The Power to Achieve

Photographer:  Rick Mortimer

  A plant, however small, will split a rock or push it’s way through pavement and asphalt to grow upward as it seeks the sun – which is to say, to pursue the purpose for which it is made.  This purpose is in harmony with God’s order of things.  This is what it was made to do.

   The power behind this pursuit of purpose is Cosmic Habit Force.  We can see this law applied all around us in the natural world.  The planets are fixed in their orbit around the sun, particles of matter move in fixed patterns around the atom. The seasons are fixed and regular.  It is a power supplied by God for all living things with which they will pursue the creative image within their  essential being and so become what they are meant to be.  Man can plant a seed in the ground but he can not create life.  Nor can he create the habit force that will cause a plant to push aside rocks and split asphalt in its search for self.

   In all life-forms but man, we refer to this habit-force as instinct.  All things act out what they are ‘programmed’ to do and to be.  It is unchangeable in all life forms but man.  An acorn cannot become an apple tree, nor can a kernel of corn produce a tomato.  A seed will always produce in kind.

   In man, this same power that causes a small weed to push it’s way through the pavement to pursue it’s purpose, is expressed through the power of the Will.   Unlike all other forms of life, man does not act out of instinct.  Man has creative vision, which is the expression of his ego.  Because man has total control over his thoughts, hence over the ego, he can envision what he wills, and it have it come to pass.  What he creates is what he has programmed his ego to be.  What he determines his ego will be is dependant on his vision of what he desires in life.  That purpose to manifest his vision, will create in him the desire to remake his ego.

    Ego is the ‘ID’.  It is the “Who I am as a human being.”  Ego is the well from which spring your dreams, desire, aspirations, and goals.  Your own personal dreams or goals will therefore always be in harmony with who you are and what you think, for it is your thoughts which feed –or starve- your ego.  And so the aphorism  “As a Man Thinketh in His Heart so is He” proves to be true. We are what we think and we have the power to become that which we desire to be by controlling our thoughts until they are overtaken by habit force and direct us subconsciously.  Many a man has been forced by tribulation and adversity to examine himself and then go on to make great changes in himself, just as a river being blocked of it’s normal route of flow must find another way to proceed to it’s final goal.

  When you focus upon that purpose which is the expression of your ego [your dream, or vision], and back it with the life power that is behind your will to create it, then you will create your purpose in the physical realm just as surely as the weed will push through the asphalt in order to achieve it’s purpose.  It can do no less, because that is what it was created to do.   It has to produce the purpose it is programmed to do.  The plant can do no less than seek the sunlight, the beaver can do no less than build a dam, the geese can do no less than migrate south, and the acorn can do no less than become an oak tree.  Man, on the other hand is the only living thing that has been given the power over his own thoughts.  He may choose what he will and make it come to pass.  Man therefore, is in control of his own ego and can create the future as he chooses it to be.  Men do not attract to themselves that which they want, but that which they are.  How he thinks, is what he will become.  With men, this is a choice.

   The power in man behind this ‘becoming’ is the will.  When a man has a vision that he desires to fulfill with the same intensity as a drowning man seeks the next breath of air, the full power of his will comes to bear on the task of creating it.  Suddenly all his senses are attuned to ways and means of it’s achievement and things will be attracted to him that will help in the achievement of his goal.  Possibilities for it’s success will appear as if by magic by way of other people and events or circumstance.  It is a truism that the world will step aside for the man of purpose.

  There is one thing of note however, about the Will:

     The Will can not act upon that which it does not believe.

1. If you do not believe something is possible to complete, you will find yourself acting only half-heartedly in it’s accomplishment – if at all.  Thus, you will be unable to apply the will and so achieve it.
2. If you do not believe in your own ability to achieve the thing, you will not be able to use the full power of your will in achieving it.  You will be double-minded and unstable in all your ways of working towards the goal.  Again, success will elude you.

Doubt, fear, and disbelief in your own ability is weakness and cannot give strength to purpose.  These defects and faults can come about through lacking a strong self-image or from an ego which is out of harmony with the eternal laws of the Universe and the Creator’s principles of growth and balance.

  We have been given the power of control over our thoughts. Doubt, fear, and disbelief stem from thoughts.  Therefore they are under our control and so we are able to change them into Faith, courage, and belief.  These are strong traits and bring success within our reach if we persistently apply them and act from them.

    Our creative mind is a gift from God.  I also believe that God would never give us something as all-consuming as a big dream or vision for our life, without a way for us to accomplish it.  What a cruel act that would be!   That would certainly not be in keeping with the character of the God I know.

Howdy From Saskatchewan!

    Internet use is pretty sporadic here so I haven’t been online much – and I don’t have a phone as yet – but I did want to write and let you know all is well.

  I had a great trip out from Vancouver.  I drove for 24 straight hours and I’m still marvelling over the fact that I never got sleepy once.  Nor did I get uncomfortable as you usually do sitting in a car for so long.  But I did have a plan –and it worked.  Rhodiola 110 and XS energy drinks!  WoW!  I was as alert in the 23rd hour as I was in the first hour.  What an incredible trip!  The car just ticked along fine and I kept it at 55 and 60 MPH all the way.  In fact, on some of those steep mountain hills in Rogers Pass, Kicking Horse Pass, and on the Coquihalla Hwy, that little 4 cylinder motor was carrying me along uphill at a whopping 35 to 40 MPH.  But it averaged 40 miles per gallon all the way and what a blessing that was!  1161 miles –fully loaded- for the grand total of $131.85.  Pretty nice!   Gas was $1.18/ltr at the coast, and it’s $.91 a litre here in Woodrow.

   The weather was great too, but now, as I sit at my laptop and look out the window here in Woodrow, it is cloudy, windy and rainy today.  Bad timing for the wheat farmers as there crops are ready for harvest for the most part, but it is nice for me as I get to sit inside here and get my creative juices started again.  Seems like it’s been a long time since I felt like I even wanted to write – let alone actually have something make sense on ‘paper.’  So that’s exciting for me!  I think the difference is in the stillness here.  No sirens going, no people talking, no sky-train roaring past – just stillness punctuated every once in a while by a coyote howl or an owl screech in the elm trees outside.
   Perfect!

   I have just received word that World Wide Dream Builders is now fully functioning in Regina.  Regina is about 100 miles from Woodrow here, and about 40 miles from Moose Jaw where I hope to find work and have a base to build my business from.  Phone, Internet, and means to travel are the main goals for me right now.   I have always enjoyed Moose Jaw as a city, as it is pretty western-oriented.  Lots of saddle shops in town, surrounded by big ranches and horse oriented people.  My kind of town.  But progressive too with lots of business-oriented people, and if that is not big enough to get my business going, then the big city of Regina is only forty miles away to the east.  Perfect!
  So I’m pretty anxious to get out and about and get the show on the road!  I see E-commerce is up 17% over last year and M-Commerce is up 110%!  WoW!  (M-commerce is shopping over your mobile phone – a new concept.)  So the timing could not be better for me to show up at someone’s kitchen table with a fully organized and working plan of how to take advantage of this new way of living we are embarking on in society today.  How awesome is that?

    So it is with a real sense of urgency and excitement I feel now each day.  Of course, there are a few logistical problems to see worked out as yet – most of those come down to having some money – but I have learned that this is simply circumstances and circumstance is no barrier at all for anyone who has a definite purpose and the desire to see it carried out.  We are not wayward drifting orphans in this world, but instead, dream driven creative individual Sons of God.   We don’t have to give in to circumstance – we can make circumstances serve us instead!
 
  So yeah! I’m fired up about this new chapter in my life!!  Yahoo!!  As I look out my window I realize that Heaven may indeed consist of green grass and lots of horses – and big dreams!
  
Stay tuned.... I promise to be more consistent in writing now..

The Circle Fly

No Photo is known to exist of this insect.

   I guess I never really gave too much thought to bugs in my life until I got to the Yukon.  Once you get out into the Yukon bush, all of a sudden the endless variety of bugs really catches your attention!  The mosquito of course is king of them all, but there must be at least a bazillion -maybe even two bazillion- other types of bugs that are obviously put on this earth to help mankind remember to exercise properly, and that a nice comfy bed is no place to be laying during those long days of summer.  Much better you should be sitting in the dense smoke of a smudge-fire or buried in mud up to your hair as the insects play their delightful serenades of buzzing wings about your ears, give you close ups of their varied and intricate body designs as they fly into your eyes, and increase your nutritional intake as you inhale them with each breath you take.

   Now, I am no entomologist by a long shot, but there is a species of fly that always fascinated me of whom I first heard of in the Cariboo region of British Columbia back in the late 1960's.  I searched for them for years with no success, until sure enough one day in 1978, I discovered one in Dawson City, Yukon Territory.  Since that day I have been able to determine through various newspaper reports,UTUBE Videos, and first hand conversations that the Circle Fly does indeed exist in various places across Canada, and no doubt all of North America. So in the spirit of helping to advance scientific knowledge on this incredibly unsociable insect, I offer the following story in which I first learned of it's existence.

   I hope you enjoy the story, and if you have any direct personal experience with this critter, feel free to leave a comment here on my site.

  Enjoy  the story!

  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE CIRCLE  FLY

by

 Rick Mortimer

                                      

     My dad didn't like cops.  So I knew that when Leroy McRobb showed up at the porch door of our farm house wearing his Stetson and his badge, there was going to be some fireworks.

        Leroy wasn't much of a cop really, just the local excuse for law and order around our neighborhood of quiet farms and orchards. The local women felt better if there was some kind of law around, and somehow Leroy got the job.  Well, I guess they got their wish anyway, 'cause Leroy was some kind of cop.

       But now he was standing on our porch and Dad was looking at him with that look he usually reserved for Hitch, our mule.  Or, sometimes, even  for Grandpa.  But usually he had a little more understanding in his eyes when he looked at Grandpa, because Grandpa had an excuse of sorts for doing the things he did. He'd fallen down the back stairs three years ago, when I was seven, and walloped his head.  My Dad had found him laying in a heap, and, thinking Grandpa had killed himself this time (he was always falling off the steps), dragged him inside to the couch and then went out to the wood shop in back and built the old man a nice pine box to lay him out in.  It was a beauty too, and took a piece of work to build, so when Dad came back in the house and found Grandpa sitting on the couch teasing the cat - well, he  was some ticked off.  I guess Grandpa had only been in a coma or something  'cause he was now lively as ever.  Only trouble was, although everything about him seemed to work OK, something funny  had happened to his head.  He was never quite the same after that fall, and sometimes he'd even think my mom was my grandmother, who was dead,  and he'd all of a sudden reach out and pinch her behind or jump up, throw his arms around her, and start gumming her neck.  I used to figure Grandpa must be getting pretty lonely, what with grandma being long gone; but I remember the look Dad used to give him as he'd wrestle the old guy back to the couch.  Just like he was looking at Leroy now.

     "Mr. Harding", said Leroy, "I've got to take your boy into town and charge him with disturbing the peace".

      "You do eh?"

      "Yep," says Leroy getting all puffed up like, and hooking his thumbs on his belt, "He's been fighting with the Johnson kid again, and this time Mary Johnson's laying a complaint against him, so's I've got to take your son down to the station and write him up."

     Now, my dad was a busy man what with a farm to handle, us kids to feed, and a crazy old man chasing his wife half the time, so I had the feeling he'd be putting the run on old Leroy one way or the other.  I just hadn't figured out how yet.

    I stood there, all innocent like, and waited to see what was going to happen as I watched Leroy getting himself worked up into what he thought was a display of officialdom or whatever he called it when he felt important.

 

  I also notice my dad's eyes.  They were staring over the top of Leroy's head and going in these crazy circles.

     "Anyhow, Mr. Harding", says the local protector of our rights, "the thing is, I don't like to be hauling your boy off like this, but I got no real choice.  Me being the only lawman around and all."

     My dad's eyes hadn't missed a beat, and  they were still circling Leroy's sweat stained Stetson hat.  By this time, Leroy had finally noticed them too, and  he sort of glanced up over his head, like he thought there might be something flying around him.

      "Leroy", says my dad. "You know as well as I do that my son is only ten years old, and that's what ten year old boys do.  They fight with their neighbor's kids.  So why don't we just stop all this time wasting and you go on back into town and I'll get some work done."

And all the time his eyes haven't slowed a bit from going 'round and 'round above ol' Leroy's head.

      Our local hero by now was getting nervous.  He not only didn't know what  kind of trouble he was going to have with my dad, but I could see  that those eyes doing circles over his lawman's hat had him thinking for sure something was about to dive-bomb him.

     "Now dang it , Mr. Harding, I'm just trying to do my job here", Leroy whined, "You know I've got to uphold the law around here and.....what the heck are you looking at over my head anyway?"  says Leroy, as he whips off his Stetson and takes a swat in the vicinity of his bald crown.

     Dad never even slowed his eyes down.  In fact, I swear they started going faster yet as he calmly replied, "Oh, don't worry about it any Leroy, it's only one of those circle flies."

     "Circle fly?" Hollers Leroy, now swatting furiously at thin air over his head.  "What in the heck is a circle fly?  Do they bite?  Do they sting?  What do circle flies do?  I ain't never heard of them before!  Do they hurt you much when they get you?"

      "Well", says Dad, in that voice he uses when he's talking to Mr. James, the preacher in town,  "If you spent more time outside doing some honest work, instead of hiding in that office of yours, or riding around in that air conditioned car the taxpayer's bought you,  then you'd know what they are.  But you don't need to be too concerned about circle flies, Leroy.  Mostly they just fly around the back end of old Hitch, and don't do a darn thing."

      Now, as I've said, Leroy might have been a bit dense. But he wasn't dumb.  He just kind of looked at Dad,  and with a sort of sad voice said, "Mr. Harding."  "Are you calling me a horses ass?"

     "Why Leroy!", says dad, with a look of utmost piety.  "Of course not.  I'd never call an officer of the law a horses ass!"

       Leroy started to look a bit relieved.

     "But, on the other hand", Dad continued,  "It  sure as heck is hard to fool one of them circle flies!"

     

  

                              

Get Ready to Recieve

Photo by Rick Mortimer

I’m sure we’ve all hear the expression, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears!”

And how true that is!  It is a fact of this life that you do not get the things you need until you are ready to receive them.  For example, I never got my first driver’s license until I had a need for it.  I did not receive training on how to pack a horse, until I had need of packing a horse.  I did not receive medicine until I was ready to be healed… the list is endless.  It is just the way things work in this world and it is how we learn by acquiring knowledge at the time and place that we need it.  Before we need it, we don’t need it! We have no use of it.  We are not ready to receive it.  

What I am getting at here is that you do not seriously expect to receive a thing, until you have a need for that particular thing.. whatever it may be.  And when you believe and are ready to receive it, you will receive it.

Many times we ‘wish’ or we ‘hope’ for something… a new job; a vacation; a nice house with a view - whatever it may be.  But what is a wish?  A wish is really just a desire with no action behind it. No goals set nor passion to achieve it – nothing more than an expressed and longed for want.  A hollow thought for something.

  Hope, on the other hand, seems to have a bit more passion behind it.  “I hope I can be allowed to go to the game.  I hope I can get a new car.  I hope I can get that pay raise.  I hope, I hope, I hope.”  We can spend our lives wishing and hoping.

   The thing about hoping is that it is always in the future.  If it was past tense, we’d already have it.  If it was present tense, we would not need to hope for it because we would be receiving it now.  So hope then, is always in the future tense.  “I hope tomorrow is a nice day…I hope I get that pay raise next month…”

   Enter Faith.  Faith is far beyond hoping and wishing.  Faith is knowing.  Faith is now.

To have Faith is to believe.  A belief is something concrete.  You know that you know that you know.  For example:  you can have Faith that your kids will turn out alright, because you put the time and effort into them to bring about that result.  You can have Faith that God loves you, because you have seen the proof and understand what Christ did for you on the cross and you take His Word for it that it is done.  He cannot lie so it’s a given that the thing is done.  You cant’ see it, but you know beyond factual belief, that the thing is so.

   There are two kinds of Faith…one is sense-knowledge Faith.. and one is Spiritual Faith.

Sense-knowledge Faith is the kind of faith that lets you walk into a room and flop into a chair, ride an elevator, get in an airplane, and a thousand other things we do each day.  We can flop into the chair because we can be pretty well assured that the chair will hold us.  We see it has all it’s legs, it looks solid, or we may have seen someone else just get out of it.  But we apply what we know by our senses before we actually do any flopping.  Or airplanes – we may not actually see the pilot but we know that the law protects us in that an airplane must have a sober pilot.  Our senses give us the knowledge that we can act upon a thing.

 Spiritual Faith is different.  This kind of Faith is an expectant Faith of a future event based on what we believe.  Again, there’s the example of our Faith in our kids turning out right.  The example of having ‘Faith’ that God’s laws and principles are true.  Having Faith in your ability to do the right thing.  Faith in the things you cannot see but believe for – that is the kind of Faith I’m talking about here.

   Hope is for the future, but Faith is NOW.  

  Scripture defines faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen.”  (Heb 11:1).   So, using the example of the kids turning out ‘right’ you can see that the ‘substance of things’ is the teaching and the effort you put into raising them.  The evidence of things not yet seen’ is your knowledge of other kids turning out right from proper teaching, even though you can’t see it in your own as yet.  So you can have belief and Faith in the result.

  Belief and Faith differ though.   I can believe through sense-knowledge for the physical things in my life.  “The chair will hold me.  There is a pilot on this plane.  My car will start.”   I can believe those things, but I can also do so without needing faith.  I’m simply believing in the proven – facts.

  Spiritual Faith takes us into another realm altogether.  Faith in God.  Faith in your righteousness in God.  Faith that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.  This kind of Faith is knowing passed and beyond hope.  It is knowing beyond a belief.  This kind of Faith is when you know a thing simply just is or it will be.

   I have wrestled for a long time over exactly how to understand why Faith is such a force, for my own understanding.  I think I finally have it!

   In Mark 11:23 (KJV)  Jesus put it this way:

       “For verily I say unto you.  That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith.

Vs 24:  Therefore I say unto you. What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that receive them, and ye shall have them.”

  I don’t know how many times I have read those words. Quoted those words! But last night as I lay reading them over once again, the light went on!  

       In order to believe for a thing, you must be ready to receive the thing!

Remember the opening statement above?  “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”  Well, it is the same creative principle at work here.  When you are ready to receive a thing, it will appear if you speak for it out of your readiness to receive it.  Not think about it, but say it out loud.  Jesus used the word ‘say’ three times here for a reason.

     “…For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks.”  (Luke 6:45)

Awesome!  I will take some of that please!

    First we speak about that for which we desire.  We talk about our dreams and our visions, our deep desires. and the things we are excited about.  We use our imagination to see a thing in our possession.  In other words, we make ourselves ready to receive it!  We prepare for the event!  We ready ourselves to possess it!

Think about it!  I remember as a child, when we -as a family - got word that the adoption papers had been approved; we prepared a crib and a whole room for a new baby’s arrival!  So first we talked about it and expressed our want.  Then we believed we would receive and put the thing into action.  We readied ourselves and kept speaking an expectant faith in the achievement of our dream.  We do the same process with all things!  If you are getting a new car, you clean a space for it in the garage.  If you buy new furniture you prepare a space to put in it before the deliver man arrives.  You talk about it and you expect it to come to you. Expectant Faith.  This is the creative force!

Awesome!   Get ready to receive!

Do Not Doubt --Only Believe

Photography by Rick Mortimer

    I was just lazing about here on this hot afternoon thinking about my grandson Glen who came to stay and be with me at my Father’s Celebration for Life.  How nice that was of him to come down and spend that time with me, and for me to be able to introduce him to  a lot of my relatives – many of whom I myself had not seen since back in the early 1970’s when I left the coast to go live up north in the Yukon.
   Unfortunately, when it came time for Glen to fly back home to Whitehorse, we found that had missed his flight.  When you buy your tickets online you get an email with flight times on it and these are in military time.  Glen, being a young fellow and unfamiliar with military clock workings, got the hours mixed up and as a result we showed up two hours late at the airport on the night of his returning home.  At least we had lots of seats there at the check-in booth!
  
   This is quite an expensive mistake and I do highly recommend to anyone flying anywhere to check your times!  In Glen’s case he ended up purchasing another full fledged ticket since the airline would not give him any kind of a break on his no-show.  Not necessarily unfairly on the airline’s part either, but still… a downer for Glen.

    On the way back home I was telling him that one of the things I’ve learned in my life is that not everything we see as ‘bad,’ is in fact, bad.  Since I am firmly convinced –unshakably so- that as a reborn Christian, I can claim protection and power and Grace, in the name of Jesus Christ, that is not available to people who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their saviour.   I have seen many examples while living in the northern bush, of this protection in situations where something I at first perceived as ‘bad’ turned out to have saved my life.  Some of those happenings involved grizzly bears, and many involved bad ice on the rivers and lakes.  Some involved trees being blown over where I would have camped if the timing had been different, or if the horses had not run off.  In other words, what was ‘bad’ at first glance, turned out to be even life-saving in hind-sight.
    God uses all things for good to those who believe, and a lot of the doing of this turning what we first think is bad to good we are not aware of in the physical realm.  A good scriptural example is Elijah (Elisha) asking God to open the eyes of his servant, when they were surrounded by the army of Syria.  In looking at things through the physical senses, they were in deep trouble with no hope of a way out.  God saw it otherwise and in the spiritual realm, the servant’s eyes were opened and he saw around Elijah and himself, a whole army of horses and chariots of fire ready to fight for them and to protect them from the Syrian Kings wrath.  (2Kings 6:17,18).

    I was telling Glen of this and of the stories behind the attack on the Twin Towers in New York on 9/11 where thousands of lives where lost.  What we did not hear of on the nightly news (tip there!), was that hundreds of lives where also saved.  I believe the number was around 300 if memory serves, who –for various reasons- had not shown up for work that day in the towers, and so lived to talk of it.
  One such person I remember quite clearly;  his dog had eaten his shoe-laces during the night and he had stopped on his way to work to buy new ones.  He had some difficulty finding appropriate ones to go with his shoes, and the delay saved his life.  He was still in the store, many miles from the Twin Towers when the airplanes where flown into the buildings.
   Another was of a lady who, during the previous night had come down with a case of food poisoning and so she too was spared of being caught in the holocaust of the collapsing towers.
   These are only two examples and again, if memory serves me right – there where over three-hundred people who did not show up for work on that day, resulting in their lives being spared.
   Now, when you stop and think about it, did the lady with food poisoning during the night think about how lucky she was to be so sick?  Did the guy needing shoe laces get excited about his time lost from work?  (I can’t imagine it would be too exciting to have to phone your boss and explain that the dog ate your shoelaces!).  Truth is that I doubt if very many of those three-hundred people where thinking in terms of how ‘lucky’ they were that morning – while the towers stood as they had for many mornings before.
   But they were lucky; if you use the word ‘luck’ as the world uses it.  I no longer believe in luck myself.  The word ‘luck’ is like the term ‘coincidence’ or the word ‘try’… it does not exist in reality.

   So I was able to help my young grandson see that there is more than one way to look at things.  What you see as ‘bad’ may in fact be ‘good’.  How do we know that if he’d caught that flight, he might have ended sitting next to someone with an infectious disease?  Or that perhaps we where spared the timing of being involved in a horrible car accident if we’d left for the airport earlier?  So in fact, his bad fortune was actually, his good fortune!
   How do we know?  Put pure and truthfully…we don’t – in the sense realm.  But 2 Corinthians 5:7 tells me that as a Christian I am to walk by Faith and not by sight (sight meaning ‘of the senses’ or with my ‘earthly’ mind) .  In Faith I know that as a Child of God that I am protected and loved, and that God has promised in His Word that I have the power to ‘tread upon serpents’ and be protected in the name of Jesus. (Mark 16; 15-18)

   What a blessing it is to have learned these things in my lifetime and to be able to teach it to the next generation!   By the time we got home from the airport that evening, Glen was smiling again (albeit a lot poorer financially), and I had strengthened my own Faith in the teaching of it.

  God is awesome!  And so:
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!

   
 
 

What's next?

We miss you Dad 

     My goodness how the time goes rushing by!  I've been calling myself a 'blogger' as if I really was one, and here a whole month has gone by since I dripped a single drop on here.  This is a strange thing since I enjoy writing.

   I think sometimes, we just turn fun things into projects somehow.  Instead of just writing for the fun of it, I get to thinking I must have some great, long, and wise sounded statements going here.  Why this is I don't know.  I mean, the Prime Minister does not read my Blog I'm pretty sure.  (why would he? After all, he phones for advice everyday anyway!).

   So, I'm back. I want to say that much has changed since I was last here. First of all, my Father died on June 11th.  Dad had put up a strong and courageous fight against Lymphoma -which he was winning!- and then caught a lung infection in the hospital that he just could not fight off due his being so 'low' from the Chemo-Therapy.  He never came back home.

    We held a ceremony of his life on July 7th -just two days ago now - and I was happy to see so many of his old friends and so many relatives there to honour him.  And much honour they gave him!  Dad was a well liked and respected man, who went through life making friends and spreading a lot of happiness around.  

  Many of the people who came to celebrate his life had known Dad since his early boyhood years.  Dad made many lifelong friends.  I was proud to see my grandson Glen Skookum come down from Whitehorse to pay his respects to Dad also.

   I was blessed to be able to spend the last year here living with him, and we grew to be good friends.  I had been away for a lot of his later years, so it was a true gift for me to have this time with him.

  Hugh Mortimer.  Father.  Friend.  I miss you.   

   Life moves on.   I am now onto the next adventure myself.  I need to find work and a place to live.  The house here has been sold, and renovations will have to happen in this basement suite, and so it's time to move on.   I don't have too many prospects open for work here right now, but now is the time of testing for my own Faith.  I don't believe the Lord brought me this far to desert me now!  In fact, He said He would not.   So I'm walking in His Words..."I will never leave you, nor forsake you."   I know that God feeds His sparrows....Ive always been one of them!  I also know, that I see the sparrows out in the back 'forty' scratching around looking too, and that is what I must do now.

  So the job search has begun now in earnest (dire earnest you might well say! lol ) and I'm accepting all prayers, believe me!

  But I am continuing to Walk by Faith and not by sight as 2 Cor 5:7 admonishes us to do.   The situation may look daunting - in fact, hopeless even!- but my God is much bigger than hopelessness.  It's amazing how praise combined with speaking words of faith, will activate those Words to become creative power.   We create by speaking God's Word.  Just as He did in the first Chapter of Genesis.  "And God said....."

   Hope is nothing more than a wish for the future.  Faith is an action word for today.

  Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not yet seen."

    I like that definition of Faith.  NOW faith...why, that must mean right this moment...

           Praise God!

Your Inherent Rights

Your Inherent Rights

By

Rick Mortimer

" In talking about 'rights', I'm inclined to define and separate them into

two categories; human rights (the God given right to life) and the civil

rights, which are legislated by the political systems we call our country,

democracy or whatever. "

(quoted from a letter by a Canadian to his local paper).

Yes, these are the two categories all right. And the ones you call civil rights are of course subject to the whim of the 51% in a democracy. That is why those rights fall under regulatory laws.

The others, though, (the HUMAN RIGHTS) are indeed GOD given. That is G-O-D and not g-o-v. These rights should be protected in perpetuity and guarded with your life. After all, this is what wars are fought over, The soldiers of the first and second world wars, protected them for us with THEIR lives so that we would be able to enjoy them in the future also.

But now, it is these very rights which are severely under attack in Canada. I don't think it's by any great 'conspiracy' or a trilateral commission or whatever, (although many people do so think), but I do believe they are being attacked by people in power, who have the mentality that they know what is best for the rest of us. This is what I call the Liberal left, or socialist people. They do it with all good intentions, and you can't fault them for their intentions. You can fault them greatly, however, for thier thinking that they, and they alone, are the only ones who have the 'key' to what is good for "us". This line of thinking is much like the belief in the divine right of Kings which was firmly entrenched in people's minds, until the 56 men set up the declaration of Independence in what was to become the USA. Until then, the idea that your inherent rights, came from God, was unheard of. You can bet the British Royalty did not want their subjects knowing that truth!

These are the rights that we refer to as ‘human rights.” These are the rights that I am referring to when I mention 'gun-laws", the National Firearms Act, etc..

...because it is these rights which are under attack by these Acts of parliament, under the guise of regulatory law.

Regulatory law: an example of which could be a tax on owning a certain piece of property, should not be used to interfere with your right to own that which is your inherent right to own. A firearm for protection is one example, the fruit of your labour is another example: the wheat that grows on your farm, or the things that you buy with the money you earned by being productive or expending your labour. When you put a tax on something that a poor man can not pay, and then imprison him for not paying it, it is the same as banning him from having it in the first place. That is an example of misused regulatory law if it is blocking him from that which is inherently his.

The taking away of your right to own private property is an attack on your inherent right to own the fruit of your labour, which, by the way, is the cornerstone of our capitalist system.

Another way to look at it is this: Government has no right to take from you that which it never gave you in the first place, because your inherent rights do not come from Government; they come from God.

When regulatory law is used to control your inherent rights, (as per the above example) then the powers that are using those laws in that way, are abusing not only the very justice system itself, but also their power that the people gave them in the first place. They were not put into office, whether voted or appointed in, to do any such thing as to use regulatory laws to infringe on your inherent rights.

The National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1995, (and many 'gun-control' laws before this) do exactly that. And what makes it especially galling, is that the act set it up so that the politician in charge of the Justice Department, can enact whatever new regulations he feels disposed to enact on any particular day, simply by making an order in council. HE NEED ASK NO ONE ELSE AND CAN TOTALLY CIRCUMVENT THE WHOLE SYTEM OF PARLIAMENT (and therefore the Democratic process) BY DOING SO.

Further: the NFA allows the principles set down in the act to be used in 'ANY OTHER ACT OF PARLIAMENT".

So, you now have a 'regulatory act' which clearly sets up a condition where your inherent rights can be snatched away by whatever powers that be in Ottawa. That group was put in power by 51% of the voters of course, but the use of those powers is not voted on in each case –we, the voters, assume that whom we elect will operate by principles which we vote for. Unfortunately, in today’s world, both you and I know that the parliament does not show nor give heed to "The will of the people". In today’s Parliament, if our elected representatives vote against the party leader, they are back-benched and threatened with political suicide. Hence they either oppose the vote at their own peril, or they simply do not show up to vote and by so doing do not give us –the people- the representation that we want and need to have.

To make matters worse, it no longer matters what or how the Senate votes anyway, because now the Federal Justice Minister can bring in any new laws or rules he wants to, and completely avoid having to go through the Senate and the democratic process by issuing an "Order in Council". (Let us not forget, that Justice Minister, Allan Rock, who was the minister at the time of the writing and passing through Parliament of Bill C-68 which would become this National Firearms Act, is on record as stating that it is his belief that only the military and the police should have firearms in Canada.)

We now live in a Police State because:

· you do not have the inherent right anymore to own the fruit of your own labour (Private property), and your private property can be outlawed and confiscated at any time the government wants it to be. (firearms, for one example.)

· You do not have the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

· You do not have the right to council.

· You do not have the right to silence.

· You do not have the right to protect yourself or your property.

You do not...........you get the picture.

(….and you certainly do not have any representation in the political system anymore)

Right there, go your inherent rights. Period.

This has come about because some people believe that they know what is best for the others, and they are not about to run it by you first to see what you think of their wonderful ideas.

This is simply a pattern of history. It is being repeated over and over again all around the world. Hence the saying " Those that don't study the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it."

· Joseph Stalin said he knew what was best for his people. So he murdered 20 million of them to make them fall in line with his thinking.

· Mao killed , I believe, 30 million, for the same reason.

· Hitler killed 6 million for the same reasons.

there's more.......

How many have been killed in Rwanda now, and 'socialist' African countries for the same reason that SOMEONE just knew that he had the key for a better way of life that the common fellow had to be force fed? These people are referred to as social architects or social engineers, and when they use the regulatory laws to infringe on your inherent rights, it creates noncompliance with the laws of the land and can escalate from there into open rebellion, because people will fight, as a last recourse to keep their inherent rights intact.

Problem is, without small arms, the population has no way to protect itself from these dictators. None at all. That is historic fact.

So then, when your rights come from Government, they can be taken away by Government. When you have no means to resist, you will have these rights taken away from you by people "who know what is better for you than you do." (in Canada we call it 'social engineering' to quote the liberal party.) It is important to note here, that for anything to be forced upon you, you must have no 'means to resist' it. Nothing can be imposed upon you if you have the means to resist it. (This is the whole point of the second amendment in the USA constitution)

This is historic fact.

All of this does not point to some conspiracy theory of world control. (although there are many who believe it does, and it can sure appear that way.) It does however point to people who have not studied the lessons of history, when they let it happen to themselves. Who was it that said, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." I think it was Thomas Paine, or perhaps it was Benjamin Franklin?

This is why the whole argument is not about 'gun control'. It is not even about guns. It is not about 'men and their toys' or a bunch of people who simply don't want to be in the powerless 49% in a democracy, and are whining about it.

It is about your freedom. It is about your inherent right to live in society as an honest member of that society who recognizes that he/she has the right to better themselves through their own labour, and personal achievements, and to protect their own life and the lives of their families. It is about your right to not be threatened with violence nor with long term imprisonment by your government, because you believe in owning the one tool that will guarantee these rights are not infringed upon by men who would have you doing what they desire you to do.

That is what it is all about.

There is a whole culture in Canadian society who believe that their inherent rights are now seriously under attack in Canada. They are starting to believe that nothing short of civil disruption will stop the attack on our inherent rights, by the 'social engineers.' Whether you believe that the agenda of the engineers is global, or simply more personal, bears not one whit of difference as to the result of the actions of these social engineers.

The whole point in trying to educate oneself, and other people, to the lessons of history, is to try and avert that battle, isn't it? To be able to help other people see what is going on so that the 51% can decide on what to do? Since Canada is a democracy and not a republic (in a Republic, inherent rights are protected by law under a constitution), the only tool that the people can use to attempt to retain their rights is to educate themselves and so protect themselves from the grief of repeating bad history. The question in a Democracy then, becomes: “Who is doing the educating?|

Many Canadians believe that the need for protection is here in our society now - today. Many believe that at this time in Canada, our inherent rights are under attack as never before in the history of this country. This is why the rate of noncompliance with the National Firearms Act of 1995 (Bill C-68) is so high across the country.

This is a cultural thing. It is not about a bunch of 'gun nuts' wanting to play Daniel Boone or 'little boys who want-to-be cops.” It is about your neighbours and your children and your countrymen who believe that they are doing no wrong, that they have the inherent right to posses the one thing that will guarantee that no government men will come and bust their door down in the middle of the night and drag them and their families off to the gulag.

History has shown that men who believe themselves to be in the right, and who feel that their freedom is being taken away, will fight.

Recycling the Mind

How to Recycle Your Mind

Photo by Rick Mortimer

  I always wondered why it was that so few people I meet on a daily basis could be said to be high achievers.  That is to say, people who consistently meet the goals they set for themselves in the various areas of their lives.  Some people want to grow in areas of spirituality, others wanted to be healthier, and still others to be wealthier.  However, most of those who admitted to me that they even had goals, also told me that they did not feel very optimistic about achieving them.  I felt about the same way, and since I had the opportunity to do so, I took the time to study on why so many of us do not achieve our goals, and why it seems that so few do.

  This led me to discover the most amazing gift I was ever given:  The power to control my own destiny and to achieve any goal or dream I can believe in for myself. 

  Here’s how it works:

  It is from out of our subconscious mind that our future flows.

  The mind is said to be comparable to an ice-berg in that only the top ten percent is recognized by most people.  This is what we refer to as the conscious mind.  It is the part of our brain that we are hearing ourselves think with, and that we use for logical thought.

  What most people don’t recognize is that it is the sub-conscious mind which directs us to make the actions and choices that we do process each day.  This section of our mind is often referred to as the seat of our ego or our id.  It creates and holds onto our self-made picture of ourselves.  It is also the part of the brain that runs all our body functions for which we do not take conscious thought of; breathing for instance.

 Our mind is programmed by habits which are formed by our predominant thought patterns.  It is from these patterns of thought that we will act, and these actions are what create our ‘outer circumstance’.  

  Control those patterns and you control your future.

  How?

  The mind works by habit-force.  What we program our sub-conscious mind with will dictate how it will think by ‘default.’  Once we understand this, we then have the power to change the way our mind functions as it is faced with our daily situations.  Let’s say for example, I desire to be a more positive type of person.  I may be a predominantly negative type of person, but if I want to change that then it is within my power to do so.  I can start to bombard my mind with positive thoughts in all circumstance by an act of my will, mix those thoughts with strong emotion, and my sub-conscious mind will soon start to act out of that new thought pattern and begin seek out and find the positive side of any given set of circumstance.  The emotion should be joy, or excitement, or even anger; any emotion that is strongly felt. This reinforces the importance of this set of thoughts to your mind.

  By taking every thought captive and deliberately reinforcing this action, habit-force will eventually take over and soon my subconscious mind will be directing me to the positive possibilities in a situation instead of the negative ones.  I will now find myself having a positive outlook without having to ‘work’ at it anymore.  Even more importantly, my outer circumstance will change and become more positive also, because my mind will now see the positive choices available to me, instead of those choices being based on the old negative view I was being directed to previously.

  Any change in your outer circumstance comes from change on the inside first, simply because our circumstances are the result of our actions which come from the decisions and choices we make; which of course come from our thoughts.

And that is how you change your future.  One thought at a time. 

  The key is desire coupled with self-discipline.  I must first want to change, and then I must be determined to pursue that desire with diligence.  I must be persistent.  I must be patient –and I must be thorough!

  It is a sad fact that in North America, 95% of people over the age of 65 are considered to be unsuccessful financially to the point of needing some sort of financial assistance to sustain a decent life style.  The other 5% obviously found the key above and applied it to take the road to prosperity instead of poverty.

  Which group do you want to be in?  Think about it!

 Rick Mortimer

He found the Secret to Success

 It is said that the biggest fear man has is fear of change.  This leads to complacency. Nothing changes until you change it.  Unfortunately, we get 'set in our ways' - which simply means that we develop habits that imprison us in jails of our own making.  And there we remain until forced by outside circumstance to reach for higher ground and to develop the required new habits that will keep us there or move us even higher.

 Here's a little story about someone who started on the right path and then allowed himself to be immobilized by the sometimes very subtle fear of change.

Photographer: Rick Mortimer

The Secret to All Success

I sat in my room and I studied about success and all that it means

I read book after book on successful folks, and how they attained their dreams.

I spent a fortune in book stores; I listened to CD’s and tapes

I spent countless hours upon my bed, just pondering what it would take.

I read interviews with the rich folk, and the ranting of the poor

I studied until I was cross-eyed; and then reached for ‘just one more.’

One more book to help me, just one more tape or two

One more dose of the truth I need to be successful too.

As I stayed at home and studied, and time slowly slipped away

I saw other folks attain the success that I read about each day.

And as the time went passing by and my knowledge of principles grew

The more successful the other folks got – the ones that went out to do.

I quote these words of a very wise man, who’s wisdom I hoped to attain:

 “The living is in the doing, and the knowing is in the pain.”

And although I have read that often, and memorized it too,

I never did apply it – nor make myself go out and do.

I never did go act upon the knowledge that I’d gleaned

I never did apply it and so wrest from life my dreams.

And now that I am old and poor, with eyesight growing dim

I’ve found the key to success at last:  You simply just begin!

©

Rick Mortimer

May 2010

New Westminster

British Columbia

How to have J-O-Y

Some people just seem to be happy and peaceful all the time!  It used to make me wonder what was wrong with them.  I thought that if you where going through hard times, and you appeared joyful -even somewhat happy - you where just being hypocritical.
   Not so, says the Word...

Hebrews 12:3  “For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.”

 This verse says it all to me.  Consider Him [Jesus]..... lest I be weary [worn and dull of mind] and faint [grow weak in my Faith].
    In other words,  I need to keep my mind on Jesus ALL THROUGH THE DAY so that my Faith will be strong to accomplish what needs to be done.  What needs to be done?  I need to live for Christ and through obedience to Him [action Faith] do the work the Father has chosen me to do.  I will know when the time comes what that is in it's totality.  In the meantime, obedience is the job.
  The key I'm seeing with this verse is this:  Keep your mind on Him.

Chapter 12 of Hebrews starts with the word (KJV)  Wherefore.... that means that the verses leading up to it have led us to a point being made  ..and so we need to know what led us up to this point:
   Leading up is Heb 11 and a message about people of Faith and their accomplishments.. vs 33-40 in particular, is talking about the early Christian's who where martyred for their Faith, mostly in the Roman Coliseum.  They were fed to lions, spitted on stakes and set afire, sawn in two, boiled alive in oil, and a hundred other obscenities.   These people, when they where being tortured in the Coliseum sang and Praised God in their martyrdom to the effect that Nero (Emperor of Rome) would plug his ears and cry out "Why are these Christians so eager to die?"  
 The early Christians were eager to follow Jesus.  They KNEW that with Jesus was the place to be!  I'm not talking suicidal...I'm talking of a total lack of fear of death.  Jesus had just given us power over the fear of death, remember?  These people lived such fear free lives that they went to the Coliseum singing and praising God!  Even some of the soldiers quit their posts and ran to take the place of those being martyred because these people had 'something' that others had never seen before.  Jesus! 
  Listen to this truth and reflect on it ---within 30 yrs of this, the most powerful nation that had ever existed in the known world, fell.  It disintegrated  - imploded- because of the Christian Faith.
     Oh how we have fallen away!  Today, we are scared to even mention His name in places!

This then all leads into Hebrews 12 and now we need to pay attention, for the point leads us to what we need to do:
    

1 Wherefore seeing [by the preceding verses] we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, [of bearing any sin] and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

  Paul is telling me to remember those that have gone before and how their walk with Jesus was.  To lay aside everything I am going through at present and to focus on Jesus.  By doing so, even during these afflictions [persecutions] my Faith will enable me to persevere with patience the trials before me.

 How could Jesus, knowing and aware that the torture, brutality, and cruelty of the cross was directly before Him, possibly walk toward it in Joy?  did you ever wonder about that?
Joy?  ???

  Jesus had joy because He kept His mind on the Father.  He had Joy because He knew He was doing what the Father wanted Him to do .  The assignment did not matter - obedience was the issue.  The fact that it was going to kill Him and cause him untold pain and undeserved horror and shame-did not steal His Joy!  He did not endure the trek to the cross with a sulky self-pitying attitude.  His mind was fixed on the prize He was to attain over his victory and he was flooded with joy because of it.  Even in the midst of His worst earthly moments, He had joy.

   That sure takes away any excuse I have for my next pity party!
  This teaches me that JOY is under our control. It is an emotion and so subject to our control.  Your emotions follow upon your actions.  Actions follow your thoughts.  You can stir yourself up to feel any emotion you desire to have. What are you focusing your mind on?  What emotions are your thoughts creating for you? 

How then can we possibly allow ourselves to be depressed, discouraged, sad, etc...?  We can stir ourselves up through remembering what Jesus did and by doing the same.  He stayed focused on the joy of serving His Father.
  This is an incredible teaching. 

    There are some hard things coming in the near future.  I for one, and keeping my mind on Jesus. Otherwise, I will be too weak to endure my own race.

Keep the Important thing the Important thing

Photo by Rick Mortimer

Keeping the important thing the important thing.

There is a graveyard behind my house.  It is a huge graveyard of about one hundred acres and has existed since this city was incorporated about one hundred and fifty years ago.

 Yesterday when I was walking by it I saw graves where the people had died almost one hundred years ago.  Some of those people where old at the time they died and some where not. 

   I tried to imaging what their lives must have been like.  These must have been pioneering people who came to this city when it was young or maybe even still pretty much a wilderness even.  And then I got thinking about what their world was like for them and of all the technology and changes that have come and gone since their deaths.

   You know, they were normal people.  They had issues and pet peeves, and things that gave them pleasure.  They had families and bills to pay and jobs to go to and food to gather.  They had things they cherished and things they hated about their lives.  The had issues.  They had relationships.  They had sadness and happiness come and go in their lives just like I do.  They loved living as much as I do.  They lived and saw other die.  They had their own social circles and valued their friends just like I do.

  But none of those things matter now.  It’s all gone for them.  Their earthly trip is over.  Not one thing matters to those people now except where they are spending their eternity. 

  Think about it.  

The only thing that really matters in our lives is our relationship to God. 

When someone walks past your headstone one-hundred years from now, what are they going to think about the things that you value and place importance on  today?  What are they?  Are you putting a priority in your life on your job?  Politics?  How much money your pension is going to bring?  If your child goes to this school or that school? What your boss thinks about the last report you filed?  Where you are going to vacation this coming summer?   Which hockey team is going to win the Stanley Cup?

    Are these things going to matter down the road to you?  To others?

The only thing that matters in our lives is our relationship to God.  When that is in place, the rest will be added to you.

  What did you do to Praise God today?  Did you ask Him to spend the day with you?  Did you thank Him for bringing you the prosperity that you have and for giving you the good health you enjoy?  Did you thank Him for loving you today and paying the horrid price of the death of His precious Son so that you could know Him today?  Did you thank Him for delivering you from the fear of death and for inviting you over to His house for the next bazillion years of eternity?

What value do you put on God?   Because that is the only thing about you that is going to remain one hundred years from now.  The only thing.

  What value you give God in your life today, is the only thing that is going to remain in the future, because this is what is going to determine where you spend it.

  Keep the important thing the important thing.  That’s what really matters.

Photo by Rick Mortimer

Learning about Grace.

When I was about 14 or 15 years old, one day on my way home from school, my pals and I went into a local shopping market and I stole some cigarettes.

  I got caught.

Being rebellious and pretty cocky, when the store manager informed me that he could either phone the police, the principal of the school or my Dad, I told him to phone my Dad.

  Dad showed up and made peace with the store manager.  He and I went home.  Once there he and I went directly to his room where I got a good strapping on my hind end with his belt.

  I made sure I did not let any tears show, and as casually as I could, sauntered out the room to go to the kitchen for a drink of water.

    In the front room that I had to pass through, sat my mother in a chair sobbing her heart out.  “How could you do this thing?   Did we not raise you to be better than that?”

  My heart broke.  Tears streamed down my face as I stood condemned before her by her tears of agony.

   I never stole anything again.

   My father did no wrong giving me a strapping with the belt.  Scripture (Proverbs 13:24) tells us that ‘He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.”  And my Dad loved me, there is no doubt of that!

    Punishment of this kind is force.  It is effective and necessary.  But it’s goal is to produce fear.  If we are acting ‘right’ because of the fear that we may be caught and having then to face some kind of painful punishment being handed down to us, then our motives are totally wrong.

   My mother on the other hand, responded out of her Love for me.  Her disappointment was very real; not for herself but in me, and it was this that brought such conviction upon me and made me realize the true error of my act.

This is the difference we see between New Testament Grace and Old Testament Law.

The Law was never brought to show us how to live Holy and righteous.  The Law was brought to show us that we could never live Holy according to what God’s standard of Holiness is.  We may be able to live a life in a more Holy manner than other men, but we can never measure up to the standard that God has set for us.  The Law was brought to man, for this purpose only – to show us how far we are from God’s standards, and to fear the judgement that comes through sin.   This was the curse of the Law through the Old Testament.

  Jesus redeemed us from the Law.  The word ‘redeemed’ means to ‘recover’ or ‘gotten back’;  much the same as you ‘redeem’ an item from a pawn shop.  So Jesus literally ‘bought us back’ from the curse of the Law.  He did this by becoming a curse for us through his submission to being crucified.

  Gal 3:13 “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”

   After Jesus was crucified, the NEW TESTAMENT came into effect.  For a testament is of no effect until the testator has died.  This is what we celebrate on what is known as Good Friday and Easter.

 The New Testament brought in a whole new set of ‘rules’ for God’s people.  We were set free of the Law and now come under God’s Grace which he has extended to us who accept his Son –the price God paid- for our redeeming (redemption.)  The curse of the Law has been lifted off of us, and through Grace and the Faith in it we show back to God, we are made to be partakers of the Blessing of Abraham. 

Romans 4: 22 And therefore it was imputed to him [Abraham] for righteousness. 23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; 24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;

  Gal 3: 29 And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

  So we are now living with the Blessing of Abraham upon us through New Testament Grace, and not under the curse of the Old Testament Law.

    This is the GOOD NEWS given to us by the saints who wrote the New Testament.

     Unfortunately, the church seems to have been –and still is – preaching the Old Testament message of the Law and condemnation to those who do not live up to it.  Such teaching makes the work of Christ to no avail.

Galatians 5: 4 Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.

We can never hope to achieve righteousness through our works.  We are of a fallen nature and impure.  That is what the law came to show – and the message that I learned in that house so many years ago by parents who loved me.

  We can only hope to be righteous [living right] though Grace and the unconditional Love of God.  Faith is but our gift back to Him for Faith works by the law of Love, and when we see the love that our Heavenly Father extends to us, the only response is to accept it in Faith and show it back to him through our actions.  God is Love.   Love always makes you want to respond in kind.

   And Love is always the right motive.

Rick Mortimer