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(8) Jesus like crazy
During court in Pilate's palace when that time Jesus was under the test of Pilate,Pilate's soldiers put a red cloak on Jesus,the crown of thorns on His head and mocked Him like Him a madman. Not only outsiders,but even Peter,who was appointed by Jesus that he would be the head of His church ("And I tell you, you are Peter,and on this rock I Will build my church, and the gates of hell shall is not prevail Against it"(Mt. 16, 18),Peter a disciple who Jesus loved and trust as such doesn't bear the words which sounded like Jesus was crazy when He said that He must go to Jerusalem,suffer many suffering by the elders, the chief priests and scribes cause, then killed, and the third day would rise again, therefore Peter did rebuke Him: (21 From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.”(Matt 16,21-22))

How crazy is Jesus called the disciples to follow Him, at the same time, announced He would suffer pain, killed; and more crazy when Jesus said that three days after His death He would revive! Throughout the book pages of Gospel also make us surprised about attitude and His strange words: 27 “But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. ....”(Lk. 6, 27-31)

How could they listen to those words when the mind of people with the mood ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’!

And I would like to tell you my experience of the message "crazy" of Jesus: When I was many years in prison at homeland, sometimes the prison guard talking to me, they wondering and surprising as they saw my attitude: smiling, friendly to them. They asked me why in the miserable situation in the prison that I could calm and tolerance like! (I had the opportunity to share experiences in the book "Five loaves and two fish" that I just popular for this year). But here I want to say, it is the "foolishness" of God's love for me, for all the "defects" of Jesus made me more passionate; it is "the madness" of Jesus draws me to follow Jesus!(Archbishop Francois-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan)

--> October 22, 2010 Beatification of Cardinal Francis-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan was officially begun.


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9. YOU HAVE TO FIND OUT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REALITY & THE IMAGINARY--the Truth & the lie--because if it is reality, it doesn't do any good to try to tell yourself it isn't there--to just shut your eyes & hope it goes away, & when you open them again you'll find out it didn't exist--it was just your imagination!--And in that case, the best thing in the World to do is to face it & take some kind of action & do something about it to eliminate the danger by taking the initiative & launching an attack!

10. AS ANY MILITARY STRATEGIST KNOWS, IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO WIN A DEFENSIVE WARFARE! Defensive war is doomed to defeat! To win a war you have to launch an attack--you HAVE to go on the offensive! You HAVE to set him back on his heels! You HAVE to take the initiative! You HAVE to be positive! YOU have to attack & invade & overpower! You can't just sit there & try to ward him off while HE attacks & invades or he'll finally overpower YOU.

11. THIS IS WHY COMMANDO & GUERILLA WARFARE IS SO SUCCESSFUL, even with such few numbers & very little manpower.--By sudden surprise attacks in unexpected places & weak spots in the enemy's armour you can do a lot of damage! You can hit & run before the enemy even knows what happened--before he even has a chance to retaliate. You can choose the time & place of attack, with lightning strikes, & disappear as quickly as they appeared, like little David with Goliath.--One little guerilla defied a whole army, like Gideon & his little band, a bunch of guerillas who defied a whole army; like Jonathan & his armour-bearer, a couple more guerrillas who defied a whole army! And boy, if you've got God with you, you're unbeatable, no matter how small you are! Jonathan said, in that particular attack of his, "God is not limited by few or by many!"--1Samuel 14:6.

12. SO IT PAYS TO FACE YOUR FEARS, recognise they're there, decide between the real & the unreal, the Truth & the lie, & go to the attack to dispel the vaporous fiction of the fairy tale & to drive away the genuine reality of real threat!

13. WE'RE IN A SPIRITUAL WARFARE, & our weapons are not carnal but spiritual--mighty to the tearing down of strongholds! This is a picture of your attacking the strongholds of the Enemy & ripping them apart, destroying the opposition! Jesus said of the Church, in Matthew 16:18, "The gates of Hell shall not prevail (withstand) against it!"

14. THE PICTURE IS NOT OF THE CHURCH STANDING FAST BEHIND ITS CLOSED DOORS WHILE ALL HELL ATTACKS, but the picture Christ painted was of HELL trembling behind ITS closed doors, while the CHURCH was in an all-out ATTACK against Hell's gates, which were collapsing & crumbling under the weight of the power of God through His Church!

15. JUST LIKE YOU DO WHEN YOU GO OUT WITNESSING--right on the Devil's ground--right into HIS strongholds! YOU'RE launching the attack, YOU'RE picking its time & place, YOU'RE taking the initiative, you're overwhelming the Enemy by surprise & suddenness & often he doesn't even know what happened until it's all over! You've come, you've struck him, you've wounded him & you've carried off some of his prey before he had a chance to get organised or retaliate or call the cops or decide what to do about you--because you came, you saw, you conquered!--And you hit him so hard he didn't have a chance to recover until you were already gone!

16. THE ENEMY NEVER KNOWS WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO DO NEXT! He doesn't know what kind of a shenanigan you're going to pull next and you've put him on the defensive! He rocks and reels from sudden blow after sudden blow, so that he has no time to organise an attack on you, he's too busy defending himself! In this way, tiny guerilla forces and commando units can keep an entire numerically-superior conventional army at bay, and an army continually on the defensive will never get anywhere!



TFI

contentment
/k?n't?ntm(?)nt/
noun
a state of happiness and satisfaction.
"he found contentment in living a simple life in the country"

This 'contentment' is surely only meant for a chosen few?

I really don't understand what direction my life is going to. It is like I wake up to the same routine everyday. I do the motions of being a teacher. Yes, life as a teacher is always different everyday but you go through the same motion without variation, it becomes boring. I feel like a robot just going through the same thing. Did anyone ever experience that at one point in your life?

God’s love letter

The Bible is not merely some religious book, but it is the most amazing, marvelous book in the whole world—which has the answers to everything: where we came from, how we got here, why we’re here, how to survive and be happy while here, and how to love and have happiness forever.

Consider the following seven facts that set it apart as a unique volume:

1) The Bible is unique in its continuity. It was written over a 1,500-year time span by over 40 authors from every walk of life, including kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, shepherds, soldiers, poets, statesmen, scholars, etc. Nevertheless, from beginning to end, its authors spoke on hundreds of controversial subjects with harmony and continuity, outlining one unfolding story: God’s love and purpose for humanity.

2) The Bible has been read by more people than any other book. It has outsold every book that has ever been written, and it still sells more copies every year than any other book in the world.

3) The Bible has been translated and published in more languages than any other book in existence. As far back as 1966 the whole Bible had appeared in 240 languages and dialects, and one or more of its books appeared in 739 additional ones.

4) The Bible, compared with all other ancient writings, has more manuscript evidence than any ten pieces of classical literature combined. Although originally written on perishable materials, having to be recopied by hand for thousands of years before the invention of the printing press, its style, correctness and accuracy has been preserved as has no other book in history. Thousands of ancient manuscripts in the original languages have been unearthed which prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Scriptures have come down through the ages to us as they were originally written.

5) The Bible has withstood vicious attacks as has no other book. Many have tried to burn it, destroy it, and outlaw it from the days of the Roman emperors. Its very existence today and the fact that its teachings and truths have been preserved despite the countless campaigns and tirades against it is in itself miraculous.

6) Discovery after discovery by modern archaeologists has confirmed the Bible’s accuracy and has proven it to be an accurate source of history. Archaeologists following Old Testament references have rediscovered whole nations.

7) The Bible is the only volume ever produced which contains a large number of prophecies accurately predicting the future of individual nations, peoples, cities, and the coming of one who was to be the Messiah. The Bible is full of countless detailed, specific prophecies that have been miraculously fulfilled—except, of course, those yet to be fulfilled.

Each of us is on a long journey, and the one who knows the way has instructed some of His men to draw a detailed map so we won’t get lost and so we can learn the right way to operate down here and ultimately make it safely to our final destination.

Of course, the most wonderful thing about the Bible is that, through its words, we can get to know its author. For the Bible is God’s great love letter to us. Its life-giving words make it the greatest book in the world, with the only author in the world that can guarantee life, love, happiness, and heaven forever through simply reading it and believing in its main character, the one who loved us so much that He gave His own life to save us—Jesus Christ, the Son of God. All of the wonderful, thrilling things that you read about Jesus doing in the Bible can and do happen today too, for “Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever.”5—David Brandt Berg

5 Hebrews 13:8.






Anchor TFI [Posted Video - Watch! & pray!]

Two little old ladies were chatting over the backyard fence. The first one boasted, “I went out with old man Cain last night and I had to slap him twice.”
“To stop him?” asked her friend.
“No,” she giggled, “to start him!”
Something is always possible. One thing that you need is: rather than searching for a soulmate, become a soul, become more conscious. When love is unconscious it is only lust and nothing else — a beautiful name for an ugly thing. When love is conscious, only then it is love. But how many people are conscious? When love is meditative, only then it is love.
And a meditative love will attract a meditative love energy. You get only what you deserve, remember, neither less nor more. You always get exactly that which you deserve. Existence is very just and very fair. So if you are not getting a soulmate, it is not going to help to frantically search for one. Rather look in. You are missing something in you — you are missing love qualities. You are not tender, you are not sensitive, you are not conscious. And you don’t know how to give without asking anything in return. Your love is a demand, there is a condition to it. It is a kind of exploitation. You want to use the other’s body, and no woman is ever happy if she is used — she hates it.
Millions of women hate their husbands for the simple reason that they feel used, as if they are just machines for your s*xual lust to be relieved so that you can have a good night’s sleep. No woman can ever respect you if she feels she is being used. Each being is an end unto himself. Never use a woman, never use a man, never use anybody. Nobody is a means for your purposes. Respect — love is a sharing, it is not using the other, it is not trying to snatch something from the other. On the contrary, it is giving wholeheartedly for no reason at all, just for the sheer joy of giving.
And then suddenly you will find one day you have found someone with whom your energies are in harmony, in accord. And it is a beautiful experience even to find a single person with whom you are in accord. And here you can find many persons with whom you are in accord.
You can’t imagine my ecstasy, because I am in accord with all of my sannyasins, in deep accord, a tremendous harmony. Then love reaches its highest peak. It is no more s*xual, it is pure prayer. And when love is prayer, you have found the soulmate.
But if your love is lust you can’t find a soulmate, you can only find some woman’s body. And the body is not going to help fulfill your longing. You need attunement with the soul, with the inner being, with the interiority of the woman or of the man.

......

Genesis 49:1
1 And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you IN THE LAST DAYS.

2 Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father.

(Their are two main things that must be researched in order to identify each individual Tribe of Israel based off of the prophesies that Jacob had given to his twelve sons in Genesis chapter 49. In order to identify who the ten lost tribes of Israel are you must first, find out where they migrated to when they left North Israel.
Second, once you have located the region where the bulk of these tribes went. Now you can take each individual prophecy that Jacob told to his twelve sons and individually identify each tribe based off of Jacobs prophecies that he foretold to his twelve sons which would come to pass in the last days. Lets begin with the general location of the ten lost Tribes of Israel. Where did they go after leaving North Israel approx 722 B.C.)

2 Esdras 13:39
39 And whereas thou sawest that he gathered another peaceable multitude unto him;

40 THOSE ARE THE TEN TRIBES, WHICH WERE CARRIED AWAY PRISONERS OUT OF THEIR OWN LAND IN THE TIME OF OSEA THE KING whom Salmanasar the king of Assyria led away captive, and he carried them over the waters, and so came they into another land.

(The ten lost Tribes of Israel were removed from the Northern region of Israel and carried away into the Assyrian captivity by King Shalmanasar King of Assyria. When verse 40 mentions " and so came they into another land." The other land that the Ten Tribes were brought to was Assyria approx 722 B.C.)


2 Esdras 13:41
41 But they took this counsel among themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen, AND GO FORTH INTO A FURTHER COUNTRY, WHERE NEVER MANKIND DWELT

(When Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, he found that the ten Lost Tribes of Israel had already inhabited what he called "THE NEW FOUND LAND."
The Americas (North, Central, and South America) is the place that had not been inhabited by man. The ten Lost Tribes of Israel migrated to this new found land approx 702 B.C. just like the prophecies of the Bible indicate.)

2 Esdras 13:42
42 That they might there keep their statutes, which they never kept in their own land.

(When the Spanish explorers arrived to the new found land. They noticed that the natives of the land were practicing customs and laws that were found in the ancient Hebrew culture.
These explorers wrote several books documenting what they encountered upon arrival to the new found land. Below are a few which confirms that the Bible is completely accurate with history. The lost tribes of Israel kept many Hebrew laws but also fell back into mischief by performing human sacrifices, and idol worship ect.)

History of The American Indians by James Adair

"I shall endeavor to prove from their religious rites, civil and martial customs, their marriages, funeral ceremonies, manners, language, traditions and a variety of particulars." He cites their common ideas of theocracy and the "ministration of angels."

KNOWLEDGEABLE IN THE RUDIMENTS OF HEBREW, he says "The Indian language and dialects appear to have the very idiom and genius OF THE HEBREW.

Their words and sentences are expressive, concise, emphatical, sonorous, and bold and often, both in letters and signification, SYNONYMOUS WITH THE HEBREW LANGUAGE."

OTHER ARGUMENTS INCLUDE THE COUNTING OF TIME, PROPHETS AND HIGH PRIEST, FESTIVALS, FAST, LAWS OF UNCLEANNESS, MARRIAGE, DIVORCE, BURIAL OF THE DEAD, CHOICE OF NAMES, PUNISHMENTS, CITIES OF REFUGE, PURIFICATION AND CEREMONIES PREPARATORY FOR WAR."

(One major law that the ten Lost Tribes of Israel kept was the law concerning fringes. Here is proof.)

“I have loved in life and I have been loved.
I have drunk the bowl of poison from the hands of love as nectar,
and have been raised above life's joy and sorrow.
My heart, aflame in love, set afire every heart that came in touch with it.
My heart has been rent and joined again;
My heart has been broken and again made whole;
My heart has been wounded and healed again;
A thousand deaths my heart has died, and thanks be to love, it lives yet.
I went through hell and saw there love's raging fire,
and I entered heaven illumined with the light of love.
I wept in love and made all weep with me;
I mourned in love and pierced the hearts of men;
And when my fiery glance fell on the rocks, the rocks burst forth as volcanoes.
The whole world sank in the flood caused by my one tear;
With my deep sigh the earth trembled, and when I cried aloud the name of my beloved,
I shook the throne of God in heaven.
I bowed my head low in humility, and on my knees I begged of love,
"Disclose to me, I pray thee, O love, thy secret."
She took me gently by my arms and lifted me above the earth, and spoke softly in my ear,
"My dear one, thou thyself art love, art lover,
and thyself art the beloved whom thou hast adored.”

It helps us to carry out the first and greatest command, love God, by having no idols. What do you love more than God? What do you look to for security more than you look to God? Where do you draw your sense of identity from, more than you draw it from God? These are things you must lay on the altar. Here is where your most earnest repentance lies. These things may not in and of themselves be bad, but if we make … more to us than God is, we have made an idol of them, and here we must repent.

Whatever you look to for security or comfort or assurance or validation, whatever you look to to make yourself feel better or to bring you pleasure over and above or quite apart from God is idolatry. … When you say, “I love God,” but what you care about more is what others think about you, you’ve got an issue. When you say, “I know God is my provider,” but all your hope and confidence is in your career, that’s idolatry. It happens anytime we look to anything over God as the source of life.

When it comes to God, we simply begin to practice loving Him. We make him the treasure of our heart, every day. Simply begin the day by saying, Jesus, you are my treasure. You are my heart’s desire. I love you. Help me to love you today. And then we shepherd our hearts, with his help. We notice where our hearts go looking for love or approval, for comfort or affirmation, and in those very moments we repent. O Jesus, forgive me for this idol. Cleanse me here, give me your holiness here. I renounce this idol. I choose God. In those moments, we give our hearts over to God in fresh and deeper ways.—John Eldredge9

*

What kind of idols do people worship today? “Who worship the works of their own hands.”10 What are people crazy about today? What do they go in debt for today? All kinds of luxuries, electronic equipment, beautiful luxurious homes, gorgeous million-dollar buildings. Things, things, things! What do many people today live for? What do they spend most of their time and money on? What are they working for? “The works of their own hands,” which they give most of their time, their devotion, and their strength.

“My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit. For My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”11 The message given through Jeremiah was to a people who had forgotten their God and turned to other idols.

As God’s Word says, “The people seek a new thing.”12 But they find nothing that ever satisfies, no love that ever lasts, no happiness that is forever theirs. They are miserable, brokenhearted, wounded, bound, captives of their own passions and prisoners of their own shattered hopes, desires, and limited human frailties.

For although the body is of this earth and is satisfied with the things of this earth, the human spirit—that intangible personality of the real you that dwells in that body—can never be completely satisfied with anything but utter union with the great and loving Spirit that created it. He’s the power and life of the universe that the Bible itself calls love, for “God is love,”13 the very spirit of love itself—true love, everlasting love, real love, genuine love that never ends from a lover who never leaves, the lover of all lovers, God Himself.—David Brandt Berg

9 The Utter Relief of Holiness (FaithWords, 2013).
10 Jeremiah 1:16.
11 Jeremiah 2:11,13.
12 Acts 17:21.
13 1 John 4:8.

**

Give us joy in our labors and glory in our tasks, Lord.

Thank the Lord for the oil of His Spirit! -- That vital touch with Him -- His Divine Life, Beauty, Power and Wisdom!

Has whatever you do got the power and the fire of God? -- If not, it's dead works! God help you to have the fire-power of God's Spirit in all you do! Amen? Hallelujah!







Anchor TFI