Because of my confidence that God can speak to you just like He does me, and that your hearts are at least as wise as my own, I’m going to trust that you will get what I’m saying here. I’m going to believe that you are capable of processing this by faith and that I need not spell out all of the implications in detail. The Lord seeks to change the channels in which our minds run so that we can pay more attention to His moral presence in our hearts.
I’ll give you a hint: Everything I say about politics and American culture comes from this fundamental orientation I’m about to describe. That includes the way I express myself in prophecy, too.
You shouldn’t try to be like me; be like Christ as best your heart understands Him. Walk in your own convictions. Search your heart and know what it demands of you. For example, you cannot eat my diet, because you don’t have my body and my environment. It won’t work for you. I can tell you about it, but that would be tedious to someone already listening to their own heart. If you were truly heart-led, you would already be pursuing the moving target of what to put in your mouth today, with an internal awareness of what your body needs by reading the signals it surely gives.
If it were as easy as using some physical attack to kill the fleshly idolatry of wanting a bunch of friends who are clones of my own soul, I would viciously attack with all kinds of weapons. If I could kill it in others, I would expend all my resources on that right now. What a blessing it would be to feel free to be ourselves! God made no two of us alike. There is no such thing as fairness; we are not equal. Not even if we narrow down this “equality” to apply to a few common human concerns, it’s still a big fat deception. It’s an ugly mythology, a lie from Hell.
Yes, there are things we can share, and we should be content with however little or much that might be in God’s mercy and grace between us. However, we should kill without mercy that impulse to cling to anyone who appears superficially like us in any way. It’s the Devil who keeps lurking in the background and waiting to spring on us at moments when we aren’t paying attention.
In this world, there simply will not be that many people who really like what I write on this blog. There aren’t that many folks who can tolerate the peculiar persona projected in that writing, never mind the real me you might meet in the flesh. You aren’t supposed to feel that overwhelming sense of affinity that characterizes “best friends forever.” You are supposed to find some of it a little iffy. And that’s supposed to be okay with both of us. That’s how God does things.
Your best friend forever (BFF) is Jesus Christ, not me. He’s mine, as well. He asks of me things He won’t ask of you, and vice versa. He’s given me things He didn’t give you, and vice versa. You don’t have to be comfortable with where He leads me, only find His grace in where He leads you. You should know for yourself where He leads you, and discern for your own mission whether our paths are in close proximity.
We need to think in terms of fellowship based on the degree of overlap in our convictions. I can tell you I certainly know when our convictions won’t allow us to work alongside each other. For example, some comments on this blog have gotten people banned. It wasn’t anger or personal spite; it was a matter of mission. If you had the time and were silly enough to do it, you could scan back at some comments where I’ve tolerated some stupid stuff from people because it was useful as a teaching tool for those who really do belong here. But I have begun in the past few years developing an ability to detect stuff I simply should not try to tolerate.
In real life, that means I am gotten better at discerning people I shouldn’t tolerate much. And I’ve gotten pretty good at ignoring people who take that personally. They don’t understand how Christ rules in my heart. To be brutally honest, I don’t give a shit how people feel about whether I will associate with them. I might even say it to them that way; whatever it takes to get them out of my hair. Only when the mission from God requires making terms of peace will I wade through their shit.
You would be amazed at the number of people who think they are going to hurt my feelings by telling me how mean I am. Telling me you were once a fan of my writing, but now you are going to snipe at me as you walk away — that’s a dead giveaway that Christ does not reign in your heart. You can hang around if you like, but I will shake your dust off my feet and keep on the path my Lord calls me to walk. However, if you learn to ignore stuff from me that you can’t swallow and leave it, or simply make a note on it in passing, that shows we can work together on the rest of the stuff we do share.
It’s not personal. At least, it is not personal in the sense of whether I can appreciate you as a fellow believer, and respect you as a child of God. I don’t have to judge you; I just have to decide if you will interfere. Nothing we do in this life matters a whit, except where it shines the light of glory on our Lord. And His glory can shine in our differences, because of how we learn to handle those differences with grace. I may empathize with your suffering and sorrow, and ask you to do the same for me, but personal offense is not excuse for pulling out the weepy violins. Call my attention to it if you think it matters, but don’t be surprised if I show no contrition. I’ll hug you and say, “Maybe you’ll understand it someday.”
I may not be allowed to care about your feelings on some things. I may even grieve at how it hurts you, but I will always put the mission first, however best I can understand it.
