Read More: Boredom and the Costs of Constant Connection – Newsweek.

Read more –  Shocking Red Flags! 25 Signs That Wickedness And Evil Are Rapidly Growing In America.

I talked to a friend the next day and he mentioned John 4 to me.

“Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.” John 4:35-36

I began really praying about the 4s and pondering the John 4 verse, I realized that the dreams occurred 4 months before harvest time ( from the time I had the dreams in June to October is 4 months).  I then really began to feel God was talking to me about something happening in October.

As I prayed one morning, I had an unusual experience.  I didn’t pray from my mind, but with my spirit, however not in tongues, but in English.  I prayed from my spirit, “Lord, pick up your sickle for the harvest”.  As I meditated on that, I knew that there was a passage in Revelation that had to do with what I prayed and the vision I saw in my mind.  I turned to The Revelation in my Bible and flipped to the middle of the book.  I looked down on the page at random and read exactly what I was looking for.

“14 Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand. 15 And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, “Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.” 16 So he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped. 17 Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. 18 And another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has authority over the fire, and he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, “Put in your sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.” 19 So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.” Revelation 14:14 – 19

Here is my thought.  Something big is going to happen in October.  The earth is groaning right now and things are beginning to be set up.  God is giving us several months to prepare.  I feel that based on the scripture in Revelation that this will be a judgment on the world and based on John 4, a harvest for the Kingdom of God.  I am not saying that this will be the fulfillment of Revelation 14, but that God used that verse to show his hand is going to move against the world.

4 months to prepare.

The Situation Is Grave – Are You?.

In a recent Christian Post article, Hybels once again revealed the humanist nature of the infamous seeker-sensitive church growth movement by posing the question:

“Do we still believe the local church is the hope of the world?”

You see, many Christians might look at that and not realize they’ve been subjected to a dialectic question designed to alter their spiritual priorities and get them onboard an alternative agenda. This is what trained facilitators do under the radar in many churches today.

But I would ask: Is that where your hope lies – in the local church?

Do you believe your church can save the world?

Did it save you?

There are a lot of misguided Christians today who have a misplaced faith and hope in their church. This makes them easy targets for church growth consultants who know all too well how to play on the egos, ambitions and insecurities of both laymen and staff wanting their church to be bigger and better than the one across town.

When we covet the “success” of others, we make ourselves vulnerable to smooth-talking opportunists who will gladly step in and exploit our weaknesses and shortcomings upon invitation. The result is that we end up depending on them and their programs, techniques, strategies and surveys instead of God and His Word.

But the Church cannot save.

The Church is the saved.

Did the members of your local congregation live perfect lives, heal the sick, raise the dead and die on a cross for your sins and mine and then rise from the grave three days later? Did they also ascend into Heaven and sit at the right hand of God the Father to make intercession for you and me there?

Does John 3:16 read: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Church, that whosoever believeth in them should not perish, but have everlasting life?”

If not, then, why should you and I rest our hope in a local church – especially in the compromised, corrupt and declining state that many of them now find themselves? If you haven’t been keeping up – more folks are leaving churches now than are joining. That tells me they aren’t finding much hope in them anymore.

With one little question, Bill Hybels took his audience’s attention and focus off of Jesus Christ – a lost world’s only real hope – and placed it on a group of mere mortals calling them the “hope of the world.”

Shall we give honor, glory and praise to the Bridegroom or the bride?

Will we follow the Good Shepherd or His sheep?

Am I suggesting that the local church is no place for Christians?

Absolutely not!

They are the Christians! Or at least they are supposed to be.

What I am saying is that we need to stop putting our hope and faith in people and their self-exalting, self-justifying, self-serving organizations and institutions, local or otherwise. It’s time to start reading, learning, obeying and proclaiming God’s Word – all of it – instead of snappy slogans, corny clichés, vain visions and the silly strategies of men.

We ought to be about seeking God’s face first and new faces for our sanctuary second. It’s as if we believe manually growing our congregation somehow enlarges our God. But that’s church worship, not God worship! And if we declare our church, man-made or not, to be “the hope of the world,” then we are little more than idolaters.

Jesus rebuked religious leaders for putting their hope in the Temple. Are we any less guilty today for putting our hope in a religious building’s inhabitants? If that isn’t humanism, I don’t know what is.

It doesn’t surprise me that Bill Hybels believes that though. He’s in the church business. He’s a salesman and that’s his product.

I should also point out that according to Christian Today, Saddleback Church’s Purpose Driven pastor, Rick Warren, is currently writing a new book entitled: The Hope of the World.

Coincidence?

I doubt it.

The church growth movement, you see, worships a two-headed god called “Results” and “Relationships” where nothing gets in the way of either – even God’s Word. It was first encountered in the Garden of Eden.

The religion of Results persuades us to, like Eve, take and eat of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” even when the Lord says: “Thou shalt not.” But we do anyway because we believe the end justifies the means – and we’re convinced it’s for a “good cause.”

Today, many trained facilitators in leadership positions have infiltrated the church and convinced gullible and covetous Christians that if they rely on market principles and surveys, they’ll get the Results they’re after – which may or may not have anything to do with the Word and Will of God.

We call that “pragmatism.”

God calls it sin.

The religion of Relationships teaches us to, like Adam, “hearken unto the voice” of those we love rather than the One Who created them – especially if it keeps the “unity of the body” – contrived and illicit that unity may be. So, we take the experiential advice of well-meaning friends, loved ones and associates and treat it as authoritative – especially when it is what we want to hear – instead of praying, waiting and laboring in the Word for wisdom and truth. In the end, God’s Will is, at best, relegated to one of many opinions.

We call that “consensus.”

God calls it sin.

The Christian Post went on to say that Hybels “encouraged leaders to re-invent new strategies that would serve as self-replenishment.”

No word yet on where he found that in scripture.

Doesn’t sound anything like the 23rd Psalm though – that old strategy that says: “He restoreth my soul” and “leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”

via Paul Proctor — Are You A Church Worshipper?.

First is that I have to bless and not curse.  Each morning I bless those who have betrayed me and pray for them.

Second is that I not only have to forgive, but that true forgiveness is me asking my Father to forgive the one(s) who have betrayed me.

And finally, today, while running, I realized that I must identify more and more with the crucification of Jesus.  He was betrayed, lied about, had friends turn on him, had His very Apostles flee from him.  He went through all the betrayal and yet said, “Father forgive them…”  If I can get to the point in my life where I can truly pray, “Father forgive them” even while I am being figuratively crucified, then I know I have truly identified with Jesus in His crucifixion.

Philippians 3:10-11

“that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

Betrayal – (John 13:18-30)

John 13:18b – “He who shares my bread has lifted up his heel against me.”

Betrayal is the only truth that sticks. – Arthur Miller

Betrayal Hurts

It is a painful thing to be betrayed, and the pain is equally proportional to the depth of the relationship or the level of vulnerability. The more close you are, the more hurt you will be should the relationship end in betrayal. The more vulnerable you are, the more you’ve laid out in the open or the more you’ve laid on the line, and therefore, the greater the hurt from the betrayal. If a stranger speaks against you, not such a big deal. If someone you don’t know ignores you, it won’t keep you up at night. If the drive-thru person at McDonald’s is rude, you’ll get over it. But if it is someone who’s eaten your food, someone you have sweated for, rejoiced with, and mourned with; their betrayal will bring pain. If the betrayal is going to cost you something, like your job, or your place to live, or something valuable or dear to you, it’s going to hurt. The greater the relationship and vulnerability, the greater that pain is going to be.

Read More - Betrayal – (John 13:18-30) – Gary Douglas Wright

“Christianity started in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise.” -Sam Pascoe

Read more –  CHRISTIAN PIMPS.

US lurching towards ‘debt explosion’ with long-term interest rates on course to double

The US economy is lurching towards crisis with long-term interest rates on course to double, crippling the country’s ability to pay its debts and potentially plunging it into another recession, according to a study by the US’s own central bank

Read more - US lurching towards ‘debt explosion’ with long-term interest rates on course to double – Telegraph.

But our nation has rejected God’s way of provision. More and more Americans (Christians included) are turning to the State for sustenance. The people no longer cry out, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want,” but rather, “The State is my shepherd, I want more, and tax those rich bastards while you’re at it!” The mindset that Uncle Sam will pay for it is a trap and the acknowledgment of a new religion. There is little incentive to save or make sound economic decisions (e.g., sub-prime mortgages) if you know the State is always there to bail you out. If we are constantly turning to the State for assistance (and as a nation we usually are), then be assured that the State has become our god.

Read more –  The American Vision » Give me Money! .

Earlier this year, Congress passed a “Stimulus” Bill.  It was 973 pages long. This past Friday, the House passed a “Climate Change” Bill.  It was more than 1200 pages long.

This got me wondering: how long, exactly, is our Constitution?  How many pages did it take our country’s founders to lay out the structure and functions of our Federal Government

Read more –  Big Hollywood » Blog Archive » The Brevity Act: Time for a 28th Amendment.