Their Truth, My Truth, and GOD's Truth:

 Three Different Trees

     While praying for one of my clients from the food pantry where I volunteer, I thought about his life story that he told me and how he ended up where he is living now, if you could call that living.  It's a very rewarding and frustrating job to deliver food to these people, especially the ones living in such abject and pitiful situations.  One client, in particular, has everything under the sun gone wrong against him, and he is completely innocent in his dire situation, or so he thinks.  I want to help them in other ways, besides just bringing them their monthly food boxes, but I am powerless to help some of them.  There are just too many problem with their living situations for me to tackle.  I decided its best to help where I can and pray for them about the other things.  I thought that I could offer solutions and ideas to help them, but then it occurred to me that I only know their side of the story.  

     While praying about this one in particular, I told GOD that his story just seemed a little off, and then the wisdom of GOD hit me like a ton of bricks.  The Holy Spirit put it in me like this:  Their stories may be an exaggeration, but to them it's their truth.  To them, it really did happen that way, and their plight is really as bad as they have told me, even if it's not the whole truth.  Then, GOD related it to us, all of mankind, and He hit me with another ton of bricks to really flatten the curve of my own story.  I've been blaming quite a few people for my own plight and situation, while they have been blaming me for being in the wrong as far as they are concerned. There are many people who have done me wrong, as I see it, but I will  use two men in particular to best describe the point I am trying to make. 

     To one, nothing I say is truth to him, it's only truth to me in his eyes, and none of it means anything to him, because it would interfere with his current happy lifestyle.  Biblically speaking, the truth I've been speaking to him comes straight from Scripture.  GOD has already shown me that this man has created God in his own image, an image that is acceptable to him, one who accepts his actions as okay, not offensive to YHVH GOD in any way, when clearly what he has done is spoken against in multiple places in the Bible.  He doesn't read those passages. He is not in the least bit interested in reading those portions of the Bible, but he goes to church on a regular basis.  He likes his last seat in the back row, way up in the balcony, where no one will bother him. The soothing message of just how much GOD loves him, regardless of how he lives, makes him feel better about himself, while the Scripture passages I share with him make him uncomfortable enough to ignore them as if they do not exist or as if they are obsolete today. His truth is that today we live under grace and not law, as he's been taught by the New Testament Church. To him, he's not obligated to keep any of the Laws, especially the parts about making vows to YHVH GOD.  According to him, this wonderful pastor and the enjoyable music that is played at this mega church speak quite the contrary to the things I've been telling him are in Scripture.  In essence, he prefers his "truth" to the Truth.  The real truth makes him look bad. It says that because he has turned his back on GOD he may have lost his salvation, and well, that's just unacceptable to him.  

    The other man has many things against me, none of which I really know, because he refuses to speak to me, but his truth is just as viable and real to him as the first man's is to him.  I can't fight this second man's truth with Scripture, because I don't know what his truth is to him. I only know what my truth is to me, and how it relates to me.  The crux of the problem is that we have two different truths.  I only know mine, he only knows his, and I'm going to venture a guess that neither one of our truths are GOD's Truth.  I can only make assumptions about him  based mainly on misinformation that I myself have had to conclude or deduce, and quite frankly, I could be way off base here.  He has a huge advantage over me because he knows all about me, and I know nothing about him, that is his choice. 

     So, the moral of this story is, as humans, we make up our own truths, and to us they are rock solid, whether they are GOD's truth, close to GOD's truth, or even way off of GOD's truth.  We are  judgmental by nature, and we judge other people's truths as lies if we believe they are lies.  We can't convince anyone of their lies being lies because our lies to ourselves are truth to us only.  Does that make sense?  What I am saying is that we all lie to ourselves that our truth is the truth.  How do we find the actual truth? Well, the truth is in the Bible, all of it, but unfortunately, we feed our lies into Scripture and pick and choose what truth means from those Scriptures.  We take our personal doctrines not from Scripture, but we force our doctrines into Scripture with select verses that seem to agree with our doctrine.  If I had to use a picture to describe it, I guess I could use a fruit tree.  The roots are GOD's truth, His actual Words, but the leaves and fruit that grow off the stem and the root are our truth. Hence, to us, the leaves and the fruit are just as much of the tree as the root.  The leaves and fruit are the truth we accept because they are the most visible to our naked eye. 

      My fruit tree may be an apple, another's fruit tree may be a peach tree and another's an orange tree.  They are all trees to us, they are all truths to us, but the actual truth for all our trees is in the roots, which are under the ground and they all look exactly alike, because the roots are GOD's truth.  So, what can we do about all these differing lies we convince ourselves are the rock solid truth.  Nothing, absolutely nothing. 

   We cannot ever convince the other that their fruit or leaves aren't really GOD's truth, only GOD can do that. Our own leaves and fruit are likely not GOD's truth.  Somehow, we have to learn to live with each other's lies, and just keep searching our own trees' roots, and pray that somehow, we can live acceptable lives to GOD, and thank Him with all we have that Jesus's death on the cross is the grace that keeps our trees standing, until it's time for our trees to fall. The best we can do is to keep praying, keep studying, and keep believing that the Living Water of Jesus will extend to the next generation we leave behind when our own trees fall to the ground. (Pun not intended, but if the fruit fits, eat it!)

      THE FRUITS OF MY LABOR: And no one understands this better than an octomom!

     Sometimes, my own stupidity amazes even me.  I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, why even the butter knives laugh at me.  I am so amazed at the patience of the Almighty who continually puts up with the idiotic behavior I sometimes exhibit, okay, I usually exhibit.  I complain constantly about my own personal trauma when I know darn well that He has assigned me a job that is so much bigger than myself and my own petty problems.  I had been sleeping the day away, because I became so self-absorbed in my personal trauma, again. That was until I had this horrible nightmare. I woke up from it, knew it was from GOD, but couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was about, but I knew it was from YHVH GOD.

THE NIGHTMARE:

I was pregnant at this late age, I gave birth, but the hospital took the baby from me, not letting me see it, or know if it was a boy or girl, and told me to go home, and when the baby was ready to come home, they would call. I went home, went about taking care of my eight children, and forgot about the baby for weeks. When I called the hospital, they said there was no record of me giving birth, but they would get back to me. Again, months went by, and I remembered the baby, again. It was then that I realized the hospital had stolen my baby for the black market. I knew no court in the land would side with me, because I had forgotten about my baby for months. I couldn't stop crying and had to have one of the kids dial my phone to get their father over here. I called him to come over so we could go to the hospital together, but then the pipes burst in my upstairs master bathroom.

Strange, huh? Well, just doing the dishes, the Holy Spirit said to me to think about it. What have I been neglecting? My writing, my assignment as a writer for the despaired. My ninth baby is my job as a writer. The books are the baby. I can't see the results of the books, because I won't be here to see the fruit of my labor. It is my fondest desire for the LORD to take me out of this world before He takes the words I have written world-wide. The last thing I want is fame or notoriety in this world where everyone pretends to be someone famous. No one pretends to be a dead person, well, unless you're voting democrat. Sorry, couldn't resist.

I'm so stupid most of the time. I haven't quite figured out the pipes bursting, maybe that's the cancer, which will be my Ticket Home, keeping me from getting to the hospital to retrieve the "fruits of my labor."

ADDENDUM: November 12, 2024, I just figured out what the pipes bursting is. Daggone it, it's not cancer, it's this brain aneurysm in my head that I was diagnosed with a few months ago. Makes sense, huh? GOD taking me out quick with one killer headache. Pun intended.

 How to explain the Spiritual to those who don't have the Spirit. 

       Recently, by miracles of miracles, my atheist 91-year-old father decided to come to visit.  We haven't ever been a really close family, and my relationship with my father has been somewhat strained over the years.  I grew up in a very dysfunctional home, where my mother and father came from two different extremes in thought and behavior.  It was a marriage made in hell, no doubt.  From that marriage, GOD brought forth six children.  For some strange in explicable reason, GOD chose me out of the entire bunch to be His exclusively, in other words, I am the only "born-again" believer in the entire line, going beyond both my mother and my father's lines.  If anyone understood how Abram felt when YHVH GOD called him out of his family and homeland, I do.  

     When it happened to me in 1989, I did not come seeking GOD, I did not have any kind of traumatic event in which I was desperately seeking some kind of life-saving miracle.  I hadn't hit rock bottom and realized there was no place else to go, nor was I converted in a church or pounded over the head by a Bible thumper with the ABC's of salvations. (Admit you are a sinner, Believe you need a Savior, Jesus, and the Confess him as your Lord and Savior.)That is the church's 3-step plan to becoming saved out of our lost state to people have no concept of being lost.  That's man's way of explaining the Gospel, it is not the Biblical and Spiritual way.  He, GOD just came for me.   All of a sudden, there was another world that I was aware of and drawn to, and there was no way to resist the pull. It was from there that I sought out the truth from the only "Bible thumper" I knew at the time. I asked him where it said that one had to be born-again, and although it took him way too long to find it, I read my first Scripture (John 3:3), and I believed it to be true.  From there, with the door open, GOD did the rest of the work to complete the mission of bringing me into a world I never knew existed before.  It was then that I went from lost to saved, even though I had no idea that I was lost in the first place. 

    1 Corinthians explains the difference between the "lost and the saved," far better than any church person can, but how do we explain 1 Corinthians 2 in the spiritual to one how has not the Spirit.   It's like teaching Greek to an English speaking student using only the Greek language with no translation tools.  Or like typing Scripture out in wingding font and expecting them to get it.  There must be some kind of translation tool that opens the world of Greek to an only English speaking person.  It's is the same in the Spiritual.  That tool is the Holy Spirit. 

     If the Holy Spirit doesn't translate from "wingdings font to cursive, and then to regular print (for those under the age of 40) we will never be able to understand the Scriptures.  Sometimes, the Holy Spirit will give someone like me a great metaphor that will explain to the unspiritual what it is like to travel and operate in the spiritual, and that just happened.  I am awake at 2 AM because I just had this vivid dream, and I woke up abruptly.  I know when I've had a dream like that, waking up abruptly out of it, my mind automatically starts to mediate on that dream to try and understand why I had it. When I can't get my mind off the topic or my body back to sleep, I know it is the Holy Spirit saying to me, "Think Kristina."  Sometimes, my dreams have no point, and then there are times like tonight when I can see the point clear as day, clear as looking at a photograph instead of the negative.  I am going to attempt to explain the unconscious mind and where it can go in sleep/dream state, because many of you know that when we dream, it's nearly impossible to explain the circumstances of the dream because it's almost as if it is in a different realm.  Quite frankly, it is.  

      I once heard a sermon that hinted that dreaming was much like entering the Spiritual Realm  where angels dwell.  We cannot see that world, but when our minds are free to go, because our bodies are at complete rest, we dream what scientist call REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep.  It is then that most of us have dreams.  Some of us have quite vivid dreams that we can remember, even if the details are foggy. Then there are some of us never seem to dream at all.  My husband is like that.  He said he never dreams, or remembers dreaming.  That's almost kind of scary, because it would make me question his salvation, but, maybe being saved isn't just about dreaming.  I think that some of us are "gifted" with the ability to go to that "dream place," the Spiritual Realm, while sleeping, and there YHVH GOD communicates with us.  That certainly is how it happened in the Hebrew Scriptures with prophets like Joseph, Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and the like.  I am one of those person who dreams almost before REM even starts.  I'll start to fall asleep and I'm already dreaming, even though my mind is still conscious of the physical realm.  It's that really deep sleep that I go to a place that I cannot explain in words that can be understood.   It's not every night, but it is most nights, and on a rare occasion like tonight, I'll wake up abruptly from a dream that has deep Spiritual connotations, and I'm forced to contemplate them over ad over, enough so that going back to sleep is out of the question.  

    So, to the best of my ability, I'm going to try and put into words what has no language.  In my dream I was in some kind of medical training.  Imagine being up on top of water, learning how to live underwater, even though one must keep their eyes closed under water because it's pitch dark under there.  In this school, I was learning how to function in the complete darkness under the "sea," and then, it was my turn to go under.  I went under the "water" in complete darkness into this hospital type and my personal trainer was saying to me from above, "Okay, now, you've been trained where the walls are, where the hallways are, where the rooms are, and how to hear the patients, use what you've learned in your head to function.  Use the map we gave you from your mind in the pitch dark."  

    In spiritual terms, walk in faith, knowing you've had the training and now get that hands-on experience with what has been placed in our heads.  Living in faith of YHVH GOD is much like living under that water.  Unless we are explained "boundaries and entrances" are we won't know where to go.  We have to be trained to listen to the "patients" when and where they call and be able to attend to them.  We can only be trained in the Scripture and the patients would the lost world needing us to tend to their sickness of original sin.  

     In my dream, I was learning all alone with my personal trainer, but when I went under, there was a fellow student who was trained elsewhere.  We were both going so slow in the darkness, using the skills we had been taught to get around.  It was just a short time later, an emergency came, and a patient was calling us for assistance.  We both couldn't walk slowly anymore, we had to run through the hallways to attend to this patient, so we both just started running in the pitch dark.  Within just a few minutes, we began to see where we were going, but not in black and white, but in negative form as in the picture above.  He was behind me, and he said, "I can see now," and I said, "Yeah, me too."   We bolted through the hallways and could see the patterns on the walls and the floor tiles, then I woke up. 

     We could see not the details of the "hospital," but the forms of the walls and floors and doorways.  At the same time, we both exclaimed that we could see and we needed to hurry to that patient.      The only way I can think to explain what I dreamed do that in metaphor, so hold on to your hats, we are about to enter the metaphorical world of this metaphor mama. In the world of photography, there is the picture in great detail on white film paper, and then there is the negative from which that picture was developed.  An experienced photographer in his red-light developing room can see more details of his work in the negative, and it is protected from being over exposed in the bright lights of a white fluorescent world.   I don't know if that makes sense, but that "negative" world needs to stay protected in the dark.  In other words, the Spiritual World is alive and active under the "red-light" protective power of GOD.  

     This is definitely not a blog post that one can skim through and understand, but it's going to take some time and imagination to understand.  The Spiritual Realm is under the control of the Almighty, only by the Holy Spirit are we invited to live in it.  Some have the gift, or what I rather call the burden of being able to see "under water" with our eyes closed what other cannot see when they are swimming. It is both a gift and a burden, because it is impossible to explain to the seeing physical world, and even more impossible to explain to those outside the realm of faith who have not the Holy Spirit as their translator. Fellow believers may get it, but they don't know if they believe it. 

     I was trying to explain the spiritual to my atheist father, knowing he did not have the Holy Spirit.  I showed him 1 Corinthians 2 passage and for the first time, as an adult, my father read the Holy Scriptures.  I told him, "Dad, I can't explain GOD and the spiritual things to you, because you live in the black and white world.  You haven't been given the ability to see the things of GOD, and only He can give you that ability, but this is how I am trying to explain spiritual terms in black and white."  

     His question to me was, "well, how then do you know what you are reading in the Bible is true?"  That is the most difficult question we get hit with a lot of times.  I showed him the passage about Moses.  GOD had to reach down and "show up" in the physical world with a burning bush that was not being consumed by the fire, and Moses had to "turn aside" to see.  He was willing to check out what this event was, and when GOD saw that he had turned aside to further investigate, it was then that GOD called to him.  It is like that with us when we try to explain the spiritual terms of salvation to an atheist.  YHVH GOD has to show up with a "miraculous" hand to do something statistically impossible to show that He can do the unbelievable and impossible.  It is when we open our mind, or as I told him, crack the door open to the possibility that GOD exists and is truly reaching out to us that he bursts open wide the door and fills us with the Holy Spirit, the translator.  He agreed to crack the door open, and now it is up to YHVH GOD whether to open wide the understanding of the Spiritual to him.  I explained to him that with those little bits of proof, we are invited to hold our breath and jump into the sea of faith, like jumping into a deep blue and dark ocean.  Unless we hold our breath and jump in, we will never be able to experience underwater, much less be able to see underwater.  That is the faith spoken of in Hebrews 11:6. (6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for the one who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He proves to be One who rewards those who seek Him.)  It is that willingness on our parts to hold our breaths, jump in, trusting there is life under the sea.  That my friends is saving faith.  

     It isn't coming to the end of ourselves, because in the natural flesh, that is impossible. Only the Holy Spirit can show us that we are sinners in need of a Savior, and that happens when we hold our breath and jump out of the boat into the sea of the unknown.  We have to be told, trained and taught that there is life under the sea, then we have to trust the one who told us that they may be speaking the truth.  It is only after we jump off that boat that we ourselves will experience walking "under" the water, and able to see the life under there and thrive and breathe in the the truth of the Spiritual Realm.  Telling someone who doesn't believe in the Spiritual Realm that there is a Mighty GOD and beings that dwell there, then explaining their need for a Savior is the equivalent of typing this entire blog in wingdings font. 

 Who Adopted Whom?

     I have another metaphor that recently came to mind while reading a book called, If GOD Already Knows, Why Pray? by Douglas F. Kelly.  I highly recommend this wonderful book.  It is the second time I'm reading it, and it is basically and expanded dissection of the LORD's Prayer, line by line.  Its very first point is how GOD is our intimate Father, because He is the Intimate Father of Yeshua/Jesus His true and only begotten Son.  We on the other hand are not "related" in such a way to the Father.  We are strangers, orphans on a very large planet called Earth.  This is going to be what seems to be a very basic and primary metaphor and very simple to understand.  Yet the truth of it when truly contemplated is really very deep.  

     Imagine the world as one great big huge orphanage.  GOD is the prospective adoptive parent. He goes to the orphanage, because He desires to adopt some orphaned children.  He did not have to, because He already had a son, but He wanted to expand His family.  Having sought out the orphanage, knowing its full history, because He instituted it, He would know what kind of orphans and counselors (clergy/Bible teachers) are there.  He would know what they are teaching the children. He would know what they are learning, and He would know the heart of each child.  He, therefore, could confidently know who was learning, and who was robotically obeying for rewards.  Some children weren't even interested in rewards, rather they just rebelled against the authorities of those running the orphanage, because they did not like the rules of the road.   

     Having known the heart of each "child" in the orphanage, YHVH GOD Himself would choose which child He would adopt.  He would adopt that child by visiting with him and reaching out to that child. He would introduce Himself and  reveal Himself as their adoptive Father, thus showing that child His intimate and loving nature. That child never even knew that there was an Adoptive Father seeking that child, until the Adoptive Father revealed Himself.  Most times the Father caught him completely off guard.   Because He knew the child, He knew that the child would respond to the Father's revelation of Himself, and come to accept and know Him almost immediately.  Not only would the Father choose and adopt that child, but He would set a standard and rules to live by in order for that child to remain in good graces with Him. Some are just adopted into the family and some of His adopted children were chosen for extraordinary tasks.  They get an extra dose of revelation of Who their Adoptive Father is.  

     Knowing that no child would ever be a perfect child, He arranged for His natural son to be a mediator, a go-between for the sinful child who wanted a Loving Heavenly Father and to be a part of His family.  That child would recognize and gratefully respond in kind to the Son's intervention by doing his very best to live up to the Father's standards and rules.  In other words, the Earth is GOD's house, and if we want to remain living under His "roof," being a part of His family, we have to live by His rules.  Most parents and adult children can understand that rule because I doubt hardly a child who hasn't heard that at least once from his loving parents.  They understand the rules, they respect the rules and they respect the parent who set the rules.  Those who don't understand or respect them leave.  

    The question then remains, and will forever remain, that if the child is officially adopted by the Father, does  the adoption become null and void by the child's own will.  If the child chooses to emancipate himself from the Father, breaking the bond, and seeking out legal and permanent separation from the Father, forgoing the Father's rules and standards, and if he stops respecting Him as the authority and parent, does He get to live with the Father for all eternity?  That is a question that has been debated among Bible Scholars for thousands of years, and I do not intend to answer it.  No one knows who truly is a (permanently)  adopted child of the Father, except the Father.  I suppose the Father takes in some strays out of His hospitality and Grace, but knows ahead of time that they won't stay.  That is His loving nature.  

    He is The Most High, The Almighty, the Creator of all of us, whether we acknowledge that truth or not, but He is Father to those whom He adopts into His personal family.  Let's look at some examples of adopted children. Let's start with the very first one, that would be Noah.  Genesis says that the whole world was bent on doing evil, but Noah found grace in GOD's eyes.  It doesn't say that he was righteous and blameless, as many of us have been falsely taught.  It just said GOD had Grace toward Noah and chose to adopt him and his family.  Nowhere in the Bible does it even imply that Noah or his wife, sons, and daughters-in-law were righteous and deserving in any way of being adopted, it just says that Noah found Grace in GOD.  

     After Noah was Abraham, but the truth of the matter is it was Abraham's father, Terah who was first called, but he only went halfway and stopped.  I think that he would probably be qualified as a stray who chose not to be in the Father's family exclusively.  GOD picked him out of the polytheistic orphanage and gave him the privilege of coming into a true and personally intimate relation to the Father, but he chose not to take it to the level he was called to.   Terah chose not to live and go further on with YHVH GOD, but to stay in Haran and continue with all he knew, which was worship, acknowledgement, reverence, and obedience to many gods.  Everyone then believed in many gods.  Even after Abram was called out and sent forth to the land of Canaan, Abram did not understand that there was only one GOD. It was just that YHVH GOD was the One who called him to follow Him. GOD called him out of Haran and promised to made him a father of a vast family of GOD.  Abraham ended up having many sons by the time his life was over, but Isaac was the only one adopted by GOD to be His very own, and carry His name.  When Isaac became a father, before either of the twins was born, before either had any opportunity to do good or evil, GOD had already picked Jacob to be adopted into His family. (Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated. Romans 9:13)  (“Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet Jacob I have (chosen/adopted)  loved, Malachi 1:2b  (my interpretation).  Does this make sense?  

     All of GOD's heroes in the Bible were called to and received a special personal, intimate and direct  revelation from the Father Himself. None of them were looking for any kind of heroic work of ADONAI, many did not even know He existed.  (Moses, Gideon, King Saul, King David, Jeremiah, Amos, Elijah, Elisha, all of Jesus's disciples, and Saul/Paul, among many more.) It is GOD the Father who looks down upon our lives before we are even conceived, and it is only He who decides whom He will adopt as His own.  As a church people, whether Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Protestant, or Evangelical, all our lives we have heard that we were either born/baptized into GOD's family as infants, or we asked Jesus into our lives and accepted him as our Lord and Savior.  NOTHING could be further from the truth.  We play no part in being chosen by the Father.  We play no part in our salvation.  We are chosen before we are even born, because the Father is not constricted to time and history.  He knows our nature and our hearts before we are even conceived in the womb, and we are the ones whom GOD chooses, based on His prior knowledge of who we will be.  All of the earth's future is laid out before Him, nothing is hidden from His knowledge, nor out of His total Sovereign control. 

     The next time an evangelical tells you that all you have to do is believe in Jesus, ask him into your heart and life, and make him your personal Savior,  know this, many believed in Jesus while He walked the earth, but to most, he was just a great Tzadik, a holy man, a teacher. Yet, to those whom YHVH GOD had already chosen, He was the mediator, the Messiah, the link between a far-off, out-of-reach, Holy GOD to our  intimate relationship with a yet still Holy and Loving Heavenly Father.  

     If you are reading this and know for sure that you are a part of this intimate family, know this, it was YHVH GOD who adopted you, it was not you who adopted Him.  

 I Got All D's in College English, But I got A+ in Metaphor

SHUTTERSTOCK

For some reason, I felt the Holy Spirit pushing me for a couple of days to read the book of Romans in my new Complete Jewish Bible. Like most people who have studied the Bible for three decades, I've read, studied, and "got" Romans for three decades. However, tonight, I saw something that never registered with me before. (Pun intended!)

I think I've got it, the answer everyone asks: Is once saved, always saved truth, or can we lose our salvation. I get it, I got it, Now, I'm gonna share it. This is so cool. We have all been lied to by the gentile church. That was the devil's doing. He doesn't want us to pass the class in the College of Life. He put that misinterpreted verse (we are under grace, not law) as a lie to confuse people and to entice people to drop out of school.

We are under both. Here's how it works:

YHVH GOD is the Professor in the class and He assigns EVERYONE an A before the first day of class, regardless of who is registered for the class. He does it, because Yeshua, Jesus already passed the class w/an A. So, GOD gives everyone Jesus's A. Everyone who takes his first breath is automatically enrolled in the class LIFE 101.

Now, only those who have still have their A at the end of the semester (life) will get to go to heaven. You must have Jesus's A. At the acceptable age, and only the Professor knows what that is, we have to start paying attention in class. At that acceptable age, the assignments begin. The Professor assigns the work and teaches the class. He who chooses NOT to do the homework, the reading, the studying, participating in class, or studying to pass the tests does not get to keep their A.

If B is good enough for them, that's fine in their eyes only, but they miss the mark. An example of a student lowering their A to a B is if they just show up in class to fill their seat. There are much more B students in the class than A students. My husband always said, "C's get degrees," and that may be true in traditional college, but not in the College of Hard-Knocks. A student who lowers his A to a C is called, Mediocre Student. He doesn't care about what the Professor is teaching, and he half pays attention. He rarely does the work, some will do just what they think they will need to get by. A student who lowers his A to a D is called, Sometimes Student. Sometimes he shows up for class, but paying attention, or doing any homework is out of the question. The student who lowers his A to an F is the Withdrawal Student. He figures it's better to get a W on their transcript than an F.

The hard fast rule is only Jesus's A graduates you to Heaven's Grad School. We have a whole lifetime to keep paying attention in class to keep our A. It is not how smart we are, it's the effort, the good ole college try that we put into it. The Professor knows every student intimately and is always watching. His TA (teaching assistant), the Holy Spirit is assigned to tutor those who want to keep their A.

So before Jesus came along, Adam took the class and he flunked it, thus earning everyone an automatic F. No matter how hard anyone worked in that class, they never got to the A, because they started with an F. They could achieve a D, or a C, or a B, but not the 4.0 required in the A,. No human is capable of earning the A, for the mere fact that they were born human.

When Jesus enrolled in the class, LIFE 101, (approximately on March 20, 4 BC) he did the work and achieved the A. His passing with flying colors took away Adam's automatic F and gave us Yeshua HaMashiach's (Hebrew for Jesus the Christ) A he earned. Everyone born after Jesus earned his A is automatically enrolled and automatically gets His A, so everyone has a fair chance. We don't get to automatically keep the A, however. Some students never show up for that class, they skip all the time, or they withdraw from the class all together. They think that they can avoid a F on their GPA by withdrawing, but they are sadly wrong. Only those who remain registered in the class at the University of Life and Redemption get an opportunity to keep their A.

That my friends is the Metaphor Mama's Gospel Metaphor! Now, HOW COOL is that!

 The Completed House of Israel: A GENIUS metaphor created by the Master Builder

Matthew 7

24 “So, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a sensible man who built his house on bedrock. 25 The rain fell, the rivers flooded, the winds blew and beat against that house, but it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on rock.

     The House of the LORD, the LORD's House, the two houses of Israel, My House..., and many more times is the metaphor of a house compared to the work of YHVH GOD.  Today, sitting in a new doctor's office, YHVH GOD showed me His house, metaphorically speaking, and again, His genius never ceases to amaze me.   I constantly question GOD, "Why are you teaching me all these things, and what am I supposed to do with this new exciting information if I don't have a voice?"   He kept showing me that as long as I am here on this planet, that will be true of me.  I could go into another whole blog post on why that is so, but I will spare you the rabbit trail.  What I will do is try to share you in the most foundational, elementary and metaphorically in plain English what I learn without vomiting all this stored up inside me, overwhelming my reader with some really boring stuff.

        I am no longer a Christian and I'm glad of that, just like I was no longer a Roman Catholic when I was twenty-six and born again, the first time.  I know, I can hear the rumblings going on in your heard.  You think I've turned my back on Jesus, and it's impossible to be born-again twice.  That depends on what your definition of born-again is, and what the definition of is is.  Being called out of the Roman church and now the Protestant church some 29 years later is like being born-again twice, because all of a sudden, the scales fell from my eyes, like they did with Paul the Apostle, but twice.  I've been able to see the deception in both churches that YHVH GOD has allowed to perpetuate for more than 2,000 years.  That's a difficult one to explain, because I still don't understand why YHVH GOD lets "His" people go so far from His original intent, when it comes to building our houses on the principles of GOD. I included both the Roman church and the Protestant church in this "house gone wrong," because one came from the other, both with the same lack of supports and protections from the evil one. 

     Most Christians refer to their church building as the house of the LORD, and that cannot be any further from the truth.  Buildings haven't been the "house of the LORD," since the Temple burned in AD 70.  The House of the LORD isn't a building, it is a chosen people, although, I will use a building to explain how it's not what Christians call the "church."   There are five vital components to building a house and any contractor can tell you that.  There is ground preparation, (sometimes plot selection), there is a foundation, and walls to separate each vital room in the house.  The last and most vital part of the house to top everything off, (pun intended), is the roof.  Here is where the GENIUS of GOD comes into play.

    If GOD wanted to build Himself a house of a special people, I will have to explain each step He crafted into His house, and what the steps represent, (pun intended) in the Whole Counsel of GOD. There are four major Covenants YHVH GOD made with His people, and sadly, many Christians wrongly toss out the first three,, and just keep the top one in their purview.  They live in a roofed house with no walls or foundation and the ground below them is slowing caving in on them like a sink hole.  Soon, there will be nothing left in the NT church/people house, and YHVH GOD will have rescued and called out His beloved from that collapsing invisible house with only a roof and the wrong kind at that.  

    Let's start with the first covenant.  A covenant is either an unconditional promise from GOD, or it's a conditional one.  Either way it is never broken by GOD, nor are they ever obsolete to Him. The first promise GOD made is called the Noahide Covenant, and GOD gave this to Noah through no merit of his own doing.  The Bible says that GOD found Grace for Noah, and out of that Grace, He saved only eight people out of millions if not billions to start all over again.  He flooded the earth to prepare the ground for a better house.  Do you see the ground preparation there?  His sign to Noah to honor His Covenant was the rainbow.  This was a sign only YHVH could do, and man could play no part in this outward appearance of a eternal covenant YHVH made with Noah and his descendants, that would be us.  

     After the ground is properly prepared, there is the foundation that needs to be built. He is building a "single" structure, calling out a single people, one nation He will covenant with, and everyone outside of that house is not part of the Kingdom of GOD.  They can enter the house and join in the Covenant, but again, by invitation only.  The Abraham Covenant is the foundation of the house on a set and prepared ground, which is the land of Canaan. The sign for this covenant was circumcision.  It was a physical reminder for man to know that he was chosen out of the general population to become a people of GOD all unto themselves.  

    The next thing YHVH  GOD needed to put up was the framework to support the walls which partition off specific rooms, different from each other with a different purpose, but all part of His house, and vital to this house, if it is to stand. The Mosaic Covenant is the framework and the walls, all 613 Laws.  Each beam/law is vital and weightbearing.  The sign for that Covenant was the Sabbath day for His people. This would be a house that all the residents would rest on the Sabbath day, and no one would leave it, or do chores in it.  This would separate the residents in GOD's House from those outside. This required obedience on the residents part, so it was a conditional covenant. Man had to play a part in it for it to be valid.  

     I think that is pretty obvious which covenant and vital piece to the home is.  The Christian church calls it the New Covenant, but actually each covenant was new when it was introduced to GOD's people and built into the framework of His House of Israel, His united house of ten tribes or clans if you will.  The Roof is Yeshua HaMashiach, or Jesus the Christ as the Roman and Protestant church know him.   He is the covering over the entire structure keeping it safe and under his name and his name only.  The sign for this new addition to the house of Israel is the Holy Spirit.  It is GOD dwelling in the house with us, like the Noahide Covenant, we cannot do this ourselves.  It's not a matter of physical changes, obedience to something. It is a spiritual invite into the house, and we receive it as soon as we cross the threshold.   Of course, the door has to open and the owner of the house must invite us into the His house, we surely can't burst in and breakdown the door.  Only YHVH GOD has the key to unlock the door for us, and that is Grace. He has to give us the key to get in, because the door is locked from the inside with Grace in with Yeshua holding the key.  The house has a back door for residents to leave who want to move out and go it alone out in the big bad mean world. 

       Let's look into the house and the walls and partitions the gentiles removed, erasing the purpose of each room, and creating their own work space. (Pun intended).    The Living Room, that is where the guests come to visit, and the residents are to be hospitable and love the guests when they enter, some even become permanent members inside YHVH's house. The next room is the kitchen, the food rules which help us decide which foods are good for the body, and kosher for cleanliness.  The family room is where we all gather as a united family to worship YHVH, and praise Him for building a house and inviting us into it.  The bedrooms represent the sexual activity, or rather procreation.  There are certain sex laws in the Mosaic Law, hence, strangers from outside the house are not welcome inside the bedrooms of the dwellers of YHVH's house.  Last but not least, is the bathroom, where are sins are washed away, either in the shower with Living Water, or flushed down the commode by animal sacrifice.  Now, that Yeshua has put a roof over our heads, we still have Living Water, however the waste isn't necessary to get rid of in the commode, because it is permanently removed from the residents in the home.  It is impossible to keep all 613 Mosaic laws, because there is no Temple, and we can't just go off and stone our rebellious children, however, those of the beams in the framework, and are covered by the Roof. 

     So, there you have it, the House of Israel, with it's ground prepared by the Hand of GOD, (Noahide Covenant), it's rock foundation on a plot of land, Canaan, built to hold up the walls and the house and be the main support for the House of Israel, (Abraham Covenant), and the framework and walls, separating each room for a specific purpose. (Mosaic Laws).  The Roof is the New Covenant of Yeshua covering over all the residents, keeping powers and principalities of the air away, above, and outside of the people safely tucked inside. One Covenant is built upon the previous covenant, which prepared the house for the new addition.  None of the covenants can be negated or removed, lest the house will fall.  

    

     So, where did it all go wrong?  It was as early as the 2nd century.  First the house was strong and healthy, but as some new people came in, (gentiles) they began to take over. They didn't like the original Architectural plans, so the very first thing they did was to remove the foundation. Next they knocked down the walls, to make it one big open space with no definition, no organized purpose. The walls and beams collapsed, letting the outside world free access to the inside of the house, without an invitation.  Last of course, was to  relocate the house to a new plot, in a new neighborhood, in a new land. The house went from the land of Canaan to Rome.  That land was not properly prepared, and it was also given a new name.  It was no longer the House of Israel, but it was the house of Roman Catholicism.  They even elected their own "builder" to redesign and renovate the house, in the papacy, as if there was something wrong with the original plans.  They had a foreign mother in a false goddess, renamed to Mary, the mother of their gentile Jesus, a roof with holes in it.  A house with no foundation, no framework, no walls, but just a roof cannot stand, and it is not the house YHVH built.  

    I'm sorry if this went a little long, but hopefully you were fascinated enough to keep reading, and now you have a better understand why the Old Covenant/Testament has been improperly labeled and discarded as if not needed. You cannot have a Roof without all those Covenants remaining in place.   I take no credit for this metaphor, because as I state before, YHVH GOD gave me this picture and labeled each part of His House of Israel, assigning a Covenant to each part.  

 Bi-polar Faith

   When it comes to tools, I'm not the  sharpest nail in the tool box, in fact, most of the time, I am definitely rusted and bent, and not good for anything when it comes to fixing or assembling anything. I used to have no clue how to use most tools, especially power tools, nor did I ever care to learn.  Anything I knew I couldn't fix or assemble, I labeled as men's work.  For over three decades, I was married to Mr. Fix-it. Whenever he ran into a problem, all I had to to was praise him, assure him that I believed he would come up with a solution, and he always did.  I never had to to worry about trying to fix things or "some assembly required," even during the first six years of our separation. 

    For the first six years of our separation, as soon as something broke, or needed assembling, he was over in a jiffy to do it for us. Unfortunately, there was one thing he did not want to fix, and that was his family, his marriage, and his broken faith in GOD.  I am not sure when his faith in GOD got broken, maybe it was never functional in the first place. When he bought his civil divorce for our covenant marriage, the judge gave him what he wanted, freedom, and me what I wanted, EVERYTHING! I got the house and everything in it, including decades worth of tools and gadgets that he hoarded over the years.  

    I knew that I had to learn how to start doing those things that I had always labeled as men's work.  I had to learn how to use those tools, yes, even the power tools, which I had avoided like the plague, until yesterday, when I managed to install tip-out trays under my sink. I was absolutely convinced that I could do it, even though using a power drill was so foreign and frightening to me all these years.  I knew if I kept at it and did not give up, I would get this job done, even if the tip-out trays did not fit my forty-year old kitchen cabinets.  I knew I could make adjustments if I needed to which again, was nothing I had ever attempted before that. 

  It took me over twelve hours working on what the instruction manual said was a thirty-minute job. Normally, I would never have even attempted such a masculine task, but I had this confidence that seem to come to me, Supernaturally.  Today, while driving, when I was talking to Him, asking Him why my faith was so strong one day, and so incredibly weak and useless another day, the LORD gave me a vision of the two types of screws I had encountered during that "ordeal."  

    For instance, my faith is like that big huge screw with  finely chiseled rivets, but on most days, my faith in the Jubilee Dream He gave me ten years ago this month, is usually more like that tiny worn-out rusty screw with the stripped head, making it near impossible to remove or use.  Like most women, my faith is rooted in what kind of mood I am in on any particular day.  I float back and forth between believing the impossible in what seems more like a delusional Biblical faith like David's, or very depressed days like Elijah, drowning in disbelief.   On those days, I am  convinced that I'll never be able to be used in GOD's Kingdom, because I am convinced that I will be  muddled forever in mourning, grieving a past that wasn't all that great to begin with, but much better than my present reality, I continually lose hope for  experiencing a victorious future. I want to be able to testify to GOD's faithfulness in miraculously getting us out of problems that most humans cannot find their way out of on their own, whether they jumped into that pit of despair and disillusionment or were pushed.  

     I want to give that one person on the verge of giving up the reason that they cling to hope and faith, in not only if GOD can, but that He will. My Jubilee Dream died a few years ago, but Jehovah Rapha resurrected last week.  He brought it back to life with new easy-to-believe details that make so much more sense, based on the past ten years of all He has taught me.  One part of the dream is easy to believe, it's the "too-good-to-be-true" part that I struggle with, because my life's experiences testify otherwise.  That's the part I want to be able to give GOD all the glory of, and relish in the joy it would bring to my life. 

 

     

Some people just don't like some people.

     My former husband, said to me for three decades, "That's why people don't like you, Kristina." I heard so much that I began to dislike myself to the point of self-hatred.  I also heard it  so often from my mother, who never liked me, my siblings, who never liked me, besides my husband of three decades, who never liked me, and I felt it from the other man I thought I wanted to marry. So, I asked GOD, "Why don't people like me?" Here is the answer I think I got from the Holy Spirit: 

     "Some people don't like passionate people. Some people don't like those who go all in when they believe in something.  Some people don't like some people who love as deeply as you do, because that kind of devoted love they think they can never match.  Take heart, dear child, here is another  list of some people that some people don't like."

     Abraham, who had the courage to confront GOD about wiping out Sodom and Gomorrah, knowing his nephew and his family lived there.

     Sarah, who wanted Abraham to get rid of the slave woman and her illegitimate son when he taunted her son, who was the son of promise.

     Rebekah, who was barren, when  she confronted her husband to demand that he demand YHWH to give her a child, Who in turn gave her two. One would be the father of many, in fact a whole tribe of them. 

    

     Jacob, who confronted Laban for the way he swindled him out of twenty years of hard labor. He also wrestled with GOD, and refused to give in, until the ANGEL OF THE LORD gave in and let him be on his way, after maiming him. 

     Moses, now there was a confrontational man. First he killed an Egyptian for beating up a Hebrew, then he had the gall to return to Egypt forty years later to demand that Pharaoh release his "free" labor force and set GOD's people free from their slavery.

     Caleb demanded the best of the best of the land in the promise land, because Moses promised it to him. Then, at eighty-five-years-old, attacked and conquered the people of that land.

     Gideon, least of the least, who was also what the angel of the LORD called a valiant warrior, who while hiding from the Midianites in a wine press, later had the courage and nerve to take down the altar of Baal as well as the Midianite's Asherah pole. He then took on an army of just 300 men to the camp of 132,000 Midianites with some lamps and pitchers to destroy that nation and force there out of the land of the Israelites, given to them by Elohim.

     Samson..., okay, let's skip that one!

     Ruth, who boldly refused to return to the land of Moab, choosing instead to remain with the mother of her dead husband to travel to a foreign land, where she knew she would be considered and "abominable" foreigner.

     Samuel, who confronted King Saul who could have had him killed by denouncing him as an illegitimate king, and that the Most High would dethrone him and give the throne to a man after GOD's own heart, which would have to be a passionate heart, as He is a passionate and jealous GOD.

     David who was a fugitive for eight plus years, because he was favored of GOD, and hated by the human King Solomon. 

 

 

     Solomon, when given a choice between riches and GOD's wisdom to rule a nation, Solomon chose wisdom, which in turn got him into much trouble, because that kind of wisdom brings on much sorrow, and a human is just not capable of carrying that which YHVH GOD carries.

     Hezekiah, who saw how far GOD's people had fallen, and he instituted reforms, taking down all the high places the people had built to sacrifice to foreign gods, which were not gods at all.

     Josiah, a young king, who when the Law was found hidden in the Temple, tore his clothes, covered himself in ashes, and insisted that the people repent of worshiping other gods, and he then re-instituted the Passover and other Levitical feast.

     Of course, there's Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos, Micah, Zephaniah,  Obadiah, Joel, Nahum, Habakkuk, Ezekiel, Hosea, who married a prostitute, then bought her back after she strayed.  Daniel and his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who defied two kings' royal decrees.  After the exile, there was Zechariah, Malachi, Haggai.  Jonah and Job are my favorites, because both rebelled against GOD in word, and for Jonah, in deed.   

 

     Mordecai who refused to leave the kings gate, ratted out some treasonous plotters bent on killing King Ahasuerus, a Babylonian king, nonetheless, then put his cousin, the queen in her place when she refused to go to the king to save her people. Then had the gall to put the Queen in her place and remind her of her humble beginnings. 

     Judas Maccabees, who infuriated by Antiochus IV of Epiphanes slaughtering an unclean animal in the Sacred Temple of the LORD, on the Altar, nonetheless, led a rebellion that is remembered every Hanukkah to commemorate the deliverance of GOD's people from the type and shadow of who will be the next anti-Christ.

     Shall I mention Jesus, who confronted the Pharisees for three and a half years over their hypocrisy and abandonment of the true letter of the Law, and was crucified because of that, or does that not need to be mentioned, because it's quite obvious? I did just mention it, didn't I? That crucifixion ended the devil's reign on  all those who look to Yeshua HaMashiach as their Savior from death and hades.

     Peter, a man who could not stop putting his foot in his mouth, who had the nerve to rebuke the Son of GOD who prophesied about his impending death. Then, he claimed he would defend Jesus to the death, if need be, when he told them that he would be handed over to the "authorities" to be flogged and killed. Yeah, that promise didn't go as planned.

     And last, but definitely not least, the obnoxious, Jesus-hating, Apostle Paul, who was hell-bent on killing all the followers of The Way, until Jesus stopped him cold dead in his tracks and blinded him to the lie, while opening his eyes to the truth.

     Well, after all those examples, I can see why people don't like me.  Some people just can't handle those who go all in.  Mediocre is all they want.  My former husband always said his favorite verse was about just living a quiet peaceful life, avoiding all conflicts.  (That is his whole understanding of the Whole Counsel of GOD)  

    I have heard it said that if one is really walking closely with GOD, then people will either hate you or love you.  The ones who hate you are the ones who wish they were walking the same way you were, and were as close to YHVH GOD themselves, or those who have not been chosen and remain on the road to destruction.  Yet, the ones who love you are walking that closely and can spot a fellow chosen servant with a specific duty to reach people.  Contrary to popular opinion, if people just like you, then likely you are doing it wrong!  Jesus called "liked" people, vomit.  Revelation 3:16. 

Take heart dear confrontational sister or brother, GOD made you that way, because He has a great plan for you!