Blessed By Hardship?

There is a now widespread doctrine, particularly in these United States, but growing in adherence throughout the world that teaches that God will financially and physically bless those who place their faith in Him. I am not saying that this is never true, certainly in examining Scripture – the Old Testament especially, we see plenty of examples of God blessing those who are faithful to Him. The trouble over the last few, at least for me, is that it seems like as God begins to prepare judgment on these United States for her sins that those who have been the most faithful in many cases have suffered the most hardship. I know countless families who have placed their full faith and trust in God for His provision only to struggle day after day to even make ends meet.

Now before I get to far in, let me say this. I am well aware that anyone in these United States should consider themselves financially blessed, however, that does not make the sudden onset of financial hardships less real for these families. It also doesn’t do much to explain why even as others around them may be prospering, those whose faith has been most in God to provide, seem to lack provision.

Let me suggest that this is a blessing from God! Some of the darkest and most difficult days the world will ever see are closing in fast on this country. God is about to pour out wrath and judgement like most people here have not seen before. The artificial world we have built with all its gadgets and amenities is collapsing, and in the meantime the American people have grown very, very soft.

For this reason, God is introducing those who have followed Him faithfully to hardship by degrees. He is reteaching them dependence upon Himself and upon the work of their own hands. They are relearning the skill necessary to survive without being able to rely on the work, the government, or an insurance policy to protect against every contingency. This is God showing His grace!

In His wrath, He has allowed many of those who turned away from Him after the wealth of this culture to continue placing their faith in that culture even as it fails. To those He has set apart He is demonstrating hardship to make their hearts and minds ready for the times ahead.

Are you struggling? Have you faced great adversity in your life? Continue to trust in God’s provision, but recognize that hard times are coming and God is making you ready to face them!

Essential Liberty

Why there is no other sound basis for government than the preservation of liberty.

I was challenged recently as to why the protection liberty was the only valid basis for government. The person I was having the discussion with, pointed to a couple of other potential possibilities, such as human happiness, as other sound motives for government. The problem is, at the end of the day there is no other lawful purpose for government than the protection of liberty.

As I begin, let me address a few of the more popular alternatives put forward today, after all people don’t typically go around advocating for tyranny.

Democratic Socialism

The argument for democratic socialism, stems from the fact that all resources are shared up “equally” among the people as a whole. The government serves a mediator type role in making decisions about what is necessary for the public good, and uses regulations to push things in the right direction. At a moderate level the United States could be argued to be like this today, and Europe certainly is.

However, democratic or not, all forms of socialism are immoral and in violation of the Divine Law because they are fundamentally built on theft. Any time that the threat of government force is used to take a resource away from those who lawfully obtained and give it to another, including for government projects, it is theft.

At some point we need to begin applying the same standards to government that we do to individuals. The government after all only represents the people. Those who favor this type of government need to realize that every regulation they pass, every dollar they take for the “public good”, all of it is the use of force, threatened or actual. To force a minority to comply.

In addition, democratic socialism is ultimately self defeating for the same reason that communism was. By repressing the minority view in the name of “equality”, innovation is stifled. By taking by force wages from those who lawfully earned them, the incentive to succeed is stifled. The people on the border of being provided for by the wages of others, regardless of how low the initial limits may be, recognize that their poorer neighbors have more disposable income and move to get assistance themselves. This gradually results in a tipping point moment where the producers cannot provide for the rest of the country any more.

So essentially all socialism, democratic or otherwise, is immoral and fails to work.

Human Happiness

As mentioned above it is frequently suggested that human happiness, not liberty should be the basis of government. Typically, like the various forms of socialism, democracy is thrown into the mix to hopefully make everyone happier.

Let me be clear, history and all of the wise men who have gone on before us teach that democracy is far and above the worst form of government imaginable. Any time that the majority believe they have the right to press forward with their will, over and above any rights or wishes of the rest of the nation, oppression and tyranny are sure to follow. Look at the extraordinary violence and failure of the French Revolution, even when wielded against admittedly tyrannical aristocrats, democracy manage to produce worse results than the system it was trying to prevent.

So the question then becomes: Whose happiness? If we are talking about allowing each individual liberty to pursue happiness as they please, then we are just talking about liberty from the perspective of the pursuit of happiness. If, however, we are talking about the collective happiness of society, then we are talking about democracy, and that is indeed a very dangerous road.

The problem comes in this, sooner or later the collective majority will greatly desire something that requires the oppression of a minority to obtain. It doesn’t really matter what it is, but they will decide it is necessary for their happiness. Pretty soon a sense of entitlement will spring up and the minority will come to be viewed as oppressing the majority by withholding the desired resource. Sooner or later the minority will be forced to either “voluntarily” give into the demands of the majority or they will suffer violence and oppression for refusing.

The result, without liberty, is always the happiness of some at the expense of others.

Anarchy

I’m not sure why at the present, but I am seeing more and more calls for an anarchical system. Several of these have even gone so far as to attempt to argue that “anarchy” isn’t actually a system without rules, but one without rulers.

I find this redefinition strange, because it leads one of two directions. Either we are talking about no government, which historically has proven impossible. Or we are talking about a fixed set of laws carried out directly by the people to preserve individual liberty, in which case we aren’t talking about anarch at all but constitutional democracy.

The trouble comes in when we are talking about the first of these 2 choices, which is a more standard definition of anarchy. First of all, there is no historical basis for the idea that such a government could even exist. It has been attempted throughout history, and never with any success. Anarchy exists mostly in chaotic times for very brief periods, it is not possible for it to continue long term. Even the most primitive peoples on earth have some form of government and rule of law.

Second of all, despite its claim at being most free, anarchy is actually extremely oppressive. Scripture and history both teach us that mankind has inherit sin problem, we are not capable of being completely good. In fact, in many cases even 100% Christian societies have exhibited symptoms of this condition. Since man is not inherently good and will naturally tend towards oppressing his neighbors in his own selfish cause without some form of check upon him we have created government.

While I certainly favor limited government, we cannot have no government, because we must have means of protecting the weak from the strong. This can be best done when society as a whole recognizes the rights of each individual and forms a government exclusively to protect them.

Liberty is the only lawful form of government

What was once clear to our forefathers has drifted out of the public knowledge in relatively recent history, a government built on liberty is not simply a “better” form of government, rather it is the only lawful form of government that can exist.

There is, built into the very fabric of creation, a set of laws. Laws which make it clear that each and every man, woman, and child has certain intrinsic rights that they cannot be deprive of. These laws flow from a basic understanding of morality, and can be rooted in the Scripture, particularly the 10 Commandments. Let me give some examples:

Individuals have the right to life. A human being, cannot be lawfully deprived of his right to exist. Thou shalt not murder.

Individuals have a right to maintain control over their own property and to use their goods as they see fit. Thou shalt not steal.

The right of each man to liberty, follows naturally from His being created in the image of God; as well as from the basic laws of morality, without which no society can be organized. This natural law, which dictates the rights of mankind, derives its authority from nature’s God and not from any government or social contract. As William Blackstone noted, the natural law is of equal authority to the law of scripture, though scripture must have a fuller authority since it has been fully revealed by the Holy Spirit.

The issue at stake then, is that no government can be formed in opposition to that natural law. If one does, then it is an unlawful and unjust government. Governments built on other means than this are in direct opposition to the natural order and its Creator and are in error.

Instead, legitimate government, is set up coincide with, and protect people’s rights under, the natural law.

This means, when governments take action to seize people’s liberty, whether by taking away their possessions, taking them as slaves, taking away their right to protect themselves, taking away their religious freedom, etc; they are actually violating a higher law. They are acting outside the bounds of Divinely set authority and those who stand up to them are acting lawfully.

It is high time as a nation, that we reeducated ourselves on these principles, so as to be better able to take a stand on the oppressive tendencies now brewing within our government.

The Bard’s Book Reviews: The One Straw Revolution

Hat tip to JB for suggesting this great read!

The One-Straw Revolution, written by Masanobu Fukuoka the father of “natural farming” or “do nothing farming” reads like a treatise on the philosophy behind permaculture.

Let me begin by saying the book is most definitely influenced by Bhuddist and eastern metaphysics, particularly the view that everything represents an integrated system and that mankind cannot improve upon this system but should instead strive to be in harmony with it. While these philosophical roots will occasionally fly in the face of the Christian worldview, the book is still worth the read for a variety of reasons:

I am deeply concerned by the level of compartmentalization in American and other western cultures today. Particularly in agriculture this compartmentalization is very dangerous as it is largely responsible for our industrial, monoculture based system. While Fukuoka probably goes to far the other way, his influence deeply helps Western readers to be pulled back to a healthy middle ground n this issue.

In addition this book provides a beautiful philosophy of permaculture both I. Terms of the good of mankind and of the earth, while pointing to some of the dangers of an overly scientific approach. All of this is wrapped in fascinating narrative with neat first hand accounts of Fukuoka’s success with his very unusual approach to farming.

I don’t know that this book would be on my top recommended reading,list for those interested in sustainability, particularly since most of the technique is tied to Japan’s unique environment. However, it is a short and delightful read and well worth your time if you are looking for more of the “heart” of sustainability.

Mini Farming (with pictures)

My posts have been a bit sparse this week, but I had been intending for quite some time now, to do a post showing just what I’ve been up to. We have been doing small scale food production for several months now, having picked back up after moving out of our apartment. Things have begun to pick up speed the last two weeks, and this week I got a bit busy. This post may make master gardeners cringe (if it does I’d love feed back in the comments section) as I have much more experience with small scale livestock production than gardening. I do hope, however, that for others who may not have much experience producing their own food that this post will inspire you to try new things. Explanations will be below each set of pictures.

We are very fortunate this year to have had access to a greenhouse that was already attached to the house. As you can see it’s a simple design and takes full advantage of the existing wall of the house. The wall it sits against actually backs up to the basement which further increases the temperature stability of the greenhouse. On the coldest nights we had this year (low 20’s Fahrenheit) I have been able to keep the temp at a cool but stable 45 degrees just by leaving the lights on. This has allowed us to get a head start with spring planting as many of the plants we already have growing would normally just be going in the ground without the greenhouse. Due to our mild winters, I am excitedly hopeful that we will be able to produce cold hardy plants year round.

Another advantage of having a greenhouse is the workspace it provides. I can start plants on the work table, pot them, etc. without worrying about dirtying up the floor. Starting plants indoors in the house can be a bit messy. To the right is the plant “nursery” I created to get an early start on plants like peppers and tomatoes that have a higher germination temperature. I scavenged a lamp the shade broke off of, and old vent hood, and a rubbermaid box and based the design on chicken brooders I’ve made in the past. With an internal temp averaging 80 degrees or so it has worked great for growing plants fast (sometimes faster than I’ve known what to do with them) and by lowering the light I could also raise chicks in it if I decide to raise broilers.

Now that the weather has finally warmed up all the plants are enjoying the sunshine on the deck behind the greenhouse, another big perk though is that end of next week when bad weather is expected I’ll move the young plants inside so the wind doesn’t rough them up to much.

A young tomato plant (left), bean plants waiting to be trellised (right). Of note, some of you may be concerned about my direct application of manure. The manure in question is rabbit manure which has a pretty even carbon-nitrogen balance, for this reason it won’t “burn” the plants like most manures will and can be applied directly without composting. I still prefer to mix in a little bedding to be safe. However, as I recently discovered, you should be careful not get any rabbit urine on your plants or the ammonia will kill them. That goes for worm beds to.

Okra plants (left), a strawberry plant in a hanging basket (right)

Kale plants in cast iron pots (left), I am hoping to move these inside over the summer and grow leafy greens year round. Alabama has borderline subtropical temperatures which means summer can be harder on plants than winter.

I am experimenting with growing blackberries in pots (right, large, round brown pots). I couldn’t find much info on pot size but there were numerous gardeners saying they did this successfully. I’m guessing those pots are around 5 gallons. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Another experiment this year has been with fig trees. You can see our 2 fig trees in the top left of the picture overlooking all the plants on the back deck. Since fig trees can be grown from cuttings, I saved several of the healthy cuttings when I pruned the trees this year and potted them. Obviously I will have to separate them out after they grow some, but as you can tell from the new green shoots they are alive and growing.

I’m also tinkering with the beans and peas. I couldn’t find much info on how to trellis potted beans or peas, but I knew from Square Foot Gardening that there space requirements are relatively low. I decide to try wrapping the wire cages around the pots, this way the they take up the same amount of space vertically as the pot, but by wrapping around the outside should get a lot of linear growth over the 4 foot vertical climb, in addition all the beans/peas should hang on the outside for ease of harvest.

 

My final big experiment is with sweet potatoes. The ground pots will be pretty conventional, grown up wigwam style pole trellises, the only experiment there is with that one small pot in the top right of the photo. However, I’ve read that they can also be grown down from hanging planters so I thought I’d try that too. I doubt that the smallest pot is big enough but I accidentally bought to many plants and had other plans for my last remaining larger planters. I suppose worst case scenario I’ll transplant it.

 

 

 

 

One of my favorite ways to have an “instant garden”, especially when moving somewhere new is to use one of these “top soil gardens”. The bags of topsoil are cut open at the top and have holes poked in them at the bottom for drainage. With a little compost these become instant raised beds. As you can see I’ve got collard greens, lettuce, and spinach coming up fairly well. Although I’m afraid they should have been watered more this week.

 

 

 

Rabbits are one of the most efficient ways to produce your own food in a small space. They are lots of fun to raise, but a bit hard on the heart to process. The two in the top right photo are Flopsy and Mopsy, the one by himself is Peter. These will be our new breeders. Coming soon they will be moved out of the greenhouse to the cooler and shadier back porch, as well as getting a “tractor” so that they can graze the lawn during the daytime (I won’t be leaving them out at night due to neighborhood dogs and cats). With my rabbits I use deep bedding, putting in several fresh handfuls a day to cover over their newest manure. This allows me to keep the cages more sanitary while going longer between bedding changes. Personally I’m not a huge fan of the hanging style, wire bottom cages.

You’ll also notice the rabbits are eating left over lettuce. We try compost as much as possible, particularly by running compost through the animals. Right now that means the rabbits eat our greens and the chickens get the left overs. Coming up soon I plan to have worm beds at which point I will double compost the rabbit food by giving their manure to the worms, they will also be able to eat several things (ex. crushed egg shells) that neither the chickens or rabbits can currently eat.

 

 

The chickens have been the biggest source of work for me this week, since we got them a couple of weeks ago they have been in the temporary home you see above. This has several major draw backs: First it takes about 30 minutes for me to move it, compare this to a better build tractor that can be moved in 2 minutes or so. You can see the problem with this in the top right photo. See how there is a small patch of green between the 2 eaten down patches? That patch was underneath the edge of the pen, the birds have literally gotten so hungry for fresh greens that they were sticking there heads out of the fence and eating down the 4 inches or so they could reach on the outside edge of the pen. This is a good indicator they aren’t being moved often enough.

My project this week, which hopefully will be a post for next weekend has been to build 2 new tractors for our birds so that they can be moved daily on to fresh forage. Our birds are already getting a fairly green diet which has contributed to what one friend called “the best eggs I’ve ever had”, but I would like them to get as much as possible.

We have 2 heritage breed birds, Road Island Reds and Black Australorpe’s who had just started laying when we bought them. I personally prefer to buy adult birds for laying hens, since it guarantees egg production (no birds die before they start laying) and cuts down on the cost of bringing them to laying age. We were fortunate to find birds that had been laying for just 2 weeks and had been free ranging, which has contributed to their being very aggressive foragers.

Hopefully by the end of this week I will be able to do a post with pictures of the new chicken tractors, in addition I am planning to return to my normal 3-4 posts a week this week.

Are Alabama’s Legislators all Tyrants?

I haven’t taken on any local issues here on the blog, but this one is very important to me personally. It probably won’t surprise many of you to find out that I am a big believer in natural and wholistic medicine as is my wife. Here in my home state of Alabama, it is actually illegal for a midwife to assist at a home birth. This is, as I said, pretty personal for me since I have had to make the drive to Tennessee to use a licensed CPM there for the births of my children. There has been a lot said about this issue already, but I think I offer a pretty unique perspective that needs to be addressed.

This is not an issue of appropriate healthcare, this is an issue of liberty versus tyranny. The question that Alabama’s legislators need to be called to task on is this:

Why is it that you believe you have the right to dictate to Alabamians the choices they may or may not make about their own health?

We got all up in arms about Obamacare in this state, and yet here are our own state representatives enforcing their will freely upon the people of this state in the very area of healthcare to affect every single one of us at the moment we come into the world. The government of this state is literally trying to control our lives in the very moments we are being born.

Let me tell you something folks, you may not be particularly pro-midwife, and if you aren’t that is ok; but a government that believes it can tell you what healthcare choices you can and cannot make doesn’t actually believe you have any rights at all. Despite their being Republicans, and despite their bold talk it seems very clear that we have a house full of tyrants in Montgomery who really do think this is their decision to make. They, through their actions, are willing to override the carefully thought out actions of families all over Alabama who recognize that midwifery is a better choice for their families, because they aren’t comfortable with it.

I don’t care one bit whether they are comfortable with my healthcare choices, it isn’t any of their business. The people of Alabama, contrary to the apparent opinion of our legislators are not total idiots. We are fully capable of making our own, informed health care decisions without the help of the special interest groups that run Montgomery.

Next time you decide to call or email your elected officials on this issue I suggest a general change in the way we address the issue. We can talk all day long about how midwifery is a beneficial form of healthcare that is much needed in Alabama, and it very much is; but that argument needs to be made to the people of Alabama at the grass roots level. The focus of our discussion with our legislators needs to be about discovering why they believe they have the authority to make health care decisions for us in the first place.

On this issue I would contend that our legislature is behaving itself as bad or worse than the Federal government in intentionally limiting health care choices that Alabamians clearly want. Until we begin to recognize that our states are just as quick to seize our liberties as the Fed, we will never get our freedom back. The way the state of Alabama has acted on this issue and a few others, if the old south “rises again”, I’ll move.

Dare to defend your rights! Take action on this issue while you still have the right to do so!

The Reward of the Lamb

“May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering!”

– The final words of two of the early Moravian missionaries as they sailed intentionally
into a life of slavery for the sake of the Gospel.

And they sang a new song, saying:

“You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign[b] on the earth.”

-Revelation 5:9-10

The Father has ordained that Jesus should be glorified and worshiped by members of every tribe, tongue, and nation as a consequence of His purchasing them with His blood upon the cross.

The events of the cross should not be taken out of their place in history, rather the entire Bible is the story of God’s redemptive plan to rescue mankind from our own sinful condition. The cross and the resurrection represent the most crucial event in this ongoing plan of God to redeem people to Himself. Therefore, we should recognize that God’s ongoing plan to reach all nations as originally laid before Abraham in Genesis 12, is an ongoing work.

While Jesus’ death ultimately made the way to God free for all who would call upon the name of Jesus, the veil before God’s presence being torn asunder, ultimately we the church have now been entrusted with carrying the task to completion. We have been charged with the task of, through the power of the Holy Spirit, preaching the Gospel to every tribe, tongue, and nation that some would turn to Christ Jesus and give Him all of their worship.

This should be a joyous task for us. So often we make out as though it were a burden, or a great sacrifice to maintain active involvement in the mission of God’s people. Yet we are seeking to give the righteous reward to Him who suffered, died, and rose again to purchase our freedom and place before God. Instead of acting as though this were a great sacrifice, we should recognize that we have been purchased and adopted through a far greater sacrifice and that any action we take is for the love of our savior.

Have you advanced the Kingdom of the Lamb today?

The Triumph of the Lamb

Can you imagine the day without the Lamb? As followers of Christ today, with the constant presence of the Holy Spirit to make clear the meanings behind difficult things as well as to comfort us, it is difficult to imagine the shock and confusion of the disciples. On the one hand it seems so strange that they would be unable to understand all of Jesus’ prior teaching about His up coming death and resurrection, but on the other hand we as humans are very foolish and it should come as no surprise that the disciples would be too.

Here they had been from Friday night until Sunday morning, weeping and deeply distressed by what had happened. The one they believed was Son of God and messiah had perished on a cross and died. I think we have lost hold of the depth of this scandal. How strange indeed that the Son of God would allow Himself to be beaten and killed. He had the full authority to put a sudden end to His oppressors, and yet He chose for the glory of God and our redemption to stay anyway.

Then suddenly Sunday morning, the disciples heard a strange report. Jesus was alive again. This was wholly unexpected. What could it mean?

We who celebrate the Lord’s resurrection every year at this time are prone to forget the depth of its implications. First of all, it serves as full verification of Jesus’ claims about His identity and power. Had Jesus not risen from the dead, our Faith would be useless and also likely non-existent. The idea ought to startle us, that a man should rise up from the grave and walk away by His own power. Certainly such an event has powerful implications.

Jesus is Lord. There should be no question in our mind that God the Father has vested the full authority of the God head in the person of the Son. The authority to overcome the grave and return to God on high reflects the fullness the Son’s power and might

Jesus has won total victory over the power of sin and death. The resurrection represents the total crushing of sin and death through the death of the righteous Son. In this moment the power of sin to trap and hold the followers of Christ was lost. Its only power now is in deception, convincing us that we are entangled when we are in fact not.

This victory serves to demand holiness from us. If Jesus has crushed sin and death once, for all time; then those who are filled with His Holy Spirit are free from entangling sin. We are called, and enabled to walk in holiness. To do less is to deliberately trample the cross underfoot and make it of no effect.

The final implication is that Jesus is that Jesus has become worthy of His own chosen reward, the worship of the redeemed from every tribe, tongue, and nation. I will address that topic separately in my next post.

The Suffering of the Lamb

What was on Jesus’ heart and mind as He suffered and died on the cross?

We have heard over and over again that it was His love for us, but I would suggest that answer is somewhat incomplete.

We’ve embraced a dangerous tendency as a church to wrap everything around ourselves, even much of our “worship” focuses more on ourselves and how we feel than it does on the character and nature of God. This me-centric theology is just an outshoot of our very self centered culture into our churches, it represents an area where the culture has been allowed to transform the gospel we teach, rather than the other way around. The consequences of this dangerous reversal are being felt throughout American society today.

When Jesus died on the cross, He was lovingly thinking of you; but His primary motivation was love for and the greater glory of His Father. We take a dangerous step if we believe that Christ’s care and concern for us exceeded His care and concern for His Father and His Father’s glory.

God recognized that redeeming sinful humanity, who deserved no such redemption being rebels all, would bring Him far greater glory than wiping evil from the face of the earth. He earnestly desires the worship of redeemed men and women from every tribe, tongue, and nation for Himself. For this reason, Christ Jesus our Lord temporarily put aside the glory that was rightfully His and embraced instead the cross.

He suffered and died the way that we ought to have, to redeem us for His worship. No other motivation could be more pure, nor could it be better and more loving for us. Let us reject the notion that all the actions of the Sovereign and Glorious Lord of creation revolve around us, and instead recognize His plan to redeem us for His own glory!

To get a more full understanding of the concept of God’s desire to glorify Himself and redeem the nations read Unveiled at Last, by Bob Sjogren.

The Supper of the Lamb

I intended this post to go up last night, but didn’t get the time to write it yesterday.

Matthew 26:26-29 NKJV

And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”

Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”

1 Corinthians 11:26-32 NKJV

For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.

Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.

The early church took the Lord’s supper very, very seriously. Look at what Paul says in 1 Corinthians as quoted above, to eat and drink in an unworthy manner brings judgement on the one who takes it. All this trouble about something that most evangelicals hold to be just a symbol, Paul?

I am deeply concerned that we have grown anti-sacramental as a church. Jesus said “this is my body” and “this is my blood” and then Paul strongly condemned those who partook unworthily saying some were sick and had died as a result. Yet we persist in this notion that these sacraments are mere symbols, a notion which in the rather long history of Christianity is very young indeed; in fact even Martin Luther didn’t accept the doctrine that the were mere symbols, that innovation arose from other members of the reformation movement.

You may ask then, if I am embracing the old Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. I am not, the whole point of the sacraments is that we don’t fully understand them, that is what makes them sacraments. Instead I am saying that in some spiritual way that neither I or anyone else will likely understand this side of heaven, the wine and bread are the body and blood of Jesus Christ. And this is important because as Leviticus 17:11 teaches us:

For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.’

When we as followers of Christ partake of the Lord’s supper we are taking His life into ourselves for purification and nourishment. We are in a physical, tangible way, embracing the reality of our salvation through Jesus Christ and the indwelling of His Holy Spirit in us.

This Passion week, investigate these things for yourself. Especially go back and read the oldest Christian witnesses. Don’t sell yourself short by denying the inherit spiritual power of this sacrament in your life.

News Alert: Obama signs into law “Monsanto Protection Act”

I had intended to write mostly spiritually reflective posts about Passion week, but when I saw this I figured it had better be shared.

You can get the details from the link, but the short version is that the President has signed into law special legislation that provides Monsanto with protection from liability as the health effects of GMO crops become more well known.

It would be bad enough that we have allowed the thugs at Monsanto to patent living organisms and then destroy small farms by suing for patent infringement when there crops contaminate the neighbors field, but this adds a serious level of wickedness to an already wicked system.

I strongly urge you to take charge of your own food consumption and production while it is still legal to do so!