If I could make a movie out of this week, it would be called Opening Pandora's Box versus Godzilla meets Cinderella.  All the characters were certainly in my life and fully acting out their parts.  Do you ever have those days?  Yeah, I know you do--we all do. But it is what we do with them that matters in the end.

Godzilla was truly an ugly character that was demanding his way, even when it wasn't the best for the team.  Cinderella--oh my, so many were up for the part including me.  You know Cinderella in the cinders cleaning, scraping, sweeping, doing the grunt work, still waiting for the Grand Gala.

The Bible says that the power of life and death are in the tongue, and that was Pandora's Box.  People were responding without thinking to some very critical choices we were in the middle of sorting out.  Frustrated because some things don't move as fast as they think they should, and frustrated that resources aren't as plentiful as desired and needed.  That's when Godzilla erupted by a member of the team.

Sitting down afterward with an associate you has been  my sounding board and armor bearer for almost 15-years patiently listened to me debrief my thoughts and own frustrations.  At the end of the debriefing, we both realized that people are just great individuals going through a process called learning to communicate.  In a previous column I spoke about the need for communication.


We had to communicate through phone lines to calm Godzilla down and demonstrate a Christ-like love and get them on our side so we could move forward.  They are great people, well worth each syllable of word after word.  In any team, we all take turns acting out the various parts of the play.  This week I got to be the director, feeling like Cinderella before the dance.

At the end of the day, we either build a family team, business team, church team, or neighborhood team--it still comes down to working through the words and emotions behind them.  So I have made a choice.  Let me share it with you.

Here is this week's Magnitude (expansion, greater, explosive)

This is a link to go directly each week.

August 11th Love and Joy--Consider Your Ways

Most of us are reading and/or beginning the study of end-time prophecies, whether from a biblical perspective, Nostradamus, or other writings. 

Perry Stone's Manna-Fest Program on www.voe.org this week spoke about the presidential election years.  The feelings of confusion that seem to manifest as the election date draws near increases and then began to demonstrate historical lineage.  Well, it's good to get understanding in all things, and listened with great interest.  But my outcome is not one of concern because I know that with the right attitude and focus on Jesus, today is another Monday Magnitude!

So today, I choose to take the advice of God when he said, Consider your ways.

Today I choose to carefully consider my ways so that my future will be bright and with all good things.  I will carefully consider my ways knowing that He directs my path into the ways of righteousness that brings me blessings.

Today I choose to expand or make the magnitude of my thoughts towards good choices, to be part of today and each day into a purposeful and deliberate future.

Haggai 1:5 "Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; consider your ways.

YOU make a difference to me and others!

 THIS WEEK'S CHALLENGE: Consider your ways, what character were you during the week and what was the best/worst about it? What have you considered changing?

Please leave a comment, only ads are not posted

I feel this is a critical piece of information and encourage you to study and keep up to date on the different mystical and emerging influences coming into the Christian Church.  If we are to stay the Bride of Christ, then another's voice we cannot hear (and take into our profession of faith).  Please ask questions below, leave your comments.  They will be posted the same day unless you leave ring tones or other ads.

Bishop Susan Storm Smith

*********************************************

A growing number of well-known evangelical leaders today are teaching thousands of people that the world has a serious problem. The problem they describe is not what you might expect to hear, especially from evangelical leaders. They believe that those who claim Jesus is coming back soon and that the Earth will face a horrible Armageddon or judgment are actually the cause of the world's major problems and are prohibiting a time of great renewal from taking place. Talk of biblical end-time prophecy is considered by these men to be unnecessary and downright dangerous.

Tony Campolo in his recent book, Speaking My Mind suggests that these types of end-time thinkers are even the cause of wars. He says, "Their doctrines are a major factor in determining a far-ranging set of consequences that include American policies regarding militarism, the emergence of evangelical Zionism, attitudes toward Palestinians and the role of American geopolitics." (p. 207) He later says their "impact on geopolitics can only lead to war." (p. 215).

Rick Warren suggests that Jesus doesn't want us to even think about prophecy or His return. Warren tells us that it is none of our business. He tells us that thinking about Jesus' return is a ploy by Satan to get us distracted. (PDL, pp. 285, 286)

Richard Abanes, author and speaker, in his book End-Time Visions: The Road to Armageddon, criticizes many Christians who believe we should discuss prophecy and that there is indeed a coming Armageddon. He puts solid, Bible-based Christian leaders in the same category as cult leaders such as David Koresh, who led his group to an untimely end.

Are these evangelicals the first ones to hate the idea of Armageddon and the disaster that is coming to the world before Christ returns? In the book, Reinventing Jesus Christ, he quotes Barbara Marx Hubbard who says that those who believe in an Armageddon are self-centered people who if not stopped will actually cause a self-fullfilling prophecy to take place - the destruction of the world.

Marx Hubbard tells us of a global peace plan and she calls it an "Armageddon alternative." This alternative can actually save the world from Armageddon, she says, but only if enough people believe it and only if the world can be rid of these self-centered doomsdayers. "The species known as self-centered humanity will become extinct. The species known as whole-centered humanity will evolve.... Those who choose this version of the future will be there. Those who do not choose it will not be there." Marx Hubbard's own book of "Revelation" describes a message she received from the "Christ": "You are to prepare the way for the alternative to Armageddon, which is the Planetary Pentecost, the great Instant of Co-operation which can transform enough, en masse, to avoid the necessity of the seventh seal being broken." She continues: "Tell them to recognize the God within themselves, and to follow that light through the darkness of tribulations to the dawn of the Universal Age, when only the God-conscious continue to exist, and everyone is like Christ�. Those with the seal of the living God on their foreheads will be with Christ at the time of the Transformation. I cannot 'return' until enough of you are attracted and linked."

According to Marx Hubbard it is these self-centered believers that are standing in the way. And yet in the book of Revelation, in the last chapter, Jesus says not once but three times, "I am coming quickly," while John in the same chapter tells us not to seal the words of the prophecy because the time is at hand."

In Reinventing Jesus Christ, he quotes Alice Bailey who was "told by her spirit guide over fifty years ago that the 'Forces of Darkness' would oppose the 'new gospel' and the 'New Age.' Is this new gospel and Transformation one and the same as Brian McLaren's New Kind of Christian and Emerging Church? Is it the same as Rick Warren's spiritual awakening and global Transformation? With so many similarities, one can only surmise that they may indeed be so. And if that is the case, will there be a growing hostility and anger towards those of us who say, Maranatha, come quickly Lord Jesus? (I Corinthians 16:22) 

I greet you today in the precious name of the Lord, Jesus Christ.  Christ meaning the anointed one of Israel.  Isn't it wonderful to know that we are grafted into his marvelous branch!

John 15 has always held a special place in my heart and spirit.  He lets us know right up front that He is the True Vine.  He is the truth, the life, and the way into eternal life, to be with him forever when we accept him at Lord and Savior.  I'm so glad that you became part of the family, Paul.  That you have a hunger and thirst to know more about Him and want to study the Bible so that you can know for yourself that special relationship with the lover of your soul.

To know that no matter what any of us has done, no matter where we go, He is always right there with us.  I find it of great comfort in my midnight hours, to know that He is totally within me.  When we accept Jesus, who was fully God and fully man on the earth and that he is totally within us when we receive him.  That makes me want to know more about his fullness within me.

When we make the confession of our sin and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, we are then given the gift of salvation, but we are also gifted with the gift of the Holy Spirit, the God of all creation within us.  Isn't that marvelous!  Just think you cannot separate any part of God or he is no longer whole. So we have all of God.

Ephesians 4:6
One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

John 14:11
Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.

John 14:20
At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

John 15:26
But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:

When we realize that God is wholly and totally within us, nothing missing and nothing lacking it starts to change how we think about ourselves.  I found that doubt started to leave, and questions began to arise in my mind.

One of the first things that happens when we get this awesome revelation is that we have all of God, and yet we have been asking for a piece of this and a piece of that to receive from him.  Why?  Because our flesh has not been totally crucified yet.  We cannot comprehend that all of God is with and in us through the precious Holy Spirit.  God is not separated.  God the Father sent His son, Jesus, who then sent the Comforter, or Holy Spirit so that God would always remain with man and help us through the valleys and mountains of life.