01-06-2022, 03:24 PM
1. Without the Covenant, you belong to Satan. He has blanket permission to use and abuse you as he sees fit in this life and take all your blessings, regardless of your spiritual destiny. There is a sense in which you place yourself into the pool of people bound for hell on earth. Your life will take random turns, unless the Lord has marked you out for some special use.
Jesus noted that people who are mean and hateful are at a high risk of being killed. That's part of what He was saying in Matthew 5:21-22. He describes people who are abusive to others (spite "without cause"). It's on par with blood guilt and leaves you wide open to Satan's abuse. Granted, Satan does have use for such people, but the image Jesus uses is that it leaves you wide open to divine wrath ("in danger of hell fire"). You will suffer in Eternity, and you may suffer a good bit while you are here.
2. One thing I wish I could get across to the world is that there's nothing wrong with using computers. What's wrong is becoming dependent on them. If you have no clue how to proceed without access to computing devices, then you will suffer massively when the sun goes nuts on us. A good way of looking at it is this: Pretend you suffer a serious computer security breach and all your data is lost, in your local system and/or in the cloud. If that stops you from doing things you need to do, then you are too dependent. I realize it's a hassle to invest the time and resources for duplicate or parallel systems, but if your mission is really important, you can't afford to not to make that investment.
3. My earliest years were in grinding poverty. Except for brief periods of my life since then, I've never been very far from it. There's nothing particularly noble about it. Rather, it's the net result of avoiding things that violate my convictions. Also, I'm quick to give stuff away if someone else needs it.
That's the background for this: I'm convinced poverty is very close, quickly approaching a lot of Americans who aren't used to it. Most people have no idea how to make do with what's at hand. Unless you have a powerful sense of mission, you can get distracted very quickly by worries about what you don't have. That's the signature of folks who operate outside the Covenant; there's no blood on their doorposts. Don't listen to what they say. Watch how they respond when poverty shows up.
4. Again: The mission is simply to live by faith. People will see. Those to whom the Lord would speak will see a lot. All we have to do is manifest that peace with God.
Jesus noted that people who are mean and hateful are at a high risk of being killed. That's part of what He was saying in Matthew 5:21-22. He describes people who are abusive to others (spite "without cause"). It's on par with blood guilt and leaves you wide open to Satan's abuse. Granted, Satan does have use for such people, but the image Jesus uses is that it leaves you wide open to divine wrath ("in danger of hell fire"). You will suffer in Eternity, and you may suffer a good bit while you are here.
2. One thing I wish I could get across to the world is that there's nothing wrong with using computers. What's wrong is becoming dependent on them. If you have no clue how to proceed without access to computing devices, then you will suffer massively when the sun goes nuts on us. A good way of looking at it is this: Pretend you suffer a serious computer security breach and all your data is lost, in your local system and/or in the cloud. If that stops you from doing things you need to do, then you are too dependent. I realize it's a hassle to invest the time and resources for duplicate or parallel systems, but if your mission is really important, you can't afford to not to make that investment.
3. My earliest years were in grinding poverty. Except for brief periods of my life since then, I've never been very far from it. There's nothing particularly noble about it. Rather, it's the net result of avoiding things that violate my convictions. Also, I'm quick to give stuff away if someone else needs it.
That's the background for this: I'm convinced poverty is very close, quickly approaching a lot of Americans who aren't used to it. Most people have no idea how to make do with what's at hand. Unless you have a powerful sense of mission, you can get distracted very quickly by worries about what you don't have. That's the signature of folks who operate outside the Covenant; there's no blood on their doorposts. Don't listen to what they say. Watch how they respond when poverty shows up.
4. Again: The mission is simply to live by faith. People will see. Those to whom the Lord would speak will see a lot. All we have to do is manifest that peace with God.