walk with him. He lived and died so we could be with him. So why have we, as Christians, for so long shunned, killed, hurt and cast aside those that were not like us?

When I was not a Christian one of my biggest reasons for not was the crusades. We Christians went into the middle-east and slaughtered millions because they believed differently from us, to take the holy lands away from the people that had lived there for so long. We continued to oppress others that did not believe like us. The conquistadors, the people that settled right here in the US, the natives that were here had what we wanted and we took it from them. This oppression pushed me away from Christ, especially when I was told that I had no place at church when I listened to rock music, when I dressed like that, when I was not just like them.

I am a Christian and I would still wager that I am quite different than the vast majority of my brothers and sisters, but that's how I was built. God loves me for who I am, his brush painted me and that is who I am. I'm still an unfinished work, just as we all are. Lessons in the bible that really mean a lot to me are the ones that make you reflect on life and how one should live as well as the stories about how we are all his people. Jesus told the disciples to go make disciples of the world.

He also spoke to the world as the nation of Israel. Now this is an interesting thought, we are all one people under God. We are all citizens of one global country in God's eyes. Why can we not live like that? Why is it that we have to concern ourselves with what country we currently live and how it compares to others? All of them are broken because they are not all one. As long as we as a race of people fight God's plan and design we will never truly know what happiness we could have. We have the resources globally to take care of all of the people of the world, but we will not share it. We want to hold it tight and are so worried about running out.

Where is your faith? Did not your God take care of you? Did he not see you through the darkness? Did he not provide for his people in the past? Faith of a mustard seed... Until we wake up and break down these walls that we call borders and live as a whole people we will never see his plan. Here is my challenge to you, if you do not have a friend that is not a Christian, I challenge you to expand your world. If your faith is strong enough, then this is not a challenge, stand beside the sinner because we all are. Show them that Christians are not all judgmental exclusive people. Show people the Love that God has shown you. Let us begin to break down these borders and walls around us. We are a global people and our survival depends on two things, first God letting us stay here and second our ability to look beyond how we are different and see how we are alike.

Be more like Jesus, Love people, and love ALL people no matter what holiday in December they celebrate today, they could be standing with you at church if you can get past that. Remember, the healthy are not the ones that need the doctors. If you only live with the healthy and help those that are healthy, the sick will continue to die away. Two commandments is what he gave us, Love God with everything we have and Love each other as we love ourselves. I don't know about you, but I only pick on myself for so long before I get tired of it.

I love you all, and may we see a brighter future through hope. This is a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, who would have gave away all those gifts on that very day if he wasn't in such a weak form. For those that are hurting, I am sorry for your loss. I cannot bring back your lost ones, but I can stand with you and be a light in the darkness. I know that I have a lot of brothers and sisters that can do the same in this Holiday season let us walk like Christ.