Don Cobb
If nothing changes, nothing changes
By Don Cobb
So I talk a lot about how 'Self' gets in the way of our relationship with God. I've talked about how selfish we've gotten here in America and how our children and our families pick up the tab for our self-centeredness. Now I'm going to talk about our part when it comes to our spirituality, our relationship with our Creator and religion.
Throughout the Bible (and the Torah and the Koran) we're given instructions. "Worry about nothing and pray about everything," for example. They are commands, not suggestions, although we collectively no longer take God's word seriously in America because we've sold our souls — one person at a time — in exchange for being the arbiter of our own Destiny. The problem with being in control of our future is that, well, we're not in control of our future. Surely, if God weren't involved, we would be. We could make decisions and they would cause this-or-that to happen as we planned, and then we would make new decisions which would bring about the glorious life we'd love to be leading...but it doesn't work that way. This life isn't our creation. This life is a gift to each of us which we get to experience, and it is God's creation. He has plans for us. Virtually all of us get that from time to time, as what we call "coincidences" unfold right before our eyes, which aren't "coincidences" at all, but are really God incidences, times in which His will unfolds before us. But when we've chosen not to seek Him, our world begins to turn upside down. Upside down in even the instructions I mentioned above. We do the opposite of what God tells us. We worry about everything and pray about nothing, for example. Completely upside down, that.
GOD'S PLANS FOR US: So as America has become more Self-reliant and Self-centered and Self-obsessed, God had clearly taken His hands off of our nation, as He does with us individually when we show Him we aren't interested in walking with Him. Did you know that He does that? He lets us walk away from Him, if that's what we want to do. It's called "Free Will" and He gave it to us. If we don't want to seek Him, we don't have to. The problem with choosing not to follow the Lord is obvious. Look around our nation and at the changes which have taken place since we began 40 years of turning our back on God, kicking him out of the schoolrooms, taking down His commandments from public places. Our nation is no longer safe. We can't leave our keys in our cars parked in front of our houses anymore, like we did 40 years ago. We can't leave our homes unlocked when we leave. Children are killing children, and are commonly loaded on dope as young as 8 years old now. Molestation is the norm for girls. It's the norm, now. Honesty is no longer anyone's policy, except for the folks who follow God. Honesty isn't even expected anymore in advertising, in communicating with our neighbors, in dealing with local merchants. In fact, it's considered extraordinary when someone does something honest these days! Our marriages are under attack as Wife becomes adversarial with Husband and vice-versa. Children are being raised in homes where Selfishness is modeled more than anything, many never afforded a real connection with their parents who are simply personally disconnected themselves. Our politicians are more corrupt than ever, stealing from us right in front of our eyes now, with their supposed "bail out" which is really just taking our money and giving to their friends, and we do nothing.
We can't do anything. We're trapped. We've become trapped in Self-centeredness, whereas anything that isn't happening directly to us isn't our concern any longer. NIMBY (not in my back yard) is the order of the day now. No longer does one citizen look out for another unless they are either Codependent or homosexual. No one is protecting our freedom of speech any longer. The ACLU has been taken over by Communists and only fights for homosexuals and Atheists now. No one is protecting our Freedom of Religion anymore, either. Quite the contrary, in fact. Selfish Liberals are attacking Religion now, trying their best to eliminate Christians from the public landscape, from our schools, from the courtrooms — They're trying to eliminate Christianity from America, and everyone just sits there, doing nothing.
Is this God's plan for us? Is this God's plan for America, do you think? Is this how it's supposed to go, or has God simply taken His hands off of us to let us excercise our Free Will and all that comes with it? It's the latter. No question, and no doubt about that.
RUNNIN' WITH THE DEVIL: When I say "all that comes with" Free Will, of course you know what I'm referring to. Like a child who bolts from home to set out on their own, to be the arbiter of their own Life, the Father can no longer protect them. They've walked away from him, and now must fend for themselves, and he lets them do that. Oh, he'll welcome then home if they ever decide they need him again...typically. But once on their own, they are subject to the lack of experience, and the lack of wisdom that comes from that lack of experience, to Life on Life's terms, to attacks by evil and those who do evil. They are subject to walking in the dark, hoping everything will be okay. But everything will not be okay. Unlike the protection afforded us by our families and by our fathers who love us, the world doesn't have a lot of love to offer. Even those who purport to be full of tolerance are liars who have no tolerance when it comes to people who don't think as they do. Away from the protection of the Father, truth is no longer truth. It becomes a matter of opinion, and magically turns into "my truth" and "your truth" and THE truth is cast aside and denied by those already entrapped by selfishness and the enemy.
Oh, we love booze and drugs and anything that makes us feel better and we love the illusion that we're trying to project to the world about who we are. We love pretending we're normal and that we're in control and that we can do this and no one can tell us what to do. We love living in a Dream World because we can pretend anything we want to pretend, and unless there is someone who takes their Spiritual walk seriously or who is simply honest, no one will say a damn thing to disturb our Unreality. But what we don't know can hurt us. What we can't see can kill us. AIDS. Malaria. Cancer. The Devil.
When we make the decision not to seek God or to seek Real Truth and we turn away from Him and walk away, we're not just walking away from Him. We're also walking toward something else. When we don't believe in things of a Spiritual nature, it doesn't make them not exist. There are spirits and demons and demonic entities that are here with us, just like there is our Creator. We see evidence of our Creator all around us, from the DNA which all living matter is comprised of, to the "coincidences" which occur in all of our lives, to the incredible balance of both nature and the universe, in which if this planet tipped even 1 degree differently this planet would be barren of Life, to the answered prayers that all who are prayerful witness, healings and resurrected relationships, for example. The evidence of our Creator is all around us, but not when we can't see past the nose on our own face. Self-centeredness, by it's very nature causing us to think only about our Selves and not about the world around us or how we might influence our world, blinds us to the Truth and causes us not to be able to see what is obvious. Blinded by Self, separate from God's protection, we become an easy target for the Enemy, the evil spirits which dwell here with us, too.
But Selfishness causes complete blindness, not just partial blindness. We can't see God or the plethora of evidence around us of Him at work, nor can we see the devil and his minions who are busy planting thoughts in peoples' heads to drive them deeper into Self and to "look out for number 1" and convincing them that "It's all about me," talking people into murdering, raping, stealing, molesting children, lying, gossiping, using drugs to destroy their own bodies and lives. Those who are Spiritually developed (i.e. seek God) see the enemy at work. They see the evidence of the enemy who, we're warned, came to kill, steal and destroy. They can see past the nose on their face because they've been given eyes to see the Truth, while those trapped in self-centeredness are rendered completely blind by the enemy. It's as if the enemy is sitting on our shoulders with both of his hands covering our eyes, turning our head this way and that way, pointing us toward Selfishness and separating us from our loved ones, using us to destroy what God has put together (marriage and family and our planet).
Sure, runnin' with the devil has it's advantages, but it also comes with a cost. The immediate cost is blindness. The ultimate cost is death. Our family relationships strained and then destroyed. Our hope lost. Our future goes from bright to dark at that point where we become old enough to make a decision, the most important decision we'll ever make: His way or my way. When we choose to seek God, some amazing things begin to happen.
I still haven't gotten to our part about when it comes to Religion. Oh, I'll get there. I'm just preparing you with a little Truth before I open the door to Reality...
© Don Cobb
February 20, 2009
So I talk a lot about how 'Self' gets in the way of our relationship with God. I've talked about how selfish we've gotten here in America and how our children and our families pick up the tab for our self-centeredness. Now I'm going to talk about our part when it comes to our spirituality, our relationship with our Creator and religion.
Throughout the Bible (and the Torah and the Koran) we're given instructions. "Worry about nothing and pray about everything," for example. They are commands, not suggestions, although we collectively no longer take God's word seriously in America because we've sold our souls — one person at a time — in exchange for being the arbiter of our own Destiny. The problem with being in control of our future is that, well, we're not in control of our future. Surely, if God weren't involved, we would be. We could make decisions and they would cause this-or-that to happen as we planned, and then we would make new decisions which would bring about the glorious life we'd love to be leading...but it doesn't work that way. This life isn't our creation. This life is a gift to each of us which we get to experience, and it is God's creation. He has plans for us. Virtually all of us get that from time to time, as what we call "coincidences" unfold right before our eyes, which aren't "coincidences" at all, but are really God incidences, times in which His will unfolds before us. But when we've chosen not to seek Him, our world begins to turn upside down. Upside down in even the instructions I mentioned above. We do the opposite of what God tells us. We worry about everything and pray about nothing, for example. Completely upside down, that.
GOD'S PLANS FOR US: So as America has become more Self-reliant and Self-centered and Self-obsessed, God had clearly taken His hands off of our nation, as He does with us individually when we show Him we aren't interested in walking with Him. Did you know that He does that? He lets us walk away from Him, if that's what we want to do. It's called "Free Will" and He gave it to us. If we don't want to seek Him, we don't have to. The problem with choosing not to follow the Lord is obvious. Look around our nation and at the changes which have taken place since we began 40 years of turning our back on God, kicking him out of the schoolrooms, taking down His commandments from public places. Our nation is no longer safe. We can't leave our keys in our cars parked in front of our houses anymore, like we did 40 years ago. We can't leave our homes unlocked when we leave. Children are killing children, and are commonly loaded on dope as young as 8 years old now. Molestation is the norm for girls. It's the norm, now. Honesty is no longer anyone's policy, except for the folks who follow God. Honesty isn't even expected anymore in advertising, in communicating with our neighbors, in dealing with local merchants. In fact, it's considered extraordinary when someone does something honest these days! Our marriages are under attack as Wife becomes adversarial with Husband and vice-versa. Children are being raised in homes where Selfishness is modeled more than anything, many never afforded a real connection with their parents who are simply personally disconnected themselves. Our politicians are more corrupt than ever, stealing from us right in front of our eyes now, with their supposed "bail out" which is really just taking our money and giving to their friends, and we do nothing.
We can't do anything. We're trapped. We've become trapped in Self-centeredness, whereas anything that isn't happening directly to us isn't our concern any longer. NIMBY (not in my back yard) is the order of the day now. No longer does one citizen look out for another unless they are either Codependent or homosexual. No one is protecting our freedom of speech any longer. The ACLU has been taken over by Communists and only fights for homosexuals and Atheists now. No one is protecting our Freedom of Religion anymore, either. Quite the contrary, in fact. Selfish Liberals are attacking Religion now, trying their best to eliminate Christians from the public landscape, from our schools, from the courtrooms — They're trying to eliminate Christianity from America, and everyone just sits there, doing nothing.
Is this God's plan for us? Is this God's plan for America, do you think? Is this how it's supposed to go, or has God simply taken His hands off of us to let us excercise our Free Will and all that comes with it? It's the latter. No question, and no doubt about that.
RUNNIN' WITH THE DEVIL: When I say "all that comes with" Free Will, of course you know what I'm referring to. Like a child who bolts from home to set out on their own, to be the arbiter of their own Life, the Father can no longer protect them. They've walked away from him, and now must fend for themselves, and he lets them do that. Oh, he'll welcome then home if they ever decide they need him again...typically. But once on their own, they are subject to the lack of experience, and the lack of wisdom that comes from that lack of experience, to Life on Life's terms, to attacks by evil and those who do evil. They are subject to walking in the dark, hoping everything will be okay. But everything will not be okay. Unlike the protection afforded us by our families and by our fathers who love us, the world doesn't have a lot of love to offer. Even those who purport to be full of tolerance are liars who have no tolerance when it comes to people who don't think as they do. Away from the protection of the Father, truth is no longer truth. It becomes a matter of opinion, and magically turns into "my truth" and "your truth" and THE truth is cast aside and denied by those already entrapped by selfishness and the enemy.
Oh, we love booze and drugs and anything that makes us feel better and we love the illusion that we're trying to project to the world about who we are. We love pretending we're normal and that we're in control and that we can do this and no one can tell us what to do. We love living in a Dream World because we can pretend anything we want to pretend, and unless there is someone who takes their Spiritual walk seriously or who is simply honest, no one will say a damn thing to disturb our Unreality. But what we don't know can hurt us. What we can't see can kill us. AIDS. Malaria. Cancer. The Devil.
When we make the decision not to seek God or to seek Real Truth and we turn away from Him and walk away, we're not just walking away from Him. We're also walking toward something else. When we don't believe in things of a Spiritual nature, it doesn't make them not exist. There are spirits and demons and demonic entities that are here with us, just like there is our Creator. We see evidence of our Creator all around us, from the DNA which all living matter is comprised of, to the "coincidences" which occur in all of our lives, to the incredible balance of both nature and the universe, in which if this planet tipped even 1 degree differently this planet would be barren of Life, to the answered prayers that all who are prayerful witness, healings and resurrected relationships, for example. The evidence of our Creator is all around us, but not when we can't see past the nose on our own face. Self-centeredness, by it's very nature causing us to think only about our Selves and not about the world around us or how we might influence our world, blinds us to the Truth and causes us not to be able to see what is obvious. Blinded by Self, separate from God's protection, we become an easy target for the Enemy, the evil spirits which dwell here with us, too.
But Selfishness causes complete blindness, not just partial blindness. We can't see God or the plethora of evidence around us of Him at work, nor can we see the devil and his minions who are busy planting thoughts in peoples' heads to drive them deeper into Self and to "look out for number 1" and convincing them that "It's all about me," talking people into murdering, raping, stealing, molesting children, lying, gossiping, using drugs to destroy their own bodies and lives. Those who are Spiritually developed (i.e. seek God) see the enemy at work. They see the evidence of the enemy who, we're warned, came to kill, steal and destroy. They can see past the nose on their face because they've been given eyes to see the Truth, while those trapped in self-centeredness are rendered completely blind by the enemy. It's as if the enemy is sitting on our shoulders with both of his hands covering our eyes, turning our head this way and that way, pointing us toward Selfishness and separating us from our loved ones, using us to destroy what God has put together (marriage and family and our planet).
Sure, runnin' with the devil has it's advantages, but it also comes with a cost. The immediate cost is blindness. The ultimate cost is death. Our family relationships strained and then destroyed. Our hope lost. Our future goes from bright to dark at that point where we become old enough to make a decision, the most important decision we'll ever make: His way or my way. When we choose to seek God, some amazing things begin to happen.
I still haven't gotten to our part about when it comes to Religion. Oh, I'll get there. I'm just preparing you with a little Truth before I open the door to Reality...
© Don Cobb
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