The Deeper Meaning of Everything

The Deeper Meaning of Everything A Never-Ending Study

by M.T.Vessel

Contents: 01 Introduction: The Discovery of Meaning 02 The Big Lie 03 Lighten Up 04 The Big Family 05 Mom 06 Dad 07 Yum 08 Take a Breath 09 Good Day Sunshine 10 Bro, Sis 11 Brother Ass 12 Come Back to Your Senses 13 Starry, Starry Night 14 Information Everywhere 15 Communication is the Name of the Game 16 Mary Had a Little Lamb 17 Ask 18 Listen 19 The Heart of the Matter 20 What's in a Name 21 Mistakes: The Meaning of Life 22 Puters R Us 23 What’s Up? 24 Showbiz Vs. One-on-one 25 Look 26 The Spice o' Life 27 Breaking Laws 28 The Other Side 29 When Things Don't Work Out 30 Dreams & Visions 31 Money and Other Currencies 32 Off to School 33 Relationships 34 Opposites Attract 35 Off to Work 36 Role Reversal 37 The Art of War 38 Calamities 39 The End of the Road 40 Coming Home

The Beginning (Not an Introduction): The Discovery of Meaning If you're anywhere near as impatient as I am, you might be prone to skip this chapter if I call it "Introduction," so, let's just call it The Beginning.

First of all, I'll have to state the following: I am no more of a writer than Don Quixote was a knight, but I think that everyone ought to be handing down some of the things he’s learned in life to whoever is interested, even though this kind of legacy has become somewhat extinct in age when TV, the Internet and glossy mags already tell our kids everything they’re “supposed to know.”

Maybe I'm just one of those dreamers, dreaming an impossible dream, although I'd like to term it differently: I'm a believer.

I have been a believer since I was 13 years old, but I didn't really believe what I wanted to believe, that which my spiritual teacher told me, namely, that I was able to personally hear the voice of God - until 27 years later. I had experienced and felt God's Spirit on occasions, felt that exuberant joy and the "peace that passeth understanding" the Bible talks about and had an above-average knowledge of the Bible, having memorized many Scriptures. I had, perhaps, above-average faith, and yet that faith never extended to the point where I was able to believe that God would reach out to Me, care about and address me personally, until I was 40 years old.

Until then, I had merely been "going through the motions" of believing, as I'm sure is the case with millions of other believers. We "believe" in God, our mind acknowledges that He is there - somewhere "out there," perhaps even in us to some extent, but we don't allow ourselves to experience His total and absolute realness, the fullness of His Presence. We're not aware of the fact that, as one of my favorite "heroes of the pen," Richard Rohr put it, "if God is real at all, then He's as real now as in any other moment," He's as close as He will ever be. It's just that we are not aware of it - of Him. He continually proves to us with every miraculous breath we take (for granted), and every golden ray of sunlight, enabling us to continue living for another moment, and another, and another, that He loves us, approves of us, and despite our obliviousness of His Presence, provides for us everything we need, causes His sun to shine and His rain to fall "on the evil and on the good," on believer and unbeliever alike, and only few of us ever stop to acknowledge this great love, pause for a moment in all our feverish activity, and thank Him for it.

The worst part about all of this is that the meaning of life, of everything, eludes us every moment and every day, and we run through life like deaf and blind children, clueless as to what life may possibly be all about until the moment we seek our Creator and ask Him in simple, childlike faith, to reveal that purpose to us, and boy, are we ever surprised then to find out just how willing He has been all along to reveal, and reveal, and reveal ever more.

I'm a follower of a Man Who, during His lifetime was labeled a heretic, and like many other "heretics," died the death of one. He prophesied that those who followed Him would enjoy the same sort of reputation, and thus, I am also a follower of the teachings of a man who was and probably still is being labeled (and libeled) as one of the most dangerous heretics of the 20 th century by the establishment: David Brandt Berg (1919-1994), in his earliest teachings, which he published in epistles called MO-Letters (for during that time, in the early 70s, he called himself Moses David), related some of the fundamental lessons of life from very simple little things, such as the way grains of dust can scintillate in a few rays of sunlight ("Diamonds of Dust"), or that God never does things in a hurry ("Squeeze, Don't Jerk!"), or that God is like the sunlight, spiritually, and that just as without the light of the sun no growth and life and nourishment on earth is possible, so spiritual life is impossible without God's truth and love ("Sex Works"), and yes, shame over his head and all those of his lustful followers, including myself, he even taught that God had invented sex in order to illustrate what He wants our relationship with Him to be like. You can see why he and his movement are still treated as heretics to this day.

Being suddenly (or gradually) made aware of the fact that everything in life makes sense and has a purpose, contrary to what Evolution teaches us, namely that everything is meaningless, since everything just came into being by accident - no Planner, no plan - can transform a life in ways comparable to what happened in Helen Keller's life, who - though she was deaf and blind - came to perceive many things that most of us who can both hear and see with our physical sense, never grasp in a lifetime. No wonder Jesus called Himself the light of the world. Without the light, there is nothing to be seen. He also called Himself the Truth. Recognizing the truth in life, in a world that seems to be governed by people and principles apparently utterly alienated from such a concept as truth, is radical and revolutionary. - And not very popular. For many people it's just too simple. They live by the rule, "Why make it easy, if you can make it complicated?"

The fact that Jesus used parables a lot in His teachings should already teach us something. David Berg taught that all of Jesus' parables had to be actual events (being the Son of an omniscient Father, and being the "I Am" of old should make this quite possible), otherwise whenever He said, "it came to pass..." or "it happened," it

would not have been true. If Jesus' prarables are based on actual events, and He used those events and incidents and actual experiences of people to teach all of us, then we should stay on the lookout for the educational value in the events and incidents of our own lives every day.

When something happens, we should turn to God and ask Him, "what are You trying to teach me through this?"

We've got to shed the mindset that we're too small, too unimportant for God that He would even bother about us. He does care, and nothing is too small for Him. In fact, there are oodles of things He would like to teach us everyday, if we would only have the faith to believe that, and consequently open our spiritual senses to perceive those lessons in life.

God is not "out there." He's right here, and He's been there all the time, endlessly giving us signs of His Presence, of His tender love and care, which we stubbornly keep ignoring and keep explaining away - or they're being "explained away" for us. But once we open our eyes to see those signs, all of a sudden everything begins to make sense. Even a life that may have been in total chaos thus far, suddenly obtains meaning... and I know what I'm talking about.

It's hard to know what to believe these days. We claim to know so much, we see so much, we hear so much, but it all doesn't seem to make sense, even in our oh-so sophisticated world with all our technological advances.

There are some who seem to be on our side, and yet some of the things they do don't "compute," they don't make sense. If those claiming to give purpose and meaning to our lives, fail to really do so, if they confuse us only more by what they teach us as facts, then everything becomes meaningless, & we can't cope with life anymore. We seek to drown out the meaninglessness of it all somehow, be it through alcohol, drugs, or some other addiction to one of the perfectly "normal" insanities available to us today.

But there is, in fact, (of this I'm becoming more and more convinced every day) a meaning to everything. All the numerous things we constantly take for granted as meaningless coincidences, every acquaintance, every event, every little and however apparently trivial encounter and experience bears a meaning and a message for us from our Creator, if we care to see it.

I was inspired to write this book by a heavenly message I received two days after viewing the old, black and white, 1962 movie "The Miracle Worker" about the remarkable difference the discovery of meaning made in young deaf and blind Helen Keller's life, when her teacher, Ann Sullivan, finally managed to break through to her and convey to her the concept and fact that everything has a name: "water", "ground", "stairs", "teacher"...

Everything and everyone has a name, a word for it, the meaning of which refers to the thing or person it names, and the mere discovery of that simple fact changed Helen Keller's life from a meaningless, animal-like existence to a life-long adventure of learning, of facing and mastering challenges, and caused her to eventually become a greater visionary than many of her seeing and hearing contemporaries.

Although she wasn't ever able to hear or see physically (as far as I know), she became able to see the meaning of all things, the handwriting of God in everything, and I (among others) have been charged with the task of making others - anyone of the countless millions of spiritually blind and deaf who might stumble across these rantings and ravings of mine - aware of the existence of meaning, the meaning of everything, or the fact that everything means something.

There are so many people living meaningless lives, simply oblivious to the fact that there is a meaning and a higher purpose to their lives, and I want to do at least whatever little I can in order to make a difference and somehow reverse that process, and even if only in a single life, it will have been worth it.

By no means is this book any attempt to explain every aspect of the meaning of life, but rather a mere attempt to help anyone who hasn't yet done so, discover that there is in fact a meaning to life, and to give a few hints and shoves in the directions where to find it. The details everybody has to find out for themselves through the principal tool and grand frame of it all, which is their personal communication with God, the art of hearing and seeing Him in everything. I'm just showing you how to open up your eyes and ears.

Of course, I'm not going to fully cover every aspect of "the meaning of everything," since the world couldn't hold all the books that would have to be written in order to do that. But I'm just going to lightly touch on some of the basic aspects of God's handwriting in our lives, in hopes that the one or the other reader may hit his forehead and gasp, "Of course! It's so simple. Why didn't I see that before?"

In fact, shocked by the dull and plump way my words come across when I go over them, endlessly lacking the perfection I'd desire, failing pitifully to convey what I originally may have intended, I must view this project

more like an ongoing study and a prolonged investigation into the purpose of life, which might possibly go on for quite a few years... perhaps forever. All I can do is invite anyone interested to join me in my studies and share what I discover as I go.

Maybe the one or the other may even have something helpful to contribute...

One of the reasons why I thought that perhaps some folks might appreciate this book or study, is that nobody ever told me where to spot God in the simple truths of life, and certainly nobody in the churches did. One of the saddest facts that in my view seem to make these simple truths a necessary reminder to a lot of us, is that they simply don't seem to be part of the repertory of those who ought to proclaim them, and I doubt if most of those who ought to be, are aware of them. The problem was addressed by Jesus 2000 years ago, when He said about the religious leaders of His day, that they were blind guides of the blind.

Some of the truths of God observable in creation are simply not being perceived as such by the clergy, and sometimes even portrayed as the opposite. Take, for instance, the physical union between a woman and a man, considered by most honest people to be one of the most beautiful gifts this life has to offer, and yet often - and for centuries - decried as "sin" or "sinful" by Western religious leaders, while on the other hand condoning atrocities clearly defying God's commandments of love, like war, or racism, and even "ethnic cleansing" as "Christian" and "the proper way" throughout history.

Religious leaders are the first to decry the world's saviors as menaces of society, and the first to accuse them to the Pilates of all ages, while they will tell their sheep to follow whichever villain happens to be in power, just because the Bible says in one place that we are to obey the powers that be. But there's no mention of the repeated fact that we are to obey God rather than men! If the good things and people are called bad, and vice versa, then who is going to tell people the truth? If the religious leaders aren't doing the job, then God is going to raise Himself other voices, and usually, He doesn't take His pick from among the rich and famous establishment. His favorite pick throughout the ages have been nobodies who didn't have anything to lose, so they were free enough to spread His message and change the world.

Doubtlessly, there are those who won't have a need of this book whatsoever, because they're already familiar with the concepts of God, and already fluent at reading His language, His "code" all around us. Maybe I can just add a little assurance to their hearts that they are not alone, but that God is communicating with millions everywhere. In fact, with anyone willing to listen.

I'm also convinced that the issues covered in this book have in large part been common knowledge to Godfearing people for thousands of years, but that knowledge has become somewhat of a lost art, buried under the debris of our modern, technology-oriented culture, where we don't learn as much from nature anymore, simply because there isn't that much of it around in our man-made environment. And we don't make an effort to see God in all things anymore because we are being taught that He doesn't exist. Common sense isn't all that common anymore, nowadays, and there are a lot of confused people out there who haven't even yet begun to grasp even the basics of what life is all about.

The advantage of keeping this book as a free e-book first of all frees me from any potential feelings of guilt for having made you pay for a book you might consider rubbish, from any hassles with editors who might not agree with me, enabling me to publish it right now, even if it may not be perfectly done yet, and to keep adding new ideas and inspirations to it. Furthermore, you might find the embedded links not only helpful, but also enriching, adding an extra dimension that a normal book couldn't, since they will take you to websites, songs, blogs and prophecy excerpts relevant to the subject you happen to be reading on that would have not been not made so easily available in a regular printed book. They should somehow make it more alive and give it a new multi-media slant that is unique to online publications.

You'll be taken immediately to the source of any quoted shred of wisdom, thus giving credit where it is due.

(Heavenly input on “The Discovery of Meaning”)

The Big Lie One of the fundamental problems with teaching physically seeing and hearing people that they fail to see the spiritual meaning of things is that they don't even realize that something is wrong, or that anything should not be the way it's supposed to be. After all, as long as they successfully manage to feed, clothe and transport the outer shell of their beings, their bodies, from A to B, then what could possibly be lacking?

As long as the universal religion of Coincidence and Accidentalism (the belief that everything originates from a series of innumerable random events in Space gazillions of years ago) works for them and successfully enables them to put food in their mouths and shoes on their feet, a remote control and a can of beer in their hands, what on earth could anyone have the audacity to say should still be missing in their lives?

Nobody wants to be told that they are spiritually deaf and blind. Nobody, except those who want the truth, that is. And those are the only ones who stand the chance of healing. Jesus made it very clear that He did not come to save the just and righteous (or those who thought they were), since they obviously didn't need His Salvation, just like "the healthy don't need the doctor, but the sick do," and thus He came "to call sinners to repentance."

Repentance is a word that originates in the Greek word "metanoia," which means a change of mind, a "turnaround," a "U-turn," a radical change of one's way of thinking and perception. He illustrated this change as something as drastic as being "born again," and that's precisely what happens when someone allows God to touch them and reveal to them the meaning of everything. It puts the spark back into life that was there when we were young children; the curiosity about everything, the hunger for life, until it was stilled (or should I say "killed"?) by the cold, factual, rational explanations of everything, the Big Lie of Meaninglessness: "Nothing whatsoever has a meaning, because we're all just results of a series of "accidents" in Space called the Big Bang, resulting in another series of (innumerable) "coincidences" on earth called Evolution." We are nothing more than an evolved bunch of creeping mass from primordial soup, some original slime pit from which we came, and spiritually, some of us have never left that place.

The truth is exactly what we - in the majority of cases - don't want. We don't want to hear it. It's too "esoteric" for the Christians, and too "Christian" for the rest of the biased world. It's too "open" for the fundamentalists and too "narrow-minded" for the liberals or the disciples of "anything goes" philosophies. It simply doesn’t fit into our pre-fabbed & self-construed box of our personal views on everything. The truth is, usually, just like God (see Jn. 14:6), the totally Other.

That's why it's so easy for the Devil to sell us his lies: that we evolved out of nothing by pure coincidence; that neither he, nor God exist, or "everybody has their own truth" - everything is relative & there are no absolutes.

No more "pearl of great price" to search for, just fabricate your own, cheap, counterfeit pearls, a dime a dozen.

It's true that circumstances influence and shape us, but they did not create us. There is such a thing as microevolution, our adaptability and ability to "blend in" or "bend with the wind," resulting in a polar bear's warmer fur and his skills to catch fish or seals, because that's what he needs where he lives. But it's ridiculous to say "coincidence did it all." God wants us to learn from our circumstances & from the things that happen to us, from the adversities we face, or He watches how we even handle affluence, ease and plenty.

About the dumbest thing we could possibly do is shrug it all off, ignoring any possibility of purpose to it all & say, "Nah, it doesn't mean anything, 'cause we're all just monkeys of coincidence anyway." If that's what we believe, then it becomes true for us: nothing has a meaning, life doesn't make sense, and we have basically become that descendant of a monkey we believe to be.

When I look around me in this nation whose people were once famous for their intellect, that's what I see: a bunch of Neanderthalers whose IQ has dwindled according to the percentage of alcohol in the beverages they're addicted to in order to make them forget where they're coming from; 21-year-olds half as smart as they were at the age of 10, because they were brainwashed by their teachers and televisions to believe that all they amount to is a slightly more sophisticated ape-man on the road to nowhere.

The beginning of recognizing the meaning of everything is admittance to the fact that we have been lied to.

Massively. On a scale far beyond our imagination. According to the motto, "If you are going to tell people a lie, make it such a big lie, that they would never assume that anyone would have the audacity to tell such a big lie, if it weren't the truth." That has been the Devil's motto since the very beginning (adopted by many of his spiritual heirs).

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, there is, in fact a Devil. If there is a God Who has an all-powerful Son Whom He sent to earth, and if we are to believe any of the records of this event (although the other side is working hard on undermining those records, pushing them into the category of myths and fairy-tales), then there is also a Devil. He has been there right from the beginning, according to the Book of Genesis. He was still around

thousands of years later, as we find out in the Book of Job, causing the poor fellow a lot of (seemingly meaningless) discomfort, trouble and pain, and he was certainly around in Jesus' day, where we find him tempting the Son of God personally with "all the riches of the world," because, as he says, they were given into his hands. The Bible goes on to call him "the god of this world," who appears as "an angel of light," Jesus calls him, "the father of lies," and in the Book of Revelation we find him finally taking control over the entire planet in human form for the last 3½ years of man's pitiful history before the true King of Earth finally returns and puts an end to all this apparent meaninglessness to establish His everlasting Kingdom - on Earth.

If you hear people talking about "the New World Order," then you can be pretty sure that that's what they're talking about: Satan's kingdom on earth to come, the final years of this System, the era of the results of man's choice to believe him, rather than God. The Devil's temptations have always sounded more appealing to most people than the truth of God, and most of us have fallen for them. The result is what you see on the news every evening, and, no, it's not going to get any better by itself, as much as you may wish for it, close your eyes and hope all the trouble will just go away. First there has to be a significant change happening in the hearts of men, a willingness to see, to learn, to understand, to hear what God, not the Devil, has to say.

It's hard to see the sense of all of it. It's very much like the movie "Signs" with Mel Gibson. I'll be talking a lot about movies, because movies - some, not all - are also part of the signs, the coded messages through which God speaks to us. Yes, God uses people to communicate with people. Sometimes they're prophets, sometimes they're priests, but more often than not, nowadays He's had to resort to film makers, book authors, songwriters and the likes.

If everything has a meaning, then that's because God can and will use anything. He will convey His message to you through a mud worm, if that's what He chooses to communicate to you. Of course, you still have to be willing and ready - and perhaps humble enough - to see what He's trying to show you.

In the movie "Signs" one sits through an apparently meaningless series of events for a good hour and a half. I was shaking my head nearly all the way through, thinking this was certainly the silliest movie I had ever spent money on watching, when all of a sudden, in the last 10 or 15 minutes, everything - every seemingly little event of the previous occurrences - falls into place, makes perfect sense and turns out to have been important preparation for that one decisive moment where all the information you received until then, (which you were unable to process because it didn't make sense to you), is precisely what you need to defeat the Enemy in your life and give you victory.

That's how many people's lives are. Another, much more slow-moving film which illustrates how an apparently meaningless life can all of a sudden start making perfect sense, even if just in the last few weeks (or hours, minutes or seconds) of it, is "Life as a House." You can make peace with God and everyone else even in the last moments of your life, it is never too late to come to the right conclusions, and it is never too late for love. It is never too late to say "yes" to God, "I want to see You, I want to hear what You have to say." Although it's probably preferable to pay attention to Him a little earlier than that...

(Heavenly input on “The Big Lie”)

Lighten Up If the Lie can be compared to the darkness, then the truth, most certainly stands for light. From the moment we're born and come into "the light of the world," the truth is evident, that the light is there, all around us, not by coincidence, but by God's infinite care and provision for us, although despicably taken for granted by most of us, with the exception of those who know or have known blindness.

Only having been in darkness should help us to appreciate the light as we should.

According to the Bible, light was the first thing God created, right after the heaven and the earth. Apparently there had to be the space first, plus the object and main objective of purpose for the light: the earth. We are the target of the light of God's truth. We are the ones He wants to shine upon and enlighten.

Apparently, the light itself is invisible. It only becomes visible by the reflection of the innumerable particles it comes in contact with. By itself, the light is useless. God needs us. Too bad most of us don't care.

Certainly, a whole book could be written on the marvel of light itself, and there probably have been. Let's not forget what it stands for. Jesus called Himself the Light of the World, "the True Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (John 1:9). Apparently, there will come a time when even the blindest of the blind, those who simply don't want to see, will come to the Light.

But there is a phenomenon every human being perceives even before we ever see the light of the world, and even before the light was created, the heaven and the earth were awed by the sound of the powerful words that brought it into being: "Let there be light." Even if we can't see yet, and even if we dwell in darkness, there is still a chance that we can hear. Maybe if we refuse to see or acknowledge the Light, at least we will acknowledge the whispers of God's voice tugging on our heart strings, assuring us that He is there, He's in control, He's the Maker.

Just as certain as we know and perceive that we are, because we can feel the touch of our Creator and His loving care for us from the womb, His caring, protective, original environment created for us, and we later learn to discern and differentiate the different smells and tastes of life, like the manifold influences we are to encounter in our lives, bitter or sweet, pleasant or sour. (See also the section on the attempt of a spiritual interpretation of our five senses in the chapter “Brother Ass”).

The "knowledge" and perception of our existence and everything around us is determined by the manifold bits of information we process via the receptor of our being, announcing that adventurous trip called life.

(Heavenly input on “Light”)

The Big Family God is shouting out His message of love and of the meaning of all things to us permanently, clearly visible in His handiwork, His creation. To deny the signs of His existence is like the scene in the film " Bruce Almighty" where Bruce cruises around in his car asking God to give him “a sign, just any old sign,” while all around him there are signs and signals flashing of "Warning!," "Stop!" "Danger Ahead," but he never even sees them.

Life is all about seeing the signs God is flashing at us constantly and all over the place. Most of His signs and the major chunk of His message to us is a message of His love and care for us. People are always blaming Him for their own atrocities, they blame all the wars they fight on Him, as if He was the one slinging the guns. Or they blame Him for natural disasters or accidents... Yet they never stop to give Him the credit for any of the good things He permanently does for us. We're going to get into the catastrophes later, but since they're a bit harder to understand, let's start with the simple stuff, that every child can understand.

After all, Jesus said that unless we would become like children, we would not see the Kingdom of God. The only way to receive, to perceive, to grasp God's Kingdom, is through the simple, believing and receiving eyes of a child.

No matter how mature, how grown-up we have become or think we are, most of us are actually a lot like children. Children can't help but be primarily concerned about themselves. It seems to be part of the nature and process of discovering the world and life going on around them, that they see themselves as the center of everything, so they are primarily concerned with their own well-being. As babies, they let everybody know when they're hungry or in pain, and as they get older, they will equally insistently let us know what they want or if they're bored or will continuously try to suck information out of us that concerns them, like "how long is it still going to take" until you have arrived at a certain destination when you travel somewhere, etc.

(Most) grown-ups have learned to simply take things. We know that we'll get there when we get there. We have also learned in some ways to be considerate of those around us and their needs, because we've experienced that the repercussions can be unpleasant when we're not.

Children are usually constantly in "consumer mode." They're interested in what you've got for them, what you can give them, and if you've got nothing to give, you're not interesting.

Upon closer inspection of ourselves, we only differ from children in that aspect on the surface. Underneath that thin veneer of etiquette, we are often just as selfish, or as self-oriented as they are, and true maturity has only taken place when we have learned to truly give unselfishly, which we will cover in the chapter about relationships, because for starters, and for (spiritual) infants, that subject is terribly boring.

The concept of family is one that God tries to drive home to us throughout His creation: of two make three. It always takes a male and a female to create offspring, and thus, family.

When it comes to the Family of God, or what the Catholic Church has referred to as the Holy Trinity, some people have problems trying to picture how that’s supposed to work. “How can there be three separate Entities, and yet be One?” Water is one example: It consists of the same, basic stuff, namely the water molecule, known as H2o (2 atoms of helium, and 1 of oxygen), but it is know in three different forms: liquid, solid (ice) and as a gas (vapor).

In our physical world, things seem to be separated by limits and borders, although, when one takes a closer look, everything consists of molecules with a lot more empty space between the atoms than the space that matter actually occupies.

Once we begin to understand that things basically aren’t all that different from each others as they seem (since they all consist of the same basic building blocks of the universe, we can also begin to imagine a World in which things are truly connected. We communicate with physically audible or visible (written) words, but we’re beginning to catch glimpses of different concepts of communication, for which physical means won’t be necessary anymore, such as telepathy.

In order to facilitate things, let’s just say that God, along with presumably the entire rest of the population of the Spirit World, is capable of telepathy, enabling us to communicate with Him not only via audible words, but also unspoken prayers. Of the same token we can safely assume that words are not needed for any members of the heavenly “Royal” Family of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, to communicate with each other.

Imagining the concept of wordless communication is perhaps one step closer to understanding what it means to be separate entities, and yet “one.”

(Heavenly input on “God’s Family”)

Mom So, let's start right here, at the very basics and the simple foundations of our lives. Imagine you just arrived on planet earth as a baby. What is usually the first pleasant thing we perceive when we enter this world as human beings (after the traumatic experience of birth, not to mention that slap on our butts)? What is the beginning of God's message of love to us, when we are born into this world? The first source of love and comfort for probably the vast majority of all humans in the beginning stages of their lives is doubtlessly their mother.

Things may change drastically later on in life and many events may unfold that may put huge gaps between those primary love experiences with one's mother, but that is the beginning for most of us. We find nourishment, shelter and warmth as newborn babies at our mother's breast.

When I was a young boy of maybe 5, I often had the sensation of a vacuum in my mouth, and I was wondering what on earth that could mean. I was certain that by the time I had figured that mystery out, I was going to have discovered the essentials of life. Years later I actually stumbled across the solving of this mystery in a publication by David Brandt Berg, the spiritual teacher and founder of what I would call the radical Christian movement "The Family Intl." (also previously known as "The Children of God") entitled "Faith." The pamphlet had on its cover the picture of a baby sucking on his mother's breast, and the author went on to tell us that this is what faith is like: faith is like the vacuum a baby creates in its mouth when it draws milk from his mother's breast. When we draw "milk" - meaning wisdom, and the living words of God, the direction we need for life from our "heavenly Mother," we are being filled with His Holy Spirit and receive divine direction, guidance and inspiration.

Unfortunately, way too many Christian stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the fact that when God created the first two people in His image, He created them male and female. They insist that Heaven is run by three Bachelors commandeering the angels around: God, the Father, God the Son, and God, the "Uncle" Holy Spirit.

This is precisely what I refer to as "blindness" of those who claim to see. All throughout His creation, God, as the basis for all life, has ordained male and female to result in fruit by their union, and yet our religious leaders want to continue telling us that God is running His Family by 3 guys only?

Thankfully, there are those who are open enough and attuned enough to the Holy Spirit to be able to perceive the senselessness in denying the message God has written all over creation since the beginning of time. Just like every (healthy or complete) human family consists of a mother and a father, and their union results in a child, so it can also only be with our Heavenly Family, if, after all, we are made in Their image. We doubtlessly have God the Father, and we have God the Son, but who's to say that the third Figure of the Holy Trinity is supposed to be masculine as well? Wouldn't we consider it slightly strange - to say the least - if a child were raised by two bachelors?

Couldn't the reason why the Holy Spirit is always named last when the Holy Trinity is being named, ("in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost"), stem from the Jewish custom which had the son rank above his mother or elder sisters? In the 8th chapter of the book of Proverbs we find the description of the Spirit of Wisdom, and totally contrary to Jewish custom, we find that Spirit described with female attributes. I'm not going to get into this any further, since it's everyone's free choice whether they want to believe in a male Trinity or recognize that with every human family since Adam and Eve, God has given us an example of what He and His motherly Holy Spirit are like.

Many people resent God because of His supposedly "bossy" and "macho" nature: the tough Dude Who runs everything. How much easier it would be for many to accept Him, look up to Him, if they weren't denied the possibility that God is not only our heavenly Father, but thankfully, our heavenly Mother, as well. That's why there is such wonderful comfort in God's promise we find in the Psalms: "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will lift me up." Not as an incomplete substitute family consisting of a single, male parent, nor as a superlative version of "Three Men And A Baby," but as a full-fledged Family, consisting of Mother, Father, older Brother, and all.

So, the first lesson in this discovery of the meaning of everything is this: Isn't it wonderful to know that we have a heavenly Mother, as well? In their need for that spiritual mother figure, people have had to come up with make-shift solutions, and since they weren't allowed to see the Holy Spirit as a mother figure (for whatever reason - perhaps it was safer to have men in control of spiritual matters), they idolized Jesus' mother Mary instead, and virtually made a goddess out of her: a supposed sinless woman who never had sex in her life (as if sex and sin were one and the same), remaining a virgin for the rest of her life (poor Joseph!) although the Bible clearly states that Jesus had brothers!

(Heavenly input on The Holy Spirit)

Dad When it comes to the father figure, most of us seem to have a lot more problems. Until about a century ago, children would work side by side with their parents in the fields, or at whatever the family's trade was, and young people still knew who their parents were, both, their mother and father, and they also knew who they were. They were a necessary part in keeping their family going, keeping it alive, they knew their worth, and consequently they didn't have many of the current identity problems young people have to face in today's "enlightened" society.

A father-son relationship may not have always been problem-free, but at least there was such a thing as a relationship.

One thing I have learned through my interactions and communications with the Lord is that He faces a lot of the same problems in His role of our heavenly Father, which we face as human fathers with our children. One problem both, our heavenly Father and earthly fathers have in common is, for instance, that children often have totally distorted views and pictures of their fathers in their minds. Often we associate our fathers with images of discipline and harshness, and often there is some fear attached with all that. Likewise we often think of God as the big, stern Ogre in the sky who shakes His head and frowns at us: "No, don't do this and don't do that, and above all: thou shalt not have fun of whatsoever kind!" - When that is the farthest thing from the truth! God loves us and wants for us to enjoy life. He loves to enjoy our company, our communications with Him, and is eagerly willing to respond to both in ways beyond imagination.

The problem is that both God and earthly fathers have the same handicap: the same forces that are trying to sow disunity between humans are also feverishly at work trying to destroy and prevent any loving relationships between humans and their heavenly Father. In other words: fathers, both earthly and heavenly are being lied about. Of course, in the case of earthly fathers this doesn't apply if the father happens to be on "the other side."

The Devil won't go about slandering anyone who is working for his side.

But suffice it to say that a lot of the friction that exists between children and their parents and between humans in general, is artificially and purposely generated by unseen forces at work.

Unfortunately, the gift of "seeing" does not only reveal pretty things.

This apparent "blaming the Devil for everything" view is not going to go over well with disciples of Nietzsche and the likes, since fear of the Devil has caused them to come up with some very clever-sounding efforts to explain him away and claim he doesn't exist. But just as you can see God's handwriting in everything, if you're not blind, so one will unfortunately also recognize His enemy's in this world, and saying "there is no such thing," no matter how many times, will still not turn it into a fact.

There are, of course, other reasons why there are frictions between fathers and their children, often based on actual failure on behalf of the parent, but we'll cover this topic later on in "the other side," our dealings with what we call bad or evil, including our mistakes.

The cool thing about God, our heavenly Father, is that He doesn't make mistakes. In this case, it's usually we ourselves who make the mistake in assuming we're smarter than Him. More on the parallels between our father/child relations and our relationship with Him in a later chapter, when we’ll be ready for the role reversal and will have matured enough to become parents of our own…

(Heavenly input on God the Father)

Yum After "Mom & Dad," the ones responsible for our coming into this world, probably the next striking thing that positively impresses us most is food. We already mentioned the original nourishment a baby receives from his mother, and while every day most of us tend to take what we eat for granted, food is a wonderful token of God's love for us, and symbolizes and describes the meaning of something that will probably go on forever, even after our present bodies will have been long gone.

In his epistles, the apostle Peter describes the Word of God as milk for babies, which we should desire, so that by taking it in, we would grow. Likewise, Jesus referred to Himself as the Bread of Life and stunned His disciples by saying that they would have no part in Him unless they would eat His body and drink His blood .

That wasn't a very reasonable thing to say to people of a culture in which cannibalism of any kind was a no-no, and drinking blood was against their law.

Again, only a few chosen ones were able to see the actually quite obvious, yet hidden, deeper meaning in Jesus' words; and when those who had not understood had left Him and He asked His disciples, "Do you also want to go away?," again it was Peter who answered, "Lord, where should we go? You have words of eternal life." He apparently got the point that what Jesus was saying was already part of that nourishment he would describe decades later in the epistle quoted above. It was spiritual nourishment, alright, just like many things Jesus said had to be applied in the spiritual. It was useless to apply it in the carnal. Jesus kept emphasizing that the spirit was much more important than the flesh (John 6:63).

You can feed your body your whole life long, but if you have starved your soul in the process, than you've missed something. Once you have set your priorities straight, though, and have put spiritual things in the place where they belong, namely, according to God's Word (since He is a Spirit - John 4:24, see also Matthew 6:33) first, then God is even willing to give us anything our bodies need, without having to slave away for it, just as He continually feeds and clothes all His creatures under the sky. Would He not do the same for us?

So, the preoccupation with food describes a recurring dilemma: we often take the manifestations of God's love and make a god out of them. Be it food, toys, TV, cars, sex... anything. We have a talent for making a god out of anything we want or like; stubbornly refusing to give thanks to the One Who provided each of them for us in the first place.

We get totally enrolled in caring for our bodies, the mere shells of our true selves, and our life becomes an ongoing episode of keeping that shell operating, often oblivious to the fact that there is a part of us which, like our bodies, also needs nourishment, and likewise oblivious to the fact that our Creator has just as abundantly supplied food for our souls as He did for our bodies.

The evolution of the average Western diet and our eating habits is a silent but blatant testimony to the kind of progress mankind is making generally, and just because we indulge in ever greater quantities and varieties of delicacies doesn’t necessarily signify uphill progress.

The concept that less is sometimes more is alien to most of us, and we automatically think that just because life or opportunity hands us all those goodies, we have to take them and stuff ourselves with them, instead of being wise enough to say, “No, thanks,” every once in a while.

What an accurate metaphor of our spiritual appetite!

While we have achieved to create every conceivable flavor and aroma artificially to trick our taste buds into assuming we must already be in paradise, the consequences of the counterfeit paradise we’re enjoying, and the bitter reality is seen in Western health statistics.

As everything else in the physical world, our obesity and pampered eating habits are also illustrations of our spiritual shape. We think we have to indulge in everything yummy life hands us, and likewise we avail ourselves of every itching doctrine that tickles our ears, any philosophy that makes us feel good, anything that caters to our spiritual appetites and cravings for a sweet and easy-to-consume diet, and we’d rather have an abundant meal wrapped in plastic, à la McDonalds, than the natural foods life would hand us, along with some of the bitter herbs that come along with it and would sometimes be much better for us.

We avoid and shun the bitter, less savory lessons from the Book of Life, try to ignore them best we can, and focus on the lighter diet of the comedian side of life, when a well-balanced diet of all flavors life has to offer would be best for us.

We prefer it sweet ’n’ easy. The result is the probably spiritually sickest generation of all times, that at the same time fools itself into believing that it’s also the most advanced, most progressed and most “developed” of all.

Perhaps we sometimes have a tendency to “over-develop” things, if our development means that we have to take all the healthy, howbeit slightly less addictive ingredients out of our diets, both spiritual and physical.

Although I have collected the lessons I have personally been able to glean not from the Book of Life, but from the Bible elsewhere, let me just mention here the story of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, four

Israelite friend of royal blood who were carried away captive to the court of Babylon in the 6 th century before Christ, as told in the first chapter of the Book of Daniel: They refused to eat of the food and certainly abundant and exotic varieties they were offered, which came from the king’s table, but insisted instead to live only on bread and water and told their superior that if they would not look healthier than all the rest of the captives at the court (who ate the king’s food), they would also eat of it after a week, but they did, and were this allowed to introduce their own kosher cuisine to Babylon and determine their own diet.

People shun the tough and comparatively “boring” bread and water diet of God’s Word as straight from the Bible, because they have all these nice and easy interpretations made up for them by preachers, philosophers and writers, but sometimes the key to get back to an all-round healthy life-style would be a back-to-the-basics diet, both spiritual and physical. Maybe this conglomeration of relatively simple and straight-forward thoughts and lessons will manage to whet your appetite for it.

One factor we should mention here is that just as with many other things we sometimes only begin to appreciate when they are taken away from us, the unprecedented abundant supply of food we've been enjoying during the past 4 decades probably cannot continue forever.

A fact many people are oblivious to is that despite our present abundance, there is still a larger amount of people starving each day than during any other period in history.

Is this God's fault? Is He stuffing the ones and depriving the others? Or is it perhaps our own greed, the selfishness and lack of love on which our System is built, that makes food so scarce for some and too abundant for others, to the point of waste?

Before Ann Sullivan came into Helen Keller's life, her way of supplying nourishment for her body (according to the movie) was by going around her family's dinner table, groping around and grabbing from each plate whatever she could find and stuffing it in her mouth. The Discovery of the meaning of things led her to not only acquire manners, but later also to give spiritual food and nourishment to others.

One of our purposes in life is not only to feed ourselves and care for ourselves, not even only for our own family members, but for any needy member of our big human family. After all, we all have the same greatgreat-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.

(No, it was not an ape-man, his name was Adam. Probably the most perfect man who ever lived, since he was the spitting image of God.) That leads us to our next discovery: our brothers and sisters. (Heavenly input on Soul Food)

Take A Breath But before we get into this, I need to get back to something touched on in the introduction, which in "order of appearance" of God's largely unrecognized blessings in our lives even precedes food, or contact with our Father: oxygen. One way in which God most vividly illustrates His invisible Being, His omnipresence, and our utmost dependence on Him, is air.

Whole books could be written on this subject alone, as I'm sure there are, not to mention the songs written on the subject, scientific articles, etc.

One of the greatest farces of the dogma of Evolution is that its defenders would have us believe that the organ which makes breathing possible should have "evolved" out of something more primitive. The problem with this assumption is that just like many of our other organs and body functions, (like our liver, our eyes, our blood circuit, etc.) our lungs would have never been in functional in any state prior to their complete form, and would have thus been rejected by "nature" as useless.

One may be able to live on half a lung, but never on a half-developed lung, at least not in an environment in which life is based on oxygen intake.

The other "miracle" related to air that agnostic scientists would have us believe in, is that the perfect constitution of oxygen should have also come into being by pure coincidence. What a great god Coincidence must be. He performed more miracles than they would ever give the God of the Bible credit for!

If you consider what oxygen can do for you, it's quite a miraculous little brew, that we so devastatingly take for granted and apparently seek to eliminate at all costs with the pollution we let loose on the air or on our lungs in our attempts to make more money, get us faster from A to B or give us a temporary kick by inhaling the smoke of some burned substance. We're really some strange creatures.

(Heavenly Input On Air:)

Good Day Sunshine Although not always perceived in early infancy, equally necessary for our survival, and similarly taken for granted by some, is another "thing" God created and placed in plain view of all of us for at least a large part of our 24 hour days, depending on the season and place we live in, is the sun. Some love it, some can't stand it, but one thing is certain, without it, none of us would be here. How truly these same features can also be attributed to God. Some love Him, some can't stand Him, yet without Him, none of us would be here, whether we believe it or not.

He's the Source of love and warmth that makes everything grow, thus He's the Source of all nourishment, of all life. So, along with water, which in the Scriptures is likened to the Word of God, and the air, which we need to inhale like His Spirit in order to keep us alive, the sun - the big ball of fire that provides us with warmth and light, is what keeps us - the earth - alive and producing fruit? - Some producing only little fruit, some a lot. And when someone produces a lot of fruit, then you get brothers and sisters.

According to St. Francis of Assissi, the sun, the air and all things created were related to each other, "brothers and sisters," since all things come from the same Father : "Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brother Wind, Sister Air, etc." Those who go through life with their eyes open can see the concept of the universal Family in all living things.

As with every facet of God's creation, one mistake that humanity has made in respect to the sun is that we haven't been able to resist the temptation to worship creation rather than the Creator. Thus it has been the case that from the cradle of civilization and Egypt's Pharaohs down to supposedly serious scientists of the 21st century, there have always been folks who have mistakenly worshiped the sun, rather than its Creator. I've heard scientists seriously proclaim that, should there ever be any such thing as a god, it would have to be the sun, since thanks to it there is life on this planet at all.

While that is true, there are other factors without which life on earth wouldn't be possible, and the sun alone wouldn't do.

It's that refusal to recognize anything beyond the scope of the physical, and beyond the scope of that which eludes the scope of our personal experience (or willingness to experience it) that I'm trying to address especially in this book.

Unfortunately, there aren't only positive aspects of the sun, as thousands of skin cancer victims have had to experience, as well as countless inhabitants of once fertile areas that have been dried up and turned into deserts sometimes within decades of their life-times.

As with so many other good things in creation, the sun is only to be enjoyed with moderation and within certain limits. Otherwise it can turn out to be a ferocious adversary.

I think it's no coincidence that Lucifer, the great imitator and counterfeiter of God has chosen the sun as his own symbol, as those who know about the true nature of masonry and other secret societies can tell from the symbolism on such societies' flags, banners and emblems.

The sun is just a perfect example of a perfectly great creation of God that can turn into something evil when used for purposes less than benign, or outside of the limitations of God's will and His rules He laid down for us.

Anything good can be turned into bad, if not enjoyed within moderation or when worshiped and idolized, consumed in excess or out of obsession, be it food, sex, money, money, work, sports, or even sunshine.

(Heavenly Input on Sunshine:)

Bro, Sis Our brothers and sisters and other relatives illustrate another fact about God. Contrary to what some people seem to think, He's not a one-Man show, nor a three-Men show plus a bunch of angels. Heaven is not a solitary place run by three bearded Gentlemen sitting on thrones, commandeering hoards of sexless angels dressed in white. Be honest: Who would want to go to a place like that?

The truth about Heaven is that the place is buzzin'! And not only with angels and their Royal Family governing them, but actually - and this may come as a shock to some - also countless human spirits. Now for a three or four year old, there's no doubt about it that Granny or Grampa, or Great-Granddad or Great-Grandma are in Heaven. It's only when we become sophisticated and educated adults that we seem to forget the simplicity of the way we saw things during our childhoods, and limit access to Heaven strictly to sexless beings with wings and bearded Gentlemen.

Not my idea of Heaven. And, thankfully, not God's, either. In fact, if there's one thing God likes to illustrate through the fact that many hands make light work, it's that He is very much in favor of teamwork. So much so, that He will use and recruit anyone He can get ahold of.

How do you think it happens when a human who has been filled with the Holy Spirit speaks in "tongues," a foreign language he never learned, and possibly may not even understand himself, as described in the Book of Acts (2:1-18) in the Bible?

Many Christians are probably going to be seriously disturbed by the concept I'm going to try to convey to you now, because there are some passages in the Old Testament which strictly forbid communication with those who call on the spirits of the deceased. But we're not talking about that kind of communication here. I believe that God did forbid that sort of thing because it's not always safe to do that, unless He's totally in charge and in control of what's going on. And this is the case, when His Holy Spirit is being poured out.

David Berg taught that when a person receives the Holy Ghost, they receive a spirit helper: a holy spirit, the spirit of a deceased saint, who will help you improve your connection with God. And if the connection with that helper is really strong, he (or she) can also take control of your tongue and speak through you in their own language, although you may have never learned it, and that's how we explain the phenomenon of speaking in tongues.

Now for most church people, this will be totally unacceptable. But we're not trying to reach those here who already "see."

What this means is, that there is a much larger, heavenly Family than most people have been previously able to envision. Heaven is by far not a lonely place, but there are millions, no billions of folks there, who are most certainly not floating around on clouds, playing harps! They're busily interacting with us, helping God in the construction of His Big Picture of Everything.

St. Paul (we assume) gives us a glimpse of this host of heavenly helpers all around us when he lists some of the Old Testament saints in the 11th chapter of his epistle to the Hebrews and then refers to them in the beginning of the 12th as a "cloud of witnesses." We are not alone. There are lots of brothers and sisters eager to help us, and we can hear them, too, giving us clues, allowing us to avail ourselves of the lessons they have learned throughout their life-times, and of the talents and skills they acquired and were blessed with.

Heaven is the best example of teamwork we could ever imagine.

When we look up into the sky on a starry night, we get a glimpse of this: just as the universe is filled with billions of stars, so is the invisible dimension (and perhaps there's even more than one) filled with shining, heavenly "bodies," the "stars" of God's show, who have by no means retired, but still fill their exact places in God's big Puzzle, doing that which they have always loved to do: helping others (their younger brothers and sisters) to come closer to God, and helping us to consequently do the same, too.

We comfort others with the comfort wherewith we are comforted by God, the Bible tells us, and that is the great theme and purpose of the Comforter, God's wonderful, loving, motherly Holy Spirit: the shedding of Her comfort on us, often using our older brothers and sisters, both in heaven and on earth, so that we can pass it on.

The main purpose of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost was to enable us, the disciples of Christ, to be "witnesses" unto Him unto the ends of the earth, to testify of Him, to tell others about Him. "Love wasn't put in your heart to stay; love isn't love till you give it away."

(Heavenly Input on Family:)

Brother Ass St. Francis apparently recognized the concept of "The Big Family" and how everything is related (since it all comes from the same Father), like no other, which is why he called all creations of God his brothers and sisters, including his own body. Probably being the crowning master piece of God's earthly creation, " Brother Ass" as Francis fraternally dubbed his flesh & blood, might deserve a little closer inspection.

After all, being made in God's image, although we know that God is a Spirit ( John 4:24), leads us to assume that the Almighty must be equipped at least with very similar features as our own, even if not exactly the same.

We do know for certain that Jesus walked this earth exactly shaped as we are, and as far as I'm concerned, if He was okay with it, then who am I to complain?

Of course, some of us walk around in seemingly fancier models than others, and sometimes we feel as if we received the raw end of the deal when we compare our bodies to the flawless beauties flashing at us on MTV or billboards. Some folks feel terribly cheated because of the bodies they received, and in today's world where everything is geared by your looks and outward appearance, it's easy to feel inferior when we're not exactly as pretty as the latest super models or pop stars.

It takes maturity of a certain degree, not to be influenced by that game, and if nothing else, the less beautiful among us can rejoice that we were privileged with the ability of spending our time thinking about other things than our looks, at least occasionally.

While some people's entire lives seem to be revolving around their looks, let us find comfort in the knowledge that God doesn't care about looks (1Samuel 16:7), and if the meaning of life consists in learning to see the way God does, then we can trustfully assume that in the lasting World to come, folks won't judge us by our looks anymore, either.

In the Bible, Paul talks about "the body of Christ," of which Jesus Himself is the head, and we, His church, or "body of believers," are His limbs, His hands, His feet... it even talk about "the uncomely parts" on which we "bestow greater honor" (1Cor.12:23), signifying that we may not all have the same purpose or function, but we each have our own particular place of usefulness, and none can do without the other (see 1Cor.12:12-30).

Paying closer attention to our bodies and all its intricate functions can only make us marvel once again at the skill of our Creator, and can only cause one to agree wholeheartedly with ancient King David who exclaimed "the fool hath said in his heart, 'there is no God'" (Ps.14:1) It's quite foolish, in fact, to believe that any part of our body's life-systems could have "evolved" out of any type of more primitive state, because they would have been useless in any more primitive state, and thus have been rejected by "natural selection." There was never such a thing as a half-finished kidney or liver, no premature state of our blood-circuit (except as a fetus, but even then it was already fully designed within our DNA), our eyes, our lungs, etc., nor would any of those organs with their functions have been able to survive without the other. Just like everywhere else in life and in the universe, every part of our bodies also has its purpose, even the supposedly "useless" ones & "leftovers of evolution" which some doctors might foolishly persuade you to get rid of, such as your tonsils or appendix.

"Everything belongs" certainly applies to our bodies. Some parts may strike us as more or less useful or "comely" than others, yet we wouldn't really want to part with any of them, and when it does happen that we must, it's a painful process for which we don't envy anyone.

Of course, if we figure we're just a product of coincidence or "mother nature," who may not have known what she was doing in the first place, it's easy to want to tamper with the way we were made and get a new nose, silicone implants, or whatever the plastic surgeons' supermarkets have to offer. In my opinion, it's just another symptom of our ingratitude to God and our ceaseless notion that we "know better" than Him. When we get sick, we notice that something's wrong with our body, some function is impaired, and I'm personally convinced (and I know I'm not the only one) that each and every disease in existence is the result of a spiritual cause, whether it be disobedience to God's physical health rules, or some other sin in our lives granting the Enemy of our souls (soul = body and spirit, see Genesis 2:7) permission to make us reap the repercussions thereof.

There are modern doctors and practitioners of alternative healing methods who have healed patients from brain tumors and certain types of cancer by exposing the spiritual cause for the disease and instruction their patients of how to counter the disease by adopting the appropriate spiritual attitude and behavior, along with an appropriate diet and life-style, of course.

The fact that Jesus' ministry was in part a quite impressive healing ministry is no coincidence, either. He is the One Who initiated the reversal of the curse brought into the world by Adam's disobedience. Jesus' obedience that led Him to the death on the cross is the ultimate healing for every human being that ever lived. The Bible teaches that "by His stripes we are healed" (Isa.53:5), in other words, His suffering was for the purpose of our healing, and by His death, He healed us from death itself.

When things are wrong with our bodies, we get sick or suffer an accident that slows us down or forces us to stop our usually feverish activity; we can probably take it as a sign and communication from our Maker. Maybe it's His personal way of telling us, "Slow down," or He's trying to show us something we couldn't see at the rate we were going.

Maybe it's the result of a wrong attitude we've taken on, or the chastisement for some sin of ours (Heb.12:6).

(Heavenly Input on Body & Health:)

Come Back to Your Senses Since one of the purposes of this book is to convince the reader that nothing happens or simply is by coincidence - that there's a purpose for and behind everything, we should have a look at our five physical senses & ponder on the deeper spiritual significance God may have meant to convey to us through those invaluable gifts.

I'm no doctor, so I wouldn't know for sure which of our senses we use first, while we're still in our mother's womb: our sense of touch or our sense of hearing. But since the organ with which we experience touch (our skin) is so much larger than our ears, let us assume that we learn how to feel, even before we know how to hear.

If we want to find spiritual counterparts to our natural senses, we could perhaps assign discernment to our sense of smell, perception to sight, enjoyment to taste, reception to our hearing, and contact to our sense of touch (see section further on in this chapter).

So our very first physical experience in the womb is one of establishing contact through our skin, although I personally tend to speculate that babies are still somewhat more equipped with a sixth sense than we are as adults, and thus a baby's entire perception is probably based much more on emotions and possibly what we call "extra-sensory perception" than merely on the impulses received by our physical senses. But we're just dealing with our body here, in this chapter.

Next, as far as I can guess, might be hearing - which the Bible calls the source of our faith ( Romans 10:17), providing we are hearing and receiving the right kind of input by which we can grow spiritually. Experiments have shown that babies - even unborn babies - exposed to soothing and inspiring classical music, for instance, actually turn out more intelligent, which may be one explanation for the apparent drastic drop in our youth's IQs in recent decades.

By replacing what we have called music for centuries by somewhat more primitive sounds, we have reduced the quality of the input and intellectual stimulation to which we expose our children, and the results are seen in such phenomena as the Pisa study, which shocked Europeans about their current level of knowledge and education. Are you people sure we're "evolving?"

Next I would assume that we acquire taste, which certainly is, similarly to our sense of smell, an instrument of discernment and distinguishing between the pleasant and that which is less so, good or bad. Especially in our infant years, taste is used more massively to explore the world around us, as we find out rather quickly what things are enjoyable, and which aren't. Oddly enough, as we grow older, we seem to develop tastes for things we never would have consumed as infants. Maybe we had more sense back then? Since our sense of taste is probably our greatest source of enjoyment - although some would differ on that one - but speaking in a general terms, and also for those who might not be able to derive as regular joys from their other senses, let's just stick to this special attribute for taste right now: God certainly wants us to enjoy and taste life! "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps.34:8).

Probably before we even learn to see clearly, our sense of smell sets in, reminding us sometimes of the imperfection of this world by the absence of perfect scents we are confronted with, although we also become de-sensitized rather quickly in that area of our perception. We seem to put up with a lot more as we grow older, unfortunately also in spiritual terms, as we develop greater tolerance to evil, instead of discerning what's good and sticking to those impulses.

I'm afraid too many of us go by what's available, instead of keeping their senses in search mode for something better, and so we quickly settle for less than the best. On the other hand, the negative experiences, tastes and smells in life are definitely there for a purpose. The very lack of perfection we encounter makes us crave, miss and seek the Perfect - God - at least those of us who refuse to settle for less.

Finally, our most delicate and intricate of the physical five senses, sight, by which we perceive both, the beauty of God's creation and the ugliness that has become of it since the curse has entered our realm. We must behold the result of our sin and then decide what we're going to about it: ignore what we see and act as if nothing happened, or learn from it, absorb it, analyze it and try to find a way to improve things, a way to get back to the Garden, the way we feel way deep down inside things are supposed to be. The real art consists in not allowing our eyes to betray us, for beauty does not always equal good, and true beauty is often found beneath a surface we might tend to find less attractive.

Our most intricate sense to develop also seems to bear the art requiring the greatest skill: learning to truly see, not just thinking that we see, that's what life seems to be all about.

I'm sure that there are hundreds, if not thousands of lessons to learn in relation to the "meaning of everything" just from detailed study of our bodies itself, and I would encourage anyone whose interests are inclined in that

direction to do so. Anyone wishing to become a doctor or involved in the healing ministry of any kind, should not close their eyes by viewing our bodies as results of random mutation from ape men into a slightly more sophisticated variety of the same, but open their eyes to the countless wonders that are there to behold in the way we are made. Our bodies are not the result of coincidence, and there are hundreds, if not thousands of messages from our Creator tucked away in there, which we can yet explore, if we allow ourselves to only see.

If everything in the physical realm is only an example of a spiritual reality, then our senses must have a deeper spiritual significance, too.

Although we know from the Bible that God is a Spirit, we also know that He has made us in His image. In other words, our appearance somewhat resembles His. Thus we can picture God as having eyes, a mouth, ears, hands, and He probably has a nose, too. If He equipped us with some of His features, we can assume that, although spirits may not have flesh and blood versions of our senses, yet there must be some sort of spiritual version of them. How do you see, hear, feel, taste and smell in the spirit?

(Sight:) True sight is about looking through and seeing beyond that which immediately at hand. It's virtually seeing the invisible. True sight represents what David "Dad" Brandt Berg told his children and Family to do from the very start: "You've got to see God!" One has to keep their focus on the Lord and look past the circumstances at the greater purpose behind them, at the goal beyond them. True sight is seeing the spiritual within and beyond the physical, which is what this book is all about.

As Hebrews 11 puts it: it's about not settling for the things of this world and calling this place our home, but looking for a City Whose Builder and Maker is God. We've got to keep our vision on the glorious end of the road where everything will make sense and it will have been worth it all.

(Sound:) Hearing in the Spirit means to hear the physically inaudible. When the prophet Elijah in the Old Testament was in the wilderness, he did not find God in an earthquake, nor in a strong wind, nor in a fire, but in a still, small voice.

Hearing with your spiritual senses means to learn to hear that still small voice. Listen to the whispers!

(Smell:) I’ve always compared the gift of discernment, one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to St. Paul, to our physical sense of smell. You’ve got to be able to tell right from wrong, true from false, and for that, you need to use discernment, your spiritual sense of smell. When something “smells fishy,” then it’s usually your “sixth sense” (probably our term for the spiritual version of our senses), warning you that something isn’t right.

(Taste:) “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” The Bible is full of implications of how we can taste God or His Word, which King David said in the Psalms was sweeter than honey, and some prophets found out that it was bitter to the belly. As I tried to bring up in my thoughts about our physical senses above, taste represents enjoyment almost more than any other sense. To taste the Lord means to enjoy Him. For those who live life without Him, life can turn out quite bitter sometimes…

(Touch:) I’ve had only few experiences that gave me a glimpse of “spiritual touch.” One of them was on a very strong LSD trip during my hippie days as a teenager. I could feel muscles, glands and fibers in my body that I never even knew existed, or with a much greater consciousness. I always assumed that this was a glimpse of how we’re going to “feel” or “touch” in our resurrected bodies in heaven.

I’ve also been told, “You touch me inside. You touch my spirit.” Women are apparently a little more susceptible to being “touched” in the spirit. In any case, I can only promise you, it’s better, much better than the physical counterpart…

(Heavenly Input on Senses:)

Starry, Starry Night The stars, the celestial "bodies," apart from resembling the host of heavenly helpers in the spiritual Realm of all different kinds, strengths and levels of importance, also bear another message from God: In Psalm 19 we read: "The heavens (the skies) declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out throughout all the earth..."

What speech, language, knowledge or voice is he talking about?

Again, we are touching on a subject many Christians are afraid of, because the Devil also happens to use astrology. I think one of the greatest tricks of the Devil is that he makes God's people afraid of anything that he uses for his purpose. But just because the Devil uses them, doesn't mean that the Devil created them or that we can't use them.

A lot of folks will be very surprised when they'll find out what and whom God uses in order to bring about His purpose. In fact, He is using the Devil himself in order to teach mankind and the entire universe a lesson we won't forget.

I recently bought a book written by a Christian named William D. Banks entitled "The Heavens Declare..." and it is only one book of various similar ones, which describes how the names of the stars and the constellations in the zodiac have told the peoples of all nations, even in the earliest cultures, the story of the Gospel, from "Virgo," representing the virgin Mary bringing "Him that was to come" into the world, all the way through Leo, the "Lion of the tribe of Judah," Christ, when He returns to take over the world that is rightfully His. If, contrary to the way we have been taught in recent times, the stars and planets are not just the result of some "accident in space" trillions of years ago, called the "Big Bang" (talking about gullible here...), but each and everyone of them is also result of Someone's design and purpose, presumably exceeding that of just being a little white dot in the nightly sky serving the purpose of decoration, then, perhaps, could it be that the stars have indeed a lot more to tell us than we presently assume or give them credit for?

Of course, scientifically inclined minds will tell us that the universe in its vastness is just another proof that creation, as described in the Bible, couldn't have possibly happened, at least not merely 6000 years ago, since some of the stars are millions of light years away, so, how could we see their light, if earth - and the universe as we are told in Genesis, are that young?

But that "knowledge," or point of view is - as usual - only based on our perception from our position (planet earth) and the assumption that things have always been the same as they are right now - for instance, that light has always traveled at the same speed.

But what if time as we know it is not really a constant, but - as some who have wracked their minds on the matter have suggested - changes with, say, growing distance from earth. Or what if light has not always traveled at the same speed since its creation, but has drastically diminished its speed, since God spoke the magic phrase that brought it into being (Gen.1:3)?

What if our assumptions are not really all there is to know yet? What if there's more, much more that we still need to learn, making our "knowledge" look like a teaspoon full of water, compared to the ocean? What if we're not really as smart as we think we are? What if we were just children, merely beginning to get a clue about the true nature of the universe? And what if big, naughty Uncle Lucifer has told us a bunch of lies to lead us into the opposite direction of where we might find true knowledge?

What if the vast and endless evening sky we stare at, isn't just a meaningless blackness with a bunch of white dots randomly strewn throughout by Lord Coincidence during his Big Bang, but actually contains more information than all the computers in the world could offer, but we haven't even yet begun to decipher any of it, because we have been fooled into believing that there isn't any?

What if Someone's trying to tell us something by all this?

This brings us to the next big phenomenon of God, which we have been brainwashed to believe evolved by itself, as we first hopped from tree to tree as monkeys and later "developed" into slightly more sophisticated beings, learning to quarrel over food, clobbering each other with clubs and stones and... lo and behold: communication was born.

Again, we are free to choose to see communication as the result of coincidence, or as one of the great themes of our Creator.

(Heavenly Input on Stars:)

Information Everywhere Professor Werner Gitt is a creation scientist in Germany who has been teaching on the impossibility of the process of Evolution - everything evolving out of nothing - for years, and although he is one of those who would definitely have problems with accepting some of the things I speak of in this book, he is doing a great job at teaching the world about where we really come from.

One of his strongest points in explaining why Macro-evolution, as it is being taught as fact to our kids in school every day, couldn't have possibly happened, is that we observe the following in nature and in the world all around us: Each shred of information, every drawing on the wall of a cave, every phrase ever written, every phone call, telegram, radio or TV broadcast, every bit of information ever passed on from one subject to another, has always, without exception, had an author. No piece of information ever came about by itself, it has always had an author, the one who initiated it, wrote it, made the phone call or spoke the words.

When Charles Darwin first came up with his theory, there was a lot he didn't know yet, that we do know today.

He figured a cell was just a bit of protein, and with the right chemicals tossed in, under the right circumstances, it might have just come into being by itself out of the primordial soup. But after all we have learned about the cell in the 20th century, we can only add one comment to this assumption: "No way, sir!"

It turns out that living cells are actually equipped with something we call a "genetic code," and it's actually called a code because we are dealing here with encoded information which has to be decoded by its receptor. In other words, we not only have the phenomenon of information in each living cell, (and remember, we have never ever in nature been able to observe any bit of information which did not have an author from whom that information originated), but on top of it, that information is encoded, and "coincidentally", the device to decode it, is also there already.

Professor Gitt can give you a whole lot more information and statistics about how many towers of books, reaching all the way to the moon and back would have to be written in order to contain the genetic information stored in a cell cluster the size of the head of a pin, but you'll probably get the point if I tell you, there's a whole lotta information out there! Much more than Charley Darwin ever had the faintest clue about. In fact, the information is not only "out there," it's - just as it happens to be God's nature - in here, right inside our own bodies, and in every creeping thing and every blade of grass all around us, it's everywhere.

(Heavenly Input on Information:)

Communication is the Name of the Game Communication is actually already happening big time way before we every utter our first "Mama."

If we don't see and hear what's going on, then we live in a pretty dull and meaningless world where matter just happened to come into being and somehow produced more or less intelligent beings over such a vast amount of time that you don't care anymore what all happened in it. That's the fairy tale we've been raised on.

But if you open your eyes and ears, you see and hear God communicating with us all the time. All over His creation He's practically shouting it out, "I've got something to tell you." But we monotonously pursue our humdrum, ignoring His shouts, His continual broadcasts, and turn on the tube instead. Fortunately, every now and then, He will even avail Himself of that apparatus to communicate with us, but if we're spiritually dull and deaf, we won't hear it anyway.

Communication is a pretty powerful thing, and I will tell you why. We are told that the world came out of nothing. But God tells us that it took just a little bit more than that. It took words. In fact, according to the Bible, words are the building blocks of the universe. Not just any old words or anyone's words, but "the worlds were framed by the Word of God" (Hebrews 11:3). He just said it, and it was done. Some pretty deep magic, huh?

"Let there be light." - And there was light.

It's no wonder most people are too scared to believe in such a powerful God. "What if He gets upset with me?

He'll just utter a word and I'll be..."

Good for us, that God is Love, as the disciple who ought to know told us (1John 4:8). In other words, you've got nothing to worry about. He'll be better to you, than you'll be to yourself!

So, if God is so wonderful, why is the world in such a mess?

The problem is that there's a war going on. To be precise, or at least in large parts, it's a war of communication.

God says one thing and then his adversary tells us another.

Guess who we believe most of the time?

And that's where the problem lies.

"This is the condemnation, that men loved darkness, rather than light" (John 3:19). We swallow the lies much more easily than the truth.

But just because we tend to prefer darkness - or the lie, - doesn't mean we can't change that, or that it always has to be that way. We can learn to love the light - the truth - instead. Once you've swallowed so many lies and fell on your face accordingly so many times, you'll learn eventually, and give that oh so blinding light and that ever piercing truth a chance.

One factor that drives home the point of just how important communication and the exchange of information seems to be for God Himself, is that we find Jesus, His Son, described as "The Word of God." "In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... All things were made by Him...

In Him was life and ... the light of men. And The Word was made flesh and lived among us..." (see John 1:114).

Jesus is also called the Mediator between God and men and He said of Himself that He was the Way, the Truth and the Life without which no one could come to the Father. Fortunately, that does not mean, that you have to join a church, in order to ever get to know God, seeing that all too many people in the churches don't even know Him themselves.

In fact, you're much more likely to run into Him right in the thick of life somewhere, to discover Him out in nature, where His handwriting is much more clearly recognizable than in any old chilly and fancy building. The Bible says, "The Most High (God) does not live in temples made with hands. For He has said, 'Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool: what kind of a house do you want to build for Me?'" (Acts 7:48, 49).

God is interested in building Himself a "House" made of living stones. When Jesus says, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these other things (food and clothing) will be added (given) unto you," what is He talking about? Some church? Some castle in the sky? He said, "The kingdom of God is within you." In other words, the kingdom of God is us, it consists of people. And seeking first His Kingdom means winning others over to His cause, the Cause of Truth. It means countering all the evil and false input of His Enemy that people are being fed, with His good input, information that is true.

We're meant to be communicators for Him, just as Jesus came to communicate to us Who and how God really is. He didn't come as some Big Boss lording it out over all, but as a Servant to all, healing them, feeding them, and especially constantly feeding them information about God. He didn't fight any battles for His crown and rightful place as King of kings, but He humbly allowed His enemies to even kill Him. Now some folks have said that this showed that He must have failed. But that's the sort of conclusion that carnal reasoning can lead you to, showing that indeed, "the flesh profiteth nothing." The night before He died, Jesus prayed, "for this hour have I come into the world." In other words, the healings, the miracles, His parables and raising folks from the dead was all good, but the real purpose of His coming was His death.

(Heavenly Input on Communication:)

Mary Had a Little Lamb What on earth was He trying to communicate through that? Well, basically the same thing He had been trying to communicate for quite a while.

It was a lamb that was the accepted gift of Abel, the righteous brother, which God accepted, not the fruits of Cain’s hard labor, signifying that the Lamb of God would be slain and sacrificed for all of us. It was the blood of the lamb which the Israelites in Egypt were told to smear on their door posts in order for the angel of death to "pass over" them and not kill their first born. It is the blood of the Lamb that will also save us from death.

If an all-powerful God takes on human form and chooses to play the humble role of an outcast, allowing His enemies to kill Him, that is a very powerful message that ought to give all of us some food for thought.

When Peter pulled out his sword during His arrest, Jesus said, "Don't you know that My Father could send legions of angels?"

This was supposed to happen. And the reason for it was love: "No greater love has any man that this that a man lay down his life for his friends." It was the ultimate sacrifice of love.

The really great part about it is, that once having accepted this greatest of all sacrifices, His Love in us can also enable us to do the same for others.

If we let Him. We can choose to become instruments and vessels and communicators of His love to others, or go the normal way, the "me first" way, the way of the apparent winner in this life...

It is said that Martin Luther had his revelation that was going to change the course of history on the toilet, where the true meaning of Paul’s words in Ephesians 2:8, 9 struck him, and the full impact their truth were to have on all mankind, if thus realized: “For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Luther was going to be God’s mouthpiece to drive home the same truth to Christendom that Paul had tried to convey to the Early Christians centuries earlier. We can’t save ourselves by our works, it’s an act of God. Only grace does it – the large part that is God’s, availing itself of the tiny “little strength” (see Rev.3:8) that we have, namely our faith, which is the part that we do. We stretch out the hand that received God’s gift. We accept. We flip the switch that turns on God’s light in the dark room of our lives.

Most Christians are only being taught one verse concerning Salvation, which is the one that says “work out your own salvation in fear and trembling,” (Phil.2:12) which sounds like the exact opposite of what all the other verses on Salvation say, namely that Salvation is a gift, and ours forever, never to be taken away, no dependent on any of our works, our own righteousness, not even our faithful return to church next Sunday.

Too bad they never read on to the next verse, which again says, “For it is God Who worketh in you both to will and do of His good pleasure.” In other words, it’s God Who does it all through us and in us in the first place, we just need to let Him, and that’s where faith comes in, along with a good dose of yieldedness, instead of any proud notion that we could ever do it on our own.

Salvation is by faith. That means, we don’t see the complete result immediately, and in my experience, we’re probably never going to see it during this lifetime, or before Jesus returns, when the Promise will be fulfilled “We shall be like Him” (perfect) – 1John 3:2.

Until then we have to work with that gift of salvation in fear and trembling in order for it to be of any use to us in this life, because the Devil will do all he can to stop us from using our gift for the benefit of God’s Kingdom, meaning the benefit of others.

But this never means that God will take our eternal Salvation away from us, no matter how many preachers will – to their own damnation – continue to say so in order to assure their flocks return to the pews.

(Heavenly Input on Jesus & Salvation:)

Ask Another aspect about communication is that there's no better way to get what you want than by asking for it.

Again, this is something the Devil has tried to reverse by establishing his system of, "If you want something, work for it." Jesus' plan was simpler than that: "Ask, and it shall be given you." And the best One to ask for anything, as a matter of fact, is God. It also helps to let your fellow humans know if you have a need that they can fill, and God will often use them to answer your requests, but generally, prayer is a means of communication, an instrument, a weapon, that has been highly underestimated by the large majority of people.

And this is not just something that's believed by "ignorant" Christians, but also serious scientists. Nobel Prize winner in physiology, Dr. Alexis Carrel believed, "Prayer is the most powerful form of energy that one can generate." What would cause a man of science to make such a statement, unless there were some fundamental reasons to base it on?

The deeper meaning of everything, along with the answers and solutions to all our problems and questions are hidden in plain view right in front of our noses. It just won’t occur to the majority of us to ask the One Who loves us more than we could ever fathom, and knows us better than we could ever know ourselves, to reveal them to us. We think it’s got to be more complicated than that. We usually don’t have the childlike faith that permits us to accept the simplicity of the solution, that just asking daddy for help would get us a lot farther than our own efforts to try to figure it all out.

We’ve previously compared the concept of faith to a vacuum, the kind that a baby creates in his mouth in order to receive his nourishment. If you have problems with that concept, there are different ways to describe it: hunger is one, as we’ve intended to cover in the chapter on Soul Food.

In terms of conversation and communication, what would probably resemble a vacuum most is a question. I’m only beginning to become aware of the fact just how much people rely on questions in their communication.

Some people simply wait until you ask, before they will relay any information on you, and if you don’t ask, they figure you’re not interested. Communication manuals instruct us to “ask questions.” People obviously love to be asked questions, and so does God. Another principle we all can relate to that would describe the vacuum of faith we need in order to seek and thus receive answers from our Creator is problems. Problems occur in order for us to seek their solutions, and more often than not, God would love to be involved in that problems, and help us find the solutions. That’s what prayer is for.

Most people probably easily give up and are disappointed when they pray and "nothing happens." But there are various factors why it may seem so. Some people actually pray without ever expecting God to answer them, and so, "according to their faith," nothing happens. But more often than that, God may answer in different ways than we expect. We have to respect the fact that God, very much like a father with a child, knows better what His child needs than the child does. We may think that the thing we want is what we've just got to have, and that of course it would be the best for us, but God may see things differently. Not because He's so cruel that He simply won't grant us our desire, but because He sees what we can't see.

Can we really tell what would have been the better way for us?

By this I don't mean to say, though, that God doesn't answer prayer. I have often enjoyed His fulfillment of His promise "Delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." However, sometimes, it has happened, as it says elsewhere in the Psalms, that "He gave them their request and sent leanness to their souls."

Prayer is a very sophisticated means of communication and in order for it to work properly, like any other modern equipment or device of tele-communication, it has to be installed and adjusted properly, tuned to the proper wavelength in order to avoid static, and we've got to be "plugged in" to the power source.

We should not forget to mention, though, that when you have been given something, be it from another person or from God in answer to your prayers, it is always nice to say "thank you."

Some people forget about this little detail and simply don't show appreciation for what they've been given, and then wonder why they're not receiving more.

Part of the art in life consists in showing our gratitude for the things we receive.

Just as there are laws of physics in our material realm, there are laws of the spirit, that govern the spiritual, which are just as certain, if not more so than the physical. And one of those laws is that you have to show

gratitude in order to be receiving more from God, otherwise, the magic will eventually stop working. That's why experienced prayer warriors and children of God first "prime the pump" with praises to God before they start praying and bringing their petitions before Him. Just as people like to see and hear your gratefulness and appreciation for what they've done for you, so does God. We're made in His image, and are probably like Him in more ways than we realize.

The Bible even says that anything received from God with the giving of thanks is purified and made clean, meaning, if you truly thank God for it from the heart, you have sanctified it, and no matter what anyone else may say about it, it has become pure. "To the pure all things are pure."

Now, the real art of living consists not only in praising and thanking God for the obviously good things, but even for the seemingly bad things, our problems, troubles, sicknesses and sufferings, and even the calamities that befall us. "Prison to Praise" by Merlin Carothers is a powerful book on the secret weapon of praise, which we would like to recommend.

There's also a story David Brandt Berg used to tell about a pious, but poor lady who one day, when she ran out of bread, prayed for bread on her balcony. The man living above her was an atheist and overheard her prayer, and to tease her, he dropped a loaf of bread on the lady's balcony below him. When she started praising and thanking God for the miracle, he sneered, "Ha, it wasn't God at all, it was me, ha-ha..." But the lady kept praising God all the more and said, "Thank You, Lord, for this bread, even if you allowed the Devil to bring it!"

You can even use and thank God for things which the Lord may use the Devil to bring into your life! Many Christians are too afraid to use anything the Devil uses. They're afraid of astrology because the Devil uses it, they're afraid of sex because the Devil uses it, and they're afraid of anything the Devil might use. In reality, it is God using the Devil in order to bring about His grand Plan, not the other way around.

(Heavenly Input on Prayer:)

Listen This brings us to another point concerning spiritual communication with our Creator, and that is, that most people limit prayer only to what they have to say, and never wait to hear an answer or what God might have to say. And God is a good Listener, probably the best you'll ever find.

But His dilemma is that few are ever willing to listen to Him in return.

Sometimes a problem you face could be solved in no better way than allowing God to explain to you what's happening from His point of view. Maybe He'll show you the cause of the problem, or factors involved you haven't been able to see yet, or He'll show you that your problem isn't a problem at all, but just one of those trials and tests we all have to undergo sometimes to make our faith and our character stronger. Or He will simply give you the solution and tell you what to do.

I'm not kidding. I know what I'm talking about. God is much more willing to communicate with you than you are probably aware of. And I mean, not only through the means we've already talked about, the way He conveys His love to you through His creation and His blessings, etc., but through actual words. Jesus is not called the Word of God for nothing, you know.

Some Christians have determined that the last time God ever spoke to a human being was when the apostle John finished writing the last phrase of the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible.

Nothing could be further from the truth. God is alive and kicking, and man, is He ever able and willing to talk!

He loves to communicate with us. I mean, if God is Love, what kind of love would it be, without communication? In fact, in a later section of this book we're going to investigate what God meant to tell us by marriage and sexual relationships.

He compares His church to His "Bride." Now, if we're His bride, what kind of a marriage would this be without communication? Or only having the bride talk incessantly, never waiting for the Groom to answer a single word.

Some might argue, "But He's already laid down everything He's got to say in His Word." It's true that if you know the Bible well, it can probably help you to find an answer to most questions you'll have in life, and that it's a very good foundation to base your communications with God on. You probably won't hear much from God if you haven't spent serious time on finding out what He has to say in His written Word, first.

But it is also foolish to just limit Him to that. One of the 9 gifts of the Holy Spirit listed in St. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 12, is the gift of prophecy. The early apostles availed themselves of this gift in order to find out what God wanted them to do.

Now, some Christians believe that those gifts of the Spirit were only for "back then." But my personal experiences during the past 27 years, along with countless experiences of hundreds of my brothers and sisters in the Family International, as well as from other congregations, testify that nothing could be further from the truth.

Our publications consist in large parts of communications from Jesus which our members have received, modern and up-to-date instructions from our Maker for life in the 21 st century, and many books could be filled with all that He's had to say. In fact, I could fill up a few tomes with just the generally applicable gist of what I have received from Him personally during the past few years.

But we're not trying to show off how "special" we are, at least no more special than you. We want to encourage others to stretch out their arms of faith and receive from God what He is more than willing to give. The Bible promises over and over again that He is more willing to communicate with us than we are to listen. He says, "Call unto Me, and I will show you great and mighty things which thou knowest not" (Jeremiah 33:3 - "God's phone number").

He's not kidding. He's not teasing you, offering you something He's not going to give you anyway! He really means it. If there's any purpose in life at all, what greater purpose could there be to find out what God wants to tell you? Providing you're interested in the purpose of life at all, and are willing to listen.

One more thought on God's communications with us is that He communicates with oodles of people daily without them ever being aware of it. Whenever you read an inspiring book, watch an inspiring film or listen to an inspired song, you can always bet that it was precisely that: inspired.

Inspired by whom? Well, "by their fruits ye shall know them." If the fruit is good, you can be sure that it was inspired by the right Source. If "all things are of God" to begin with, as the Bible tells us, then we might as well believe it and start seeing Him in all things.

It all depends on what you're looking for. As Pollyanna taught us, "If you look for the bad in people, you're going to find it." But you can also look for the good. In people. In all things. The Devil is there, sure. But God is greater. He's all around it, even engulfing the puny little matrix of the Devil. He's in control. He made the whole thing. All you've gotta do is have a little faith in Him. (Heavenly Input on Hearing from God:)

The Heart of the Matter Of course, communication isn't solely a cold transfer of rational facts and information, although, unfortunately, that's mainly what it seems to have developed into. But originally, communication has always been emotional, "from the heart, to the heart," as a proverb goes.

The baby communicates his discomfort by his cries and his well-being by his giggles. Likewise, we communicate our anger by our shouts, our pleasure by a soft tone in our voice (or other related sounds), and, if we are musically gifted, we let the world know how we feel by either our happy, sad or angry songs we sing, or we "say 'I love you' in a song."

Painters portray the state of their minds in colors, and writers in their written words...

All these things, God does, too, as we witness the manifold sounds and hues of nature, or we hear or read His words to us which He gave through His mouthpieces, the prophets, a pastor or even some bum on the street...

Mostly, they are messages of love toward us, but sometimes He has to show His displeasure in order to let us know that we're on the wrong path. Like us, God gets angry, too, or has a sense of humor.

Or we express our emotions in dance, as in "body language."

Unfortunately, although our means of communication have become more sophisticated than ever, during the past century, the quality of what we have to say seems to have diminished. We have perfected our means of communication, but lost the heart of it. We rehearse and produce outwardly flawless "messages," which, unfortunately seem to not be saying much of anything. That's because we have put too much emphasis on the outside, our outward appearance. We would do wisely to be copycats of God, Who "sees not like man sees, for man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart (1Samuel 16:7).

Finally, on the subject of communication, this is only the beginning. As Paul already told us nearly 2000 years ago in his famous 13th chapter of his epistle to the Corinthians , "prophecies shall cease, the speaking in tongues shall cease, and even our knowledge will vanish away..." We're heading for something even better than that.

There will come a time when we won't need our mouths anymore in order to communicate, nor any pen or sophisticated technologies. The spirit will do. All you'll have to do is think it and send the thought to the one you love... Telepathy will be the favored means of communication of the future.

(Heavenly input on “Matters of the Heart:”)

What's in a Name One last related thought on the theme of communications is names.

Just as every thing has a name, and just as it was Adam's first assignment to give names to all the different kinds of animals in the Garden of Eden, so every person has a name. God tells us in the Bible, " I have called thee by thy name, thou art Mine."

The theme of names is found all over creation and even modern technology, and is very much related to the subject of codes we touched on earlier. A person is being addressed by their name. We call their name and they know we are talking to them. We dial their number on the telephone and their phone rings. We type a URL into our browser and the website opens, etc.

There is a Name "above all names," the Bible says, and whoever "shall call on the name of the Lord, shall be saved," also is there "no salvation in any other name."

That name is Jesus.

Strangely enough, that name used to be a very common name around the time of Jesus. It is the Hebrew name Yashua, which we find in the old testament as Joshua, and means Savior. When we call on Jesus, we call on our Savior, "Him that was to come," as the stars tell us.

Centuries before His birth, Jesus was announced as a baby that would be born of a virgin, in Bethlehem, and that His name would be "Immanuel," which means "God with us."

Jesus was and is the living proof that God is with us, He's not against us, He's not out there, He's right here, with us.

That the angel told Joseph to name the baby Jesus shows that God didn't want to make it too obvious Who that baby was going to be. If they had called Him Immanuel, and if everybody would have know that He had been born in Bethlehem, a lot more people would have followed Him for the wrong reasons.

Instead, God chose a common name, that of their forefather Joshua, the hero who led the children of Israel into the Promised Land after their odyssey through the wilderness. Sounds just like what Jesus does for us.

The Bible, in fact is full of stories which we would benefit greatly to take heed to, because those things happened for us to learn from them, but that is another subject, stories. The story God writes is the story of life, the greatest story ever told, and it's one we can continue to learn from, probably forever.

The Picture He paints is the Big Picture, which will leave us breathless and in awe of Him, also forever. The Song He writes is the Song of Songs, a song in the key and rhythm of life and nobody can beat Him at it.

In Revelation 3:12 Jesus tells us that He will write His "new name" upon those who overcome, implying that He once had an old name.

The apostle John, who also wrote the Book of Revelation, gives us a clue as to what that old name was, in the 8th chapter of his gospel, where Jesus says, "Before Abraham was, I am." This is not a typo or grammatical error, but He said it on purpose to reveal that He was the "great I Am" of the Old Testament, Jehovah, Yahweh, Jah, or however you like to pronounce it, the God Who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush telling him to tell the captive Israelites in Egypt that "I am" or "I am that I am" had sent him to them.

Before Jesus came to earth, He was the "I am," as if to say, I am Here and you are there, I am God, and you are humans. But when He came to earth, He became "God with us," one of us, no longer apart from us, separate, but truly with us.

That's why it says that even “the Son learned obedience through the things which He suffered."

God the Son learned a few things while He was down here on earth that would change everything for us.

Nothing was the same anymore. No longer would the God of Abraham be the God of a chosen people in the flesh, but anyone could choose to become a child of God's Family by accepting the sacrifice of the Lamb.

There is yet a greater mystery about names that we haven't yet discovered. Jesus promises His faithful in the book of Revelation, "to him that overcometh will I give a white stone, and in that stone a new name written which no man knoweth save he that receiveth it."

What does that mean?

When I was young, I read a book about an Arabian horse which would respond to a certain name or code word whispered in his ear by giving the utmost of his strength. Only the horse's owner new that word, that name, and he would only use it in situations of extreme emergency, of life and death...

I don't know what that name in the white stone will do for those who will receive it, but it will probably release something wonderful... We'll find out someday, I assume.

(Heavenly Input on Names:)

Mistakes: (An Essential Part of) The Meaning of Life Have you ever known someone who seemed to be sheer incapable of even the remote possibility that by the slightest chance in the universe they might possibly - eventually - perhaps prone to -- gulp! -- making a mistake? That the sheer insinuation would spark an explosion comparable to that of the volcano island of Krakatoa?

Our mistakes are the one thing we don't want to talk about, not even think about. They strike us as just about the ugliest and most undesirable topic of all times. And yet I've come to learn that this common view is totally unjustified, since making mistakes is not only one of the most normal and common things for people to do, and an occupation or activity not worthy of such a bleak image at all, but in fact, one of the principal purposes in life.

Without mistakes there'd be no learning. Without learning, there's no sense in life. Thus: you make mistakes, you learn, and thus you fulfill life's purpose and succeed. Mission accomplished. You muff it, you win.

Without mistakes and errors, there's no need to repent, nothing to admit to, nothing for which to humble yourself and admit you were wrong and need help, no need to change.

I was going to ask someone who strikes me as a person who seems to think of themselves as not making many, if any mistakes at all (although they would probably never even admit to themselves that they have this attitude), “Can you tell me about one single mistake you ever made?”

But I felt it wasn’t right to just ask them this question without having answered it myself, first, and since I was aware that I made plenty of mistakes throughout my life, I found it more difficult to answer than I thought.

Thankfully, I’ve kept a journal for the past 5 years, which represents one of the ways I personally communicate with God. I ask or present Him with a problem, and Jesus usually answers. This may strike you as weird, but it’s actually a very successful method of communicating with God that I learned from my faith community, and is based on the Scriptural truth of the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit referred to in 1Corinthians 12, the gift of prophecy in particular.

Anyway, I ran a search for the word “mistake” in my journal, and from the literally hundreds of results, the following will be the gist of a listing of mistakes I’ve made, to give you a real life example and idea what I’m talking about, since I believe that the act of openly admitting to and talking about mistakes (in order to be able to learn from them) is a quite foreign concept, our modern society would have to learn from scratch, should anybody actually get interested (in learning anything from them...)

Probably one reason we hate to see our mistakes and sins, much less talk about them and bring them out into the open, is because it exposes many ugly features of ourselves, that we’d rather keep secret.

I suppose one of the major incentives for men to commit mistakes is their lust, their sex drive, and there have been definite mistakes I’ve made in the past, that have been influenced by that factor of male life. People simply try to get what they want, and sometimes they’ll walk over dead bodies in order to reach their goal.

Some of the mistakes I’ve made were caused by giving heed to the opinions of others. They didn’t like one particular person and preferred another, and because I looked up to them, I believed them until they turned out to be dead wrong, and their opinion turned out to be nothing more than that: just another opinion.

It’s one of the mistakes most frequently made: we look to others for inspiration and in expectation to pull us up, to get us to a higher position that the one we’re currently at, and we rely on them, only to reap disappointment, because we have failed to look up to the only One it really pays to look up to, and who will never disappoint us (see Hebrews 12:2).

A lot of mistakes we make are due to selfishness: we pursue something we want, and don’t care how we’ll get it, or if we hurt others in the process. Further mistakes are made because we allowed ourselves to be deceived by others, or even by a whole machinery of propaganda, and we swallow their propaganda, believe their promises or portrayal of life and pursue the dream which, according to them, is not an impossible one. When we pursue such dreams, we make the probably most common of all mistakes, which is so much ingrained in us as the proper thing to do that we won’t even possibly recognize it as any kind of mistake: we use our own carnal efforts to get there.

Now, for a non-believer, agnostic or atheist, or a member of a religion in which good works will pay for your entrance to Heaven or Nirvana, using your own strength is the most natural thing to do. For a Christian, however, or at least one who knows his Christ, that isn’t really an option, or at least not the right one, since Jesus said, “Without Me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

Nothing good, that is. If we try it without Him, what will inevitably result, is a mistake.

So, when Christians pursue worldly dreams in their own energy and strength, what will usually result, is a long line of mistakes that will eventually culminate in the awakening to the fact that we’ve been going the wrong way, and I’m definitely speaking from my own experience here, having pursued the dream of a successful career, only to find out that what Jesus said was true all along: If He was not from this world, and we are truly His followers, then no more can we be truly at home in this world, much less become some kind of celebrated “hero” or “star” in it.

So, a lot of our mistakes have to do with the wrong kind of perception, and learning from our mistakes eventually results in the ability to discern between our ideas of success and God’s.

Some mistakes are being made simply because we don’t know any better. I’m thinking about the countless mistakes I made in the training and raising of my children, which resulted in disappointment and disillusion. If you’re following the dream of worldly success, and are trying to combat the constant disappointments you’re experiencing in that effort as a sincere Christian with the consumption of alcohol or other means to numb the pain, you’re pre-programmed to making mistakes.

The amount of mistakes we make – or I can say I made – in relation to our children is probably more immense than can be told.

Sometimes we make the mistake of wanting to be “pals” with them, instead of their parent, and we let them get away with anything, just so they’ll like us or we’ll have our peace.

Sometimes our laziness and unwillingness to pursue our less pleasant responsibility as parents, namely that of applying discipline when needed will lead to a point where we will simply can’t take it any longer and explode in a fit, which will only further convince us of what lousy parents we are and that our children would probably be better off without us.

I’m sure that this type of reasoning has resulted in a lot of divorces and separations, because I know it has definitely contributed to mine.

I’m also convinced that most of our mistakes are deliberately being caused, and we’re manipulated and “tempted” into making them by spiritual forces at work “behind the scenes.” For people who don’t believe in God or a Spirit World, this will be downright ridiculous, but for a genuine Christian, there is no doubt that there is a Devil, and his job is to get us to doubt God and His goodness and love for us. Thus, life – for a Christian – becomes some kind of a battle field with an invisible, but nonetheless very real enemy who tries to manipulate and out-maneuver us, and getting to recognize and expose his devices and deceptions is half the victory, and in many ways, that’s what this chapter is supposed to be all about.

I’m not saying you can blame it all on the Devil. It’s our own fault if we fall for his temptations. But kidding ourselves into believing that all we’re up against in this world is the sin and evil in our own hearts is going to bear the price of a hard awakening for some, I’m afraid.

One milestone in helping us to overcome the mental hurdle that facing and confronting our mistakes presents to us, is the realization that mistakes aren’t anything to be ashamed of. The Bible says that we all have sinned (Romans 3:23), and thus, nobody’s perfect. And once you realize how it’s actually your mistakes that make you learn things from life, and that make you better for it, more humble, more loving and more understanding of others, you begin to realize that our mistakes are actually an essential part of the meaning and purpose of life.

Dealing with our sins and mistakes should come as naturally to us as brushing out teeth or taking a shower. Yet some of us seem to have the same problems with spiritual baths or showers as we used to have with real showers when we were 3 years old.

Why? Mostly because we are afraid. The aspect of being confronted with our own darkness is scary. We’re all born optimists when it comes to preferring to see the positive side of ourselves. What many people don’t realize is that fear, along with some of the other evils mentioned, that are the driving force behind our mistakes, is also a sin, and an obstacle that needs to be overcome. And the best cure for fear is faith. Once you know and have

learned that God is truly in control, loves you unconditionally and will turn anything that happens to you into good (see Romans 8:28), you’ll begin to realize that there is actually nothing to be afraid of.

Some of the mistakes I made in life were caused by fear. I was – and still am – part of an international missionary movement which used to suffer severe persecution in some countries throughout the 1990s, with children being taken away from their parents after traumatic police raids, and I was determined to not to allow that to happen to me and my kids. I refused to let anyone separate me from my children, and yet, as a result of taking my fate – and theirs – into my own hands and pursuing a “normal” life with my children attending public schools, I only harvested separation from them the “usual,” slow and perhaps less shocking way.

I doubt, though, that the gap would have been as deep, as it presently is, if I had trusted God for the outcome, instead of trying to save myself.

Another very common mistake I’ve made in my life was using what others did as an excuse to do it myself. If others weren’t as serious about their life as Christians, I figured, well, then I wouldn’t have to be, either. We call it compromising our standard, or lowering our standard to theirs.

The same thing also happens the other way around, in the form of envy, competition, or negative comparing: we see what others have and think we also need to have it, whether we can afford it or not.

Both ways, if you learn the lesson from these painful experiences, it will serve as a reminder to keep your spiritual eyes on God, and not on others. This is probably a concept not many Christians can relate to, because they go much more by what they see brother so and so do in church, than by the meager portions of God’s Word they are being fed by their preacher. Besides, one remembers much better what they see than what they hear. That is why we’ve got to learn to see God in our lives.

But the first place to look is to “see” what God’s Word has to say to you, personally, opening up your Bible for yourself (preferably to the New Testament if you’re new at this, particularly the 4 Gospels), and find out what Jesus’ views on things were. The Bible promises He’s the Same yesterday, today and forever, so you can assume that His opinion on general issues hasn’t changed in the past 2000 years, and once you’re familiar with His views and Words – and not just your preacher’s interpretations of them – you begin to recognize His mind in relation to situations around you. In the Beginning was the Word.

Read it, and you’ll begin to hear it! Hear it, and you’ll begin to see Him!

One very common mistake I’ve also been guilty of is the assumption that we already did everything it takes: We already made all the right choices, we took all the necessary steps, we did what we thought was required of us, but we’re still not happy, and so we figure, well, it must be God’s mistake then. When all the while we don’t realize that we haven’t even yet begun to do what it takes. Perhaps we heeded His call to follow Him, and said, “Alright, Lord, I’ll follow You,” and then thought whatever we did since was automatically the right path. We stopped sinning right there and then, and we quit making mistakes.

Again, often we go by the example of others around us, and seeing that they’re also not doing much better, we figure, “Well, that’s the way it’s supposed to be, because everyone else does it the same.”

But following Him isn’t just some going through the motions, imitating what everybody else in our congregation is doing, but it includes sitting at His feet, like Mary, listening to Him and learning of Him. Leaving everything behind to follow God is not a once-and-for-all decision you make, guaranteeing that whatever you’ll do from then on will automatically be right. Unless you continue leaving everything behind every day, namely all the ballast you inevitably accumulate throughout a life-time, even as a missionary, be it in physical belongings and those of your growing family, or simply the wrong attitudes you acquire when you think you can do God’s job without God’s power, you’ll be making big mistakes, just like everyone else does, and sometimes even bigger ones, because of your position as someone who is expected to know better.

Probably one of the most efficient ways of getting people to handle their mistakes is by becoming an example of a person who doesn’t mind talking about their own mistakes and all the benefits and lessons that resulted from them. Maybe the more I will talk about my mistakes, and the fact that it actually wasn’t so bad at all that they happened, will ignite an interest in people to look for mistakes in their own lives that they might be able to learn and benefit from, too… Maybe.

Another mistake commonly made that I’ve had to admit to, is that we sometimes try to please a certain kind of people, reach a certain kind of audience, which is the brand of people we most look up to or wish most to impress, but they’re not necessarily the kind of people God wants us to reach with the message He has sent us to give.

A classic example of this from the Bible is when Paul decided to return to Jerusalem. After years of successfully ministering to the Gentiles as Jesus had commanded His disciples to do (see Mark 16:15) and establishing a church consisting of former “pagans,” instead of only Jews, that finally caught the attention of the rest of the Early Church and led them to follow in Paul’s footsteps, Paul decided – against warnings by the Holy Ghost – to return to Jerusalem, back to the people he had once come from, who appealed most to his his intellect. The result is history. Paul was captured and beheaded a few years later.

The good thing that came out of his captivity were his epistles, showing that God uses even our mistakes to bring about a greater good.

The temptation many Christians have to face, is that of wanting to “reach” fellow Christians and “preach” to them that have heard the message oodles of times over and over again, instead of fulfilling the Lord’s commission to go into all the world and preach His good news to every creature, not just our own kind…

One mistake we frequently make is to judge others more vehemently for their mistakes than we would judge ourselves for the same mistake. It’s easier to forgive ourselves, or forget or overlook altogether whatever wrong we have done, than it is to overlook that same blunder in others. That’s probably why Jesus put the phrase, “And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” right there into the only prayer He ever taught us to pray, right before the line, “And give us this day our daily bread.” Forgiving others ought to be just as important to us, and have the same priority on our schedule as breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Probably if we’d remember our own faults and mistakes more, along with all the wonderful lessons we learned out of them, it would also be a lot easier for us to forgive others on a constant daily basis.

Another most commonly made mistake along the line of judging others is that we judge from our own position without putting ourselves in their shoes. According to our personal experiences and the circumstances we’ve come to know, the other party is supposed to behave in such and such a manner, and if they don’t, well, that’s their fault. They’re to blame. But it usually takes digging a little deeper in order to find out what circumstances – totally different from the ones we experienced – may have caused them to act the way they did or do, and we can be thankful that God isn’t guilty of our same mistake of making snap judgments based on surface observations, but He will always judge every situation taking the full spectrum of everyone’s circumstances and background into full account.

We also make the mistake of overestimating ourselves and simultaneously underestimating our Enemy. If most people were aware of the extent to which the Devil tries to interfere with their lives, they’d probably be a lot more guard against him, instead of being so easily fooled by him and won over to his side. The greatest mistake anyone can ever make that I can think of is to kid oneself into believing that they’ve got everything figured out.

“He that thinketh he standeth, let him take heed lest he fall.”

With all the lessons we learn – or are supposed to learn – from our numerous mistakes, one of the reasons why we often keep repeating the same mistakes or making similar ones is that we don’t remember the previous lessons. We’re too occupied looking forward to the next pleasure that’s to be had, or the next temporal goal we have set before us, or even just trying to survive in the treadmill. We think we’re the big accomplishers and we’re here to do something. The concept that we’re supposed to learn something in this school of life strikes us as rather strange and something alien, so we don’t give retaining the lessons gleaned from our failures the importance that would ensure the progress necessary to avoid falling into the same trap again next time.

Another failure that leads us to miss important lessons in life is the belief in coincidence. While probably the majority of the Western population ascribes the existence of the entire universe to coincidence, for a child of God it is definitely a mistake to ascribe anything to coincidence, because things don’t just happen by

themselves. There is a cause for everything, and the assumption that things can just result by random chance, without a definite cause will turn out to be the greatest hoax mankind ever fell for, I’m sure.

So, if something happens to us, we ought to ask ourselves why. We should investigate what caused it, and if we can’t figure it out by ourselves, then we should ask the One Who knows everything. You say you don’t have time for that? Well, that’s the single biggest mistake you’ll ever make.

One of the greatest temptations for sincere Christians is to pay more attention to the gift than to the Giver. We get so busy with the fruit of our work and the blessings we’re given, that we sometimes fail to pay the attention that is due to the One Who gave the blessing and caused us to bear fruit in the first place.

Another blunder we frequently commit is that of going by yesterday’s instructions and failing to get new ones for today. As long as a certain modus operandi works for us, we figure what was good yesterday should do for today, but that isn’t always necessarily so, or it may work for others, but won’t for you, or vice versa.

What’s important is to stay “in tune” with the Lord and check back with Him frequently whether we’re still on the right track, and never take anything for granted. If His greatest commandment is to love Him and others, that commandment also includes communication, right? Where would any relationship be without communication? So, in other words, one rule to go by in order to making grave mistakes is, “Thou shalt communicate!” We can’t just go by what was said yesterday, because today may bring an entirely different cup of tea, requiring different standards and measures, so, it pays to find out what’s up to date & thus, communicate.

Parents sometimes make the mistake of giving their kids something that they like or want too quickly, but it often spoils them & the amount of appreciation & gratitude they could have developed otherwise. And sometimes we even tend to do the same with adults. We try so hard to please and be friends with everybody that it might come to a point where we regret having made it that easy on them. Sometimes it pays to wait and evaluate the situation first, and then see if it’s really the right time to spoil them or let them have the goodies.

Another grave mistake believers make - and I’ve been particularly guilty of that one in my past, is to place our bet on this present life in various aspects. One of those is the aspiration and endeavor to find the kind of Hollywood type of romance that so many of us would like to believe to be really feasible in this life, only to wind up disappointed by the actual human qualities of our earthly partners. If we allow ourselves to put on the kind of “reality” that’s being sold to us by the mass media, then we’re in for one terrible disappointment. I wouldn’t be surprised if the major factor responsible for current divorce statistics has a name we all love: Hollywood.

It’s not that perfect love doesn’t exist. But we usually look for it in the wrong places, namely in imperfect people, like us. The perfect relationship is only achieved by becoming skilled at the art of loving, and that entails the ability to forgive and handle countless flaws in others, and I doubt whether such a relationship is even possible for the average mortal without the supernatural help and assistance from God. Since we receive His assistance in all kinds of aspects, which we take for granted (for instance, try to artificially create the amount of oxygen necessary for one breath, and you’ll know what I mean), I wouldn’t be surprised if many of us will find out at the end of their journey, just how much help they received from above without ever even noticing it.

Once we learn that we have a spiritual enemy who is very interested in us muffing it somehow, we begin to get to see some of the schemes he uses in order to accomplish that, and we also begin to discern between true success, and our own initial erroneous concept of such. One of our biggest mistake upon succeeding is to think that we have arrived, and we reached our goal and got as far as we wanted to go, because that is the moment we’ll spiritually die and fall asleep, and unless we wake up, sink into oblivion, never to be heard of again, as far as ears that matter goes, anyway.

The only proper way to handle success is the way Kipling described, to treat those imposters, success and failure just the same, “then you’ll be a man, my son.”

Being what the world would consider a “loser” has its advantages. For one thing, you learn to avoid repeating the probably most common mistake made by mankind of trying to save or fix ourselves without help from above. The “Do-It-Yourself” mode has been ingrained into those of us of the “winner” or “accomplisher” category to the extent that whenever they’re in deep trouble, they will bitterly try to save themselves out of their trouble or fix the situation by whichever human means possible (unfortunately also often resorting to cheating in the process), that it never occurs to most to avail themselves of the greatest source of strength in existence, namely the Father’s help. “Prayer” is a word that doesn’t come natural to those “naturals” and they’d rather rely on the strength of their own arm.

Some can continue that game until the bitter end, and the day they face the last enemy whom they could never lick in their own strength, others – not cut out for such heroism – surrender quicker to the idea that maybe they’d be better off if they’d ask for help. Thankfully, I found myself belonging to the second category, and life has been much less of a struggle ever since.

Another big blunder success-junkies (which nearly all of us are, initially) make is that of underestimating the little things, including the little people. In our quest for BIG and ever BIGGER things, we become virtually blind to the small hidden corners where life’s true beauty really lies, and losers become winners and vice versa, big time, as they miss out on the sweetest mysteries of life and the thrills hidden in the little things you only get to enjoy by taking the time for them and refusing to become too distracted by the BIG, and seemingly allimportant things.

This can also include underestimating the significance of “little mistakes” we made, which God may not consider so “little,” and some of the adverse circumstances we encounter in life may well be due to some “little sin” we’re letting ourselves get away with, that God is trying to deal with in our lives. If He’s numbered the very hairs on your head and He knows about every sparrow that falls (which is remarkable, since I haven’t ever seen one fall during my 45 years on this planet), and if you consider that there’s more information stored in every single living cell than in the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, then you can rest assured that nothing is too unimportant for God.

We’re all different, and subject to different kinds of weaknesses we have to overcome. One of the weaknesses I’m personally prone to is the need to avoid confrontation. In order to have my peace and avoid unpleasant confrontations with people around me, I go to any length, and have even used dishonesty as a tool to provide for myself the peace I longed for.

The problem is, such “solutions” are only temporal, and will only result in bigger problems later. Maybe you can relate to this: somebody asks you what’s on your mind, or if something’s troubling you, and you answer, “No, everything’s fine.” Even if maybe it isn’t exactly so. Well, that’s a mistake. “Everything’s fine” will just keep seething under the surface and it won’t become any “finer” by itself, without getting it out in the open and communicating about it, but will only result in one fine mess to deal with when the pressure becomes too much and you finally explode…

Honesty’s the best policy for avoiding that sort of mistake.

Closing our eyes to the problem and hoping the monster will go away usually won’t do. The monster will only go away if you will challenge it, confront it & openly have it out & expose it.

Another big mistake strong believers are prone to is assuming that their views are identical with God’s, that His opinions equal our own, and we thus become the very oracles of God. We open our mouth, and what comes out is, “Thus saith the Lord.”

Unfortunately for us, and fortunately for our victims, God requires a lot more humility from His vessels and messengers than that, and He might allow all sorts of public humiliations to happen to us to wake us up from our delusion and get us off that lofty pedestal. (Of course, I’m only speaking purely hypothetically, and any similarities to actual persons and events, especially myself, would be purely coincidental… ha! – Just kidding.)

We need to remember to distinguish that while we may be divinely inspired at times, that this doesn’t mean “divinely inspired equals us, period.” Divine inspiration has never been a permanent state in any human being I’ve observed walking this earth, so the best we can do is to remember that and just do our best to be or stay

inspired for as long as possible by His grace. But once the “magic” is gone, to have to humble ability to recognize that fact and leave the podium to the next candidate for God’s anointing.

The natural trust we lack when it comes to God, we often replace with all the more trust in a force at least equally as mysterious and invisible, as we – that is, the more passively inclined brand of humans to which I belong – leave a whole lot of things up to “destiny,” “fate,“ or pure chance. Having been brainwashed into believing that the entire universe came about by that process leaves its marks even decades after conversion from such folly, and we sort of automatically and subconsciously figure if chance did such a great job on the universe, our lives will probably be safely in its hands, too.

Big mistake. Just as the evolutionary theory defies the 2 nd Law of Thermodynamics, you can also bet your hat that leaving things like your life and matters revolving around it up to pure chance won’t just automatically improve anything. Things left to themselves will unfailingly deteriorate, not improve, and that’s precisely what will happen to your life if you decide to just let it passively float by without you interfering much, and sort of assume the role of a spectator, rather than that of an active participant.

One mistake I personally made, which I don’t know if anyone else had the audacity to, was to let myself be tempted to believe that God was maybe a little superficial. Again, I went by what I saw, and judging spiritual things by the standards of physical things and people around me, and I began to worry if God was maybe like the superficial mob around me.

Thankfully He provided me with sufficient evidence that my assumption was rather atrocious. It’s not God’s fault that people are turning out the way they are, and it’s certainly no reference to His own nature by any means. If anything at all, I’ve since come to realize that God is the totally Other, just about the extreme opposite of our own sinful, selfish, narrow-minded and superficial ways. Although we’re created in His image, I’m afraid that since the Fall of Man we have veered a long ways from that similarity, a process that can only be reversed by truly getting to know Him and absorbing and assimilating His true nature, which is as easy to accomplish as the asking for it. In fact, God is already standing at our door, waiting for us to open up and become acquainted with Him, and all we have to do is let Him in (see Revelations 3:20).

The list of blunders and mistakes I’ve committed in my life wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the temptation to pat myself on the back for things I’ve accomplished, instead of giving honor to Whom it is due.

In that aspect, we’re very much like little children, infinitely proud of ourselves when we accomplish the tiniest little effort, and so is the Father. But if we get too cocky about it, and develop an attitude of “We can make it without Him,” then before long we’ll fall flat on our faces, and one way to avoid those falls is to give Him the credit from scratch. Like this we won’t run into the danger of thinking it’s us, or adoring ourselves and how great we are, and thus won’t warrant for something to happen to set us back on our heels.

Finally, one of the most common mistakes humans make is to assume that God makes mistakes or that He must have made a mistake in allowing this or that to happen, or in the way he made us or this or that or the other person. First of all, He’s not entirely responsible for the way we turn out, as each of us are only the sum total of our choices, give and take a few attributes handed us at the onset of this game called life, and some of the spicy circumstances added by others.

While it may remain arguable whether it’s a mistake to trust God for the final outcome of things until we get there and see the Big Picture when it’s done, it is definitely my personal recommendation that it pays to trust Him, even if you can’t possibly figure out where He’s heading.

And there are oodles of more mistakes we make every day: We underestimate God’s importance, we doubt the veracity of His Word, we think it’s okay to kill people in other countries just because our preacher may say it’s okay.

(Heavenly Input on “Mistakes”:)

Puters R Us Computers are a great way of explaining the process of communication that's happening between us and the Powers that be "behind the curtain," God or the Devil.

In school we were taught that every computer program is based on a system of 1s and 0s. It's like those questions we can only answer with either a "yes" or a "no."

And that's precisely what's happening with us and God. We either say "yes" to Him, or "no." If we say "no" to Him, we say "yes" to the other side, and if we give the wrong answers repeatedly, our system is eventually bound to malfunction and crash.

There's a lot of malware out there, a lot of "malicious code," which the Bible describes as weed seeds that an enemy has come to sow into the Master's harvest. Often you won't know which is wheat and which is weed until they're both fully grown.

And that's precisely what's happening in the world around us. You wonder, "Why does God allow all this crap to happen?" Well, He's still waiting to see if perhaps that thing looking like weed might turn out to be wheat after all. And if not, it will serve as a good lesson for anyone who was ever tempted by weed seeds when He'll chop the darn thing down.

It will happen, you know? It's just a matter of time. Which is another subject we may get around to later?

Of course, computers are only one of numerous inventions that God has allowed man to make in order to illustrate spiritual truths, if we’re interested in seeing them. Most people will probably consider it ridiculous to want to give God the credit for everything, especially man’s “own” inventions, but I’d consider it ridiculous not to.

Take our modern means of transportation, for example: God is even willing to bargain for a lot of pollution in exchange for driving home some vital lessons to us. Even though I personally am convinced that there won’t be any such pollution-makers around in His Kingdom on earth anymore, He obviously allows them for the time being for multiple purposes. They aid His people in getting their job for Him done, just as much as they’re also being used for evil. He makes His sun to shine of the evil and good.

Modern means of transportation illustrate a spiritual truth that we can get to places by different means, and we can make progress in “getting there.” We can either walk through life, or we can accelerate our journey by riding a bike instead, or hey, how about a motor-bike? Or take some folks with you can take a car, or a bus, or – hey, if you really want to go places fast, you can take a plane. The problem with some folks is that they stick to their usual means of getting through life, their old opinions, attitudes and world views, and they refuse to exchange them for updates, for more efficient, more effective and more modern ones. It’s true that some of those modern versions of getting about aren’t always the safest. But then again, time is short, and the Bible cautions us to redeem it, to make the most of it, so, if I have the choice between riding my bike or rowing a boat to Honolulu, and taking a plane, I think I’ll take the faster and more comfortable option.

You can derive lessons out of practically everything if you keep your spiritual eyes and ears open: blenders, telephones, radios, even televisions… light bulbs, mirrors, concrete, perhaps even Styrofoam… (I’m just wildly writing down anything to comes to my mind right now). I guess you get the point.

The concept of computers and computer programs can help illustrate certain things about God that previously were practically unfathomable. For example, according to the Bible, there have been major changes in creation since its beginning. We are told that before the flood both man and animals were herbivorous, in other words, vegetarians - an unthinkable statement for any evolutionist, who pictures earth's history as a savage dog-eat-dog tale of the survival of the fittest where only the most skilled of killers managed to stay alive.

Then we're told in the Bible that some of those changes are going to be reversed again in God's future Kingdom on earth, where "there shall be no more curse," and the original settings will be restored, so to speak.

If we imagine all of creation as some sort of virtual reality computer program, like the "Matrix," only in this case construed by a truly benevolent "Architect," then we can picture how those - for us - unthinkable changes that are supposed to have taken place in the genetic coding of both man and animals, merely required a few "changes in the Matrix," done by the Architect or Great Programmer, and how it should be a relatively easy thing for an all-powerful and all-knowing Being to once again restore the original setting of His Operating System.

Since we have allowed the virus of sin to enter our System of creation, it has been wreaking havoc, and is bent on causing our Machine to crash. The problem is that a lot of folks either don't realize what's happening, or actually like what the virus is doing to them, so the Master Programmer - due to the integrated feature of free choice He built into our system - has to wait until the System truly crashes until He will intervene and "reformat," otherwise, you can imagine, there would be no end to the whining of those who think the virus rules.

While for some it is obvious that something is wrong, and they send constant communications to the Administrator to run the Anti-Virus program already and "deliver us from evil," the effect of the virus has caused the efficiency and information storage capacity of others to malfunction to the extent that they won't really believe that they need any help until it's too late.

Some of us are going to have to "sweat it out" for the sake of our weaker or slower brethren, so to speak.

By either choosing our loyalty for the Architect or the usurper virus in yes/no, I/0 manner, we determine whether we're going to remain as components of the future system, or whether we're going to have to be sent to the shop for a major clean-up and overhaul.

I believe in the Architect's perfection of skill to the extent that He won't have lost any data in the end, but only gained something out of the process. Others are slightly more pessimistic and want to see him burn up the faulty components forever and ever. I guess we'll just have to stand back at some point and watch Him do, and in the meantime leave the rest up to our imagination or limited ability to fathom the capacity of a God Who describes Himself as Love, to forgive.

I’ve even come to compare Heaven to the Internet recently, or rather, the Spirit World, since both good and bad things are available from it.

But if you need something, a certain tool or some input or information to make your day easier, you type in your search, and usually, often to your surprise, you’ll find it.

This reminds Me of when Jesus said, “If ye, being evil know how to give good things to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give good things to those who’ll ask Him!” If we can even find things and blessing a-plenty on the Internet (along with plenty of things that aren’t good for us, of course, so it pays to discern, just as one must discern the voices of spirits), put there by benevolent people who simply like to share, then we can also assume that this is also just a mere shadow of God’s awesome generosity and the general spirit of Heaven.

I don’t think there will be any stingy folks in Heaven. They may have been on earth, but once you get There, it’s over. Shareware and freeware will be the only sort of “wares” available, and every citizen of New Jerusalem finally lives by Jesus’ advice that so many of His earthly followers so regrettably ignore all for the sake of a few bucks: “Freely ye have received, also freely give.”

I’ve also recently spun some thoughts on a possible connection between the 1s and 0s system computer are based on and the sub-molecular make-up of the universe according to String-theory, which one can find on my blog…

(Heavenly Input on the ‘Computers R Us’ Metaphor:)

What’s Up? The fact that Jesus used parables a lot in His teachings should already teach us something. David Berg taught that all of Jesus' parables had to be actual events (being the Son of an omniscient Father, and being the "I Am" of old should make this quite possible), otherwise whenever He said, "it came to pass..." or "it happened," it would not have been true. If Jesus' parables are based on actual events, and He used those events and incidents and actual experiences of people to teach all of us, then we should stay on the lookout for the educational value in the events and incidents of our own lives every day.

When something happens, we should turn to God and ask Him, "what are You trying to teach me through this?"

We've got to shed the mindset that we're too small, too unimportant for God that He would even bother about us. He does care, and nothing is too small for Him. In fact, there are oodles of things He would like to teach us everyday, if we would only have the faith to believe that, and consequently open our spiritual senses to perceive those lessons in life.

What happens, matters. But we often don’t realize it because we’ve been conditioned to accredit everything to coincidence.

Our problem is that we think we're so smart and know anything, when we haven't really got a clue.

Our sin is our presumption to claim that we can actually see, when we are totally blind to what's right in front of our noses.

Our sin is our unbelievable pride.

We discover the miracles of life with our electronic microscopes and say, "Nah, that's nuthin'. Anybody could have made that, in fact, it probably made itself."

We close ourselves off to true information that's all around us; messages from our Creator that constantly shout, "Look around: I'm right here!"

But we willingly choose to ignore Him. We choose to be blind. And as He said Himself, "None are so blind as those who refuse to see."

The complexity of the structure and modus operandi of a single cell and its integrated communication system that makes all life possible are the greatest known single source of information and intelligence in the known universe, but we just assume, "Aw, that's just a little blob of chemicals that came to life once when struck by a lightning."

I personally never saw anything drastically improve from non-life to life by being struck by a lightning, but I guess scientists who are paid for upholding a wobbly theory like Evolution are forced to live in a different reality.

It's our arrogance that blinds us. It’s our indifference toward our Maker that deprives us of the privilege to live life to the full, the way it ought to have been lived. But we don't even know how to live, because we constantly choose the path that seems right in our own eyes but turns out to be the ways of death.

We congratulate ourselves for our "progress" and technical advances, when most of what those "advances" result in is more death, more suffering for others, ever greater pollution and the impending destruction of our planet, because with the same indifference and contempt we treat out Maker we naturally also treat our fellowman and our environment. The art of war is still what we're best at, and what our governments spend most of our money on. Wow, yeah, seems like we really have learned something.

Knowing what we were going to be up to, the Bible promised 2000 years ago that "He will destroy those that destroy the earth," when we were far from being capable of doing so.

Those smart-alecs who are so dead sure they're smarter than everybody else, including God are taking us all along for a ride on their highway to hell, and most of us don't even notice it, and what's worse, most of us don't seem to mind. As long as we've got our fancy gimmicks to distract us, we won't say a word, no, won't even so much as raise an eyebrow. After all, our TVs, our Gameboys, our I-pods, our Big Macs and our BMWs are proof enough to us that the System is working. Who the hell cares about 10.000 some people in other countries starving each day, or a bunch of Arabs killed by our guns? They're all terrorists anyway, right? Or as one American Abu Graib “war hero” put it on a video posted on the internet (that has since been removed) in which

he boasted to his friends of a mass rape of a 15 year old Iraqui girl by his squad, resulting in the girl’s subsequent suicide, "Anything that wears a turban is guilty."

Yes, people, we're really enlightened. It only looks to me like most of us are going to get a big shock when God turns on the light for real, and we get a look at the way He sees things, namely the way they really are, and not the pitiful concoction of our imagination we currently call reality...

The problem is, we don’t want to take on the responsibility when things go wrong, nor do we want to give the credit to Another when things go well. We ignore the signs God flashes at us through the things that befall us each day and turn calloused or bitter against Him, or turn to foolishness, laugh it all off and get drunk or stoned; the easy way out. No dealing with consequences. No confronting anything. No asking, “Why?” because we are scared of the answer.

Seems like we’re all a bunch of cowards. But if we sit up and behave like adult women and men and are not too chicken to confront the ugly truth that may lie behind things that occur to us (and believe me, nothing happens by coincidence!), then we can learn a lot, and start avoiding our mistakes, instead of falling into the spiraling abyss of getting ourselves into one constantly growing mess that finally winds up in hell.

There is such a thing as hell, and a lot of people are living it on this earth right now.

The question is, what can we do to bring a little more heaven to others? What can we do in order to make Heaven happen, instead of hell? What can we make something happen that will communicate to others that there is a God and He loves them?

We have to understand that God allows a lot of things to happen for various purposes. We often wonder why "bad" things happen to "good" people, while the ruthless and reckless in this world seem to thrive, and we become critical of what we perceive to be God's sense of righteousness, thinking that surely this time He must have made a mistake that we would have avoided in His stead.

What we forget is that "the god of this world," the one who gives riches and power to whoever he pleases, "for they are given into his hands," is the Devil, and we forget the path of suffering the Son of God Himself had chosen for Himself, beckoning His true followers to also take up their cross. So, we're really in good company when we suffer, and we become "partakers of His sufferings," and more like Him in this world. The choice is whether we want to reign now and suffer a lot later, or suffer a little now and reign with Him forever...

Most of the time we don't see what His plan is for us, or where He's leading us. All we have to do is trust and follow. If things that are happening don't make sense to us, that's quite normal, and it's alright. We just have to keep trusting and following. Someday it will all make perfect sense.

Oh, and when I say, “we,” I’m definitely including myself. I often find myself afflicted with the same blindness to His views and REAL-ity, so I’m not just pointing a finger at everybody else. Like Jonah I frequently find myself inside the darkness of the belly of the whale due to my own stubbornness and insistence on running the opposite direction God tells me. But like Jonah I also have found out time and again that it’s true, that “Salvation is of the Lord.” When we call on Him when we don’t know what’s happening, or our own way of seeing things has driven us against a stone wall and we need Someone to pick up and mend the pieces, He always comes through.

People don’t believe me when I say “God talks to me.” They just figure talking isn’t included in God’s repertoire. That He’s incapable of communicating. That’s the arrogance I’m talking about.

How can we be so presumptuous to say that the divine Author of the entire, unfathomable sum of information that lies embedded in His creation, the One Who has brought forth the universe by means of mere utterance of His Words, should be incapable of communicating?

“Why should He bother with someone like you?” Because He loves me. Just as He loves you, and He would really like to surprise you pleasantly by filling you in on some essential details concerning life, if you’d just be willing to open your ears to His voice, your eyes to His views, and your heart to His loving vibes and give Him a chance…

Showbiz Vs. One-on-one Coming to think of it, the gist of the meaning of life lies pretty much in communication; all depending, of course, on what it is you communicate. God has poured out His Holy Spirit with all its diversified gifts upon believers, primarily as means of enhanced communication with Him in order to enable us to act as mediators between Him and our fellowman.

Once we know that, it is also a matter of which method we choose. Most contemporary servants of God choose what I call the "show business" method: the preacher stands in front of his crowd, delivers a speech, the listeners pay their dues and return for another hour of "service" the following Sunday.

Wherever people got the idea of this supposedly being an appropriate way of living out "Christianity" or rendering "service" to God never ceases to puzzle me, that's why I would rather call this form of "Christianity" churchianity, since it falls under the category of what someone said, "there's nothing wrong with Christianity, it's just that so few ever tried it."

If you look at the Bible, this is not the way Jesus worked, for example. The "sermon" on the mount, the only recorded "sermon" of Jesus, was not really a "sermon" at all, if you carefully read the very first verse of that supposed sermon: "And seeing the multitudes, Jesus went up into a mountain: and when He was set, His disciples came unto Him" (Matthew 5:1).

Traditionally, this scene is pictured with Jesus sitting on a grassy slope and delivering His speech to thousands of people. But it doesn't talk about a grassy slope here, but a mountain. Nor does it say that the multitude followed Him up that mountain, but only His disciples did.

In other words, we don't have a "sermon" here, not the "show business" type of preaching on which the principle of churchianity is based, but we have a radical instruction drill of the greatest Revolutionary of all times, given to His closest associates, those who were going to use the words delivered unto them on that day to turn the world right side up and convert the beliefs of this obscure and persecuted little "sect" into one of the world's leading religions. - Although it's doubtful that the result thus far was what they had in mind.

The biblical purpose of "preaching" was never to entertain a crowd of regularly returning church members, who were already believers, but all the fiery speeches given by such people as Peter or Paul in the Book of Acts were delivered to unbelievers in order to make converts of them (and it worked!). That's the kind of preaching Jesus meant for His disciples to do. Preaching was most certainly not meant to be geared to an ever returning sleepy crowd who never act on what they've been told anyhow, having become "hearers of the Word only, deceiving themselves" (James 1:22).

The kind of "sermons" we find in the Bible were either meant for the purpose of conversion, directed at people who thus far were unbelievers, in an attempt to convert them and make believers out of them, or they were words of instruction to new converts, on how to make more converts, and what to tell other unbelievers, in order to make Christians out of them.

Most modern Christians find this method of communication way too stressy. Why should they risk their reputation, their image of coolness, by trying to talk to someone about Christ who doesn't even believe in Him yet, and who might not even want to be bothered with any religious stuff? Why, they might even get upset!

There are weird people among those unbelievers, you know? In some countries it's even against the law to do that sort of stuff, and Jesus certainly wouldn't want us to do anything unlawful, would He? Read the Bible! And how His true disciples were thrown in prison, beaten and told time and again to stop preaching in Jesus' name. But all the apostles did was praise God that they had been found worthy to suffer for Christ's sake and figured that it was much more important to obey God than man.

True communication, conveying the words that count to others, the words that bring life, in fact, eternal life to others, requires courage and conviction. Most people are too much geared by fear and pride in order to truly communicate what matters.

You see, nobody expects you to stand in front of a big crowd and yell your head off.

But whenever your path crosses that of another, if anything has a meaning at all, then everything has a meaning, including that encounter, and you are faced with a challenge, a golden opportunity right there, to communicate, to deliver words that truly mean something to that person, in order to change their life for the better.

You either do it, or you don't.

Jesus said, "He that gathers not with Me, scatters abroad."

There is no in-between.

You don't need to make the other person feel awkward about not being a Christian. Being a witness for Christ requires a certain amount of tact and skill, just as any type of communication. - It requires love.

If Christ doesn't just happen to be the Dude everybody worships in your religion, but He really touched and changed your life for the better, then you should be able to allow Him to touch others and change their lives for the better through you, too.

It works.

And making a convert of someone doesn't necessarily mean to make them a member of your church, either.

Jesus never meant for crowds to gather together on a certain hour on Sundays to listen to one man talk in a big fancy building. He is always looking for people who are willing to listen to Him, and will pass on to others what He told them! Communication is the name of the game.

Of course, the one-on-one approach is in many aspects not as easy as being the big head honcho on a platform preaching down to a defenseless crowd of sheep who would never dare question anything you've got to say in the first place. It becomes a lot more difficult out there on the mission field of life, when you're trying to get an unbeliever to see that he needs God. Often it's hard for us to see the need, because they don't want to see their need for God in the first place. They come across as so self-sufficient and happy-as-they are, sometimes, we wonder, why should I bother or burden them with my faith? Well unless you know that your faith is really the most valuable thing you've got and the best thing that ever happened to you, it may not really be worth sharing it in the first place. But once you've got that figured out, you'll find there is nothing more thrilling in this world than telling others about Jesus and saving their souls.

So now we're about 3 years old and have learned the basics of communication. Let's have a look at what we can learn from nature, shall we?

Look (A Chapter on Nature) No wonder that modern people are so far away from God. They're so far away from His creation.

In creation, as Paul said, His invisible nature is so clearly seen, it's almost impossible to deny His existence, one would have to be a fool to actually believe and say in his heart, "there is no God." But in today's big cities, where even the ground you walk on is man-made, every wall you stare at is man-made, and the only reminders of God's existence (if you still believe in Him, that is) are the polluted air you breathe and the smog-dimmed sky you look up to (if you get a chance - it's dangerous in the city, you know), it's easy to fall for the lie that man has become his own god.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the serpent's promise in the Garden has finally come true: "ye shall be as gods." You see those little gods strutting across stages, being worshipped by tens of thousands in more dedicated adoration than you'll ever find in any Christian church, you'll see them running across lawns chasing after balls, spurred on by the roars of the masses that worship them, having paid large amounts of money to watch them chase that ball from a distance. You see them on TV, cussing, smoking and spreading their gospels of what is cool, politically correct and en vogue, and slinging guns in countries infinitely less developed than their own, where it's so easy to play god by ending the lives of another "pagan" by the mere bending of their index around the trigger of their machine gun, and another, and another...

Yes, playing god is the name of the game here in Lucy-Land, Papa Lucifer's great, all-man-made amusement park, where you can really be naughty and let it all hang out. Who needs God around here, anyhow?

No wonder they're trying to kill off nature as fast as they possibly can. They want to silence any remainders of the voice of God. They want to darken the sun, the constant reminder of our dependence on something much greater than us, and the moon, the reflector of that light, reminding us of the existence of that sun, even in the darkness of the night. They want to poison the life-giving rain that falls like the life-giving words of God, bringing life where there was none.

So far, they haven't been able to stop the rain, nor the sun or the moon from shining, and so we can continue to learn from them: The rain falls on the high and low places, but it runs steadily down into the low places, just as God's spirit is usually rejected by the high and mighty - the proud - and runs into the dry, parched, lowly hearts, who will eagerly accept His Word.

The Bible compares some people to "clouds without water, carried about by the wind." If you've ever seen the Disney documentary "Animals Are Beautiful People," you'll remember the scene of the pelican baby in the searing heat of the Kalahari Desert. When clouds pull up and promise to send rain, there seems to be hope for the young pelican, but the promise turns out to have been empty, and so the baby dies.

Some people bear the promise of life-giving water to the thirsty souls around them, but they don't deliver. They just dissolve into thin air, amounting to nothing more than a little temporary shadow, turning into not much more than just another bunch of hot air... *** The seed that has fallen into the ground and apparently died, because its shell cracked open and is split apart, brings forth a new life, a tender white little worm-like sprout that slowly wiggles its way up through the darkness of the ground, up toward the sky where it instinctively knows - and that without having a brain - that up there life-giving light and warmth awaits it.

Jesus compared our lives to that grain and said that our old shell needs to die in order to spring forth into a new life that will bring forth much fruit (John 12:24). Of course, that tender sprout also has natural enemies, which will try to devour it before it ever reaches the ground or is grown tall enough to bring fruit, resembling the fact that life isn't always a piece of cake, but a fight against evil. You can't always take success for granted. *** Caterpillars and their metamorphosis into butterflies have always been a source of inspiration and marvel at God's ability to drive home certain points without words. Our lives here on earth are certainly comparable to that of a caterpillar, crawling around on the ground and consuming all the necessary input that will eventually enable us to transform into a much more beautiful and glorious creature, able to soar into the sky, after a process that seems a bit like death. ***

The mountains and valleys are certainly significant of the vast differences in the proportions and unequal distributions of the world's wealth. But the Bible promises that the high places will be made low.

Ever wonder why some mountains have got to be so breath-taking high, while the valleys and abysses in life are so low? Just as we wonder why some people are so high and mighty, so filthy rich, while many are so bottomlessly poor.

One of the qualities of this life seems to be uneven distribution. Some have way too much while many have way too little. Some blame God for it. After all, He made those mountains and valleys, didn't He? Some ascribe the creation of our high mountain ranges to the cataclysmic aftermaths of the worldwide flood in Noah's days. But whichever way they came into being, those of us who are troubled by the lack of equality in proportions that surrounds us everywhere may be comforted by God's promises that the mountains shall be made low and all the high places will be brought down, just as the high and mighty throughout history always eventually have fallen.

In God's Kingdom we can be assured of fairly equal distribution and plenty and sufficient for all, at last, though unlikely ever too much of anything. If we distribute our wealth evenly, then there probably won't be anybody left with too much. But who would want too much of anything, anyway? Who in their right mind, that is?

*** The seas are like the roaring masses, driven with the wind and tossed, while others among us become like lifegiving rivers of water, nourishing the landscape around them (see John 7:38). *** Take a look at a cactus, & you'll know what some folks are like. *** Magnets are a good illustration of how certain people and "wavelengths" attract each other, whereas if wrong poles face each other, there is rejection. *** One natural phenomenon, the spiritual manifestation of which I've witnessed repeatedly in my life, is that of mockingbirds. The Devil delights in laying his "eggs" in God's nests & watch the hoodlum & slaughter that unfurls as a result. *** Some things have dual or multiple meanings (just as some parables in the Bible leave room for various interpretations and applications), or illustrate a number of different truths - good or bad. One just needs to discern which interpretation applies to their own situation. *** The moon: some people you cannot reach directly. The sun is too bright for them. So God has to reflect His light at them via the moon... His church (= ecclesia: the called-out ones).

*** Day and night and the seasons... The Bible promises that the seasons of the year, winter, spring, summer and fall, will remain forever. "There is a time for everything," the Book of Ecclesiastes tells us, and since ancient times, we have known that is was "a time to reap" or a "time to sow," by the seasons, just as we have known that it was time to rest when night falls and time to work as the sun rises. That's how we know for certain that God made the world in seven days, not seven "eons" as some claim: "and the evening and the morning was the first day..."

Although death will be no more in God's Kingdom to come, it seems that there will always be seasons of greater activity in intervals with seasons of rest, of quiet and re-filling. It seems as if God is not at all in favor of ruts, of people constantly doing the same, day in, day out, with hardly any changes, as many of today's working world are condemned to do.

"Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God," we are told. If everything always stays the same, then we get so sure of our routine, we lose our respect for od and our need of Him. It says of the Antichrist that he will seek to change the times and seasons, perhaps in an effort to make life even more monotonous for his slaves and captives...

Jesus said, "I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day, for the night cometh when no man can work." Apparently the darkest night of history will be the epitome of all the darkness of our physical nights symbolizes. But it's good to know that it comes right before the world's brightest and eternal dawn.

Maybe the cycle of day and night and of the seasons will continue forever as a reminder for us that there is a time to be quiet, when we must let God speak, when we cannot see except for His light, just as there is a time of fruitfulness, of activity, followed by times of rest and re-filling.

Our seasons are not only relevant on a "Quattro Staggioni" pizza. On the pizza of life one really starts to notice that there's something more significant about that cycle of life when summer ends and we enter the mature phase of fall, when we reap the harvest and the fruits we've sown in our earlier years. While we wallow in the spring, we still tend to think that we're invincible and immortal, but by fall, the approach of winter becomes undeniable.

While we usually don't care much about the older and mature trees while we're in our youth, a lot of our young fruits, unripe and bitter, can ruin our stomachs or turn out to be downright poisonous lies or illusions. Only the fall will show what sort of fruits we've sown and whether they're any good.

*** I would have liked to add an extra chapter on this topic called “Look Deeper,” about the marvels and details at the microscopical level of creation, but I’ve decided to limit this to 40 chapters for now.

It turns out that our search for intelligent life has brought us down to the microscopic level of each living cell, rather than the vastness of outer space.

It’s paying attention to the details that allows us to discover some of the nicest secrets about the universe. One of the greatest proofs of the existence of our Creator has been the discovery of how carefully He goes into every little detail about His creation. Things that looked so simple on the surface turned out to be so intricate, way too complicated to have simply "created themselves" or "come about" by themselves... There's too much information in everything to have come about without an Author.

Seeing the love for Detail of the Grand Master of the universe Himself should teach us a lesson or two about not despising the little things, for it is on them that the axis of the wheels of the mighty universe hinges. If for God Himself nothing seems to be too unimportant, we should be careful about the things we tend to be careless about and deem unimportant or irrelevant.

When the disciples wanted to shoo away the children who had come to see Jesus, He said, "No. Unless you become like a child, you won't see the Kingdom of God." God seems to love little things and little people. Size doesn't seem to be His "thing." In fact, He seems to rather have a handful of Davids than a bunch of Goliaths any day. It seems to be the size of the character that counts with Him, not any outward trademarks, and much less big, inflated egos.

We can also learn this lesson from nature: the big fat birds are much more hunted for prey than the little sparrows...

While some people are dedicated and passionate genuises who devote much time and attention to the intricate details in their work, fabricating little miniature marvels, like expert watchmakers and similar artists who show great appreciation for detail and precision, I'm afraid the large bulk of us are usually satisfied with a mere glance at the surface, and draw our conclusions prematurely, and will even base our whole lives, plans or entire sciences on our superficial perception. The paradigm of macroevolution is a classic example for this: the bones of a wing or fin look similar to the bones of a hand, so we conclude that one must have evolved from the other, while a closer look paints a rather different picture, showing that things are not nearly as easy as we wish to imagine the way it happened simply in order to satisfy our simplistic thirst for knowledge: "Gimme something I can comprehend, true or false, and I'll be satisfied. More than that I don't want to know. Don't disturb me with facts if they're getting too complicated!"

But things are not always the way they seem. In fact, they very often may appear quite differently from what they really turn out to be. Our premature conclusions often turn out to have been nothing but premature and erroneous. It's because we don't take the time to look deeper into the details.

Every molecule is proof of the fact that God is a passionate Lover of detail. It is only we, busy and frantic little humans, wh think we don't have time to deal with the complicated and intricate details because we've got to catch our bus or plane in order to get ahead in our superficial little world.

Our passion for mere appearance is of great advantage for the Enemy of our soul, for he greatly uses it, knowing that it's much easier to fool anyone who merely looks at the surface than those who investigate what's below. If everybody repeats it, we swallow it, and once we've seen it on TV, it becomes a fact for us. Our TV screen has become the standard of our reality - all the reality we need... at least initially. Sooner or later, thankfully, experience wakes us up to the fact that actual life and those things we see on TV don't coincide, and they're not identical after all, but we usually recognize at the same time that we've been chasing phantoms for the first half of our lives.

Maybe that is why James wrote, "anyone who hears God's Word and does it not is like someone who sees his own face in the mirror and walks away, forgetting about the way he was made." If all we are, or all we think we are is our own reflection in the mirror, and if that flat piece of glass becomes the standard by which we measure ourselves and determine who we are, as compared to all those other faces we saw on the other flat screen of glass - our TV - then we forget who we really are. When we think that all we are is our flesh, then we forget that we are a spirit.

In one of the greatest movies ever made about the life of St.Francis of Assissi: "Brother Sun and Sister Moon"

by Franco Zefirelli, in one touching scene, the accused Francis kneels before the bishop of Assissi and says, "Man is a spirit. He has a soul. And that is what I want to find again: my soul."

When all we think we are is that reflection of ourselves in the mirror, then that's what we have to find again: our souls. Many young people around us have lost their souls, because all they are in their own minds is that reflection of themselves in the mirror, which they try to style and shape as much as possible in the image of the "Grand Standard" of the way folks are supposed to look: the TV. Or the billboards and magazine covers, or all those faces on the street who shape themselves after the standard.

Only if we manage to shut up all those voices screaming at us, telling us what we are supposed to look and be like, only when we manage to ignore them, can we hear that inner voice telling us who we really are.

Otherwise, the beautiful suffer because they are only loved for their outward appearance, and the not-beautiful suffer because they think they won't ever be loved. All because we listen to standards of superficialty instead of looking below the surface and seeing who we really are. It takes looking a little deeper in order to find the real person.

*** We could go on and on about the marvels of creation and its hidden messages: about the "hidden messages in water" and the way water molecules respond to spiritual vibrations and change their shape accordingly... About the "secret life of plants" and how they respond to the way we treat them or talk to them...

Everything matters, and nothing is lost. God is everywhere. That is the message we can read everywhere, all through His entire creation. May He open our eyes to see it.

C.S.Lewis wrote in "Mere Christianity:" "Everything God has made has some likeness to Himself.

Space is like Him in its hugeness: not that the greatness of space is the same kind of greatness as God's, but it is a sort of symbol of it, or a translation of it into non-spiritual terms. Matter is like God in having energy: though, again, of course, physical energy is a different kind of thing from the power of God. The vegetable world is like Him because it is alive, and He is the "living God." But life, in this biological sense, is not the same as the life there is in God: it is only a kind of symbol or shadow of it. When we come on to the animals, we find other kinds of resemblance. The intense activity and fertility of the insects, for example, is a first dim resemblance to the unceasing activity and the creativeness of God.

In the higher mammals we get the beginnings of instinctive affection. That is not the same thing as the love that exists in God: but it is like it—rather in the way that a picture drawn on a flat piece of paper can nevertheless be "like" a landscape. When we come to man, we get the most complete resemblance to God which we know of..."

***

God may have made man lord over His creation and given us a position over the animal world, but that does not mean that He has equipped us in every way superior to them. In fact, many animals are equipped with much keener senses, better hearing, sight, smell, etc., than we are, and that ought to teach us something.

We have a tendency to only look up to those who are superior to us and above us. Yet God sometimes wants us to rely on weaker or lower creatures than ourselves. For millennia people used to rely on horses, donkeys and mules to get them safely from A to B, and on their dogs as the only available guard system.

Mankind and all of creation are supposed to be one big family in which everyone plays their important part, not only the big head honcho, but we’re often dependent on somebody weaker, or we would consider “below” us.

The Spice o' Life The animal and plant world show that God is truly a great Fan and advocate of variety, and therein provides for us a sheer endless source of learning. There's something in there for everyone. The extremely large variety in traits & qualities among the human species (of which the variety in the animal world seems to be the most appropriate symbol) requires of us a certain level of tolerance toward what's different than we are. The challenge is to love them, even if they're different and you initially don't like them.

Not only is there amazing variety among the various species, but if you've ever had any pets, you can tell how each one of them has their own "character" or "personality." No animal behaves or is exactly the same as another.

The problem is that we often draw the wrong conclusions and read the wrong information into the mighty message of creation. Instead of gathering from what we see that we have "come" or descended" from the animals, I personally am convinced that animals perfectly depict the way certain people are (as Jesus already hinted in the gospels, by naming Herod a fox, His Pharisaic enemies snakes, etc.), or in some cases issue a warning of what we might become and turn into, if we don't watch out!

The Gospels are full of allegories likening us to "sheep," "goats," "wolves" or other animal counterparts. Even the stars confirm this, and I've often got a kick out of observing God's sense of humor in allowing people to actually display little tokens of the qualities of their Chinese star signs...

Walt Disney must have recognized this resemblance between men and animals, and by giving his animals the gift of speech (- or giving us the ability to understand them, whichever way you want to see it -) he has helped an entire generation to identify somewhat with the animal world.

Some people are like ferocious beasts, greedily devouring others. We even find some dinosaurs among them.

Some peaceful, some dreadful, like the T.Rex. Others are like little mice, grabbing whatever they can, but hiding away at the first sign of impending danger. Yet others like ants, faithfully trotting to work and back everyday in their ant hive-like cities... If you've ever seen the great documentary "Animals Are Beautiful People," you'll get the gist.

Apart from the Chinese star signs, there's another typography for the human characters, which uses animals to describe the different types there are, called the Enneagram, if you'd like to know more about people's nature and our similarities to the animal world.

The Germans have a saying: "Man is a beast of habit." We tend to get into ruts. The comfortable way is the known way, and rare is the man who voluntarily chooses the uncomfortable way in our age of cold beer and remote control.

The Bibles says, "Because they have no changes, they fear not God." Everything's the same; nothing ever changes, so why should we need anything from outside our little circle of habit and routine? We allow a minimum amount of change and variety, the players in the match on TV wear different colors today and make slightly different moves than in last week's game, but we press the same buttons to avoid the commercials.

Who needs God in a well-protected, well-scheduled life like that?

Needless to say, God isn't exactly fond of our comfortable little ruts and thus often brings about unwelcome changes in our lives, which we initially resent and complain about, but eventually always come to see as the best thing that ever could have happened to us, regardless of how great a disaster we originally deemed that change to be.

The Bible tells us that God is a Constant, similar to the sun, the position of which does not change, (at least not in relation to earth, or perceivably, for us) while our own positions in relation to it - as the planets revolving around it - constantly change. We don't perceive our change, since we don't realize that we're not only spinning around our own axis every 24 hours, but even rotate around the sun once every 356 days, but we perceive the sun as "coming up" and "going down."

In relation to us, God spells constant change, bringing about day and night, winter and summer, and as far as we're concerned, God must deem change evidently good for us, whether we intially tend to agree with Him or not. As far as our lives are concerned, God spells constant revolution, and the only way to stay alive is to flow with His constant river of change, and not resist it, which is hard, because the influences of our immediate,

earthly and temporal surroundings are trying to get us to solidify, stagnate, freeze and counter the process of God's revolution in our lives.

It's up to us once again to recognize and determine who is our true Friend and foe in this equation: that old familar habit, or the uninviting, unfamiliar and strange change we may initially resist. Only once we realize that change comes from the hands of our best and truest Friend, and that howbeit familiar rut and stagnation is truly the enemy of our soul and happiness, we finally become open to whatever revolutionary change God wants to bring into our life today, and life finally becomes the exciting and fulfilling adventure it was meant to be all along.

Breaking Laws There are so many secrets yet to be discovered about nature. There seems to be a whole lot more that we don't know about nature and all its qualities, than what we do, even regarding basic building blocks of what we call science.

Take for instance the law of gravity, a corner stone of what we call science today. Isn't it amazing that scientists largely leave the fact unnoticed that Newton's theory of the law of gravity violates one of the fundamental laws of physics? The Law of Conservation Of Energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed but merely changes from one form into another. Energy from a given power source is converted into another form of energy elsewhere.

But since gravity is a creation of energy from nothing, rather than a conversion of energy from one form (a power source) to another, since there is no known power source at all behind gravity, this states a clear violation of the Law of Conservation Of Energy.

Yet the violation of this law of physics by the theory of the law of gravity is being ignored in the same way that some people are constantly able to get away with breaking certain laws, while others are being punished for the slightest hints of violations, or the way certain nations ignore UN resolutions while others are being punished on mere suspicion of producing of "weapons of mass destruction."

We clearly live in a world of mysteries, where there is evidently more that we don't know than what we think we know or believe to know.

No wonder the Bible predicts "knowledge will cease." Apparently we'll have to get rid of a whole bunch of stuff we think we know. I don't know which is greater: the amount of things we still have to learn or the amount of those we have yet to unlearn.

The closer we look at creation, the larger and more significant becomes the empty space between the particles and planets, as if to show that the answer lies in the emptiness.

Perhaps all the amount of knowledge and science in the world will not amount to the faith the size of one grain of mustard seed in the fact that God is in control. After all, it was faith, according to Jesus, that's going to enable us to move mountains, not knowledge.

We can look at nature either with our natural understanding, and understand not really much of anything, or we can look at it as the portrayal of our Creator and Designer, His effort to show and teach us something.

The difference lies in what we see when we see. How do we see? Is everything just matter sprung up from coincidence, or is there a purpose behind it all?

Every breath we take is a miracle. Every baby born is one. Every exact proportion of physical and chemical relations in creation is a continuous miracle that keeps the world spinning. Every moment our planet isn't being hit by one of the thousands of meteorites that constantly swirl about and miss us by inches, is a miracle. If God weren't in control, we certainly would have reason to be afraid.

The precise clockwork of the universe could have no more come into being by coincidence or by itself than any other clockwork could have. Every bit of information has an author. Every clockwork has a designer. Why can't we learn that simple fact from what's going on around us?

It's true, certain things don't make sense. They're not as perfect as we would have made them if we were God. But rather than labeling God as imperfect or non-existent altogether, couldn't it be that through the flaws in creation He's indicating that some things simply aren't right on our end?

What’s the connection between death and our sins? Is it true that there was no evil in the world at one time? Is it even fathomable? No death? Peace between man & animals, and peace between all animals?

If it were so, then we bear more responsibility than we think when we embrace the paradigm that we’re all just here by coincidence. No wonder the vast majority perfers to believe the “We’re monkeys” version.

One of the most fundamental truths, not only in Christianity, but also in Buddhism, is the law of cause and effect: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." So, be mindful of the seeds you're sowing. Jesus warns us that that we're going to have to give an account for every idle word spoken. Yikes...

Some people doubt that there was ever a worldwide flood as depicted in the Bible. They found mere hints of the possible previous existence of water on Mars and they speculate that there once must have been a flood on Mars. Four fifth of the earth are under water, but a flood here? No way. Some people don't want to see.

It is interesting to note, though, that before the flood, God gave man and animals only "every green herb" for food (Genesis 1:29). In other words, in the beginning, both man and animals were herbivorous, they were plant eaters. The Bible also predicts a time when "The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox," in other words, the animals will stop killing and eating each other again, and even mankind will stop killing each other. Is this a fairy-tale, or the way things truly were meant to be?

And if there is a way that things are meant to be, what do we learn from it? Which way are we behaving? What group of people do we belong to? The "meek" and the "peacemakers," the children of God, which shall inherit the earth, or the warmongers, that "kill with the sword and shall be killed with the sword" ( Rev.13:10), for whatever "noble" reasons?

There's more we can learn from nature than could be told in a single chapter of a book, I'm just giving a few hints for beginners. This is just a clue for those who may be oblivious to the fact that there is anything to learn at all…

The Other Side As we grow up and observe the world around us and learn to respond to what we encounter, there is the ever recurring phenomenon of opposition. That which we consider evil, our enemies, our adversaries, or even just adverse circumstances, that which opposes us - the other side.

We envy those who don't seem to have to struggle against anything, those who have it all, whose parents can afford to buy them anything they want, and nobody stands in their way or dares to oppose them, just because their daddy is rich and powerful.

Why does it have to be that way?

Worst of all, why is it often so that we find the greatest opposition, the greatest friction, the greatest trials, at home, among our own? Why did Cain have to kill Abel? Why does God allow evil in this world?

If we don't believe in a Creator, then the explanation is easy: we're all just animals in the process of evolution, the "survival of the fittest." The stronger survives, and that's it. That's why C.S.Lewis was so right in saying that atheism was actually the easier solution. It's a cop out. Accepting God means we have to deal with some serious questions in life - if we're serious about it, that is, and don't just swim along in some current of monkey see, monkey do, "I do it because you do it."

It is the darkness that makes us appreciate the light, sickness that makes us appreciate health; the absence & lack, which make us yearn for the Great Filler of all things. The vacuum, the absence, is what creates the need, the suction, the necessary force for Go(o)d to come & fill that blank, empty space & convert that black hole into something good.

One of the great dangers in life is to make the mistake to assume that only that of one's own kind is good: my own way, my own views, my own people or kind, my own country.

In order to bring about true progress in life's journey there must be no standing still, no stagnation. Things have to keep moving, and in flow. Things must change.

At first we assume that that strange, new, intruding factor must be bad, hostile, or malign, because we don't know it, & like the little boy said about spinach: "I don't like it 'cause I never had any."

But being open for what's different makes room for a much healthier life-style. In fact, that's what getting to know God really means: acquaintance with the totally Other (Isa.55:8,9). God's ways, thoughts & views are simply not ours, & as long as we insist that ours are better than His, and we, in our minds, assume that role superior to Him ("I know better. If I were God, I'd do things differently"), we fall for the " ye shall be as gods" temptation of the Devil. Only trust reverses that process.

We must decide who is most trustworthy? Who is our real friend, our real foe? Am I really more trustworthy than God? Who is our True Friend, and are we, perhaps, our own worst enemy?

Some folks believe that if they would just manage to convey the right amount of the right kind of knowledge to people and get them to change a few negative attitudes, then evil would disappear by itself. Because, they figure, evil is just another word for ignorance, & the Devil doesn't exist.

That's what I'd call wishful thinking. Unfortunately, we have greater problems than not having read their books or attended their workshop.

One of the greatest tricks the Devil ever pulled on mankind was to convince them that he doesn't exist, & thus, most of his attacks are cleverly camouflaged under a cover of "righteousness" & "justice"... "Liberty & justice for all!"

We tend to think that our own motives are always pure and just... but are they?

If the Bible truly is God's Word, then the Devil is not only real, but he is also the "god of this world," and "all that will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution" (2Tim.3:12), because "what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination with God." In other words, the Devil will leave you in peace, if he's already got you in his bag, if you swallowed his lies & are playing his game. So, if you've got problems, cheer up! You must be doing something right, & you must be fighting for the right side.

Maybe those adversities & difficulties you're facing are signs that you're on the right side; that you're a child of God, Who "chastens (corrects) every son - or daughter - whom He receives" (Heb.12:6).

Why do our parents become upset with us at times? Could it be that we are actually doing something wrong?

Unfortunately, many kids nowadays never find out, because their parents simply don't believe in discipline. A

child without discipline becomes a master at the art of playing god, a little ego-maniac, terrorizing everyone around them, and finding it very hard to cope with finding out that not everybody dances according to their tune (the way their well-meaning but erroneous parent(s) did), later on in life.

We are all like disobedient children, and it's good when we are capable of recognizing that and admitting to it.

Then we can also accept the discipline and correction God uses to teach us to do better, in the form of those adverse circumstances or some opposing force or individual in our life that seems to be giving us hard times.

When Things Don't Work Out "Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn't," the wise old Cheyenne chief said to "Little Big Man," when he thought it was "a good day to die," but the rain had spoiled his ceremonious transition into the eternal hunting grounds.

Equally, sometimes in our lives things work out, sometimes they don't.

I'm the type of guy who tends to be pleasantly surprised that some things in my life have turned out to be working out at all. Others are a little less used to disappointments.

When it comes down to it, what else is the meaning of life but finding God's will for us (& doing it)? There are various ways of finding out what is God's will for us, apart from what He has laid down in His written Word, in general instructions.

We already talked about how God likes to communicate with people individually & personally through the gift of prophecy, tongues and interpretations, & there is yet another phenomenon by which He chooses to communicate & reveal things to us, which we'll touch on later in dreams and visions. But the one I'd like to talk about right now is open and closed doors - circumstances.

As millions of us have learned from the epic "The Sound of Music," "When God closes a door, He always opens a window somewhere." So, when something does not work out in our life, it's up to us to find out what God wants us to do: try harder and persevere, or try something else instead.

We can gather from the Bible that the gifts and talents He gives a person are well planned & thought over.

We're supposed to "abide in our callings." Often, though, the grass is greener on the other side, & people are artists at wanting what they don't and cannot have. This sometimes (quite often, in fact) results in our own will not coinciding & thus, colliding with God's, and that's when we start having a problem.

The New Testament tells us that the purpose of "being born again" is to become a new creature. Unfortunately, our "old man," our carnal ego, along with its pride, selfishness, willfulness and negativity, keeps trying to pop up again. And again. And again. I suppose, that's Satan's attempt of copying God's feat of resurrection. Only, he constantly resurrects the wrong thing: our old, decaying, rotting & sinful selves.

Yielding our own will to God is the only way we achieve to become what we're supposed to be. As John the Baptist put it so wonderfully simply: "He must increase, but I must decrease."

Some people, however, simply don't want to see, they don't want to hear; they don't want to know. They quite simply don't want, that's all. They don't want as God wants, so they live in rebellion against Him, each their own little god.

It's not that they don't want anything at all. Sure, they want things: money, pleasure, or one kick after another from alcohol or drugs... or one cigarette after another. But quite obviously not God's will.

Dreams and Visions In dreams and visions God communicates with us on the visual scale (visions), and in the language of tangible experience (dreams) that is so similar to reality that we sometimes cannot tell whether we dreamt something or actually experienced it.

I'm not going to say that each of our dreams is inspired or orchestrated in every little detail by God Himself (although on the other hand I'm not going to deny that possibility completely, either), but my guess is that our dreams are a result of all the influences we encounter affecting our spirit, our so-called subconscious.

We know darn little as yet about dreams, probably due to the dilemma that science largely refuses to acknowledge spiritual influences on our lives, and, according to the evolutionary paradigm, more or less ascribes everything to coincidence. Thus our dreams become random byproducts of our subconscious and no more.

For the ancients on the other hand, dreams were an important part of their daily lives, even as they still are for so-called primitive peoples, such as the Australian Aborigines. But the average Westerner is simply way too busy with the things he deems more important, namely the question of his survival: how do I preserve and groom my outer shell as effectively as possible? The inner life is often neglected in this pattern.

I think I can say without exaggeration that God has communicated with me now and then through my dreams.

Sometimes those special and significant dreams (which by far were the exception from my regular dreams) were warning me of certain weaknesses in my character. I was being shown that I had to beware of pride and fear.

Other times I've had extraordinary dreams about possible events of the future, or the World to come, and yet other times they have been downright adventures, almost like action movies I experienced in my sleep. I have fallen in love in my dreams and sometimes woke up in convulsive tears, deeply moved by what I had just experienced.

Paul McCartney said that the song "Yesterday" came to him in a dream, and a handful of my songs have also originated in dreams.

I am beyond the point where any however astute scientist can tell me that dreams are solely based on whatever our subconscious happens to be processing.

I am convinced that dreams are at least in part result of spiritual influences from both directions. There are dreams resulting from demonic influences on our lives (nightmares), and, thankfully, there are heavenly dreams also. Although the latter make the ringing of the alarm clock an even more dreadful event than usual, so, it's not really bad if we don't have those too often.

There is the phenomenon of lucid dreams in which one is aware of the fact that he is dreaming, and people have wondered and written (and made movies) about the possibility of being able to enter someone else's dreams.

If we are being made in the image of God, one might wonder, does God also dream? And if so, what would His dreams look like? If He is all-powerful, then it should certainly be an easy thing for Him to communicate with others in His dreams... In any case, getting on God's dreamscape sounds like an adventurous challenge. Perhaps one of those things to explore in Eternity...

As far as visions go, these are obviously rarer than dreams, although some people receive them regularly. I've only experienced them few times, and in most cases they were nothing spectacular. When you're already used to one medium by which God communicates with you, then you usually like to stick to what you're used to, although God, on the other hand, often refuses to become a "habit" for us and challenges us to learn new things.

With visions, as in the case of many others of God's gifts, one thus has to be open for the new, ready to see new things, willing to receive and experience new things.

When we become aware of the fact that this is one of God's principal goals in our lives, to teach us how to see, then we can also imagine that He would like to open our spiritual eyes and show us visions.

Many people have extra sensory perceptions and refuse to share their experiences with others because the world is so framed by disbelief that "such a thing" simply doesn't fit in and is not being considered "normal." And none of us want to risk being labeled "abnormal," do we?

There is, of course the other aspect of “dreams and visions,” the one not referring to actual dreams you dream in your sleep and supernatural, biblical vision, but the concept of, “What are your dreams, your visions, your goals in life?” The Book of Proverbs says, “Without a vision the people perish.” If we don’t know where we’re headed, we’re quite likely to get lost.

I’m not particularly great at planning and scheduling things ahead of time. I’m dreadfully disorganized. Maybe you can tell, just from reading this book. But as chaotic as I am, I would still recommend for anyone to get some kind of a vision for their life, a goal they want to attain, which isn’t always entirely easy, if we know that from a biblical point of view, (and from observing the signs of the times) that this world is heading downward.

That’s why it’s important to have our priorities straight, and to know what we want to accomplish; not so much for ourselves, but for the Lord. To “accomplish something for the Lord” means to help others, to impart some of the love and light He sheds on our lives to them, and to share what we’ve got. I personally like to wrap up the vision for my life as a part of God’s Bigger Picture in these words: “World Conquest through Love.”

Maybe you have different goals in life: Maybe you want to be a star, play in a movie or record a CD and make yourself heard. Well, just make sure that whatever you’ve got to say is going to be worth the time of those listening to you or watching you, when you get there.

Recently I’ve been reminded by the Lord that what matters isn’t so much what I’ve got to say, but what He’s got to say, and that’s what I have decided to make my plan & vision for my life: to share His words with people. Which is precisely why I’m going to let Him wrap up whatever else there might be to say on this subject.

Money and Other Currencies Money is undoubtedly one of the most important things in most people's lives, if not the most important to some, and it seems to be the essence of modern living around which all things revolve. And yet money is really nothing more than paper, the value of which is determined by certain people, along with the faith the rest of the world is putting into it. If people would lose their faith in, let's say, the US Dollar and let go of their dollars and transfer their assets to another currency (some say that this was really the "crime" Iraq committed, warranting the punishment of its invasion by the US troops and resulting in the subsequent destruction of not only that government, but the entire country), then the dollar would lose its value, "plummet," and perhaps even "crash" completely, probably tearing down with it a large part of the rest of western economy.

In my 4 decades on this planet I have seen paper currencies come and go, their values dropping in relation of 1:10.000 in a matter of months, prices rising and falling, only to rise again.

Money is a very fragile thing to put one's faith in.

Jesus, in the Book of Revelation, counsels us, "to buy gold of Me gold tried in the fire," that we may be rich.

Unfortunately, some people apparently take that literally, and take this as an indication that Jesus wants them to collect worldly riches in this life. Poor fellows.

What He is really saying, is that we should change the stocks and assets of our lives into a lasting, crisis-proof currency that won't go up in flames when it comes in touch with fire. Paper money won't stand the fiery tests of time, only gold will.

But Jesus wasn't talking about physical gold any more than He was indicating that we should actually dress in white in the next part of the verse. The gold He was talking about is the kind of faith that will stand the testings and fiery trials in life. In fact, that's what life is all about: to test the true value of the things we put our faith & trust in, and build our lives and actions on. Can you take them with you when you die? Are they going to survive a coming crisis?

As the stock market crashes of the world throughout history have shown, faith in paper can easily wind you up with nothing at all. The only words written anywhere that are really worth what they say are God's promises.

One can really trust and put their faith in them. The only problem is, they don't go very much hand in hand with the currencies of the world, and you will eventually wind up either serving one or the other.

One large problem about our poor perception of things in our immature state is that we mistake many blessings for curses and vice versa. We see the hard times, the challenges, adversity and opposition we face in life as something evil or undesirable, while at the same time being totally enticed and enthralled, virtually hypnotized by the things we consider good, the ever tempting lure before us: fame and fortune. We place out trust in things,

and the more of them we acquire, the more of them we want, putting before us that unreachable goal of that god-like state of being so filthy rich that we can afford to buy anything we want. Now that, we think, is happiness. And so we slave toward that elusive goal, blindly stepping on others across our way in order to get there, steadily going up, ever upward, climbing the ladder of success.

There are people who keep up this version of "life" until the day they die, as if they were able to take any of their acquisitions with them into the next life. But most of us remain exhausted and disillusioned somewhere along the side of the road.

Some grow bitter and distrustful toward any higher power, since their former "gods" and idols have turned out to have feet of clay, while others figure, "well, if this way didn't work, perhaps there is another?"

If they realize that one happiness formula didn't work, they refuse to give up and to toss out the baby with the bath water, they refuse to believe that their must be some higher purpose to their existence.

If their current values have popped like balloons and haven't passed the test of inflation, if the fiery purgings of life have only yielded ashes from the paper money they once put their trust and faith in, then which is the gold that will stand those tests of time, and where do we find it?

And some find it in spiritual values, often in faith.

The next trap and temptation is to make an equally hollow scheme out of this chapter, to create a hollow "religion," instead of really finding God. The greatest temptation in religion and spirituality is to create our own gods from our own imaginations and expectations of such a "Supreme Being," instead of truly searching and refusing to settle for anything less than finding the Real Thing.

And as Jesus promised, "Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled," so they that truly seek, also shall find, they will not be disappointed. And that's when evil, or that which we previously called evil, receives a new face. We find that "all things work together for good to them that love God," even, and perhaps even especially those so-called "evil" things. We find such stunning paradoxes as "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints," as we find that the greatest victory ever won in history was achieved by the greatest of all Warriors laying down His own life for others.

The disappointments that left us disillusioned in our younger years, when our values and priorities were still focused on the wrong goals have turned into the realization that God might very well be having something greater in mind than we may have been able to fathom; that disappointment very often may spell His appointment!

Off to School One of the greatest "evils" we encounter in our lives as young persons, so ready and eager and full of zest and curiosity to learn about life, is school. Originally designed to convey knowledge to children, something they would be very interested in, the modern, western school system has accomplished the exact opposite of that, perhaps not in all cases, but still in way too many in order not to be a dreadful farce.

While a teacher would potentially have something great and desirable to offer to his pupil, namely knowledge, they are not allowed to do that. Instead, they are forced to press a bunch of confusing and useless information into their students' heads, much of which is even false information, which totally kills any of that original desire for learning that originally spurs a child on, just as successfully as an antidote prevents sickness.

The sickness that schools prevent is the dreaded disease of true learning. Stupid people are a lot easier to control than intelligent people, and that's what the school system is all about: not conveying true knowledge, but exerting control. You're only allowed to know what you're supposed to know: you're supposed to believe that you're a totally unimportant accidental speck of dust living on another accidental speck of dust in an accidental universe, together with a whole bunch of other accidental specks, of which only the strongest and smartest will survive. "Smart" in the sense that you play the game by their rules, you don't veer from the straight and narrow; don't dare to think any truly independent thoughts which might vary from the "official doctrine." Your only chance of survival is to toe the line and play the game, because the belief that there should by "Anyone out there" actually caring for you, a Creator of sorts, that's a fairy-tale we're going to cure you of very quickly in our little "knowledge factory." Or at least we'll make you feel so small and unimportant by the time we're finished with you, you'll be so full of doubt that anyone could ever love you, much less any great Creator of the universe, you'll do exactly what we tell you to, nicely and quietly that is.

For everything God ever made, the Devil has come up with his own lousy counterfeit, and school is his lousy counterfeit of what life - the true and free life God originally intended for us to live - is really supposed to be all about.

I'm not saying that all teachers or even all schools are evil, but that the school system at large is, and its ineffectiveness and the ever-growing stupidity of the western masses are proof enough.

But even though there are vast and fundamental differences between God's school of life and the Devil school system that basically destroys the fun out of life, there is still no doubt that life is very much a school we're all having to attend.

Just because the Devil has made school look like something bad and undesirable (as he has done with a lot of things God originally came up with) doesn't mean that learning is actually something bad.

Part of the purpose of this book, I wish, would be to rekindle the flame of curiosity and a desire to learn in folks, because there really is a lot of useful stuff to learn from life, regardless of all your teachers have possibly done to kill your curiosity to find out!

It's all a matter of picking the right Teacher! Instead of allowing the dude standing in the front of your class room to destroy your faith by statements he has had to memorize and has been brainwashed by himself, and becoming all bitter over it, you can have the greatest of all Teachers tutor you personally.

Hard to believe? Well, that's what I'm doing, and I can only recommend it. Granted, folks around you may think you're totally insane, but who cares? You'll know you're happy, contrary to them, and you'll be receiving His assurance that everything is actually perfectly alright with you, that it's actually their views that need some mending, and, even though it may not sometimes look like it, you are not alone, and there are actually more folks on your side (although you may not always see them) than on theirs.

Contrary to popular belief, the majority isn't always right (see Matthew 7:13,14). You may look like a loner and perhaps like a loser now, but that's usually only a small price to pay for becoming a true winner and overcomer.

The fact that I'm blasting the western school system of the 21 st century to bits does not mean that I want to knock secular education altogether. After all, we do learn certain basics, even in the worst of schools. I'm just saying that schools could be a whole lot more efficient than they currently are, especially if their curriculums were more based on facts and things we actually observe in nature, and not just on paradigms concocted by people who fanatically want to infuse their blatant unbelief in a higher Power to defenseless children in order to make them more controllable.

After all, it's easier to manipulate a human who has been drilled into believing that he's the insignificant result of some coincidental blast in space than one who believes his immortal soul to be carefully designed by a Creator Who has a higher purpose for his life than just being one more battery for the machines who rule the Matrix.

Education could and should really be teaching us something. Certainly God is what our youngsters might call a "pretty scientific Dude," I mean, having come up with fancy stuff like DNA and the universe. He apparently seems to have done His math. So, it stands to reason that He'd like for us to figure out how He done it, instead of trying to wrack our brains on such nonsense as "how things have done themselves."

If you would really like to learn some awe-inspiring facts about the scientific marvels, wonders and intricacies of creation, I would recommend some of the writings of Professor Dr. Werner Gitt on the subject. Apparently there are even some numbers that are miracles in themselves and seem to prove the impossibility of everything just being product of coincidence, not even mathematics! Perhaps especially mathematics.

You'll find out that it's true what we read in the Psalms, that one would have to be a fool to really believe that there is no God (Ps.53:1). An education without God, the Master Teacher, couldn't be much of an education, in my opinion. So, why don't you get smart and really start learning something?

The beginning of true learning and education would be to acknowledge just how little we really know, instead of pretending we're so smart and cramming made up "facts" into our children's heads, and I'm not just talking about Evolution.

I'm talking about the fact that the supposed "laws" of physics, which are the basis of our current "explanation for everything," such as even the law of gravity, totally defy and violate the laws of nature, physics' own rules.

Modern secular education is like a serial killer constantly preaching "thou shalt not kill," because it's constantly breaking its own laws. If you really want to know how little we know, for instance, about physics, I recommend the highly challenging book "The Final Theory" by Mark McCutcheon. He may not necessarily have found the ultimate truth yet, either, but at least he's honestly exposing the fact how little we truly know about such things as gravity and magnetism, and he may be a whole lot closer to the truth than all those thousands of physics teachers and professors who dictate guesswork as knowledge, hindering the growth of our learning, instead of furthering and encouraging it.

If we only knew how little we know. Or, as a German scientist said: "Science, the great error of our times."

As it happens so many times in our personal and spiritual lives, it seems that our preferred method of learning and finding out where it's at, is first of all finding out where it's not.

Furthermore, we constantly appear to tend to taking more credit for ourselves than is due. Instead of having been created, we have "evolved" by ourselves. Instead of acknowledging God as our Creator, we claim to have created Him through our history. We claim to have "invented" and "discovered" and made a lot of progress, when it is much more likely that we have merely been shown things. We were given the inspiration that led us to our achievements, whether literary or scientific, or in whichever way.

By constantly claiming the credit for our findings for ourselves, we continue the game of "ye shall be as gods" that the Devil was selling us from the beginning.

What happens, though, is that we severely distort the meaning of everything by looking at it from the wrong perspective - from the top, instead of from the bottom. We make ourselves the kings of the universe, instead of its humble tenants.

The signs are everywhere for us to discover: numbers, letters, even microscopic codes in our genes, and we have learned to decipher them, but instead of interpreting them correctly, we claim their authorship and tamper with them, playing god, creating our own equations, writings and genetic alterations that quite simply lack the divine quality. In short, we don't cut the cake. We're doing a lousy job at playing God, because we stopped learning way too early and have exalted ourselves as teachers - blind guides of the blind.

Life is a constant give and take: we give and we receive, we learn and then pass on what we have learned.

When that process stops, when we stop receiving new input, new knowledge and stop learning because we think we already know, and start feeding others only from the stagnant pool of what we have accumulated without allowing those pools to be refilled constantly with fresh water, then we reap the sort of problems as a result that we see in our children and in the educational systems of today.

By excluding the Great Teacher, we're only fooling ourselves into believing that we are actually learning anything ourselves, or know anything ourselves. By assuming the position of the Teacher ourselves, instead of humbly viewing ourselves as learners and attentive students and pupils of life, we have made of ourselves "fools professing to be wise."

Our "knowledge" is largely based on assumptions and false information, and on this foundation we build our equations that we sell as "knowledge" to our victims, who will never ever question or hunger for true answers again (unless they're exceptionally curious). We find a rock, and because of the assumptions of one who claims that the layer or strata of the earth's crust it came from is so-and-so many millions of years old, and because of certain methods which are supposed to tell us that something is so-and-so many millions of years old, we make

our equations and sell them as "facts" to the masses, without ever letting them know from what shaky grounds we have derived our conclusions. The main thing is that we look smart and as if we know something. The truth doesn't really matter.

No wonder that so many kids feel cheated and walk through life suspiciously. They can smell that something's wrong here and that they've been fooled. They've been stripped of the confidence based on who they really are and in return don't trust their masters either, who would reduce them to monkeys.

Relationships As we grow older and make friends, acquaintances & build relationships, we constantly test others and are being tested by them on the grounds of our mutual trustworthiness. Trust is an important & basic factor of any relationship. Some folks' trust cannot so easily be shaken. Others are suspicious by nature.

God has given us parents, brothers and sisters, friends, lovers and spouses as perfect samples of His relationship with us, and as real-life training for our relationship with Him. Without faith and trust in others, no relationship can function in the long run. Even so, without faith it is impossible to please Him (Hebrews 11:6).

He calls us His bride. Traditionally, at least in older cultures, the wife was subordinate to her husband, and we, His bride, are definitely supposed to serve Him. On the other hand, He's a very loving Husband, Who likes to give us the desires of our hearts.

In fact, He loves us so much that He gladly died for us. If there's one thing I was able to glean from Mel Gibson's "Passion," it was that Jesus went up each step of that hill, bearing His cross and facing His death for us, voluntarily, purposely, and as if this was truly His ultimate purpose. And it was. Shortly before His crucifixion He said, "for this reason I came to this hour."

One other place where we observe such camaraderie and utter loyalty is in epics about famous battles in history. Since I've never been on a physical battle field as a soldier, I wouldn't know how much of this stuff is real and how much of it is made up by Hollywood, but I like to believe that this kind of loyalty and devotion exists among people who are serious about following God. I like to see Jesus as the ultimate Warrior, the ultimate Friend, the ultimate Lover and Husband.

That's a very touchy subject with Christians who are duped by Satan's "sex is sin" spiel. But for those who truly know Him, it is no secret that the act of love between a woman and a man is probably one of the most accurate and fitting descriptions of the type of relationship God desires to have with His bride; ardent, passionate, alive... Nothing cold, dry or sterile about it.

For those who truly love God, the assumption that sex is a sin is one gigantic farce, for to them, it is one of the greatest proofs of His existence. Unless we were really simply damn lucky that "Coincidence" cooked up such a neat way for us to ensure our procreation.

Of course, there's more to a marriage than sex, and faithfulness is a very great and important issue with God. The Bible says, "Moreover it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful." And when the Lord in the parable of the talents returned, he praised those who had made profit from what they were given, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." He didn't say, "successful" servant, or any other attribute, but "faithful."

While I'm no great advocate of jealousy between humans, and consider it much more of a curse than a virtue, I have come to learn that in God's case, He has every perfect right to be jealous. Loving anyone or anything else more than Him just isn't good for us, period.

One important point on the subject of "What does God want to teach us through relationships" is the aspect of helping others, particularly those weaker, poorer and needier than us. Jesus goes as far as saying that we only love Him as much as we love the least of His brethren. In other words, that kind of sacrificial love toward the poor, the sick, the needy, the destitute and imprisoned, is in His eyes equal to loving Him, which is the greatest commandment (Matth.22:36-40).

In other words, love is only real and genuine, and our giving only really counts when we give unselfishly to those from whom we will never be able to expect anything in return. Not because it's our job and we get paid for it (although anyone who will have chosen a profession along the lines of helping others truly because he wants to help others will certainly be rewarded for doing so), but simply to fill the need...

I believe that Heaven is full of helpers, and that the entire heavenly social structure is based on the principle of helping others. Nobody "Up There" just lives to himself or for himself. There simply is no such thing. Just as there really isn't any such thing down here. You may think you are, but you will always affect others, either with your positive or negative sample, and often both...

We're all supposed to be our weaker brothers' keepers. How sad when we neglect that role and abuse our brethren instead, and use them as stepping stones in order to ensure our own survival or ascent on the ladder of success...

All of this means that there are probably a lot of people out in the world, although they may not even believe in Christ, perhaps because of bad experiences with the church, or an atheistic upbringing, as well as countless members of other religions in social services, who may actually be closer to God than many a gun-slinging

Christian, who considers his "service" to God sitting on a cushioned church bench for an hour a week and listen to a preacher.

That brings us to another point in relationships and marriages: when they break apart. Divorce.

Although God says in His Word that He is still married to those who desert Him, this does not mean that He can't take on another wife who is still faithful to Him, loves and serves Him and bears fruit for Him. Throughout history, God has always had "new brides," when the old church turned her back on Him and forsook Him for other gods.

When you look at today's established churches, it is probably easier to assume that Mammon, the god of wealth, is their God, although in name they may be worshipping Jesus, a man who didn't even have a place where to lay His head.

In the Book of Revelation we even find the religious Systems of the world depicted as "Babylon the Whore," who is riding on the back of the beast of the kingdoms of this world, which receives its power from the Dragon, Satan, who in turn seeks to wipe out the true church.

There is already another book or study in the making about things we can learn from the characters we find in the Bible, so let it suffice for now to say here that the relationship between the true believers and those who only pretend to serve God is as old as the jealousy that Cain had for Abel.

Problems in relationships are as manifold as there are possibilities of constellations between human beings...

Some folks get along, some don't. Maybe you don't get along with A, but B does, and so you manage to overcome your problems with A with B's help...

When problems occur, the best things is to go to the Boss and ask for help. After all, He made you, He made the other person, and if He knows the number of the amount of hairs on your head, and about every sparrow falling from the sky, he should certainly be willing and able to help you out with that problem in your relationship. It's not that He's going to work it all out for you, if there's something He wants you to do, but at least He can show you what's wrong, where maybe you've been making a mistake or haven't seen things the way they really are, or, what's wrong with the other person and how you can help them.

When it all comes down to it, life is all about people, a subject you hardly learn anything about in school. If we're supposed to love others and even to manifest our love for God through the way we treat others, how can we not care about what makes others tic? How can we be so indifferent, so careless, how can we not try to understand each other?

Oh, yes, right, because "me first" is the big slogan in the world, and it will always be the main obstacle in any kind of relationship. When we will have learned to put "me" behind God and our fellowman, then we'll be ready for God wants and has wanted all along: relationship all over the place. Love, communication, interaction, understanding, sharing, giving, receiving... all that's involved in a relationship between Him and us and others...

Every star has its individual light, but it also has its effect and impact on the other stars, especially in its own solar or stellar system and constellation. "Everything belongs", as Richard Rohr would put it, and so do you.

That's the Big Picture.

What really defines the art of living for a believer is when he has not only learned to take every thing that happens to him as from the hand of God (in the light of Romans 8:28), but also everybody who crosses our path. If there is no such thing as coincidence, then there must be a specific, God-ordained reason why that person is in your life right now, possibly making it more difficult.

See the difficulty about it as a challenge from God Himself personally for you, in order to grow, to stretch your muscle and expand your horizon. What does He want to show, teach and convey to you through this situation with that person you may be having a hard time with?

I believe that this is what life really is all about: to see God in everything and everybody we meet, and to look for the hidden meaning and purpose in every incident, every acquaintance - everything.

Of course, this requires some re-training and re-conditioning from our original "everything's an accident" mindset ingrained in us from the school of evolution. But if God's in control at all, then He's in control of every little thing, even those seemingly insignificant encounters with people everyday.

Of course, if we're a believer and they're not, then it is our God-given duty to convey to them the Good News, lest their blood be required from our hands (see Ezekiel 3:17-19).

Jesus refers to Himself repeatedly as "the Bridegroom" in His parables, and to His ecclesia, His called out ones, as the "Bride." He is the universal Bridegroom, the missing Piece, that which we, His Bride, have been yearning for all our lives, even if we may not be aware of the fact that it's Him we're searching. The Devil has

been busy at tainting Christ's image in our minds, so that we would expect the answer to all our yearning and longings least of all where we will actually find it.

Jesus promised that when He will return, He would call His chosen ones to Him, and the Book of Revelation tells us about a magnificent Wedding Party in Heaven. It's as if Christ's first coming was His betrothal, and His Second Coming will be for the actual wedding. The Book of Revelation also tells us of another cataclysmic event that will happen during that time: "Time shall be no more" (Rev.10:6).

The German creation scientist Werner Gitt explains that right now we live under the dominion of Chronos, which he call's "man's time," but then we shall live under Cairos, God's time.

God has also revealed to the Family International, that another mysterious event will unfold, probably during that same pivotal moment in history of Christ's Return: the merging of the dimensions. In other words, the physical and the presently unseen, spiritual dimension will unite, and I can only picture this event as the ultimate manifestation of the very act of love, when God, the Spirit and "Father of Spirits" (Heb.12:9) will finally embrace His physical creation and make it one with His eternal Realm. The Wedding, the Union will be complete, resulting in fruits of peace and joy that will continue forever.

It is not just nice words when the Bible says "God is Love." He really is Love, and the Lover of all lovers.

When it comes to the art of loving, He really is the supreme Master at it, and He knows exactly what He's doing.

In Richard Rohr’s, "Everything Belongs," the Franciscan writes, "How we relate sexually is a good teacher and indicator of how we relate to God (and how we relate to God is probably a good teacher and indicator of how we will relate to everything else). Religions and relationships are one. Religion (re-ligio) is the task of putting our divided realities back together: human and divine, male and female, heaven and earth, sin and salvation, mistake and glory."

If he is right, then not only is the sexual act a physical manifestation and portrayal of what God wants His relationship with us, His bride, to be like, but our sexual attitudes and behavior then also become indicators of how we relate to God and everything else (interesting that God should reveal such things to a celibate, isn't it?).

Some of us are addicted to sex, others are very clumsy at it, some don't like it at all, most like it too much, and many have developed unhealthy attitudes toward sex through former deprivation and guilt complexes stemming from the dogma that sex is sin, while yet others are getting such an overload of it that they lose the beauty in it altogether.

I reckon we cannot really be good lovers unless we allow the Lover of all lovers to teach us how. If we love God, then we're also capable of loving each other as we should.

One of the dilemmas in relationships is that we are often so guided by our own impulses that we don't really listen to the other one. We hear what we want to hear. We interpret what they're saying according to our own standards and mental dictionaries, but often don't perceive who or what they really are. That's why people can live together for decades and still come to the conclusion that they don't really know their partner, or feel that their partner doesn't really know them.

Getting to really know another person requires winding down from the mode of snap judgment and interpretation to "full soul perception:" Not merely paying attention to the information contained in the words they're saying, nor even the gestures and actions that accompany their words, but viewing their entire beings through God's eyes, they eyes of love. That's a supernatural process, but not one that we are denied. One of the gifts of the Spirit which the Father would most gladly give to any of His children who would ask Him for it, is the gift of discernment - a very needed and neglected gift in this day and age.

One of the classic examples of the dire need for this gift is George W. Bush who managed to deceive millions of (mostly American) Christians into believing that he was one of them and on their side, when nothing could be further from the truth.

George W. Bush will probably go down in history as the man who laid the cornerstone for the abolition of Christianity.

Slowly - but much too late, as usual - some are finally waking up to the fact that they've been fooled, although the number of Christians among those is still shockingly low. This shows that believers lack the gift of discernment.

People cannot even discern their own spirits these days, nor are they honest and curious enough to find out about their own hidden agendas and ulterior motives and secret sins that often drive them on, much less do they discern the true qualities of their fellowmen.

Well, it's no wonder, since what we're being taught in school is not about what makes our fellowman tic, but what makes the stock market tic. We learn about numbers, and our goal in life is to manipulate numbers, particularly the ones revolving our bank accounts, and the knowledge about people that interests us is only that which is in any way useful to that goal.

Thus we neglect the knowledge of the soul. We don't care about their souls and have consequently become soulless. May God help us to find our souls again, the first step to finding anyone else's and really finding out what they're all about, and consequently, what life itself is all about...

Something is fundamentally wrong with our current, Western version of the age-old “mating game,” in which we basically just try to get our partner cater to our own selfish desires instead of recognizing Who really is the Man in the house.

If we would grant God the position in our lives that is His due, then certainly family life as we know it would be a lot more harmonious and better functioning, and the divorce rates wouldn’t be what they are, nor would our teenage kids run through this world so disillusioned and clueless.

We as “enlightened” members of our Western, so-called Christian society may look down on other cultures, such as Islam, for their what we consider backward ideas and ways of running family life, but generally, their families aren’t nearly in the same devastating state that a lot of ours are in.

No wonder our Western society seems to have vowed to eradicate Muslims from the face of the earth by specializing in bombing weddings in Afghanistan. If there’s one thing miserable people hate, it’s happy people with well-functioning families.

Jesus must have had a reason for comparing the days preceding His Second Coming to the days before Noah’s flood by giving reference to the “mating game:” “For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be (Mt.24:38, 39)”.

Apparently Eve wasn’t the last to ever get her husband into trouble, and while it is certainly true that there’s a dark side to the machoism of men taking advantage of their position over women in society, I’m afraid we’re all about to find out that by twisting the way God originally ordained family to work, we’re going to reap a lot more trouble than this world has seen already.

Unfortunately, part of the task of deciphering the deeper meaning of everything includes recognizing when something’s wrong, and the basic structure of modern day relationships in my opinion is definitely one area that cries loudest for improvement, nay, for salvation from our current erratic ways, and for our Savior to take us back to the Garden and the way things were before we fell for the serpent’s ideas of “improvement.”

Opposites Attract Part of the purpose and meaning on life is simply the effort to stay on the fine-tuned frequency of God's Spirit without becoming affected and influenced by the Enemy's output, which is much more prevalent in the world today. - To buck the tide of the mainstream drift, to not believe as everyone else believes, just because it is popular or the "in" thing, the politically correct version of "truth" or one's world view.

One big difference between the World to come - although it is already here - the eternal World, the Kingdom of God, and our present world is that you won't find anything fake or phony in God's World. While this world has a plastic version of just about everything, and imitations and cheap copies of the real thing everywhere, because that's what the god of this world is great at: faking things and imitating God's Real Thing and authentic version, you won't find any of that stuff in Heaven.

For instance, there won't be any need for photographs in Heaven, because you'll be able to just think about a person or a place and you'll be able to see them right before your eyes, the real thing; not just a flat, 2dimensional, lifeless replica or image of them.

One thing that makes the people of God stand out from the rest of the world is that they hunger and thirst after righteousness - the real thing. - Not just the Devil's fake and phony version of it, of which there is great abundance everywhere around us, which you will know if you have ever come to taste of the "justice" of the System's courts of law.

Some things in this world don't represent realities of the Spirit World, but the opposite of them. This especially applies to the world's concept of justice. The entire judicial world in our System has become just another business, as a 5 minute talk with any lawyer will teach all of us, and revolves around just the same old lie around which nearly everything else in this world does: money.

It's true that criminals are justifiable punished for their crimes in many cases, but the truth is, that the greatest criminals are running around freely, don't pay taxes, and get away with the most atrocious crimes of mass murder and genocide and are yet being hailed as (inter-)national heroes. And it's quite likely that serious criminals are punished less severely than those who dared to buck the tide. It's not really a secret that justice is not exactly prevalent in our System's courts.

If love governs the Realm of God, in our world it's fear. We obey, not out of love, but out of fear.

Unfortunately, many people drag that fear into their religion, and the result is a counterfeit Christianity that has turned many sincere seekers into the opposite direction. I'm personally convinced that what is called Christianity today has sent more millions of souls to hell than any other culprit. I ought to know, because it was church attendance that turned me into an atheist at the age of 10.

Fortunately, there are also sincere Christians among the churches, but I'm coming to the point where I believe that "Christians" are no more the people of God than the Jews are. Just professing to be a follower of Christ doesn't automatically make you one. Your actions will prove it.

Jesus said this Himself when He said that there would be many who would do all sorts of things in His name, but that He would have to tell them upon His return that He never knew them. Of course, Christians always assume that He was talking about someone else, not them.

If you're looking for the Real Thing in this world, you'd do wisely to look not for the nice and shiny appearances, for "that which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination with God." But look among the despised, the persecuted, those everybody would be ashamed of being acquainted with. If you're hooked on today's showbiz type of Christianity where "popularity is it," where you determine your success by the amount of "friends" you have on "myspace.com," then it's quite likely you're looking in the wrong direction.

Off to Work In order to ensure our survival and -nowadays - to acquire the one thing we deem most essential, those numbered little pieces of paper that determine our status, our wealth and even our very "worth," most of us need to do something we call work. Of course, there are some privileged folks who don't really need to do that because they already have more than enough little papers, but even such people will usually find some sort of activity to busy themselves with, since no matter how many of those papers one has got, there hardly ever seems to be a moment when it's simply enough.

Even the Bible says that our faith is dead without works, the laborer is worthy of his hire and "he that shall not work, shall not eat," but it also makes a large distinction between the two masters, one of which we must choose to serve, and there only seem to be those two, and we cannot serve both, either, according to Jesus.

Unfortunately, it's obvious that even most "servants of God" are only in it for the money, and are in reality serving Mammon, the god of wealth, and not "the living God Who gives us richly all things to enjoy." If we're honest, we must admit that there is no more powerful religion today than materialism. After all, we don't mind slaving away for money 5 or 6 days a week, but then still often begrudgingly put on that fancy suit on Sunday mornings to render that one hour of "service" to God by listening to the preacher.

When it comes to money, God doesn't stand a chance in the lives of most of us. Its grip is just too powerful.

Unwittingly, so many of us have become like Cain, instead of tenders of God's sheep. We like to trust in our own arm to save us, to sustain us, not realizing that it is an accursed life according to the Bible, when we don't give God the chance to prove to us that He, the Giver of all things, is also our Sustainer.

Earning our own living enables us to be autonomous, self-dependent, and we don't have to give the credit to God for every little bite of food we eat, nor for the bed we sleep in. When it comes to our work, it shows just how real our religion or faith really is, and what we put most of our faith in, and also, how drastically few there are among us who really do serve God. My guess would be that it's less than one percent of the population, and maybe that's even a high estimate.

The problem is that even for sincere believers it is one of the greatest temptations to make a god out of their work. That doesn't mean that God cannot use you at all, even if you're working for Mammon. He may still be using your work to further His cause, but let's not be kidding ourselves and deny that when it comes down to it, we're still working primarily for Mammon.

The only folks who can truly say that they are working for God full-time are those who give their lives as missionaries or in some other service for others, who simply don't care about money. Even some full-time preachers of the Gospel have become very "professional" at their preaching, and make the rest of the world wonder, "What kind of go$pel are you preaching?"

If you preach the gospel, it is also very important that you live the gospel, and Jesus didn't go around collecting millions of dollars for a fancy new church building. In fact, He didn't have a place to lay His head, and His early followers reminded the Jews that "the Most High lives not in temples made with hands."

Still, God is pretty cool and gives us a lot of leeway when it comes to the choice of our activities, but He gets pretty hot under the collar about lukewarmness, when people hypocritically pretend to be in the business for Him, while all they really care about is how much they're raking in.

What you do is much more important than what you claim to believe in, since you really only believe in something as much as you practice it, and going to church once a week doesn't really consist of a lot of practice or acting out your faith, does it?

If we're honest, our work is what keeps most of us from the essential things in life. In our efforts to make sure that our families have more than they need in material aspects, we sacrifice our time with them, send our kids off to school to be converted into mental ape-men, so they can follow in our footsteps some day and spend their lives earning money, eat, sleep, die.

No wonder that some of our kids are going crazy. It just doesn't compute. Even if you want to do something helpful for others, you'll find that there's yet a whole army of state employees making it nearly impossible for you. They're getting paid for stopping you from helping others (as some have found out during the New Orleans disaster and in innumerable similar situations).

So, we've come a long way from the times when we were standing in the fields with our plows, surrounded by our children, and we really knew we were doing what God had ordained. One has to carefully choose their profession these days in order to be making sure they're not actually doing more harm than good. That's because the System is evil, since the head honchos who run it are working for the other side. About the best thing you can do is drop out and work for God instead.

Jesus made it clear when He recruited the fisherman Peter to follow Him: He had just helped him miraculously to the biggest catch of his life, when He tells him, "Follow Me, and I will make you a fisher of men." He wasn't saying that it was bad to spend life as a fisher, but He was saying that there's something better. And I daresay that it would very definitely have been the wrong choice and the bad thing for Peter, to say, "No, thanks, Dude; think I'm gonna stay here and sell them fish You just helped me to catch. But good luck, anyway..."

What would you do, if Jesus came along to offer you a better job than the one you have? Maybe He's offering you one right now. Whatever it is you're doing, there probably is something better you could do with your talents and the gifts you were given. The results in cash might not always be the ultimate confirmation that you've made the right choice when you decided to serve Him, but you'll notice the difference in other values that you won't find on the dog-eat-dog job-market out there: the happiness you'll experience in the changed lives you helped to bring about in your service to others, their grateful smiles... Spiritual rewards, which, quite unlike paper money, will last forever and won't go up in the fiery trials of this life's inflations and crashes.

But even if for some reason you can't assume a profession in God's service, you can still work for Him, or at least with Him, if you integrate and include Him in what you do, give Him the credit for supplying your needs and don't lock Him out of your life but let Him show you opportunities to use whatever it is you're doing for His purpose and to further His cause whenever you can.

Most of all, you can work for Him through your loving interaction with others, both at your working place and in your private life. Everybody can work on changing the world for the better a little bit each day. Even if the Devil himself is your employer, you can let God be the Boss of your heart, and He will eventually show you either a way out, or the purpose of putting you where you are.

There is a reason and a purpose for everything. You only need to allow Him to help you find it out.

Role Reversal I don't think anything in life is as effective a teacher, both about the mysteries of life and God, as well as about ourselves, as having children of our own. Somebody once rightly said that one can scarcely consider that they are a fully mature adult unless they either have had children of their own or have at least learned to take responsibility for others' lives in some way.

Again, you can learn so much from having kids that books and books could be written about it. Some people have experienced amazement at the amount of love they found themselves capable of after having a child. A friend once told me when I was in my early twenties, when my wife was pregnant with our first child, "It's going to change your life!"

At first that awaited change wasn't really all that obvious, but boy, did the lessons God was teaching me through what was to become of my children, and the path each of them chose, hit home later!

Some parents can go through the motions of raising children just as they go through any other routine, any other job: they just do it, that's all. Rake in the money, put the food on the table, let loose the typical wise proverbs they already picked up from their parents as children, and that's it.

I'm afraid I was like that for most of my years as a young parent. Only once I had learned to open my eyes and communicate with God, hear from Him what the lessons were for me in all of this, did I become aware of the fact that there's more, much more to parenting than meets the eye.

If we truly see, we become aware that God is allowing us to experience some of the very same things He experiences, when we become parents. The disappointment and sadness when our children choose not to obey us but prefer to go different paths than ours... their insistence that they can do it better on their own, that they don't need our help, and that they'll be happier apart from us, and independent. The rebellion they nearly inevitably develop against us in their teens... The distance that comes between us when they choose to believe things about us that are simply not true, doubts about our love for them, their totally different view of things, often distorted, alienated from us, mentally re-shaped and reframed by the world around them with all its influences.

Even in their early years, there is so much you can learn from them. Have you ever sat on the floor opposite from a child and rolled him a ball? In most cases, initially the child will refuse to return the ball to you, but will cling to it and wander off, wondering why this isn't all that much fun anymore, after a while.

We are a lot like that in our relation with God. He rolls us a ball, and then we walk off with it, wondering where all the fun in life is supposed t be. Well, the fun is in giving the ball back to Him, to roll it back to Him. Any situation He gives us, instead of handling it ourselves, we will be much better off by giving it back to God. We commit it into His hands in prayer, and He will always return the matter to us in an improved state, ready to repeat the procedure again and again, until we've learned the game.

Then we can go on to more sophisticated games with rules and scores, and we continue to learn more about teamwork as we go, about trusting the team leader or Captain, looking at the Coach for His clues, and considering our partners in the game, always keeping a watchful eye on our opponents...

Many times our children don't choose the path that we, their parents, would like. Obviously we do the same thing all the time with God, our heavenly Father. We choose paths that He knows aren't always necessarily what He would consider the best for us, but then the marvelous thing about it is that He always rigs things up so that we wind up back on His path, having learned a few valuable lessons on our detours. In the end, He always stands there with a wink in His eye and you realize that what has come to pass had to come to pass. Things wouldn't have been the same any other way.

Another shocking parallel between God’s relationship with us, His earthly children and our own child/parent relationships is that children are much more prone to be influenced and swayed by what their peers tell them, than anything their parents could say, just as we seem to pay more attention to the words of man than God’s.

It’s almost as if the quality of being invisible puts God in a category we deem less worthy of our attention, just as adolescents nowadays often discriminate the older generation simply because they don’t belong to their own age group.

Sometimes we get so excited about a certain project that we tend to ignore God and leave Him out of the equation, and thus, unfortunately tend to miss the opportunity to make the best out of its potential, or even make a mess of it altogether. When we can calmly evaluate success and failure and, as Kipling advised, "treat

both impostors the same," then we'll remember to "roll the ball back" to God, knowing that if anything worthwhile is going to be accomplished, it's going to have to be through His wisdom and power anyway.

Do you have a teenage son or daughter that sometimes doesn’t show you the respect you’d like from them?

Maybe God is trying to show you through this that you aren’t showing Him the respect He’d like from you, either. The word re-spect means to look again. How much do we really continue looking up to God for His guidance, His approval of our actions and attitudes throughout the day, beyond our set and usual time of prayer and devotion to Him? It may surprise you, but lessons like these can be gleaned from walking through life with open eyes and deciphering God’s message to us from the experiences we make with people around us, especially our children.

As a father of grown up and adolescent children, it’s dawning on me that one of the mysteries in this life lies in God allowing us a taste of the hurt He feels from our rejection of His ways by experiencing the same from our own children. Blessed is the man (women usually have an easier time with this) who can love his children as unconditionally as He loves us, and not just when they put on perfect behavior or choose the paths we prefer for them…

The Art of War Life has often been compared to a game, a play, and in many ways, it is. We actually do score points down here.

It's called the Love Game. Every little deed of love we do scores points for us down here and determines the size of the prize that awaits us both here and now and there and then.

Sometimes the whole thing gets a bit more serious, though, and it would be more appropriate to change the description of the Big Picture from being a game to something more drastic: war.

Whose side are you fighting on in this war of the spirit, on this battlefield of life?

It's one of the great paradoxes of our times, that while on one hand, the majority of the "enlightened" western world seems to agree that war is about the most nonsensical, outrageously insane atrocity this world has ever had to experience, on the other, those same nations simultaneously continue to perpetrate that very curse on their weaker brethren in the most sophisticated means ever, and those same, supposedly oh so pacifistic masses stand by silently while their governments haul away their sons and brethren to slaughter the poor and defenseless.

Why, we can even watch them on TV doing it.

In my opinion, this mind-boggling phenomenon of war must certainly be another physical manifestation of a spiritual truth, namely that there is a war going on behind the curtain that separates the visible from the invisible realm.

I believe it's no coincidence that the God of the Bible is called "the Lord of Hosts," the leader of the Armies of Heaven, and it's not just a nice allegory, but there is an actual war going on between the forces of Truth, of Heaven, of Love, of all that stands for Good, and the powers of Evil: the side fighting for the Lie, either consciously, or as duped, unwitting slaves.

Obviously, the Devil wouldn't get most of his slaves to sign up for him voluntarily, so he dupes and tricks them into his service. In fact, he has pretty much got it rigged up to where most people serve him unknowingly simply in order to stay alive.

They don't believe in a God Who would "supply all their needs" (Philippians 4:19), and care for them just as He has always done for His less significant creatures, like the birds of the air and the lilies in the fields ( Matthew 6). All they've ever known is the circle of life they've been born into: Go to school, go to work, pay your dues and render your services to your government... and then you die.

This may all look pretty innocent on the surface, not really indicate you're fighting on the "wrong side," and I'm sure there are many good citizens and pillars of society who contribute what they can in order to help others, but as far as the spiritual is concerned, Jesus said, "He that gathers not with Me, scatters abroad." In other words, you're either helping Him promote the Truth, or you're helping His enemy with the distribution of his lies.

Being oblivious to the existence of any such thing as truth or a worthy spiritual cause to fight for is usually not exactly conducive to choosing the right side. Usually, it helps to know what you're fighting for. And chances are that, if you're not fighting at all, you might be collaborating with the Enemy, just as millions of "innocent" Germans aided the Nazis in their silent obedience and consent to their methods.

Similarly, there are many Christians supporting their supposedly "Christian" government, while the rest of the world is getting sicker by the hour of such "Christianity." They may think they're fighting on the right side because they call themselves Christians, but by silently supporting a government that is using lies and pretenses as an excuse to wipe out one fifth of the population of a poorer country, they're actively helping in spreading the very propaganda Satan wants to flood the world with in order to bring about his government: that Christians are fanatical and dangerous warmongers, and the world would be much better off without that bunch of religious fanatics.

By silently standing by and passively supporting a supposedly "Christian" government and their physical wars against the poor, you have actively participated in furthering the Devil's cause in his war of disinformation he started in the Garden of Eden. You're actually fighting for the Lie, instead of the Truth, even though you may go to church every Sunday, or even every day of the week and give your tithe to your church.

You may think you're buying your way into Heaven, while you may actually wind up finding yourself quite ashamed to get Up There, realizing you've been fighting for the wrong cause all along.

It may turn out that God would have actually expected more of you than swimming with the current in some blind loyalty to your government, that you should have known Him and His will a bit better than to be fooled so easily by a devil disguised as a "Christian," getting you to support or silently tolerate his gun-slinging policies of murdering the poor.

He may have expected you to look a little further for "the least of His brethren," not just within the borders of your own country, and at the evil your own, falsely called "Christian" nation has wrought where they had no business (except some fishy oil business, that is).

There were a lot of "Christians" in Germany during the Third Reich, but there were only few Christian enough to be willing to risk their freedom and their lives to stand up for true Christian convictions, against the hypocrisy and the Lie perpetrated by their government. It's true that in one place the Bible calls us to be loyal and obedient to the powers that be. But it reminds us that we must obey God rather than men in more than one place. It teaches us that the original Christians were willing to risk their liberty for that truth, even to risk their lives. Now, that's what I would call heroes of war. It's easy to run over a poor third world country and kill a bunch of women and children. Nothing heroic about that, if you ask me. But to risk and sacrifice your own comfort by showing you don't support the treacherous, heinous ways of your fake government, may they claim to share your religion of not, that's what I'd call heroic.

In his book "The Final Quest," Rick Joyner describes a vision in which the armies of Satan are riding on the backs of Christians against God's true army. Are you one of those? On whose side are you really fighting?

Getting back down to the basics of warfare, we already find a description of a simple "armor" of God that every soldier of God should be equipped with in Paul's epistle to the Ephesians: the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith (against the wicked darts of the enemy's lies), the footwear of the gospel of peace (not war), and the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God. The Old Testament is of course full of wars which God's people had to fight in order to conquer and defend the land He had promised them. When Jesus came, however, all that changed, drastically. From then on, warriors of God were warriors of the spirit, just as His children from then on would not be flesh and blood descendants of the Jewish race anymore, but born of God through the reception of the Word of God as manifested in Jesus, by accepting His sacrifice for us (see John 1:13).

Those who most vehemently fight for the Enemy's cause in this world are those who have thus far failed to recognize that truth, those who still fight carnal wars in order to maintain their carnal status as "God's people."

It's no wonder that so few people could imagine that being a Christian could have anything to do with justice or fighting for the right cause. But you have to keep in mind that the Devil will always attack and conquer those first who pose the largest threat to him. He's a very mean enemy who doesn't abide by any rules. He may have duped the majority of Christians, but it's still him you've got to fight, not them.

Of course, by rejecting Christians for their hypocritical actions, most people also reject what Christians are supposed to believe, and that is where they're making the mistake of tossing out the baby with the bath water.

By dismissing the spiritual truths which Christianity, granted, has done a poor job at teaching the world, they allow the enemy of their souls to rob them of the armor and only weapon that could save them from his onslaughts: Salvation, the Gospel, the only righteousness man ever possessed, namely that obtained through the grace of God, faith, and the Word of God. The only alternative is the same we've had ever since the beginning: lies, lies and more lies.

Calamities When calamity strikes, people are usually quick to point their finger at God, "How could He have allowed this?

How could a righteous, just and loving God ever allow such a thing?" – Etc. - Regardless of whether they even believe in Him or not. Many come to the conclusion that there can be no God because of the apparently injustice they see in the calamities happening that sometimes take the lives of many innocent people.

What are we supposed to learn from this, God? Only when we have learned to really trust and experience God's love can we have the faith that God is fully in control of everything, perfectly knows what He's doing and that, as bad as it may seem or look to us, whatever He allows is still the best possible option for those who love Him. It also takes knowledge of His Word, along with respect for His decisions and recognition of His supremacy.

We can't be self-righteous and believe we are better than God. "If I were God, I wouldn't have allowed this. I would have handled things differently. Maybe so - and probably made a helluva mess of things in the process, "Bruce Almighty" style.

In fact, I believe that one of the major purposes of this life in relative distance from God, seemingly apart from Him, and subject to Him only by our free choice, is to experience what we make out of life, out of our surroundings, and - depending on the scope of our influence - what we make of the world. When we said "yes" to the "apple," the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we were given the chance to play God. We could henceforth be our own gods, if we chose to - which many people evidently do.

And so, what are we, the "masters of the universe" making out of what we're given? What are we making of this opportunity to create our own fate?

Some are rather optimistic and blue-eyed about our glorious scientific achievements and all the "progress" we've made since the caves, others are more skeptical. After all, prospects don't look all too rosy. Every hour about a thousand people starve on this planet. Can we really blame God for this, when the rich, so-called Christian nations are spending trillions on weapons, highly sophisticated instruments and equipment designed for the sole purpose of killing others?

Is that all that human progress and "enlightenment" amounts to? Spend fortunes on expensive war toys and adding to the misery of the poor instead of relieving it?

So, who's really to blame? It's true that God is obviously responsible for some of the disasters that befall us. He evidently brought about a worldwide flood once, to wipe out nearly all of mankind, except for 8 people. He destroyed the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Did He know what He was doing? Did they really deserve it? Is He really the bad Guy, and we're His innocent victims? Some folks seem to believe this and talk and act like it.

We're made in His image, and evidently God can get angry, too. The problem is, do we respect His Fatherhood?

Do we revere Him and respect Him as our heavenly Father, or do we just self-righteously shake our heads when He gets angry? "Oh, He's at it again!"

It's always easier to blame others, especially God. But maturity comes by learning to take on responsibility for our own actions. The principle of cause and reaction: "causeless the curse shall not come," and "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." It's inevitable. "Ye have sown the wind and shall reap the whirlwind."

Who's really the Good Guy and who are the bad guys? And are we really that bad? - The question is, are we really as good as we think we are? How does God see it? How interested are we in finding out?

I believe that people are responsible for a large part - the major part - of the dilemmas, catastrophes and calamities this world is facing. Even if most of us seem to behave "innocently," just go to work, fulfill their duties and wouldn't harm a fly, the problem is, are you listening? Are you paying any attention to the One Who put you here? Are you interested at all in what He might want from you, might want to tell you, show you, teach you about why you're here in the first place? Or are you just going through the motions? Get up, eat breakfast, go to work, eat lunch, back to work, go home, eat dinner, go to sleep until the day you die? Maybe go to church on Sunday so you can claim you've rendered "service" to God...

Does one hour a week of listening to a preacher (who hopefully believes in God) teach you all there is to know about God's particular will for your life? Let's be honest: most of us couldn't care less about God, as long as we receive our pay, have got our food on the table, the remote control, a can of beer or a steering wheel in our hands. We're in control. Feels nice, doesn't it? So, where are you leading your life? Where is it heading under your control? Where is your family heading? Are you accomplishing something good for the benefit of all, or just selfishly caring for yourself and your own?

We are responsible. Yes, we have been given a certain amount of control. What are we doing with it? What are you doing in order to alleviate the suffering of others? How much are you investing in the love of "the least of these My brethren," and how much do you have left? How many more could you have saved, as Schindler asked himself at the end of the War, staring at his Nazi gold pin and limousine, wondering how many more Jews he might have been able to save if he had been willing to sacrifice a little more of his luxury?

Are we really that innocent? Or does God know, after all, what He's doing in allowing these calamities to befall us? Maybe He knows better what we really deserve than we do. Maybe He's the just One after all, and we are the ones that err. Could be, couldn't it?

Maybe we could see a whole new scope and range of things about our significance in this world, if we were a little more critical of ourselves, less critical of God, and more interested in why He allows certain things. Could we possibly have anything to do with it? Could it be that He might want us to change things? We're all going to find out sooner or later. Latest when we come to the end of our road.

The End of the Road We have lived our life, we have learned, we have experienced, we have chosen, we have tasted and felt, heard and seen, we have received and given, taken blows and fought on either side, and yet we all, inevitably arrive at this seemingly same end of the road called death.

What was it all for? What was the purpose? Was there a purpose at all? If the materialists are right, then there probably wasn't, for "when I'm dead, then I'm gone" - finito. Nada. The End. Nothingness.

But if the Book the Author of Life itself has given those who were able to decipher His code all throughout life and creation is right, then death is everything else but the end. It's merely the end of elementary school, and you've made the grade and are passing on to high school, truly higher learning.

Even if this life didn't make any sense to you at all, you'll most likely be given a chance to find out what its meaning and purpose was supposed to have been. Maybe you'll figure it all out in one second, perhaps that precise moment of your "passing away," and it will be like the missing piece that will add perfect sense to what previously only seemed a blur. In fact, I'm fairly convinced that you won't even have much figuring out to do at all, but like pretty much everything in life, just as life itself, the understanding of the meaning of things will be given to you.

Life may have been a perfect disaster for you, as far as you could tell, as insignificant and apparently meaningless as a tiny little seed someone dropped in the dirt. But all of a sudden, that seed, tired of all the pressure from the darkness and adversities all around it, soaked in the rain and weakened from age in its substance breaks open, dies and... new life springs forth. That seemingly lifeless cocoon of a has-been of a worm breaks open and reveals a colorful new existence to the world, one which, soaring up in the sky suddenly sees things from a totally new perspective, from above, and boy, do things look different from Up Here... You radiate with such exuberant joy that your beauty is revealed to all the by-standers, all those flowers, the green grass, the blue sky and heavenly music you hear, up Here in the light, having emerged from the darkness of the ground in your hard shell. It all makes sense now.

Even if you had a notion of this in your previous, earthly existence, you had no clue that it was going to be this glorious. And the best thing of all is, you know that this is going to last forever. There is no fear whatsoever, because you know that any slightest trace of worry that you may ever lose any of this life of full abundance you're enjoying right now would be totally ridiculous. For Here, the Maker is in full control. He was down there, too, but for some reason, He allowed things to be seemingly outside of His control, just so that you would be able to appreciate this - eternal - moment.

Contrary to what many think, this cycle of living and dying - according to the Bible - isn't going to go on continuously forever. We're not going to continue "evolving" or developing into some kind of technological super race. Even the makers of Star Trek have shown that they came to the conclusion that mankind is basically intelligent enough, it's just that we so rarely ever make the right decisions.

So, according to the information we find about God's Plan in the Bible, things won't continue forever in this cycle of life and death, but that eventually - quite soon, presumably, according to the signs of the times - it's going to come to an end. The kingdoms and empires of man will be replaced by the everlasting Kingdom of

God, and the current system of time, in which each man's "days are numbered," is going to come to an abrupt halt at a certain and precise moment in history, and "shall be no more" (see Revelation 10:6,7; 11:15, Daniel 2:44).

In a dream God have the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, He describes the World's empires as the statue of a man with a golden head, arms and breast of silver, loins of bronze, iron legs and feet of clay and iron. The statue eventually is being hit in its toes by a rock hurled from Heaven which finally grows into a mountain that fills up the whole world, the everlasting Kingdom of God, while the microscopic remainders of the previous world empires are blown away like chaff with the wind (see Daniel chapter 2 - world history in a nutshell).

This revelation was given to man around 600 B.C, prophesying and foretelling the aspiring world empires of Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome, as well as the odd mixture of democracies and dictatorships we live in today.

Coincidentally (?), the final three and a half years of the history of the world as we know it will be heralded by a statue of himself which the Antichrist will erect in Jerusalem and demand that the world worship, only to be hit by the Rock Jesus Christ at the appointed time, when the point of all this pointlessness will be finally driven home, and we can all close our books and finally go Home (See Mt.24:15, 21; Rev.13:14, 15).

Don't worry, there will still be lots to do then, and everything you will have learned here and now will come in handy there and then. You won't have to worry about earning money anymore in order to pay your bills, nor will anybody send you off toting a gun anymore to fight and kill folks in a faraway land who never did you any harm.

In fact, things are going to be quite the same as they were in the very beginning, when there was even peace between mankind and the animals, and even between the animals themselves. As hard as it may be to imagine for us, but the "lion will lay down with the lamb," and no more greedy politicians will exploit anyone. Truly the end of the world as we know it, and the beginning of a whole new ball game.

Eventually, after one final rising up of evil to show its ugly face for one last time, God will create a new earth with a new and clean atmosphere," and there will be no more sea (Rev.21:1), and God will even bring down His heavenly City and Capital, New Jerusalem (roughly the size of Australia and equally high) down to earth to live among us and make the earth His Head Quarters from which we'll explore, populate and cultivate the rest of the universe according to the principles of growth and fruitfulness He laid down from the beginning. There'll be lots to learn and unlearn for many, well, for all of us, I suppose.

It all may sound a bit weird and far-out to you now, but you'll get used to it, most likely sooner than later. It'll be quite different in many aspects, from the way things are now, and yet in so many ways, quite similar...Anything that represents true love in your life right now will remain until then, and don't worry, everything will make sense then. The hidden meanings of things will be quite open before you then, and as you perhaps are finding out, you can begin to explore them right now.

Coming Home There's a beautiful scene in the movie "Antwone Fisher," which describes death for a believer, or coming Home to Heaven better than anything else I've ever seen, and is all the more touching when you realize that the film is based on a true story. Antwone Fisher is one of those beautiful people still walking on this earth who never had a true home on this earth during his early years, having been raised in orphanages & foster homes accompanied by traumatic childhood experiences.

His Navy Psychiatrist (one of Denzel Washington's best roles ever) encourages him to go and find his real family in order to get at the root of his problems with aggression & feelings of worthlessness. And so, when he finally does find the family of his deceased father, there comes the most beautiful scene in the whole movie, where he enters his aunt's house and meets all the relatives he never even knew he had, everybody eagerly welcoming him, introducing themselves briefly to him with excitement, until finally his aunt gives the signal to open a double door to the dining room, where the old members of Antwone's family sit awaiting him at a richly decked table, very similar to a dream he’d had as a child at the start of the movie.

An old lady (presumably Antwone's grandmother), obviously too weak to even speak, knocks on the table in an effort to demand attention and beckons Antwone to come to her with outstretched hands. Gazing into his eyes, hands in his, and recognizing her long lost son in this newly found grandson, she finally utters one heartfelt "Welcome," and in this moment you feel like, if you'll ever make it to Heaven, this will be the only word you'll want to hear.

So many of us are wandering through life like Antwone Fisher, like Orphans, oblivious to the large family that awaits us when we'll finally come Home from this life's search and journey. We sometimes feel abandoned, too, worthless, often not even due to any wrong we've done, but simply because we figure that there is nobody who loves us enough to have stuck it out with us.

And yet, I am convinced that every person has a huge family awaiting them in eager anticipation, like Antwone Fisher, consisting of ancestors we may never even have heard about. We may not know them, but they know us alright.

Some folks may not be all too keen on being confronted by high and mighty angels when they get to Heaven, perhaps confronting them with all the wrong they possible might have done. But everybody, I'm sure, can be looking forward to coming Home to their true family, the ones of whom you'll know, "that's where I belong.

These are my people," and I bet that's one event making Heaven a worthwhile Place to look forward to and hope we'll eventually wind up there.

Maybe it will take some of us a longer detour to get there than others, but I have a notion that sooner or later we all will. We all will (John 1:9).

Part II This section of the book may be a little confusing to some. “You mean to tell me that what I’m going to read here is actually God or Jesus speaking?” Odd, isn’t it? But wouldn’t it be even odder to assume that the God Who brought this world into being by the Words of His lips, should have shut up for 2000 years, since the beginning of the Bible?

For you, the thought of God talking today may be a little odd, but for thousands of others like me, it’s natural to not only assume, but also to actually have experienced on a daily basis that God should have a mouth and a voice like any of us who were created in His image, and that, just as we do, He should also use them.

Once you get to know Him a little better, you’ll find out that God is totally into communication. God is love, and He loves nothing better than to convey that love to us in any possible way. You may not see an awful lot of that love manifested in today’s world, but that’s basically because people are rejecting and refusing to receive His love.

The coming section of this book is merely to give you taste of what you can experience yourself if you do open your life to His love, and choose to avail yourself of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

If you have not yet made the experience of being “born again” as a child of God by accepting and receiving Jesus as your Savior from a bondage that is tougher than any other chain or prison wall, namely that of our own sins, then you can very easily do so. In fact, Jesus repeatedly said in the Bible that it would be so simple to do that any child can do it. Children receive things by asking for them, and when they ask, they are usually confident that they will be heard and their quest will be answered.

That’s all the faith you need when you ask Jesus, “Please, come into my life and fill me with Your Spirit of love. I accept your sacrifice for Me on the cross and want to become Yours.”

Just imagine Jesus hanging on that cross for you, and resolve in your heart that you’ll accept this gift.

That’ll be the beautiful beginning of a new life, full of wonders to discover, and the true, deeper meaning of everything.

Heavenly Input on... (All messages are from Jesus unless otherwise indicated) ...The Discovery of Meaning Everything is a picture of a hidden reality. I’m teaching you the mysteries of the universe. My whole creation is a continuous message!

So many apparently meaningless details & incidents start making sense once you start turning to Me. It’s like turning a light on in a dark room. It’s like learning to read: all of a sudden those symbols start making sense.

So, if you want to grasp the meaning of every day & every moment of life, simply start learning to read My signs. A lot of things you may not understand may be My handwriting on the wall, & if you seek Me & ask Me, I can reveal their meaning to you.

Tell people about the meaning of life! That life actually has a meaning, a sense of purpose. There is such a thing as purpose! There is such a thing as meaning! And what better and greater meaning and purpose could there be for you than conveying that knowledge to people?

There is a place they're going. There is a destination to their journey, and thus, there is such a thing as destiny. Only that a large part of that destiny is in their own hands! It's up to everyone's own efforts to find that truth, that destiny, that purpose. They cannot just passively wait for everything to fall into place by itself! It takes an effort, a willingness to learn, a readiness for learning, a desire for knowledge, a desire for truth.

It's sometimes a hard and tough job, just like Ann Sullivan's job with Helen Keller, to teach someone the existence of something they're totally oblivious to: the existence of purpose. But once you manage, it's like breaking through from darkness into light, and it will have been worth it! She had the faith that it could be done! She had the desperation and determination that it had to be done. Otherwise her own life would have remained meaningless. Even so, without your conveying the meaning sense of purpose to others, your own life is void of meaning, and the vicious, empty cycle of emptiness and purposelessness will continue.

You must live in the conscience of your duty to break that spell! It's the Great Lie indeed: "There is no meaning! There is no purpose!" That's the myth and evil tale you need to expose and destroy! Show them that there is a meaning! Show them all you have been taught! Show them where to find God, where to see Him; help them decipher His handwriting, help them to discover His signs!

Show them that despite all the apparent meaninglessness, there IS a meaning, much greater than they could fathom. But it's not beyond their reach! In fact, God is more than willing to reach out to them and show them and teach and tutor them, to talk to them, just as He has been talking to you! Show them that there is a way that they can listen, even though they're deaf. That there's a way they can learn how to see, even though they are blind! There is a way to know that which they know not of, that which they don't even believe exists, they cannot believe because they have been poisoned with the gas of unbelief. But you can revive them, resuscitate them, awaken them and bring them back to life! All you need to do is give them the truth: there is a meaning to everything.

The type of people that stories are being told about, movies are being made about & books are being written about, are not the mere survivors, those who fight for nothing else but their survival, like all the rest of them, but the types who take time to live, to learn the lessons of life, who go through life with both eyes & ears open & find out what it's all about: those who find Me, and let Me teach them the gist and essence of life.

Every day of your life is like a picture, which in itself is a piece of the puzzle of the big picture of your life, which again is a piece of My Big Picture of everything. Often people don't remember the important things in their lives because they didn't esteem them enough. They were too busy with temporal affairs, such as making money, and their lives with all the lessons involved, just pass them by. But I want you to take the time to remember.

Everything is orchestrated by Me, everything visible is only a physical result of some spiritual truth, and thus there is a plan behind it.

I'm urging you to see the invisible cause of the visible more, to open up your spiritual eyes, the eyes of faith. If you see the physical a result of the Spiritual, then it simply takes on a lot more meaning. You know I meant something by allowing this or that to happen, or even creating this or that situation. You'll know that nothing is without guidance, nothing is by chance; it's all going somewhere, and thus you develop much greater faith and trust with which to walk through every day of your life, and which you can then impart to others, too.

Every day should be a vast scope and canvas of opportunities for you, of things to learn, and things to pass on. It shouldn't ever just be a struggle for survival.

I’m teaching you personally through the school of life and your experiences, all that you have to go through, your trials and lessons… these are all ways in which I communicate and interact with you.

They complete another piece in the puzzle of the deeper meaning of everything.

(Go to Chapter 2)

...The Big Lie

Someone who reminds people of their Creator will hardly ever receive a warm welcome among those who have rejected the very thought of their Creator, who have embraced the Big lie that life & the World with all that’s in it came into being by itself, just so they can keep doing their own thing without their conscience pricking them too hard...

Things break. They deteriorate. They don't get better or improve by themselves, as the evolutionists claim. The only way you can grow in this life and truly gain is by acquiring spiritual riches that won't be corrupted. The only way to grow is in the spirit. Because your natural man decreases, it's actually dying. So you have to sow to the immortal, the spirit, if you want to play for keeps.

If someone believes in Evolution - as much insight & truth they might have in other aspects - it shows that they have not grasped yet to which extent the Devil is lying to the world, and how much the world is ruled by his lies.

Evolution doesn't work. The only thing that will ever create something better out of something not-so-good is love. Love is the very force & source of miracles which could have made any such process of evolution work, and yet, at the same time obliterates the very need for such a complicated and unnecessary process.

You won't find many evolutionists saying they believe in love as the thriving power or force behind evolution, because if they would believe in a God of Love, then they would very unlikely believe in evolution. Evolution is, after all, nothing more than the excuse for not having to believe in God, and a theory still based on "the survival of the fittest," which is, basically, the opposite of My philosophy of "the meek shall inherit the earth."

In order to really learn, you must forget all you know, or rather, forget all you think you know.

No wonder people came up with the theory of evolution. It's just that they got it wrong: this is not where you came from, but this is where you're going without Me. Instead of a bright, enlightened and charming mind, you turn into something that rather reminds others of an animal.

Don’t feel too bad about being unaware of My miracle-working processes all around you at times, as you can tell, you’re not the only one. At least you’re aware of them most of the time, while most people never even acknowledge My presence nor existence at all, blatantly denying the possibility of My existence in spite of the plain evidence all over My creation.

Pretty tough, huh? – Talking ‘bout not being accepted or included by those you call your own: Imagine you’re the Father & Creator of the whole bunch, & your children & your creation just simply refuse to even acknowledge your very existence! – ‘No, I’ve got no father! – I simply came into being by an unplanned, random process called evolution...’ If you think you have reasons to be frustrated sometimes, all I can say is ‘Welcome to the club!’

So what if your life is a mess! Look at Me! Every life is a mess without Me! In fact, this whole physical universe is constantly deteriorating without Me under the curse, and unless the Father and I would turn that process around someday soon, no flesh should be saved.

Herein lies the deception of the Enemy: the pretense of progress, that things are seemingly developing into a better state, that which he has concocted to be the lie of Evolution, when in reality the World is literally decaying and rotting away under his reign & influence, because he sucks the very life out of it. He is the reversal of life and of all that is good, that’s why creation is dying, groaning to be delivered, and I WILL deliver.

The majority of the Creationist movement is being way too tame, too polite, too politically correct to shake people up!

They're too timid to openly declare war against the Matrix! They don't see the spiritual background, the profoundness of the lie and atrocity as clearly as you do, that lies behind the educational System and the System's entire brainwash about evolution and other matters.

They may have their beliefs straight on these things, but they're not militant enough in their attack on these issues.

They're not bold enough, not brave enough, and in this, they're not following in My footsteps. You don't wake anybody up with a whisper. I said, what I whisper in your ears, that shout from the roof tops.

You're dealing in truth (if anybody asks you what your business is), and the problem is that the demand for it is kind of rare, which is why you have to ignite and spark people's interest in it. Which is what's so interesting about the theme of the "Matrix." It's the approach of, "what if all that you have thus far perceived as reality should turn out to be a lie?"

Because that's what it basically amounts to. "Would you be ready to experience the adventure of the truth?" The lie is easy, the lie is comfortable. It may even satisfy somewhat, like a drug, but it will never really and totally and truly make you happy. Like a drug, you may become addicted to it and dependent on it, and the thought of ever having to live without it scares you nearly half out of your wits. But you can offer these junkies freedom. Wouldn't you definitely consider such freedom from such an addiction a positive gift? Yes, it requires a miracle. First of all, they have to be willing to forsake this drug they've been so comfortable with, perhaps for all their lives. And then they have to see it through, to go without it, to start a whole new life of independence on that former crutch they were so used to.

My sheep know deep inside that there is something else than the drug, the lie, and they're waiting for it, waiting for their liberation, waiting for the truth, waiting for the light to pierce their darkness, their false imitation of light, their "reality," which they can quite clearly sense that it couldn't possibly be all there is. The others are fine with it. They can keep pretending and playing the game until the day they die. The lie is like second nature to them, in fact, it's more than that; to them it is the truth, and some will even vehemently defend it.

Never allow them to pull you down to their level, never allow them to think that for you it's acceptable the way they live in the lie, not condescending in any way, but expecting them to make progress in overcoming their addiction, piece by piece dismantling the lie they've been living thus far. You've got to state it in no uncertain terms. When somebody tells a lie, then say it, expose it: "That's a lie!" Don't let'em get away with it. Sure, you'll make enemies that way, but also lots of friends that count.

Those who lie to themselves & prefer to live in the lie will always oppose you, all you’ve got to offer is the truth. ”Men loved darkness rather than light...” Light is always the strange new ingredient, along with the truth... The lie was so cozy & comfortable... so easy to live with...

Living in the darkness is just drifting along effortlessly, but living in the light is a constant struggle & fight! It’s dangerous, because you’re exposed to your enemies, & they come to pick at you & see whether they can uproot you. The wind and the weather will test you severely, and the sun will sear your with scorching heat...

But all this will only make you thirst for Me more desperately, will make you cling to Me for dear life, in utter reliance on Me, & that’s when I can use you.

The Enemy rules the realm in which you live right now, and I want you to be aware of his devices, so that you can fight him better & won't fall for his deceit. I'm exposing his lie with My truth. Just as I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, so he's the wrong way, the Lie and Death, and the more I expose him to you, the more power you will have to expose him to others as well, and show them what's keeping them captive.

All I have to offer you is the truth! But the truth is all you need in a world of lies, in order to cut through & rise above.

The truth and the knowledge of the truth will help you rise above and free you from all the confines, simply because you're realizing that they're living a lie. You've got to expose the lie and the wrongs before the truth can really set you free.

There are too many people out there who defend nothing but their own little truth. That's the result of Adam & Eve believing Satan's lie at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, "Ye shall be as gods." The problem is that when you have millions or even billions of little "gods" running around & everyone of them having their own "truth," it's pretty hard for those who are not as conceited to find out what to believe in and what really is the truth.

(Go to Chapter 3)

...Light Let Me be your light, and I will light your path.

You’re overwhelmed by the sheer thought of how I’m doing this simultaneously to many of My children & brides? Well, one simple illustration of this is the sun: It doesn’t just give its light to one flower or blade of grass at a time, but to many, countless others simultaneously. That’s how My love works, too.

(Spirit Helper - presumably a colored lady:) I think you better wake up, ‘cause God is comin’! Like that fire in the movie, ‘Out Of Africa’! It’s gonna burn the old & light the landscape for all to behold the mighty things the Lord God Almighty will do! So, stand back & see Him burn! Watch Him shine! ‘This little light o’ mine...’ not so little, that light! You’re gonna see!

Like many spotlights & a comet’s tail! Be ready for the Lord, bro’! Be ready & let Him shine through you! No more hiding your light under a bushel, boy! No more pretending you’s one o’ dem! No more sheep in wolves’ clothing – time! Time to rise, rise & shine! You know what that means? Rise above the crowd & shine for Jesus, boy, ‘cause He’s the Light of the World, & they can’t see Him, ‘xcept through you! So, will you be His candle, His torch, His beacon, His spot light?

It’s vital that you stay in tune with My Words, for only the entrance of My Word giveth light.

Heaven is the opposite of the selfish System man’s society is based on – the Devil’s System, really. One of the purposes of this Earthly life is to get people so sick of that system that seeing My wonderful heavenly System will immediately strike them as the solution, the answer to all their questions, the light after a long dark night. ...Like coming to see the light after having lived a life in blindness. You, My children, have the ability to see that light & carry that light in your hearts already, that’s what makes you so special. It’s just that the Enemy tries with all his might to get you to hide that light under bushels of pride & fear of sticking out & not being accepted... bushels of ‘coolness’, bushels of pretending you’re really not that different... Well, if you knew how beautiful that difference is, not only in My eyes, but also in the eyes of those out there who seek Me, even if they would never admit it, you wouldn’t be ashamed of it anymore. Those among you who I’m really able to use best are those who don’t hide it but flaunt it. They let it shine.

They gladly share My love with a smile with anyone they pass by. They don’t care if anyone thinks they’re nuts. They know the principle of happiness. They just go out there & shine & shine & give & give, and their radiance grows, as they grow closer to Me, until, as My Word says, they shall shine as the stars & the brightness of the firmament forever.

Look up to the real stars, the ones who are going to be stars in My Kingdom, & already are in My eyes: The cheerful givers, the little saints, the nobodies who make My kingdom possible, who give My existence - the existence of it all - a meaning... the diamonds of dust, without whom My light would be invisible, & without which this World would be in total, absolute darkness.

Love, light and life, they are one, and they are to be desired.

Bask in My sunshine, seek for the sunshine of My love everyday & bathe your face in its light...

Just lay your hand in Mine, & I will be better & more unto you than a light on your path and a known way.

A plant will only grow so well as it’s being watered and exposed to My sunlight!

My supernatural, unconditional love’s the same difference as when the sunshine bursts through, or turning on the light in a dark room. You can have the sunshine on in your life anytime you call on Me and listen to My Words.

My Word will restore light where there was a gray hazy mist of lies, it will be a bright beacon on your path, and a clashing sword in battle.

There lies much greater wisdom, knowledge , light & salvation in My Words, even in the most insignificant of My Words, than in all the so-called wisdom of man & their philosophies combined.

Let the light in, and the darkness will flee of itself. Completely yield to Me, My light, My love, My warmth.

I will have to become your only light, your bread, your water, and everything you need to live, for the Devil is going to try to cut all other means of supply.

I have not given you the spirit of fear, nor of uncertainty, nor of darkness, nor of confusion, but the Spirit of power, of love, of light & of a sound mind.

After every storm the sun will shine again: this is the way it has always been. For though much terror has been brought into the world & worse shall come: is not My power greater than all that? Isn’t My love greater than their hatred?

I don’t want you to be overwhelmed by the evil you see in the world, leaving you stunned & unable to give life & light to others, I want you to be overwhelmed by My joy, My love & My goodness & light and to shine it forth & overflow onto them, like a fountain of life, love & light, throwing forth sparkles of the same everywhere you go.

Impart that same light I have given you to those with whom you come in touch. Change the world by opening the eyes of the spiritually blind & proclaim that there’s yet another world to find, My Kingdom.

If there wouldn’t be any opposition, there would be no challenge. You’ve got to have some kind of contrast against which you can see the light. It works like this in many other aspects of My creation.

Unfortunately, the large majority of people prefer darkness to the light, for their deeds are evil.

The greater the darkness, the brighter the light, and the closer we get to the End, the brighter you will shine.

Woe unto a man if the light that be in them is darkness, and if the words they speak will be found to be lies to deceive many.

My Words are a mirror to your soul & an exposing light of the wickedness & deceitfulness of the heart of man.

You are like interferences piercing Satan’s cloak of lies around the world, his veneer of deception, you are My rays of hope. Rays of light piercing through his layer of clouds enveloping this globe.

In order to shine forth with the needed intensity to pierce his gray layer of deceit, you must focus on Me & receive your power to shine from Me. I won’t expect you to do or accomplish anything for Me in your own strength.

The greatest thing you should always seek, even though it’s not always easy, is the truth.

Inhale it, absorb it, and reflect it, and then you will be a piercing ray of light that will cut through the Devil’s gray dome of clouds, and the darker it gets, the brighter you’ll be, and I’ll know exactly where to find you, when I’ll come to gather you unto Me. Love is the only light, the only truth, the only thing that gives a life purpose.

When it comes to this world, I’ve always been strange & weird, and you know why. It’s not because I am weird, but because they’re so far away from the way things are supposed to be. They’re so far away from My standard of love, so deep into their darkness, the light scares them half to death. That’s why you scare them: you radiate that light that’s penetrating & invading their darkness, & it makes them feel uncomfortable, exposed, naked. They don’t want to be. They want to cover up, cloak themselves, ‘Quickly, give me back my cloak of pride, my cover-up, my reputation... let me hide my true self here behind this name, behind this pretense, behind all my fancy things, which make up the constitution of the personage I’m supposed to be in this society...’ When all they really amount to in this System is a number.

Independence is alright, as long as you don’t dream of independence from Me. It’s as if the Earth would declare its independence from the sun & drift off into space. It’s like a fish’s independence from water, or any plant’s independence from the light – or yours from the air... you can’t do without it. I’ve written it all over My handiwork: ‘you need Me, you can’t do without Me any more than a fish can do without water, a plant can do without light, no more than you can live without air: without Me, you can do nothing!’

You have already been hurt by the cruelty of the darkness & know that there is no other satisfaction for you than My heavenly light! So, come, My love, & open your eyes to visions of heavenly light! Catch some rays of heavenly sunshine, flooding your soul with glory divine!

Greater light is here than the sun’s, greater & more eternal radiance. A light that doesn’t hurt the eyes & won’t scorch the Earth, nor cause disease. My light is only pure & good! So, My children, seek Me, for My pure & true light!

Bathe in My light! Even if you see nothing else at first, with the eyes of your spirit: just a glimpse of My true, eternal, lifegiving, heavenly light will strengthen you & lift you up & encourage you enough to keep going with renewed vigor & strength!

Consider My heavenly light that source of energy you need in order for your spiritual flower to really come to full bloom & blossom into its full beauty!

The more you absorb Me, the more you will reflect My light.

You have never lived as intensely & as thoroughly & as fully as when you've been out there on the battle field, fighting for the souls of man, beckoning them to enter My Kingdom & shooting My bullets of light & life into the Devil's territory & land of the dead.

The less there is of you, the more the light shines through. You must decrease so that I can increase in you. Are you willing to become a little bit less of yourself & a whole lot more of Me? Your personal problems are tiny, unimportant & insignificant in comparison to the monumental task of flooding the Devil’s territory of darkness in My light!

Oh, the hurt & pain a soul can inflict upon itself when it locks Me, the Light of the World, out of its world.

There are many, countless in number, who live in that same world – one where My light never shines, but only the fake, artificial light of the usurper.

You will be the beacons of My light to the world in the greatest darkness this World has ever known.

Love is like light, which is reflected in the gazillions of tiny little particles of which everything consists, without which the light itself would remain invisible. Even so, love, without all the countless tiny little manifestations of it, isn’t really there.

I have called you to open up your eyes and behold the land of the living. I have called you unto light & out of their darkness.

Just like a flower will wither away if you hide it & keep it away from the light, so love will wither if you try to keep it to yourselves. It’s a law of the spirit I’ve established.

(Go to Chapter 4)

…God’s Family When you give your love away, it comes back to you again...’ & that’s just the beginning of the way I have ordained this Family to start changing the world: not by being the same little selfish couples as they can see all over the System: hold hands a little here, smooch a little there, and ‘Oh I’m so happy he or she belongs to me...’

Imagine if parents on Earth wouldn’t have any cares & worries about having to come up with the provisions for their families, and on top of it would not be subject to sin & the devil’s temptation: Their children would be their greatest joy, and the major theme around which the large part of their activities would revolve. That’s the way I, your Heavenly Father, and My Queen, the Holy Spirit, care for you, watch you, rejoice in you, our children.

You have been given the awareness of your greater, heavenly Family around you. For ‘The Family’ is not only that relatively small Earthly group of crazy believers, that organization that many shake their heads about or even consider a spot on the surface of their society, but The Family is a much larger entity, a cooperative, inter-dimensional, multigenerational body or machinery consisting of countless members behind the curtain which separates your realm & ours.

That’s why I have called My Family an army, although your numbers are small, and most of you would be too young or too weak to fight in any Earthly combat. But you are just the tip of the iceberg.

Most people consider everything that is their own to be of superior value than that which is someone else’s: whether it be their own opinion, their own point of view, their own country or family or way of doing things... their own religion.

That’s the difference between true faith & all false religions. True faith is the opposite of all that is ‘your own’, for it comes not from ‘your own’ world, nor ‘your own’ mind, nor from any place or realm that is ‘your own’. For the Kingdom of God does not belong to any man, but any man can choose to belong to the Kingdom of God. I am He that breaks up couples, selfish little couples & families, to make of the broken pieces one greater Family. This has been My vision for this Family from the beginning. And those who don’t want to share often find themselves losing that which they did not want to share.

Look what beauty! Look what beautiful souls, what beautiful people I have brought forth out of this Family of battles, trials, weaknesses & sufferings! Listen to the beautiful voices I brought forth from the lowest of the low.

In becoming one with Me, you will become one with all the other partakers of My love in the universe. ‘Come together over Me!’ That’s the scheme! And the result will be one big, happy, joyful, universal Family, My Kingdom of Love!

It ever grows & expands, almost like an explosion. Just like a baby & any living creature comes into being by the union of one tiny cell with another & endlessly parting & multiplying until the baby is born & then grows into another grown human being, able to bring forth his own fruit, to continue the cycle forever on, so it is with all My creation & the spiritual realm.

Learn to be friends who don’t hurt each other, but who respect each other & esteem the other higher than yourself.

Friends who are truly willing to lay down their pride & lives for each other.

I have called all of you, My brides & friends & brethren & Family & of other folds who can bear this, to be mates of each other. Learn to have a loyalty for each other which won’t have to be demanded and assured or confirmed over & over again, but a loyalty & a love which is simply there, unmistakably, undeniably & undoubtedly.

That is how My Family & My children throughout time have been able to operate and survive against all odds: It wasn’t that they had any outstanding means, finances or wealth to back them up, it was a look into their eyes that told people, “you can trust them!” That is what you must learn to put your personal trust in, more than any other physical security you would want to render, or guarantee you would want to give to anyone: It’s My Spirit that counts! The Spirit of Love.

Put My Family, My Kingdom first, before your personal, carnal sense of belonging, & see how much I will bless you with greater love, both, on the giving and the receiving end, for “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

Your spiritual Family comes first, before your flesh family. It’s a little bit of an acid test, as to whether your loyalties are really stronger to your spiritual ties than the physical...

My Family is not a perfect, but a peculiar people, lest any flesh should boast.

It's time that My Family shows that they're truly My followers by showing the World that example of a group of people who really love each other, wash each other's feet & are willing to lay down their lives & their pride for each other.

The difference between the System & the Family is Me. In the System there is darkness with no light. In the Family, there is still a lot of darkness & dirt & sin which is inborn human nature or contamination from the World or brought about by the Enemy's attacks & intrusions, but there is hope, because I am there to cleanse anyone from their sin for the asking, there is forgiveness, there is love in spite of the sin. That's what grace is, the grace whereby ye are saved, not of yourselves, not of works, lest any man should boast.

The Family is a spiritual entity, a spiritual army, and a lot depends on how loyal you are being to that army, meaning that whoever happens to be fighting on your side, alongside you in that army at the moment is your brother or sister in arms, and they deserve your loyalty, and if one of your carnal children tries to sow division between you and your spiritual brethren and comrades, you need to stand up for your convictions, which should consist at least in part of an undaunting loyalty towards your brethren, in spite of any & all weaknesses or flaws.

I have made My stance on carnal families, whether it be father, mother, son, daughter, husband or wife, quite clear in My Word, and have clearly stated that those who obey Me and do the Father's will, they are My brethren, My Family. And the question is, how much do you believe that? How much do you practice that?

If any man loves his flesh and blood family more than Me and My spiritual Family, he is not worthy of Me, nor of My Family.

I have come into the World to set mankind free from the burden of their sins, but I have given My Family to the World in order to set them free from the slavery of the System. The only alternative. But the Devil tries to deny you the right to be free. He says, "No, this can't be done! You're breaking the rules! You're mine! You have to fulfill your duties towards my rules, my system..."

My Family is a Family of the Spirit, and it's open to anyone who will, anyone who would like to join it, but in order to join it, you'll have to leave the flesh & the allures of the World at the door. Once you have decided you want to be part of our big heavenly Family, there are some pretty exclusive rules, and all that hog-wash from man's carnal mind, influenced by Satan, will have to go.

It's My Family, and if you want Me to change something about it, the best One to talk to is Me, and I'll show you what you can do or how you can go about it in order to eventually see some changes made.

The real thing, My friend, is right here: right on the scrubbing floors level of the nitty-gritty work of getting a tiny little family unit of "Me, thee, thou and none other" to function properly, before you can think of gathering masses of followers around you! Once you've got that core working properly and the way it should, you'll see that the other things will also fall into place in their own time.

A marriage is a good thing, but marriage to Me and the greater Family is more important.

In My eyes, you're all one big family! You all have the same great-great-great-great-great....grandfather, Adam, and after that, Noah, so, you're all one big family, so to speak. Now it's your choice whether you want to accept your place in that Family and do what you can to help your brothers & sisters or not. Or whether you prefer to play the Devil's game & do it his way: "I take care of myself, and if that means I have to take something away from my 'brother,' I will not hesitate to do it!" Then you can join his family, but it's not going to be anywhere near as fun, and the rewards aren't going to be near as good as they are going to be for those who choose to be on My side & do it the loving way, the helping way, the considerate way.

The Family is full of contradictions, riddles and wonders.

You can't figure the Family out, label it, put it into any drawer & say, "the Family is like this or that, period." The Family is as multi-faceted and complex as each & every member in it.

(Spirit helper:) The Family is a funny thing. It looks kind of strange. Some people are scared of it. Some folks think it's pretty, some think it's ugly. But one thing has to be said about it as one of its attributes: it lives.

It's because God lives in it. You never know exactly what He or it might be up to next, it's full of surprises. That's why you can't pin it down, label it or put it in a drawer or categorize it. It constantly changes. Don't discard it prematurely. It might all of a sudden start glowing and burn its way clear through your mental trash can.

The Family's a funny thing. Funny things do happen. Especially if it's God's thing, you can't stop it from happening. You mess with it and you might find out you just stuck your finger right in the middle of God's eye.

Just like someone becomes a member of My Family through My blood, so a familiar spirit has a link to their victim or charge through blood ties of relation, which is why they're called "familiar" spirits.

You can make the difference between what the Family is and what the Family could be, right now! So much depends on you!

The Family is like a garden, similar to the garden of Eden, and not without the presence of the snake, either, and the only way that garden is going to prosper is by maintaining it, applying elbow grease to it, tending it and keeping away from that snake!

Keep Me as the Center of your marriage & family. I'm the glue that holds you together.

There will always - in this world - be frictions within families, for various reasons: People are not aware to which extent the Enemy tries to destroy their unity and fights them; they're not aware of their own weaknesses, responsibilities and share of the blame for the friction; etc.

The Family is a living thing, and as in all living organisms, there are good things that work toward the furtherance and enhancement and procreation of life, and there are negative things, which also have their time and purpose, such as bacteria & other parasites, which are present a-plenty in any body, and just show that there is a war to be fought.

Bacteria are not your actual enemy, but help to keep and make your body strong for the actual fight.

You are My wife, My bride, My children, My Family, and if I don't care for you, then I'm worse than an infidel.

Loyalty to My Family, My clan, My heavenly country & nation is definitely priority over any "Egyptian" philosophies, views or even "open-mindedness." Stay radical, stay tuned to Me, stay dropped out, an Israelite at heart, and have no room in your heart open for the ways and enticements of Egypt.

The church system is still based on the sermon principle, while I’m building My Family on the principle of becoming a living sample of the truth, just as I was a living sample, and all My true saints were samples of My love and truth, more than just sermons.

There are enough teachers, preachers and talkers delivering sermons, but way too few guides who truly show the way by walking therein themselves first...

You've got to show how much you're ready to fight for it, how much you really believe in the Family, in spite of some "relative" oddities, some traits in your spiritual relatives and Family that you tend to be ashamed of.

I like to work in teamwork, and I don't just run a one-Man show up Here. I like to include everybody I can and allow them to participate in the work on the Big Picture.

Let's bust that "group think" & blow all those little "groups" and cliques to hell, in order to finally make one large Family out of all of them!

While it's true that since Cain and Abel, not all in My Family were of My Family, this should not surprise you or make you worry, "where should we turn to then?" I'm still in control, and you have to trust that this is My doing, My allowing and My planning. You see what happens to kids when everything is perfect for them: they become spoiled!

The only thing that keeps folks desperate, dependent on Me and praying as they ought, is when things are going less than perfect for them, when there are adverse circumstances, and particularly those which are brought about from among their own ranks. Otherwise, the group becomes the substitute for everything: for Me, for everything they would look up to, live for and follow. The group becomes IT, instead of Me, the group becomes god.

Man worship is still much more farspread than many people realize, and one of the most common forms of modern idolatry, with many of its perpetrators/victims not even realizing it. And I'm not for it, but will do what I can to expose those idols for their feet of clay.

It is My will that the Family isn't perfect, just as it has been My will that My church never was, and My people never were.

The church was never meant to be the all-in-all. The All-in-all is Me, and the church is merely a place where you can find Me, a group of people through whom others can find Me, and sometimes by means of the very fact that My own people are so far from perfect.

There's no other way but to look to Me. There's nowhere else to find the Perfect but in Me, and I'm using the imperfect to have those who seek the perfect point to Me. The message is: if you think you're going to find the answer and all you're seeking just in any group of failing, sinful and imperfect flesh and blood people like you, then you're wrong! You will always find some flaws anywhere, with anyone, in this world. If you want the flawless, turn to Me! If there's anything I want My Family to be, it's different. I want there to be an alternative to that which already exists, especially that so-called normal arm-of-the-flesh-dependent System.

(Go to Chapter 5)

…The Holy Spirit My Spirit is pure and clean & gives away freely of Her pure & genuine love, without any interest in gain for Herself, but only so that others may find life. Even so, I want you to take on My Spirit, and not think about any gain, any advantage for yourselves, but seek only to give unselfishly, that your love may be found pure in My sight, and I can truly reward you!

What’s important, is that you each make the connection with My Holy Spirit & let Her empower you to do what you can’t, let her take you over. That’s the Comforter for you: She comforts you over the fact that you can’t do it & helps you do it instead! Like a Mother will say to a frustrated child, ‘Come here, let Me help you!’ And She does the work for you. Like a mother taking her child’s hand when he’s trying to write or draw something beyond his ability, She guides your hand & does it for you. You hold the pencil, but She guides your hand.

You've got to believe in My love, you've simply got to know that I love you! The original sin of man was to doubt that, and the greatest sin, the sin against the Holy Spirit, is to reject that love by not believing that God so loved the World that He gave His only begotten Son, once they've been given the chance to receive Him. (Gem, female spirit helper:) When (Jesus) was talking about the Comforter, He wasn't only talking about the Queen Mother, although she is very much involved in all this communication. Communication is specially a woman's thing...

He wasn't just exclusively referring to Her as the Comforter, but actually to the process, the power itself that would set all this in motion; the event of Pentecost & all that goes with it and has been going on ever since...

You become a vessel, a pure, virgin bride of Mine, by letting My Holy Ghost take you over and possess you: "The Holy Ghost will come over you and overshadow you," as Gabriel announced to Mary, and then you shall receive Me, the perfect Son of God, into your flesh, and your flesh will be no longer imperfect flesh, but that which is mundane and earthly will be made divine!

It was Me, My flesh in Mary, in her flesh, that made her divine, and that's why millions of Catholics practically worship her today. But the trick is to just let My Holy Ghost overshadow you, control you and possess you, and then I'll be able to come in unto you & bring forth the fruit in you that I - and you - desire! Let Me do with you, as I will, as Mary gave My Father leave to do.

The fire which went before the Israelites in the desert by night was no ordinary fire, as you can imagine... the same fire that didn't consume the bush Moses saw, My fire - the same of which consisted the tongues of fire that descended on the day of Pentecost.

The "holy fire," which burns away your desires & anything that is Not of Me, but of you. It burns away the spiritual dross, the sin, it purifies & makes white... That's why the early Christians & apostles who had been filled with the Spirit were so holy, so unearthly, almost supernatural in their purity & conviction. It was almost as if the fire of My Holy Spirit had "burned" their old selves away.

The Comforter is there to comfort you through this time of suffering through this world, and She'll enable you to call & beckon yet others of My lost brides to come unto Me. And through My Holy Spirit, I am with you, right within you, reminding you of the fact that this world is never going to be your home, never the place where you belong, filling you with joyous anticipation of the glorious Kingdom to come, where all things will be perfect, where we will be truly united, and all My brides shall be as one. No more disunity, nor more separation, but perfect one-ness, total unity, total love.

Just open the faucet! All you've got to do is turn it, open it & let it pour, according to your desire, according to your thirst.

That's how abundant My flow is, how ever-present My power, My comfort, My Holy Spirit with Her (nine) gifts of prophecy, miracles, healing, wisdom, knowledge, tongues, discernment, interpretation and faith! Plus the tenth, the most excellent

of all, which sums them all up, just as I sum up all the good qualities of the different types of human personality: love.

(See 1Cor.12, 13).

You have to make a constant positive decision of saying "yes, I want You" to My Holy Spirit.

My Holy Spirit can be easily shooed away, when She feels like she has been replaced by some spirit of feverishly trying to accomplish something, instead of fully leaning on Me. You know how it is when you don't feel needed. You don't want to just barge in on people who give you the impression they're doing perfectly fine without you, doing things in a way or a spirit quite distinct from yours, and act as if the last thing in the world they would need right now is someone coming in and telling them they ought to be doing it differently.

Well, the Holy Spirit is relatively shy and reluctant to "barge in," too, in such situations, and when you're already fully in your "groove," and your usual modus operandi, then there's nothing much anybody can do, not even My Spirit, to try to interfere.

The Holy Spirit is like a dove than gently descends where She is beckoned and invited and asked to come. She won't land where She's not welcome, nor will she share a crowded heart that's filled with any other idol and false god and fallacy this world has to offer.

Before Abraham was, I am. In fact, before everything and everybody was, except for My Father and My heavenly Mother, I am. So, I'm a little bit older than everybody else except the Father and His Spirit Queen...

They've simply been around forever, and will continue to be. In fact, everything that is made is part of them, a manifestation or expression of them. It's something you can't really grasp or fathom with your mind, but simply something you're going to have to accept.

(Go to Chapter 6)

…God the Father I like to stay behind the scenes... and: look at the Father! He’s the best sample of all of someone taking the back seat...

There is a time for everything under the sun: a time for embracing, and a time to refrain from embracing...

You would like to abide in those times of embracing, those times of tenderness, of love & joy & fellowship forever. But don’t forget, you’re in a war, and the situation is getting darker & more & more tense by the hour. So, that’s why we’ve got to be tough sometimes, even as a father. Yes, then the world looks at us & points their fingers at us, how cruel, how cold, how harsh & unloving we can be. All the while it’s not really us who are cruel, but the world itself. First they tempt you to be lenient on your child, tell you to let them go their own way, let them be independent, and then, when they get into trouble, they’re trying to make you feel guilty.

It’s similar to the way the world blames all their troubles on Me, whether they believe in Me or not, I’m always to blame, just in case I exist, and oh, all good things come from their own hands...

It’s the same vicious cycle all over again of self-righteousness & people wanting to be their own gods.

Most people never even acknowledge My presence nor existence at all, blatantly denying the possibility of My existence in spite of the plain evidence all over My creation. Pretty tough, huh? – Talking ‘bout not being accepted or included by those you call your own: Imagine you’re the Father & Creator of the whole bunch, & your children & your creation just simply refuse to even acknowledge your very existence! – ‘No, I’ve got no father! – I simply came into being by an unplanned, random process called evolution...’ If you think you have reasons to be frustrated sometimes, all I can say is ‘Welcome to the club!’

Is it really so selfish & cruel of Me to want everybody to love Me first? I’m just telling you what’s good for you. Just like every plant grows towards the sun & flourishes & prospers by obeying that law of nature, so will you if you will obey My law of love. But if you turn away from Me, your spiritual Sun, you won’t prosper & grow, but wither & die, that’s how simple it is.

Only the rebellious, the jealous, the envious the proud, those who’d like to be the big head-honcho themselves, like Lucifer & anyone else who’ll ever listen to him, they have a hard time yielding & cow-towing to an even greater One than themselves. They don’t want to soak up the sun, they want to be the sun themselves, but in so doing, they become a black hole sun, radiating blackness & darkness, poisoning the world.

They’re polluting the world with their rubbish. And what do you do with rubbish? Clean it up! Get rid of it! You recycle what can be salvaged & still be used & get rid of the rest. Now, what’s so unloving about that? That’s what any loving father, keeper or creator of anything would do: Keep & protect his children, offspring, flock or creation from harm & varmint that might threaten to destroy or cause them to get sick, & so, you get rid of the threatening menace.

Some people nowadays might not call that love, but I consider it My loving responsibility. Nowadays people confuse leniency for love, letting them get away with anything... But that’s not love. I require obedience, because nothing but obedience to Me will ensure your happiness & safety. And I will do My best to protect My lambs from the influences of those who try to lure them away from the straight & narrow path of strict obedience, which is the road to happiness & a safe haven.

Especially when your child is young, you protect it even more zealously from danger. The older he gets, the more you allow to happen to him, to let him learn to reap the consequences of his own actions. That’s why right now you see less cataclysmic intervention from My hand. I will have to allow the world to follow that rebellious punk to his & almost their

bitter end, in order to learn a lesson that will keep them behaving for a thousand years. If you have a better plan, hey, we can talk about it! I’m all ears, but first you’ll have to convince Me...

Even I said to the rich young ruler, ‘Why callest thou Me good?’ Compared to the perfection of the Father and His realm everything on Earth looks so pitiful, so shameful, so endlessly lacking & falling short of His glory, that even I, in My fleshly body felt like anything but good. So, cheer up, if you don’t feel good. Even I didn’t feel good, and you know that those who do feel good and righteous about themselves usually are the ones who are far from it.

‘He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are but dust’ (Ps.103:4).

I want to give everybody a chance to repent, to turn around & change their minds, their hearts & their ways, because I love them. Yes, I love them.

That’s what John 3:16 is all about. I love them, and the Father loves them, that’s why I came. That’s why He sent Me and that’s why I’m sending you, because I love them.

Once you come Here, you will know the victory has been won, although some of the actual fighting is still to take place.

It’s hard to comprehend while your still on the temporal plain, but it’s still the truth. It’s like those people asking, “Who made God?” It’s hard for a temporal being to grasp the consistence of eternal beings. Although I was created, for I am the beginning of the creation of God, the Father is and was and will always be eternal. There is no beginning nor end to Him. Unless something is really bad & dangerous for you, I will usually let you have your way, even if I know it’s not really good or the best for you. I often even let you have your heart’s desire even though you don’t deserve it, which is the way you feel about your son, too.

I want him to know I’m not an ogre in the sky who won’t grant him any fun... even if his idea of fun greatly varies from Mine or yours... So, it’s okay, My son, My bride, you can let him have his request, & get a taste of how it feels when you feel like you should grant your child his request even if you know it’s not really good for him, & it hurts to see them go down the wrong way, make mistakes & waste precious opportunities... Welcome to the club of the brokenhearted fathers...

How far are you willing to go to help, so that you can prove that I am really real & that My love is real? Are you willing to leave the 99 who are safely in the fold now, in order to save that one lost sheep? Are you willing to lay down your life for that sheep?

Forgetting all heady input, what does your heart say? Are you trying to be just sober & realistic here? The unconditional love of your Father has saved you from your depth of despair & confusion... are you willing to show that same, unconditional, fatherly love now, too? Are you willing to go to any length to save & bring them back onto the right path?

Will you be a true father?

Do you still believe that love is forever? As long as there’s a glimpse of hope, you should act on it & seize that opportunity!

I, Jesus, and God the Father, love you personally, and care for you personally, enough to counsel you on the problems you're facing.

(Spirit Helper:) "We have not an High priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all things tempted like as we are." He can relate to the feelings of your infirmities. He's been there. He has also been through it, not getting a hold of the Father's voice sometimes & feeling like "Father, Father, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" I am the Prince of Peace, because My Father is the God of Peace and of Love, the opposite of all that the god of this World stands for, the god of war & hate. A choice for Me & My ways is a choice for peace.

Love is the meaning of life on every level. Even on the highest level, I the Son of God & Creator of all things, as well as the Father Himself, We live to love and to be loved.

My omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience are still dependent on the Father. Although He has given Me all power in heaven and in hell, I still need Him, you know?

It's not like He is retiring, because I'm taking over the business. In a way, He's still running it all; He's just letting Me do most of the business, that's all. But there comes a point when even I have to sit back a little and reflect, and receive some powerful input from Him and some of the other heavenly counselors on these matters you present to Me. It has always been that way, and it always will be. Heaven will never be a One-Man show with one big & all-powerful head honcho running everything.

(God:) My stance on what is family and what isn't, is a little tough to take for those who are carnal minded & put their money on this World. Look what I asked of Abraham... That wasn't a very "family-oriented" thing to do.

Look what I did to My own Son... Jesus: I had to forsake Him and let Him go and suffer a cruel death at the hand of unbelievers. People could say, "What a Father You are, God! Tsk tsk..."

But you see, My Family is a Family of the Spirit, and it's open to anyone who will, anyone who would like to join it, but in order to join it, you'll have to leave the flesh & the allures of the World at the door. Once you have decided you want to be part of our big heavenly Family, there are some pretty exclusive rules, and all that hog-wash from man's carnal mind, influenced by Satan, will have to go.

In that aspect, I'm separating the wheat from the chaff, the boys from the girls, those who have got what it takes to believe My radical doctrines & drink My strong wine, and those who will have to be left at the door when the Bridegroom enters in with only those who were wise enough to fill their lamps with the oil of My Spirit.

They didn't persist in running on their own carnal wisdom, but they asked Me to fill their empty vessel with My input, to replace their vanity with that which really counts, counsel, views & thoughts from Me, and the more you do this, the less important the world and its views will become to you, for the more I will matter in your life.

I am the Source of warmth & light in your life, the Source of supply of all that you need. I take My responsibilities towards My children, those who have chosen to become My spiritual children by accepting My Son, Jesus, very seriously.

Especially if they have decided to trust Me for their lives.

Those who have decided not to trust Me for their lives, but make others responsible for them, are not walking in the path of faith, they don't have the same standard, and the rules by which they judge are man-made, not Mine. They are not the standards of faith, but the standard of doubt, of man caring for himself, of the arm of the flesh saving itself.

But without faith it is impossible to please Me, and it's better to acquire My view on things than many personal opinions.

It's better to know nothing at all except that I'll take care of you than many of the so-called "facts" & pieces of knowledge that make up the wisdom of man, which is just as much foolishness to Me, if not more so, than it has been 2000 years ago.

You see as a child sees, not as the Father, who sees what's truly good for you.

You've got to convey the faith, that I, their heavenly Father & Great Doctor, their Maker & Mender, know best what's really good for them, and even though that which you present to them as My medicine may not appeal to them at first, if they only try it, they will like it, or at least it's going to help them.

There's just so much more to the Father's love than you can fathom with your finite minds. All I can do to help you is give you a little glimpse of what's beyond the scope of your minds, & encourage you to take it by faith & trust Me that there is more, a larger part of the picture you may not yet understand.

You don't have to be a pauper in the spirit if your Father is the richest "Man" in the universe.

Often, children have a completely wrong concept of their father, quite similar to people's false perception of Me, their heavenly Father. To rectify and perhaps correct their view of things a bit, the first step is to get them to communicate, just like I need you to communicate with Me, in order to get anything accomplished in our relationship.

Ask Me how to approach them in order to get them to confide to you what's on their hearts about you, why they seem to dislike you, or why they talk badly about you to others, or whatever the case may be.

If they give you trials because they prefer to spend their time with their friends to the extent that they hardly come to see you anymore at all, welcome to the way that I feel in relation to many of My children!

Often it's because someone else fed them negative information about you, similar to the way the Devil tells lies about Me. Other times it plain & simple selfishness & they just know that having to face you would only convict them & make them feel bad about themselves.

There is more truth to the verse that I created you in My own image than meets the eye. In a way, you're all little carbon copies or photo copies of Me, just like children often are the "spitting image" of one of their parents...

Sometimes your children feel resentful toward you because they think you neglect them & don't care about them, similar to the way many people think that I couldn't care less about them or I wouldn't bother with someone as "unimportant," which is really only one of the standard lies the Devil spreads about Me. Others think downright badly of you at times, similar to those times when you're "at war" with Me for allowing all those "atrocities" to happen to you, when really, more often than not, it's your own attitude & distance from Me that can be responsible for such times of testing.

Ultimately, fathers are ideal scapegoats. You can blame a lot of things on them that are going wrong, because they didn't do this or that for you, etc., or they broke this or that promise. That's why one of the most effective educational milestones in life is having kids on your own, because it will ultimately show you that you're not the perfect mom or dad either, and for once you're able to put yourself in your parents' or even My shoes!

Kids make you deal with your own weaknesses, failures, wrong attitudes, selfishness & everything that's ugly about yourself that you hadn't even realized until then. Most of all, having children reveals that you're not any better than your own parents at all, when you thought you were light-years ahead of them. And, well, that whole process then also moves Me a bit closer to you, because all of a sudden you can begin to see why I'm doing things the way I am, or why I allow this or that to happen... Things start making sense all of a sudden.

So, cheer up! Those trials about being a parent, though the most painful of all they may be, are worth it, every bit! In fact, as unimportant, trivial or mundane as dealing with children may seem to some people, raising kids, and all the lessons that go along with it, is pretty much the epitome of the meaning of life.

While some parents think they're missing out on life because of their kids, missing out on all the fun that singles or childless couples seem to be having, if you pay attention to what I'm trying to teach you in life, you'll actually notice that it's those others, who are missing out on a lot of things, unless they have a position of responsibility over others in some different type of leadership position.

Parents are leaders. Leaders are always envied, resisted, rebelled against, rejected, opposed & fought against by some people some of the time, but that's exactly the kind of adversities that make a character strong. So, if you thought your kids were robbing some of the value of your life, if they're making you feel worthless, like you're no good and you blew it, think again: they're actually the very factor that will accelerate your maturation, and increase your usefulness to others as a counselor, comforter, or person to trust & rely on, more than hardly any other factor could.

Each of your children is a universe of lessons & experiences to explore. If you ask Me to open your eyes to the possibilities that are there, I will show them to you. Kids are like you and you are like Me... There are endless numbers of things you can learn out of this, if you're just attentive. They're your most dedicated students & also your best teachers, so, watch out! Pay attention! Don't miss those valuable lessons they're here to teach you!

When you have gone as far as you could, then it's time for the next part, which is Mine. Just like I could have never made it without the Father, so I will never let you carry your cross or your burden alone. It's foolish, total nonsense, to think that you must do it on your own!

The Father Himself is Love... In fact, all of the heavenly Realm of the Spirit World pretty much embodies and resembles love, so, there's a whole lotta love around & to be had. If you need more of it, just ask for it!

You were unsure of yourself practically throughout your whole life, because the God-ordained father-son relationship in your life was damaged! Because of your own broken relationship with your father, and the image you had of him, there was always some of that father image you dragged along into your personal relationship with your heavenly Father, most of which stemmed from mistrust. Because of what your father image had always been you had a hard time relating to the fact that your heavenly Father really loved you. Only in recent years have you come to fully accept that I love you unconditionally. You had experienced My love in your early years, but then things started going wrong, and you thought I couldn't possibly love you because of your sins. The Enemy had a grip on you through your sins. It wasn't that your sins actually caused Me to love you less, but they caused you to believe that I loved you less. That's why dealing with your sins and mistakes is important, too, you cannot just ignore them.

So, now you've come to face your sins, learned from your past mistakes, have allowed Me to expose your own selfish hidden motives, and have allowed My Words to cleanse you from them with their white-hot truth, and you have come to accept My unconditional love and eternal forgiveness, you have rectified your wrong father concepts, and I'm showing you the truths about how all these things have been going on in your life without your ever being aware of them.

"So what about the next time I'm going to stumble," you wonder now, "when all this You're teaching me right now will be far away from my mind again, and I will again focus on the negative?" Well, I didn't say I was going to make you perfect right away, I didn't say you had attained or it was "done." But I have said that though you would stumble, I would not let you fall. Why? Because you listen to My Word & try your best to obey Me; you delight in Me, commit your ways unto Me, you wait on Me, trust Me, make an effort to cease from anger, etc. (see Ps.37).

Just trust Me that each stumble will be another fall upward, closer to Me, closer to My arms, and that I will always be there to catch you. And no matter how hard you fall, or how badly you err or sin, I will always, always forgive you! Eventually, if you really believe this, the Devil will have to see that it's senseless, that he can't deceive you anymore into thinking that you have "fallen from grace" or are "too bad for Me." The important thing is that you learn this lesson not only for yourself, but realize the importance of this issue for many, many people, by remembering the pain this has meant for yourself. I wanted to make sure that you really get the point of this so you would be able to pass on to others this message of reconciliation with the Father! Let them know that God is good, a loving Father, a just Father, Who seeks to be loved, not feared. Revered & respected, He seeks & wants to be obeyed, yes, but there is nothing to be afraid of with Him, because He only means well with you, and He truly does so. He doesn't make mistakes! No matter how haywire things have run in your life, and you think, how could a God of love possibly have allowed this, if you just stretch out your hand of faith to Him in spite of all your doubts, you will see the reason and the truth behind all that happened.

More often than not, it's the Enemy who has plotted & schemed to bring about circumstances to convince people that God doesn't love them. But he's a liar. That's why an important part of your ministry must also be to expose the lies of the Enemy!

You must never, never, never give in and let him convince you to doubt God! For as long as you refuse to believe his doubts, and you just keep believing, even with your last bit of strength, you will see that things will continue to keep going, continue to keep working out for the best & turn out good for you somehow. Just encourage people to take that step of faith to give God a chance! Tell them to stop believing the Devil's doubts for once, and to make an opening in their lives for the light and love of God, and to see what will happen in that margin of time, to open their eyes for what will happen if they choose to believe!

It was My Father's love for Me that saw Me through. And even so it will be My love for you that will see you through & help you to focus on the few who will make it worth it all!

The Father knows exactly what He's doing, & even if some deem Him cruel, He is the ultimate Love. He can only be understood - in fraction - by faith, and few even make an effort, but what's most important is that you remember He knows what He's doing.

There is a purpose in everything, just trust Me for it, and if you can't trust Me, if I'm not big enough for you, or you think I can't possibly be all that smart, that all-knowing, that wise, then at least you can trust the Father, for I can assure you, He's great and wise enough!

They may reject you and dislike you, but you determine to love them anyway. That's the way I loved; that's the way the Father loves. That's the initiating kind of love, the creating kind of love, the love that makes something out of nothing, that brings everything where there was nothing. The seed which falls into the ground and there - by dying - brings life.

(Go to Chapter 7)

…Soul Food I won’t give any of you a stone if you ask Me for a fish. You are asking Me for valid soul food & counsel when you come before Me, so, I won’t send you a hoax.

I speak to everyone in a different way, and sometimes what is your wavelength, isn’t exactly somebody else’s, it’s the same as with people’s different tastes for music, movies, literature, food, etc.

You need Me as a plant needs the sun & the rain. You need Me as much as your body needs oxygen, food & water.

Come, ye that are hungry & thirsty, & partake of the food that will not leave you hungry again, but which satisfies your soul. They feed their bodies but starve their souls, but I will both, feed your soul & nourish & strengthen those who will come unto Me to beseech Me for their needs.

Save their spirits from starvation. They need My food! Don’t withhold it.

Give your empty heart to Me, & I will fill it! I don’t like you to fill your mind and heart with any old thing that comes along, any old book or movie, because I can only fill an empty space & vacuum that’s waiting for Me to fill it. But if you fill it up with something else already... It’s like: you can’t eat any more healthy food once you’re stuffed with junk food. When you’re full, you’re full. You just need to wait then until you’ve digested whatever it was you ate or read or watched & make space for something new, which hopefully will be a wiser choice.

For those who love God, things will ALWAYS turn out to make perfect sense one day, and you manifest your love to God by receiving the Seeds of Love, the Word of God, into your hearts. They’re more important than food, more important than money, more important than anything anyone could ever tell you you should do.

Please don’t neglect My time with you. You wouldn’t want to go too often without any spiritual food, or you’ll dwindle down to a skinny runt in the spirit, and we’re at training here, where a lot of spiritual effort & strength is required…

When Daniel & his friends were brought to Nebuchadnezzar's court, they refused to eat the king's food. They only wanted bread & water. Sometimes it's better to just stick to bread & water than all the stuff the System has to offer. Just because the System has to offer it, doesn't mean that you should take it! You don't have to take every temptation the Devil hands you, do you? Remember, the fruit of the forbidden tree was the wrong kind of knowledge. Some things you wouldn't want to know. Why get to know evil, when there's so much good to know? There are so many things to learn about & from My Word...

The Devil is trying to come up with more & more perfect counterfeits & substitutes & distractions all the time: more & more perfect entertainment, shows, computer games, movies, System music & sounds, all available by remote control, so you don't even have to move or do anything to get instant satisfaction; more & more perfect tasting food with artificial flavors, made to even "top" My natural flavors I have put in foods naturally, more & more perfect drugs & narcotics... He's trying to literally spoil people stupid so they won't ever want to get off of their fannies to do anything else but indulge in his "perfections".

Just because it's there and it's possible, doesn't mean you have to use it or do it or that it's of Me. Just because there's junk food available for you in the store doesn't mean that I want you to buy it.

I want to be the Light that you turn on in your life when it's dark, the heat you can avail yourself of when it's cold, your food when you're hungry, your drink when you thirst.

I am the Bread of life! Unless you eat Me, you're going to faint! How do I give power to the faint & strength to those that have no might? The same way you gain physical strength by eating food & taking in physical nourishment! You've got to eat Me, just the way you eat your food, if you want Me to do you any good. If you get hungry you eat, right? So, if you feel like you're running low on spiritual energy & "lovability," just stop & take a break & take a bite of Me! Come, "taste & see that the Lord is good."

Feed My sheep the lasting food, the Bread of life, & lead them to My good pastures, beside My still waters.

Only in total humility does one find the grace to give out that which is pure, the pure, unadulterated light and water and food from Heaven, the spiritual nourishment that will truly set them free and will truly strengthen the sheep.

The true sheep won't care whether the food is wrapped up in an appealing appearance. It doesn't have to be "cool," it just has to be nourishing.

If you neglect My Word, you neglect the most important weapon I have given you to fight this war, you're neglecting your daily food, you're neglecting Me! I don't mind you being curious and hungry for more, as long as you don't waste the food I've already given you, as long as you share it with those who are needy, those who don't have any true spiritual food at all!

My true sheep will only truly be satisfied with My good grass, but goats will go for the stuff the Devil feeds them. My sheep aren't satisfied by anything but love, whereas goats will settle for the temporary satisfaction that material things, success, money, pride & accomplishments bring, pleasure, etc.

The cheaper option is usually the Devil's substitute for the real thing. In order to obtain the real thing you must pursue it with determination and not allow yourself to be distracted with the cheaper substitute. The real thing requires its price.

It's not the quick & easy "fast food" solution!

It's so quick & easy to just prepare a quick fix snack, compared to the laborious process of preparing a full-fledged meal, but in the long run, your body will be able to tell and show the difference.

So, stay away from the quick fixes. Focus on the real thing, the real, long-term goal, and the spiritual! Don't starve your soul. Don't deprive your spirit of the greatest kicks it was created to enjoy by feeding it the cheap quick fix substitutes of the Enemy, his alternatives to the real thing!

Some vitamins, minerals or nutrients are good for certain organs, while others are good for others, and thus it's also with the spiritual food I give.

Your particular body condition warrants a particular & individual diet.

That crummy looking root or vegetable your forefathers ate may have well been a much greater source of vitamins, minerals, & thus health and nutrients, than all that "too-good-to-be-true" almost plastic-like food they sell nowadays.

The soul food and spiritual heavenly bread that I give straight from Me makes you grow into strong, healthy trees in My garden.

There is a time and a season for everything under the sun: a time to spoon-feed a baby, and a time when they've grown enough to be getting the food for themselves.

The more time you spend in the ministry of the Word, the more it will grow on you, become part of your being, and it will eventually just radiate and shine through you, literally leak out of you wherever you are and whatever you do. It will literally be "meat that ye know not of." It will become food for your soul, the bread of life, and as you eat Me and drink Me in, you will have part in Me more and more. You'll see how I will "grow on you," and you will become like Me more and more.

It takes more than inspiration and a bunch of good ideas to really find out what it is My sheep need. You may have a lot of ideas about what to feed them, and how to feed them, and how to make the food more attractive for them, but everybody's got their own taste, and one man's meat may be another man's poison. Everybody's different "Come, taste & see that I am good!" "I am the bread of life. Whoever will eat of this bread will never be hungry again!" In order for your spirit to grow, you've got to take the consumption of Me & My Word as seriously as you take the nourishment of your bodies!

One meal a day just isn't enough to sustain you throughout the day, is it? Sometimes, when it's a really good meal, you last on it for the whole day, but that's more the exception than the rule. So, if you have to eat physically 3 times a day, why not come to Me for spiritual nourishment 3 times daily, also?

Are you really going to allow your children to make pig food their spiritual diet, when they could have feasted from the richness of the King's table?

The amount you receive is determined by your spiritual hunger, which is diminished by the amount of other input you feed your mind with... The less you snack on those other "goodies," the more you will hunger for My pure milk and proper meat. Again you find that less is sometimes more.

(Go to Chapter 8)

… Air It’s only your position that changes. I am the Lord, I change not. Yesterday, today, forver... the same. I am constant.

Constantly and permanently there for you, just like the air all around you, just like the universe all around you. As long as the universe is there, you can be assured that I’m still there, too!

The way sinful human nature is programmed is that you always attempt to provide for yourself without help from above or rather, without acknowledgement of all the help you're receiving from Me in the first place, all the help and supply you're taking for granted: the air you breathe, the sunshine that makes growth and life possible, etc. And then you look around for what else you can take for granted without having to thank Me: take another human being that pleases you and all they have to offer you, and wind up taking them for granted as well, until you get tired of them and start looking around for another one...

Unless you become dependent on Me for the very air you breathe and every breath you take, every bite of food you eat and everything you do and need, life is a farce, and you will only become distracted in the deceitful rut of survival and meaninglessness.

Unless you become dependent on Me for the very air you breathe and every breath you take, every bite of food you eat and everything you do and need, life is a farce, and you will only become distracted in the deceitful rut of survival and meaninglessness.

This battle field of life can become pretty hostile territory when you allow the Enemy to disturb the equilibrium of things just a little bit and allow him to take a little bit of the proportions, one tiny measurement of one of the essential ingredients out of your life, that enable you to breathe properly. After all, that's what those poisonous gases in warfare are supposed to do: to disable the enemy and stop him from breathing. Another allegory of life with spiritual background.

If I'm the air that you breathe, don't let the Enemy rob you of it! Don't let him kill you with his poisonous gases, don't let him choke you, suffocate you, don't let him steal your oxygen. Defend your right to breathe!

I don’t want to scare you of the future, but if you would see the severity of the impending doom, you would act completely differently! You would dig out the Word and start reading & memorizing as if your life would depend on it as much as breathing. I will have to become your oxygen, if you want to survive the days to come! I will have to become your only light, your bread, your water, and everything you need to live, for the Devil is going to try to cut all other means of supply.

Sooner or later, every human being will have to come face to face with the fact you have accepted long ago, but for them will be a bitter truth, that without Me you can do nothing. Let’s face it: without Me you can’t even breathe. They think they can, because, after all, they’ve got lungs & oxygen. But Who made the lungs & the oxygen? And Who created the process that made an endless supply of oxygen possible? Man? They’re trying their damnedest to destroy & stop that process with their pollution & murdering of the forests. Just because they refuse to give the credit to Me doesn’t change a thing about the fact that I’m still responsible for it.

Air is a good description of My nature: It is invisible, yet vital & all around you. Sometimes it is warm & still & sometimes whips your faith in strong winds, or wreaks judgment over the Earth in fierce storms. Mostly taken for granted, you never miss it as much as when it’s not there, just like people are most desperate for Me when I remove the things that keep them alive, when they’re nearing their death... That’s when they realize in terror that they can’t survive another minute without that certain something they’ve been taking for granted all their lives, like a drowning man.

Well, better late than never, but how much more advanced are those who already acknowledge My presence & the importance of including Me, and your dependence on Me. Independence is alright, as long as you don’t dream of independence from Me. It’s as if the Earth would declare its independence from the sun & drift off into space. It’s like a fish’s independence from water, or a plant’s independence from light – or yours from the air... you can’t do without it. I’ve written it all over My handiwork: ‘You need Me, you can’t do without Me any more than a fish can do without water, a plant can do without light, no more than you can live without air: Without Me, you can do nothing!’

I’m tossing you into the water & you’ll only be able to breathe by My miracle-working grace & power. It’s pretty hard to trust in yourself when you need a miracle to even breathe.

The good thing about learning to breathe under water is that you’ll be prepared & won’t drown when the flood comes, and the flood is going to come. You’ll already have learned to depend on Me for every miraculous breath you take, nothing taken for granted, surviving on My supernatural power every moment, every second.

I want you to indulge more in the spiritual riches & wealth I’m pouring out on you, emphasize more on them, acknowledge their greater importance, become more dependent on them & make greater use of them!

They are your supply of oxygen while you’re learning to breathe under water! I am your oxygen! And neglecting Me in such a situation is a very dangerous thing to do!

I’m your oxygen! Breathe Me in, & you’ll keep wide awake & full of energy! Let Me be your oxygen, your energy, your Everything! Anything you need... you’ve got it!

Don't stop giving, don't stop loving, for loving never stops!

It's like breathing, or a heartbeat: the moment you stop, it dies. Love has to continue, it is alive, and in order to keep it alive, you have to keep loving, keep using it, keep moving.

I am the Oxygen that will keep this flame alive, and as long as you're aware of how much you depend on Me, it is going to keep burning.

When nothing on earth will go or flow anymore, no more gas, no more oil, no more water, no more electricity, then My power will still be running through you! And one fine day, that'll be all that will be needed: My power!

In a way, all is My power - or a physical manifestation of it, anyway: every breath you take is already a manifestation of power! Only then it will be obvious & clear to everyone where it all came from in the first place!

Everything is a miracle: every breath you take is a wonder of My creation, a gift of My love, grace & benevolence to you.

Every meal you eat is a token of My love & supply to you, and if you just learn to see everything as a miracle in the first place (instead of taking it all for granted), then you'll also have more faith for other miracles, or for Me to continue doing the same miracles, even when the "normal" flow of supply should stop.

Use some love-power & fill your life with its fragrance, with its shine and magic!

Make it come to the point where you breathe prayer. Breathing is a lot like prayer. You breathe in My life-giving oxygen, you spiritually inhale My Spirit, My love, My force, and you exhale it again, as you breathe out positiveness, your positive influence on the world.

If you think of prayer as something similar to breathing, a process in which you constantly inhale and exhale My Spirit, as the life-giving power that will sustain your spirit, just as oxygen keeps you alive in the physical, then you'll get the gist of what I mean.

Every breath you take brings new life to your body, keeps it from dying. Why not do the same thing to your spirit? Why allow it to "die" or even feel worn out and tired and without any strength, when you can be constantly renewed with heavenly fresh air and constant new whiffs of My Spirit?

Let Me save you again! Let Me refill you again! Let Me save you again and again from the death of this life, and be reborn and renewed over and over again into the power of eternal life! There's so much more you haven't even begun yet to experience, to taste, to see and feel and hear and see, and to breathe! BREATHE! Breathe in Me with every breath you take! Breathe Me in!

As you breathe Me in, I will breathe upon you the breath of life, the breath that first caused Adam to awaken, and brought forth life from non-living matter; and so it will raise you from death to life - from a life, once so death-like, to a life truly lived in My love, My exuberant joy, My victory, My Spirit.

(Go to Chapter 9)

…Sunshine The sun doesn’t just give its light to one flower or blade of grass at a time, but to many, countless others simultaneously.

That’s how My love works, too. So, don’t wonder or doubt, ‘How could this be? How could God be spending all this time with Me when He’s got so many others to take care of?’ I’m not bound by time or space.

If you would only bask in My sunshine, seek for the sunshine of My love everyday & bathe your face in its light...

Let Me be the sunshine of your life, for only I can give you happiness, true contentment & true beauty of the inward parts.

Worship Me! – The sun of righteousness with healing in My wings, your sun & shield, giving grace & glory, not withholding any good thing from them that walk uprightly (Mal.4:2, Ps.84:11).

Open up your hearts like a flower would open up her petals to the sun & let Me shine deep into your hearts & let the bees of My Spirit, My angelic helpers come and pollinate you so that you may bring forth fruit unto Me! Open up! Let the sunshine in!

You can have the sunshine on in your life anytime you call on Me and listen to My Words.

‘Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground & die, it abideth alone... ’ On its own, the grain of wheat doesn’t do much good. And down there in the darkness it doesn’t see, feel or perceive much but its immediate surroundings: the earth & the worms, an occasional mole or bug. But if it absorbs the heat of My sunshine & the waters of My rain & lets its shell become soft, something inside starts growing, which finally wants to burst through the shell of your former confines. And that’s the moment when your old man dies to make room for something new, something greater than your former self.

Melt the cold ice of pride with the sunshine of My Love!

Independence from Me is as if the Earth would declare its independence from the sun & drift off into space.

Open your eyes to visions of heavenly light! Catch some rays of heavenly sunshine, flooding your soul with glory divine!

Greater light is here than the sun’s, greater & more eternal radiance. A light that doesn’t hurt the eyes & won’t scorch the Earth, nor cause disease. My light is only pure & good! So, My children, seek Me, for My pure & true light!

Bathe in My light! Even if you see nothing else at first, with the eyes of your spirit: just a glimpse of My true, eternal, lifegiving, heavenly light will strengthen you & lift you up & encourage you enough to keep going with renewed vigor & strength!

Consider My heavenly light the source of energy you need in order for your spiritual flower to really come to full bloom!

Just like every plant grows towards the sun & flourishes & prospers by obeying that law of nature, so will you if you will obey My law of love. But if you turn away from Me, your spiritual Sun, you won’t prosper & grow, but wither & die.

Never neglect Me, the Sunshine, the Source of love & warmth in your life!

Indulge in Me, your spiritual Sun, & get a nice spiritual sun tan, which is going to make you look better in the spirit. The more you bask in My spiritual sunshine, the better you're going to look when you come here before Me with all the others.

So, bask in My sunshine! That's My good advice for you for today! Bask in Me & My love! Turn your faces toward Me! I'm gonna make you glow with a radiant glow that's going to far surpass any beauty in the physical.

Once you call out to Me, & ask Me to save you, I come through for you & will be the sunshine after a rainy day for you, and more. I will flood you with miracles, solutions & answers that will make you wonder how you could ever have doubted Me.

I'm your Sun, and you've got to keep facing toward Me and keep spinning around Me, you cannot allow another to take on the role of the sun for you. As long as I'm your sun, you will be able to spin & dance around Me, hand in hand with the other planets, moons & stars, too, in loving unity.

When you allow Me to be the Sunshine of your life, I will not let you down.

Seek Me, your spiritual Sunshine first thing every morning, and let Me light up your life!

The grey and gloomy skies remind you perfectly that this world is not your home, and that your happiness and fulfillment is found elsewhere, in the unseen Realm, where I am your Sunshine - your Eternal Sunshine that never fades.

Keep your focus on that internal and eternal sunshine within you: My Sunshine, that will keep you warm, bright and cheery even through the darkest times. You will have an inner source of strength that people are going to feed off and draw life from, draw hope from, and a reason to go on, even when all hope seems lost.

I want to be your Sunshine when there’s no sunshine. I want to be the factor to brighten up your day, the Source that will give you warmth when you feel cold in this world, the One to make you feel loved when you feel lost and forsaken.

I want to be the Sunshine of your life; your ray of light and hope, the one thing to look forward to in the middle of all the bleakness that surrounds you. So, don’t let the clouds obstruct your view of Me. The sun has been worshiped for millennia, from ancient Egypt until today, and thus the sun has always been somewhat of a “rival” for Me, so I have to allow people to reap the consequences of their false and abominable worship of one of My creations instead of Me, and what you’re witnessing right now is only the beginning of sorrows, as you know from the book of Revelation.

Things are going to get worse, and I need for My children to have a mature attitude and wisdom concerning the sun.

I’ve got to be the Constant in your life, more constant than the sun, and definitely more constant than the weather!

(Go to Chapter 10)

…Family Imagine if parents on Earth wouldn’t have any cares & worries about having to come up with the provisions for their families, and on top of it would not be subject to sin & the devil’s temptation: Their children would be their greatest joy, and the major theme around which the large part of their activities would revolve. That’s the way I, your Heavenly Father, and My Queen, the Holy Spirit, care for you, watch you, rejoice in you, our children.

Imagine older brothers & sisters on Earth would not be driven by their own selfish desires, interests & motivations of usually only wanting to impress their peers or older ones than themselves (not the ‘real old ones’, you know, it always has to be just the right age group to be considered ‘worthwhile’ impressing): They would find their greatest joy in helping, tutoring, watching, and playing with their younger brothers and sisters, or those of their friends. Well, that’s how your many helpers on this side care for you, take their interest & joy in you, their younger brothers & sisters on Earth. They don’t spend their time on selfish pleasures, nor look down on anyone they don’t deem ‘cool’ or worthy, they are driven by My great Love, the driving force of our celestial realm to want to do anything they can to be a blessing and a help to anyone, great or small, lowly or great. All that is required is that you ask, and they will answer & intervene & help you with anything you might need help with.

Life could be so much easier for Earth’s little boys & girls, if, instead of running around in a blind frenzy to get what they want, or even what the Devil told them they should run for, they would acknowledge their heavenly brothers, sisters & parents, who are ever watching, ever caring, ever loving, ever willing to lighten their young charges’ load, to ease their path, to make their lives more enjoyable.

The Family is a cooperative, inter-dimensional, multi-generational body or machinery consisting of countless members behind the curtain which separates your realm & ours.

Come & join hands with your older brothers & sisters who love you more than anyone on Earth could ever love you.

We’ll fill you in on important details as to what the Enemy’s next moves are going to be, how you should prepare, what pitfalls to guard against.

Call us, your heavenly parents & older brothers, your GREATER FAMILY for help, the way a little boy would call for his dad or older brother when some evil bully is threatening him, or worse, trying to deceive him, kidnap him or deal him some poison candy!

Those who mess with us don’t know what they’re getting into. Forget about the Mafia! You mess with us, you in BIG trouble! It may not always be immediately evident, & the wheels of My judgment grind slow, but exceeding fine, and they all wind up sorry, sooner or later!

So, let this boost your confidence a little bit, next time you feel prone to be a little envious of this clique or that crowd, or when you’re tempted to feel inferior, because you’re not a citizen of that strong country, or you’re not like one of those rich kids or wealthy folks in their cool cars... Remember that you, yes, tiny little you, are part of the most powerful gang in the universe, the one who’s getting ready to rule & run the joint for good, & you’re in touch with the ‘Boss’, the Man on the top!

I am He that breaks up selfish little couples & families, to make of the broken pieces one greater Family.

My soul longs to meld with yours, I long to become one with you. And in becoming one with Me, you will become one with all the other partakers of My love in the universe. ‘Come together over Me!’ That’s the scheme! And the result will be one big, happy, joyful, universal Family, My Kingdom of Love!

If you’re genuine, if you’re real, if your heart is covered and embalmed in My elixir of love, they’ll know they can trust you.

That is how My Family & My children throughout time have been able to operate and survive against all odds: It wasn’t that they had any outstanding means, finances or wealth to back them up, it was a look into their eyes that told people, “You can trust them!” That is what you must learn to put your personal trust in, more than any other physical security you would want to render, or guarantee you would want to give to anyone: It’s My Spirit that counts! The Spirit of Love.

Look at your Family in the Spirit! Seek contact with those who really have something to offer you!

Put My Family, My Kingdom first, before your personal, carnal sense of belonging, & see how much I will bless you with greater love.

This is and always has been the main purpose of the Family: to be My chosen mouthpiece to the World. What if My mouthpiece has gone mute? What if the salt loses its flavor? What if the light of the candle goes out?

My stance on what is family and what isn't, is a little tough to take for those who are carnal minded & put their money on this World. Look what I asked of Abraham... That wasn't a very "family-oriented" thing to do.

Look what I did to My own Son... Jesus: I had to forsake Him and let Him go and suffer a cruel death at the hand of the wicked & unbelievers. People could say, "What a Father You are, God! Tsk tsk..."

But you see, My Family is a Family of the Spirit, and it's open to anyone who will, anyone who would like to join it, but in order to join it, you'll have to leave the flesh & the allures of the World at the door. Once you have decided you want to be part of our big heavenly Family, there are some pretty exclusive rules, and all that hog-wash from man's carnal mind, influenced by Satan, will have to go.

I like to work in teamwork, and I don't just run a one-Man show up Here. I like to include everybody I can and allow them to participate in the work on the Big Picture.

Ask yourself what I'm trying to show you through this. By having to deal with the matter of God Himself choosing to work in teamwork, you must ask yourself, "am I following in His footsteps in this aspect?"

The great plan is that everything, and everybody will lovingly interact, teamwork & co-operate in one heavenly, ecstatic & climactic symphony... Everybody has an important part & role to play... everybody matters, everybody makes a difference, everybody can contribute, and we all need each other.

I have chosen to work in unity & teamwork with My millions & billions of spirit helpers in order to set an example of what I want you to do.

What's important is that you neglect neither side. It's supposed to become a teamwork of spirit and flesh. I want you to first of all learn to co-operate and work in unison with Me and My spirit helpers, and then, once you are being spirit-led, I want you to apply the same method and gear with your human co-workers, as well, all the while keeping in mind that just as I and your angels and helpers often need patience with you, so you need patience with those you work and live with in the physical...

I especially delight in teamwork between the dimensions. You tell us what you need from us, and we tell you what we would like from you. That's how successful business works, even in the World.

Talking 'bout 'free trade'. It can't get any freer than this.

You can be partakers of My sufferings & help Me carry My cross by helping your brothers & sisters to make it, by praying for them, supporting them, & doing whatever I show you & put within you to help them, lift them up & encourage them.

… Body & Health Part of your job of tending the garden of your body I put you in charge of is finding the right methods & remedies to your specific problems with My help & applying them.

Not everybody can be a hand or a foot. Some members of the body have more stationary functions, more passive functions: they receive the poisonous elements of the body & purify them, like the liver, or they receive the blood that has passed through the body & pass it on, supplying it with fresh oxygen, like the heart & the lungs. Some are for mere decoration, like the hair... Others are there to discern among My people, like the nose.

Your bones & body are aching, your stomach feels nauseated, you feel tired, but you can't sleep anymore... Time to get ahold of Me! Time to start learning to rely on Me for strength & as the only true Source of energy, & to give you a boost to help you to make it.

At the core of each member, there's got to be Me, or the whole body won't be able to function together. Just like every living cell has a core, and that core has got to be well intact and healthy, otherwise it won't be able to multiply successfully and grow into a bigger organism. I am the Life that ensures a healthy cell core. As long as that very center of each cell receives the necessary nourishment and protection it needs from Me, it won't have any problems.

But if you want a healthy soul, a healthy body and spirit, then you're going to have to stick to a healthy diet, one in which the rule applies that "less is sometimes more."

When an old house deteriorates, it will need some work on it. It won't get better by itself.

Likewise, your body needs some "maintenance," & some things & minor repairs done to it, the same way your car does.

The tires wear off and you need new ones. Your teeth wear off, and you need to get them fixed...

You can't say, "Oh, I'll trust the Lord to fix those tires." You can trust Me that I'll supply new ones. Likewise you'll have to trust Me now that I'll provide the right dentist, who's going to do the right thing.

Taking care of your body is hard work, the same as taking care of a house or a garden... You have to keep it clean, and all the utilities running well. You can't just stuff it with whatever you like, endlessly. Sometimes you have to make a clean sweep, air it out & give it a break from consuming, consuming, consuming.

What's happening when you're having health troubles is that they are like warning signs that things can't keep going the way they have. A break or a change is required. And, as you know, changes are good for you, including physical changes like changing your diet, or simply fasting for some time.

Fasting is good for you; for your spirit and your body, and since you won't do it voluntarily when you're healthy, I'm having to allow these periods when you get so sick you can't eat anymore, or you'll just cause further trouble.

Wash out your body! It's a good time to do that after the holidays during which you kind of stuffed yourself!

It's so quick & easy to just prepare a quick fix snack, compared to the laborious process of preparing a full-fledged meal, but in the long run, your body will be able to tell and show the difference.

Only once you realize that you really don't live forever, that your once young & energetic body isn't all-powerful after all, that there are certain things you just can't accomplish & cope with, no matter how hard you try, only then do most folks appreciate My rejuvenating qualities: when they're getting older; just like most folks only appreciate the doctor when they're sick...

Your particular body condition warrants a particular & individual diet.

You're often not exercising your spiritual nor your physical muscles, but allowing both, your body and spirit to deteriorate. You're allowing death, weakness, deterioration and decay to slowly creep up on you and take the upper hand, instead of actively fighting for life. You need to take a more pro-life stand!

In all living organisms, there are good things that work toward the furtherance and enhancement and procreation of life, and there are negative things, which also have their time and purpose, such as bacteria & other parasites, which are present a-plenty in any body, and just show that there is a war to be fought.

Those bacteria are not your actual enemy, but help to keep and make your body strong for the actual fight.

To enjoy yourself means precisely what it says: you can enjoy just being yourself, you can enjoy the body I've given you, the spirit I've given you, the life I've given you, it's nothing to be ashamed of or to constantly deny or to beat down.

You must discern the voices that say which way to go, and you have to play it by ear and really listen to your heart, listen where I lead you, to the counsel you really personally need. It's like listening to your body to "tell" you what sort of food you should eat. Sometimes you just eat whatever is there or available, at other times you have to think, "what could we eat now?" At other times, you just eat for eating sake, and then again there are times when you figure it might be best not to eat anything at all...

Not everything you do is obviously or directly an investment into Eternity: every meal you eat or shower you take, is not exactly an investment in Eternity, but it helps to keep your body going, which houses your spirit, and thus keeps you learning, growing and progressing. You're going to have to invest something into the here and now, in order to successfully bear fruit that remains for Eternity.

Sometimes the investment is hidden or indirect. It doesn't make so much sense at first glance, but if you think about it...

I cared not only about people's spiritual, but also their physical well-being, and I still do.

Your body happens to be the vessel that I’m using to make any effectiveness of yours on My behalf happen right now on this earth, and in other words, without your body functioning well, nothing’s going to happen…

What good does all the knowledge or wisdom do, if you can’t package it and present it to people in a feasible, attractive manner? What good all that talent, if it’s hidden and stuck inside a body that refuses to get out there and let it shine? Or to at least make an effort to stay in a shape and condition to allow you to do so when the situation calls for it?

Keep yourself fit and your body in shape enough so that you’ll be able to get out My message and win souls and disciples.

It’s just as important to keep your body in shape as it is to keep your spirit in shape, because your spirit alone won’t do Me much good wandering about this planet.

(next chapter:)

…Senses All your senses can be enhanced in the spirit. There is such a thing as spiritual "smell," just as much as there is heavenly or spiritual "touch," "sound," taste and sight.

It's the union of all things that gives a well-rounded and whole picture. Yes, My picture cannot only be "seen," but it can be felt, heard, tasted and even smelled as well! There is more to discover with all your senses! "Taste & see that the Lord is good" (Ps.34:8).

You will no longer grope around blindly & will no longer be led astray if you let Me be your Guide, Your eyes, your senses, your Everything.

What you could see, hear or feel and be experiencing with your spiritual senses is simply a matter of exercising them!

Lend Me your ears, and I will fill them with the music that created the stars.

If you ever want to learn to see with the eyes of the spirit, you're going to have to believe that the Spirit World is just as real, and even more so than the physical, because the physical is temporal, but the Spirit realm is eternal, indestructible, incorruptible.

Elijah found out in the wilderness that My voice wasn't in the storm, nor the earthquake, nor the fire (1Kings 19:11,12), but in hearing My still, small, spiritual voice, one that is not perceived physically, not with your physical senses, but Spirit.

Just to be able to hear and see and feel, to taste, and to smell, these are gifts that many take so much for granted. Yet if you learn how to use your senses well, you can learn how to perceive through them My love for you. Sometimes it may not seem like much, what you see out there, or what you hear. No big revelations... But if you hear and see properly, taste and feel all there is to perceive, you can find Me there... some new truth I can reveal to you, even through the simple little things of life.

Only those who see with the eyes of My Spirit, only those who are in tune with Me, can see the opportunities all around, the adventures, the colorful, endless possibilities.

Ask Me to open your eyes & expand your vision that you may be able to see those things which right now you can’t see.

Call on the keys of vision & understanding, and I will broaden your perception.

Just because you can’t see certain things doesn’t mean they’re not there. Just because you can’t see Me doesn’t mean I’m not there. Just because you can’t see Uranus, Pluto or Jupiter – at least not in broad daylight, doesn’t mean they’re not there. Just because you can’t see My millions of angels & spirit helpers doesn’t mean... and so on. There’s more to life than what meets the eye.

If you look at people with the eyes of the spirit, you will see their true nature. I can reveal things to you about people you may come in touch with – or not – that they won’t even know about themselves!

Open pathways are before you everywhere; if you will just open your spiritual eyes you will see them. In the flesh you only see the limitations, the confines, the ‘hole’ in which you see yourself. Seek Me, therefore, to lift you out of your hole & onto the pathways of your choice.

If you want to see the things of My Spirit, you’ve first got to open your eyes to them, to the depth that lies beyond the apparent, the physical!

What great & mighty things I would show you, which thou knowest not! Open your eyes! We’ve managed to get you to pass the first lesson of opening your spiritual ears. The 2 nd step will be to get you to open your spiritual eyes & see what I want you to see, the things I’m going to show you, that I’m willing & eager to show you, if you will just open your eyes!

Some of you, whose eyes have not yet been opened yet in the spirit, are still oblivious to what's going on all around you in the spirit, and all you see is the shiny wagons, armor & weapons of the Enemy. "Surely, surrender is our only hope," you think. But just like Elisha prayed for his servant for Me to open his eyes so that he could see that more were with them that day, than with the enemy, so you, whose spiritual ears and eyes are already more attuned to My heavenly realm, must pray for those who can't see yet. Don't let them be deceived & fooled or actually join the losing party just because they can't see the full truth! Pray for them, help them to see what you see! Help them to hear what you hear & feel what you feel: the grand excitement, the moving & stirring of the Spirit.

My Words didn't make sense to those who were blind & deaf to the spirit... Therefore, be not like them, but let your eyes & ears be opened & be ye healed of your blindness & deafness to the things of the spirit!

With the eyes of the spirit you'll see things beneath the surface that reveal the true beauty of the spirit, even in someone that doesn't appeal to your physical sense of beauty at all.

Open your eyes! There's so much more to see! Everywhere! In My creation, even in a simple story! The world is full of wonders! Blessed are they who see them!

The type of people that stories are being told about, movies are being made about & books are being written about, are not the mere survivors, those who fight for nothing else but their survival, like all the rest of them, but the types who take time to live, to learn the lessons of life, who go through life with both eyes & ears open & find out what it's all about: those who find Me, and let Me teach them the gist and essence of life.

I'm urging you to see the invisible cause of the visible more, to open up your spiritual eyes, the eyes of faith. If you see the physical as an aimed & purposeful result of the Spiritual, then it simply takes on a lot more meaning. You know I meant something by allowing this or that to happen, or even creating this or that situation. You'll know that nothing is without guidance, nothing is by chance; it's all going somewhere, and thus you develop much greater faith and trust with which to walk through every day of your life, and which you can then impart to others, too.

Every day should be a vast scope and canvas of opportunities for you, of things to learn, and things to pass on.

Everything mirrors My message, My essence and what I'm trying to convey to you and all of mankind: You've just got to open your eyes and ears to perceive it.

Watch out for the great & mighty things of the Spirit I wish to show you! Come, taste & see. There is more; yet so much more to be heard, felt experienced and seen.

The real & natural taste of life isn't always sweet, but heartier. Even so it is with your spiritual intake: for a healthy diet, you won't only listen for sweet words of love, but also the stuff that's naturally a little bit harder for you to chew on, but essential for your spiritual health.

There's so much more you haven't even begun yet to experience, to taste, to see and feel and hear and see.

How much magic & power there can be in one kiss, one touch, and just how much a touch can mean, what a disaster a lack of touch can be for humans, how important it is to touch and be touched!

If you just manage to be real everyday, to walk humbly on the ground of My reality, staying faithful in the little, mundane things of life & keeping the heavenly vision while doing so, focusing on Me & My reality without being deceived by any of the Devil's soap operas, then in My eyes that's already a lot, & you won't even have to tell people all that much about you.

They will sense it. They will feel it. The very air about you will be different. There will be "strange" vibes accompanying you wherever you go, of a world that smells & tastes so weird to them: the smell & taste of the real world.

Try to taste, smell, hear and see and feel a little more each day the way I do, more intensely...

Learn to live more intensely.

To your physical senses, I’m very unattractive, because there is nothing there that they can perceive, and your flesh is rigged up in such a way that it will desire the things that will ensure its survival and fill its cravings. Yet that’s where your faith needs to come in to tell the rest of you that even though it may not seem like it, I am an exceptional Source of supply.

Your natural senses are still trying to look elsewhere for the satisfaction of your desires and needs, but I want you to realize from your experiences, that there is an even more trustworthy Source of all the things you need, and that is Me. Learn how to hear and listen with your spiritual senses, and think deeper than just with the mind. Know deeper than just with the head.

Spiritual short-sightedness comes from the abuse of your spiritual eyes, focusing and glaring too much at the Devil's shiny distractions...

That's just the development of the world... people growing less & less capable to see any farther than the end of their noses.

You have to open your spiritual eyes and ears. There is yet more to hear and see, there is yet a much larger scope to discover in the spirit.

(next chapter:)

…Stars & Space There are different types of human personalities, like there are different types of angels and of spirit beings, just like there are different types of animals or astral bodies: there are stars, planets, moons, comets, asteroids, etc., and they all fulfill their own different purposes to maintain the perfect balance of the universe.

The only thing that's stable, that's going to outlast the moon and the stars and their influences in stability, and any other factors involved in creating or affecting your moods, is My Word. It's the solid rock on which your faith can stand firmly, even when your feelings seem to sway.

As long as I'm your sun, you will be able to spin & dance around Me hand in hand with the other planets, moons & stars, too, in loving unity and united love.

But many stare into the darkness of space, waiting for their bright & shining star to appear, all the while neglecting & failing to make Me the true Source of all they're looking for. Many are just trying to use Me to get them what they want, but they don't truly turn to Me to find the fulfillment of all their desires in Me. I’m the Giver and Provider of all things, as has been written in the stars since the beginning of creation.

Lead them on to a greater Home, everlasting Home, and their real Home. Bring them Home, into My sheepfold! That's part of the message that's there in the stars, since the world began... the sign of Cancer, the sheepfold. You see how everything goes together, makes sense and belongs?

See the constellations: none of those stars and planets in the universe is in their distinct position by coincidence, but they all influence each other with their light and gravity, their mass, etc. in perfectly ordained and synchronized proportions. Don't you think that what I have done with lifeless rock and matter I'm also able to do with living souls?

(next chapter:)

…Information The Holy Spirit, the Comforter, is bringing back all these things to your remembrance, using the information that has been stored there somewhere before, to bring home new lessons I want to teach you each day.

Don’t just let the things you learn inform you, but form you, shape you into something greater. You must learn to see with the eyes of the spirit, not merely acknowledge data & accumulate information. Don’t just accept facts with your brain, but come to know with the tacit knowing of faith, so you learn to apply the information adequately, and the right bits at the right time. That’s when believing becomes seeing and faith becomes knowing.

I have yet greater things in store for you. Not to elevate you or entertain you, but as an important tool & instrument of yielding vital information that will ensure your survival and that of many others, and consequently, the salvation of many others.

Stay focused on your goal, just like a student would be focused on his diploma or final exam, his graduation, throughout years of studying, listening, absorbing information and material in school.

Sometimes knowledge is the greatest stumbling block to divine revelation, because it interferes with what I would like to reveal to you and pipes up with its own input! When you come before Me, you must lay aside your own opinions, your own background information as much as possible, and any preconceived ideas & bias, otherwise a message can very easily become tainted by what you "know."

There are oodles of books written about what kind of care certain plants or animals need, but only recently have relatively few people begun to care enough to provide helpful information about what their fellow humans need.

The loss of information in micro-evolution: fruits and vegetables are not as nutritious anymore as they used to be. They may look better through all that genetic "enhancement" & manipulation; they may in some cases even taste better, but they actually aren't any better as far as nutritive value and health factors are concerned.

This coincides with people, how they actually seem to look better on the surface, almost as if to prove evolution right, but they aren't any better when it comes to true and lasting values... They've actually lost a lot of quality & "information."

Although the best is yet to come in the world to come, as far as this age is concerned, the best human pair, as well as the best fruits and vegetables, as well as animals, already existed long ago, & everything that has derived from the originals has deteriorated somewhat in the copying process. While some things seem to have gotten better on the surface, technology has improved, progressed & developed, & so have commodities, enabling people to live at much greater ease than ever before, which again enables them to put much greater emphasis on superficial things like their looks than ever before, which may give a certain appearance of genuine improvement; when it comes to a good, deep look beneath the surface, there is actually no genuine improvement of life there.

As people are finding out: with all the devices they're inventing to save time, yet they always seem to be running out of time & seem to have less time than ever. Paradox, isn't it? That's why it pays to see things the way I see. That crummy looking root or vegetable your forefathers ate may have well been a much greater source of vitamins, minerals, & thus health and nutrients, than all that "too-good-to-be-true" almost plastic-like food they sell nowadays. And their hard and rough life-style may have rendered them greater genuine happiness than all of today's technology & gimmicks can give you.

It's not as if I'm telling you the exact same thing over and over. Each time I add a little bit of a new angle to it, a tiny little speck of a new truth and a new revelation in it, so that - although the fundament may be quite old - the whole thing grows, slowly, like a gigantic puzzle, bit by bit (information by information), revealing My Big Picture, in which you're actually participants.

You can fill your head until it explodes, but what matters is what you do with every little bit of information, how deeply you allow it to sink in, so that it can be seen in your actions. Otherwise you wind up with a case of spiritual bulimia where you stuff and stuff yourself, but fail to digest it all properly, and so it will never do anybody any good...

(Spirit Helper:) Welcome to the Great Link! The pool of unlimited inspiration and exchange of vital information - the place where all holy spirits connect and become as one. It's not really "a place" as much as a gigantic phenomenon, a wavelength, an ethereal area and broadcasting range without limitations that expands throughout not only the entire physical universe, but also all other dimensions: the Great Link is the Spirit World. Here you are truly at Home. In the physical world you have causes for fear and anxiety, and you worry about the diminishing state of your substance. Here, there is no fear, because nothing diminishes, nothing can ever be lost - everything constantly grows, and there is only eternal gain, no loss, whatsoever.

The genetic information for any complete life-form is already there in its simplest state. Although the outward appearance may change over time, the essence, the gist, the information in its genes, does not change.

I begin My work with the tiniest unit. I work on the little things, and their precision, the small entities on which the whole show is based, the single units, single cells, to make sure that when they part, spread and grow, they don’t spread any corrupted information, which can result in deformation, and other less than desirable results.

In order to prevent storms from wreaking the most possible damage, you need unity and communication, and the doors must be open for and exchange of information to take place. The worst thing to have is an “I already know it all” attitude.

That is no way to prevent trouble, but the way to cause trouble…

(next chapter:)

…Communication Stay in close touch with Me, pumping down My power, My life & light & instructions, moving & growing in the spirit by maintaining a live & pulsating, intimate relationship & line of communication with Me. All I want is to love you & be loved by you, to communicate with you & have you communicate with Me. The light of open & honest communication shoos away the Devil's darkness & his opportunity to sow any discord or start any rumors.

Communication won't ever stop or slowly trickle down to a halt or fade out, but it will go ever on, ever increasing, ever improving, ever resulting in greater fruit, greater wisdom, greater light & greater love, in spite of anything the Enemy might try to do to make it not look that way! He’s trying to stifle & smother communication that's spiritually edifying in any way he can.

Although the physical means of communication have improved & multiplied tremendously, you can tell how the quality of communication has been deteriorating.

His communication is all very one-sided, like someone who only likes to talk about himself, and thus he's also getting people onto his same, selfish wavelength of only wanting to talk about themselves & all boring each other to death, when they could find so much life, so much fun & excitement by focusing outward.

If you don’t take time to communicate with your King, how can you be a successful ambassador?

Learn to communicate & deal with the issues, instead of letting them rot away, hidden away in the darkness.

If you don't confront them and deal with whatever there needs to be dealt with, if you just wrap everything up in silence & never talk about it, never address it, you'll suffer for it! You'll reap the consequences of not having communicated openly & honestly.

Learn to communicate with My help. I'm the Center, the Hub, and you're coming together over Me. I'm the central exchange point of well-working communication between you, and without Me, you can't do anything, not even communicate!

But if you focus on Me and keep your faces turned toward Me, I will be the One Who unites you, Who will interpret what the other one is really saying.

Sometimes you find solutions & reach helpful conclusions by just talking and communicating about things.

Communication is really a magical thing. It triggers a lot of answers, opens doors & possibilities you weren't aware of before.

When you can freely communicate without fears, when there is harmony, mutual respect, and My Spirit can flow from each of you to the other, as it does from Me to each of you, then the world will also see and get the message, for they will see My love at work in you (Jn.13:35).

If instead of just talking & blurting out whatever pops into your mind you pray about it or make sure that what you're saying is going to be inspiring & comes from Me, you'll probably be talking less, but you'll be saying more!

It will move your communication to a higher level, to where you're going to be much more in tune with each other.

Communication is more than just talking. In Heaven, there's a lot of communication done without actual spoken words, and you could try a little bit of that already now, in this realm.

Let My Spirit permeate your communications Bathe your decisions, your communications and your actions in good counsel with Me and with each other.

Communication with Me is not just happening in words, it also happens with pictures and the accompanying emotions. I can grasp & assimilate all you’re going through - especially when you give & communicate it to Me - I sympathize with you & send you My appropriate answer. The more you communicate to Me, the more I can help you. The more you're allowing Me to take part in your problems, the more solutions I can offer. The more you ask, the more I can help.

You've got to let My heart speak to your heart, in order for your heart to be able to speak to theirs.

If you can communicate in love and just share without inhibitions or fears, you will progress, you will advance and get further toward the goal. Withholding, withdrawing, holding back and refusal and seclusion will lead to stagnation.

Openness brings you further.

In My Father's house, with its many mansions, there is lots of communication happening; spiritual communication, verbal communications, all kinds of communication. Folks aren't bound to earthly confines & limitations. There's no more need for "firewalls"... It's all sort of "open source." Everyone's an open source of information and communication.

Just consider yourself part of our heavenly communications network, because you are.

Your little daily interactions and conversations with little people are just as important to the general outcome of your day as the seemingly more important exchange of communication with "big," important people.

Women’s need to talk is like men's need for sex. So, just focus on that there's a need here, for more talking, more communication...

It's all about interaction with others, about communicating from the heart.

There may come a time when your connection with folks will come to a halt, but there will never be a time when your communication with Me will be cut off. That's the lifeline that will survive any crisis, and thus it's your No.1 lifeline, the most important of all.

Who ever said that communication isn't something you have to invest some time and effort into, learning its skills? Who said that it was going to come out perfect from scratch?

What matters is the gist of what's to be communicated: there is a pupose to life, and most people are oblivious to it, and it's a large part of your job to let folks know about it.

Communication with the other, the different, that's what it's all about: the re-unification of all things... the restoration of the peace and unison that was there between My creatures in the beginning, and that's the way it shall be again, so you might as well get ready for it, and not be so stuck on your own kind only.

Folks are prone to stick to their own kind, unless I allow them not to be satisfied with what they find among their own kind. For some it is My will to go out and communicate and interact with the other kind; to act as intermediaries, communicators, mediators, peacemakers, ambassadors, spokesmen, what have you...

Most of My children aren't interested in communicating with Me, and at times that's the reason why I'm not about to say much to them, either.

A factor that influences your level and abilities of communication is that sometimes you're quite simply on different wavelengths. One thing you can do about that is to make an effort to tune in to the other's wavelength.

But what if you feel that you're on a "higher" wavelength than they are, you wonder? Well, if you truly are convinced that you are on a happier and more inspired wavelength than they are, then you can try to pull them up to yours. That's what inspiring others is all about.

But that requires some work, since people naturally won't just snap out of their own familiar wavelength and tune into yours, especially if they have no clue what your wavelength is all about. In order to get them interested, you have to "broadcast" and "advertise" a little, and let them know what your "station" is all about. You have to "play some of your music" in order for them to find out whether they like it or not.

It pays to put more emphasis on teamwork, on unity, on communication, doing things together, counseling, planning things together, etc.

Times are changing and requiring different, more mature attitudes, which require more mature openness in communication.

This procedure of learning to communicate with Me is going to be vital for you and expedient for your survival in the near future.

I am the Broadcasting Station that makes all good and true communication possible in the first place, and without using Me as the Central Exchange, the Main Pivot and Axis on which all your other communication hinges and turns, it isn’t really much more than a bunch of hot air.

Communication with Me isn’t always established right from scratch. Sometimes it takes a while until you get there. What matters is, that eventually you do manage to communicate with Me. It pays to strive to get to know Me during your earthly life.

Getting to know Me is what it’s all about, and what better initial way is there, of getting to know someone, than exchange of words and communication? Words are always good for starters, just like John said, “In the Beginning was the Word.”

Self-satisfaction is a real stopper and blocker when it comes to abundant communication with Me. I’m also teaching you personally through the school of life and your experiences, all that you have to go through, your trials and lessons… these are all ways in which I communicate and interact with you.

(next chapter:)

…Jesus & Salvation He that liveth by the sword shall also die by the sword.

They’ll find out one day that they have been puppets in the hand of the god of this World, the god of war, of hate, of pride, and of all that is an abomination to Me. I am Love! He is hate! I am humility! He is pride! I am Forgiveness! He is self-righteousness! I am Wisdom! He is the epitome of foolishness, of one relying on his own understanding & falling to their doom. I am Glory! He is shame! I am the true light. His light is only darkness! I am the Bread of Life! He feeds on the flesh, souls & spirits of countless millions! I am the Giver of all things, he is the thief who only comes to steal, rob & suck the life out anything you let him! I am the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the World for the sins of man, he is the ravenous wolf who seeks to attack, annoy or destroy.

Greater faith than (Abraham), to be willing and ready to sacrifice your own most beloved son to obey Me, has very rarely been found. You can do miracles, move mountains, heal the sick & raise the dead, and it still won’t amount to that kind of faith. It looks most irrational to the whole world. How could they know, that the God of the universe was going to sacrifice His only Son, and He was asking Abraham, ‘would you be willing to go that far?’ And He was showing the world a little glimpse & example of what He was going to do, just like He had from the beginning: The requiring a lamb of sacrifice from Cain & Abel. And again, one chose My irrational way, and one chose the logical, reasonable way of, ‘Why should I kill a lamb?’ Remember, during that time people did not yet eat meat, & furthermore, they were able to communicate with the animals... But the Father wanted to show them an example of His sacrifice that He was going to make in sending Me to die for all.

To most unbelievers it looks like I didn't go to the cross voluntarily, but that I was simply another victim of Roman injustice and cruelty. But believers understand that it was more than that. It was an act of love. In fact, the greatest act of love ever known to man, and a path I had chosen to walk voluntarily, long, long before. "The lamb which was slain before the foundations of the world."

It was My destiny to become an eternal, living symbol and sample of humility, God's Lamb slain, in humble surrender & yielding.

Tell them about My great mystery, why I suffered that cruel death, the key part of My mission, that I did it for them, and if they can just believe and accept that, they won’t have to worry anymore about what will come, about their mistakes, or whether they will make all the right decisions or do all the right things in this life. Tell them of My unconditional love. The New Testament, a new agreement and contract I have made with Man, means: unconditional love.

All you’ve got to do is accept and receive it. Stretch out your hand, and let Me lay there the greatest gift in the universe, and you will be forever Mine to care for, to love, to shield and zealously protect from any harm, to provide for, to satisfy, to make happy and to fill with joy, to fill your very heart’s desires.

My name means "Savior." My cry and My call to mankind is to "Come, let Me save you!" I want to save you wholly & entire, I want to cleanse and heal all of you, your mind, your body, your heart, your spirit... your soul.

Salvation and redemption is all about delivering you from evil. Firstly, and foremost, the evil of your own hearts, and lastly, once you have overcome and have been redeemed from your own sins, I deliver you out of the evil of this world!

That's why the first and primary requirement to receiving My Salvation is realizing that you're a sinner, and that you need My Salvation from your sins.

When I came and died for mankind, everything changed. The New Testament was the new way. The new way is the meek way, the humble way.

(Jonah:) "Salvation is of the Lord" means, only the Lord can save you! He's your only way out! There's no use looking for relief elsewhere, hoping you'll find something better.

They all screamed, "crucify Him!" They wanted Me to die in order to prove that My way had been wrong, and theirs was right! And for 3 days and nights it seemed as though they had been right. It seemed as if the Devil had won, but when I rose, that's when the true story really began, as My power was multiplied manifold in My disciples.

Sometimes you've got to overcome death first, in order to really break through to life.

Well, that's what I did for all of you! I have overcome death for you, I plucked out its sting, so that you could all partake of My life - My unending life, life eternal, life forevermore, life ever-increasing.

The moment of My death was virtually the crux and crucial point on which all history hinges, the great Crossroads of history.

I had become a Partaker in mankind, I had walked your same road; I had come down to the bottom, to the same ground as you, and even descended into hell after that.

I took the burden of the law off your shoulders. I have paid the price, and I have taken that weight off your shoulders.

It's a matter of faith, though. How much do you really believe in My Salvation power? Of how much guilt do you believe My sacrifice was capable of cleansing you?

Some folks prefer to still take some of the load on their own shoulders.

They insist on carrying part of the burden themselves.

(next chapter:)

…Prayer Picture yourself as an archer. You skillfully hold the bow, focusing on the target, sharpening the better of your eyes, aim exactly as you pull the arrow, stretching the string to the point where you feel that this is what will give the arrow the momentum needed to hit the bull’s eye with the right impact. That's what good prayer is like.

Your soul is the bow, the arrow is your prayer, & My heart is the bull’s eye. I am the True Goal, & if you hit Me, it’ll always have the desired effect. You only need to shoot short distance, as I’m always close. Just wrap your burden, your question or desire around the arrow & let it fly to Me. Pray for those around you, for your prayers can do & will do mighty things, which, in turn will strengthen your faith, and their faith, and result in more people praying, more prayers, more miracles, etc.

Shoot the arrow of your prayers into the future which is as bright & golden as My promises.

The best thing you can do is pray!

You could accomplish so much more if you would use the weapon of prayer more. Come to Me! Ask Me what you will!

Wanna change the world? Pray! Wanna do things that count & make a difference? Pray!

I can show you great & mighty things thou knowest not of, IF you will call unto Me (Jer.33:3)!

Ask Me to perform any wonders & miracles for you that are needed to obtain the victory! I’ll remove any obstacles in your path & help you defeat your enemies.

Through prayer you have the power which created the universe at your disposal to do anything for you, so don’t let laziness keep you from making use of it!

Make prayer, your most important task in life a habit! Use that power! You can really change things if you pray! ‘The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much!’ Change the world through prayer! Change your life & the lives of those around you!

By praying you can relieve the suffering, and by neglecting to pray, you sin. For to him that knoweth to do good & doeth it not, it is a sin.

I have to withhold My blessings, because you do not pray. How blessed are those who pour out their hearts to Me in prayer every day. Who not only pray for themselves, but dedicate their time, their most precious commodity to pour out their hearts in intercessory prayer for the benefit & concern of others. That is a love I will richly reward. That is a faith which will be most highly honored in My Kingdom: That of knowing that in praying for another, you’re doing the greatest work, the greatest service, for you don’t only give of your own time & heart to them, but you rely on Me to do the work you cannot do.

There is nothing wiser on Earth you can do.

Stir yourself up into action of prayer! And pull down My blessings upon your fellowman & thereby BE a blessing unto your fellowman! You want to be free & set others free also? Pray! The power I have given you to release in prayer on the behalf of others can do more to change the course of history you see unfolding before your eyes right now than you think! Make history! – PRAY! Change the course of coming events!

“Our Father, which art in Heaven, Thy will be done! Thy Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven! Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever, Amen!”

This prayer is based on the founding principle of the rules of the Spirit! You’re simply praying for that same law to apply in your temporary, physical realm, which is ever permeating the calmness, tranquility, timelessness, and eternal assurance of Heaven. You trust in Him for your daily bread & cease to struggle & toil for it. You concentrate on the truly essential, the learning of the spiritual lesson you were sent here to emphasize on: the forgiveness of others’ wrongs against you, and the recognition & refusing to yield to the temptation of evil, recognizing that the power & Kingdom are truly God’s & not the usurper’s.

‘Pray without ceasing.’ Keep your channel open at all times. Be ready for anything! Especially when you have a needy situation. Be always prepared for the option that I might bring about some unexpected means of supply for you, even at a time or from a direction you might not expect it.

Look for someone to help, too cheer up, to encourage, to pray for, to witness to.

You’re not bound by time, tide nor space, you can just close your eyes anywhere you are & ask Me to guide your thoughts to someone who might need your prayers.

Prayers, just like love, are not bound by time or tide or earthly spheres. As the wind bloweth where it listeth & thou knowest not from whence it cometh, nor wither it goeth, so is everything that is born of My Spirit. You cannot lock it up or confine it. So, whenever you feel like you’re trapped by the hopelessness & discouragement of this world, break out into My Spirit & know that I can use you wherever you are to love someone else.

(Spirit Helper:) Prayer – the great unrecognized action of faith – only & purely conceivable as effective by the eyes of faith – useless in the eyes of the unbeliever; one of the great mysteries of God. For who, in their carnal minds, would have ever begun to assume that in all the great & glorious efforts & works of man, which will all come to naught in the end – the most lasting & effective deed & effort should be the one which commits the task into the hands of the Lord, in obedience to His command, ‘Stand back & see Me fight!’? ‘Stand back & see Me work! – For hath not My hand made all this?’ He Who hath begun all this, should He not also complete it? – The Beginning & the End. It is man’s temptation to assume that he needs to finish what God has started. In reality, God is only choosing those who choose to let Him work through them, to help Him establish His true Kingdom.

How finite are the works of man. In all their doings, in all their toil & striving, they accomplish not a fraction of what a believer can achieve on his knees, committing the matter which needs to be done to the Maker.

God wants to work. He begs, ‘Command ye Me!’ He wants us to tell Him what He should do, like a Genie in a bottle, Who would be without a job without our prayers. So, let’s let Him work through us! Pray! Commit what you would have done, to Him, & He will do it.

Command the Lord what He should do for you, instead of trying to get there by your own strength & efforts, & you’ll see how much further you will go on the wings of the spirit than your own two feet could ever carry you. Why walk when you can fly?

A day in My courts is better than a thousand others. An hour spent in the halls of My courts, in prayer & praise & worshipping, seeking & trusting Me will accomplish a thousand times more than any hour spent trying to solve the problem in the flesh.

In other words, prayer is a thousand times more effective than anything else you can do, because by praying, you’re leaving the matter in the hands of Him Who is really able to do something about it.

Why don’t you just say, ‘Let’s pray!’? So much pain & suffering could be eased if you’d simply pray more.

Point others, who are having a problem, to the Answer Man, and what’s easier than offering to pray together? Take the problem to Me! Pray for Me to help you to be more efficient in your work & to really help you to accomplish something that lasts, fruit that remains & to become 'a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth.

Even prayer is work – spiritual work, and I reward you for your effort of obedience to petition Me, by granting your requests. 'Ask and you shall receive.'

Become a holy man by immersing yourself in prayer & communion with Me. That way you can always be sure you'll be doing the right thing, if you follow Me step by step & let Me guide you by the hand. Pray without ceasing. It's like keeping your 2-way radio on all the time. Ready & on stand-by to receive new last minute instructions and to let Me know whenever you need help. Just keep your battery recharged & stay tuned to My wavelength. You just might have to turn the knob a little every now & then to make sure we're still connected, and you might have to recharge your battery, then you won't have to worry about losing the connection. You can stay online with Me 24/7 without wasting money or energy.

If you can't do anything else, you can always pray.

When you think of Me, it’s like the contact is made from your side. I’m always there, but as long as you ignore Me, you don’t profit as much from My presence, naturally, as you do when you tune in to Me. And, of course, I can’t use you as much as I would like to if you’re literally in a state oblivious to Me & you fail to acknowledge Me. In all thy ways, acknowledge Me, & I will direct your paths.

You can determine the positive or negative outcome of a situation by deciding whether you’re going to pray or not.

Don’t let the Enemy & the power of habit cheat you out of this opportunity to make a golden opportunity out of each one.

Every moment is a golden opportunity to do something wonderful, if you include Me in it.

So few stir themselves up to call upon Me, to intercede for others. So few weep & feel & pain with those who are lost.

Don’t let the misery of the World just pass you by untouched, but implore Me to change things!

If you reach out to Me, I will reach out to you!

Pray without ceasing, and commit all your cares to Me. I can take better care of them than you ever could, just give Me a chance!

There are many who need your prayers. Come, and implore Me for them. I need you to pray for them.

One of the first steps to getting something done for Me is to pray for them to happen. It’s like you’re charging My angels to go before you & clear the way of any obstacles. You want to get something done for Me? Then start off by praying them through! Your own physical energy will never be enough. The power of prayer is the secret.

If you would take the time, I could show you things about each person you meet, and you should. You must pray more about things...

Nothing comes from nothing. The same principle applies to your prayer life. Ye have not because ye ask not.

I’m bound to certain rules & can only give you what you actually ask Me for. You believe in prayer as much as you pray!

If you shall seek Me with all your heart, I will let you find Me. Whatever troubles you, give it to Me, & don’t let it distract you from the job at hand! Prayer is the pump that sucks down My sap from the heavenlies. It creates a vacuum for Me to fill.

Come to Me & find Me waiting with open arms & eager to answer you, eager to supply your needs! I have needed & longed for you to stir yourselves up.

I need your concern & your desperation!

When there’s a need, it creates a vacuum. It’s like the darkness that cries for the light, the cold that longs for My warmth, the question that waits for My answer, the problem which yearns for My solution. I’m pleased when you earnestly cry out for My help!

Too many times you let incidents pass you by indifferently without getting stirred up to seek Me about them, to counsel with Me or beseech Me about them. It’s that passive, fatalistic attitude, which makes people go around in circles without ever getting anywhere, ever learning but never coming to knowledge, as one that beateth the air. You don’t commit things unto Me or into My care, you don’t always commend a situation into My hands, nor ”command Me concerning the work of My hands”; you don’t tell Me what you expect Me to do about a certain thing.

It’s always better to have prayed for a situation & to commit it into My hand, than not. The results will always be better!

If you leave anything to itself, it won’t just automatically improve by itself. Everything needs care, and the best care you can give things, people & situations, is to pray for them.

Pray & cover everything there is to pray for, until you know, ”it is done” & you have done all you could!

Praying is not only an essential part of love a parent should have for their child, but it’s actually the most important & effective thing you can and must do!

You’ll see how vast the difference is that prayer has made in your life.

The greater the desperation, the greater the vacuum, the power with which you draw strength, energy, input & counsel from Me! The greater the need, the more I can fill, for I can only fill the hungry with goods, but will have to send the rich, the full, the self-satisfied away empty.

Stir yourselves up & implore Me, seek Me & beg Me to fill the need. Where there is no need, there is no space to fill...

When you can’t do anything but pray, let Me remind you that praying is not the least you can do for someone, but the most.

There’s not as much in it for you as when you comfort them with your natural presence, but – believe Me: prayer is MUCH more effective! You’ll SEE it one day!

Anything that makes you pray more than you usually would, is a blessing.

If you’re too tired to do anything else, there’s still so much you can accomplish through prayer!

The moment you integrate Me & include Me in the equation, the solution will be underway. As soon as you cast the burden on Me, it will leave your tiny shoulders & it will be on Mine, which are quite a lot more capable, and the matter is resolved; I don’t want you to worry about it anymore. You can keep it in prayer, but don’t worry! Convert every worry into a prayer.

If worry is a sickness or a poison, then prayer is the cure. Worry is the question mark, prayer brings the answer. Worry is the black hole of the need that’s there to fill & prayer is the switch that turns on the heavenly machinery that sets the filling process in motion. Worry is the darkness, prayer turns on the light. So, pray, instead of worrying.

There will always be those who go the way of Cain, the way of the flesh...

These are the enemies I asked you to pray for in My Word, those personal enemies who just resist the voice of truth coming from their brethren whom they despise. Pray for them, that My Spirit might manage to come through to them.

You never know which Saul, no matter how hard he has been kicking against the prick, might turn into a Paul, because of My miraculous intervention in answer to prayer.

Oone of the greatest actions you can take is action through prayer.

You’ll get so much more accomplished than you could ever do yourself, even with an army of people serving you.

There is no spiritual life without prayer. Prayer is the A & O of it. If you want to live in the spirit, if you want to bring forth fruit in the spirit, and accomplish anything in the spirit, it's going to have to begin with prayer.

Praying for others is one of the first steps of love. Through prayer, you become a practicer of what you believe in, it's one of the first ways of putting your belief into action! You put My power & magic into effect through your prayers!

Draw them in through your prayers. All the words in the World won't do the trick, it's gotta be My Spirit working in their heart, and the only influence you have on this process is through your prayers.

Just because prayer sounds so familiar, simple & childlike, it's not very appealing to the intellect. It doesn't come across as anything glorious, mysterious or special you can do, since it's basically something every child can do. But how many really use that power?

It is your means to practice the greatest magic in existence, your usage of My power, and you should think twice about whether you should allow the Enemy to cheat you out of that weapon, just by making it look as something simple & childlike and completely different in your eyes than it really is!

Just like praise, prayer is one of those weapons that sound so simple, so contrary to all that appeals to the human intellect & ambition to accomplish something on your own, that it's pretty easy for the Devil to trick you into neglecting them, which is lucky for him, because he knows that if you start using those weapons as you should, his days are numbered.

Make room for it to happen - through prayer. You're not only creating a vacuum inside of your own heart & spirit for Me to fill, but you actually create a space for Me to fill with My miraculous answer within your realm of operation, your world, your environment, your surroundings & circumstances, your situation. Make room for miracles through prayer! Make it happen - through prayer! Use My magic! - Pray! Get rid of obstacles, both, in the physical and the spiritual - through prayer!

When you start becoming aware of all that prayer is capable of and what you're capable of through prayer, it just about becomes ridiculous that you don't use that greatest of all powers available to man to a greater extent than you do doesn't it? Of course, it takes time and requires patience and faith to pray! It doesn't minister to your carnal sense and desire for accomplishment. When you pray, you're using a remote control for My hands to do something. You will realize that this way - using My hands, instead of your own - you can get so much more accomplished, it's like multiplying your own strength innumerable times over.

With your own two hands you can maybe move a few bricks at a time, but using My power, you can move a whole wall or as I have said in My Word - a whole mountain, with the same or even less physical effort.

I appreciate your wanting to do things for Me. But there are so many spiritual forces at work behind the scenes, that you simply must forsake any attempt to do this with your own natural means. You must operate in the spirit. That means you must give Me commands and put Me in charge of the things you want Me to do! "Command ye Me!" - Especially concerning the work of My hands, and My sons & daughters.

When you can't do something yourself, then you've got to ask Me to do it!

You've got to learn to let Me work!

Take it easy! Stand back and watch Me fight! Enjoy life a little bit! Learn how to let Me do it, instead of thinking you've got to do it all yourself! You can't do it yourself! I've got to do it for you! Stop trying to carry that heavy load yourself! Let Me help you! Let Me carry your burden! Let Me carry your load!

I have purposely limited Myself to give to you only what you ask for - usually, that is - and often "ye have not because ye ask not," which is pretty sad, because I'm so much more willing to give than you are to receive. The only requirement is that you ask. That's not asking too much is it?

"Deliver us from evil" is part of the prayer I taught you to pray, because it's very relevant to each of you.

Each one of you is prone to become a target of evil, that's just one of the facts of life, and that's why you've got to pray & stay in close communication with Me to help you overcome that evil, to withstand it, to resist it, & that I might deliver you from it.

Stay desperate with Me to deliver you from evil, just as I have taught you to pray.

It actually works, & is a system I have established in order for you to learn to fight & care for each other, to remain in unity.

I didn't say, "deliver them", or "so-and-so," but I said "us", because everyone is subject to it, and you're all going to have to be forgiven for trespasses as you will have to forgive others theirs, and all have to pray not to be led into temptation.

The times to just ignore things & just let it pass are over! I want you to take action, action through prayer & do something about it in order to enable Me to do something about it!

When someone in your midst is being attacked, it's a test of love, whether their battle also becomes your battle, or you just indifferently continue whatever you just happen to be into! You've been through similar battles & have come out alive, & you can see things from the top of the mountain in some ways, & to you they don't look nearly as bad. But what does that help them unless you come down & descend from your high horse, & help them up & pray for them?

Don't continue business as usual. Call on Me for help! I'm your 24h emergency call hotline, always available & at your service, always ready to send out a rescue squad to help you!

One of the reasons I'm letting you get into these difficult, twisted & complicated, seemingly impossible situations, is to have you realize that there's nothing in the World you can do about it... except to pray!

I and the Father, and all My heavenly realm of counselors are at your disposal, waiting for your instructions, your communications, having you tell us what you would like us to do about all these situations, to commit them into Our hand. If you commit the situation into Our hands, there is so much more we can do about it than you ever could.

There's nothing you can do, and no talking in the World is ever going to help as much as prayer. When you have the choice which weapon you're going to apply, prayer is the wiser choice.

We have the means to do things and set processes into motion that you can't. We can do what you can't. No matter what We might tell you to do, the circumstances could change and cancel the effect of our counsel, but if you commend the situation directly into Our omnipotent hands, We'll do something about it against which Satan and circumstances are powerless.

We will open the right doors, instead of just pointing you toward them. We will make things so obvious that there won't be anymore doubt as to whether this is the right way you should walk.

If you could only see the need for more desperate & fervent prayer in your life! Satan would be powerless against you, and he would just be forced to stand by in awe as you would clearly rise above any of his ludicrous attempts to try to do anything to stop, hinder or delay you!

The Devil has put all his money and wit onto the tactic of having you do anything else put pray, to distract you from using this weapon, to keep you in a state where you're content enough in order to keep you from praying desperately & really getting ahold of My power on your behalf!

I'm right here, and we're only waiting for your instructions to start working on your behalf! Tell us what to do! Tell us what you want done, and if it's in line with the Father's will, you know you have the petition you asked of Him! This is the confidence you should have in Him! (1.Jn.5:14,15) The amazingly & astonishingly simple answer to your complex conglomeration of question marks & blanks in your mind is: just pray! It'll do more for you than you can ever think or say or know or come up with & do yourself...

Stir yourself up & search Me with your whole heart! For he that calls unto Me wholeheartedly will also receive a wholehearted reply! It's that half-heartedness that comes from people being so self-satisfied, & complacent with the way things are, that stands in the way of them ever getting stirred up enough to really get something done for Me. In order to really do the humanly impossible, one has to get desperate for the cause. It's that desperation that makes things happen; the realization of the urgency of the matters at hand.

You’ve got to show by your attitude that you're real, not just another fake & phony with half-hearted or selfish motives.

That's why you've got to pray desperately each day, with genuine concern for others - that's why I want you to start showing more concern for others.

Where there's a need, there's a vacuum to fill. You just have to assign that vacuum to the right address, namely Me, and not take it onto your own shoulders & try to carry the burden yourself!

Sometimes you have to be made aware of the need first, and you have to go through experiences & dry spells that will help you appreciate the blessings more.

I'm limited by your prayers, so, you actually get what you pray for, and if you stop praying, I can't keep pouring. That's another reason why it says, "Pray without ceasing." I keep supplying as long as you keep praying.

So much is in your hands. So much power! Your destiny lies in your own hands, & you can determine so many things through prayer. I can do anything & there's nothing I won't do for you if you ask in faith!

I might just change your way of looking at things & help you to see through My eyes, but whichever way, you'll notice the difference.

You don't like the way things are? Pray for Me to change'em!

Take Me with you! Don't let our communication go under in all the stress & the distractions!

The more pleasure people derive from this world, the more successful they are at managing to lead satisfactory lives, the less they see the need for Me and intimate contact with Me, but if you pray for them, I can create that same vacuum & longing in their souls for Me that I have placed in you, because you have asked Me for it.

If you pray that they won't be truly satisfied by none of the Devil's materialistic counterfeits & by anything but the real thing, I can protect them from that deception, just as I have protected you, and I can consecrate & reserve them unto Me. You've got to claim them for Me! If you lack, ask Me. Prayer could solve all your problems & prevent many of them from happening in the first place!

If you walk in prayer, My Spirit will show you how to properly handle people and situations.

If you have a problem, make sure that you've done your part to commit it into My hands, so that you know it'll be taken care of and that I'm working on the solution.

The more vehemently you pray, the more vehemently My hedge of angels will protect you!

Electricity is an illustration of the spiritual Power of God's Love.

How do you avail yourself of that power, the great energy of God? Through prayer!

I am able and I am willing to solve your problems! I'm more willing to solve them than you are willing to believe it or to accept My solutions or to even ask Me for them!

The more you communicate with Me, the more I can help you. The more you're allowing Me to take part in your problems, the more solutions I can offer. The more you ask, the more I can help. The more you pray, the more I can make a way.

Prayer is like a sweet, spiritual perfume that changes the atmosphere of a room. A room in which one has prayed has a clean and bright spirit, it's as if someone has been in there with a sweet, heavenly perfume, and has left a trace of that scent there.

Prayer is the gist of all that makes the difference!

Wisdom is asking Me. Wisdom is availing yourself of My power instead of trying to do it on your own.

The big mistake the majority is making is not coming to Me when something's wrong, they try to figure it out & fix it themselves.

Prayer changes things. When you feel like you're not prepared for something that's coming at you, pray. When you feel like you can't cope, and what life is handing you is too much for you, then pray. Prayer is the magic that makes Me help you carry your load.

If there's been any improvement, any progress, it's because of your combined prayers. You must continue to pray. When you pray, you show you care. you've got to invest more of your faith in prayer, pour more of your life out in prayer. You believe in prayer as much as you pray.

Prepare yourself through prayer! Prayer is the magic I want you to practice! The magic witches practice is only an imitation of the power you release through prayer.

Chase away the doubts & attacks of the Enemy through prayer, the way you get rid of flies with a fly swatter or insect spray! Spray some prayer magic in their direction & soon you'll hear their annoying buzzing no more! Prayer is pure energy, pure light, pure magic that never runs empty, the very force that not only created the universe, but also holds it together. The forces of gravity, speed and light, etc., are all parts of one great force, namely Mine, and you can avail yourself through it through prayer! Wouldn't it be foolish not to do so?

You can also prevent problems from ever even happening by applying yourself of that force in a preventative way.

Breathing is a lot like prayer. You breathe in My life-giving oxygen, you spiritually inhale My Spirit, My love, My force, and you exhale it again, as you breathe out your influence of positiveness on the world. You shed light into the darkness through your prayers.

Show them the magic of prayer! Share the magic! Pour it on them! Let them experience it, feel it, enjoy it! Let them notice the difference! Make a difference through prayer, My magic!

You can perform miracles if you learn to truly avail yourself of My power through prayer! I give it to you freely. I want you to use it!

If you accomplish nothing but to pray for those who need your prayers, then you're already accomplishing a lot more than some multi-billion dollar mogul who's raking in the millions by the minute! His millions are going to be absolutely worthless to him the minute he dies, whereas you will have saved your riches where they will truly count, for eternity!

Making praise & prayer a habit is a key to success in life.

The power of prayer is the main power I'd like you to avail yourself of. Otherwise, it's like running merely on the power of your own rechargeable 9 Volt battery, when you could avail yourself of My full and constant 230 Volt.

Nothing's too unimportant for Me. The question is, how important are they to you? Important enough to stir yourself up about them to call Me up about them?

I'm trying with all My might to convince you that prayer is more than just a last resort when all else has failed! Prayer isn't the last thing you should do, but the first, and if things aren't what they should be, then chances are that the main culprit is the fact that you haven't prayed!

More often than not, it is true, the guilt and the blame lies with you, although the atrocity you committed may have been none other but that you didn't pray!

Quit trying to do things better than I can. Just let Me do it for you!

Make it your duty to pray over things. If there's one thing you should be truly prayerful about, it's your words.

Pray before you say - or write.

If you pray more in the things you do, you'll find that it's never going to be time wasted. In fact, "time spent in prayer, is time saved."

So, if you want to save time, instead of wasting it, keep praying.

The best thing you can do is pray. You want to change your life? Pray! Whatever you want and have the vision and the faith for: pray!

If you want folks to get the point and the heart of the matter, the best thing you can do is pray for it! You can change the world through your prayers! In fact, it will be the first sign and proof that you got the point yourself.

In prayer, you can spread your soul out like a healing balm, and thus have it benefit many, simultaneously. If you don't pray, the balm stays in the jar. But as soon as you pour out your soul to Me in prayer for those whose lives concern you, and those I put on your heart to pray for, because their lives concern Me, it goes to work and soothes, heals, performs miracles, and you become like a magician puppeteer, influencing many lives from behind the scenes: you're becoming My hands, pouring out the balm of My healing elixir over them.

So much good can be done and accomplished through prayer. There's virtually nothing better you can do!

Prayer is the way through which you can become a partaker of My all-powerful nature and create little miracles everywhere, of new life, new hope, bring light and love where there was none.

You can accomplish a lot for someone by caring enough to pray for them and commit their care into My hands!

I hand you some situations for you to hand them back to Me, the way a father rolls a ball toward his child, expecting him to roll it back. After you've rolled it back to Me by committing the problem to prayer, and I've done what I can to improve the situation, I'll roll it back to you, and have you do what you can.

Whenever you get the chance, pray! It will make all the difference in the world. It will show that you're relying on Me to get it done, you're not just trying to pull it through in the flesh. You're giving Me a chance to work that way.

You're saying "yes" to Heaven when you stop to pray and give Me a chance to work through you. You're making choices that allow the forces of Heaven to become active in your life.

In order to keep problems from happening, you have to take certain measures in order to prevent them, and one of the basic measures you can take to avoid problems is to pray. You can ask Me to prevent them from happening.

If you don't pray, I can't do anything except watch you go through it and hope that next time you'll be smarter! (next Chapter:)

…Hearing from God I should always be your first & foremost focus point of communication! Without Me you could make a mess of things.

Only I’m way out there & know what’s ahead, where the dangers lie & I can show you ‘things thou knowest not’ (Jer.33:3).

Try to imagine how I feel about so few being willing to listen to Me. This is a pain I feel everyday when I look down upon the children of men & suffer from their neglect.

Don’t do anything without Me! Don’t move until you hear My voice or get My sign, ‘This is the way, walk ye in it!’

Ask Me about the things that are going on in your life. There is so much to learn from all you’re going through.

If you really want to serve Me, then start by sitting down at My feet & listening to Me daily.

Hear! Hearken for the sound of My voice, My whispers, the Words from My lips throughout the day!

And always check in with Me before you start doing something new.

When you can’t look anywhere but up, lying flat on your backs, I can get through to you the best & reveal My will to you.

Every individual situation is different & has its individual solution. Seek Me for the specific answer.

Be a sample of a God-follower! You don’t have to know anything except how to call on Me & receive My answers. If you do this faithfully, they’ll see that it works, & they’ll follow your sample!

I can answer every question if you’ll but ask.

Your primary responsibility is to make sure you get a hold of Me & My perfect will for you & find My perfect path for you.

Everything depends on learning to get My counsel & direction! I answer you with the same intensity with which you seek Me! Few people on this Earth come to Me for counsel when they’re having a problem. Lots of people pray, but few wait for the answer.

As soon as you come to Me, I will give the answers that will make the mountains just melt away.

The worst thing in the world you can do when you don’t know what to do is to keep going... It’s a time of great transition & upheaval, & there will be even greater upheaval in the future, so, it behooves you to pray as if everything depended on prayer, which it does, and to hear from Me & seek My face as if everything depended on getting a hold of My instructions & revelations, which it does.

Whenever something happens, you should seek the purpose & lesson I have in this for you.

There are many lessons involved in the things I'm allowing to happen around you, if you ask Me & care enough to find out!

Nobody's interested in their Creator, nor in finding out what He's got to say, they're all too enwrapped & busy with creation, trying to keep it functioning. They need to get back to their Maker & refer to the Manual or call the service hotline, but it won't even occur to them.

It's not an exclusive thing to have Me as a chatting partner, Advisor, Helper and Counselor, it's something available to anyone who would only dare to give Me a chance.

Keep looking for signs along the way. I'm trying to teach you to read My signs. They are all over the place, and often people don't register them. If they would stop to notice them and ask Me, "Lord, what does this mean?" I could show them so much more & teach them so much more, and their path would become clearer.

I will speak to you anytime, regardless of the way you feel.

There are times when My children don't have a clue. But I can give you a clue. I'm the Clue-Giver! Haven't got a clue? Ask Me what to do!

As long as you're listening, there's hope, because My Word will not return unto Me void.

Let Me teach you what you have to know in order to walk your specific and individual path that is destined for you. If you pick up input that is not what I know is best for you, it can serve as a distraction.

Listen to Me, your Coach, in order to avoid any mean knock-outs by the Enemy.

You can always come to Me for another shower of My golden Words to you, another snack of manna, My heavenly bread, My water of life, which is better than wine.

In order not to stumble, you have to keep your spiritual ears open! And have your antenna tuned in My direction!

Turn on & tune in to the music of My Spirit!

It's always available!

Why feed on crumbs, when I could serve you a whole delicious meal?

There are many reasons why it pays to get your directions & instructions, counsel & guidance from Me. "Come now & let us reason together..."

I like to communicate with you!

There is hardly anything more important to Me than achieving that My children learn to walk the right path, in the right direction, based on the right instructions from Me; that they become liberated from the confusion that's a result of the Devil's lies they've often grown up with; that they can see instead of wandering around groping through the darkness.

There's scarcely anything more important for Me than ensuring that each of you find the center of My perfect will for you, that you take time to learn to hit the mark instead of missing it, and I'm a very patient teacher.

My capacity to teach is only limited by your attention span, your capacity to learn, to receive, to listen, to tune in, to let go of your own ideas long enough I've got so much to share, so much to give, and yet there are so few really willing to listen and to receive it.

My Spirit is like a broadcasting station that's broadcasting all the time, with the same constant intensity as ever, and the only thing that changes is the intensity of your own receptivity.

If you want to be like Me, you're going to have to be with Me. If you want to learn from Me, you have to spend time at My feet, listening to Me. Even if you have found the truth, you should always stay hungry for more, and that's what prophecy is all about: you get more everyday, fresh from the heavens, like Manna.

When there's no vacuum, then there's nothing I can fill. You need to create a vacuum first.

If you don't acknowledge Me in all your ways, then how can I direct your paths? (Prov.3:5,6) Counsel & guidance from Me would be available to anybody who would avail themselves of My gifts.

That’s why I've got so much to say: there IS so much to say that mankind is totally unaware of. Not because I wouldn't have been willing to tell them, but mostly because there were so few willing to listen.

I've nearly always got something to say, the question is only whether you're willing or able to hear it! As long as you've got a listening ear and a proper functioning receiver, I'll have something to say.

I can always set your view straight & show you which things to focus on, and what tricks the Enemy is up to, just getting you through life, clearly seeing the truth and the path ahead, in today's dark and confusing world.

Let Me fill and satisfy your spiritual hunger every morning, before you get into anything else. You'll have My Spirit, My plan and My viewpoint of things, and you'll be much better equipped for whatever the day may bring!

If it costs you some effort to find Me and to be able to hear My voice and receive My personal words, then you will appreciate them more and won't run the risk of taking them for granted.

There is always only a very small minority of those who really get the point, who really let Me talk to them. The majority will always follow their own impulses.

My still small voice can best be heard in the silence.

Let Me teach you!

My signal is relatively weak and quiet, compared to all the blaring noisy signals the Enemy is sending out into the world, and it does require a certain skill to stay tuned to My signal.

Most of My children aren't interested in communicating with Me, and at times that's the reason why I'm not about to say much to them, either.

Nothing’s going to cheer you up or light up your view on things as much and as effectively as My voice, My Word, and My glimpses of Heaven that I show you.

I have created life as a series of riddles the answers to which you won’t find so easily without Me. Try and solve them without Me, and you’ll have problems. Ask Me to help you, and you’ll fare well.

(Prophet Daniel:) God speaks just about all the time, and everywhere, and you need to learn to interpret His messages all around you.

It’s all about deciphering God’s handwriting on the walls and screens all around you.

His world is like a multi-dimensional screen on which He constantly writes His messages, and youmust interpret them tell people what it means and decode the messages for them…

If people wanted communion with Me, they could have it. You get what you ask for and have the faith for.

The world is in such a mess because they lack the truth and love that a healthy connection with Me would give them.

I’m teaching you personally through the school of life and your experiences, all that you have to go through, your trials and lessons… these are all ways in which I communicate and interact with you.

They complete another piece in the puzzle of the deeper meaning of everything.

The gift of prophecy is for those who need to know My will for them in a more specific way than I have already laid down in My Word.

Once your “boat is in motion,” and you are moving in My direction, you will find situations in which you will need more specific and personal advice and counsel and direction from Me, and I will not hesitate to give it to you.

Those who are faithful students of My written Word will also eventually hear My living Word, as I have promised, but first you’ve got to do your part and what you can do make sure that My Words dwell in you (see John 14:23).

Before you can receive My Words, you have to create a space for Me to fill, and you have to prove with your actions that you want to go My way, because prophecy is for those who want to go My way, follow Me and do things to further My Kingdom.

You have to become familiar with My voice through reading My written Word, and eventually you’ll also hear My voice speaking to you personally.

I speak through many means. I speak to you through the things you read, through My personal words to you, but also through My written Word, and I speak to you through what’s going on around you, the signs of the times, and even through the words of the proclaimers and interpreters of such events.

(Spirit Helper:) The heavenly words from Jesus make the difference that’s needed to bring back that heavenly spark into your life that you’re missing.

His input and His gifts are different from all the things that befall you in your earthly life. They simply don’t have that imperfect and thus disappointing quality about them that earthly things do.

The words the Lord has for you are the factor that are going to give you the victory. They’ll be the difference between victory and defeat, between positiveness and negativity.

Enemy may try to diminish their value in your mind and tell you, “What good is it all, anyway?” But just stop to pause and think why he would do that. Certainly not in order to help you! He’s just sick and tired of being defeated and exposed by them day after day, month after month, year after year! There’s not much progress he can make in your life, as long as you keep receiving and heeding the Lord’s counsel, and he sees he’s fighting a losing battle in your life. So, the best thing he can do is to persuade you that the very factor that’s strengthening you is one you actually don’t need, that it’s useless.

Just because not many other people seem to be interested in what the Lord has to say, doesn’t mean that hearing from Him is not the one possible best thing you could ever do! Just because you’re seemingly the only one doing the right thing doesn’t make it wrong!

(next chapter:)

…Heart Matters Listen to your heart! It’s so much greater to live by the heart & following what the heart tells you to do than do just hearken to the narrow confines of the mind. The mind sees the boundaries & impossibilities & why it can’t be done & shouldn’t even be tried. The heart just feels the urge to do it anyway & trust Me for the outcome.

It’s the heart that counts. You won’t be judged or rewarded by how smart you were in this life, but by the love you show.

It’s the heart that matters most!

You've just got to have a heart for people, be concerned about them, be moved with compassion upon them as I was and still am.

Take time to absorb Me fully, and to become a part of Me - to let Me become a part of you, a conscious part of you that's always there, one that you cannot lose. Staying in My presence is more a matter of the heart than of the mind.

Even though with your mind you can make the decision to love somebody, it's still another step until you can truly say you love somebody, and that's just something that comes from the heart, not the mind. Love is a matter of the heart, "the heart of the matter..."

If you really want to dig down deep, you not only have to discover mind-boggling truths, but let those truths sink deeply into your heart where they will change your life & take the desired effect.

Drops of heavenly rain, heavenly love, cause your heart to blossom into life and warmth. The spiritual winter of your heart is over. The hardships you've been experiencing, the heat I've been putting on, are causing the hard shell to soften & crack open & finally the new you is coming to life, the person I wanted you to be. Not the cold, reserved, critical & calculating old you, but the loving, warm, affectionate, embracing you, that does not hold back from Me nor from others!

A giving you, a smiling you, bubbling over with My humble joy and love, dropping warmth and love and affection and encouragement into the hearts of those you pass by.

Changes of the heart are miracles that only I can bring about, you can't do it yourself, so quit trying & let Me do it!

You must allow My Words to really sink into your hearts. That's from where the fruit of learning comes. Wisdom is so much more a matter of the heart than the mind. You've got to let Me plant My seeds into your heart, & you must absorb them with all your heart, not just acknowledge them with your mind. You've simply got to take the time for those seeds to really sink in.

Relate from the heart and gut side of things, the love side, not the judgmental, analytical side of the mind. From the side of mercy, as you would want mercy if you were in their shoes.

You just can't legislate sincere goodness of the heart.

Those who get the core and gist of My message, that love, nothing else, is the secret, they are the ones who have their hearts open to Me. It's the heart that matters, not some kind of dogma or theory, doctrine or any other head stuffing. The key and the gist of My teachings and of My life, and of all I want to convey to mankind is love, and that's a matter of the heart, not of the head.

Let your faith, your religion, what you live and preach, be a matter of the heart, not a head issue!

"The heart speaks to the heart." You've got to learn that language of the heart, the communication from heart to heart, that's what's going to touch lives, change people, and consequently, change the world.

Words won't do you any good if you just keep them up there in your head. You need to reach out & apply them on a heartto-heart level, saying "I understand. I've been there, too. But He pulled Me out, & I know He can do it for you!"

You've got to let My heart speak to your heart, in order for your heart to be able to speak to theirs. Everything is a matter of the heart.

It's gotta be the heart. Hope is a matter of the heart. Faith has got to be a matter of the heart in order to become really real and spur you on to works and deeds which prove that your faith is alive; and love certainly also is a matter of the heart, not just a "concept" you can grasp.

The position of your heart has to be right.

It's not that I'm opposed to people using their brains, but I'm trying to get you to operate more by the heart, & not so much by the head. It's the heart that attracts people. The regular, average people are almost always rather inclined to be suspicious & mistrusting of intellectually inclined people, who convey an air of intellectual superiority, usually because they often breathe criticalness of those who are less so inclined.

And I usually side with them. The Devil is the smart aleck who tries to pretend he's so much smarter than everybody else, & he ridicules them & makes them feel inferior. But blessings come from elsewhere, not only smartness. I bless the honest, humble, hard working people, & they're often more blessed than those incredibly intellectual thinkers, which usually tends to make the thinkers only more bitter & cynical & critical, but what it actually should do is cause them to think for real: that it's not only this supposed intellectual superiority that makes things happen, but the heart is an engine that can generate wealth more efficiently and reliably than mere intellect.

The brain alone doesn't do it. It's the heart that moves one to action, which then actually makes the difference. The mind alone doesn't really have creative power. It's the heart that moves the rest of your body along to really get something going. You need inspiration, not just mere brain-power & intellect.

If it all just remains in the realm of thought, it can so often be and remain nothing but hot air. You can think things up & down until it hurts & you can talk about them for ages, but usually the simple people will have simply done it long before you ever got around to stop talking about it.

I am a very deeply integrated and inseparable part of you, the heart and center from which you've got to live.

I want to be connected to your heart.

My Kingdom must be based on more than mere intelligence or thought. It's got to be more than brainpower, but love power that moves you into action... emotion!

Put your heart into it! If you try to figure it all out in your head & analyze it to pieces, it's going to look ugly. From a rational point of view, this life doesn't make a lot of sense; too much imperfection. It's not smooth enough for the mind.

It's too rough, too many rough edges.

That's why you're only really going to get through life successfully if you put your heart into it.

The heart is what matters, the motivation; you've got to have the right incentives.

You can only change another heart through something that comes from your heart in the first place: words from the heart, prayers from the heart… Whatever love has been there in your heart in the first place, must go out and reach another’s heart.

There are other challenges in life than finding out what the great universal truth of everything is. Sometimes it’s the little truths, the little right attitudes and the proper position of the heart that make life on a local and practical level a lot more livable. (next chapter:)

…Names Sometimes big secrets of the universe lie in such seemingly insignificant things as the name of a flower: Forget Me not!

Don’t forget Me! Don’t forget to give Me the glory! In your remembering Me every step of the way lies the course, the quality & the effectiveness of your voyage through life.

I really AM, I really DO exist. I told Moses that’s My name because it is the answer to the most essential question: 'God, are you REALLY there?’ I AM!!! I’m not often quite easily perceived & recognized, nor accepted as the God of Love that I am. But I AM. Keep on overcoming by praising Me, trusting Me and loving Me in spite of anything, and I will give you that white stone, and in it a name written that no one else will know but you - and Me! A name that will be your special code of direct linkup & instant utter communication & oneness with Me, your personal access code to My heart. I cannot grant access & entrance to the Holy of holies & inner core of My heart only to those who will approve themselves in this life as true overcomers.

The ship's going down, & yet the band plays on & the captain & his crew are saying, "Don't panic, everything's under control...." when really everything's out of control, because they're trying to grab the control more & more away from Me, practically want to eradicate Me from people's minds, lives & consciences & give it over to the one they will receive, who will come in his own name, unlike Me, Who came in His Father's name & they did not receive.

My name means "Savior." My cry and My call to mankind is to "Come, let Me save you!" I want to save you wholly & entire, I want to cleanse and heal all of you, your mind, your body, your heart, your spirit... your soul.

Act in the power and in the name of the Author, the Founder, the Ruler over all, in His undisputable Authority over everything else, any circumstances and forces that would dare to stand in the way of My will.

The Devil is like some ferocious dog that barks and growls and acts up as if he were the boss, but just one word spoken in My name and authority will shut him up and remind him of who's the Boss around here.

Look beyond, at the ultimate purpose of all, not the immediate thing. Just as in magic the name of the thing controls it or makes it "happen," even so ignoring the thing, and instead focusing on the Maker, the Author of everything, will enable you to perform the greatest magic of all: My magic of faith, the magic of "nothing is impossible."

(next chapter:)

…Mistakes As long as you learn from your mistakes, nothing is lost. Even your mistakes made are then one of ‘all things’ which work together for good for them that love Me. As long as you come to Me, and I can teach you about the things you did wrong or could do better, there’s no need for remorse, which never helped much, anyway. But you can turn right around, determine to keep an eye on that weakness, ask Me to help you be on guard & ‘deliver you from evil’, strengthen the feeble knees & the hands that hang down, & go to work on building new, healthier habits. And that’s what you call ‘progress’ & learning.

Mistakes are an essential part of the meaning of life.

It’s just the inborn sinful human nature not to want to obey me at first.

The Devil comes up with his contra immediately & pipes up, ....’Sssssso, did God reaaally ssssay ssso...?’ And you know what’ll happen next. You’ll make a mistake. Call it a sin – you miss the mark. I have to punish you, you learn the lesson, and that’s the cycle of things at the present state of creation under the curse.

It will not always be so. This is only practice with weights, so that soon you’ll be able to fly.

It took that road of humbling, the road of making mistakes, the road of failure, to come to the realization of My unconditional love for you.

You cannot turn back time, and everyone has made mistakes, but you’re not meant to make the same mistakes over & over. Some mistakes you don’t even realize until much later, some only when you get here.

Do your best to learn from your mistakes & not to repeat them.

You have learned precious lessons out of these deep dark experiences that can benefit them all. These things have happened to you as an ensample to them, that they might learn from your mistakes and marvel at My breakings, at My mercy, at My chastisements & wisdom. This is a lesson for Eternity; the lesson of the breakings from this world.

A wiser man will learn from the mistakes of others, providing those others will share their mistakes as lessons.

Wanna quit making mistakes? Remember Me! Wanna stop blowing it? Remember Me! Wanna make continuous uphill progress without the 2-steps forward, one-step-back grind? Simply remember Me & give Me the glory by acknowledging Me, thanking & praising Me & asking Me to keep you from falling, even when you think you’re safe.

When it all comes down to it, you’re still just a child, and children do embarrassing things, sometimes. But it’s better to make blunders of the mind than be so afraid of making mistakes that you never dare to do anything. you have need of patience. Patience with others, even patience with yourself. Patience with your & their mistakes & faults...

If you ask Me to show you your weak areas & how you can improve them, you'll fare so much better. And you'll have much to share from the revelation & overcoming of your own mistakes, flaws, faults & shortcomings.

Don’t repeat the mistake of letting others drag you down a road you’re not meant to go or you won’t want to go, neither look at others for excuses to let down your standard.

It’s a mistake to judge God by the people who supposedly represent Him, & their interpretation of what He supposedly said.

Making mistakes is part of the school of life, but the desired goal & progress is to learn to be making less of them as you go.

If you don’t want to keep making the same mistakes over & over & over again, some things are going to have to change.

Some things you’re simply going to have to get serious about & desperate.

In a way, your love for Me is a result of your mistakes & screw-ups, cause, let’s face it: If you had been more successful, do you honestly think you would have been that eager & desperate to find Me? Nobody’s expecting you to do a completely perfect job without any mistakes.

Everyone will see the wrongs they have committed, sooner or later. Not everyone is eager or ready to see how they are failing in this life-time.

Sometimes I have to let them go ahead & do something, even if it entails mistakes & wrongs, just in order for something to get done...

If you're only focusing on the flesh & the blunders & mistakes My people make, you're doomed to disappointment & failure.

If the people around you have become a disappointment & you're blaming Me for it, the reason I'm allowing this is so that you will put your faith in Me, not in them, put your eyes on Me, not them. Only I can help you make it through the night!

You're supposed to be My follower, not theirs. Or if you want to be their follower, follow them in the spirit & look at them with the eyes of the spirit, not the eyes of the flesh! Look at them as those who are fragile just like you, who make mistakes just like you, who doubt & waver just like you, but they just won't give up, even if they're tempted to. Look at them as those who've got nothing in this World & nowhere to turn but to Me. As long as you keep toying with other options, of course you will be double-minded.

You've got to learn to love folks even with their mistakes, just like they love you with yours. "Love the sinner & hate the sin" doesn't really mean, like you apply it: "Sure, I'll love the sinner. As soon as he gets rid of the sin!" Imagine if that were My attitude! No, loving the sinner means loving them in spite of their sin & patiently helping them to overcome their sin & having the faith that will eventually manage to do so by My grace!

Overcoming mistakes, faults & weaknesses & sins is one of the major objectives in life. Your weaknesses & sins are an important part of this school of life. If I would have sent you all perfect to this Earth, what would there be to learn? What would there be to save? What purpose would there have been for Me to come & live & die for?

It's easy to find fault! It's easy to see the mistakes in others & where they screwed up & how difficult they're making your life, and "if you look for the bad in people, you're going to find it!" But I say, look at the good! Count your blessings! Life could be much worse than this! But don't even focus on how much worse things are going to get or could be, but focus on how good you've had it, and most of all, on how good it's still going to be!

An unforgiving & self-righteous attitude in itself becomes worse than the mistake that was committed by the other party.

Everyone makes mistakes, including you, and forgiveness and being forgiven are simply integral parts of the school of life. So, don't view mistakes you or others make as some kind of permanent, irreparable damage, but remember that even those serve My purpose & work together for good in the long run.

Paying attention to the details will help you not to overlook important factors, it will teach you patience & the importance of little things. It will help you to not so easily misjudge or misunderstand things, not to make snap judgments. If you realize how much hinges & depends on little things, you will learn to hold your peace on a matter until you're certain you've got all the details straight & you're not missing out on any of the factors in the equation, and you'll see, you'll be a lot less prone to making mistakes in your life.

You haven't really learned all there is to learn out of these lessons yet, and some of the mistakes you made you're not even aware of.

If whatever your brother does causes you to stumble or give up, that brother may be held responsible for his mistakes, but you will be held responsible for your own decision to focus on his faults instead of Me, and whatever your looking at the waves will result in. If you want victory, you've got to keep looking at Me. Everything else will only spell defeat...

It's good to come out straight-forward when you see a mistake: "Oh, I don't think that was right. I don't agree." This is much better than keeping it in & letting it all out later in a barrage of bitter questions, remarks, statements & accusations.

It's time to quit repeating the same mistakes over & over again, of just doing what comes naturally, the obvious, without even bothering to ask Me about it & consult with Me.

You've got to keep pouring and pouring out that healing balm of love and forgiveness, letting them know that no matter how many mistakes they'll make, many waters cannot quench this fire of My love for them.

Judging people by their past mistakes, mentally putting people in a box consisting of the walls of the confines of your own mind which you create for them out of your negative memories & experiences with them is not appropriate anymore in this day & age when I'm changing lives radically & sometimes rapidly.

The carnal mind is quick to put both Me, and the way it thinks I should operate, and others into a box, and that's not a very smart thing to do in My business. Sometimes knowledge is the greatest stumbling block to divine revelation, because it interferes with what I would like to reveal to you.

If you think the time has arrived when there's nothing for you to learn anymore, no more mistakes to improve or correct, then you're just about to make the biggest mistake of all!

Just because some things have gone wrong in the past & mistakes were made and you failed at an earlier attempt, that doesn't mean it will always go that way. Don't be so discouraged by the times you stumbled & failed! It's okay! Just get up & try again!

I'm allowing you to have so many mistakes, faults & sins so that you realize just how much you need My Salvation!

Nobody's perfect, and thus, no matter how anointed they may be, they don't deserve to be worshipped without any reservations, completely ignoring or hushing up their mistakes! In fact, you only help them by pointing out their mistakes to them, and you prevent worse mistakes from happening.

I allow people to learn from their mistakes in the Spirit Realm by having them accompany their descendants as spirit helpers, to see what the late ricochets & repercussions of their actions are over time.

It's always tough to find out where it ain't at, that's the hard & painful way of finding direction, but it's also very effective.

At least it helps you to never want to make the same mistake!

You ask yourself, "What could I have done or avoided doing in order to not wind up here? What did I do wrong? What was the mistake I made?" And I can show you. But if you're not open to learn from your mistakes, you won't make the necessary progress.

Everybody makes mistakes. The question is, how much do you learn from them? Instead of being ashamed of them & try not to think about them, you should do the opposite: you should think about them & view them as opportunities to learn precious lessons from them, for some of the most precious lessons you learn are those which you learn from your own mistakes.

Of course, that takes humility. It's tough on one's pride to take the blame & face the consequences of their own actions, and to deal with what it is you have done wrong in order to bring certain conditions about. It's always easier to blame the other party for it. But that's not the way you learn.

Do you trust Me, that I love you so much that everything that happens to you is the best possible option? If you've been praying and committing your day into My hands, how am I going to disappoint you by doing anything less than the best? I will even allow the Enemy to only attack & test you in those ways that I know will bring forth the best possible results, & even the mistakes you will make will be those that will teach you the most effective and important lessons, so that truly ALL things will work out for not only good, but for the best for you!

If you must compare yourself to those who have made even graver mistakes, then try to learn from them, not to make the same mistakes, and never use them as an excuse that just because you're doing better than they, you're doing alright. If you truly want to give your best to Me that you can, then you cannot settle for "doing alright."

So many mistakes are made because people don't remember. Why do people not remember? Because they don't really make an effort, they don't really care. They're too busy occupying their minds with the next pleasure, the next entertainment, the next amusement, the next "escape route" that leads them "away from thinking."

Although I do try to teach you lessons or deal with you for your wrongs, it does not influence My amount of love for you if you make mistakes or fail.

It's human to make mistakes! They keep you humble. The proud & haughty who do nothing but criticize have their reward in feeling so high & mighty & superior in this life, that they can look down on everybody else.

I will use anything to save a soul, including the Devil himself, if need be. It's the results that count. I'd rather use a lesser evil, like a mistake, a human error & unintentional untruth in order to achieve a greater good, instead of being so selfrighteously stuck on all the details, painstakingly making sure that I've got every little fact & figure straight that I don't accomplish or achieve anything!

If you have failed, use your failures & mistakes to their full extent to do & accomplish what they were ordained for, namely to learn from them. Make the most out of them by praising Me for them!

I make the best out of down-slope experiences, those lessons learnt from mistakes.

Love means to be willing to help someone out of a mess they've gotten themselves into, even if it was caused by their own mistake. Love doesn't say, "It's your own fault!" Love quietly acknowledges, "We all make mistakes" & reaches out a hand to help the other up in whatever way you can.

Dealing with your sins and mistakes is important; you cannot just ignore them. Some who have refused to deal with them aren't around anymore, they didn't make it. It takes that honest confrontation with them.

I don't view your "mistakes" as anything nearly as bad as you tend to see them yourselves! Many "mistakes" you made in your life were necessary pathways to a whole new dimension, a world of insight and wisdom that you never even would have found the door to, otherwise. And even if you had found the door, you would not have chosen to walk through it voluntarily because it would have looked so uninviting.

Whatever you do, you've got to make sure you're doing it for My glory by bathing it in prayer. If you don't, then it easily happens that you slip into the mode of operating in the flesh, and you'll reap the repercussions of that: You make mistakes.

Yes, there are mistakes, there is sin to deal with. But without Me, you won't be able to deal with these things properly and in the right spirit, and will only tend to make matters worse, to commit an even greater sin.

If you know that I believe in you in spite of all your flaws, and you know that I believe in them also, in spite of theirs, then you can believe in Me for them, and thus believe in them, too.

If it's just you, without Me, if there's no connection with Me, then you might not really be trustworthy, simply because the Enemy can short-circuit you and cause you to make some serious mistakes & thus become less reliable. But as long as someone is making sincere efforts to come close to Me, not for any glorious elevation of self's sake, but really only for the love of Me, the love of truth, and the love of love itself, it's okay, you can trust such a person, including yourself.

That's why I can forgive you for all your mistakes and sins: I can see you're going to make it in spite of them.

Men of force are men of faults, and anyone who will be used by Me to a greater extent than others will be subject to greater attacks of the Enemy, greater temptations, and they're probably more prone to making mistakes.

You're subject to flaws & mistakes just like everybody else & you should thus stay open for suggestions & improvement.

Some mistakes you make can haunt you for a long time, & follow you around for quite a while.

One mistake to make would be to think that you have arrived where you should be, because you're merely getting started.

Sometimes, when things are looking okay, the Devil sends his demons of compromise & settling for less than the best, that are specially in charge of Christians, and make you think you're already at your destination, when you barely even got going.

Satan makes you think you're a "prisoner," a captive of the mistakes & flaws of others, that you're going to have to deal with & be subjected to them for the rest of your life. But I'm saying, "not really!" Because by simply making the choice that you're not going to let it affect you or bother or aggravate you, but instead choosing to look at and praise Me for their positive qualities, you deny those negative qualities to have power over you whatsoever, and it's almost as if they wouldn't exist!

Everybody makes mistakes, and without them, there'd be hardly anything to learn from in this life! By showing you which is the wrong way, by letting you experience it first hand, I'm also showing you the right way, which way you need to go to overcome, to rise above, to succeed: you just need to turn around, and instead of following all those other misleading voices, you just come to Me and follow Mine!

The big mistake the majority is making is that they're not coming to Me when something's going wrong, they try to figure it out & fix it themselves.

That's one of the biggest mistakes successful people make: they strive so hard for the "big" things, and constantly "bigger" things, greater things, that they nearly totally neglect the little things that already surround them, that I've already given them, and that would bring them much greater happiness (if they would just care to pay attention to them) than all their chasing after ever greater things. "Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not" (Jer. 45:5).

I'm using your sins, your faults, your weakness, your mistakes, to bring about the best in you. As I use all things to work out together for good for you, I also use these dark abysses of your souls in order to bring about some good in you and each other. In some ways, I use you to discipline each other.

You're learning how to behave correctly in order to avoid certain reactions in the other.

Only I see the whole "elephant." The biggest mistake you can possibly make is assuming that your view and Mine are always identical. That's the epitome of self-righteousness.

That was your mistake: You sort of let things run and have their "natural" course, and the natural course of things didn't turn out to bring any improvement at all, but rather decay and a deterioration of the situation, of the condition of things or even your children.

You can't just let the Enemy have the world & passively stand by as he wrecks it. You've got to do something about it!

You've got to counteract, you've got to oppose him.

I use your mistakes, and even those errors in your own doctrines of the past... You learn by trial & error. I have given no one a perfect blue print of the truth, but leave it up to everyone to discover it with My help throughout their lives.

If you wouldn't make any mistakes, there wouldn't be half as much for Me to talk to you about. Your sins, shortcomings & failures draw you closer to Me. You want to learn how to do better, and that's basically what healing, learning, growing and salvation is all about: that void, that need to grow, that emptiness. You have a need for Me when you're not perfect, when you realize you failed, when you need help to see, when you realize you really don't know much of anything.

Will you make the same mistake so many others have made and become harsh and unforgiving? Forgiveness is a much greater issue than most people realize.

With some saints, like Mother Teresa, it's easy to say, "Now here's a good person," because of their sacrificial life-style, and the evident good she did in helping the poor. But when it comes to helping the spiritually poor and feeding the spiritually starving, things become a lot more difficult.

And because it's more difficult, it's also easier to make mistakes. For one thing, the Enemy fights your feeding the spiritually starving a lot more violently than your giving to the physically poor. He's much more concerned about the intellects and minds of people. That's, after all, the realm he is trying to usurp and grasp away from Me. Moses died in the wilderness, unable to enter the promised land, as a result of his own mistake. The lesson gained out of this is more important and valuable than the temporary, fleeting pleasure he might have experienced, had I granted him to enter the promised land. The real Promised Land is not in this world. Your real and final and ultimate satisfaction, fulfillment, peace or goal, whatever you may be trying to achieve, won’t be found in this world or life.

The most effective way to teach you where it’s at, was to let you find out where it’s not at. You find this out by your mistakes, but as the proverb goes, an even wiser man learns not only from his own mistakes, but from those of others, too.

There was a time for Moses to be ready for the Exodus, but there was also a time when he wasn't ready yet. There's a time of definite, visible anointing, and there's a time of preparation, of finding out where it's not at, how not to do it, which mistakes not to make.

It's not the glorious road that leads to the Kingdom, but the low and humble road, often paved with many seemingly mundane and very humbling acts: many dishes to wash, many problems to solve and learn from, even many mistakes to make, many diapers to change, both physically and spiritually.

I know the human heart, and that it doesn't seek My interests in the natural. You don't have to put on any false pretenses with Me. I know you inside out, and I totally know where you're at. I know what to do in order to get you to turn around and learn from your mistakes.

You don't have to be bogged down with all of earth's little problems. If you keep looking unto Me as you should, they will practically dissolve, because you will have My supernatural wisdom that will help you to say and do the right things. You won't be making so many mistakes anymore that are going to cause your loved ones to stumble. You will walk in love more, as you absorb My love by looking unto Me. The mistakes are part of the training. You find out which way it am by finding out which way it ain't. Not the recommended route, but still the most common one. Without mistakes and errors, there's no need to repent, nothing to admit to, nothing for which to humble yourself and admit you were wrong and need help, no need to change.

That's why those who suppose they do everything right are the ones who are most distant from Me. They simply don't need Me as much as folks who screw up a lot.

The best thing you can learn out of your mistakes is: don't try to do it on your own, but always avail yourself of My help! If you call on Me and rely on Me, you won't fail.

It's never wrong to be putting your bucket under the one Source that won't disappoint you. But not doing that is precisely the mistake so many immature people make. They don't come to Me, they look elsewhere.

Your mistakes are part of the great purpose of everything.

Most people don't have a clue about the extent to which they screwed up until they get Here - totally oblivious to the mistakes they made and the impact they had on others and the consequences they brought about.

You can't blame the Devil for everything. Some things are simply the result of man's sinful nature, the results which he has brought about by his own choices - which may have been initiated by the Devil's temptations, that's true - but they were still, nonetheless, his own choices.

And the circumstances outside the Garden of Eden teach you the consequences, and thus you learn from your mistakes.

How do you learn? By making mistakes and realizing you made them, right? So, the most dangerous threat to genuinely learning is to be left in the illusion that you're right, there's nothing to change about your views & attitudes...

Your mistakes are an important part of the meaning and purpose of your lives, since they are what you learn the most from. It is out of the "deep, dark experiences that we learn some of our most precious lessons from the Lord," and when those experiences are missing, then life looks a little dull in comparison to those of others sometimes.

The more responsibility you carry, the more weight your mistakes have.

There's nothing that teaches you how to do it like the experience you gain from learning how not to do it. Only your mistakes make you change your previous modes and habits.

The way to enlightenment always leads via the path of recognizing and learning from one's own mistakes.

The only unpardonable mistake a believer can commit is to doubt his own Salvation and still stay stuck in his own "badness," when I have saved him from that already.

Of course, it would be a mistake to assume that one is guiltless without having accepted My sacrifice and without having experienced Salvation, but isn't it an equally grave mistake to do the opposite and assume that Salvation doesn't make any difference, and that you still have to pay for your sins yourself?

The flaws, mistakes and imperfections in your co-fighters have been little more than a big test of your faith, to see whether you would still keep going for Me, still keep holding on faithfully, in spite of them all.

An outstanding shepherd questions his own actions sometimes, he's not too proud or self-confident to do that. He doesn't take for granted that just because of his position he might never be making a mistake. He stays aware of making potential mistakes.

My hope is that this present age will be a sufficient reminder and warning for everyone not to want to repeat the same mistakes.

You can only glean so much from watching others and learning from their experience. What will stick with you forever is your own experiences, your own pains and hurts and scarring results and consequences of your own poor choices and mistakes...

It's one thing learning from your mistakes. It's another getting so stuck on them that you never get any further, never move out to touch another's life.

It takes more than being a follower in blind obedience, sometimes, to become a good leader yourself. The trick is to remain loyal and obedient, even when you realize that your leaders aren’t infallible and do make mistakes, just like everybody else does.

Leaders need to be forgiven and unconditionally loved and accepted for who and what they are, like everybody else. And this attitude is healthier than one refusing to see the possibility that your leaders might make any mistakes.

It would certainly be a mistake to assume that you know better than Me. It’s better to have tried and failed, to have loved and lost, to have done something and made mistakes, than to just blindly and self-righteously think you have arrived, without any need to do or change anything…

Life is constructed in such a way that it’s bound to happen that you slip and fall and make mistakes, so that precious lessons can be learned from them. But it’s pretty important that you do learn the lessons, and not just keep falling into the same trap and repeating the same old mistakes over and over again.

People are bound to make mistakes, and mistakes have happened, and they keep happening, and you’ve got to grant others the same right to make mistakes that I grant you.

Nobody ever does only good. Everybody makes mistakes, and nobody’s perfect; nobody has ever lived a perfect life of which they can say, “I never made any mistakes.” It’s erroneous to have that kind of an attitude. And, well, some folks just have the kind of attitude – which is their besetting sin and handicap to carry around through life – that they simply can’t see their own faults as easily as they see the faults of others.

A life that has failed learning from its own mistakes isn’t much of a life at all, since your mistakes are one of the greatest purposes in life per se.

Mistakes are something everyone can relate to, and if you teach others from mistakes you made, that shows them just how human you are, and how much just like them, and that you’re not some super special case, endowed with extraordinary gifts from on high, but that you’ve learned by trial and error, basically the same way they have.

Mistakes are actually quite precious in the service of teaching you some of your most valuable lessons.

No matter what you do, what mistakes you’re going to make or how badly you might ever slip, you’re always going to be loved by Me unconditionally.

There comes a time when everyone will have to reflect about their sins and mistakes.

Taking responsibility for your own mistakes is often the very ingredient that makes all the difference in the world. Refusal or inability to see one’s own mistakes & failings stifles spiritual growth like nothing else, and encourages straying from the path, instead of sticking to My straight & narrow. In fact, what makes My straight & narrow pathway the most uninviting to most people is the fact that it’s strewn with the recognition and repercussions of one’s own failures left and right, and uphill progress is only made by dealing with them properly. That means, you recognize them, admit them and try to change them, but you don’t allow them to put you under condemnation. Once you’ve given them to Me and they’re confessed and forgiven, they don’t have any more power over you.

It gives you new zest for each day of life, knowing fully that no matter how badly you’ve blown it in your life, or what sort of mistakes you’ve made, you’re totally forgiven as long as you you did learn something out of it by facing the problem and your guilt and responsibility in the matter, which usually is already enough guarantee on it’s own that you’re less likely to repeat the same mistake.

I am the One Who doesn’t and won’t make mistakes, so it pays to make Me the one true foundation of your lives and to put your entire trust in, instead of any man or woman, or group of people.

That’s what I’d call learning and progress, when you get to the point of learning from mistakes where you stop making them and can prevent them from happening through the things you have learned.

Once you’ve learned to deal with your mistakes and have learned how to handle that responsibility, treating it as something as natural as going to the toilet, then you’ll also have an easier time coping with the rest of the things going on in this world that are less than satisfactory. You’ll see and recognize it all more as one big challenge to improve things with My help wherever you can, to “change the world,” in that sense, or, if nothing else, at least learn a good deal from it that is going to help make the world a better place in the long run. Changing the world starts with recognizing the void and the need, the places that lack and where errors have been committed, and then taking the initiative to do what it takes to replenish and refill them again, even if may look like a senseless waste of time to others, because you may not be reaping immediate benefits from your work or sacrifice.

Adam & Eve's mistakes served to draw them closer to Me than they ever could have come otherwise.

Sometimes you just have to deal with your mistakes to their full extent, and learn all there is to learn from them. It’s not like there is no forgiveness, no reconciliation, but it’s also important that you bear the full consequences of your actions and become aware of them.

You cannot just skip school and play hooky in the school of life. That’s what the Devil is tempting everyone to do with his numerous distractions: “No, don’t think about your mistakes, don’t waste your time wracking your head about them! It just depresses you! Fill your life with pleasure instead!”

There are a lot of mistakes made that people could learn from, a lot of lessons to be learned out of life, and out of history, but that’s not what they’re interested in or concerned about, They’re not concerned about avoiding to make the same mistakes over and over again, the thought would never even cross their mind. That’s the one reason why people never learn anything from history; not their own, and much less anyone else’s: they’re not interested.

There is a lot of wisdom to be gained from the mistakes you will make…

Refusal to deal with one’s own blame is probably the most widespread and most common spiritual disease… The pride to refuse to reckon with one’s own mistakes, sins and faults… The Pharisee syndrome…

You don’t have to keep repeating the same mistakes, nor the mistakes of your forefathers. You can interrupt that vicious cycle, reverse fate, stop that treadmill of always falling for the apparent, or even the inclinations of your own mind. (next chapter:)

…Computers & Us My Spirit, the Comforter, Whom I will send unto you, will bring all things to your remembrance. If you walk in the Spirit, you WILL remember things: She will remind you! She’s like a super-duper-mega-smooth computer program that can enhance your rusty little system anytime with all the knowledge you need, brings up any stored data from the past, or even brand new information that hasn’t been there so far, in revelations, dreams & prophetic visions. All you gotta do is download Her & install Her on your system!

Every little move & action of yours depends on a choice, whether you will react to the impulse with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’, a 1 or a 0.... 1s and 0s,... that’s all a computer program is based on.

Make your right choices today. Say YES to Me! Every time!

As soon there’s some space for Me to fill it, I will. Tune in to My wavelength, log on to My server & press the download button, & as soon as My computer detects any blank storage space on your hard drive, I will fill it with the desired & needed input!

If you want to grasp the meaning of every day & every moment of life, start learning to read My signs. A lot of things you may not understand may be My handwriting on the wall, & if you seek Me & ask Me, I can reveal their meaning to you.

To you, My brides of the End, it is given to read & understand the signs of the times. If you look beyond that which is at hand & seek Me in it, & the deeper meaning, it’ll be like reading the Matrix. It’s like learning to read computer programming language.

I'm trying to help you to score points in the love game, so, I'm showing you what unselfish things you could do. Keep your eyes open for more opportunities like that. They're scattered & strewn all over, hidden blessings, sometimes well disguised, like bonus points in a computer game.

Before, you've had a slow connection, and now you've got a fast broad-band connection. Take advantage of your spiritual flat-rate, and stay online permanently! Don't go off-line anymore! Stay online & attuned to Me permanently, "walking by faith and not by sight!"

I want to be with you and talk to you always.

Like this I'll be able to guide you much better & lead you by the hand, and you'll be doing & saying those things which I want you to do & say.

Problems are more often than not being caused not by your circumstances, but your own attitudes, your "system settings." Your attitude affects the way you are going to function, just as the settings of your computer will affect its usability & effectiveness.

If your monitor settings are too dark, then you won't see clearly. Or if your system is overloaded with too much clutter, that won't do you much good, either; it's going to slow you down.

Set up a spiritual firewall against evil intruders! Don’t let them plant their spyware cookies on your system so they can spy out when you’re most vulnerable! Don’t grant them any access & make sure your firewall doesn’t allow any leakage!

Run your spyware checker program regularly against any evil little intruders & keep your system clean of anything that might cause trouble! Only turn to safe sites for good, healthy, clean & uplifting input & don’t take any risks! Better safe than sorry!

A spiritual firewall shields you from hostile intrusion & attempts of the Enemy to hack into your system! Keep it up & running & activated all the time!

"You are a new creature, yes, but boy, how that old man likes to pop up again." It's the old man, your carnal man, which is at enmity with God, whom you must deny access to your system, the place from which you govern your life, like an old operating system that doesn't want to give up its realm easily, although it has already been replaced by a new and better one.

Of course, the Enemy actively tries to install the old system again, your old ways of doing things, your old habits, or the old ways of the flesh sometimes in a new disguise.

Sometimes you have problems downloading a file, and you've just got to try again. It all depends on how badly you want it. If you really want it, you won't give up so easily. So, how badly do you want today's latest update?

You absorb the vibes of those around you, & if you pass them on to Me & commit them into My hands & ask Me to work in their lives, you can change them & change your environment, your surrounding – your world! I can give you the answers & solutions – the words & attitudes & actions those people need, individually tailored to their data, which you first transmitted to Me. You transmit the data, & I send you the answer, the update, the plug-in or fix-up, whatever they need. If you’re too tired to do anything else, there’s still sooo much you can accomplish through prayer!

Life isn't only theory! It's important you grasp the theory, but the practical part is what will get you somewhere.

You've been receiving it, now it's time to start giving it. Absorb & study it & let it become part of your being. You're one step further now. We've moved from receiving mode to application mode. You've received all the initial software, now you need to get going & get your machine operating. You'll still receive more information and occasional updates, but

basically, your Operating System is installed now, and you can just work away!

The Devil is so scared of you, fighting you like crazy because he knows he's going to lose victims out of his clutches of hell, and they're going to have heaven happening in their lives. That ingredient of heaven is like a poisonous, deadly virus to his kingdom, his system, his Matrix! It totally busts it! It's like what the Spring does to the snow! It breaks the cold spell of winter & just makes it all melt away, and everything becomes possible again: where there was only cold and grey, all of a sudden, life springs up again everywhere!

You can be like that to those people! You can be like the sun of spring to them!

There was a time when your own strength was sufficient, but that time is running out now, it’s going to be over soon.

Soon you’ll only be able to operate in My strength. But see it not as a loss, for what you gain is so much more and so far beyond that which you need to let go and forsake. See it like an upgrade, a promotion, a powerful innovation that revolutionizes everything.

Plugged in to Me, you are strong, because then we are together, and it’s not you functioning on your own anymore, as a separate little entity, but you’re plugged in to My circuit, a part of My gigantic, universal network, the network of My “single spoken sentence,” (“uni-verse”) where I utter a phrase and it is done, My creation magic.

You can find Me right at the very center of your being, in your heart, the place you invited Me to come into when you received Me and asked Me to save you from your sin, your old man, and I did. I came in and have been living there ever since. That's why you can live from your center from then on, and you don't have to roam about the fringes anymore, the outer and superficial things. You have Me in you! I am your new Center! I am the new Operating System or Program that's there now at the core of your "machine," the complex creation of what is you.

I'm not off in space somewhere, far away and hard to reach, but right there at the very core and center of your being, inseparable from you. That's why nothing, no high or low could ever separate you from the love of God, because it's right within you, very deep, right where I've planted it. Right where you allowed My key, My seed, to merge with your inner lock, and it has long taken root there since then, has been activated and has started to bear it's fruit and change your system. (next chapter:)

(to be continued)