The White Stone Zone

 " For you were like sheep going astray,but  now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls." (1 Peter 2) God likens us to sheep, and I have heard it said sheep are the dumbest animals on the planet, and this is why God has mad it easy for us to come back into relationship with Him. God has made it easy for us to be in relationship with Him. Peter recognized this when he told the religious leaders of his day that "we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God." The idea that God is some far off deity that we can not reach is foreign to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One of the first things Jesus said to the crowds is the "kingdom of God is within you."(Luke 17:21) He told the disciples that when He left he would send The Spirit of God to live with us and be in us. He said on that day we would know that Jesus is in the Father, the believer is in Jesus, and Jesus is in the believer.(John 14:20) This spiritual reality...

I haven't listened to Bruce Springsteen's song "Wrecking Ball" since Clarence Clemon's death, and today I listened to it in an entirely different light.  The song was written for the final shows at Giant's Stadium which I had written about in a previous blog* The song personifies the stadium telling the wrecking crew to bring it on! The song also is an allegory for the aging process and ultimately death. Bruce had just turned 60 and was defying death itself, saying, "Bring it on!"  Although I admire the Boss's zeal, I could not help to think today that the wrecking ball came to E Street, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it--not even the Legendary E Street Band.  I am not at all trying to be callous or flippant--this is serious.  I cried a lot the week the Big Man went home, and I did not even know him personally.  However, death is inevitable and is part of life even if you think that someone is "too f___ing big to die."*  ...

 The muslim men who flew the planes into the towers were nothing more than a group of sex addicts in deep denial of their condition due to their toxic faith. Think about it. They sacrificed everything, their very lives, so that they could have 70 virgins in heaven. They were looking forward to nothing more than a wild orgie in heaven.  Sorry to be blunt, but lets bring it all down to the bare facts.  It is quite easy to recognize this as toxic faith, but there is toxic faith within Christianity that is subtle, but it also brings death, a slower death, but it brings death in many ways.  First, when we make man the intiater and God the responder, we become toxic. God is the initiator from start to finish. He initiated creation; he initiated when Adam and Eve hid; he initiated with David when David was hiding. He initiates a realtionship with each one of us and forgave us freely and fully at the cross.  We think forgiveness is something we get w...

Harold Camping’s prediction of the coming Rapture ushering in Judgment Day was a blatantly obvious error because everyone knows Jesus said, “No one knows the day or the hour.” However, Brother Harold has been preaching a legalistic, morbid gospel for years. According to Harold, anyone who did not believe like He did was following “another Gospel” and was condemned to hell. He has been preaching that for over 30 years. Likewise, Harold Camping’s call to repentance is morbid, and Harold Camping’s view of God is very impersonal. He view’s God’s holiness as a reason for God to be angry and wrathful and unwilling to show grace and mercy unless we beg and plead with God as though the begging and pleading might get God to be merciful and kind. He writes on his website: Sadly, the Holy Bible tells us that only a small percentage of today’s world will turn from their evil ways, and with great humility and fear will cry to God for mercy. Nevertheless, the Bible assures us that many of the p...

2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.      In this passage, we have Jesus Christ, King of Kings washing the disciples feet which was the task of a common house servant. That is wonderful in and of itself; however, Judas was included in those disciples whose feet Jesus washed. Jesus knew that Judas had already conspired to hand Jesus over to the politicians and preachers who wanted to kill him.  Jesus spoke to each disciple, including Judas with love and compassion.  What kept Jesus from hating Judas and calling him out in fr...

The great news that a believer is under no condemnation is often squelched with the statement, and I have heard it often, "God does not condemen us when we sin, but He will convict us." Really? Is that what the Scriptures teach? As baby Christians, we so often buy hookline and sinker things that are said by preachers, teachers or "mature" Christians because the "BIBLE" says its true. I have found and have been guilty of the same thing, that many folks know what the "BIBLE SAYS," but they have no clue what it means. The present example of God convicting His children is one of those lies. The idea that God won't condemn, but will convict comes from Jesus statement in the upper room. Jesus was telling the disciples about the coming and work of the Holy Spirit. He told them, "Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righ...

31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? All too often, the Christian life is seen as an aesthetic, boring monontonous task of being miserable in the here and now so that we can have a glorious eternal life; in other words, God is presented as an uptight killjoy who prefers a stick in the mud over muddy children laughing and playing. This is the one lie the father of lies has spread to God's children since the garden--before we expose that lie, we need to see that satan is one unoriginal bastard. What did he tell Eve in the garden? Basically he told her that God is withholding from her. He gets her to focus on what she did not have instead of the abundance available to her. He also told her that she is not like God and if she wants to be like God, she needs to act independently and begin t...