WHY ARE THE FAT STILL RIDICULED TODAY?

Months ago, I cannot remember when exactly, the Lord put it on my heart that making fun of fat people was just about the only thing left that was still accepted in our society.  Making fun of ANYONE that is different than yourself is ungodly and wrong.  I think everyone knows that.  But certain things that were once widely accepted are now taboo in today’s society.  No longer can you make fun of gays, people of color, the handicapped, etc.  (And why would you want to?!)  Even those with addictions to drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, work are on the taboo list.  So you say you’re an addict?  No problem!  The medical community now says it’s “not your fault” because those are “diseases.”  BUT wait a second!  If you say you’re addicted to food?  Well, screw you for eating too much and not exercising!  Ya, that’s it in a nutshell.  But the bigger question is WHY?  FAT-BASHING or FAT-SHAMING are still okay?  HOW IS THAT SO?

 

Many years ago, I worked for a company that employed Psychiatric doctors and nurses.  After that, I worked in a non-profit center that helped people with mental illnesses.  Needless to say, I learned a lot about Psychiatry and people needing the help of Psychiatrists because I had to read patient charts all day.  I quickly learned that addiction is a coping mechanism for stress.  Sometimes it’s referred to as “self-medicating.”  When something traumatic happens to a person, it causes an immense amount of stress on the human mind and body.  If you are not able to get past or overcome that stress, then the person will do whatever it takes to alleviate the stress and make themselves feel better.  This where alcohol, drugs, etc. come in.  An addiction comes about from something that “feels good” and the person repeats the behavior every time they feel stress.  If the stress is on-going in their lives, the person’s need to self-medicate can become a full-blown addiction.  I learned that if or until the person overcomes the stress, it is nearly impossible to break the addiction.  This is why therapy is often needed.  Because often a person won’t even know WHY they are addicted.  Once they “face their demons” so to speak, the addiction can be broken easier.  Case in point: Tom Arnold.  He came out years ago and said that during the time he was addicted to drugs and alcohol, he didn’t really know why.  It was during therapy that he started to remember the sexual abuse he suffered as a child.   He has also been overweight.  Is it too much of a stretch to think that food was also part of his addiction?  And if you accept that, then making fun of him being fat would, in fact, be making fun of his sexual abuse.

 

Okay, so the reason I wrote this article is because I have fought being overweight all my life.  As I am writing this, I am fat.  I have spent probably 20 years of my life actively ON a diet.  Trust me when I say that it is a horrible way to live, and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone.  I was of normal weight until puberty, age 11 or 12.  That was also the same time in my life I started Junior High School, and the bullying began in my life.  I didn’t find out until I was 40 years old that I had Asperger’s Syndrome, so during this time I was “weird” to the other kids and didn’t have many friends.  I was also verbally bullied at home by my mother and then by my little sister who just copied my mother’s language and behavior.  The doctors told my mother that there was nothing wrong me and that I just had an attitude problem (they didn’t know about Asperger’s back then.)  My mother sticks by that story to this day. It’s her go-to excuse explanation as to why she treated me so bad.  The doctor’s said it was okay.  A few years ago she even said to my face, “you made me treat you that way.”  Yup she was the victim, not me.  I was quite literally shocked when she said that.  She immediately played “victim” as if I did something to her.  I was 42 years old and didn’t think she could hurt me anymore and yet, she still found something to say that crushed my soul.  And I cried like a baby that day.  Her inability to admit what she did, own up to it and apologize to me, which is all I wanted, was heart-wrenching and the reason why I cannot have a relationship with her ever again.  That is the very last day I ever spoke to my mother.  She and my sister treated me terrible but only outsiders saw it.  Other family members were so used to it, they thought it was “normal”.  A friend of mine once saw my sister and I talking and after my sister left she said, “why does she treat you so mean?”  My eyes immediately welled up with tears and I said, “you saw that?!  No one has ever seen that before.”  It was the defining moment when I realized I was not crazy… I was not the bad guy.  The awful truth is that my mother and sister do not like me, treat me like garbage,  and they blame me for it.  Is it any wonder, then, why I have self-medicated with food all my life?

 

It’s no surprise that growing up, we didn’t have any Christianity in our home.  We celebrated Christmas and Easter, and my family told people that we were Christian.  But we were NOT Christians.  My mother lied to make herself look good.  She hated God and even frowned upon us going to church with friends.  It’s no wonder that she found Catholicism when I was a teen.  Catholicism fits her own screwed up view of Christianity.  She had all these books she read about the saints and about Catholicism in general, yet I never saw her reading an actual Bible.  But I digress…  It was during all this strife at school AND at home, that I self-medicated with food.  My mother was also overweight so we had lots of sweets in the house, and we had the run of the kitchen.  We ate whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted.  And when the kitchen was bare because it was almost grocery shopping day, I remember eating uncooked pasta out of the box and eating uncooked corn meal out of the bag.  That certainly sounds like an addiction to me!  Then, I lost 60 pounds during the summer between 10th and 11th grade.  That was my very first diet.  I have been gaining and losing weight ever since.  There was a point during my 20s that I was normal weight but I drank alcohol…. a lot of it.  Ya, I was substituting alcohol for food.  And when I stopped drinking?  You guessed it…I gained weight again.

 

Matthew 6:15 KJV – But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

 

Now, I didn’t start out to make this a bash-my-mom blog.  I have told the Lord that I FORGIVE my mother and sister.  I even told the Lord I forgave my father for going along with them and not sticking up for me.  I gave up carrying around the baggage of the hatred I felt for them.  I FORGAVE.  But the words “forgive and forget” and NOT IN THE BIBLE.  Forgetting what someone did to you and forgiving are very different.  I cannot forget because neither of them have admitted what they did nor apologized for it.  I HAVE to forgive them… FOR MYSELF.  But I cannot forget and move past it because they would still continue to treat me the same as they always have.  Each time in my life when I have “let it go”, I “forgot” and went on as if nothing happened, and it resulted in me being treated horrible again.  My spirit just can’t take it anymore.

 

Getting back to the topic at hand;  WHY then is it still okay to be mean to fat people?  WHY do I still see troll-posts on Facebook telling a fat girl she is “unhealthy”, “obese”, “UGLY?”  WHY?  WHY are life-long skinny people telling fat people to do….anything?  A life-long skinny person couldn’t possibly understand the challenges we face… what we go through.  Would those same people just tell a drug addict to stop taking drugs!  “Oh it’s so simple… just stop taking drugs!”   “Oh it’s so simple… just stop eating bon-bons and go exercise!”  Wow!  I should just STOP because it’s soooooo easy!  Why didn’t I think of that?!  And some of the same people addicted to alcohol, shopping, gambling, etc. are telling fat people to STOP.  The hypocrisy is never-ending.

 

John 13:34-35 KJV- “ A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another;  as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.  By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

 

In retrospect, I see that if my family had simply had JESUS in our home, my childhood would have been much happier.  My mother would have been understanding, caring, loving and in turn, my sister would have learned that from her.  We would have been a loving family.  JESUS really IS the answer for everything.

 

If you judge others, without knowing everything they have been through, and I mean EVERYTHING, then you are WRONG.  That is why the Bible says not to judge others.

 

Luke 6:37 – “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”

 

1 Corinthians 4:5 NIV – “Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.”

 

Memories Pizza Refuses To Cater Gay Wedding; Right or Wrong? A Christian Perspective.

You’ve already heard this story, right?  The story about the little pizza place that said they would refuse to cater a gay wedding based on religious grounds.  Well, I’ll just throw this right out there…. I do not agree with them.  There, I said it.  And now, of course, here are my thoughts and opinions on the matter.

The biggest questions I have are these:  Do the owner’s of Memories Pizza check the morality of everyone that walks through their door?  If they have catered other events, did they check with those people to insure they met all their religious standards?  Obviously, you can see where I’m going with this line of questioning.

The bottom line is this:  Just because you cater a gay wedding does not mean you agree with their sexual orientation, nor does it mean you have sinned if you do cater it.  And after all, Jesus ate with prostitutes and sinners!  And I suspect that if they offered him money, he took that too!

“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’  For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”  ~Matthew 9:10-13 (NIV)

I don’t agree with homosexuality, nor believe in gay marriage, but that doesn’t mean I would turn my back on them or even avoid them.   (If you’ve read any of my blogs, you already know that I have spoken at length about homosexuality, and have gay friends myself.  If you haven’t, you can check them out here and here.)  And if an occasion arose for me to minister to anyone at the wedding, I certainly would have!  But to turn them down outright just because the owners did not agree with them being gay or believe in a gay marriage was just wrong.

Now, that all being said, I will add one more thought to this whole thing;  I believe that any business should be able to turn anyone away for any reason.  I know most of you wouldn’t go as far as to agree with that and some might call me ‘racist’ just for saying it.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  I say that because when you enter a privately-owned business, that’s just it… you are inside an establishment owned by an individual(s) and it is private.  That individual(s) should have the right to choose not to serve someone for any reason.  If they choose to discriminate, I ASSURE YOU, they won’t be open long!  The local community will see to that.  But my point is that they should still HAVE THAT RIGHT.

Furthermore, we have discrimination still going on today.  It never left.  If this little pizza parlor in Indiana had been Muslim-owned, and they refused to cater due to their religious reasons, this story would never have been told.  Their refusal would have been happily accepted.  But the devil has seen to it that Christians are hated for, well…. just being Christian.  While Muslims, who also do NOT agree with homosexuality, are not held to the same standard as Christians.  According to the WikiIslam:  “The Islamic views on homosexuality are formed from the writings of the Qur’an and Prophet Muhammad‘s Sunnah. It is not only a sin, but a crime under Islamic law.”  The punishment is, most often, varying forms of death.  DEATH.  Death for being gay.  YES, that is the TRUTH of what Islamic Law says!  And yet Islam is accepted but Christianity is no longer tolerated, even though we Christians LOVE all sinners and wish none of them death.  Yes friends, that is the world today.

I got a little off on a tangent there, but I think I made all my points.  You’ve heard the saying widely spoken among Christians to “love the sinner and hate the sin.”  Well, that is still true today.  You can love someone and still disagree with their actions.  There is no reason to not have gay friends and love gay family members.  To be friends with or love a sinner doesn’t mean you agree with their actions.  And of course, remember that none of us are free from sin.  

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  ~Romans 3:23

Andrew Wommack and Faith Like A Grain of Mustard Seed

My husband and I have been followers of Andrew Wommack for several years.  It is apparently not popular to follow him and I get some hate emails from even mentioning him in my blog!  However, that won’t deter me from speaking about him.  I have found his teachings to be simple and provide a wealth of information.  While I’m still a fairly new Christian, the things that Andrew Wommack teaches were even unknown to my husband who has been a Christian for over 4 decades.  Andrew’s simple teachings have opened our eyes to the TRUTH that the devil has wanted to remain hidden for so long.

But make no mistake, even now we struggle with some of the teachings.  What we are finding is this;   Andrew is here to teach the simplest form of these truths.  He is a good place to start;  a sort of “jumping off” point.  Christians should always study the Bible on their own and with others.  And while the new information Andrew has shown us is invaluable, there is still  more to the story.  Do I doubt the Lord answers every prayer, every time as Andrew says?  NOPE.  I believe that 100%.  Then WHY are all my prayers not being answered?  Andrew says it’s “unbelief” or maybe because an improper request was made, or maybe even something else that can’t be guessed.  But whatever the reason, he is right.  There IS more… there IS something else.  And only the Lord can tell us what or why.

We have believed, and seen our prayer answered just hours later.  We were having a less than normal month in our otherwise successful business.  Our business is such that certain months are slower than others.  So we prayed for grocery money.  It was an actual “need”.  My husband was heading off to a meeting and they were doing a raffle.  And a couple hours later, he came home with money in his pocket.  He had 2 winnings actually, which more showed the Lord’s hand in it!  He first won a “draw” and then when he drew, he won the pot!  Glory to God!  We praised and praised.  But truth be told, we both somehow knew he was coming home with that money.  We felt it in our spirits.  But this does not happen every time we make a request to God.  We KNOW that we have faith and belief and do not waver from it.  We KNOW that, just as Andrew Wommack teaches, the Lord DOES answer every prayer, every time, so long as it is appropriate.  But something else is keeping prayers from being answered.  I have asked the Lord about this and been receiving some answers just recently.  

I’ve been wanting to know why the healing I am trying to get is not happening.  I have struggled with obesity for many years.  I am more active than most women I know and eat normal meals.  I don’t sit my butt on a sofa all day or eat enough food for 7 people.  I KNOW in my spirit this is a metabolism or similarly related health issue I inherited through iniquity (my mother has it, other women in the family too.)  And the Lord showed me it was because of my heart-attitude.  I’ve long wanted healing from obesity.  The Lord showed me that the healing I wanted was for my outward appearance and not because of medical issues.  And He is right!  I care more about how I look and how others see me, and the health needs are secondary at best.  I need to get my heart right and THEN the healing will come.  The Lord SHOWED me this.  That isn’t something Andrew Wommack can teach you.  Andrew teaches that there are reasons you aren’t getting your healing, but he can’t show you every possible scenario.  Only the LORD can show you what is preventing your prayer from being answered!  And I suspect that oftentimes, it is because of demonic intervention.

I can give you a perfect example on this from Daniel.  In Daniel 9:20-21, Daniel says specifically that while he was STILL in the middle of his prayer, an angel of the Lord, Gabriel, showed up with an answer to it.  He had not even finished praying and it was answered.  However, then in Daniel 10:12-14, his prayer request comes about very differently.  He waits 3 weeks for it to be answered.  The angel then comes and says that he was detained by the “King of Persia” and another angel, Michael, had to come and help him.  If you’ve been studying your Bible you know that “King of Persia” is a reference used for a demon or the devil himself.  In effect, the devil kept the prayer from being answered.  The Bible does not tell us why.  It would seem that when the devil believes he can keep a prayer from being answered, he will.  The verse also states that the angel said “Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard.”  It’s clear that the angel is saying that from the second He heard the prayer, the Lord answered it and it was only delayed because of demonic intervention.  And that the angel dispatched by God had to fight with this demon for so long that another angel had to jump in and help.  Clearly, there is MUCH going on “behind the scenes” that we will never see while on this planet.  This is another area where FAITH comes in!

The bottom line is that if you don’t know why your prayers are not being answered, you have to look to the Lord for the answers.

I’ll give you another example the Lord shared with me recently.  I speak to the planet and other things quite often.  I have FAITH that what I command will be done.  I believe the Bible where Jesus says:  “…Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”   ~Matthew 17:20

I have a couple examples of this.  I have a terrible fear of wasps and they seek me out in their demonic-like fashion.  When doing yard work, I am harassed to an extent that isn’t normal.  So when I walk out the door, I always speak to the bugs and tell them that they WILL stay away from me.  Whatever they need to do, they can do away from me and my yard.  Without fail, they do exactly as I say.  One day, I saw something like a large hornet coming at me at top speed and without even thinking, I started speaking in tongues straight at it and just before it ran directly into me, it veered off in a most unearthly manner and disappeared.  I use this command of the planet, so to speak, in other ways as well.  About a month ago, I spoke to the Earth and told it to snow.  We haven’t seen much snow this season and it’s something I love and was really missing it!  The snow came but not exactly as I spoke it.  When I thought on it, the Lord put it on my heart that the reason it didn’t happen the way I commanded was that my request was self-serving.  He reminded me of the stray cats we feed and asked what I thought of them having to walk a long way in cold, wet snow to get to the food.  And what about people that have car or personal accidents due to snow?  His communication was simple;  my request for snow was selfish and served no godly purpose.   Boy, did I feel dumb after that, albeit wiser now. 

In conclusion, I believe that Andrew Wommack is NOT wrong.  The advice he gives and his interpretations of the Bible are spot on.  In my opinion and my own experience, Andrew is trying to get people on the right path.  He’s giving advice that IS simple.  Now, that being said, it’s NOT ALWAYS *that* simple.  Sometimes there is demonic intervention or a prayer that was ungodly, or maybe an open door in your life due to sin.  There are too many reasons to count as to why your specific prayer may not be answered.  But just as Andrew says, if your prayer is not answered, there’s a reason for it.  It’s up to YOU to find the reason, and NOT up to the Lord to work around it!

This Christian Fat Girl is Using the Lord’s Help to Overcome Obesity…

Well friends, it’s been a crazy couple of months. I can’t even begin to tell you how the Lord is moving in my life. We live in very interesting times, with a lot of people saying that the “end times” are here, and I don’t disagree with them. But with all the new information that the Lord has shown me lately, He actually has put it on my heart to write about something else… being overweight and battling obesity.

All my life I have struggled with my weight. As a kid, I seemed to be hungry ALL the time, and us kids played outside DAILY back then! With all the activity, I still wonder why I struggled with my weight. I remember always telling my mother how hungry I was and she let us kids eat whatever we wanted from the kitchen, not really supervising or proportioning things for us. I’m sure that had some impact on my chubbiness. But, I know now that it is a demon causing me this trouble for all these years.

As an adult, these ‘hunger’ and ‘craving’ problems just got worse and worse. When I starved myself, I didn’t gain one ounce. But as soon as I even tried to eat normally, even if I watched what I ate and tried to eat right, I would start rapidly gaining weight. No diet ever worked long-term except the one where I was a slave for many years to counting calories, exercising vigorously and never eating out… ever. And for those that think this is a medical issue, it isn’t. I have had blood work done off and on over the past 20 years and there is absolutely nothing wrong with my thyroid or whatever else might be a cause of weight gain. Every time a new doctor would say that I might have this condition or that condition, my blood work never showed it and therefore I’m told, nothing is wrong with me. And when I look at what I eat, and how much I eat, in a single day, most days I don’t come close to what I see others eat!

In the last 25+ years, I’ve done everything from weight loss clinics, diet pills, limiting what foods I could eat, counting calories every day for years and even brainwashing myself to believe that certain things would or wouldn’t happen if I was overweight… just to keep myself from eating, to keep myself thin. In this area of my life, it has been a miserable existence. I would end up sacrificing one unhealthy thing for another so no true happiness or accomplishment was ever made. Another tell-tale sign I was dealing with something demonic. But to be fair, I was not Born-Again at this time, so I had no idea that the true cause of my troubles was satan.

ALL my life, from every possible source, I have been told that I am fat and I should lose weight, and if I can’t, it’s ALL my own fault for not having willpower. Even in a society as medically advanced, and supposedly TOLERANT of people’s problems, food addiction/obesity is still looked down upon as something YOU did to yourself and you’re supposed to starve yourself and be skinny like the rest of us. And what hypocrisy it is! In today’s society so many believe that drug addiction, gambling addiction, alcohol addiction, etc. are DISEASES, but somehow my obesity… considered by most to be a FOOD ADDICTION… is NOT a disease? If you are addicted to alcohol, you are sick but if you’re addicted to food you lack willpower and are looked down upon? Excuse me but that has got to be the most hypocritical thing I ever heard!

Now that I’m finished ranting, I’ll get to the meat of this post. No pun intended. If you follow my blogs, you know that I am a huge follower of Christian teacher Andrew Wommack. I really needed some guidance about what I should be doing at this point in my life concerning my life-long weight problems. I wasn’t sure if I needed deliverance from a food demon or I should be laying hands on my body and healing it of obesity, or what about iniquities inherent in my family? So I wrote to Andrew’s ministry and got back a very eye-opening response! It was a very long and detailed message, including scriptures to back up the message. Due to it’s length, I won’t post the entire thing here but instead I will highlight a few key points. The first one being that Andrew does not believe we should impose a ‘law’ on ourselves concerning our diet and what foods we eat. Just like what happened to me, the ‘law’ then makes us a slave to it. While Andrew does say that we need to have common sense and eat as wisely as we are able to, he also recommends “eating by faith.”

It says in part… “If our faith for healing is in food, then we are submitting to natural sources for our health and we will live or die according to those natural things. If we eat by faith (true faith), blessing each thing that we eat and receiving it with gladness, knowing that God is our healer and the Word is medicine to our flesh, then we are free from a new dietary religious bondage. We can easily see if our eating is by faith or not by the results. Health and weight problems would indicate that we aren’t eating by faith.”

So the end result is that my husband and I have started praising God and thanking him for everything we put into our bodies, even water, and asking that the food be a blessing to our bodies, in Jesus’ name. In the short amount of time we have been doing that, we have seen a great difference in how the food makes us feel. I didn’t say anything to my husband at first, but some of the foods we ate tasted different to me, and they even FELT different once inside my stomach! When I finally mentioned this in passing to my husband, he stopped me and said, “Wow I was feeling that way too but thought it was just me!” So we have discovered that “eating by true faith” is all that was needed all along. I feel set free from my obesity and hope to update everyone in the coming months to the numerous, positive changes that occur in my body!

SICKNESS, DEMONS, PRIDE AND *GASP* HOMOSEXUALITY

Let’s start off this blog by talking about SICKNESS.   What if I told you that ALL sickness is of the devil?  What if I also said that God does NOT give us illnesses or make bad things happen to teach us a lesson, or to somehow give glory to him?  Before I was born again, even I was guilty of believing that God gives us sickness to teach us lessons.  But the veil has been lifted from my eyes, now that I have found Jesus Christ, and I am no longer deceived.  The devil is solely responsible for all sickness and every other evil thing that happens.  God does not want you to be sick; God does not want terrible things to happen to you at all.  However, God will use a bad situation and turn it around so that something good comes from it.  A hypothetical example might be a mother whose son is killed by a drunk driver, and she later starts advocating for tougher drunk driving laws.  In that example, God didn’t cause the death of the son; it was all the devil’s doing.  But God will use it so that some positive outcome unfolds.

Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10 NIV)  This makes it crystal clear that the thief, meaning the devil, is the source of all woes and sickness but Jesus blesses us.

And let me hit you with another one;  DEMONS.  How many of you think that demons only exist in ‘other’ places?  I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to who believe that demons only exist in places like Haiti (because of voodoo practices there) or that demons are only around true devil-worshippers.  But the truth is that nowhere in the Bible does it say demons are only in ‘certain places.’  In chapters 1 and 2 of JOB, Satan says specifically that he has been “roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.”  That sure sounds to me like he was all over the entire planet!  But there is zero scripture to back up an argument that demons are only in ‘certain’ places on earth.

There are many references in the Bible to people having a ‘demon’ or ‘unclean spirit’ inside of them.  Jesus and his disciples cast many demons out of people!  A few examples are in Matthew 8:16 and 8:28-33 and Mark 1:23-27.  Jesus and his disciples also healed people of their illnesses.  If God had given them the illnesses, why would Jesus have removed them?  And if you believe that God gave you an illness, why would you go to the doctor for a cure, when you believe God wanted you to have it?!  Put in those perspectives, saying that God is responsible for illnesses doesn’t make any logical sense!

So now that we know that ALL sickness is caused by satan and his demons, why would anyone want to ‘glorify’ their illnesses?  You would, in effect, be glorifying the devil!  And yet, that is exactly what people are doing.

And that leads me to hit you with a really difficult one now;  HOMOSEXUALITY.  There are many places in the Bible where it talks specifically about men being with men and women being with women.  Some examples can be found in Leviticus 18 and 20, Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6 and all make it clear that it is sinful and immoral.  But let me be specific on this:  I have had many homosexual friends in my lifetime and would never condemn them, or turn my back on them.  I know many won’t agree with what I’m about to say, but here goes;  You can be HEALED of homosexuality the same as being healed of cancer or alcohol addiction or any illness.  Therefore, I do put homosexuality in the same category as addiction or disease and it CAN be overcome through Jesus Christ.

I can give you a couple examples to back this up.  First, in Andrew Wommack’s book “The Believer’s Authority: What You Didn’t Learn in Church”, he speaks about casting demons out of a homosexual man who requested this deliverance.  And second, there is Sy Rogers.  In his ministry, he speaks often of being a former homosexual, who was very active in the gay lifestyle.  But Sy has now been healed of his homosexuality and has been born again, and married for over 20 years.

                  

I know many homosexuals, including a close friend who confirmed to me, believe they were born gay.  I don’t doubt that at all.  But again, you can be born addicted to alcohol (if your mother drank while pregnant) and you can be born with cancer or other illnesses, so it stands to reason that you could be born ‘gay’.  So the ‘being born like this’ argument doesn’t really apply.  And that doesn’t even take into account INIQUITIES talked about in the Bible that could also be responsible for ‘being born’ gay.

The problem I see is this; You cannot GLORIFY sin or illnesses because if you do, you give glory to the devil instead of glorifying the Lord!  That is the main reason why I am not an advocate for gay marriage.  In my opinion, being for gay marriage is like being for alcoholism or being for cancer.  These are all things you need to overcome and be healed from, so going along with it as though nothing is wrong is giving glory to the wrong person!

This leads me to a new tactic that the devil started using against us a couple decades ago; PRIDE.  The Bible says many things about pride such as, “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” (Proverbs 11:2) and “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18).  The Bible is clear that pride is a sin.  So the devil started his ‘pride campaign’ on people and of course, used their own sins and illnesses as a form of pride.   There is of course ‘Gay Pride’ and recently I saw an advertisement that told me to ‘Own my ADHD’ as if you should have pride over having the illness of ADHD!  If that’s not straight up demonic deception, I don’t know what is.

In conclusion, I will say that the Lord wants you healed!  He wants you to be well.  But you cannot get well while you are glorifying the devil by having pride over your illnesses and sins.  You MUST resist the devil to be healed!  I cannot say that loud enough or enough times.  You MUST resist the devil to be healed.  Seek out the Lord, lay hands on and heal the sick, but stop glorifying the devil by ‘accepting’ your illnesses and sins!

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7 NIV)

What Happens When We Die?

The Lord has been prodding me lately to write about ghosts, aliens and other unexplained or paranormal phenomena.  BUT, I realized that to write about ghosts in particular, I must first start by discussing what happens when you die.

So what do most people believe happens when you die?  From talking to my friends, family, etc. over the years, my experience has been that people tend to fall into three main categories; 1) those that have fear of dying because they have no idea what will happen to them, or just not sure what will happen, 2) those that believe they will be judged immediately and go to Heaven or hell, and 3) those that believe their souls will stay in their bodies while they rot in the ground until Jesus comes again.  This third belief is so popular that it is taught in many churches today and can be found on numerous Christian websites concerning death.  And not to offend anyone, but it is still wrong.

None of these beliefs have any basis in fact and frankly, are quite ludicrous.  Regarding those who believe they will be judged immediately, well…. We all know we have to wait until Judgment Day for that, so that’s not even worth expounding on.  Regarding those who believe their souls will stay in the ground with their bodies, well, that is the worst belief, in my opinion, because it doesn’t even make any logical sense!  What about those who were cremated and their ashes scattered?  What about those who died hundreds of years ago and their bodies, caskets and all have completely decomposed and gone?  What if someone dug up your corpse while excavating land and then destroyed the body rather than re-bury it elsewhere?  (I could come up with hypotheticals galore, but you get my point.)  And even if you want to be buried, what if your loved ones go against your wishes and cremate you?  Oh no!  You can’t get a glorified body if God can’t find your withered old corpse in the ground?!  If that’s not LUDICROUS THINKING, I don’t know what is.

There are many Bible passages that tell us very clearly what happens when we die.  NONE of these say your SOUL goes into the ground or stays with your dead body.  Rather, as the first quote tells us, when we die we go to be with the Lord (our souls).

“We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”  (2 Corinthians 5:8 KJV)

Paul, specifically says in this next quote, that when we depart from this life, we are with Christ:

“For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.”  (Philippians 1:23 KJV)

This is what is said regarding death when Jesus returns:

“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.  According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.  For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.  Therefore encourage one another with these words.”  (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 NIV)

 

The meaning of the passages is pretty clear;  Those who are still alive will be brought up to Heaven along with the dead, who will have received their glorified bodies, and all of us together will rise up to Heaven.  Don’t get lost on the phrase “sleep in death” or “fallen asleep”.  Just because our bodies are ‘sleeping’ does not mean our SOULS are sleeping.  There is always a possibility that the ‘sleep’ does refer to our souls, so it’s possible there is a sleep WITH THE LORD.  Since I have already shown instances that prove when you die, you are with Christ, I believe that the “sleep” referred to here is concerning our dead bodies and not our actual souls.

The point is that you don’t need to know all the exact particulars.  You just need to have FAITH in what you already know; when we depart from this life, we will be with Christ.  PERIOD

To be fair, the Bible is not very clear about what happens to those who don’t have a body in the ground.  But I fail to believe that God would just say, “Oh sorry you can’t come to Heaven because someone cremated you, or I can’t find your old dead body anymore.”  No, you will get a glorified body regardless of whether you have a withered old corpse still in the ground or not.  To believe anything else would be sheer stupidity, and the most High God is anything but stupid.

So the end result of all of these passages is the same:  When we die our SOULS go to be with the Lord.  Knowing that should give ALL CHRISTIANS PEACE over death… their own death and those of their loved ones.

I sometimes anger my husband because I know that this life we are living is temporary and I’m ready to die at any time (he’s not ready for me to go, hence why he gets angry).  It’s true.  I don’t fear death and would certainly LOVE to be with the Lord!  One day, we will have glorified bodies and live for eternity in the New Kingdom that will be established here on earth.  What happens in this lifetime will be nothing… a mere drop in the bucket… compared to eternity.  I don’t worry that I haven’t had children and won’t pass on any legacy;  I don’t worry that I haven’t done something great to be remembered by;  I don’t care about any of those things that everyone seems to worry about because NONE of that matters.

I work for the Lord.  This life, I live for Him.  I do what He tells me to do.  I try to speak the Word to all who will listen.  I strive for more knowledge in the Word.  And when my time comes for me to leave this earth, I will be happy and rejoice in the Lord.  For the moment, for this temporary lifetime here on earth, THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS.

If My Sins Are Paid For, Then Why Not Just Sin All I Want?

I have been having an extremely difficult time lately with something.  One member of our family stood up for another family member’s evil, sinful ways by saying that her sins ‘have been PAID for.’   End of story.  Nothing further to discuss.   After I picked my jaw up off the floor, this got me to thinking…  if our sins are paid for, then why not just sin all we want?  God may not like it but Jesus ALREADY paid for them, right?   When I became born-again, I was saved.  I have eternal life through Christ Jesus and I will be in Heaven one day.  That’s it and that’s all.  Regardless of what I do from now until the time of my mortal death, I WILL be in Heaven.  That is all true.

The family member who stood up for evil, did nothing to condemn it, now SHARES in this sin as well.  That same person claims to understand this, but how could you understand it and yet still go along with it because now YOU TOO are GUILTY and will be held responsible of the same sin!  Why…. WHY… would you claim to understand that and yet not speak up to what you have seen and heard?  I am actually MORE worried about the person covering up the sin than the person committing it.

“Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.” ~LEVITICUS 19:17 (NIV)

“If anyone sins because they do not speak up when they hear a public charge to testify regarding something they have seen or learned about, they will be held responsible.”  ~LEVITICUS 5:1  (NIV)

Now, I know we ALL sin.  But those of us with a true intimate relationship with the Lord, who LOVE the Lord and honestly WANT to live up to his expectations of us, wouldn’t purposefully go about sinning.  It’s just not in our born-again nature to do that.

The family member that actually did the sinning, commits evil acts so often, that if you asked me to name just a couple nice things she has done to help others, I could honestly not tell you even one.  Her evil ways are born out of extreme selfishness and everything she does has a self-serving basis.  She claims to love the Lord and that the things she does is only because she wants to be ‘happy’, and the Lord wants her to be happy, right?  (She has actually said this while engaged in an affair with another man, while married to her second husband.)  What she cannot grasp is that if you do things out of sheer selfishness… if you do things that hurt others… you can and never will be ‘happy’ and will never know ‘peace’.  That completely goes against spiritual law.  You will not receive peace and happiness from sin… you cannot receive something good by doing something evil.

The Lord helped me understand the true problem with this woman.  She is born-again.  She claims to love the Lord.  But she is ‘on the fence.’  She can be good or she can be evil but she CANNOT BE BOTH.  Until she CHOOSES A SIDE, she will NEVER have peace and NEVER be happy.

Here’s how the Lord explained it to me:

GOOD:  If you are engaged in a loving and intimate relationship with the Lord, then He is all you need to find peace and happiness.  If you are looking anywhere but to the Lord for help in being happy, you will fail.  Only through the Lord will you succeed.

EVIL:  And if you are not born-again and do not know the Lord, then you are on the other side of the fence.  Evil will be dominant in your life and those who seek to keep you in the dark will probably offer you tokens of happiness to keep you there.  The devil will bring you wealth or whatever else you desire to keep you away from the Lord.  He will make you believe that you have ALL you need to be happy and therefore, you need nothing else.  You will never seek the Lord because you don’t feel you need Him.  These forms of happiness might make your life on Earth easier but you will never know eternal life.  The devil’s job is to deceive and he is really good at it.

Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires;  but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.  The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace;  the sinful mind is hostile to God.  It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.  Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.”  ROMANS 8:5-8

SO…. WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?