Walk the Walk

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Rick Mortimer

   All things start with an action.   The journey starts with the first step.    The first step needs to be taken in faith.  Your faith is the [tangible] substance of the thing hoped for, the evidence [proof]of the thing not yet seen. That faith is based on a belief that all will follow as needed.   When you couple this with an attitude of  ‘doing whatever it takes’ with gratitude for knowing that you can  ‘do all things in Christ, which strengthen us,”  then you cannot fail.  Whatever  the mind of man can believe,  he can achieve.

   Fear begets fear.  ‘The thing I fear has come upon me.”  Fear is the opposite of faith.  Just as faith builds, so fear destroys.  Fear is Satan’s counterfeit of faith.  Fear is against God because God has said we can accomplish all things.  Fear says we can’t.  Fear says, ‘why even start.”  Fear shuts you down before you begin.  God says, ‘begin a thing, and trust in me."  Doubt is fear disguised, but fear nonetheless.  

Speak the thing into existence. What you say is what you get.  If you speak words of doubt and fear, you create an attitude of such.  Reverse that by speaking words of faith out loud to yourself.  Fearful [fear filled] words are satanic words.  Speak God’s words about a thing.  Our words create our attitudes and enforce our beliefs.  Are we speaking words of belief in God’s ability and promises to us, or are we speaking words of defeat from the enemy?  Are we hung by our tongue?  We create with our words, or we destroy with our words. 

   Don’t dither around in trying to control the circumstance necessary for you to create.  You do the work, don’t plan the results. The results are God’s part.  Your part is to do, and that means to get started from where you are – not from where you are going to be, or want to be – but from where you are right this moment.  Success is not built on convenience.  Don’t expect things to meet all of your expectations before you begin.  Begin NOW with what you have.  When you step out under adverse circumstance, it is an expression of your faith.  God honours faith – not hesitancy and fear.

    Would you doubt any project if you absolutely positively knew that you could not fail?    Then why do we allow doubt to enter into a thing? Did not God say that he has put all things under our feet?  In the original Greek, all meant all.   We are more than conquerors in Christ.  We cannot fail.  Failure is impossible if we have a consciousness of  the victory and power that was given us at the cross.  We have the mind of Christ within us.  We have the victory over powers and principalities that might oppose us. 
   How then, can we fail to do a thing?  If we walk the walk, we can't.

Truth must be sought after.

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by Rick Mortimer

 

***T R U T H ***

Without effort, truth cannot be known at all.  It can’t be declared on T.V.,

nor set by type in articles, nor in any way sold and packaged “ready to eat.”

Truth must be sought after by every individual with such help as one may

discover.  It will never come without labor on the part of the seeker.  One of

the most striking contradictions of our times is the fundamental reverence for

truth which most profess and the total disregard for it which we practice.

Our actions should be as James Thurber wrote:

“Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in Awareness.”

A.A. Hodge once said:

“It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to discover the truth, than to find

one intrepid enough, in the face of opposition, to stand up for it.”

Herbert Spencer said:

“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments

and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation”

You will find this Blog to be a lot of articles about what I am excited about, what is of interest to me, or what I have learned in the Word.
If some of the things I say needle you, don’t just dismiss them, and don’t take my word for it. Search The WORD of God for yourself to see if they’re true.  If The WORD doesn’t confirm them, discard them. If it does, let them make you free.
  But don't ignore them just because you may not 'like' them.  Check them out. 
   I did.
 

You can't go with God, and yet remain where you are!

Heaven is NOW

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by

Rick Mortimer

Today as I was reading an article by OS Hillman, I was struck with the truth that all of God’s Word is passed on through the centuries to me so that I may live well in the time I am here on this earth.

 God framed the world by his Word and created certain principles for it to operate by. The law of Gravity for one; Aerodynamics, Electricity, Sewing and Reaping, and many others.  These laws are unchanging and when we follow them, we will be safe and able to function in this world.

   Does it not reason then, that God’s Word – as given to us in the Bible- is but further instruction on how to live well on this earth?  God loves us and wants to prosper us and see us in good health and forgive our trespasses and to enable us to walk with authority on this earth (the atonement of Christ).  He said to follow His Word and so choose Life!  (Deut 4:1, 30:19)  

  Inside of His instruction book (the Bible) we find other major principles for man to function by also;  The Law of Love; The law of Faith; The Laws of Compensation (“Give and it shall be given unto thee.’);  The Tithe.  And many many others.

  If one truly believes in God and also that this is a spiritual world in which we live, then one must come to the conclusion that our loving Father has also provided us with instructions on how to live well, and with all the blesssings He created for us to have.  Sound health, joy, peace of mind, prosperity, etc..  

 I believe.  Therefore, to me the Bible is a Living Document from God’s own lips that He has breathed life into – preserved down through the ages to be given to me, so that I may enjoy all that He has already given to me.   By following his Word, and being a doer of them - I will be able to receive it.

    Proverbs 1:7 7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

    Hosea 4:6 6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

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GOD Doesn't 'Call us Home.'

Photo by Rick Mortimer

God is not the author of death and sickness.

By

Rick Mortimer

I have been to two funerals this week.  One was for an 88 yr old fellow who went pretty fast.  The other was from a guy my age who went very slowly through alcoholism.  One bottle at a  time.

 I do not believe that in either case, 'God called them home."  We hear this wrong teaching all the time at funerals and it just makes me mad that the churches push this, and that we hear it so much that we believe it.  Even the Baptists 'push' this view of God.
   We live in a fallen world.  There have been two men who would never have to face death.  One was Adam -whom God made in His image. Adam would have lived forever, but brought his own death about through sin.  Through the same sin 'Death then entered the world.'   Now everything is full of death.  (disease, sickness, poverty, unrighteousness, mold, corruptness, etc...) 
 The second man was Jesus.  Jesus was born of the Father and never took on the sin full nature of the human race after Adam.  Jesus gave up his own life.  He stated that.  God did not kill him.  Jesus gave up his own life so that he could defeat satan through his death.  He could not die!  He GAVE his life up for me.  Much like another soldier throwing himself on a land mine and blowing himself up in order to save his friend from walking on it.  Jesus did this out of Love for me.

  This concept that God kills people is wrong.  God loves us.  God loves us more than we can even understand.  EVERY SINGLE unsaved/unreborn/sinner in the New Testament that asked Jesus to heal him - and whom Jesus healed - stayed healed.  Jesus killed no one, nor did he refuse to heal anyone.  NOT ONE. Jesus brought LIFE to us.  God loves us, why on earth would He 'call us home?  And yet the churches keep pushing this at us.  I know God and Jesus are there to greet us when we do go to Heaven, and I for one am looking forward to THAT hug!  But no, God is not going to kill me for it so I can have it.
  I believe we live in a fallen world.  Crap happens.  If you are standing under a bridge and the supports are weak and give out - because of the law of gravity you are going to be crushed and killed.  If you are in a spot where a bullet has to pass by because of the laws of trajectory - you will get hit and probably killed.  If you are in a plane and the motors quit...probably the laws of aerodynamics will kill you. If you breath in chemicals or germs, there's laws covering that. Plus, our bodies start wearing out from the moment we are born because of Adam's sin.   Etc.. 

   Satan is the author of death, not God.  God’s choice for us is LIFE.  (He even told us twice to choose life in Deuteronomy).  Because God is LIFE not death.
  We know that Satan can put thoughts into your head, but he has been defeated and has no power over us.  So he comes to us with lies and deception. That is the only weapon he has left!   If we believe those lies, then he can maneuver us into a position where we will die.  Through our own ego, selfishness, character defects, lusts or whatever, if we believe the thoughts he can put in our heads and if we choose to follow them, it can/will lead to death.  He is the father of lies, and if we believe his lies, we will act on them, and we will die.  Slowly or otherwise, but we WILL die. God tells us to learn His thoughts.  Satan tries to get us to believe his lies and thoughts.  Scripture tells us "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."  God is life, satan is death.  Which thoughts do we want to 'thinketh' here? 

 And we will die physically, not just spiritually by following satanic lies. 

But conversely, just because we die does not mean we were following satan's lie, either.  We live in a world governed by physical laws.  Break one and you can well die.  The law of electricity for example.  You don't have to be an evil person to die from high voltage.  You can be a saint, but if you touch a high-voltage wire you are going to die.  That is not God killing you.  God will surely welcome you when you get home, but He  sure did not kill you to get you there!
  Of course, according to Psalm 91, we do have protection.  If we listen, the Holy Spirit will guide us to somewhere where that high voltage wire can't harm us.  Or move us from the path of the bullet...or the tornado, or the flood.  But we must be in a position to hear the Holy Spirit.  If you are not 'fearing the Lord' you are probably not going to respond to His quiet urging either.

But God does not kill us.  I think that is one of the greatest heresies in the church today!  
  And here's the reason for this lie being repeated over and over.... How can you trust a God -or have faith in Him - if you think he's going to kill you at any moment?  Or maybe He'll strike your baby with cancer to teach you a lesson?
    What a great way for the father of lies to destroy -or at the least, horribly weaken, your faith in the Father of TRUTH AND LIFE.

  Another reason why it’s preached, I think, is because it makes it easier to tell grieving people that their teenaged son died because God wanted him back in heaven and so ‘called him home,’ than it is to say the truth that the son died because he got drunk and drove his car into a tree – or whatever. It's easier to tell people that God called Grandpa home than it is to tell them that satan's alcohol or nicotine killed him.   In other words, it is easier for us to blame God for our sin-caused deaths than it is to tell the truth about them.  If we told the truth about them, we might have to hurt someone's feelings... and we're much to selfish to do that, because that would be too hard for us.  God is big, He can handle taking the blame, right?  Wrong.  The proof of this is that we now have millions of people believing that when you die, it's because God killed you and 'Called you Home.'

  WHAT AN APPALLING LIE THAT IS!

 I stand on that.
Rick