Category: Personal Insights

Receive a Prophet, Receive a Prophet’s Reward; Deceive a Child of God, Receive a Grave Reward

There exist different degrees of punishment to sin in the Bible, in the old testament and the new.  How one conducts himself spiritually among others means much to God.  If one receives a prophet, he becomes qualified to reap the benefit beyond what he would have obtained on his own:

“He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward….”  ~Matthew 10:41

The converse side of this action would be to become an obstruction for those who would believe in God, but for us getting in the way.  In that case, one’s fate is bleak beyond what he would have probably received if he had minded his own business:

 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.  ~Luke 17:2 

When Jesus said this he was not speaking of children, but of those young in the faith.  And the reason it would be better to have a millstone hung round your neck, and be thrown into the sea is because you would then die before causing others to fall away from God.

Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “Thus with violence the great city Babylon shall be thrown down, and shall not be found anymore… for by your sorcery all the nations were deceived.  And in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all who were slain on the earth.  ~Revelation 18:21, 23-24

Jesus is showing us a more graphic portrait of the theme contained in this verse:

And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. ~Mark 9:43

He teaches us that one of the worst sins is to tamper or detract others’ faith in God.

~Selah

God Made our Minds to Shine: ‘SHTH, to be Able to Contemplate Him

The very rare and phenomenal properties that make our earth habitable by us (complex life), are also the very things that make us able to contemplate our universe and look into our past; essentially contemplate our Maker.  In other words, we could just exist, but we happen to exist alongside the ability to know Him, and quest for Him, our Creator.

There is One Messiah, Christ Jesus

There were some Jews who believed in the prophecy of two Messiahs before, during, and after the time Christ.  The cult at Qumran, and possibly the Essenes, along with some other sects, believed the Bible spoke of two messiahs because of the different qualities of them:  one would suffer and be from the line of Joseph, while the other would be more of a warrior from the line of David.  However, Jesus fulfilled both of these lineages, finished the work of the suffering messiah from the line of Joseph, and will return to fulfill his role as judge and warrior in the final days.

Paul clarifies the truth of the One Messiah beautifully here, in his epistle to the Ephesians:

“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”  ~Ephesians 4:4-6

Gabriel’s Revelation

Gabriel’s Revelation, also called Hazon Gabriel (the Vision of Gabriel)[1] or the Jeselsohn Stone,[2] is a three-foot-tall (one metre) stone tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew text written in ink, containing a collection of short prophecies written in the first person and dated to the late 1st century BCE.[3][4] One of the stories allegedly tells of a man who was killed by the Romans and resurrected in three days. It is a tablet described as a “Dead Sea scroll in stone” ~Wiki

I believe Jesus Christ lived with the Essenes at Qumran for at least a while.  I believe it is where He predominantly learned, and came into His divinity.  Just because the concept of a suffering Messiah was around just before the time of His birth does not mean His life was any less divine.  The proof was in the pudding, and Jesus essentially said that Himself.  Told from birth He was the likely Messiah, and knowing the concept of a suffering Messiah still meant that He had to grow and learn, perform miracles, heal, be perfect, and come into His divinity as God willed that process to occur, and in God’s time, finally culminating in His crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension at the age of ~33.

https://archive.org/details/Aabbey1-IsraelKnohlMessiahsAndResurrectionInTheGabrielRevelation484

Death and the Afterlife, Part II: A Depiction of Hell

God wants me to share with you all what Hell is like.  As I spoke of in this post, Death and the Afterlife, Part I: My Dream, Hell is rooted in Sheol, the pit of the earth.  Literally and figuratively it involves being buried deep in the bowels of the ground and being imprisoned without any chance for escape except by one means, the grace of God.

Adam, the word for man, and the original son of man, means ‘ruddy’ in the Hebrew language.  Adamah is the Hebrew word for ground.  It is feminine because it opens itself up for Adam to work it and keep it, which is the curse of man from the time of his original sin in the Garden of Eden.

God gives us every chance in our lifetime to regard Him, even if we have not heard of Him or heard His Word, because we can regard the world about us and marvel at its Maker (~Romans 1:19-21).  To make it even more obvious and clear for us, He sent our Lord Jesus the Messiah to redeem our souls if we but believe in Him.

Hell is the place those go, who in their hardened hearts, do not believe in God.  God consigns them to the ground from which earthly Adam came, which is also the path Cain chose, Abel’s wicked brother, the earthly son of Adam.  Abel chose the spiritual path and was killed for it by his brother.  The ground swallowed Abel’s holy blood by his brother’s hand.  It is all fitting then that God places the wicked into the same ground for them to suffer their deeds.  Their wicked hearts in denying their Maker will not have the final say.

I was obsessed with the movie Motel Hell when I was a girl and must have watched it no less than a dozen times (or so it seemed).  I was 12 or 13 and beyond when I watched it and while it scared the living daylights out of me, I also found it irresistible for some reason I did not know.  There were a few movies like that from my childhood, the ones I could watch over and over and never tire of:  Blue Lagoon, Tootsie, Friday the 13th, and Motel Hell.  Now I know these movies all have a common theme for me which is pertinent to my main mission I serve for God.  I just was not aware of it at 12.

This movie is inspired for its accurate depiction of hell.  I tried to research the writers and could find only that they were born in NYC, into a film production family.  There was also an uncredited writer as well.  The writers or director either were conscious of what hell is, or intuited it from God.  Nonetheless, this is something like the hell in my visions and dreams,the hell which God is revealing to me to share with you.  The people are buried in the ground.  They are victims because a terrible fate has befallen them.  They are alive but unable to communicate.  They cannot move at all and are in a perpetual state of solitary confinement.  Solitary confinement has been described as one of the worse tortures a man can endure, and is utilized as a last punishment for those who act out and hurt others. It causes mental illness because it is so contrary to human life.  Try enduring it until the Judgment Day!

If you find this humorous, that was the writers’ intent.  However, I am sure hell itself will not be funny at all.  Hell is the holding ground for those who have denied their Maker.  It is the embodiment of God’s final grace for those to turn their wicked hearts back to Him so that on the Final Day, they might find their names in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

You do not have to go to hell.  You can turn and repent and believe in Jesus, do good works, and love God.  Then you can escape this punishment.

~Selah

Dry Land and Home~

We are born into water, the elixir of life.  I was taught how to swim at a very young age and I always loved the water:  rivers, pools, lakes, springs, and the ocean.  I found it fun to float atop the waves  and to dive deep into the density.  It was always different and new, always some excitement to be found there.  A feeling you could get no where else.

I realize I have lived my life figuratively on the water.  No real foundation below me; heading out into the water to see what adventure I could have.  Swimming and frolicking with others like me who craved the unknown.  Coming to shore long enough to catch my breath and decide where I was heading next.  Following the next big wave or winding river into the unexplored.

But when I found God He began pushing me inward, toward dry land.  I fought to go deeper, to head out into the great beyond where I thought He was, to the others who beckoned to me from there.  Those who had what I wanted and who could show me places wanted to go.  Yet I remained evermore in the surf.  That part of the ocean that is relentlessly battering against you and pushing you down.  I would get up again and try a new tack to get out beyond the surf.  Maybe this time I would succeed!  Over and over and over again.  In childhood, in adolescence, in young adulthood, in adulthood, in mid-life.  I am battle worn and weary now, from fighting the waves.  I cannot fight God anymore as He pushes me homeward toward dry land.

So instead of going back out to sea, I am going to follow Jesus.  I am going to leave the water and become a fisher of men.  Those in the water are not my family anymore, and they will soon drift out into the eternal sunset, on their destiny that only God knows.

I am going to finally let Him push me onto the shore.  I am going to use my last bit of strength and grit to drag myself up onto the beach until no part of me touches the water.  I am going to flip over exhaustively and bask in the sunshine I know He will shine down on me.  I am going to rest.  My waterlogged skin is going to dry.  I am going to be more alone than I ever was (for a while).  Then I am going to look up and behind me and see a sea of other folks just like me taking refuge on the land He provided; all of us being born not of water, but of the Spirit.

And I am going to join them and together we will become a new family in our Lord GOD.

Praise You Almighty Father for pushing me home.

Our Senses and God

There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.  ~Mark 7:15

As I was breathing in essential oils, as I do before every meditation, God occurred to me in thought.  As I breathed in the soothing, healing, intoxicating aroma of the blood of plants which He has made, and which He has imbued Himself into as by His essence being in every living cell, and as it went directly into my brain, I realized I was literally breathing God in.  God, via his wonderful and miraculous way was infiltrating my very being, as deeply physically as possible; not just my physical brain, but crossing over into my mind as well, having effect upon my emotions.

I began to consciously consider the senses He has given to us, but to consider them in context to Him and doing His work.  Some of our senses are passive and some of our senses are active.  Some perceive and others partake, and some do both.  I have ordered them from passive to active:

  • Ears:  Most passive.  Can only take in data, but can be very attuned to their surroundings when trained, as exemplified by how a blind person hears better than a sighted person.  My ears are very adept at hearing emotion in the person I am listening to.  I would go so far as to say my ears are my most sensitive sense.
  • Nose/Breath:  Very passive.  Although the nose can express itself by snorting or snotting or breathing out as in a whisper.  The nose can tickle or offend, basically.  Some have a very heightened sense of smell.  The nose is also a direct line into the brain as mentioned before, so what we put in our nose can bring us immediately unto God or leave us sick (as when we breathe toxic fumes).
  • Eyes:  Mostly passive but can also be an active sense.  What we put our eyes on and view can profoundly affect us, and what we view can also profoundly affect a living subject, even an animal.  When two living and breathing creatures’ eyes meet, there is the sensation that soulfulness can flow between them, giving meaning to the saying that the ‘eyes are the windows of the soul’.
  • Touch:  Equally passive and active.  Touch can hurt us or heal us.  Our touch can hurt or heal.  We can feel immense pleasure or immense pain via our skin, and all the nerve cells contained therein.  We are covered in skin on every part of our body making our entire body either a sensory perceiver, but also a sensory giver.  Abuse often involves touch, but not always, and love-making almost always involves touch.
  • Taste/Mouth:  Passive and potentially the most active in the form of our words.  Even when we cannot touch or see someone, we can speak or express ourselves with words (on a screen for example).  Our sense of taste is passive, but our tongue can also be very active, especially in the realm of love-making.  Our mouth can hurt by biting or by the use of hurtful words, or give excessive pleasure via words or sensual touch as in kissing or love-making.  As James says:  “And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of our nature; and it is set on fire of hell.”  ~James 3:6  Our tongue and the words issued from our mouth are, perhaps ironically, the most active sense we have.  We consider communication the most important component of relationships, which is interesting because the two,  language and communication, go hand in hand.  If we cannot communicate with each other, we cannot live out that second commandment which is so important!  If we do not have words, we can then have touch, but touch is not as ideal as words, as explained here.  Even when we lose sense of touch, or cannot be near our loved ones, we can still feel elated communicating with them!  Isn’t that a telling mark of God’s intent with His people?  All of us can connect with God just by thinking.  But the way we love each other is most easily done with our mouth and with our words.

 

So most of our senses are passive; given to us by God to experience the world He has given us and the people He has put us with.  We have control over what we perceive to a certain extent, as illustrated by what we search for and view online.  Jesus also said that a man who looks upon a woman with lust in his heart has already committed adultery with her.  We can use our God-given perception devices to become closer to Him and our fellow human beings, to gain more knowledge of God and each other.  But we can also allow them to distract us from God and knowing each other in the right way.

Our active senses are essential for sharing the love among each other.  We can show God we love Him by our acts and by just passively thinking about Him, because He is in our head, infused in every cell of our body!  He knows what we are thinking every moment of our lives.  But our active senses allow us to connect to each other.  They are His gift to us to share (hopefully) love with each other to fulfill His second most important Commandment:  To love our neighbor as ourself.

I believe that is why Jesus said that it is what comes OUT of a man that defiles him, because we have been given power with our bodies to love each other, but also to harm each other.  What comes out of  each and every one of us has the power to either defile man and his neighbor, or glorify God.

 

 

I pray I use my senses you blessed me with Lord, for good only, and to promote Your Love in the way You intend.  Amen.

We are not Unique until we Live in Him~

God is revealing archetypes to me of late. I’m not sure why. Perhaps you could help me figure it out. My clients keep appearing in pairs of similar archetypes, the females, but sometimes their husbands too. It has happened so often now (and even my colleague has mentioned it in her practice in an indirect way, so as to only catch my attention) that I know God is trying to make me see something.

What do I mean? I mean that the women present themselves for my care in similar stages of pregnancy (early usually), and look alike, act alike, have similar ideologies, similar stories, and even sometimes their men look alike. It is so strange, that I ran into one in the grocery store and got her so mixed up with her ‘clone client’ that I queried her about work (which she does not do, but which her clone does). I should know better because she is a repeat client, but that is how much she LOOKS like, and is similar to, her clone client. It’s like my practice has entered the twilight zone.

God made man distinct and separate from animals, to rule over all animals. Man is not an animal, so I dislike the taxonomical ranking for man (calling him Homo sapiens sapiens) proposed by Carolus Linneaus in the 1700s. I do not believe man should be identified with criteria used to rank other living creatures, because man is distinct and separate from animals. In the Bible, for example, God classifies animals in groups depending upon their action of movement, basically: swarmers, creepers, and beasts that live in the land. Birds and fish swarm, serpents and bugs creep, and livestock simply live upon the land and are beasts. I don’t mind taxonomical ranking for them, and think it helps to categorize God’s great kingdom of animals.

So how to rank and classify man? Well, MBTI and enneagram are two methods for identifying different types of people. Male and female are the 2 largest classifications, and there is even contention with that among people who feel that they embody characteristics of both genders! Jung spoke to archetypes in his book Psychological Types published in 1921. This from Wiki:

“The archetype was not merely a psychic entity, but more fundamentally, a bridge to matter in general. Jung used the term unus mundus to describe the unitary reality which he believed underlay all manifest phenomena.  He conceived archetypes to be the mediators of the unus mundus, organizing not only ideas in the psyche, but also the fundamental principles of matter and energy in the physical world.”

I believe God is trying to bombard me with similar couples in my practice to get me to see that He uses forms to create man. Plato, Kant, and Schopenhauer all believed in forms or types as well. A set of forms that are recycled over and over ad infinitum. He obviously uses forms in creating animals, because if you look at cats, there are only like 7 different kinds of cats, meaning virtually every black cat looks like any other black cat the world over. Jung’s forms are simple: great mother, father, child, devil, hero, etc.  But I am seeing them broken down even further in front of my eyes, even encompassing LOOKS. I have not begun to classify the forms I see in my world, but will work to do so soon.

I realize I am rambling because this concept is just now hitting me and I feel overwhelmed with its discovery, and have not even begun to sift through what it all means, or where it goes.

My main point perhaps is leading to the fact that we are not so special and unique and individual as we like to believe. Yes, God loves every one of us, and we are all a miracle of life! We all have a special and unique purpose–a unique mission to fulfill for Him. But it is not US that is special, but our perfect mission He has in store for us that is unique and special. Does that make sense? It is not about Us, but about Him, and serving Him. We can only become unique and special and break out of the form we were born into, the archetype we share with thousands of other people who came before us, and who will come after us, when we undertake His perfect and special and unique mission He has only for each one of us. Otherwise we remain a form, an archetype, a caricature that might as well be someone else.

I have undertaken part of God’s mission for me in the last few years and I can tell you that nothing has satiated and contented me like it has. It has not been easy by any means, but walking in God’s perfect will is to the psyche like putting on a body suit of perfectly molded skin that lives and breathes and conforms to you, mind and body, in a way you could never have imagined. It feels so good to do His will that everything else pales in comparison, and life becomes almost dead to you without it.

We only become special and unique when we serve Him in the way He has called each of us to. The world tells all of us we are already special and unique just the way we are, but it is just not true, and is possibly a ploy by the enemy to make us lazy, and distract us from serving the Lord GOD.

Praise Him.

Judgment is…

Knowing someone sinned, but loving them perfectly anyway.

Jesus is our Scapegoat and Passover Lamb

The Hebrew feasts that were commanded by God to be followed religiously in the Old Testament were, in this order:

  1. The Passover  (1st month, 14th day of the Hebrew year)
  2. The Feast of Unleavened Bread (1st month, 15th to the 22nd day)
  3. The Feast of Firstfruits (the first harvest, 3rd month, variable)
  4. The Feast of Weeks (7 Sabbaths after the firstfruits, or 50 days, also called pentecost)
  5. The Feast of Trumpets (7th month, 1st day)
  6. The Day of Atonement (7th month, 10th day)
  7. The Feast of Tabernacles (7th month, 15th through 22nd day)

Of these, the most important celebration, illustrated by the amount of offerings decreed, and holiness required, is the Day of Atonement, followed by the Feast of Tabernacles.

Notice all the 1’s, 3’s, 7’s, and 22’s in this calendar.  God’s Realm is a circle.  A circle of perfect Love.

The Day of Atonement was the only day the holiest Priest was allowed by God to go behind the veil to minister to Him.  And even then, the Priest had to make a huge cloud of incense to occlude the vision of the LORD so that he would not die by seeing the LORD above the mercy seat upon the Ark of the Covenant.  God disallowed the priests to go into the Holiest of Holies ‘at just any time’ after Aaron’s two sons sinned by making profane fire in the sanctuary.  So the only time Priests could go into this sacred place was once per year.  It was a very holy day and involved much cleansing and preparation for not only the Priest himself, but for the Tabernacle, the furnishings, and all the articles in the Holy Place.

The children of God would bring two kid goats to the Priest, and he would cast lots to see which one would be for the LORD, for the sin offering of the people; and which one would be the scapegoat, to be let go wild in the wilderness.  After making a cloud of incense behind the veil, lest he die seeing the LORD’s presence, the Priest would kill the LORD’s goat and offer its blood by sprinkling it upon and before the mercy seat of the LORD.  This would atone for the Holy Place for all the iniquities of the children of God.  Then the Priest would lay his hands on the scapegoat’s head and confess upon it all the transgressions and sins of all the children of God in all their iniquities they had done, and send it out into the wilderness, where it would bear unto itself all their iniquities, taking them away into a solitary land.

 

When the story of Jesus’ life is recounted in the Gospels, the first act of his adult life we are privy to is his baptism in the River Jordan by John the Baptist when the Holy Spirit alighted upon him, and spoke, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”  Then he immediately was ‘led by the Spirit’ into the Wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  The devil tempted him three times, and Jesus stayed faithful and true to God and His word all three times, using the Law of God to thwart the devil every time.

We could have been apprised of Jesus’ life before this point, and it would have been intensely interesting.  The reason the Gospel starts here is to make it obvious to those with eyes to see that Jesus is beginning with the end of the Israelite’s holy calendar, in order to best symbolize that He was here to finish God’s work, once and for all.

Jesus going into the wilderness reminds us of the scapegoat upon which were placed the sins of God’s people, before he was sent into the wilderness on the Day of Atonement to provide forgiveness and redemption to all the children of God.  Jesus, having cleansed himself with baptism by God’s Prophet, and having been covered by the cloud of the Holy Spirit, went out into the wilderness as a man and defeated the devil by overcoming the sins that would normally plague man.  He begins his mission for God with the last feast of the Hebrew year, as if he is picking up and completing or finishing that which was incomplete before him.

Jesus was in the Wilderness 40 days and 40 nights.  He is not the 2nd Adam, but the 3rd Adam, Noah being the 2nd Adam.  Noah was perfect in God’s eyes and he alone, with his 3 sons, was chosen by God to perpetuate God’s people before the Great Deluge.  However, Noah sinned.  Jesus came and succeeded, not only as Adam, but as the embodiment of God on earth, as the literal Son of God.

God has now divinely established Jesus as the perfect combination of man and God on earth, because Jesus defeats the devil time and time again, and overcomes sin; always while giving attribution to the Father.  Jesus shows us how we are supposed to live and to love in the way God intended.  Sometimes he fixes the law where it was incorrectly related, and sometimes he gives us new Law.  As his work becomes completed on earth, the time for his final and most perfect and holy sacrifice draws near.  This final act is to offer himself as the sacrificial lamb so that all who protect their life with his blood may have the curse of death pass them over; as happened in the days when our people were slaves in Egypt, just before they were set free.

 

But the man who… ceases to keep the Passover, that same person shall be cut off from among his people, because he did not bring the offering of the Lord at its appointed time; that man shall bear his sin.  ~Numbers 9:13

 

This final act of Jesus sets us free of not only our captivity, but from death, if we but paint His blood upon our life.  By making atonement for us with His perfect life, and allowing death to pass over us with His perfect blood, Jesus completed God’s will, drawing us into God’s divine circle once and for all.

 

Thank you, Jesus, for your Divine and Unique and Holy sacrifice for us~