leasheryn's Blog

It is my understanding that when one accepts Christ as their Savior, they become followers of Chirst and are indeed respresentives of Christ.  We are meant to live in His spirit and to be Christ-like in our actions and deeds.  As representives of Christ, we are to act in a way in which He Himself would approve and imulate His Words, Deeds and Teachings.  We are in fact to go forth as examples of His Life on Earth and to spread this example to one and all. 

The way we look and act and behave should be Christ-like.  Sure, none of us are perfect and we all have to face temptations and often we are lead along the wrong path even though we may think that we are doing the right thing.  But as we go along in life, we should think of how Jesus would have responded and what He would have done in such a circumstance.  If we realize we have gone wrong, it is up to us to go to Him or go to the Father and confess what we have done.  Not only this but we should make a good attempt to do better or to be better. 

Many of us get too wrapped up in the immediate focus or too interested in the wrongs that others are doing to consider that we, ourselves, may not be facing ourselves or realizing that we too may be doing wrong by getting involved in the salvation of the next guy.  It is for each of us to make up our own minds and to make our own decisions.  If someone wishes to accept Jesus as their Savior, they should do so and, if they do not, then it is for them to face the Almighty at the end of the day.

We should live in peace with each other and we should know that it is God who decides who is acceptable and who is not.  But if we show a peaceful nature and know the joy of accepting Christ is our hearts as our Savior, that should be enough to make others stop, look at us and wonder what it is that gives us that peace when they are living under the stresses of the world.  It is always easy to fall into temptation but the hard work that goes into knowing peace and living with Christ should give each one who believes great joy.  Great joy is truly a reward for a little hard work so who should complain about a little extra effort. 

Although this is a question for PastorD, it is certainly opened for discussion or for anyone who wishes to respond.

Pastor, at what point in time can a member of clergy deny anybody the right to enter or to join a church?  It is my understanding that Jesus taught that all who come are welcome and embraced within the church.  If this is the teaching of Jesus and if the person who comes is truly sincere in their beliefs, is it right for a member of clergy to dismiss that person from entrance within the church.  And if that person has done nothing to offend and has been nothing but be honest and sincere, what reason would a clergyman or woman have to turn them away? Also if a man is going to marry a woman who has every desire to join his church, does a member of clergy have any right to pursuade such a man that his choosen bride has no intent to join his church and turn her away?   Does this clergyman have the right to do this without even taking the time to speak to the woman and discover what her mind is on this subject?  Wouldn't this be considered dishonest and unprofessional? 

I ask because I know of someone who has faced this circumstance  and in which the man in question left his bride because of statements by such a member of clergy. 

 "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

 "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.

Matthew 7:1-6

In reference: Romans 14 & 15 (The Weak and the Strong)

We are taught that we are not to judge others by the way they worship God or in the way they chose to live within their faith.  It is the act of faith that counts, not the way in which one decides is the best way to worship. 

We are never to impose our belief or our faith upon our fellow man but rather we are meant to accept them in the way they are in exactly the way in which God accepts those who accept Him. 

The judgement of man is left to God alone and is not for us to meddle.  What we do, what we decide and how we live our lives is between each of us as individuals and God.  We are to leave each other alone and concentrate on our own faith.

As long as we have faith and we believe, that is all that counts or means anything in the sight of God. 

Beware of those who scream and shout the loudest against another man for it is they who place themselves above their fellow man (or woman) and condemn those who only God can condemn.  They are not serving God but self-serving and selfishly placing themselves in the role of being as one with God. 

Love one another and accept the next man as he is for this is the teaching of the Lord.   

Decision making is a big part of everyday life.  There are some decisions that are easier to make than others.  These decisions are the ones that are not quite so important and can be dealt with in a split second.  There are other decisions that are important ones and cannot be decided in a moment.  It takes a long time to decide about life or faith and how to approach these important decisions.  Taking your time and addressing each issue carefully and slowly is a sure way to make a good decisions and to live a good life. 

Oftentimes long lasting decisions that are made in the spur of the moment come to an easy and quick demise once put into practice and found to be faulty.  It's a rather lackadaisical approach to make life decisions quickly and figure that if it doesn't work out, another quick change of thought can be a solution to the problem. 

In order to be successful, it is important to take life seriously and the decisions that lead to a good life should be viewed with all seriousness and approached cautiously and carefully.

There is a lot of talk about living in the moment which leads one to believe that anyone who lives in the moment doesn't care about what tomorrow is about to bring.  We are living in a world that is more interested in immediate pleasures than in what living and being successful is all about. 

Decisions that are made between two people or those that are made for the benefit of a family are the concern of those two people or that family only.  Only the ones who are making the decisions have a clear view of what they are striving for, what their intentions are and how they wish to achieve their goals. 

There may be a right way to do a thing that works only for the ones who are deciding what to do and a different way for others.  Just because one person believes they are doing the right thing doesn't necessarily mean it is also the right thing for someone else.  It is important not to impose our own beliefs on someone else who may not view a situation the same way as we might.

When it comes to making decisions concerning faith, concerning love, concerning marriage, concerning life, it is important to study the issues that are important to each subject and to decide accordingly.  Once that decisions is made, it is even more important to stand firm upon the conclusions that were reached and to never allow anyone to object or draw you away from  what you are doing.  These subjects are entirely between you and God and should be left alone by the outside world. 

Once we compromise our thoughts or our beliefs or our goals, we move further and further away from what our intentions started out to be.  Once we compromise, we begin to loose our morals and our standards and our values and once we begin down the path of compromise, it is very hard to return to the correct path.  It is very hard to loose sight of the truth and become enmeshed in the ways of the world. 

Always stand firmly upon your faith and upon your decisions and never allow yourself to be lead along the wrong path for that path leads away from God's pleasure. 

  2 Thess 2:13-17

There has been a lot of prattle about tolerance and intolerance which comes from putting religion before God.  There seem to be some who believe that God is going to choose according to which church we belong too but all we seem to be doing it putting a wider and wider gulf between us by placing a stigma or a label upon each other. 

For an example, Vitt proclaims himself a pagan.  There are many who believe this is intolerable and there are many who think they are giving themselves a big pat on the back for tolerating a pagan in our midst.  I don't know why suddenly we are thinking that we can brown-nose our way into Heaven by making a big deal out of being tolerant to others who don't believe or don't follow our ways. 

I say this:  As far as I'm concerned, Vit is not a pagan, he is a person.  If it is his desire to speak concerning his beliefs,  he does so as a person first and in this he and others like him are as welcome as any to express a view on my blog. 

What we cannot tolerate are these stigma and labels which cause seperation between people.  The only way we can achieve equality is in the belief that we are all people, one and the same.  Jesus Christ Himself accepted all types of people into His circle and even when others complained over His choice, He taught that we must accept all who hear His call. 

By saying that we are tolerant of another puts the other at a lower level than we believe ourselves to be.  By doing so, we convince ourselves that we have done a good thing by raising up to our level someone who is beneath us or does not share our same intelligence. 

It is through our example in the way that we live and in the way that we treat others that gives someone else inspiration to improve their lives or agree with our choices.  We cannot achieve this by making someone feel less than we are by saying that we are just tolerating them  or making them feel like a "special case" to better ourselves. 

Treat others as people, equals and each of us can speak with confidence at the same place and on the same level and neither have to be tolerant nor intolerant of another person.    

There are times in our lifes when our faith comes into question and we are put to the test.  It is important first of all to understand that having your faith tested is a good experience, not a bad one since we are able to strengthen ourselves and become stronger or more focused on our beliefs and our understanding. 

The Lord tests us to make us better people and He gives us disciplines so we can take a look at ourselves and decide whether or not we are heading along the right path.  If we have gone wrong, it is an excellent opportunity to set ourselves back upon the path on which we belong. 

It seems as though many times we are tested by being confronted by those who live their lives much differently than we do and have very different opinions on how life should be lived.  Those challenges are simple ones and we can easily see where the situation is so wrong that we do not wish to follow along that same path. Therefore our beliefs are made stronger and we resolve ourselves to make better decisions and have a stronger focus.

At other times, we are tested in ways that are the least expected.  These are the times when our beliefs are put into question by someone who we expect to trust and who is expected to lead us in the right direction. 

We are living in a world where everyone seems to suddenly be sliding backwards and living lives that are quite unacceptable.  And it is getting to the point where what was once unacceptable is now being accepted as simply the way life is.  I have to ask if we shouldn't become more and more ready to question what is going on around us and make a strong attempt to make our lives better than what we are so constantly seeing around us.

Someone who is strong will never accept anything that is unacceptable and would not shrug it off as being what everyone else is doing.  It is important to question and it is important to make independent decisions particularly when it comes to the way we are living our lives.

We are living to please God and to obtain Heaven not to please ourselves and do as we like or what we feel like doing at the moment.  Momentary pleasures have no lasting momentum and can lead one no where in life.  

If you are discussing faith and someone rebukes your faith or treats it as though it is non-existance, beware.  Yet not only beware but go home and strengthen yourself knowing that you are being tested and must take the opportunity to make yourself better in the Face of God. 

Hebrews 12:1-13

James 1:2-18   

Many years ago, when one attended a church service, the Priest (they were all Catholics way back then) would read from the Bible in Latin.  Now Latin was okay if you were a member of the clergy or a member of Royality because you could read, write and speak Latin but not so if you were just a common ordinary citizen.  If you were a common ordinary citizen, Latin was a whole lot of jibberish and meant nothing to you. 

Back in those days, the Church believed all ordinary people were unintelligent idiots and ignorant bumpkins.  No one but a member of the church was allowed to read the Bible, no one was allowed to understand what it said and no one was allowed to understand the instructions within the Word of God.  In this way, the church could tell the people anything they wanted to.  They could deceive and exploit the people all they wanted to and never be questioned nor denied what they were instructing.  The Church held ultimate power of the people and held the Bible above the people as a tool to inspire fear. 

Along came Martin Luther who was himself a member of the Church.  He could read and write Latin and he could read the Bible; and he understood how the people were being deceived by the church.  Luther was angered by this; it was unfair and deceptive and not at all the teaching of Christ. 

Luther did a lot of things to help the people and he did a lot of things to anger the Church. One of the things he did was translate the Bible into German.  He gave the Bible to the people and now anyone could read the Bible and everyone could understand the Bible.  And all these people suddenly realized to what extent they had been deceived by the Church.  People started to leave the Church and hold meetings in private houses and cellars and barns and they read the Bible; that mystical, magical book that had been withheld from them for years and years and years now belonged to the people just as it was intended. 

This angered the Church because the Church no longer held power over the people; the people held power over the Church.  In an attempt to end this, the  Church declared it illegal to own a Bible.  Anyone who was caught with a Bible could be burned at the stake--a taste of Hell on Earth.   

The attitude of the Churches towards the people has not changed much since the time of Luther.  People like you and I are still considered, by the Church, to be too stupid to read the Bible.  We are idiots and we are ignorant; we are not worthy of understanding the Bible. It is not for us to understand; only the Church can explain the Bible because the Church thinks we are too stupid.  The Church sets their members up as Supreme Deities who were given the Word of God to translate as they will to the lowly people who are too ignorant to understand. 

The last thing the Church wants is for the people to hold power: the power to understand the word of God; the knowledge to make a decision concerning what the Bible is teaching us.  The Church wants to make all decisions and, just like in the days of Luther, the Church wants the power to inspire fear; to brainwash the people into believing their decisions are supreme and we are unworthy to make those decisions.

Luther gave the Bible to the people and the Church wishes to take it away.  And as long as they tell people again and again and again that they are unworthy, that they are stupid, ignorant, idiots, they know sooner or later everyone will believe that and the people will again be within the power of the Church. 

I have to wonder what is so hard to understand in the Bible that it is off-limits to the people.  What is so hard about:

In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth. Gen 1:1

The Lord is my shephard, I shall not want. Psalm 23:1

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth Matt 5:5   

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. John 14:6

Read your Bible.  It belongs to the people, not the churches.  Never allow anyone to browbeat you or tell you you are unworthy or too stupid to read or understand the Word of God.  And never allow anyone to force feed you their version of the meaning of God's word.  You decide for yourself and use your mind to think, to consider and to believe. 

The church shudders when it hears the words FAITH, BELIEF, TRUST, GRACE, TRUTH AND LOVE.  What they understand is POWER AND MIND CONTROL. 

Faith is a belief in the trustworthiness of an idea that one has not been proven formally and cannot prove formally. In short, it is belief in the absence of evidence.

Faith is the acceptance of a idea without explanation.  It is an idea that is accepted at face value, in all it's simplicity, without question and without thought. 

If posed with a statement that concerns a leap of faith, no explanation is necessary.  Only a non-believer would go to great lengths to explain away or excuse a concept presented to them that requires a leap of faith.  When one believes to the full extent, it is unnecessary to question; unnecessary to explain. 

God asks a great deal of the faithful.  He guides us and shows us the way through His Word and through the teachings of Christ.  In many ways, it takes a great deal to blindly accept the teachings of God; to do so without question, without thought, without explanation. 

We are taught that only through innocence can one achieve true faith.  We are taught to be as children in our beliefs and to accept as do children, in all their simplicity and in all their innocence. 

 'This people honors me with their lips,
   but their heart is far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
   teaching as doctrines the commandments of men

Matthew 15-8:9

People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."                                                   
   

 Luke 18:15-17