Our Message Will Prosper

Posted on June 23, 2018 by ehurst

Let’s review: Globalism is the prettier and younger sister of the old hag, communism. They are both gold-digging materialists who waste everything they get their hands on so that everyone is left poorer. And then they demand more. Here in the US, I’ve pegged globalists as the current biggest threat to human existence. There is no ethical or moral boundary these folks will not cross to seize power. They currently rule the mainstream media, most entertainment, most of academia and control the bureaucrats in most government agencies.

But very few Americans consider themselves any part of that philosophy. The globalists run the Democratic Party and control most of those who consider themselves leftist. They also have a strong minority in the Republican Party, in the sense that a small number of Republicans are sympathetic to portions of the globalist agenda. I’ve also said that globalists will ally with imperialists on some things, which is how they get a foothold like that. Yet for all their power, they are a minority in government and business. It’s just that they are so very loud, and they are firmly in control of the agenda espoused by people who think of themselves as politically progressive.

You don’t have to be conservative to be their enemy. All you need do is express insufficient support for their agenda. This is why they have always been a minority; they are spitefully intolerant. They used to hide that, but lately they’ve become quite open about it. Anyone who remains somewhat conservative and tries to work in their controlled enclaves will be persecuted at a minimum.

A notable example of that is Dr. Jordan Peterson. I’ve mentioned Dr. Peterson in the past. He’s very popular with folks sick and tired of the SJWs (social justice warriors) making so much hateful noise. Because he works in academia, he presents himself as besieged and oppressed. He’s not really so very conservative; he’s more centrist in what he promotes. He stands away from the fringes, so to speak, and gets a good bit of exposure in the media for it.

He does say a lot of sensible things. It’s clear he’s studied the human condition and has a firm grasp on what he believes would solve most social problems. However, he does waffle on some principles in order to keep from being shut out of the public debate. I noted that he is a fan of Western Civilization, so while we can appreciate some of what he has to say, there’s not that much overlap between his and our positions. Still, he’s got quite a fan base among self-conscious conservatives.

Lately he’s stumbled noticeably. From a conservative viewpoint, he failed to maintain fundamental principles more than once in public presentations. He wasn’t fully prepared for the typical semantic games of leftist manipulation. If he doesn’t turn this around quickly, he’s going to lose traction. Complaining about being a besieged man of principle only goes so far. Unless he takes advantage of his moment in the spotlight to propose at least a few concrete ideas to go on the attack, he’s going to be left behind.

I stand firm in my conviction that God is pouring out the first wave of His wrath on globalists — not so much as the sole target as simply a major first target. He will stir the conservative majority to do much of the work for Him. The momentum has already turned and the mass of public attention has shifted against the globalist message. We are already seeing the gentler assaults and it’s rather effective. The low-hanging fruit is being harvested now. Pay no attention to what seems like some kind of momentum on the progressive side; it’s all in vain. If Dr. Peterson continues operating like a member of a besieged minority, he’ll be left behind in the dust. More money and attention will go to aggressive figures who lead the way.

At the same time, you and I must remain aloof from the whole thing. Getting down and dirty with this partisan battle will take us out of the real war to restore heart-led mysticism to human awareness at large. Conservative American politics is not the message of the Bible. When the globalists have been crushed, the conservatives will not be our friends, either. However, they will be more tolerant of us, so our message can prosper.

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Trump’s Troll Army

Posted on June 22, 2018 by ehurst

Most assertively, we proclaim that this world of mainstream human awareness is a lie. It is absurd and only appears to make sense to those captivated within their fallen nature. As soon as you start appropriating the grace and mercy God offers, you will begin to question what your senses and logic tell you. Faith calls you to reject this world and its ways.

The only reason we stay involved in this world is to help spread awareness of that grace and mercy. We participate in the revelation of God, which He granted as an antidote to the Fall. His revelation is invasive in the sense that it cuts into the Curse of the Fall and pulls us out of the blindness and restrictions. It seizes us, calls us into the moral discernment and a sense of mission to live within the Fallen Realm by a higher power from outside it.

This in turn makes it our duty to understand the Fallen Realm from God’s clear view above it all. It need not be an encyclopedic understanding, only the part we need to walk in our own calling. My calling includes keeping an eye on human behavior on a broad scale, but with a prophetic ministry confined mostly to the USA. A part of that specialization is paying attention to the Internet, in part because so much of America’s future is tied up in that.

Let me reiterate that no government on this earth, so far as I know, is close enough to God’s revelation to warrant any particular favor. Nobody is obeying any covenant in any meaningful degree, in those terms. So it makes our part relatively simple, in that a primary means of reflecting God’s glory is living by Biblical Law. Striving to be His revelation in this world puts us in a unique position to see clearly how the world as a whole fails to seek God’s favor. Thus, we have the means to proclaim His truth by the simple contrast of how we live. Making a vivid contrast means understanding how the world has failed to live by God’s Word.

The US government in particular stands as an egregious violation of God’s Word. There may be particular items that make us smile, but most of it should make us weep. Sometimes the contrast between His Word and what America does is a matter of missing the point, making a mountain out of a molehill. For example, the American obsession with pedophilia does not reflect what’s in the Bible. All the more so due to the disgusting hypocrisy of sexualizing kids in entertainment and worshiping youth, while frantically searching for any evidence of human desire for sex with children. Pedophilia is wired directly into American culture. It’s not a question of whether it is sinful, but of greater sins committed by not keeping things in a biblical perspective. The solution to the problem is not in hysteria.

By now you probably know that whenever a government agency wants to take someone down, they often resort to planting evidence of child pornography on their Internet devices. And with so many computers wide open to various degrees of hijacking by criminals, a significant number of cases are nothing more than owners unaware that crooks are using their computers as storage for such illegal material. In other words, current prosecutions are often bogus, and this is simply another form of oppression and abuse. You end up with parents prosecuted for sharing a picture of baby taking a bath. The lack of clear and sensible standards is itself an abomination to God. Government officials are hardly sincere in any of this.

The mainstream media has spiked the story, so you’ll have to find it in small local outlets or from alternative media: US Arrests 23,000 in Massive Child Sex Operation. Notice the date. Suspending our cynicism for just a moment, we note that something this big was in the planning for quite a while. It turns out that some conspiracy theorists noticed a huge uptick in sealed court documents starting back in November of last year; such statistics are public record if you know where to look. Some portion of such sealed documents are typically indictments. It remains a mere curiosity until you add in the factor that folks were predicting this before it happened.

Stop for just a moment and recall I’ve said we are already in a civil war with a very loud minority of Americans rejecting the outcome of the last presidential election. I’ve also warned that the rising tension will lead to bloodshed, and that we should pray the Lord be merciful to America and keep this limited. Trump is a repulsive immoral creature, but He is God’s chosen instrument of wrath, so opposing him politically is fighting God, while denouncing him along with the whole political system is morally proper. On the human level of things, he’ll stomp on a lot of innocent people, but he is most certainly going after some folks God wants to crush.

One of his weapons is the pursuit of child sex trafficking. It is massively popular regardless of who the suspects might be. Federal law enforcement uses the same methods against child trafficking as they do against drug trafficking. They start by indicting all the little people and making them talk, and keep working upward through the system until they get the kingpins. But think of this as a weapon in the civil war — it’s not a question of whether the folks swept up are actually guilty of this particular thing; it’s the simplest way of taking them down. Yet, it turns out that a significant number of the folks Trump is after are pedophiles themselves, or aided in child sex trafficking.

Further, we have evidence he is involved behind the scenes. He hasn’t been silent, but he has been careful to mobilize a corps of Internet activists who do an awful lot of footwork for the cause. These folks have been active since before the election, and once he became aware of them as a resource, he began engaging them carefully, so that only wacko conspiracy theorists would even notice he’s involved. The whole thing caters to that mindset, and folks like that are very effective at some things.

Do you remember Pizzagate? The trolls behind that haven’t gone away. The small army has grown and now includes quite a few respectable folks who aren’t just basement-dwelling gamers. The chatter on 4chan and other discussion sites has welcomed regular folks who were marginalized by the mainstream. Some of the Pizzagate stuff included leaks from someone claiming to be an FBI insider, and the type and quality of leakage gave credibility to that claim. Now there’s another leaker named “Q” whose leaks are far more obscure and cryptic, but effective nonetheless. Further, some of the cryptic clues are echoed tellingly in Trump’s noise. That is, Q posts something, only to have Trump later include that clue in a tweet or speech or something similar.

This is a very savvy game and we should be grateful that it keeps the violence down. Once violence starts, it will be far more random and chaotic. This stuff with pedophile prosecution is much more narrowly targeted. Keep your eye on this crack-down, because it could easily escalate upward through the ranks into mainstream political figures, not to mention Hollywood and the mainstream media.

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Boasting in the Lord

Posted on June 21, 2018 by ehurst

This is our time as mystics and heart-led servants of Christ.

Surely you know that there are more folks out there who belong to this kind of faith. There’s nothing in God’s revelation that demands we all band together in human space. However, there is much in His Word that demands we seek their fellowship on whatever terms are possible within His calling and covenant. There is no need for a human leader to draw them all in and coordinate their activities; that’s the mission of the Holy Spirit. All of that takes place in the Spirit Realm. What’s left is to encourage each other within the calling and mission we share.

It would nice if there was a way to chat with all of these folks, to share on a personal level. I’m not sure what holds them back, but I can tell you quite a few such folks are subscribed here. Maybe it’s that we are all so very busy working at our mission that we don’t have a lot of time for socializing. I confess I don’t visit too many other blogs and sites on a regular basis because my calling up to now has kept me busy with other stuff. I sense the Lord may change that soon, but I can’t tell you how because I don’t yet know.

The first order of business is to pray for discovery, that the Lord will show us who out there shares enough of our mission and faith to be noticed. Let them know they aren’t alone. I’d also like for you folks to let us hear about what you have found out there in terms of kindred spirits. Leave a comment here, or send me an email about a site, blog or author you believe is a good fit. My email address is linked on the right side of this blog. Maybe we can come up with a link page or something.

Again, this is not necessarily trying to rope people in as members of our little virtual parish. They don’t have to join our club to be considered spiritual kinfolks. But we do need to let them know we are praying for them, and then do just that. We need to share as much as we can and exchange ideas on how to reach our world. And should they desire some kind of formal association, that’s just dandy, but this is not a boast in numbers. Let’s boast in the Lord.

God bless you all.

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The Rotting Carcass

Posted on June 20, 2018 by ehurst

At least as early as my days at OBU, I recall smart-aleck fools who insisted that Ecclesiastes was simply existentialism. This conclusion is entirely natural from a Western point of view.

Existentialism is the rotting carcass left after you murder mysticism.

It’s a foul philosophy that denies a higher realm of existence, denies the sure conviction of a God in Heaven, and denies that morality is anything more than a sentimental construct. Existentialists understand that the world is absurd and that you have only your internal processes to build on, but they reject the ultimate source of those internal processes. They deny the heart or the heart-led way.

Just for the record, agnosticism is a tacit rejection of God. To deny that we can know God is merely the rejection of the heart as a sensory organ with its own mind. We do know; God has planted that in us. It is burned in more surely than any of us can claim to be alive. To deny the Creator, even to doubt Him, is to deny your own existence.

This is why we never debate or defend having faith. We should be ready to discuss what our faith demands of us, but you are under no obligation to answer anyone who a priori rejects the grounds of faith. In my experience, roughly 90-95% of the people you encounter in the US will insist on sticking with a Western epistemology or appeals to emotion (including American Christians). That leaves some 5-10% ready to discuss genuine faith. If you are able to explain that your epistemology is Ancient Near Eastern, you might get another 5% or so to take you seriously. However, you have no moral obligation at all to meet anyone on the grounds of Western assumptions.

Don’t debate agnostics and atheists. It’s a waste of time. In that sense, we never take them seriously. Everything they say is tainted by their closure of the heart. Until God opens their hearts to hear the truth, you can not do anything for them. Worse, they will be driven to destroy your faith. State your position when it seems appropriate; be on your guard, and keep them at arm’s length. Show civility and compassion when they have need, but that goes without saying.

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Mystical Faith Calls Us

Posted on June 19, 2018 by ehurst

I wanted to revisit my discussion of The Bible Project to point out some weak spots. Their portrayal of the Wisdom Books — Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Job — is incomplete. What’s missing is in the authors’ worldview; they don’t get heart-led.

Yes, Proverbs shows that God has revealed the truth of our fallen reality, and has placed that truth within reach of anyone who genuinely seeks it. Even without direct divine revelation, it’s there within reach because our own human nature contains elements of His divine character. It does require some work to overcome the blindness of the Fall, but it’s there, written into Creation and we can get it. It’s called “wisdom.”

And Ecclesiastes does serve as a warning that our human perception will not always support that message. It will seem to us that plenty of things happen contrary to what wisdom would tell us to expect. Wisdom has limits, but it’s far better than anything else we could have in this life.

Finally, Job points out quite dramatically that no matter how much wisdom we dig out of this life, there are plenty of things coming at us with no earthly explanation. We are supposed to catch on that Job is in no position to understand the maneuverings and intrigue going on at the level of the Spirit Realm. It’s not his place to know such things; what he is supposed to know is that there is a God who makes demands, and therein lies the whole of his duty. In the final scene God humbles him afresh to remind him of those limits.

Maybe you notice I’ve added a few things in my review that the little animated videos don’t cover. Yes, they come close to what I outlined, but they miss parts of it. Those three books hold their place in a wider objective for Scripture: To drive us into mysticism and an otherworldly outlook. We are supposed to understand that our perception of reality will inevitably be flawed in our fallen state. Our experience will always contain inexplicable elements. But the answer is never totally beyond our reach if we rely on the heart-led awareness.

It’s the leading of the heart that teaches us to bear the imperfections of life in this world, not because reality is unreliable. Nor is it God’s fault things don’t make sense compared to His revelation. The whole problem rests on our own weakness. We are supposed to distrust our perceptions, and to cling to what God says versus our senses and logic. That’s what faith is. It’s a commitment to the truth, and offers the rationale that it’s good for us eternally regardless of how it comes out in terms of external events. It’s to make us focus on the internal process of faith and heart-led experience, to discount the external experience.

If you keep chasing outcomes in this realm of existence, you will never be living in faith. Cling to the eternal truth, not what you can make of things with your human senses and reason.

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Random Shots from Saturday

Posted on June 18, 2018 by ehurst

I had to do some running around Saturday and managed to take a few pictures along the way. I made the effort to visit Draper Lake. Down toward the eastern shore on SE 104th, the trail cutting has resumed. They aren’t going to use Westminster just yet, as this trail is cutting straight through the woods parallel from SE 104th.

I also spent a little time at the city park in Harrah for my granddaughter’s birthday celebration (10 yro). This is a view of the grain elevator from the park.

Splashpads are a big deal here in Central Oklahoma. This is the main attraction at the Harrah City Park, and a popular place for birthday parties. This one is well kept and typically clean, unlike some around the OKC Metro, which can feature piles of trash, abandoned clothing and used disposable diapers. I managed to catch it during the brief moment when the water shuts off to most fixtures, something it does periodically to surprise the kids playing.

The park also features a fitness path. Again, it’s well done and runs quite a distance completely around the park. This was later in the day when joggers and walkers were rare in the heat. It was quite cool standing in the deep shade, and elevated enough to catch the breeze.

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We Are Not Alone

Posted on June 17, 2018 by ehurst

You can decide for yourself what kind of people are behind it, but this video project seems to offer some very good stuff about the Bible. So far I’ve watched the trio of videos on the Wisdom Literature of the Bible. I can recommend that wholeheartedly.

Keep in mind that what makes Radix Fidem unique is not so much our approach to the Bible, but what we do with the message in Scripture. I’ve often said that an accurate view of Scripture isn’t all that hard, but does seem to be rather rare. But it’s not so rare that we can’t find resources we can use to help us understand it well enough to make decisions that are consistent with our calling and our God’s character.

So when someone comes along and does such good work in promoting an accurate view of the Bible, we can stand with them. I’ll be checking out YouTube page over the next few days to see if the rest of their work is as good as the Wisdom Literature series.

Props to Jay for finding this project for us.

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Teachings of Jesus — Matthew 18:1-6

Posted on June 16, 2018 by ehurst

Up to now in Matthew’s narrative, Peter often took the lead in things because he was the eldest of the Twelve, and apparently the largest physically. But Jesus had not yet designated who would hold what position in His future royal court. They had no doubt discussed this privately among themselves, but Jesus obviously knew about it. So far, only Peter was given any kind of title (keyholder) and that was typically not a full-time job. And perhaps they were somewhat worried about all this persistent warning from Jesus that He would be abused and executed. So they came and asked who was going to be His viceroy. Who should take charge in the absence of Jesus?

By this time they had been living communally together most of the time around Capernaum where Peter, Andrew, James, John and Matthew had all been living when Jesus called them into discipleship. These we also likely cousins of Jesus in the first place, and some of these men had wives or other family members living there, so it was a big homey atmosphere. Given what we know of housing in that part of the world, it was quite likely Jesus and His disciples hung out in the open courtyard virtually every home would have had. And the place would still be busy and packed with people. Thus, we are hardly surprised children of all ages would be wandering among the adults. Jesus grabbed one of the younger lads and sat him down in the middle of the group.

Who can say what the boy would have been thinking? In typical ancient Hebrew society, adult men seldom spent all that much time with even their own younger children. It was a sort of rite of passage when boys got old enough to start spending time with their fathers at whatever work they did, typically not before age six. This is when social gender roles were differentiated. Since the work of Jesus included a lot of talking and teaching about all those important adult things, the lad probably wondered if this was one of those moments hanging out with the adult menfolk.

Either way, he would have known to sit silently and try to absorb what was going on. In his world, adult men were nearly demigods, and all the more so this guest of honor in their community. Hebrew society suffered none of our modern smart-alecky children; this boy would have been respectful and downright subservient. Everything he hoped and dreamed about required trusting these men for guidance. He had no idea what to expect.

This is the primary point Jesus was making here. Greatness in the Kingdom of Heaven was rooted in this kind of unreserved trust. That means no preconceived notions about what to expect, but something of a blank slate, wide open to whatever God wants to write. All the more so when Jesus had already been making a point of shattering His disciples’ expectations regarding this business of being Messiah. The disciple who could be most childlike in absorbing like a sponge everything Jesus said is the one who would take the lead.

Further, the one who could set aside all his human expectations would be the most like Jesus. That’s the meaning of the protocol statement: “Whoever receives such a childlike believer in My name receives me.” It requires that level of trust and openness to exercise the authority of Heaven.

It’s altogether natural for fathers to guard their children’s minds from false teaching but it was also a solemn command of God (Deuteronomy 6:7). Even the Talmud bore echoes of this great duty. Jesus approaches it from the opposite angle and gives it a new emphasis. Given the total necessity for this level of unquestioning trust in the Kingdom of Heaven, those who do take leadership roles dare not abuse their position of trust. Great is the temptation to mislead someone for the mere sake of amusement. It’s no joke. Abusing someone’s trust is teaching them to be abusive and paranoid.

That kind of rough pranking is an abomination to God. That’s not the way it’s done in Heaven. Making a laughingstock of someone is closer to how the Devil does business. There are plenty of other forms of humor quite appropriate to faith, but lying to someone who trusts you, for any reason at all, is not from God.

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Jewish Claims of Superiority

Posted on June 16, 2018 by ehurst

They claim to be superior to Gentiles.

Jews do have a divine advantage. Paul declares it in Romans 3, but it goes all the way back to Deuteronomy 7:6-11. Yet, notice their advantage fades if they depart from the Covenant.

We are grateful they wrote it down and preserved it. The essence of divine favor is embracing divine revelation. All that you can know about God starts with the Bible, but if you take it seriously, it quickly transitions to a direct connection with God Himself. The Bible serves to condition the mind to accept the leadership of the heart. You cannot claim to obey the Word if you aren’t heart-led, because your heart is the only means you have to connect with the Holy Spirit. That divine Presence in your soul is not just a nice gift; it is a dire necessity to overcome our fallen nature.

Abraham and his descendants were just as fallen as everyone else. They never transcended that. And the prophets indicate God chose them in part to demonstrate the power of His compassion and His revelation, choosing the most difficult nation on earth as His own family (Ezekiel 3:7; Luke 10:2-16; Matthew 11:16-24). And when they vacated the Covenant, He filled it with other people, people grafted in to provoke His family to envy for the Covenant (Romans 11).

If the Jews were to seize upon our teaching, they would leave us in the dust in claiming shalom. We Gentiles are mere duffers at something they could do without half the effort. Forget the Levant; God promised they could own the whole world.

But they refuse.

As long as they refuse, we can excoriate them for rejecting divine truth that we have embraced. They are His family, but they are not His Kingdom; they are a people who have disowned Him and all the divine heritage of the Covenant kinship.

Instead, they occupy their advantages in serving Satan. Their native superiority makes them by far the very worst evil among humans on this earth. Make no mistake; this is not a matter of DNA. There is precious little genuine Hebrew blood in Jews’ veins. The Covenant of Moses was always about embracing revelation and living by it, so any Gentile could become a member of the nation of Israel by conversion. They were mixing it up the whole time; there never was a pure Hebrew race. It was always a matter of the Covenant and God’s divine election.

So the honest truth is that today’s Jewish superiority is strictly a matter of divine grant. The Lord holds open the door to kinship in His household for them as the Chosen People. They are the “first family.” While they serve Satan, they do so as superior servants in this world. They profit Satan far more than any other people. And when they turn to Christ, they could profit His Kingdom far better than any of us could. That’s the hard truth of things; that’s in the Bible.

But He will use us in great and mighty ways because we are available. Rejoice in their rejection of the Messiah, and rejoice when they come back to Him on the same terms we do. Pray that they do turn, and pray further that they actually get the message, because it will make everything a whole lot better for all of us. They have a native connection to divine moral reality that is stronger than ours. That’s the same as having a stronger connection to the Lord’s glory.

We put His glory first.

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What To Say?

Posted on June 15, 2018 by ehurst

What will you say to people when they begin asking about your faith?

Naturally, it will always be contextual. That is the nature of how God does things. Sure, you could come up with some slogans that outline what we teach here; the whole idea of that outline of our covenant was to give you a head start on doing that. But slogans are a broadcast, not a conversation. Don’t forget: One of our slogans is that everything is personal. You have respond as an individual person to an individual person. Even when you preach and teach to large audiences, you still have to sense the character and personality of the audience, because it will be a different mood each time.

Faith itself has to be alive and growing.

I would suggest there is a way to prepare yourself. First and foremost, we promote the heart-led way as the foundation for everything. You need to be ready to talk about that. Be familiar with what scientists have said about it — that the heart is a unique organ with a sensory field reaching 10-15 feet (3-5 meters). It has its own “brain” of sorts. Then you can move into discussing how that sensory field can directly discern and process moral truth on its own. Talk about how God’s moral character pervades all of Creation. The brain is designed to learn from the heart, but we have to unlearn a lot of bad mental habits.

Secondarily, we assert that this is how folks in the Bible did things. That may be a little harder to back up, because it requires knowing how to tell people that research into Ancient Near Eastern cultures shows this, not least via literature outside the Bible. Still, we assert this as a basic assumption of everything we do. You cannot understand the Bible without first taking the heart-led path, because that’s the nature of the Bible itself.

But the necessity of breaking bad mental habits can take any number of directions. You have to use your own heart to discern their real needs, yet based on what you have to offer. God grants us the power of discernment; learn to use it. The biggest thing is noticing patterns of self-defeating habits, just as you do with yourself. People have allowed themselves to be blinded by the lies of the Devil. That’s the nature of this world.

A major element in healing is humility. Nobody moves forward without it. Not as a choice of human logic, but it is the primary symptom of the Holy Spirit. He is not present if you don’t see humility and gratitude. And without His Presence, there is no help for anyone on this earth. You are limited to encouragement from afar until you see signs of humility.

After that, there are any number of paths to help them realize that God’s revelation is reality. There’s an awful lot of falsehood that seems to work, but it’s always lacking the eternal element. You also need to understand the common experience of most people who embrace the truth.

At first, there is a huge balloon of joy and contentment. It’s rather like falling in love, and it’s easy for people to slip off into cathexis* without actually committing to God. Watch out for false substitutes to genuine faith; emotional responses are not the thing itself. For most people who do take the right path, there will be an early shock to their unconscious expectations. Most handle this very poorly, trying to snap back into their old ways because something didn’t turn out as they had expected. Initial excitement turns into sorrow quite suddenly.

This jerking back and forth is quite typical, and often repeats in steps until enough crap is removed from their minds to settle in for the long haul. This is how God deals with most people because it’s the nature of our false culture. We suffer from layers of lies, and each has to be broken in turn. And our culture has stolen from us the kind of patience and hard-nosed commitment natural to faith. This is why I keep warning about the false image of the heart in our culture; the lie that the heart is a repository of sentiment is easily one of the most deadly deceptions. It’s the heart that keeps us moving forward into faith.

Finally, I’ll suggest that people really need to grasp the spiritual truth that seeks to grasp us. We should be eager to leave this world. This is the core of Christian Mysticism: We don’t love this world. It is slated for destruction. The only reason we stick around at all has nothing to do with our personal dreams and our families, etc. We stick around because God’s glory is not finished with us. Our mission in this world isn’t done until God says it’s done. We exist for His glory. We must come to the place where we embrace that instead of trying to pull away from it for the sake of anything else. This is your best interest, and the best interest of everyone you love. His glory is the answer to everything.

This is just a rough guide, a way to get you started thinking about how you’ll answer when the first crisis hits and things start falling apart. That day is closer than any of us knows.

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* “Cathexis” in this context is a term to describe the overwhelming intense emotional high typically associated with juvenile infatuation.

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