The Super Blogosphere of a parallel word.

  The Catholic Catechism warns society about making a secular messiah because the church knows that only when Jesus Christ returns, will society enter the perfect age that can only be possible after Christ has judged this earth. The church also teaches that just before the Second Coming of Christ, an anti-Christ will appear on this earth to lead unbelievers astray and prepare this world for the last and final Judgment of God. Throughout history there has been many world leaders who have persecuted the Church, but the final secular leader is prophesied in 2 Thessalonians 2, the bible warns about the final Anti-Christ that will appear before the Second Coming: 2  Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters,  2  not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come.  3  Don’t let anyone deceive y

Suffering servant.    10  Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he hath  [ a ] put him to grief:  [ b ] when thou shalt make his soul  [ c ] an offering for sin, he shall see  his  seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand. Isaiah 53:10.  Jesus Christ was literally filled with grief, but what does that mean? Why would the Messiah be sad, if He was God you would think that in his incarnation that He would be a happy man? In other words, why would the Messiah be filled with sadness? Jesus came as a "suffering" servant to be filled with all kinds of sorrow. God allowed this so Jesus could relate to us in our deepest pain. Jesus' message isn't one that says; strength over weakness, in fact Jesus appeals to us as sinners, and the only way we can accept His free gift of Salvation is by humbling ourselves and admitting to God that we are sinners. This truth is not in contradiction to the Old Covenant.  In the Old Covenant, God had

  Who is Jesus Christ and why did he have to come to this earth? Many of us know the story of Christmas, how a king was born in a humble stable, in humble circumstances. How the angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary, and announced that she would become pregnant through the Holy Spirit and that her son would be the Son of God. What does all this mean? Yes Jesus is the Son of God, and he is also the Saviour of the world, (Luke 2:11). Jesus came with a message but the real reason he came was to die!   How can you say that, you ask? Well, because it is through the death of Jesus Christ that we have forgiveness of our sins, (Ephesians 1:7). As human beings we were created with a sin nature, our natures were corrupted through Original Sin, when our forefather Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden. Eden was a place of perfection, but man was given the freedom to choose, and we chose to sin. I say we because Adam’s sin was credited to us (Romans 5:12)  12  Therefore, just as sin entered the wo

  Evil actions and God’s justice demands that people pay for their wrong choices, choices that especially hurt other people, and sin against the law of love. Love is not just a conceptual reality, but the only reality that people will be judged on at their deaths, or the second coming of Jesus Christ. The reason why I believe people will be sent to hell by God is because human beings are made in the image of God, and when we sin against this, we wound the soul of our humanity and stain our own souls, and the souls of others. Hell must be real because people make mistakes every day, and there are really big sinners and really small sinners. When people continuously wound their own conscience and the conscience of others, God’s justice and mercy are shamed, and sometimes there is no restitution for some sins that seriously wound the fabric of humanity’s love.   I believe hell is eternal, and I believe there are people there right now. I can’t say that I know the exact nature of hell, but

"  I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.   16  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.   17  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.   18  For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. [ a ]  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.   19  For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.   20  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." (Romans 7:15-20)  The Apostle Paul wrote this to the Romans, and he expresses a common theme that is experienced by Christians throughout the world. Our struggle is with sin and until we are finally and fully in God's Presence, we will have to battle our sinful natures. The apostle expresses that the thing he wants to do, really the thing the spirit is leading h

  We are living in a time where there is a lot of talk about sacrifice, doing for your neighbour what you wouldn’t do for yourself. We don’t see or hear anything about mercy from the secular worldview because they have rejected the teachings of Jesus for a very long time. Regardless of the times we are living in now, Jesus had something to say about mercy, which I personally think our generation should still seriously consider.   In Matthew 9:9-13 we read  9 “ As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. 10  While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples.  11  When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12  On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  13  But go and learn what this means: ‘I

  There is nothing we can do to earn our salvation, God offers it freely to all men and all women freely for all time. The nature of this gift never changes, we either accept it or reject it. Salvation is based not on what we do, but on what Jesus has already done for us alone by dying on the cross over 2000 years ago. Our part is to simply believe this message. We accept this gift by repentance and faith, and the moment we trust Jesus Christ for salvation all our sins are forgiven. There is nothing we can do to deserve it, it is God’s unmerited favour or grace that saves us.   Our names are written down in the Lambs Book of Life the moment we accept Jesus as personal Lord and Saviour and we are on our way to Heaven. We cannot loose our salvation, and our sins are taken care of by the blood of the Lamb. No one will have anything to boast about in Heaven because Jesus paid the full price for our sins, and we didn’t contribute anything to it.  Yes but you will say “I believed, doesn’t th

  Sometimes we are not made to solve all our problems. Life can seem too big at times, and we need the help of others. When I was 25 I was faced with a crisis that was too big for me. What helped me get through it was my faith. I entered health uncertainty for the first time, and I had to learn from the new normal that I was going through. I believe there is always a greater plan at work in the world, and this is the source of my faith.   We can face life’s trials when we learn to look outside of ourselves and look to a bigger plan that is active in this world. We only have one life to get this, and yes it takes faith to believe in God. Some people want proof of the existence of a higher plan, but then we wouldn’t need faith. Faith gives me something to hope for, and as I am learning it is hard to hope during difficulties. However this becomes the test for our faith.  Sometimes we like to hide from God, we feel if we brought our sins to Him, He wouldn’t hear us or understand! God is co

 Sometimes people have a hard time understanding who Jesus is. Part of setting the ground work may involve a lot of explaining about who the church is and what the bible says who Jesus is. Part of becoming a Christian is understanding the answer to this question. If you are coming from a place where you have no knowledge of God, it can be very difficult to believe in Christ, unless it is explained to you. When it comes to making big choices in our lives, it is very important that we all make informed decisions. This applies to becoming a Christian, or accepting Christ into your life.  How do you inform yourselves when the way seems uncertain? Our lives are constantly wrapped in darkness from our birth to our last day here. That doesn't mean that we live our lives by blind faith. Just because we don't have the answers to something doesn't mean that we never will. Sometimes we have to act by faith, and let that light guide us as it will. It is not a weakness to seek out the t

  If the Spirit of God, (Holy Spirit) who raised Jesus from death, lives in you, then he who raised Christ from death (the Holy Spirit) will also give life to your mortal bodies by the presence of his Spirit in you. (Resurrection life, and resurrection from the dead-[after physical death]) -(eternal Life). When one becomes a Christian they receive a new nature which enables them to live for God, and to put off the sins of the flesh. The old nature must die because it is corrupted by sin, and the new nature is enlivened by the Holy Spirit. The old nature is dormant when a person receives the Holy Spirit, and it is by cooperation with the Holy Spirit that one puts away the evil deeds of the flesh. We should never feed our old selves, that is the person we were before trusting Christ.  If we put to death the sinful actions of the human nature, and live by the spirit, not by the sinful human nature we will live. If you continue to be led by the sinful human nature, you will die in your sin

  We are forgiven only when we trust Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Saviour. For those who haven’t made that decision yet, their past sins can keep them from heaven. Being born again changes your character and you begin to love God. You go from being indifferent to God to becoming a saint. Salvation describes an inner change from being spiritually dead, to spiritually alive. When you accept Christ all your sins are forgiven, past, present and future sins. It’s a one time deal with eternal consequences.   Our responsibility is to believe and have faith. When we commit a sin as christians, our first responsibility is to confess it to God, but what recourse does a sinner have when they sin gravely? They must first come to Jesus in repentance and faith, in order to receive a full pardon for all their sins. There is no individual pardon, unless a person fully commits their lives to Jesus.  It might seem unfair that some are pardoned and others are not, but the bible teaches that God’

  I have always understood God to be a forgiving God, but we all have had questions about the limit and nature of God’s forgiveness. I’m not an expert, but I am human, which automatically makes me a candidate for his mercy. The nature of the Lord’s forgiveness is immediate and unconditional based on his mercy. God is merciful, therefore he never turns someone away because of the nature of the sin, or the frequency that we call out to Him.   Sometimes we have a hard time believing we can be forgiven, but our forgiveness is unconditional based on our hearts and the mercy of God. We can be burdened at times with the hardships we bear, and sometimes we feel we don’t deserve God’s mercy. It is during these times that God’s grace leads us to him if we allow it. When we ask the Lord to forgive us, he is not looking at our sins, but graciously extends his mercy freely. We don’t deserve it and because we tend to feel that God won’t hear us, sometimes we forget to ask him for His grace.  When we

  We live in a day where there is a lot of confusion about how one is saved. It’s not that the churches are confused, it’s that we still live in a time period where the church is still divided about Justification by faith. The reformation brought a freedom, but also separated the church, probably right until the second coming of Jesus.   Justification can be a strange doctrine depending where you are coming from. The modern argument is that if it is not by faith alone, then mankind adds to their holiness and possibly their salvation which of course would take the glory away from God, and place it on fallen man. On the other hand, if it is by faith alone, the argument is that a saved man is given too much freedom after he accepts the Lord, and is therefore given a licence to sin. Our consciences don’t want to accept the simplicity of a free gift, because we fear that if it is free, then we don’t have to change after salvation.  The division lies with man in the sense that it is true tha

 Unfortunately we are living in a time where repentance as a teaching is being neglected by some parts of the church. What is being taught is that you only have to repent once to be saved forever. The words of John the Baptist in Matthew 3:8 are being ignored by some evangelical teachers who wrongly assume that if you repent after you are saved, you are somehow putting your salvation in question. This could be a modern form of Antinomianism which basically says that Christians are released by grace from the obligation of observing the moral law! The modern argument bases works and faith on unequal terms and says that if you obey the moral law, you fall under a works salvation. Catholic doctrine is being attacked because of this, despite obvious scriptural references that show we are to obey the moral law.   Romans 8:12-13 says "Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation-but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you wil

 Each successive generation holds out new and different possibilities, each one different from the other. God has a lot to say about generations in the bible and how they adapt or accept the word of God. It is quite possible that an entire generation can miss the boat so to speak, and collectively cause more damage than previous generations. It is not the fault of one particular individual, but each individual adds to the generational sins of each generation. When a righteous man lives on the earth, he leaves a blessing for successive generations. Psalm 112 says "Happy is the person who honours the Lord, who takes pleasure in obeying his commands. The good man's children will be powerful in the land; his descendants will be blessed. His family will be wealthy and rich, and he will be prosperous forever." (Psalm 112:1-3 Good News Bible)  When a righteous man leaves a legacy of holiness, the bible says "But I show my love to thousands of generations of those who love m

 There is no darkness in God, but that doesn't mean He doesn't use it for purposes for good. In a real sense God has a mind, and that mind is full of love, God is a Spirit and He is love. You can say that God has a conscience and that mind is found in the word of God. When evil prevails in the world, the way back is to follow the light and the truth. Behind the veil of light is darkness, the unknown about God that He hasn't revealed to humanity. The darkness hides His presence, the light manifests it. The darkness that hides God's glory is a part of His consciousness. God never changes and hides Himself so to speak from the mind that has rejected Him. The bible calls the darkness a covering, where the Lord comes to send His judgement into the world.  When God gave the Ten Commandments to the present day, the Lord is the same. Darkness cannot hide the light, and it cannot cover the light. When people suppress the truth, the darkness expands, but as this happens the candl

 These are words from the Spiritual Master and guru Paramahansa Yogananda. Taken in a christian context, it can be made to mean "Life in the Spirit." Let me explain, in it's proper context it means that when the ego dies, the soul will be fully United with Spirit! This has an even deeper explanation, the ego in a religious context is the non-spiritual aspect of our being. Being a spiritual person, the material aspect of our humanity is not bad, our flesh so to speak is sacred, for as a believer the Holy Spirit lives in our flesh, and the last thing to be redeemed is our flesh. To avoid heresy, let me say that the flesh is good, even though we are called to live in the spirit not our flesh, to treat the body with disrespect is suicide.  When we kill the flesh, or ego, it never fully dies this side of the resurrection. Even after death, the ego never fully dies. Another word for the ego is our personality, character, or soul. These are our identity, the ego is what gives yo

 God is a God of compassion and love, but He is also a God of anger and wrath. God is sovereign, which means that He is in control of everything that happens on planet earth. Although God judged sin by sending His Son Jesus Christ to pay the penalty for our sins, mankind is still held responsible for the sins we commit outside the covenant relationship with Jesus Christ, otherwise known as the New Covenant. When we think of God as being an angry God, we have to remember that Jesus took the full wrath we deserved for our sins, when he died on the cross. God's wrath for our sins was fully taken by His Son. Jesus died for the whole world, but outside this relationship, mankind is still under the wrath of God.  As such, God has every right in the world to punish us, and those who's sins are forgiven, still experience the effects of living in a fallen world. When a person trusts in Jesus as Lord and Saviour, they no longer experience the wrath of God, because they have identified th

Sometimes God has to let us go. It is not his desire, however I wan't to talk about a passage of scripture found in Isaiah 28, it reads in part;  "Therefore hear the word of the Lord you scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem. You boast, "We have entered into a covenant with death, with the grave we have made an agreement. When an overwhelming scourge sweeps by it cannot touch us, for we have made a lie our refuge and falsehood our hiding place." So this is what the Sovereign Lord says; "See, I lay a stone in Zion a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed." I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line; hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie, and water will will overflow your hiding place.  Your covenant with death will be annulled; your agreement with the grave will not stand. (Isaiah 28:14-18) What shocks me from these verses is that the people had made a covena

 How Technology can be a Help and not a Hindrance in Your Church Life.   I remember when my parish first got a folk band. The thought was "They are almost playing rock and roll in church!" Being a deeply religious youth, I didn't mind it, and guess what, the band is still there! Growing up most of my life without the internet, made it easy for me to develop skills, appreciate my environment, and helped me live most if not all my life focused in the present moment. I never imagined a day where computers would be used to contact God. Naturally God is a spirit and we don't need any enhancements to experience Him. While we are in our bodies on the earth, God is watching so that one day, when we see Him we will be judged. I naturally learned to practise the presence of God in my 20's and I had wonderful experiences of Him in nature, in my soul, and in other human beings. I didn't need a device to read my bible, or contact God, it was all real and natural. Human bei

 One of the things that we can lose sight of in our society is marriage as a foundation of a healthy culture. Marriage is only as healthy as the two people in it, which should be obvious. In the Roman Catholic tradition it is considered a sacrament, which makes it holy. Being a sacrament it is one of the sacraments that can only happen once. There is no re-marriage in the catholic church, only in the case of an annulment, which should be very difficult to prove for most catholic's. Of course marriage is also an institution and a covenant between God and man and wife. God makes other covenants with mankind, and God never breaks His Covenants with us, so we should not break our covenant with Him. In the New Testament marriage represents Jesus' relationship with his church.  The church is referred to as the Bride of Christ, and as we are called to holiness, a marriage with Christ as the head is called to holiness as well. When two people make a vow to each other, God is the witnes

 Time is congruent not in form but in fashion. Events change the substance of time, but they don't change the nature of time. Time will come to an end at the Second Coming of Jesus in time, but time will continue in it's same nature, nothing can change the nature of time. Why is this important you ask, because everything in time is constantly changing, but the one thing that doesn't change is time itself. If time doesn't change, then it remains linear, and although events change our place in time, the nature of our true Selves remains unchanged. We can change our appearance, or our physical features, but the essence of our souls remains the same, even when time ends.  There are things in our essence as souls that can change like our preferences and desires, and because our circumstances can change, naturally we adapt to them. However this cannot change our essence, God created our souls, and when we find God our souls begin a journey in uniting ourselves to God. This is