Extremist

 In the wisdom of the World, to be a religious extremist is a very very bad thing. Now, nobody in their right minds likes or should like the idea of using hijacked airplanes to blow up buildings full of civilians. These were very very bad religious extremists indeed. However, the prevailing culture paints every expression of religion that seems to them extreme, with the same brush. Extreme beliefs, extreme lives, extreme thoughts. If say you are a Christian and go to Mass 3 times a week, you are in danger of becoming a terrorist, or at least in danger of promoting things that are "unprogressive" to the larger society. Which nowadays is almost the same to some.

Indeed to some nowadays, believing in the G-d of Abraham at all and following His ways, is a transgression.

Now, what Bible passages can we use to justify moderate religion? Someone who is religious but it's not THAT into it? You know, they keep it on the lowdown. They go out, they have beers with the boys on the weekend, maybe gamble a bit, tell a few white lies, maybe has slept with someone other than their wife a couple times. But they go to church on Sunday, put a twenty in the collection plate. What passages in the Bible can we use to justify that kind of religion?

Essentially none.

Now, G-d has used people like that. If He couldn't use a man like that, He would be very limited in the kind of people he could use lol. 

David was a man like that in some ways, though more after he became King than before. Power does that to people. The Biblical Judge Samson was also not a person of exactly sterling moral character. Also, G-d can call people from all conditions of existence, as He certainly did me. I was called out of basically heathenisms of various kinds, alternating periodically with atheism. However, it is one thing to say that G-d can use people like that, and call people out of conditions like that, and it's quite another to say that this is what G-d is calling them TO.

Samson, let us remember, met a bitter if useful end. David bemoaned bitterly his sins and his son Absalom turned against him and rebelled against him, and he was forced to send an army to kill his own son. So arguably David's fate was not optimal either. He paid for his lack of, lets say fundamentalism, in certain areas. He paid bitterly. Moreover his son Solomon fell into accommodation or actual embrace of polytheism, so perhaps David was not a very good teacher to his sons. Or he just had bad sons, that's possible too.

What is G-d actually calling us to?

G-d is calling us to a consuming relationship. It's not like a relationship with a friend or even your spouse. It is a consuming transformative relationship. Now, you can be truly devoted and still talk to your neighbors about the weather and go grocery shopping and talk shop and talk politics, you don't stop being a human being.

You may appear as an extreme human being when the talk comes around to certain topics:

"Why can't you work on Saturday, Bob?"
"Well it's the SABBATH. I keep the Sabbath."
"You don't actually believe all that bunk, do you?"
"I sure do believe in G-d and G-d's Law for humanity, thanks for asking."

And that does make you a freak, an extremist, in the World's eyes.

If you had a friend, who you say is your very very good friend, and this friend says, "do this simple thing for me, it's very important: set aside this one day for me." and you say "well ya sorry I have things to do with my other friends," and he keeps asking and you keep saying no, well, you're not a great friend are you?

You might still be friends, but not very good ones. You aren't being a good friend.

How much more should you be loyal to G-d who is not a man but the Creator of all and the One who gave you everything you have? He should be absolutely tip top Number 1 in your book, right? I mean, if you actually believe that and are not lip-synching faith, if you actually believe that He is the creator of the universe and the One who gave you EVERYTHING, I mean, He would be super high on your list of priorities, right? He'd be the first.

TO BE ACTUALLY RELIGIOUS IS TO BE AN EXTREMIST.


Moses was called

"Friend of G-d."

How devoted do you have to be to be called the friend of The Eternal?

Consider, you confusers

 I have heard Christians, fairly famous ones, say the Ten Commandments don't matter anymore.

I have heard them say the Sabbath, the observation of which is one of the Ten Commandments, doesn't matter. All is washed away apparently with the blood of Jesus.

DID G-D EVER COMMAND ANYTHING SUPERFLUOUS?

Why would the prophets say over and over, KEEP THE SABBATH (which is on SATURDAY,) if that was something that would become unnecessary? If it is unnecessary now, it was unnecessary then, and so the prophets were liars. It is not they who lie, it is these Christian innovators.

The same Isaiah whose "suffering servant" you claim was your Jesus, the very same said KEEP THE SABBATH. So on WHAT BASIS do you keep one thing he said and discard other things? On what basis do you cherry-pick what you like from Isaiah and discard the rest? The "suffering servant" may not be and probably wasn't Jesus, but the Sabbath is definitely still the Sabbath.

He even said that foreigners (which is all of us if you are not a Jew) that keep the Sabbath will be accepted same as Jews in the Kingdom. Well, if you are a foreigner and don't keep it, what of you?

What right do you have to cherry-pick Isaiah, and much worse, to teach others likewise? Don't claim him as Old-Testament authority for your supposed messiah and then ignore everything else he says.

Do not be confused. G-d will approve those who keep His laws, and not those who break them.

Now, no atheist can be righteous because the spirit of G-d is not with him, but if we imagine an atheist whose only sin is disbelief, then all he needs to do is get down on his knees to admit his mistake. He then would be much closer to the Kingdom of G-d than a Christian who has proclaimed G-d his whole life, but not only does not do what G-d says but teaches others not to do what G-d says. He is breaking the Sabbath, AND breaking every other Commandment because he does not hold to the validity of any of them, AND misrepresents G-d. And this latter is a very grievous sin indeed. G-d can forgive a sinner: what is harder is a sinner who proclaims his sin. Who teaches others to sin. Even Jesus will back me up on this: "It would be better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around your neck than to cause one of these little ones to fall into sin." 

And of course since so many regular Christians feel free to reimagine the Tanakh (the Old Testament) to fit their preference, is it any surprise then that others do the same to fit their preference? Every manner of child murderer, transvestite and sodomite can find some Christian church to embrace their vision of what the Bible says (for which I imagine they must edit out the whole thing. I imagine their Bibles are just covers with nothing inside.)

Why not? You regular Christians feel free to cherry-pick what you like and what you do not like and use the blood of your messiah as wite-out for the parts of the Bible you don't follow? Why shouldn't they do the same? They are doing the same, thanks in part to your bad witness. If you turn the Bible into a confusion, why would others not turn it into even more of one?

If you claim to love G-d, DO WHAT HE SAYS. What does He say?

Thou shalt have no other gods before Me (your Trinity is polytheism.)

Don't make images of divine beings (Catholics I am pointing at you.)

Don't take the name of the Lord in vain. Which has nothing to do with stubbed toes in the night and everything to do with misrepresenting G-d and His teaching.

REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY, TO KEEP IT HOLY.

Honor your father and your mother.

Do not murder

Do not commit adultery (divorce is adultery)

Do not steal

Do not bear false witness against your neighbor

Do not covet anything (or any person) that is not yours. Don't lust after your neighbors car or his wife.


Stop making the clear Law of G-d into a confusion to suit yourselves!

Repentance Never Ends

 G-d says: "Keep my Law." Keep His law and you are square with Him.

And even if I could answer 100% that I do keep it (I do try,) I would not be done with repentance. Never in this life can I be. Because, you see, we have a tendency to live in illusions. We have a natural inclination to live by lies.

I go along thinking I am peachy keen and I am not. We go along thinking the world is fine and IT is not. Repent, repent, repent. We are never done with repentance in this life.

If by keeping the Law I satisfy G-d's requirements, and the Tanakh says so, what is this further repentance for? Well one thing it's for is to keep me from breaking the Law in the future. It is to keep me from slipping into sin. Sin is a slippery devil, it can snatch you when you are not looking. But also it is for me. When a child is covered in mud, you strip those clothes off and send him to the bathtub. Sin is ugly, sin is demeaning, sin is pitiful. How can I wish the best for myself if I let myself remain in ugliness and wretchedness rather than asking for help?

What is the greatest Commandment? Love G-d. How can I love G-d, who hates servitude and bondage and sin, and not also hate those things as much as it is humanly possible to do? So when I act the slave, when I put myself in bondage, I have to hate that too. In so far as it is humanly possible to do, I have to hate those things as much as G-d hates them.

As an aside, hate has a bad rap. Not all hate is bad. Hate what is evil, hate it with every fiber of your being.

Here is another thing I have to repent of: pride. I go along not doing well, feeling poorly, being afflicted of body, heart and mind, and I DO NOT ASK G-d to heal me. Why do I even go on being stubborn like that?

While the New Testament is not scripture for me, believing that G-d alone is G-d and there is no Trinity and He was never a man, I have to admit that I love me some James (brother of Jesus.) He said:

"You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."

~James 4:2-3 (emphasis mine.)

In other words, either we don't ask because we are proud or stubborn and so don't understand the true nature of our dependence on G-d, or we ask wickedly or selfishly for things we don't need.

Knowing that there is an affliction on my body mind and heart and not asking for help is a symptom of either pride or doubt or both. You are prideful, you do not ask for help, or you doubt, you don't think you will be helped. Or you're just plain cussed. Either way you have wronged your Lord. You either think you are a big noise now and don't need Him, or you think He doesn't care.

Because my mind is not right (no one's is to my knowledge) and my heart is not right (no one's is to my knowledge,) I am never done with repenting.

OUR SOCIETY LOVES FOR PEOPLE TO REPENT OF THINGS THAT G-D NEVER COMMANDED US TO REPENT FOR. OUR SOCIETY LOVES FOR PEOPLE TO REPENT OF DOING WHAT IS RIGHT.

Repentance of sins that are not sins, our society loves to see people bend the knee for that. To bend the knee to the IMAGE OF MAN and human values.

Godly repentance on the other hand, that is anathema to this culture.

I tell you the truth, G-dly repentance will never hurt you and will only help you. You are wounded now, but IT IS FOR YOUR GOOD. You are humbled before that which you ought to be humbled before. I tell you the truth, the sins of the sinner hunt him, hunt his soul. The pride of the sinner, which we all are, hunt him. The doubt of the skeptic and the cynic, they hunt him. G-d is stronger than these hunters after your life, but you have to ask and you have to be willing to be corrected. You have to be willing to break your pride and have faith.

I do not tell you these things as one who has achieved, one who has run his race and is ready for the crown to be put on his head. I tell you this as your fellow sinner: for the love of you, for the love of me, for the love of all holiness, do not be ashamed to repent.

Repentance Never Ends.