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creative essays revelation Uncategorized

How to Overcome the Lusts of the Flesh

I’m not going to tell you to pray more. I’m not going to tell you to worship more, or begin a program of positive confession. I have tried all of this myself, and it doesn’t work. It seems like the flesh always has the upper hand, no matter what. It seems like sin will always out, always win.

I know the way it is. You pray aloud in your prayer closet. You play some worship music and worship the father in spirit and in truth. You are feeling good, ready to transform the whole world through faith, by love and charity.

25 minutes later you are watching porn.

Or you are cursing someone out over the phone.

Or you are flipping someone the finger on the highway.

Or you are ripping open a pack of cigarettes with your trembling hands.

Whatever the answers are, I knew that nobody has ever shared them with me. I was just told the same tropes over and over, to pray more, read my bible aloud, ask God for help, and so on. I decided this advice needed an updating. I would go to the Bible for the answers and search and seek until I found the answer, the solution to putting down the lusts of the flesh.

I new I had the answer when I read Galatians, chapter 5.

Galatians 5:16
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

We are told to “walk by the spirit.” That is all well and good, but how are we to do that?

Imagine, for a second, that God was with you, walking with you, accompanying you everywhere. You could not escape Him. He was with you when you woke up in the morning and He was with you when you arrived home from work.

In that kind of situation, it would be difficult to sin. It would be hard to find a way to open up your laptop and watch porn, for example. But this concept is the key to overcoming the lusts of the flesh. You have to realize that God is always with you, always watching, always inside of you.

When you are aware, at all times and at every moment, that God’s precious Holy Spirit is in you and with you, throwing yourself headlong into a mortal sin will not be easy. For one, if you have a relationship with the holy spirit, as you should, you will not want to do anything that might grieve him.

This is why we are commanded to “walk in the spirit.” What that means is to develop a relationship with the Holy Ghost, so much so that you are aware of his nearness and presence at all times. It means to walk in the spirit, as in a marathon walk, and not just a morning jog, as it were.

Once you understand that you are never alone, you begin to act differently. Certain sins are impossible, and completely off the table. It is not that you don’t want to be a partaker in that sin, it is that you will not want to make the Holy Spirit a witness to that sin. And the only way to realize that you are never alone is to walk in the spirit.

Talk to the spirit. Speak to the person of the Holy Spirit. And listen to the spirit, for his guidance, for his comfort, for his help. He will always advocate action on your behalf. So don’t be afraid to start a relationship with him. That relationship is the key to everything.

Walk in the spirit.

How are you to ‘walk by the spirit’ if you cannot hear the direction of the spirit, if you cannot hear his voice?

The Word of the Spirit is the Bible. We must read the bible and listen to the Bible. Once we know the bible, we know the mind of Christ.

Coming to know the bible means coming to know the will of God for your life. It means coming to know the will and voice of the spirit.

This is literally the key to everything. If you can overcome the lusts of the flesh, you can overcome addiction, to food, to sugar, to carbohydrates, to drugs, to masturbation, to sex, to anything. I look back on my christian walk and realize that my body, my flesh, my physical temple has always been the number one enemy of happiness and peace for me.

Basically, you need a closer relationship with God. You need to feel that God is with you at all times, because He is. You need to have a constant sense of communion with the Holy Spirit inside of you, at all times. This is the key element to overcoming lustful practices.

Get to know God’s presence. Get to feel His presence with you, become aware of it always. Become more God-conscious and less sin-conscious, less flesh conscious. And you will sin less, and cave less to the desires of the body. You will become more “spiritual,” as it were, which should be your ultimate goal, to “walk in the spirit.”

This is the key to overcoming the lusts of the flesh, as much as it can be overcome, because we won’t fully overcome those lusts while we are “in the body” as Saint Paul says. Many may have to marry, even young, in order not to burn with sinful desires. This is another overlooked solution, due to our modern cultural climate, which sees marriage as a thing that should be put off until your 30s.

Fact is, throughout all of human history, men and women were marrying young, for over 50,000 years. The truth is that we were built for our child-raring years to be in our late teens and early 20s, when out fertility levels are the highest, and our energy levels almost inexhaustible.

Better to marry than to burn, as Paul and Christ said. But better to be married to the Holy Spirit, first.

Why the Left LOVES Civil Disorder

If there is No God… Faith Keeps the Human Race Going

A Thought on White Privilege

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creative essays politics revelation Uncategorized

Why all Christians should Oppose Big Government

All Christians should oppose the rapid growth of the government that we are seeing in the United States, keeping in mind that– the larger the reach of the government into American lives, the smaller the reach of the church.

The bigger the government, the more intrusive the government, the more the people become like the government, taking on its character and its traits. We see this in nations run by tyrants, despots, and especially communist regimes, where the people seem spirit-less, the arts dead, religion controlled and suppressed, and the citizenry neutered, prone, apathetic, accepting, uncultured and reserved.

You almost never find heroism in these places. You find an emasculated citizenry, hushed up, tamped down, walking around like robots and zombies, given only to work, competition, honor and pride.

The issue is that the government is faceless, and void of what people truly need. It can offer a signed and stamped check, but can a check replace a father? Can a check replace a family unit? Can a check replace domestic tranquility and stability in the home?

The answer is in the negative. When we switched over to government itself being the social arm of the masses, we lost much, as a society. Because the government is not part of our community. The church is. The government’s face is lacking character and compassion, and the church’s isn’t.

The government can feed children, can financially support a mother, and can pay her medical bills, it is true. The government can be a provider. But it cannot be a dad, a father, a friend or a encouraging acquaintance. It cannot be a Christian friend. It cannot be a comforting and holy spirit of truth.

It cannot give truth. And only the truth leads to freedom. Jesus said: “and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” True freedom for a people or a community or an oppressed race starts with a turn to the truth. Then freedom comes. But truth must come first.

The church must come first. The gospel message must come first. Without it, freedom will die. Because freedom relies on a man knowing what is true in his heart. When a man knows the truth in his heart, he will be willing to die for that truth. A society of men not willing to die in defense of the truth is a society of speed bumps, of emasculated automatons, and nothing more.

The secular state breeds such men, nurtures and raises such men, devoid of faith, of a blessed hope, of true religion. Because the state is godless, its children are likely to be godless. Because the state is not heroic, the people are not going to be heroic. Because the state is not good, the people are not going to be good.

Government programs foster dependency, not freedom.

The citizens that are under the influence of the government, and the secular government priesthood (democrats, leftists and socialists.) all display the signs and symptoms of being alive, and growing up, but growing up without paternal instruction and wisdom. They are overemotional, always in some kind of emotional distress. Their father is faceless, nameless, and absent except for material support.

When the state transitions into a paternal role, the nuclear family suffers, and society begins to descend into violence and anarchy. Man is to answer to God. When man only answers to the godless state, man really answers to the void within himself.

The more the state becomes the paternal presence, the more its children will remain as children well past their appointed age. The state makes children of men and women. It stunts their natural growth process, and juvenile characteristics are retained in them.

They would rather be dependent, at some point, than to be free individuals. They do not know freedom, and fear it the same way a young child does his first day away from his mother at school.

The critical point is that the government is a natural competitor with the church. The vast resources of the church used to be distributed with a catch–you had to attend in order to pick it up. Your benefactor had a face, a smile, and a blessing to impart. People went to the church for help, received physical goods in their time of distress, but also a spiritual feeding.

The church was literally the center of every community once. A common counter by those who worship the state is that government can respond more efficiently and with more resources, during an emergency. But fact is, huge and unwieldy responses aren’t going to be often needed with a limited government, as the people will be more self-sufficient, and the church will reap what the governing structure leaks out.

The church has stepped up in times past. We forget this. They were the ones who raised the orphans in the 30s through the 50s. They were handing out loaves at the bread lines. They built all of the homeless shelters and women’s shelters. They ran free health clinics and immunization programs. They built a vast network of charitable organizations that kept Americans afloat during the rise of America.

In all, what we are seeing today, is the coming to fruition of a truth that Jesus spoke 2,000 years ago: Man cannot live on bread alone.

But that is exactly why this country is in the predicament we are in regarding our inner city neighborhoods and ghettos. They can only give bread, but not other types of sustenance that are just as vital and necessary. It cannot encourage with an arm around the shoulder. It cannot pray with you or instruct in wisdom. It cannot commune with you, break bread with you. It doesn’t mail you a sympathy card when a close relative dies, or call every night to check up on you. The greater the role of government, the lesser the strength of community for a nation and people.

Go Home.
Why the Left LOVES Civil Disorder

If there is No God…
Faith Keeps the Human Race Going

A Thought on White Privilege

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creative essays racism revelation Uncategorized

Something Happened to Men

I don’t know when it happened, but some kind of mood shift occurred in the last 40-100 years. Americans in particular seem unhappy now, as compared to 50 years ago, say. How do I know this?

Because I collect baseball cards…

As I shuffle through my cards, as I am wont to do, I can’t help but notice the different levels of joy between then and now. It is the most obvious and remarkable thing that jumps out at me every time I compare cards from different eras.

Players in the 50s and 60s showed teeth in their smiles. There were something endearing and genuine about their joy. There was innocence and a humility present at the corners of their mouths. They seemed thankful, even happy.

Even the black players, in the midst of the turmoil of the civil rights era, possessed this charisma and glow upon them that I can’t find today in their modern day counterparts. It is just a something, call it an anointing, or a blessedness, or a christian contentedness. Something has happened between then and now, and whatever it is, it wasn’t positive.

It seems like their faces become disturbed, suddenly uneasy with themselves, right around the rise of the civil rights era, to be frank. It is uncanny the timing, perhaps. But maybe there is something to it.

Maybe they were living in non-ideological times, without the bloodthirsty 24-hour media every night stirring up rancor and ill will between parties, classes and races.. But whatever it was, I think something has been taken from mankind, and most of us don’t even know we have lost this birthright.

It seems our joy has been taken from us. Perhaps taken from us by the educators, our political leaders, by the race hustlers, the marxists, the atheists, the stuffy psychologists, the secular philosophers and the bearded naturalists.

It is almost as if a light has been put out in man. A once-friendly smile has been replaced by a thin grin. A childlike faith and a booming optimism replaced by anger, discontent, factionalism, and a fractured psyche.

Pills have replaced prayers. Votes have replaced charity.

We are no longer trusted as free men to determine our future, and the future of our states. We are slowly having the screws tightened on us. Even our moral freedoms are being taken from us. We are expected to live according to societal prescription. But all prescriptions have side effects.

I don’t see genuine joy any more. I feel like I haven’t seen a smile light up a room in ages. I haven’t seen a clean smile, one that approaches godliness, seemingly full of the holy spirit, as it were. I think we are growing cold, and angry, and resentful. We are made for so much more, but are being led astray by worldly systems and an atheistic nihilism.

One senses an explosive violence simmering inside of our countrymen. One feels uncomfortable in their presence, as if you were not among your kind, your tribe, your people. You look in their eyes and see straight through to the void in their souls. Deeply troubled, you may even back away slowly with hands up.

But what happened?

I think men have lost a sense of themselves, of who they really are, and who they are supposed to be. I think we have too many men raised by women alone. They are pretzeled up in emotional knots, anxious, and angry. It is not that they have lost their fathers, but that they have never known their fathers; but most importantly, they don’t know that God is their Father. They don’t commune with the Holy Spirit inside of them, don’t speak to God any more, and don’t listen to God’s voice inside of them.

They have been made angry by race hustlers, spiritual eunuchs, godless political maniacs and politicians. They don’t have perfect peace inside of them. They are not appreciative for the gift of existence that God has graced them with, and they are acting like their angry mothers who raised them.

Man’s soul has been poisoned. Now he appears as a freak, unrecognizable from the man he would have been if he was born 30 years earlier.

Jesus said that the eyes are the lamp of the soul. You can sense that a man’s soul has been darkened by looking into his eyes. They are restless, turbulent, striped with blood; they have something of a falsity to them, as if they are always lying.

The sun of man being darkened. The moon of the eye no longer giving its light.

The eyes are bald. The charismata gone from the face. The face is even twisted, contorted into pain at all times.

Something happened along the way, to our social fabric, there was a deleterious event along the way, something that scarred the soul of man so. A moral shift occurred, away from truth, perhaps toward the toleration of lies for the sake of niceness.

The government became self-interested, almost self-aware, and became an enabler of godlessness.

When you don’t have faith in God, you don’t have faith in anything, especially your fellow man. Everywhere you turn you see evil, wickedness, doom. You see enemies surrounding you, circling you like wild dogs. The eyes that glow are under suspicion as fakes, as charlatans, as counterfeits, as men of artifice. Their eyes are different from yours, therefore they must be the eyes of your enemy.

They lost sight of the Father and his ways. Men today don’t know who they are and who they are supposed to be because they don’t know their heavenly Father.

I am not talking about a return to toxic masculinity, or anything like that. Because God is love. A real man is a man of love, and not hatred. But the societal loam has been poisoned, as it were, by hatred, which brings discontent, which breaks up the peace of God that is supposed to be in a man’s heart.

This is important, that if a man hates anyone, then he does not love.

I see it. I know that you see it, too.

The question is: what are we going to do about it?

Or is too late?

Go Home.
Why the Left LOVES Civil Disorder

If there is No God…
Faith Keeps the Human Race Going

A Thought on White Privilege

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creative essays revelation Uncategorized

Theory: The Real Reason for World Chaos, Riots and Violence

Violence. Rumors of war. A global pandemic.

Riots, protests and social disturbances. Tear gas and rolling tanks and pitched battles between the police forces and young, masked Marxists.

It definitely seems like crazy times, and we are living through them. Usually we are just living, but for once we feel like we are living through history.

But don’t look toward racism, oppression, ideological forces or political or social theories to explain what is going on today. They will all offer contradictory explanations, using their own secular theories and reasoning and logics, but instead, as a spiritual people, it is important to remember what Saint Paul the Apostle said:

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Ephesians 6:12)

Look for the spiritual cause, not the social cause.

I want to put forth the idea that all of this is easily explainable…

Think back to the ministry of Christ. What was it that harassed Christ at almost every turn, besides the Pharisees and the Sadducees?

It was demons. Everywhere Christ went, he ran into the demon-possessed, whether they followed him and cried out to him or presented themselves as dumb spirits. He was constantly pestered by evil spirits during his earthly ministry.

Years ago, I wondered about that, why there seemed to be so much demonic activity around Christ during his ministry, but we don’t see that level of activity today. After thinking about it for a bit, I concluded that it actually made perfect sense for this to occur, as Christ was on the verge of the greatest victory over the forces of evil in all of history. The swarming of demons toward him was a last-ditch, controlled attack to stop him. It was a focusing and a marshaling of all of the demonic forces in one area, centered about the destruction of one person’s goal and plan.

I propose that we are seeing the exact same thing happen today. Soon enough, this pandemic will be over. People will be out in the streets again, and back in the pews. And in all likelihood, it will be more people than ever before. We are on the verge of a revival.

Everything you see is a desperate, focused last-ditch assault to hamper the progress toward that revival. It is The Unites States, the leader of the free world, where this attack is taking place, in order to stop the upcoming spiritual revolution about to break forth in this country.

Sides have been drawn. The armies have amassed in the battlefield in columns and divisions. The truth is, we have an opportunity now to deal the devil a serious blow while most of his forces are assembled in one place, on one field of battle.

Arm yourself with the sword of the spirit. Defend with your shield of faith.

The enemy is desperate. He fears what is to come.

Now is the time of our greatest victory.

Read about why I believe Revival is coming.

What it will look like. (video)

Existence is all Wrong Without a God.

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creative essays revelation

3 Reasons why Christianity is Going to be Big in 2021

1.

First of all, a lot of promises have been made. A lot of oaths have been sworn in the last 3 months or so. Desperate prayers from infected people, or people afraid of becoming infected. I promise you, even strong atheists were praying in March and April.

If most people are like me, then God has saved you from the pandemic thus far, and you are only alive right now because of His grace and mercy. But most people are going to forget their oaths and vows and promises made in dark and desperate times. They promised they would attend mass once a week, or attend church every Wednesday and Sunday.

But most people are going to forget their oaths, and put off this new schedule, as most people do. I have done it myself in the past, and I am sure you have, too.

But others are going to follow through.

Even if it is only 15%, that will be enough for a revival. When this pandemic ends (and it will end), we will see an increase in church attendance. We will see a great return to the churches, to the one true faith, and to God. It is all a matter of math and statistics, that some people will keep their oaths and promises.

2.

Probably the most important reason we are going to see Christianity go big in 2021 is the repressed longing for God that has taken place. Many Christians have felt out of sorts for the last few months. They are used to a certain lifestyle of praise, worship, church attendance, and fellowship with other believers. But of late, they have been penned up, and I feel it even within myself that faith has been growing inside of me, somehow watered and fed despite the environmental catastrophe of the pandemic all around me.

I took church for granted. I took worship in the sanctuary for granted, and did not fully appreciate its importance and value to my spiritual well being. But it has been building up inside of me and hundreds of thousands of others for months.

The Bible states that where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Once there is freedom again, you will find that the Spirit will rush out and convict the world of guilt and sin again. It will be released sometime in the next 24 months, and once it happens, revival will be here.

3.

Thirdly, we have all had a lot of time for silent meditation. Some of us have had months to silently reflect on our lives, our decisions, our faith and our character. We have received ideas, inner messages, inspirations, revelations and epiphanies. For the first time in a long time, we have been able to hear the voice of the spirit of God speaking to us, counseling us, helping us, comforting us, and guiding us. Some of us are rearing to go for God. Some of us have been issued commands to forgive relatives, to start businesses, to begin blogging, to write a book, to pray more and read the scriptures more. For the first time in years, we have been reacquainted with the person of the Holy Ghost, and able to hear His voice clearly again.

The time is almost here, when all of these newborn Christians will be released into the streets and churches again.

Why do you think the devil is up in arms right now, acting up more than usual? With riots, commotions, disturbances and civil disorder?

Because he knows what is about to be unleashed. He is trying to demoralize us.

Revival is coming.

Read a terrific article by Dr William Browning titled Racism or Sin?

Read If there is No God creative essay by John Claudio.