Anti-Anti's Modern Prosperendum

We go through a period of mindlessly doing the things we have been taught.  And then we transition to a period of consolidation, where we think less of checking the boxes and more of the holistic drive to find what all those boxes are generally meant to accomplish. Both types of action are useful.  Knowing that there is an ebb and flow, don't get angry, confused or fearful that you find yourself in one mode instead of the other when you realize the other's usefulness. One type is the practice that trains you, and the other type is the test of doing.  The one gives the prerequisite, and the other gains the outcome.  One is piecemeal and the other holistic.  Both have their own use.

When the primrose dallies in the old miser's punch Her bitter cold cleaves as an unexpected weapon. His greed fuels her domination. Broken, they are eaten together.

Always remember: God's reality is better than the World's psychology.  His truth heals, but even the World's light is full of darkness, which cheats, and it lies.  His truth is simple and acceptable to the inward man, while the World's instruction loves to be misunderstood so it can change from person to person like the mirage of shelter for the soul. Knowing Christ's truth is not the problem for the Christian, but accepting it in the face of the wicked flesh takes the patience of tribulations that gives the experience to hope in His love, and the World cannot mimic the good things of our Master however it tries, and we are glad to be separate from that skewed attempt at painting what He has given us to live. Rest in Christ today, brother, and ignore the instruction of the World.

Consider careless speech that gets a job done but contains a lie.  "3 wouldn't equal 5 if I didn't really mean 'yes'".  Or, less abstractly, "I wouldn't have said something about it if I didn't want to give it to you".  Really?  You never would have even mentioned it if gifting it wasn't your exact intention?  Not even in passing, concerning it's interesting history or design parameters?  Perhaps you can think of a real situation that conforms to this description.  Consider it well, and realize that what to you is mere exaggeration or euphemism is a casual lie that comes across as particularly distrustful to children and people sensitive to language and to you, maybe.  It's a modern version of casual speech that disregards the importance of telling the truth.  You might be able to truthfully use exaggeration or euphemisms in some cases, so don't think I'm being overly restrictive, but also find where you are inadvertently ...

The World's groupings of people and ideas tempts us to judge based on the surface, instead of practicing righteous judgement (John 7:24).  When properly used, proper groupings are shorthand listings of properties among the various items in the groups, but false groupings can be easily hidden to the eyes of those who don't spot check the properties and compare them with the shorthand conclusions placed on the group.  The shared properties have to lead to the conclusions about the group for the group to be effective. So, even though groups can be useful, wicked devices obfuscate the reality of items in groups by false labels attached to the group which do not equally attach to the items in the group and/or do not attach to the shared properties of the group.

Those who dismiss Hell as a metaphor that uses the local garbage dump as a symbol for death or whatnot are missing a certain point: The reality of God sending people to Hell is similar to burning your garbage!  It's not an insult.  It's a necessity for the same types of reasons that a whole culture who burns garbage does so.  It's the only way to deal with and the only place to put irretrievably corrupted human beings and fallen angels. Unlike the method of putting garbage in a static landfill, breaking it down to its component parts destroys it along with its impurities, except in the fumes that come from it and remain toxic until they are dissipated.  I don't know the intricacies, so the metaphor might be useful in a greater or only a lesser fullness, but I do know that those people who are in Hell for no less than the thousand years of the Millennial Reign of Christ are taken out of there whole enough to be judged, their names not found in the Book of Life, and th...

I asked the question, "Why would the unvaccinated pose a risk to the vaccinated?".  I found this 2-fold answer from a children's hospital: 1) Vaccines aren't always effective, and 2) The unvaccinated are used by the virus to continue to survive indefinitely in the community. So, the second part relies on the first part - after all, if vaccines were always effective, then it wouldn't matter that the virus exists in some cloud the vaccinated person might walk through some day. I think any conclusion that the unvaccinated are a risk to the vaccinated is a round-about conclusion.  If the vaccinated want to have better protection, they should demand better vaccines more readily than they should scold or ostracize the greater community.  The external, general attack vector is much harder to control than the protection of the internal, specific defense.  The impossibility of controlling the external factor is the reason that vaccines exist. Swatting the space that surrou...

I've heard the concept that if we Christians merely talk about our problems, then we give them credence.  I've heard a message that David glorified God, so don't use your tongue to talk about your problems.  That message is psychologically based instead of biblically based.  When we talk about our problems with defeat, then we fall into the trap defined by that psychological description, but merely talking about it doesn't mean we are talking about it in defeat.  It's useful and right to talk about our problems in order to get power over them by seeing the truth about their real dimensions. Be careful not to call human psychology biblical, and be sure not to use Scripture to validate something based on what it doesn't say.  When David says he glorifies God and says positive things, well, that doesn't speak against mentioning negative things!  David glorifies God, so don't you turn it into a message on how God doesn't want us to use our tongues to men...

The dividing line between the Church and the World is belief that Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, God resurrected Him on the third day according to the Scriptures and He was seen by many witnesses afterward, and everyone who believes these things and calls on the name of the Master for salvation by verbally confessing Master Jesus will be saved!  The only thing in there about sin is that Jesus conquered it!  See 1 Corinthians 15:3b-8 and Romans 10:9, 10, 13.  After salvation, the way to be more righteous is to believe and think about the resurrection (Romans 10:9b-10a).  In our same Master and Savior Jesus Christ, we live under the law of the Spirit of Life and not under God's written ordinance, the 10 commandments or the law that says rap is stupid and un-Christian... because the 10 Commandments are simply things that have been superceded by the Spirit of Life's law, and that last one is human philosophy and strays from anything bibl...

"Sinning willfully", a phrase from Hebrews 10:26, is exemplary of a major split of viewpoint in the Church.  It's not the only major split, but this seems to me to be one of a handful of critical ones.  If you keep reading in Hebrews there, you'll come to verse 36, "don't throw your confidence away", and 38 and 39, where drawing back to perdition is contrasted with faith and belief to salvation of the soul.  And go up before the critical verse, which is fearful without a biblical context when it's given a fearful conclusion of the possibility of losing salvation by willful sin as its context, to verses 22 and 23, where "drawing near" contrasts with "drawing back" of the later verses.  This drawing near has the full assurance of faith, where the conscience is clean, so that we know we can profess our faith to others without wavering, knowing that He who guarantees it is faithful! It's a reference to sinning by denying the gospe...

Psychology is a useful tool, and it can help us discern soulish problems.  But the answer to soulish problems goes beyond the answers taught by psychology!  The human spirit cannot be coerced by shifting guilt or any such maneuver.  It's all about faith; and it's about obedience to God in the areas that we do know, so that our conscience becomes clean, which enables us to trust that God will answer our prayers!  Sweat through the temptation, asking God to help and thanking Him afterward when we see the help.  Do everything by plain truth.  Reach out to Master Jesus and Daddy God and wait; abide in Christ; don't dismiss or look away from the reality of your sin, but know that He is faithful to separate you from it; expect Him to do so, and wait on Him to do so, and then, when you know you are very clean, ask Him your heart's desire at that time.  He has overcome the destruction in you when He saved you by your belief in the tenets of the gospel (see 1 C...

Attention about the literal meanings of phrases - especially common phrases - should be given to disambiguate what one feels the phrase should mean and how it comes across - especially to those who have never heard that common phrase. There is a situation outside truth that builds a ratty nest of linked thoughts, few of which correspond to the meanings of the words employed.  Idioms in that kind of situation seem (in the minds of the speakers) to outweigh straightforward meanings, even when those meanings were at first known by the speaker and then purposefully employed as a cover for the idiomatic meanings the speaker covered up with them. The speaker forgets the truth and would falsely think he was righteous to demand the idiomatic meaning above the real one that he first started with, then used as a cover and then forgot the true basis he picked it as a cover in the first place. A simple demand to methodically hold to the meanings of each successive word, even with the humble ac...

There's an interesting fact that should be deeply considered by those in the Church who think that charity work is the highest calling in the Church:  Jesus healed many people, but He did not heal everybody.  Jesus fed many people, but the Word of God does not describe Him feeding everybody.  The early Christians did not regard waiting tables as the highest act, but set aside some to do organize food for the Christian widows who were regarded for good works and who needed it, while the spiritual men continued their spiritual work.  Those whom Jesus so famously fed followed Him into the wilderness for some time first.  He had pity on those who followed Him into a place they could not get back home from without fainting along the way, and so He supernaturally and gracefully remedied that problem for His followers. Feeding drug addicts who have no regard for Christ while they pretend to listen to the so-called sermons about their own way out of soulish difficulties...

I listen to a lot of wicked audiobooks, and I glean interesting, useful and even right things from them in places.  You might be surprised what's in a LitRPG book!  I recently heard a story that was meant to demonstrate that good and evil are mixed and not straightforward - that situations change the same behaviors from good to evil or from evil to good.  The story was given from the evil protagonist to his friend, who questioned his morality.  The author did a pretty complete job, except he didn't realize the real answer, but the friend gave up in defeat on the topic of real good and evil. Two things.  First, the Bible has taught us that we are not under written ordinances, but we are under the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2).  This true thing is what such a wicked twisting perverts.  There is objective good and evil, even if it cannot be given in a single rule.  We Christians have the standard inside ourselves, but the Wor...

Feelings - emotions as well as the more physical type - are another part of soulish experience (like focus) that I've confused with the spiritual faith.  I've mistaken feeling for communication from God, but I need to primarily use faith to hear Him, even though feelings and thoughts and the soul in general is a tool that goes along (seamlessly, from some point of view) with the spirit's actions to hear Him, but it starts and stems from faith in the spirit which is built up and learned from reading, understanding and believing and doing all the facts in the Bible.  The parts of the soul are shaped over time by that belief, so that feelings and focus settle onto truth, which along with faith is in the spirit. At the end (from a certain, general, point of view), the well-conditioned Christian who has learned the mind of Christ by adherence to the Holy Spirit's teaching (which is not had from feeling, remember, but from Scripture! It's so important!) has a soul and spi...

There is a worldly thought that the less educated don't understand God, and so, since they can't worship Him rightly (they say), their lowly suffering (which goes hand in hand with their lower education and fewer higher paying job prospects) helps wash their souls clean - this pagan idea mimics but twists the Scriptural teaching of shunning, where the unrepentant Christian is thrown out of the local congregation to make his way without the help of the Church, giving his body to Satan for the saving of his spirit. This has the effect of making Christians think that shunning is as evil as that pagan concept, which Christianity explicitly rebels against, as Christ went to the humble lowly ones who knew they were sinners, and James pointed out that the rich oppress others (James 2:6).