Tag: poverty

Blessed

One of my wife’s and my favorite Bible passages is commonly known as the “Aaronic Blessing,” “Aaronic Benediction,” or “Priestly Blessing.” If you have a religious heritage based in Judaism or a liturgical Christian denomination, such as Methodist or Episcopalian, you have certainly heard it pronounced over the congregation by the rabbi or pastor, usually at the end of the service:

The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:
‘The Lord bless you and keep you;

The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you;

The Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.’

So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.” Numbers 6:22-27

I feel led of the Holy Spirit to unpack this passage and others to explore just what it means to be blessed by God.
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Racism

For those of you who haven’t read my bio here at Miscellaneous Ramblings, I was born in El Paso, Texas, in addition to my mother, her sister, and my half-sister. I spent my childhood and tween years there departing for Northern California with my parents as an early teenager. I later returned as an adult after I was honorably discharged from the US Army in 1975, spending the next 4 years there before heading back west to Norcal.

Just prior to my leaving El Paso that final time, I lived in the Cielo Vista Apartments complex immediately next door to Cielo Vista Mall where the recent mass shooting took place. I’ve lost count of the hours I’ve spent in that mall, especially at a location of the now-defunct Farrell’s ice cream parlor chain.

I think it safe to say my roots run deep in the the Pass of the North, so this recent mass shooting there hit really close to home for me.
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The Plague of Pietism #1:
Pietism vs Christianity

The Barna Group recently found that 80% of professing Christians do not know how to apply their Christian beliefs to their everyday lives.

This condition is called “pietism.” The NT calls it by another term: carnality.
Pietism divides human existence between the “spiritual” and the “unspiritual” aka the “sacred” and the “secular,” therefore pietist Christians do not believe God’s Word has anything to say about laws, government, economics, education, or popular culture. This results in pietists conforming to most aspects of secular political ideology and pop culture.

Why?

Because they view Christianity as what you do on Sunday and having nothing to do with influencing or controlling every nuance of our daily lives. It also opens them to strong delusion because our psychopathic enemy knows otherwise and is perfectly willing and able to exploit such a crucial weakness to achieve his own ends in both the lives of those pietists as well as the societies in which they live and — most importantly — vote.

As a result, we are observing in our day the results of pietistic Christianity. Because pietists have retreated from functioning as “salt” in popular culture, our cultural and governmental institutions have been annexed and overtaken by pagan men and women openly hostile to Jesus and His followers. Truthfully and tragically, there is little observable difference between pietists and the lost regarding political ideology/party affiliation, voting habits, work ethic, and other controversial hot-button issues such as abortion, secular feminism, Marxism, and LGBTQ.
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Pietism vs Christianity”