Deuteronomy 11:1-12:32 ~ Luke 8:22-39 ~ Psalm 70:1-5 ~ Proverbs 12:4
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Old Testament - Wow. I like Deuteronomy chapter 11 a lot today. There are a ton of powerful verses in this chapter! I love verse 22 - ""Be careful to obey all the commands I give you; show love to the LORD your God by walking in his ways and clinging to him." I really like that... show Love to God by walking in his ways - and clinging to him. I think I caught that term in our readings yesterday as well - "clinging." I know in our world today it's not too cool to be too clingy. :) But, I think God indeed wants us to be clingy when it comes Him! I pray that I cling to God each and every day. How about you? When it comes to God, are you clingy? Check out this amazing stained glass image of a woman clinging to the cross. Amazing. I love the imagery. Take a few moments to meditate on this one...
Verses 26 through 28 are terrific verses on the choice the Israelites could make back then - ""Today I am giving you the choice between a blessing and a curse! You will be blessed if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today. You will receive a curse if you reject the commands of the LORD your God and turn from his way by worshiping foreign gods." I believe this choice has morphed but still continues today through the New Covenant. We can choose to follow Jesus or we can choose to follow our own ways. One way is a blessing and one way is truly a curse. Like the Israelites, we still have the choice of a blessing or a curse.... Which choice will we make?
New Testament - Today in Luke chapter 8 verses 29 through 31 we will read some sobering verses – “For Jesus had commanded the evil spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places. Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” “Legion,” he replied, because many demons had gone into him. And they begged him repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss.” Jesus then expels these demons from the man into a herd of pigs. The One Year Bible Companion has an interesting commentary on these verses that says Jesus did not simply destroy or send these demons into the Abyss, “because the time for such work had not yet come. But it will come. The book of Revelation records the future victory of Jesus over Satan, his demons, and all evil.” This is news for each of us to pay attention to! Satan, his demons and all evil are still out and about in our world today. And honestly - make no mistake - we each need to be very cognizant of the evil that can pursue our hearts. I don’t mean to scare you – but also, I do mean to scare you. :) When I first became a Christian 9 years ago, I instantly understood God’s love and grace and goodness. And I honestly thought for a short while that the world was just so good, and that there wasn’t really any evil in the world. There were just humans that made bad decisions. Well, fortunately I shared this viewpoint with a wise Christian friend of mine. He prescribed that I read 2 books – 1. This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti and 2. The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. My friend also told me this – “The devil’s greatest trick is making you think that he does not exist. If you don’t believe he exists, then you won’t even realize it when he’s tempting you.” Wow. So true. If you are like me, where I was a few years ago, and you are not so sure that there is an actual presence of evil in our world – an evil that pursues people’s hearts – then I prescribe these 2 books above to you as well. Now – the good news – Jesus is still the answer to expelling demons and evil and sin away from us today! Jesus is Risen and is so infinitely more powerful than any of the evil that is out there. So – more important than reading those 2 books above, my prescription to you really is to stay as close to Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit as you possibly can in this life. And you will have no need to fear evil. Stick with Jesus.
Okay, I’ve typed a lot here without a question. . . Here it is. Do you believe in the existence of evil in our world today? Do you believe that Satan exists? Do you believe that demons exist? Do you know the one true Remedy and Salvation and Protection from all evil? Will you run into Jesus’ arms for this safety forever? And my last piece of very serious advice if you are struggling with a sin that you know is putting you in contact with evil – you must must must leave that sin behind. I know that all sin is risky and dangerous and dumb, but I think you also will know if you are really entertaining a sin that is leading you down a very dark path. Please confess that sin to Jesus and God and repent. Seek counseling and professional help immediately if it a serious sin or addiction. God will give you victory. Yes, it may be a long and painful process of getting free from the addiction, but you must take this journey to freedom. The freedom will justify the pain it takes to get you there. Paul tells us to flee from sin. Flee from evil. Will you flee? Please flee.
Bible.org's commentary on Luke chapter 8's readings today titled "Stilling of the Storm" is at this link and commentary on "The Deliverance of the Demoniac" is at this link.
Psalms - Psalm 70 verse 4 is awesome - "But may all who search for you be filled with joy and gladness. May those who love your salvation repeatedly shout, "God is great!"" Indeed, I think as Christians we should be filled with joy & gladness! Yes, there will be tough times. And suffering. But overall, I pray that we are filled with joy and gladness. And then the second sentence in this verse reminds me of an older Relient K song with lyrics that go something like this - "Your voice has broken my defense. Let me embrace salvation!" I like that thought. Let us embrace salvation. Let us love salvation.
Proverbs - Proverbs 12:4 today teaches us: "A worthy wife is her husband's joy and crown; a shameful wife saps his strength."
Worship God: Deuteronomy Chapter 11 reminded me of John Waller's great song called "The Blessing." Below are 2 videos - one a video with just the song "The Blessing" and the 2nd video is more details on John Waller with interviews of him.
Will you be a blessing for life? Click here for your eternal Blessing!
Please join us in memorizing and meditating on a verse of Scripture this week: "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection." Philippians 3:10 NIV
Comments from You & Questions of the Day: Based on our Proverb above, what do you think worthy means in this context? Why would a worthy spouse be the other spouse's joy and crown? What does shameful mean in this context? If you are married, do you seek to be a worthy spouse? If you are not married, are you preparing yourself today for potentially being a worth spouse in the future? Also, what verses or insights stand out to you in today's readings? Please post up by clicking on the "Comments" link below!
God bless,
Mike
I was 9 when I was saved.
Now that Iam 48 I found that I want to understand the bible more. Church has always been a part of my life. You go to church on Sundays and thats it. I have found you have to study every day to fight the devil in your every day life. This one year study is the best. Thank you for the time you take to do this.
It wasn't til my daughter divorce her husband and begain drinking that I had to cry out to Jesus. She is in School and has put her life back togather. This would not have happen If God was not in my life.
I can't understand how the lost can make it in this world with out Jesus in there life.
God Bless..
Posted by: Debbie | March 29, 2008 at 05:20 PM
Do I believe in evil and Satan?
The Order of Skull and Bones (or “Brotherhood of Death” or “Knights of Eulogia”) is the ultimate conspiracy story of real evil in the world as a secret world-order organization at Yale University started by the czar of an American opium empire (legal at the time) as the second chapter of one of many “New World” secret student organizations in Germany of the early 1800’s that grew from the more famous Society of Illuminati, which was formed May 1, 1776 (an ancient satanic holiday) by an ex-Jesuit Priest determined to destroy the Church and exterminate the Jews. The older Illuminati has grown as a secret sect within Messianic lodges as a group of royal bloods (“illuminated” elite) with current ties to most modern American presidents, their cabinets, and opponents (so the clan usually wins no matter who you vote for). The American division was called the Council on Foreign Relations after WWI, or CFR (www.cfr.org), but was basically reorganized in the Trilateral Commission after Kennedy (Jimmy Carter was a founding member) with at any time approximately 325 members, each serving for three years (the three laterals are Europe, US, and Japan). Bush Sr received some bad press for being a member and resigned. FDR was a member when they referred to themselves as communists (which is based on the New Age or Wiccan ideology that the system is evil and not man and that peace is possible without God – symbolized by the 2000-year old satanic peace symbol of an upside-down broken cross in a circle often worn by hippies in the 60's) and recently released records show that many of FDR’s top staff were Russian spies. In his 1979 memoir, With No Apologies, Senator Barry Goldwater noted: “When a new President comes on board, there is a great turnover in personnel but no change in policy. Example: During the Nixon years Henry Kissinger, CFR member and Nelson Rockefeller’s protégé, was in charge of foreign policy. When Jimmy Carter was elected, Kissinger was replaced by Zbigniew Brzezinski, CFR member and David Rockefeller’s protégé.” Shortly after Congressmen Larry McDonald had called for an investigation into the Trilateral Commission, his plane was shot down and the flight recorder classified by the CIA.
No member has ever publicly mentioned anything about their membership, but a piece done by CBS news on June 13th, 2004 mentioned how the order united the 2004 presidential campaign as both Kerry and Bush are members (and that six of Bush’s cabinet are also Skull and Bones members as well as many of his appointments, such as Donaldson, McNally (Homeland Security), Cowdry, Austin, Galbraith, Boasberg, Ashe, Mae, McGregor, Walker, and Smith). Kerry once wrote his parents, “incomparable moments of love, concern, anger, and compassion exchanged in Bones can never be replaced” and in 1986 worked officially for the society to gain recruits. Kerry admitted to being a member but stonewalled questions on Meet the Press (www.prisonplanet.com/010104kerryadmits.html), as did President Bush (like his father in his biography) when he told Tim Russett, “An organization so secret that we can’t talk about it.” The Order of Skull and Bones worships the goddess Eulogia and celebrated pirates. Eulogia seems to have been fashioned by the order as someone who ascended into the heavens on the death Demosthenes in 322BC, a cowardly trader of Athens and cousin of Demon, and who supposedly returned upon the society’s inception in 1832.
The Skull and Bones Frat house has no windows and is called, “The Tomb.” Each year, 15 Yale juniors are initiated (thus only about 800 members are living at any given time), are given $15,000 and a wedding gift of a grandfather clock, and are groomed for either the intelligence, political, or banking communities. A fellow student of President Bush filmed an initiation a few years back where the juniors wrestle in mud and are physically beaten before lying naked in a coffin and masturbate while revealing their innermost sexual secrets (where the initiate with the greatest experience earns the distinction of “Magog” – won by Bush senior) to the “Bones Whore” (the only full time employee) who pretends to slash the throat of a person lying before the 15 recruits followed by a lot of screaming and yelling. The converts are forced to call out to Eulogia, drink “blood” from a skull, and recite the mantra, “The hangman equals death, the devil equals death, death equals death” as a sign of their belief that death is the “great equalizer” of all people. They are then shoved to their knees before a Don Quixote figure (boxed by devil and pope figures), who then knights them with a new name and purpose (and required to tithe their estates to the group - which may explain the pre-nup Kerry's wife demanded). Their Jolly Roger was also the emblem used by Hitler’s SS, Hitler’s silverware (supposedly stolen by ex CIA Director and leading candidate for Watergate’s Deep Throat, Richard Helms) is one of the society’s prized artifacts (as are the skulls of Pancho Villa, President van Buren, and Geronimo – which Bush’s grandfather personally is said to have robbed from his grave in Arizona, but they have refused several requests of the tribe to return it), and the group provided funding to Germany during WWII (as did member Kennedy senior). The Skull and Bones corporate shell, the Russell Trust, owns nearly all of Yale’s real estate (and much of Connecticut). Coverage by 60-minutes (www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5244.htm), 20/20, etc often compared the group to the “family” structure of the mafia. One of President Bush’s first social gatherings at the White House after getting elected was a reunion of his fourteen 1968 club mates (and he held a second reunion a couple of years later). See www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/nwo_affiliations.htm.
Peter Hoagland, Nebraska State Senator and Humanist, said on the radio in 1983, “Fundamental, Bible believing people do not have the right to indoctrinate their children in their religious beliefs because we, the state, are preparing them for the year 2000, when America will be part of a one world global society and their children will not fit in.” “Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order [referring to the 1991 LA Riot]. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there was an outside threat [is this another reason for invading Iraq?] from beyond that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this *scenario*, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government.” (Dr. Henry Kissinger, Bilderberger Conference, Evians, France, 1991) Woodrow Wilson wrote in The New Freedom in 1913, “Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the Field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” Joseph Kennedy, father of JFK, was quoted in the July 26th, l936 issue of The New York Times to have said, “Fifty men have run America, and that’s a high figure.”
A more specific question would be: Is Hillary Clinton a Witch?
Laura Ingraham (a conservative CNN commentator), in “The Hillary Trap,” delivers Hillary as a menstrual-blood-sipping, moon-worshiping radical feminist. All this is next to Hillary’s lifelong commitment to a Methodist church (Bill’s supposedly a Baptist, but when Bill became President the application for a top-secret clearance had to be modified to allow the convicted drug dealers in his cabinet to get cleared – I know because I also had such a clearance for ten years). She comes from a group of Methodists, though, that believe in the perfectibility of the world where the great engines of social policy can be set in motion to scrub society clean. In his 1996 book, “The Choice,” Bob Woodward (and there are dozens of other firsthand witnesses, including the more recent book from Huston herself) described Hillary’s work with New Age psychologist Jean Houston, talking with dead persons like Gandhi and Eleanor Roosevelt. Roosevelt, according to Woodward, told Hillary, “You have to do what you think is right, Hillary.” The memories and life experiences of Eleanor Roosevelt are supposedly engraved in Mrs. Clinton’s cellular psychic constitution. In other words, each cell supposedly contains actual memories of the entire alleged evolutionary process from the tiny amoeba to Jesus, to Ghandi, and to Eleanor Roosevelt. In fact, Woodward noted this about the thinking and beliefs into which Ms. Houston’s influence has led Mrs. Clinton, “Clearly Eleanor was Hillary’s archetypal, spiritual partner, much as the Greek goddess Athena was for Houston” (The Choice, p. 130).
There are photos all over the net showing Hillary often wearing an occult symbol Phoenix Bird pin (also worn in one photo by Cindy McCain – one would hope in ignorance!). Combined with other facts, this has suggested to many people that Hillary is a 6th level Illuminati witch. When former FBI Agent, Gary Aldrich, wrote his book, “Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House,” he strenuously wanted to expose the Clinton’s actions which endangered National Security. Many of his observations, however, made the Clinton religious and personal beliefs all that more clear. Aldrich tells of being terribly shocked when he participated in the unpacking of the ornaments which were to go on the First Lady’s Christmas tree. Aldrich described these ornaments as “pornographic,” but one can easily recognized them as being standard occult symbols. Aldrich describes ornaments in the shape of a fertility goddess (the white goddess of Hosea), naked leaping men with erections (Old Testament Baal), two birds fornicating (representing union of the white goddess and Baal, again as in Hosea), cock rings (need I explain), a gingerbread man with five gold rings in his ear, nose, nipple, belly button, and cock (these are the location of the five-fold kiss done during welcoming a new member at drawing a witches circle – the origins of this ceremony is supposedly the Five-Fold kiss curse done by Satan – or god of the netherworld – when the White goddess tried to steal his knowledge), five gold wrapped condoms and other condoms blown into balloons (used to catch sexual energy for spell casting – best done, by tradition, by having additional male and female partners), three kissing hens (again denotes multiple partners), cracked pipes (denote Lucifer’s vocal chords that cracked when he fell “like lightning” from heaven – these satanic references suggest that the Clintons are more than just Wicca witches, but Satanic witches), and on top of the tree as a large stainless-steel ball pierced by colored shafts (this is the orb of the Celtic Sun God – this denotes yielding to Bill until March 21st – and Hillary placed another one on top of the tree on the lawn of the White House). These symbols should be just as clear to any witch as yellow bananas and candy pacifiers are to those in the ecstasy drug community.
Past president of the American Psychological Association Frank Farley speculates about the philandering of President Clinton, “along with power comes ‘I can do anything I want and I won’t have to pay a price.’” Clinton is quoted as claiming to have had hundreds of affairs before 40 but then having had tried to curb the behavior. “It’s like an alcoholic saying, ‘I used to drink too much, but now I have it under control.’” Whether Bill Clinton's affairs were part of some need for energy for spell casting or just poor character, clearly both types of evil exist in the world. Evangelist Billy Graham told “Today Show” viewers that he forgave President Clinton because “I know the frailty of human nature... He has such a tremendous personality that I think the ladies just go wild over him.” But this raises the question at what point would Graham point his finger and, like the prophet Nathan, say, “Thou art the man?” The Jews have a saying about the Holocaust: Only the dead can forgive. But, in a generation that rarely goes beyond the superficial and focuses on feelings and emotions, we want to appear noble-so we dispense forgiveness masked.
Posted by: Jim | March 29, 2008 at 06:41 PM