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Showing posts from March, 2015

No Thorns No Throne

Passion Week is upon us. Soon Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday will be celebrated by the devout all over the world. Preparing for Passion Week gets a person thinking. Lately, my mind has been upon the crown of thrones. The Cross gets the most focus and should, then the nails in Christ's hands and feet. Then the crown of thorns comes into the consciences. The Crown of Thorns is important for many reasons. The first is that it is evidence that Jesus was put to death for claiming to be the Messiah. The Romans in their brutal techniques of flogging and crucifixion, paid homage in mocking way to Jesus when they made the circlet of thorns; the crown for his head. This was in effect a symbol, for the Cesars wore the same circlet, only made of a wreath of leaves. The Crown of Thorns is thus the Civic Crown. Secondly, the Crown of Thorns serves as the first crown Jesus wears on his way to kingship. His death on cross is both the battle for eternal life for all lost souls, personally...

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick is more akin to Martin Luther than a mainstream Catholic saint. Patricus or Patrick was a missionary and reformer who was not beloved by the Roman Catholic Church of Briton. He sought to save souls in Ireland, a place that had been his prison and the place where he found his call to be priest. St. Patrick was humble, kind, loving, and a humorous man; he would never have survived Ireland had he been proud or pompous. He choose to integrate the Irish culture into Christianity and one way he did this was by exploiting the pagan beliefs of the Irish.  For the Irish water was sacred and a portal and dimension to the spiritual world of the fairies. St. Patrick utilized this belief of the pagan Irish to led them to water Baptism and subsequently into Christ's flock!; which is call doorway ministry, where a missionary finds what is sacred and important to pagan people and find something similar in the Bible and uses that...

Not of This World

It seems like the enemy is winning. All around us we see Satan and his servants taking ground through terrorism, television, and telecommunications. The presence of the prince of this world in media, movies, and masterpieces is enough to make many believers discouraged. Why is it that Satan is getting such foothold? Its as if he owns the world and God isn't intervening. The truth is that we are looking at the problem from the wrong perspective. Jesus Christ said, " They (believers) are not of this world, just as I am not of it ." (John 17:16). Then St. Paul said, "conform not to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of out minds." (Romans 12:12). The truth is that this whole world belong to our enemy; "We know we are children of God, and that the whole world belong to the evil one." (1 John 5:19). That's right, the world is under the dominion of the devil! That is why Hollywood, the national media, much of literature, a...

The War of Our Time

Our battle is daily. The World War against our faith continues. The trenches of this unending battle are in our minds, hearts, malls, homes, and schools. I have become curious about World War I. The type of warfare, the trenches, tanks, and airplanes. Trench warfare is still considered the worst kind of warfare. The hopelessness and despair that pervades over the paladins with their pistols can overwhelm a viewer. But trench warfare is what we as Christians are engaged in. We have taken territory, our souls are in our Savior's keeping, but are enemy, the devil and his demons assail our trench. The battle rages on daily. Our enemy fires volleys of artillery, sends in tanks, airplanes, soldiers, and spies. In our trenches we hold on to the Truth of Christ as the bombs of doubt, disbelief, fear, and terror come upon us. We see the casualties, as Christian brothers and sister fall one by one either by holding true to Faith in Christ and going to be with their Lord in death or by...

Devotion

Devotion. A term that once denoted profound dedication, in particular to a cause or person. Devotion derives its oldest definition from the Ecclesia or Ecclesiastical devotions of worship and prayer. Today, devotion is seen through the sacred act of matrimony and in may I say media related things. Fandom has become synonymous with devotion. There are sports fans, who champion their favorite teams and devote time to watching their games debating who is the greatest player, and so forth. There are fantasy world devotees like the Ringers (Lord of the Rings) and Trekkies (Star Trek). Today, devotion tends to be to fictional worlds and family. However, devotion also comes in the form of friends and political causes. How far the concept of devotion has evolved. How far it has descended from its original purpose. Every person devotes time to things, for some it is art, others writing, reading, watching TV, binge watching Netflix, and so forth. But what about devotion to Jesus? Well certa...

Relax

Many of my posts are about taking our faith in Jesus Christ seriously. We should be very serious about "walking out our salvation with fear and trembling." (Philippians 2:12). However, when it come to receiving that "peace that passes all understanding," (Philippians 4:7) how are we to behave? Many shrines and churches have polices that keep women with uncovered arms from enter the church. While we should be respectful and "Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters" (Romans 14:1); we should also consider is this what Christ would want? If we look at where Jesus spent his time, we might be surprised to know he spent little time at the Temple or in synagogues and spent more time at Tiberius and the Sea of Galilee. Jesus sat, ate with and spent time in company of sinners. In fact, the Pharisees once said when murmuring, "See! Look he eats with tax collectors and sinners! To which Jesus knowing their minds and hea...