BTS (sort of) 11/20/13

We're about a week away from Thanksgiving and I just wanted to say hi to anybody reading these (which I believe isn't many, but that's ok).  There haven't been any updates in a while.  Just wanted to let you know that Paul's hard at work drawing issue 2 and I'm (Scott) hard at work writing issue 3.  For issue 1 Paul would put out a page or two every week or so but he's decided that it'll be quicker in the long run if he does the entire issue at once so he's completing the entire 2nd issue before he releases it to the site.  So that means that there won't be any updates for a while which is why I haven't updated the blog for a while either.  It seems kind of pointless since this is secondary to the comic. 

Anyway, hopefully issue 2 will be up in about a month, I'll have issue 3 finished and ready to be drawn by then, and also I may have a chapter of my new book to add to Gorillahead. 

Have a good Thanksgiving.

Scott Snyder
edgiscript3@yahoo.com

Deeper 10: We are greater than God

Ok, I admit, part of my reason for adding that title was to pop your eyes out of your head and make you want to read on, but please bear with me.  There is a valid point to be made. 

 

How many times are we encouraged to bless God?  King David said it several times.

Psalms 103:1 (HRV) – “Bless YHWH, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His set-apart name.”

And yet, the apostle Shaul/Paul had this to say about blessing.

Hebrews 7:7 (HRV) – “And behold this no one disputes:  that the lesser is blessed by the greater.”

So if we are to bless God, and the greater blesses the latter, then this leads us to the obvious question and stunning thought.  Are we greater than God? 

Yes, we are.  We are greater than God by His design in one aspect and one aspect alone:  Freedom.

Psalms 111:10a (HRV) – “The fear of YHWH is the beginning of wisdom;”

To fear God means to acknowledge and respect who He is.  To fear is to bow.  To fear is to worship.  Fearing God is recognizing that He is King and Lord and Ruler of all even if you hate that fact.  To Fear YHWH is to come face to face with Him and say, “You’re God.  I am not.”

BUT this is only the beginning of wisdom.  It was never meant to end there.  YHWH wanted us to grow.  He wanted us to become His true love.  It’s one thing to acknowledge that He is God and to bend your knee to Him.  It’s quite another to enthusiastically embrace Him.

1 John 4:19 (HRV) – “Therefore, we love Eloah (God) because he first loved us.” 

A friend of mine said once that he loves God because He is God and therefore deserves our love.  I told him what I'm telling you now.  That's not true.  We bow because He is God.  We love because He chose to love us first.  He didn’t have to.  If we become separated from God, He continues on, we don’t.  He doesn’t need us, we need Him.  He gave us life and then He gave us His life on the cross.  Everything He has done has been for the purpose of unifying us with Him.  He never had to create us in the first place.  This is why we love, because He gave us everything.  He loved us first.  We fear Him because He is God.  We love Him because He first loved us.

In order to have true love, there needs to be the freedom to choose not to love.  Without the freedom to disobey and walk away, there is no love on our part.  If I hold out my hand and ask you to love me and you take it, that expresses love.  If I hold out a gun to your head and ask you to love me, and you concede, that fails to express true love.  Love forced is not love at all.  An atheistic friend of mine once asked me, if God exists then why doesn’t He remove all doubt and reveal Himself.  Why is faith required?  The response was simple.  Because if He did what you’re saying He should do, our freedom to choose would effectively be taken away.  You would no longer be able to truly love Him if you had no other real option. 

Having the freedom to chase Him doesn’t make all of our choices correct.  Even in our freedom, He is still the King and His supreme authority has not gone away.  We’re told we’ve been set free from the law of sin and death, and yet Jesus/Yeshua said that He did not come to destroy the law, so the law still applies.  How do we reconcile this?

Romans 6:16-18 – “Do you not know that to whom you present your nefesh** for service, you must obey?  You are the servants of that one whom you obey, whether to sin or to the obedience of righteousness.  But thanks [be] to Eloah, because you were servants of sin, but [now] you have obeyed from the heart the form of teaching to which you are committed.  And when you were freed from sin, you were made subject to righteousness.” 

(** = Meaning of nefesh, quoted from Hebraic Roots Version, Translation issues, page LX.  “The Hebrew word NEFESH is a very ambiguous word which simply cannot be rendered well into English.  NEFESH can mean ‘soul, life or self’ and often carries connotations of combinations of those meanings at the same time.  In order to properly convey the real usage of this word to the reader I have in most cases, in the New Testament, transliterated the word NEFESH into the English text.”)

These verses speak of freedom from sin, and yet they’re constantly talking about obedience.  We’ve been given the freedom to find Him, not the freedom to create our own way and call it good.  When the bible says that we are freed from the law of sin and death, it is not a manifesto by God allowing us to ignore everything or anything He has given us, but rather it’s saying that by way of Jesus’ blood paying our penalty, the penalty of death no longer can be required of us.  In other words, we’re no longer destined to die as a result of our sin, but we may instead fall upon Jesus’ death and resurrection as having paid our burden.

Romans says that when we are freed from sin, we are made subject to righteousness.  This is why Paul, who understood the freedom he had in Christ, continued to refer to himself as a bondservant or a slave.  We no longer obey out of fear of reprisal, but we now obey out of love because it’s what He wants and it makes Him happy.  Think about it this way.  If you’re courting the love of your life and he or she hates peas and you know this, then if you’re having him or her over for dinner, you won’t prepare peas.  You will not obey that “law” because you’re afraid of being beaten.  You will obey because you love them enough to avoid hurting them even if you love peas.  When God says, “This is who I am and what I want done,” when we ignore that and respond, “That’s too bad, God, because I’m doing it my way,” who are we worshipping?  Who are we obeying?  God or ourselves?  We have the freedom to do it our way, but that doesn’t mean every single choice we make pleases Him. 

A bad choice doesn't necessarily mean we're sinning either.  It just means we're  not finding Him and therefore not growing closer to Him in the way we should be.  Playing Mario Kart all day long isn't sinful in and of itself.  But what if God has told you in some way that you should spend your time in prayer this day and you instead decide to obey your own desires and play games?  And what if you say, "I'm free from the law of sin and death so I can do whatever I want and I find God in this game"?  The answer is simple.  Yes, we do have the freedom to do whatever we want, but just because you say God wants you to find Him in that game doesn't make it right, and your disobedience is causing you and He needless suffering as a result. 

Have you ever heard of Preacher’s Kid Syndrome or Church Kid Syndrome?  This is the name given when the children of the preacher or the kids who grow up in the church are the worst behaved kids around.  Why is this happening?  Of course it’s not an absolute, but it happens often enough to give it a name.  And the fact is that church attendance is increasingly shrinking.  If a church is growing it’s usually not because of a revival, but because other churches are closing their doors.  Kids who grow up in the church are not coming back to church when they’re out on their own.  Why?

I believe that in part it’s because our churches are full of platitudes and programs, but not an honest search for a living God.  Our churches lack the true freedom to genuinely seek YHWH and then to let YHWH lead us where He wants us to go.  So we’re not finding a God of life.  We’re finding a man-made God of platitudes and rules.  Our kids, and us too if we’re honest, are hungry for life, and since they’re not finding it in our churches they’re looking elsewhere.  (And please don't feel like I'm saying every single church is a cookie-cutter version of every other church.  This is a generality and does not apply equally in every situation.)

If you’re one of those “kids,” whether you're nine or ninety, my prayer for you today is that you have the courage to follow your heart’s desire to truly seek His life, His face and His love.  There are many in churches today who can help and want to help.  I’m not decrying everyone who attends church.  But I hope you recognize that even the best out there are just as imperfect as you are.  A lot of bad advice has been given to me over the years from very good intentioned people just as it has been given to you.  I hope you understand that He wants to be found.  The journey was made difficult to prove your heart’s desire.  You've got to find His truth in the midst of all of the lies.  If you seek Him, and I mean if you TRULY seek him, he WILL be found. 

 

Go for it.

Scott Snyder

Edgiscript3@yahoo.com

BTS: 11/22/13 I-Con come and gone

Hey, gang.  What's up?

Normally I try to rotate my behind the scenes stuff with my "Deeper" stuff, but we just finished I-Con last Saturday and I wanted to give my report. 

First of all, I got some cool pics of Batman, Spider-Man, Stormtroopers, a Minecraft guy and more.  Ok, I admit I'm biased towards Spider-Man, but I've got to say that I thought the most creative idea for a costume was Cyclops re-imagined as a steam-punk character. 

Second, my son absolutely freaked out when I showed him the plush-doll Dalek that I got for him.  He (gasp) hugged me.  He even hugged me in front of people.  He's put it right beside the TV in our living room. 

And third, I want to say thank you to the ninjas in training that continued providing us with candy for the entire day.  It was more than just the sugar rush, guys.  It was the fact that it was just too cool watching you BAMF out and then BAMF back in with candy.  (If you have to ask what "BAMF" means, then you're not a licensed nerd.) 

:)

It was a blast seeing all of the people.  The, as I like to call it, Massive Mystical Tome was once again a huge hit.  I lost count as to how many people lit up when they saw that they could open it.  One person became absorbed in it and quietly read the whole thing.  Everyone who checked it out was impressed.  It was very encouraging to see the reactions we were getting from people. 

Once again we gave away a ton of free stuff.  It really helps draw people in when you're not asking them for money.  You know that feeling that you get when you're at the state fair or some other similar location with dozens or even hundreds of neat booths and attractions, and you want to see them all, but at the same time you know that each one of them wants you to spend all of your money there?  It was so cool seeing the transformation on people who passed by our booth:  Passing by not wanting to make eye contact, to semi-interested because of a free comic, to stunned that we were giving away everything, to jaw-dropping amazed at the MMT (Massive Mystical Tome). 

Thanks to everyone that stopped by and thanks to everyone that keeps tabs on us online.  My fondest hope is that through us the Holy Spirit is inspiring and encouraging somebody out there.  More than one would be nice, but I won't get greedy.  :)

Briefly, here's our tentative plan for the future.  Finish issue 2 (story and pencils as it looks now) by the end of the year and finish through issue 4 by summer 2014.  Then go back and finish all 4 issues with ink and color.  Once that is complete we'll see about putting that on various sites to download a digital version of it in graphic novel form.  Several people have asked about getting print copies.  Unfortunately, that won't happen right away.  We'd love to, but the financials simply aren't there at the moment. 

If you're checking us often for updates, I wanted to let you know that there will be a lengthy delay until issue 2 is ready.  I said in my last blog that Paul is taking a much needed break for a week or so.  Then, when he starts in on issue 2, he said he believes he could speed things up by working straight through on penciling the drawings and then go back and add all of the dialogue.  So there won't be a page up every couple of days.  If it works the whole thing will be up in one shot after a few months.  Or maybe large chunks of it will be out sooner.  We'll see what happens.  Either way, please be patient with us.  We want to get it to you as fast as we can.  Issue 2 gets into the spiritual warfare side of things and Martin wonders what God needs him for with Spiritman here.  Chelsea and Cameron want some answers as to what's going on too. 

And I'm going to start adding pieces of a story to Gorillahead.  I apologize that it will be in novel form and will not be added as a comic.  Paul can only draw so much at a time.  I don't want to kill him.  The story's title is called "Valid".  Sorry, but that's all the tease you get right now.  I'll drop other teases in later BTS posts.

For now, have fun.

Tanoshinde.  (I've been told that means "have fun" in Japanese.  I hope that I haven't been lied to and that it's actually something very offensive.)

Scott Snyder
edgiscript3@yahoo.com

Behind the scenes 11/15/13: I-Con coming up and Spiritman #1 complete

I-Con is this coming Saturday (11/19/13) in Des Moines, IA, and I'm looking forward to it.  But I'm even more excited that our first comic has been completed.  It's been up for a few days now and it just feels awesome. 

Paul's going to take a break for a couple of weeks and get some stuff done around the home that he's been neglecting while he's been working on Spiritman.  If you check back in the first part of November, something may be up by then.  I'm not sure. 

I've got a story that's been swirling around my head for a while.  I tried to turn it into a stage play at one point, but it was too big for that.  I turned it into a screenplay just to do it, but that didn't go anywhere.  So I thought, hey, why not change it up a little and add it to Gorillahead?  I was waiting until Paul was done with Spiritman #1 before starting to write Spiritman #3.  Spiritman #2 is finished and I didn't want to get too far ahead.  So now I'm working on that script and kind of dinking around with the other story.  So it's not my highest priority at the moment, but I'll try to get a chapter out before the end of the year.

So we'll see you at I-Con if you're going. 

Have fun

Scott Snyder
edgiscript3@yahoo.com

Deeper 9: Physical examples

In my last blog I made the statement, “So, in His grace, he gave us physical examples of His truths.  He gave us practice runs.  They were never intended to save us or make us perfect.  In and of themselves, they only have physical value and cannot affect our spirit other than as an example.  They were intended to reveal God to us in the only way we could understand at the time.”

Let me ask you this.  What made an Old Testament believer righteous in God’s eyes?  Most people I have asked say that it’s the shedding of the lamb’s blood on the Ark of the Covenant under the Mosaic law, but this is incorrect.  Noach/Noah was declared righteous as was Avraham/Abraham before Mosaic law and before the Children of Yisra’el/Israel even entered the promised land.  In fact, they were declared righteous before Ya’akov/Jacob (whose name YHWH changed to Yisra’el) was even born.  And let’s consider the people of Ninveh/Nineveh, a gentile city, for a moment.  Yonah/Jonah spoke the words that YHWH gave him, the people repented, and YHWH forgave them.  They made no pilgrimage to sacrifice at Yerushalayim/Jerusalem.  They sacrificed no lamb.  They placed no blood on the Ark of the Covenant.  And yet they were forgiven.

What made an “Old Testament” believer righteous in YHWH’s eyes was exactly the same thing that makes us righteous today.  It’s putting your trust and faith in YHWH.  We have the advantage of viewing Yeshua’s death and resurrection in the past, while they viewed it with hope for the future, but trusting that YHWH is our salvation and our lord is what makes both Avraham and I righteous.  We both have sinned, but we both fell upon YHWH's plan of salvation to rescue us from ourselves.

Avraham is called the father of the Jews, but we need to understand that he was a gentile.  There was no such thing as the Jewish people in his day.  He became the first Hebrew.  He wasn’t born that way.  The term “Hebrew” refers to one who crosses over. 

Genesis 12:1, 4a (HRV) – Now YHWH said unto Avram (Abram): ‘Get you out of your country, and from your kindred, and from your father’s house, unto the land that I will show you.’” – “So Avram went, as YHWH had spoken unto him;”

Avram traveled from a land known as Haran, where his father and family dwelt, into a land called Kena’an/Canaan.  To get there, he had to cross a river.  Crossing the physical river didn’t make Avram righteous.  Crossing over from following and obeying his own selfish desires to following and obeying YHWH was what made him righteous.  The physical crossing was representative of this.  Every single one of us that have decided to put our faith in YHWH, to accept Yeshua’s sacrifice on the cross for our sins, and to make YHWH our savior and lord are Hebrews.  Some will say we're not truly Hebrews, we're only spiritual Hebrews, but I say  that that's exactly what matters.  We have crossed over from death into life.  No matter how we were all born, we were all gentiles separated from His promises until we chose to be a part of His kingdom.  Your physical race, gender, nationality, whatever, is all irrelevant to your spiritual condition. 

I said before that YHWH is perfect and timeless and too many Christians treat the Old Testament like it’s been done away with.  Too many Christians treat the Old Testament like it should be ignored.  BUT, the reverse is also true.  If we hang on to the physical laws of the Old Testament as if they have the power to save us, we deny the spiritual truth they were pointing to.  We think we’re holding to God’s truth, but we’re unwittingly calling God a liar by declaring that there’s more to salvation than the cross of Yeshua. 

Most of us fail in this way too, whether we know it or not.  In fact, almost all of us fall into both categories.  The path is straight and narrow and it's easy to swerve both right and left off of it from time to time.  We both treat the Old Testament as if it’s irrelevant, AND we hold on to Old Testament laws as if they’re required as part of our salvation.  How many of us believe we have to be in church on a certain day because the Old Testament says to honor the Sabbath, but we ignore the parts about eating pork because it smells and tastes too good?  How many of us believe that getting dunked in a tub of water is essential to salvation but don't care at all about following the Feasts of the Lord that YHWH said were everlasting convocations?  When we pick and choose which to follow and which to ignore, we’re creating a religion of our own and we're rewriting God to be what we want Him to be and not who He is.

The truth is, as I said before, YHWH is perfect and the entirety of what He gave to Moshe/Moses and the prophets is perfect, BUT it was limited to a physical level that they could understand at the time.  ALL of it pointed the way to Yeshua.  Yeshua Himself said that He did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it.  We need to understand the Old Testament and interpret the New Testament according to what YHWH gave us in the first place because it’s ALL perfect and it ALL lines up with itself, but NONE of the physical laws He gave us matter at all other than to give us physical representations.  They are tools that help us understand.  They are not our salvation. 

This doesn’t mean they’re worthless to us now.  It just means we have to translate them spiritually.  This is what Yeshua began to show us when He came as a man.  He said Mosaic law tells us that picking up a knife and plunging it into a man’s chest makes us a murderer, but He said that hanging on to hatred in your heart is what really makes you guilty of that sin.  Mosaic law tells us that having sexual congress with someone not your spouse makes you an adulterer, but He said that holding on to lust in your heart for another makes you guilty of the sin of adultery.  The physical sinful actions reveal to the world the sins of our hearts that had already been committed.

YHWH wants our hearts.  If our hearts are His, our thoughts will follow.  If our thoughts are His, our words will follow.  If our words are His, our actions will follow.  Physical actions should be the revealer of a pure heart, but physical actions are not our salvation. 

The Old Testament says we need to be dunked in water.  Spiritual truth it points to:  We need to be immersed in Yeshua and let Him wash away the death in our lives and make us holy.  Water is a physical example of cleaning that we can see and understand.  The Old Testament says we shouldn’t touch dead things.  Spiritual truth:  We need to avoid ideas and teachings that lead us down a way that seems right to a man but only leads to death.  Picking up a dead animal and getting sick because of it is a physical example we can understand.  The Old Testament says we need to give YHWH Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown, or in other words, the Sabbath day (It's not even Sunday people).  Spiritual truth it points to:  We need to intimately commune with Him and not just do His works out of a sense of duty.  We need to maintain a loving relationship with Him.  The Old Testament says we need to kill a perfect lamb and place its blood on an altar for our sins.  Spiritual truth it points to:  You must accept the blood sacrifice of Yeshua for you.  The physical laws were all perfect REPRESENTATIONS that had no power in and of themselves AND STILL DON'T.  This doesn’t mean the physical laws don’t have physical value.  (For crying out loud, we need to “baptize” ourselves all the time.  You do bathe regularly, don’t you?  Don’t you?)  It just means that their real lasting value lies in the spiritual truths they were meant to reveal. 

He whom the Son has set free is free indeed.  Are you someone who hates church because of the rules and regulations, the demands placed upon you, and all of the pomp and circumstances that go along with it?  My prayer for you today is that you will see YHWH as He truly is and not what we’ve turned Him into.

“I don’t object to the concept of a deity, but I’m baffled by the notion of one that takes attendance.”

          -          Amy Farrah Fowler, “The Big Bang Theory”

Scott Snyder
edgiscript3@yahoo.com

Conclusion of Spiritman #1

"How's it going?"

"Fine"

"No, with the comic book.  How's it going?"

"Oh, that.  Well..."

So we had updates coming out on a fairly consistent basis but nothing recently. This may cause you to wonder if we have given up and abandoned the comic. Far from it. The last page published to the web site was page 15.  I am currently putting the finishing touches on page 20 out of 22.  When the book is complete I will publish them all at the same time.  This should happen at the end of this week.  My reasoning is that the conclusion of issue 1 is spectacularly fast paced and fun.  To allow the story to trickle out a page at a time would deprive the reader of this fast paced and fun experience.  You may rest assured, and rest you should, because the pulse pounding conclusion of Spiritman #1 will hit the web soon.

Everett Paul Burris - illustrator
www.spiritmancomics.com

Deep 8. Old and/or New

I said in my last blog that we don’t understand eschatology, or what’s going to happened in the end times, because we lost the beginning. 

Isaiah 46:8-10 (HRV) – “’Remember this, and stand fast; bring it to mind, O you transgressors.  Remember the former things of old:  that I am El, and there is none else; I am Elohim, and there is none like Me; Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done; saying:  ‘My counsel shall stand, and all My pleasure will I do’;’”

(Translation note:  El = God.  Elohim = Gods.  When YHWH refers to Himself as Elohim in the plural, it’s referring to the trinity.)

“Declaring the end from the beginning,…”  That word, “beginning” in Hebrew is exactly the same word which we used to translate “In the beginning…” from Genesis 1:1.  YHWH has already told us how everything will end because He’s already showed us how it all began.

Confused yet?  Let’s rewind a bit and start from another direction. 

There are two things we MUST keep in mind when translating scripture.  1)  God is perfect and 2)  God exists outside of time. 

1)  God is perfect.  Most Christians would say that they agree with this statement, but few live like it.  For the sake of time, I’m going to leave this statement at face value for now.  Although many don’t truly live in agreement with this statement, we do know what it means and I’ll move on.

2)  God exists outside of time.  In fact, time itself is His creation.  God doesn’t merely have a plan for the end that He’s pretty sure He can accomplish, He IS the end.  He IS the alpha and omega.  He IS the beginning and the end.  Right now God is creating the world.  Right now Yeshua is dying on a cross for your sins.  Right now God is wrapping up this age and putting an end to sin and death.  RIGHT NOW!!  God explained Himself as “I AM THAT I AM” not “I WAS” or “I WILL BE”.  When God showed John the dragon and the beast and all that he revealed that he saw in the Book of Revelation, He didn’t just show John a movie that revealed His intent.  No, He actually took John to that time to witness it

Combine these two things, the perfection and the timelessness of God, and we are forced to come to the conclusion that NOTHING God has ever said or done exists in a limited scope.  EVERYTHING God has ever said or done was meant for everybody in every age, in every time, in every nation, in every walk of life.  It is perfect, and when He spoke it or did it, He spoke it or did it simultaneously for every moment in this planet’s history, even the moments that we haven’t experienced yet. 

Our error, or part of it anyway, is in treating the Old Testament as if it’s done and gone away.  Whether we say it or not, many of us treat it like the Old Testament was a goof.  God was on a trial run.  It failed and he did His best to hold it together with spit and duct tape until Jesus could come and start over.  Many of us call ourselves New Testament Christians as if the Old Testament doesn’t exist anymore.  Our history began with the cross.  So we've created rules and ideology by translating the New Testament, not according to how YHWH wanted it interpreted, but according to how our particular culture and ideology wanted to interpret it, thus creating conflict with the verses that should have been used to understand it. 

Of course not every individual thinks this way, but I generalize because every major Christian denomination has, as an organization, fallen into this trap fully or partially.  We treat the New Testament as a uniquely separate entity, when in fact, “New Testament” is an incomplete translation in and of itself.  A more correct translation of “Old Testament” and “New Testament” would be “Original Covenant” and “Renewed Covenant”.  The New Testament didn’t start us over.  It made the original covenant whole again as if it had never been broken in the first place. 

In a nutshell, God knew the Holy Spirit, whom the bible says guides us in truth, wisdom, knowledge and understanding, was not indwelling us pre-Pentecost.  Therefore it was impossible for us to understand spiritual matters.  So, in His grace, he gave us physical examples of His truths.  He gave us practice runs.  They were never intended to save us or make us perfect.  In and of themselves, they only have physical value and cannot affect our spirit other than as an example.  They were intended to reveal God to us in the only way we could understand at the time.  We are to follow God’s spiritual laws, but they must line up with the physical laws God gave us.  If they don’t, then we made them up.

There’s so much more I want to say about this, and I know there are many questions I’ve left open, but I’ve already gone much longer than I wanted to.  In fact, I’ve deleted much of what I originally wrote to keep this from getting way too long.  Let me end now by saying this.  The simple fact of the matter is that we CANNOT understand the New Testament without understanding the Old.  If you try to translate the New Testament according to what you desire, or according to what your denomination believes, or according to what any man has called true, you will get a partial truth at best.  We must let God define God.  If you count yourself as one who trusts God but wonders why there seems to be so much conflicting information in Christianity, this is one reason.  If you count yourself as one who doesn’t trust God because of the apparent conflict in what He claims to have given us, this is one of the reasons why.

My hope and prayer for you today is that you’ll let Him reveal Himself to you.  His yoke is easy and His burden is light.  If the burden seems overwhelming, it’s a good indicator that it’s probably not really His.

Scott Snyder
edgiscript3@yahoo.com
 

Deep 7. Spiritual Warfare and Eschatology

Several years ago a friend of mine said something to me about end times eschatology that made me stop and think.  For those that don’t know, eschatology is a study of the timeline of what’s going to happen in the end as well as a study of what "the end" actually means.  What my friend said was, “You know what I believe?  I believe whatever the last guy I heard believes.”  She explained that everybody sounds right.  People with completely conflicting points of view in which they can’t both possibly be right, both sound totally right.  Everybody has scripture to back up their point of view and everybody seems to have a compelling, reasoned argument when discussing their point of view.  So she said she finds herself believing whichever ideas are freshest in her mind as they all seem to make sense.

That got me to wondering why and how all of these people were coming up with partially or totally contrarian viewpoints and all sounding biblically accurate.  I set out to collect all of the data I could get ahold of.  I wanted to study all of the various beliefs and the reasoning behind those beliefs by some of the most vocal backers at the time.  It is my belief that people tend to get a small fragment of the truth and then extrapolate it out too far with their own ideology and desires, so what I hoped to do is by analyzing each viewpoint’s logical inconsistencies and failures and then removing them, I hoped to get a better idea of what would happen by combining all of the pieces that people truly got right.   

This task, which I began over a decade ago, led me to a conclusion I hadn’t looked for when I began my search.  We’re not getting biblical prophecy correct, for the most part, because we’ve been wrong from the beginning. 

I’d like to say that this shocked me, and that I was stunned beyond belief, but it really didn’t and I really wasn't.  Much of what I had already studied from history and much of what I had already experienced my entire life had already told me that something was very, very wrong.  I already knew that God doesn’t desire to establish religion in our hearts, but rather relationship and yet the church was full of religion.  I already knew that historically religion generally has been supported by powerful governments and that anyone who supported the truth of who God is in opposition to these views was generally beheaded or worse.  And most damning, I already knew that although we Christians claim to have one God and He has one body, we’ve got five hundred different denominations and eighty nine different sects within each of those denominations who all think that they’ve got the real truth of God and everyone else is messed up at best.  We've got family strife at best, and at worst we have civil war already going on in a supposedly unified body.

Let’s face it people.  We are not unified.  We might smile politely at each other in the restaurant after church, but really we think to ourselves that if they truly want to be loved and blessed by God then they need to come to our church.  WE'RE right and they're not.  It's as simple as that.  If they don’t, then maybe, MAYBE, they’ll end up in Heaven, but they certainly won’t be as blessed as they could be down here.  They could be saved, but their wrong ideas are hurting them and others right now.  Baptists think Catholics are confused pagans.  Catholics think Lutherans are off the beaten path.  Lutherans think Pentecostals are mindless hippies.  Pentecostals think that Baptists are apathetic pagans.  And so on, and so on, and so on.  The simple fact of the matter is that we’re all wrong about something but we either don’t want to acknowledge that or we honestly don’t see it.  (And before you say it, yes, I know that includes me.)

So why am I bringing this up here?  Because our comic is diving into a spiritual war that’s been going on for millennia.  There are a lot of questions about what really happens.  Millions of people have asked Pontius Pilate’s question to Jesus through the centuries, "What is truth?"  By displaying this spiritual warfare, we’re inevitably going to be offering opinions on what it is and other spiritual truths. 

And as we will be offering opinions on such matters, I thought it only fair to give you some insight as to where I’m coming from.   So for a while, my posts are going to address a few things that I believe we’ve gotten wrong as the body of Christ.  My desire with this blog, and indeed with this comic, is not to enrage the masses or bully those that disagree with me, but to hopefully encourage those that have been struggling with their faith walk.  Sometimes things don't seem to make sense or you feel like you're looking for answers in the wrong place.  You know you've got the right house, but there are so many rooms.  You ask, "Am I supposed to be in this one?  Where does this corridor lead?  Why can't I find my way around?"   

Someone told me once that Satan doesn’t have to turn your gaze one hundred eighty degrees and get you going in the opposite direction.  He only has to get your gaze off of God by one degree in order to make you miss the mark.  But he’s so subtle and so clever that even if you refuse to take your eyes off of God for your salvation, he has been thoroughly successful through the ages at getting us to take our eyes off of God in other areas, if not every other area of our lives.  If he can’t drag you to hell with him, he’s going to try to make sure that you do as little as possible while you’re here to hurt his cause.  If you won’t be a victim, he’ll at least make sure you don’t factor in this battle.  He knows that a house divided cannot stand and he’s doing everything he can to divide God’s house in any way he can. 

I've already begun to deal with some of our errors on a very basic level.  I'm going to keep going deeper.  My hope and prayer for you is that you’ll allow His truth to replace whatever deception currently is keeping you from Him in some way.  And I hope that you’ll pray for me in this area too.  I say "our" errors and not "your" errors for a reason.  I'm just as much in need of grace as you are. 

Scott Snyder

Edgiscript3@yahoo.com

ICON October 19th, Des Moines, IA

Just a quick hit to let you know we'll be at I-Con on Saturday, October 19.  Please check out their website if you'd like more information about the event.

http://www.iowacomicbookclub.com/

Scott
edgiscript3@yahoo.com

BTS: 9-10-13

Hello again.  I wanted to give you...


...  Sorry about that.  That long pause was one of my cats, Jackie, deciding that it was time to pet him RIGHT NOW!  Ok, he's satisfied and I'm back.

Anyway, where was I?  Oh, yeah.  I wanted to give you a heads up on what's coming. 

The last few weeks haven't provided Paul much of an opportunity to draw due to kid stuff.  But that's cool.  Nobody's going to get angry for putting our kids first.  Right?  But now that his kids are in school, he's got more time to draw and we should be seeing some new pages to the website pretty soon.  He's also looking into how to streamline the process, as well as the simple fact that repetition is making things flow a little more smoothly.

We also discussed trying to create limited series of sorts.  This is a continuing series comic and not the first of several graphic novels with a definite beginning and end, but due to the length of time it takes to put these out, we don't want to create a storyline that runs for 37 issues when that 37th issue won't be out any year soon.  Paul is shooting for 4 full comics a year fully inked and colored as well.  So, with that in mind, we're going to try for 4-issue runs where a common theme runs for those 4 issues.  The first 4...


...my cat decided he wasn't quite done yet.  Ok, he's sitting on my lap now.  Let's see if I can't finish this\quickly.

Anyway, the first 4 issues are essentially introductory.  You're meeting the characters, finding out what's going on, and learning more about this world. 

I'll wrap it up now before Jackie decides he needs all of my attention again.

Have fun.

Scott
edgiscript3@yahoo.com

Deep Calling Deep 6. Superhero Tragedy

I’ve been asked by some friends that have read Spiritman what Martin’s superhero tragedy will be. 

For those that don’t keep up with comics or superheroes in general, it feels like every hero has to have some sort of tragedy occur that gives him a reason for wanting to put on the tights and fight villainy month in and month out.  To an extent, this is a valid statement.  It’s not an absolute necessity to have a defining tragic moment in the life of a superhero, but many of the most famous hero backstories certainly follow this pattern. 

A few examples:

Peter Parker, after being bitten by a radioactive spider (or genetically altered spider in the Ultimate universe and in the movies) doesn’t seek to fight crime and right wrongs right off the bat.  Instead he uses his newfound powers to seek fame and fortune until he realizes that his surrogate father, Uncle Ben, died due to his single, selfish act of letting a villain go free.  The tragedy is of his own making and he takes it very personally.  Hand-in-hand with that tragedy comes the famous line, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

The infant, Kal-El, is rocketed away from a dying planet Krypton.  Kal-El is adopted by human parents and is now known to the planet Earth by the names Clark Kent and Superman.  The tragedy, the events leading to the destruction of his home world, is not witnessed or caused by him, but that tragedy still shapes his every decision as he tries to help his adopted home world in any way he can.

A young Bruce Wayne witnesses the cold-blooded murder of his parents and not only decides to use his abilities to fight crime, but he spends the rest of his young life gaining the abilities necessary to do so.  While other heroes have powers and then something occurs to guide them in their decisions on how to use their powers, in Batman’s case his tragedy actually pushed him to gain the very abilities he uses to fight crime. 

(Side note on the topic of Batman:  Affleck’s going to be fine.  The movie will be great.  Please come off the ledge. )

So what’s Martin’s tragedy?  He’s got to have a tragedy, right?

Right?

Wrong.

 

There is a tragedy that has occurred in our hero's life, but you're looking to the wrong guy if you think Martin's the hero.  The real hero in this story is God. 

The tragedy belongs to YHWH.  The love of His life, humanity, broke His covenant and His heart.  As the Jars Of Clay song goes, “Taught you to walk but then you ran away from me.  That’s not how it’s supposed to be.”  The way I view this is that we caused His tragedy.  We put Him in this position.  The tragedy is that everything could have been wonderful and perfect, but we decided not to go there.

And that tragedy determined God’s actions.  “For YHWH so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son.”  God sacrificed EVERYTHING out of love for us.  We caused the tragedy.  We created the separation.  But through all of that, He never forgot about us.  He never let us go. 

Martin’s motivation is this:  He loves God because God first loved him.  God didn’t have to die for us.  He didn’t have to care about us anymore.  He could have scrapped us all and started over if He wanted to.  But He chose to love us.  He chose not to let us die.  He chose to renew the relationship with His own blood. 

It’s not Martin’s personal tragedy, but God’s.  That is the knowledge that drives Martin.  My hope and prayer for you today is that it will drive you to get to know Him more as well. 

Deep Calling Deep 5: Why am I doing this?

Something I found very disturbing happened to someone I know a couple of months ago.  I consider this person a good friend, but he’s one of those people I see once every couple of months maybe.  However, when we do see each other, we click.  We laugh at the same jokes.  We play the same games.  We enjoy many of the same movies.  He’s one of the few people I truly enjoy being around.  Anyway, what shook me is that it was told to me a few months ago that this person has become an atheist after growing up in the church. 

One of the things that shook me is that I found his reasons to be completely and overwhelmingly illogical.  The essence of it is that he said he approves of homosexuality and porn, and since the bible says that God does not, he has decided that he cannot believe in God. 

Now, first of all, being the analyst that I am, this kind of statement, from anybody, disturbs me because it’s illogical, unscientific and flat-out stupid.  It’s an emotional reaction treated as if it’s a logical, rational conclusion.  This person has fallen into the same trap that we all fall into at some point in our lives and that is we approach the idea of who God is philosophically rather than scientifically. 

Now, what I mean by that is this.  Philosophy asks, “How do you feel about it?” while science asks, “What is it?”  The reality of the situation is this.  God, whoever He, She, They, It or the non-existence of said deity is, is who God is.  Nothing you, I or anybody else thinks, believes, says or acts upon can change that reality.  If Allah is God, then my believing in the salvation of Jesus Christ is absolutely pointless.  If Allah wants death to the infidel, then no matter how strongly I may disapprove, that’s irrelevant.  If Buddha was right, then the Islamists are completely messed up.  If life was seeded on this planet by aliens who were not created, but accidentally formed billions and billions of years ago, then that’s what happened and any idea of a supreme being is worthless.  If there's some sort of God we haven't figured out yet who's up there saying, "What do I care?  Do you what you want.  You were an unplanned pregnancy and it doesn't matter what you do, everybody's going to end up the same way." then nothing any of us does matters.  And if YHWH is the one true God and He sent His son Yeshua HaMaschiach, or Jesus the Messiah, and that’s the only way to reach Heaven and YHWH, then if you don’t accept Him you’re out of luck.  If YHWH is real and He says that homosexuality is wrong, then a vote okaying it by the board of Deacons isn't going to change anything.  It’s as simple as that.  Once we find the reality of who God is, we are forced to either live by His system, or actively rebel against Him, but at that point we can no longer deny Him. 

Now, with that in mind, on our hunt for God, the idea cannot be, “I’ll take a look at all the options and decide what suits me and my selfish desires the best.”  That’s idiocy at work.  That's us at our height of laziness, not our height of intellectual maturity.  It’s the equivalent of saying, “If I want 2 + 2 to equal 42, then so be it.  That’s what I like, and therefore I'm going to ignore mathematic principle and declare it to be so.”  You can say, believe and act upon that all you like, but the fact of the matter is you’re wrong.  No, the way we HAVE to approach God is this.  “I’m going to diligently search to find out what is, and once finding that I’m going to acknowledge it even if it doesn’t fit what I want to be.” 

Science, true scientific principle, does just that.  It acknowledges that something already exists and we just want to know what that is.  As a Christian, I’ve never had a problem with science.  I’ve had a problem with many scientists who are ignoring facts that displease them in an effort to support their own religious beliefs.  (It’s ironic that the  greatest religious nuts in the world today are atheistic scientists, but that’s another story.)  I am a believer in YHWH today partially because science, math, archeology, prophecy and logic, just to name a few, all back this up when taken in their purest form. 

But here’s the problem.  None of that really matters.  I could easily debate the so-called proofs that atheists present in their defense, but it wouldn’t do any good, because no matter how much atheists want to declare that their decision is purely a rational, scientific one, it’s not.  The intellectually public side of it is only there to comfort them by deceiving themselves into thinking they’re ok.  The real issue is that the issue itself is 100% self-gratifyingly emotional.  I said that I'm a believer in YHWH partially because of the factual evidence I can analyze.  The greater reason is because I've met Him.  YHWH is real and He's made Himself real to me.  He has filled my emotional void and He has proven to me that He loves me and is constantly working to make me better and draw me closer to Himself. 

 

The reason my friend’s decision shook me so much is that I realized I had taken his life in Christ for granted.  I had become something that disgusts me.  I had become publicly lukewarm.  I was not revealing Christ in my life.  I was not His ambassador.  I was not the set-apart prophet, priest and king that I was meant to be.  I was just one of the guys and that was all.  You see, my friend has rejected God because he’s got a hole in his heart like we all do, and that hole can only be filled by God.  Without it he’s incomplete and searching for what can fulfill him.  He was told that it was God, but he went to church and saw for himself how empty and hollow it is.  He was told that that emptiness was called discipline and dedication and it was just the way God wanted us to be.  He was told that there was life and power, but he never, ever saw it or experienced it, and he was told that that’s just the way it was. 

He was lied to and now he’s paying for it.  There is a way that seems right to a man that only leads to death.  My friend believes that he's seen that God is a dead end road, and so he's chose a path he believes will fulfill him, but it only leads to death.  And I, in my small way, was a part of that lie.  Because I haven’t sought God with everything I’ve got, connected with Him in a greater way each and every day, and then turned that love around and spread it through everybody I come into contact with, I essentially told my friend that God was really nothing special. 

Why am I involved in this comic?  It’s certainly not for the money or the fame.  It’s because I want to be more than I am now.  I want reach somebody on a level that includes logic and reason, but goes beyond them into something more real to each of our hearts.  I want Him to be my Lord and not just my Savior, and so I want to be faithful to what I believe he’s calling me to do and to stop acting like my journey’s been finished for a while now. 

If you consider yourself a member of the body of Christ, my challenge to you (and please keep in mind I'm yelling at me too) is to wake up.  We are NOT being what He meant for us to be in this day and age.  Where is the power?  Where are the miracles?  Where is the love?  Where is the passion?  Where is the personal sacrifice?  Why are we so focused on the physical pleasures of this world as if that's God's will for us?  Where is the search for who He truly is and letting absolutely nothing get in the way?  Where is the real fruit of changed lives?  God never told us to bring them to church.  God told us to go into the world and love them.  Where is the get up and go? 

If you consider yourself an agnostic at best, my hope and prayer for you is that you realize that every failure you’ve seen that you’ve attributed to God should actually be attributed to men.  He's perfect.  We're not.  I hope and pray that you’ll see and then you’ll experience His real love and power.  Only He can fill the void in your life.  And if in my life I have already come across your path, I wish to now give you my most sincere and heartfelt apology.  I was probably not revealing YHWH at the time.  Please forgive me, and please don’t hold that against Him.  Jesus has set us free.  Those whom He has set free are free indeed.  Please don’t look at the chains of religious duty that man has added and think that He did it. 

 

My friend never saw the life in God.  All he saw were the rules.  Some were God's.  Some were fabrications of man.  Yes, there are dos and don'ts, but the ones that belong to God are the dos and don'ts of a loving parent that sees what you can't comprehend and not the smashing blows of a tyrannical overlord.  This was meant to be a passionate, loving relationship and it can be if you want it.  The joy and life that He offers is far greater than any evil you're asked to avoid. 

There’s a real adventure to be had in the journey.  It’s anything but boring, and it’s definitely fulfilling.  Because God is spirit, it’s very difficult to see.  I hope in this comic we’re helping to reveal the tiniest fraction of what it is. 

 

Scott A Snyder

edgiscript3@yahoo.com

 

THE ARMOR OF GOD

A spiritual warrior in the armor of God! So, what is the armor of God anyway?

God's armor is not actual, physical armor. The Nazis are not looking for it in the desert. Although, there is a great story about a man named Simon who tried to buy the power of God. Maybe we'll explore that at a later time. The armor of God is not waiting somewhere to be found by an Indiana Jones type of character. But it is ready and available for you to put on and use.

God's armor was written about by the Apostle Paul (early church leader) in a letter to some people who lived in the city of Ephesus.  They were called Ephesians and their city was located in Asia Minor, what is now modern day Turkey. At the time of this writing Paul had been arrested for bringing a gentile into the Hebrew temple in Jerusalem, a capital offense, and was under the guard of roman soldiers. While in this circumstance Paul wrote that "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Ephesians 6:12 NIV) Interesting that Paul did not say that our struggle is against these roman dudes who are keeping me in prison. After all, they are flesh and blood.  Our struggle is of a spiritual nature and we need the right kind of armor.

Paul saw in the armor worn by the roman soldiers a metaphor for how christians can protect themselves in a spiritual struggle.  In his letter to the Ephesians Paul tells us to put on these things:

• TRUTH as a belt buckled at your waist
• RIGHTEOUSNESS as a breastplate
• READINESS THAT COMES FROM THE GOSPEL OF PEACE as shoes upon your feet
• FAITH as a shield
• SALVATION as a helmet
• THE WORD OF GOD as a sword

And while wearing this armor stay alert and pray.

So... are we to wear all this metaphorical armor so we can live boring lives, unchallenged by hardship, apart from a decaying world? Not so. We wear God's armor so that we may stand. We are called to much greater things. There is evil in the world around us - not people - spirits. We wear the armor of God so that we may bring the good news of new life through Christ to people who are all dead inside. And we do this while facing the opposition of spirits who want them to stay dead inside. Paul said it best when he wrote "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand." (Ephesians 6:13 NIV)

So... what does it mean to put on truth as a belt buckled at your waist? I will look at that question in my next blog post.

Everett Paul Burris
spiritmancomics.com

Deep Calling Deep 4: YHWH, Ba'al and... now what?

This is a continuation of 2: YHWH, and 3: YHWH and Baal.  It’s a little long, but I wanted to wrap this up this time instead of extending it out in another couple of weeks.

Exodus 32: 4-6 (HRV) – “And he received it at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it a molten calf; and they said: ‘This is your god, O Yisra’el (Israel), which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’  And when Aharon (Aaron) saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aharon made proclamation, and said: ‘To-morrow shall be a feast to YHWH.’ And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt-offerings, and brought peace-offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to make merry.”

Most of us are familiar with this story.  The children of Yisara’el were at the base of Mount Sinai waiting for Moshe to return.  He was taking too long and they were worried that he might never return.  Instead of waiting for the word of YHWH to be brought to them, they created their own image of who they thought God should be.  And when they worshipped at the feet of the golden calf, they worshipped… who?  I was raised with the impression that they were worshipping a false god, but that’s not entirely accurate.  If you would have asked the Yisra’elites, “Who is it that you’re worshipping?” they would have responded, “Why, we’re worshipping YHWH, the one true God.”  Their sin was not in worshipping a false god, it was in worshipping God falsely. 

What happened here?  Were they doing anything wrong in worshipping, making offerings, or making merry?  Of course not.  All of these things were commanded by YHWH for us to do, so what was wrong?  The children of Yisra’el grew impatient (always a bad sign) and fell back on the traditions of men that they learned in Egypt.

 

Literally they were worshipping a false god that they had created, but we need to understand that this was not their mindset.  The people made the claim that, “This is your god, O Yisra’el, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”  That was YHWH.  And if that’s not clear enough, Aharon makes the proclamation, “To-morrow shall be a feast to YHWH.”  They weren’t worshipping Ba’al or any other false god.  They were worshipping YHWH. 

So if their hearts were worshipping YHWH, the one true God, then why was YHWH God so upset?  Because in their disobedience (Yes, disobedience.  Moshe wasn't down from the mountain yet, but YHWH had already shouted down the ten commandments in Exodus 20) and impatience, they decided not to let YHWH define Himself, but instead defined who YHWH was according to their own desires.  They lifted the one true God up, but essentially made the proclamation that He was nothing like who He really was.  In their minds they were worshipping YHWH, but by doing it in the way that they had been taught by the Egyptians, the result was that they were worshipping a false god and they didn’t even know it.  They were making a public statement to the rest of the nation and the world that THIS is who God was and what He was like, and it was a lie. 

In 3: YHWH and Ba’al, I revealed that the word "ba'al" is an ancient Hebrew word meaning Lord.  With that in mind, let’s look at Jezebel and the prophets of Ba’al.  Were they worshipping the primary Phoenician false god, or were they worshipping a generic “lord” that they had created?  After researching this for myself, I can’t be one hundred percent certain either way, but it presents an interesting scenario if true.  And it’s possible that, to an extent, both were true.

The fact of the matter was that Jezebel very definitely wanted things done her way.  She wanted to act in a way that was displeasing to YHWH with no repercussions or guilt for doing so.  Sound familiar?  So she very definitely had the prophets of Ba’al under her command teaching and preaching her message.  It is possible that the prophets of Ba’al were the Hebrew religious leaders claiming to worship YHWH, the one true God, and not a blatantly false rip-off god.  They were probably leading the people according to the Torah as much as possible, but simply ignoring or rewriting bits that Jezebel didn't like, or intentionally mistranslating or misunderstanding scriptures to make them palatable.  They didn’t drop YHWH altogether.  They manipulated what He had given them to fit their own selfish desires.

Eliyah (Elijah) called them on it.  He differentiated between what they were doing and what YHWH wanted.  He knew the real voice of God and understood the twisted words of god that they were giving didn’t match.  He knew they were falsely worshipping YHWH by ignoring scriptures they didn’t want and adding scriptures that they did, and so, essentially, they were really worshipping themselves.  Were they doing this in obedience to a false god Ba'al, or were they worshipping a generic ba'al of their own design that was a twisted form of YHWH?  Either way, the results would have been the same.  Eliyah told them that they were worshipping a false god, and to prove it, following YHWH’s instructions, he challenged them to a contest.  The contest, the way we think about it, was, “Which one of our Gods is real?”  But could it have really been, “We both claim to be worshipping the same God.  Which one of us will He acknowledge as truly belonging to Him?”

We’re seeing this happen in the church today.  Most of us really are trying to worship the one true God, but because of deceptions in church doctrine, we’re not worshipping Him the way He commanded, and so we’re worshipping a god of, if not our own, then someone else’s design.  We’ve taken on the worship of Istar (Easter), Nimrod and Tammuz and have claimed that the pictures in that worship represent Jesus.  We’re worshipping a generic, prosperity-message, indistinct, false “Lord” that doesn’t get us into trouble at the local country club, but also doesn’t ignite a fire under our offering.  And like the Yisra’elites at the foot of Mount Sinai, if asked if we were worshipping a false god, we would claim that it’s simply not true.  “We’re worshipping Jesus Christ, the one true God,” we would say.  But what we fail to see is that what we’re truly chasing is not Him at all, at least in part.

The cool thing is that in God’s mercy, we don’t have to worship Him perfectly in order for Him to continue to woo and to guide us.  He knows we can’t. do it perfectly, but He does want us to desire and to continually seek that perfection.  We’re always to seek perfection and when confronted with the fact that we are currently in a lie, whether we entered that lie willingly or not, YHWH has told us that we need to turn from that lie and run back to Him.  I haven’t written any of this to attack people who aren't doing things correctly.  Believe me, I'm still chasing perfection and have not arrived yet either.  I’ve written this to attack the lie that is keeping people in a bondage of which they are unaware. 

 
Every one of us has lies that need to be stripped away, and I reiterate, please don’t believe that I think I’m above that.  We all need to ask ourselves in what ways we’re seeking YHWH, even when we don’t like where that path is headed, and in what ways we’re seeking another ba’al and altering YHWH’s path consciously or subconsciously because we like that pot of gold we find at the end of our own rainbow. 

YHWH is personal.  He wants you to know exactly who He is and exactly who He is not.  He wants a living, daily relationship with you.  He doesn’t want to hand you a list of duties and then order you out of His sight.  YHWH is jealous.  He loves you and wants your affection for Himself.  He doesn’t want your affection shared with other ba’als in the same way that you don’t want your spouse hitting on other people.  YHWH is truth.  Our own ba’als are just that.  Our own.  If you want YHWH, you’ve got to come to Him on His own terms and not according to your selfish demands.  If you just want a ba’al to convince your own guilty conscience that you’re ok and I’m ok in whatever sin we desire to jump into, then do whatever you want because there’s a ba’al at the end of every path you can possibly take.

My hope for you today is that you’re hungry for the only ba’al that can offer you true life and true love instead of the deception that is our own selfishness.

Scott

Edgiscript3@yahoo.com