Since being called by God through the spirit of an angel who came during a time of prayer reducing me to a crying wonder struck state convinced forever about the reality of God, I have wondered about Paul the great apostle.  He was a Hebrew among Hebrews, far advanced in the things of God under the law. A persecutor of those who practiced unlawfully in a world ruled by the law of Moses inspired by the life work and testimony of another Hebrew, Jesus of Nazareth.

Paul’s words and thoughts inspired by God speak not of how to live, though they speak about that, he speaks more about how to be taught by God a he was. He sought to explain in answer to letters from those who were seeking God the meaning behind the many rights and rituals of Hebrew life and how Jesus fulfilled those laws not by human rituals but by a surrendering of HIS body and life.

Paul speaks not of laws but an understanding of the law and why it was needed to journey to God as Jesus did and as Paul did and as I have done. There is a scripture. It reads; all things are permissible not all things are beneficial. All things are lawful not all things are helpful.

When you hear the voice of God do not harden your hearts. Jesus heard the voice of God and the scripture says; he was immediately driven to the desert. Paul heard the voice of God and experienced a vision of light so bright it left him blind for three days. During my time in seclusion, I was blinded by an infection for three days after experiencing several unexplainable events during prayer. I often think of that time and the helplessness I felt. I could do nothing nor could I find relief. To those around me, it was a sickness. They did not, nor could they really, understand the fullness of my experience. In fact, those who practice what is now called Christianity as a collection of laws and requirements rather than a dying to the things which we normally associate with living a normal life, they had no idea nor could they see the hand of God in my experience.

I can only think of how difficult it must have been for Paul and certainly Jesus in a time when the trespassing of the law led to death. The cries of blasphemy and pride directed at Paul must have been overwhelming. His anguish and doubt could only be mitigated by his experience which convinced him, in the way a man is convinced, of the certainty of what Christ spoke of as the way to God.

Until what is called the church comes to understand that the calling to stand before people in the name of God is born of a supernatural experience and not the study of the Bible but rather the Bible as a book of confirmation, it will continue to be a business for making the world feel good rather than understanding the purpose of suffering, persecution and affliction.

This is what Paul taught and what his doctrine was. He called people out of the world of experience and use, out of behaving based upon feelings and limited thoughts to create anything lasting and good without oneness with God who is the creator of everything. This is the teaching of Christ, denying yourself life as you would have it so that the eternal life of God maybe revealed in you. Then Paul says, return to you from where you came and if you are able to alter your life do so with a renewed mind which is sensitive to the will of God.

In recent days, I have heard mention of President Barak Obama being the realization of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream and a work of divine providence. I offer that it could not be otherwise. It is as miraculous as it is inconceivable that a little known man in 5 short years could go from community organizer to senator to President of the United States. Some might look to a staggering internet campaign flawlessly conceived and executed overcoming all financial odds and powerful political machines to turn the minds of the electorate to cast their vote for now President Barack Obama. Scripture tells us; the old has passed, the new has come,  NOW ALL THINGS ARE OF GOD.

The issue is not if God has inspired this moment as HE has inspired all moments and events that we term good and amazing. From eyesight to hearing and mind blowing technology, there is nothing lasting and good that is not ordained by God through the minds, spirits, hearts and efforts of men. The question is why does God inspire, at this time, such an extraordinary event as the raising up of a mixed race young intelligent, attractive, articulate, bright man to the highest office of the most powerful affluent nation in the world? The human answer is; for the common good. The promise of equality and a better life is not a promise of God but a dream of man.

God’s reasons are different. We do not understand His ways and cannot comprehend HIS thoughts unless we have suffered the persecution and indignity of this life to realize the spirit and mind of The Christ which was most luminous in Jesus of Nazareth and the prophets. Barack Obama is a work of God, a sign to inspire faith, the ability to recognize the signs of God as is common to men to recognize the signs of God in this life in spirit and truth so that you may recognize them in the life after death to this world.

The presidency of Obama if misunderstood by blacks will cause excessive hope and joy. Misunderstood by whites and it will cause excessive fear and sorrow. This excess of passions, common to men, will be the source of great distress. The point is why Obama. This is the question Mr. Obama ought to ask himself each day. As a masterwork of God, commonly known as a miracle, Obama needs to understand the source of his authority at this time. All authority has its source in God especially at the level of Kings and rulers. To forget this will obliterate the grace of God that has brought him to this place and time as it did Moses and Dr. King who were both denied the Promised Land. The Promised Land is less a place of milk and honey than it is a spiritual reality which allows one to be sensitive to the will of God.

The message of Obama is not different than Ghandi, Kennedy and Dr. King. To call people to believe in themselves and the realization of their dreams of success in the form of prosperity is not the will of God. The will of God is that you be one with HIM by giving up your life in this life so that you may have life more abundantly, meaning eternally. To not recognize this will leave man devoid of the grace of God regardless of how often we intone; God bless America. Without the grace of God, represented by a new mind and spirit, man can do nothing. In the mind and spirit which was Jesus of Nazareth and the Holy prophets all things are possible.

“The fierce urgency of now” proclaimed by Dr. King is an urgency to gain this spirit, the Kingdom of God, a supernatural kingdom of power to realize God within you creating a nature that is made in the image and likeness of God.

Be fearful America……..fearful unto caution not terror.

The concepts, as articulated by the authors of the Constitution of the United States of America, have their inspiration and are in fact the fulfillment of the will of God as revealed in the Bible. For those of you who are not avid Bible readers, may I suggest that you pick up a copy and read it? It is, amongst other things, a marvelous civic resource; I know that sounds simplistic, however, I think you will find, it truly is the blueprint for civilization. God says; He knows we have need of these things, these things such as social order, happiness, tranquility, defense from attacks, welfare, liberty and a future for ourselves and our children. These laws guide us in our relations with one another to attain these things within the will of God.

Regardless of the character and wisdom of the men and woman whose thinking creates, administers and executes these laws, these people pledge an oath which they seal with the words; SO HELP ME GOD. Divine wisdom tells us; a man speaks from the abundance of his heart. Divine Providence compels us to live by the ordinances of our governments. .

The birth of America began in hope, as is the case in any venture. Hope that our pursuit will result in a harvest of “a good life.” Some of us leave behind whatever security we know, imagined or otherwise, to find a better way of living that will allow us to pursue the things of the world, life, liberty and happiness. I know many people, including myself, who are happy with the things this way of life accumulates. I do not know many people who are happy. By happy I mean a feeling of contentment within oneself, a sense of well being expressed in our ability to work, to love and to play. It doesn’t seem that money, power, prestige or even fame make us “happy.” We seem to possess an insatiable lust for more of it, whatever that it is, we feel we need to have and know security and significance for ourselves and others.

Perhaps never before in history have we been so spiritually conscious. We talk to dead people. We tell fortunes. We use astrologers, therapists, even the Bible to find ways to satiate this intense desire to acquire those things we can not perceive with our senses, namely the future. Our spiritual lives are developed and judged by the ability of the spirit world both of God and the occult to provide those things we can see, feel and smell. The things that we experience and use to satiate our desires as well as to nurture and satiate the desires of those we have responsibility to provide a modicum of relief from the anxiety caused by being without them. These things, of which we have need, drive our daily life. They afford us good health care, food, shelter, clothing, education and all the things we need to live. It really is “a good life” if you have all these things.

The thought, and all thought creates something, that the pursuit of these sensuous things is the answer to our search for significance and security seems to create a lot of harm to us and others. We lie, cheat, steal, obfuscate, hide, withdraw, use each other for sexual pleasure, seek revenge, break relationships, get sick, seek exclusivity, power, influence, you name it. At least, I know I have done these things, hopefully you don’t.

Citizenship in the Kingdom of God is the Perfect Union of each individual’s soul with the Spirit of God. The laws of this Kingdom are concerned with only this union. In this Kingdom, once joined with God, the Holy Creator of everything, you are promised to be a special treasure of God, a blessing. You will spend your days in prosperity. He will be your God and you will be His people. He will give you so much blessing you will not be able to receive it. He will manifest Himself. You will be made righteous. You will be unafraid of authority. You will have eternal life. You will have a spirit of truth, both to tell it and recognize it. You will abide in His love. You will have life and have it more abundantly. You will have peace that surpasses all understanding. You will dwell in the land and you will enjoy freedom and many other promises, now and at the hour of your death. Amen. Praise God.

I have labored my entire life under the assumption that I must seek the Kingdom of God and all these other things that the world or the nations or my job tell me I can pursue. Somehow, I have received the impression that in order to attain these promises of an abundant life as well as salvation, I must do a lot of things, such as love God with everything and love others as I love myself. That wasn’t going to happen anytime soon because I had no clue what love was. I knew how to “make love” or so I thought. I knew how it felt to “fall in love.” I even knew how to “use love” to get what I wanted. I absolutely could not refrain from lying, stealing, cheating and coveting. I was a big coveter. I was a world class failure in all areas. I was BAD.

Recently, several people have related stories to me who have either been with friends who were dying or were in the process of dying themselves. All of them, I mean all of them, expressed that they “must have been bad” in their life. Although, I am not aware of being; “At the hour of my death,” I am in the NOW and I know the feeling of anguish that came from deep within my heart when my conscience confirmed that I indeed had been “Bad” in my life. Not a wonderful feeling but, more about that later.

The Kingdom of God is available to all men and women who seek it. To seek it and it’s righteousness of which it is created gives you all those things that you have need, namely, all those things the world has to offer, life, liberty and happiness, as well as the world to come.

As the person, thinks and dreams of America or any other country or job, his thoughts create feeling and feeling creates emotion which puts us in motion to do something about getting to America. This is our will. The use of the word pursue in Pursuit of Happiness is a more intense word or meaning of seek. Happiness, for lack of a better word, is when we allow God to romance us in the spirit, delight us because ultimately the relationship He seeks is marriage between our soul, our being, and His spirit. In a funny way, it’s where we learned the idea of expressing the state of our marriages as happy or bad marriages. Trust me this is the happiness we pursue. Marriage in the eyes of God is two beings inhabited by one spirit. Happiness is being content with what God has given you to do and the tools He has given you to do it.

In the past year I have been enthralled with the notion that God, who is love, is more encouraging us than commanding us when He makes His will known. His will, will be done. He is telling us that we are what He says we are and we will be who He created us to be and do what He wills us to do and ultimately we will enjoy doing it no matter how many generations it takes. He encourages us to be not anxious, to fear not, to be still in our spirits and simply know that He is God.

He does this super naturally, meaning beyond words or thought, beyond our senses to our very being. This was a very difficult thought for me to grasp. When I sought counsel, the explanations given to me led me, through no fault of those who advised me, on a path of attempting to understand it in my reasoning natural intelligence and apply it in my life as an action.
What I now know is this. The knowledge of God is pure knowledge in that it goes past my reasoning to my very being because God’s ways can not be comprehended. God’s thoughts bring things into reality immediately because God is light. Light moves at 186,000 miles per second. The world of matter moves very slowly in comparison to the speed of light. As we live by sight we are constantly impatiently waiting for whatever it is to appear because we need to touch it or see it or taste it in our minds for us to make the judgment that it is real. That is the natural human way. The way we have learned apart from God.
God says; never rely on what you think you know but remember the Lord in everything you do. He will show you the right way.
I believe the scripture implies that one must already, by faith, know God for this to make sense. We are not wrong we just assimilate God’s knowledge inappropriately. This is the meaning of spiritual pride. Pride is a normal human mechanism which says I can figure this, whatever this is, out because I am smart. Yes you are smart but what is your motive in applying the knowledge you have learned in the world?
The super natural way of God goes beyond the human process. It is its own process which enlightens the mind in the ways of God not man by convincing you that in your own human nature you are limited in your ability to create anything good and lasting either in this life and certainly in the life after this. God’s knowledge is His will. Because it is His will, it is pure and perfect because it contains everything we need to gain access to Him. This is why we must be renewed in our minds THEN we can seek test and approve the will of God. This is what I meant earlier when I wrote one of the qualities inherent in the new mind is sensitivity to the will of God. There is nothing to do but seek God. He will give you knowledge, understanding of that knowledge which will power your will to create with Him. How, you ask. The answer is faith. Faith is not belief in something unseen. It is the power to see the signs of God in reality and feel the wonder of being convinced of God. I will write about this more later.
One of the other powers contained in His will or His knowledge is an organizing power. His knowledge organizes itself at the level of our memory. This faculty of the mind contains the knowledge base by which our intelligence makes decisions to power our will to act. We are free from fear and anxiety to exercise our free will because it is created by God and we exercise it because we recognize the signs of God and become certain. It is certainty of God, who is perfect love, and removes all fear to function effectively in the ways of God. This is the power of God. The Kingdom Of God is power, the power to create. It is not words but power. This becomes the power of the mind to heal illness and to bring thought into form. We are free to express our talents and gifts, thoughts and feelings appropriately in the world. Our relationships come into appropriate realization because there is a whole healthy integrated us. His thoughts or will are perfect and pleasing. They never fail. This is the Kingdom of God that makes living in the society known as the world regardless of the country or job or relationship acceptable and renders the perception of life as it unfolds enjoyable and hopeful of eternal life by faith, the substance and evidence of God and things unseen,

I heard the sermons of the pastors and the prayers of the flocks. I sang the songs and watched. There was and is, in my opinion, SOMETHING WRONG. I have been ministered to, by God, never to act on my feelings or thoughts. The scriptural prophecy tells us as a reward for diligently seeking God one of the rewards is; you will not judge by appearances but by righteousness. As I listened to the pastors I was amazed by the Harry Potteresque tone of their sermons. It was as if God, the creator of all things seen and unseen, is a wish ATM machine whose password is; In the name of Jesus. A slot machine who only pays off based upon how much money is placed into Him. I found the pastors to be self righteous in the extreme. A judge, really, which is fine, if he were judging spiritual things but he judged behavior. This would also be fine if he brought understanding in his judgment.I heard none. Many members of the “flock” at the church socials following the services expressed a profound confusion. They had no idea how to pray nor did they understand what faith, a gift of God, is. They felt repressed at the level of their feelings and thoughts. The pastor, regardless of his lack of understanding of the knowledge he has learned could not express with poetic ideas his experience of God because he had no experience of the supernatural ministering of God but rather the doctrine of other men. This is what he has and therefore all he can give to anyone. The doctrine of men and not the experience of God in the form of dreams, visions, prophets, scripture and above all else the ministering spirit of God represented by angels. This is the message of the New Testament not behavioral modification. The pastor is only able to offer descriptions of God and not the WAY to God. He speaks of the history, persons and events of the OT and NT as a time gone by because in all my experiences in the religious community and the churches at large I heard no stories or understanding of the way God in his supernatural ways communicates to man. None.

When I related the super natural events which were made evident in my experience, I was thought crazy, prideful and persecuted. I was mocked and punished. There was a palpable motif of persecution in the air of the community in which I lived. I remember one man telling me; “you don’t want to glow too brightly”. On the whole, I found the Christian church to be rife with self will and a perfect manifestation of the prophecy of Christ’s warnings about men and their counsels written of in Matthew 23. More than one time I was aware that if Jesus Himself walked into any church on any Sunday, HE would be given a visitor’s package.

I bore witness to a situation in a church where the pastor’s secretary’s husband basically stole $100,000.00 from a widowed parishiner and the pastor counseled the victim to keep her mouth shut as he prayed over her list documenting the criminal neglect in the building of her house for which she paid money. The secretary’s husband was eventually arrested by the police. The widow was ostracized and questioned by the elders and told to withdraw the charges. She did not bring the charges. The charges were brought by the state in answer to prayer she and I made for 7 days offering the home to God and asking that his will be done.  I was astonished by the gossip I heard. The corrupt use of confidentiality on the part of the pastors and elders in their back room meetings based upon the scriptural idea; there is wisdom in the counsel of many was rampant. In a church of say 100 people, I thought it odd that “many” meant 5 people.

I worked for a national ministry whose methods of operation under the name of God were corrupt at every level. I found it peculiar that the self proclaimed “anointing” of God entittled these men, in their minds, to perks not available to others. Money offerings in the form of cash, automobiles, property even gift cards were used for the “leaders” personal use in the extreme. Money was regularly siphoned from offering boxes with no record of it having been taken.

The churches and minstries I have encountered, by the grace of God, were spiritual wastelands constructed by men who proclaimed a religion, refered to as a faith that as far as I observed led to nothing. The various ministries of these churches were led by individuals who manifested not particular gifts or fruit but rather extreme judgment which led to a destruction of what little hope the people who attended them possessed.

I am not being critical of the church nor the men who lead it. I am merely recounting for you dear reader what I observed. I am a Chrisitan. My entire life is devoted to God as a minister ordained by Him and confirmed by the fruit I bear. That and angels and scripture refered to in answer to prayer. The current church is a cease pool of man made doctrine and a group of men who have studied the Bible as if it were a computer programming book. These organizations are no different than a second rate business who speak about money more than anything else. They flatter one another with tittles and secretly deisre to move up the ecclesiastical food chain. They raise astronomical amounts of money to support ministries that do very little to genuinely help people on any level. I worked in the food banks, begged money and promoted ministries under vows of obedience. Leaders are well fed and well paid. They drive new cars or motorcyles. The ministries, in may cases, provide mortgages for their growing pastoral staffs. The leaders isolate themselves from participants in their ministries and churches. It is almost impossible to gain access to a Pastor to discuss spiritual issues. They are far too busy raising money or attending conferences to discuss with other pastors what God is doing. Whatever that means. As far as I know, God is the same yesterday today and tomorrow.

You may be thinking this is a hatchett job about religion and the people who run it. It’s not. I have recounted what I witnessed with my eyes while under vows of obedience, poverty, chastity and silence. This is a partial list as my work in ministry encompasses counseling pastors and their wives together and separately. The stories are tragic. They are beyond the scandals associayed with the catholic church in the 80′s. My point in writing this piece is not to judge or indicte but rather to explain how this could possibly be the case. This blog is being written to discuss the failure of the churches, people who run them and attend them to find contentment in God and why I believe church will be extinct shortly by an act of God.

More tomorrow…

I am not a scholar. I am not an ordained minister of the gospel by any denomination or sect. I am a man God has favored with the gift of faith. I write that with a sense of shame because I did nothing to deserve what could only be called a blessing from God. I am not good for there is only one who is good. In relation to God I am like the mud that Jesus fashioned from dirt and the spit of His mouth and placed on the eyes of the blind man. I am like a blind hunting dog who points to the fowl in the darkness of the woods because my master has trained me to do so because it makes him happy. Making him happy is my joy and the source of hope and faith in His provision and health in this life as well as being, more importantly, the spiritual food of eternal life.

Since picking up the Bible I have not been able to put it down or talk about anything else. I have frequently remarked to people, when I have a sense that they are nodding off from my incessant talk about what I read and hear in my heart, that I would love to talk about baseball and my beloved Red Sox, who, are not so miraculously any longer, in the midst of the 2007 World Series. I can’t seem to muster the desire to engage for any length of time in conversation that I once loved. I am in a season of deep contemplation of the thoughts and deep things of God. Sometimes I think I am writing to keep from going mad. My insatiable desire to read the ancient and classical books related to the mystical, supernatural and miraculous ways of God has overtaken my former desires.

Left to my own ways, I would prefer to be working in television and film being celebrated by men and women as a star of stage and screen dining on haute cuisine and traveling playing golf to my heart’s content. As I write, I am jobless in the common sense of the word. I have not worked for pay in several months and am dependent on the kindness and love of others for my worldly survival. I pray daily and continually. For me prayer is a contemplation of God and a deep listening for what He would have me know. It is an encounter beyond relationship where I ask for things in the hope that God grants my wish. It is more in the nature of my, daily, being made aware by God that I am one with the spirit of God, as Jesus prayed in John 17. In this contemplation, which you may perceive as someone with too much time on his hands, by faith, I believe that God has chosen to call me and favor me by allowing me to accept His love for me. It is not by my choice nor the hope of a wordly reward that I came to know and be one with the spirit of God.

God has blessed me with so many gifts, talents and abilities. I have been so fortunate to experience life at so many levels and in such diverse cultures and socio-economic groups. In taking an overall view of my life, I clearly recognize areas where God gave me a great interest in as well as ability to grasp complex abstract concepts of how the creative process functions on a human level in the arts. Now, as He nurtures me on my path, He has blessed me with a hunger and thirst for His Word as well as the

understanding of how to recognize its functions to give life more abundantly by understanding the effects of God’s desire to meld human nature with His Spirit to effect the becoming of two natures into one spirit creating an eternal being that is like Himself.. The Lord has blessed me with an enthusiastic approach which is hopefully effective in teaching people as well as counseling and directing individuals to oneness with the Spirit of God exceeding their expectations in the limitlessness of God. The Lord has created me to feel comfortable speaking with people of all backgrounds about these limitless things. He has made me to speak in front of large numbers of people, in person, in print or on television and be at ease, humbly yet boldly communicating how His Word reveals the WAY to UNION with the Spirit of God through His supernatural miraculous power in this life and proceed into the world to come. He has blessed me with the faith to persevere in suffering to learn obedience to this calling.

Call me crazy.

I talked to psychiatrists and gurus. I attended every group imaginable. I took almost every drug to find relief from the anxiety, frustration and depression of trying to answer the questions, who am I and what the heck am I doing here? In the end, the only thing that came to mind was God. He simply popped into my mind. In the moisture of the tears of desperation on my cheeks, He gave me relief. Correcting my behavior was not the answer to the feelings of doubt, anxiety and insecurity which were the result of my thoughts of a meaningless world, life and existence. It was the enlightened words of the Bible that brought health to my bones and restored the years. It was as if I ate the words I never seemed to find quite appetizing before. I didn’t try to memorize the scriptures. I simply read them knowing somewhere deep in my soul that these words, people and stories were returning me to an emotional and spiritual place where the love of God I experienced as a child reasserted itself in my present reality.

The pure knowledge of God will do the same for you. This knowledge without understanding though helpful to your life in a behavior modification sense yet without understanding there will be no gain of God’s greatest gift which is faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for the substance of things unseen. In other words, it is the ability to recognize the signs of God in reality and experience the wonder of a life and faith authored by the eternal spirit and mind which created the life and testimony of Jesus of Nazareth.

It is my hope in blogging to attract those who are confused, baffled and perplexed by the teachings which, to date, have promised much but delivered very little. I am here to answer your questions pertaining to all of the things of God regardless of religion. Much of what you read here will be excerpts from my forthcoming book; IF THE MIRACLE DOESN’T HAPPEN…….SOMETHING IS WRONG.