Money & power, crime and sin

This set of thoughts, which I hope everyone finds helpful, is more about human nature and God's relationship with humans, than a classic Bible study or commentary type of blogging.

Here's the problem. The Bible states that money is the root of all evil. First you need to understand there are two types of over fondness of money, and hence it's misuse. The first problem is to love money more than anything else, including believing in, fearing and obeying God. Thus many people love money for itself above all other relationships, both their human relationships and their relationship with God. The second problem is to love money for the power that it gives you over other people, or over elements of God's creation. For example, some people do not crave money and its luxuries, as do the first category of people, but they crave money because it buys power and control over others. So this is why St Paul and others trace just about every human evil back to its roots of money.

There is a third problem, whereby decent ordinary people do not love money, or crave its power, but will do evil things because they feel boxed into doing so in order to survive. This is a third category which is involuntary slavery to money or, rather, the people who control and dispense the money. People who dole out money to those who need it in return for making the people do unethical things are the second category of people (the money as power lovers) while those who accept the money out of either genuine or perceived need are this third category, those who are enslaved to money and its power.

Understanding that, you must recognize that there are three inevitabilities that each person with this unhealthy relationship (whether category 1, 2 or e) with money participate in. One is crime. Two is sin. Three is both crime and sin.

By the way, it is tempting to believe that all crime is also a sin. While that is usually true, I need to teach you all thoughtfulness, in order to see the shades of nuances correctly. It is not a sin, for example, to disobey a law or authority (and thus be branded a criminal) if that law or authority is not righteous toward God or fellow human beings. So one can be, like the early Christians, a "criminal" who breaks a "law" or "authority" when one refuses to worship idols. That, then, is a crime that is not a sin and, actually, in this example, a virtue.

The problem is that many people rationalize love of money as being kind of a "Robin Hood," and thus not criminal or sinful. They are wrong because the premise (love of money or its power) is not in service of God because one cannot use a human tool (money) to serve God, who is above and beyond all those things. God wants your attention and obedience; not your money, either to him or in his supposed "service." There is no way that a person can love money and then make rational decisions about "how God would 'want' the money spent." One has to be a good Christian, Jew or Muslim first, with a solid untarnished relationship with God, before one can even make baby steps in deciding "how Jesus" or "how God" would "want" money spent in his service. Remember, the Apostles observed first hand how Jesus taught them these things, yet one still fell, in part due to money, Judas Iscariot. If Judas Iscariot was troubled in deciding "how God would want the money spent," what makes any human alive think he or she is well equipped to know better? Especially a human who is far from being perfected in their relationship with God and God alone? Love of money and power (including the very seductive power to be a "do gooder") is by definition a BARRIER to understand God.

Now, here is something you need to understand about me personally. I have no interest in being a "crime buster," I never have and I never will. Part of my calling and my ministry is to tell everyone the same thing, which is the reality of God's word as it is in the Torah, in the Bible, and in the Qur'an. In other words, there is only one God, and His word is constant, the only truth, and irrefutable. So if I met the worst criminals in the world, I have no concern about their crimes or their sins. I have concern that they do not understand the consequences of those crimes and sins, the consequences that will be rendered by God, and not by human beings. I would sit down face to face with even the worst criminals and say, "Friend, you need more information before you continue, and that information is that God is real, judgment is real, and that hell is real and that, further, unlike jokes and cartoons, hell is un-endurable, and no one there is 'handling' it." I would not be interested in attempting to persuade them away from their crime or sin. I simply deliver God's truth and leave it up to them.

I hope that you have found this helpful.

Urgent observation: who do you believe?

You are taught by your parents, your teachers, your friends, and society as a whole. Yet despite all the education that surrounds you, there is less truth being spoken than ever in human history. Young people (yes, this is mostly for you, as the older generations have a lot of zombie and metal robot mind that is now ingrown and a barrier), I have discussed the search for truth in the faith context, here is now secular guidance.

I'm stimulated to blog this because I just heard a talk show host whine about how much of a weird martyr he is, blah blah blah, as he tries to be the "educator" of truth. Now, understand this: I'm annoyed by that attitude even if I do agree with a particular statement. Here is why:

You cannot be taught by someone who serves two masters: the truth and commercial enterprise.

No one, no matter how well intentioned or well informed can be the "guru" or the "teacher" of the truth if they are partly zombie due to their being paid for their "truth giving."

This is the downfall of every false prophet, every paid teacher, every parent who has an agenda other than parenthood, and of course politics, media and the school systems in general.

All of them are being paid not to tell the truth, but to enact a role.

Before I continue to explain the problem, let me veer into the faith side of faith and reasoning (which is what I am teaching to you) to help you understand, now, more clearly God. Now you can understand that not only is God the truth in all matters, God is the gold standard by which you must measure truth because... God cannot be paid. God is everything and created everything, and is all Knowing and is everything that ever was or ever will be. God is the only existence that is not only all truth, but is not and cannot be reimbursed in any way for the truth. God gives his truth to the poorest person who gives him nothing; God even gives only the truth to people who spit on him and do not believe him.

So how do you determine who is a truthful teacher? Well, here's a big ring on the clue phone. How much are they paid, depend on having a paying job, write books and charge money for seminars, have perks and position, have prestige lavished on them, or, at the innocent end of the same spectrum though, are enslaved by people who hold their livelihood in their hands, and thus must toe the line in what they teach?

Friends, in the old days, many teachers were unpaid monks and nuns. The elders of villages that had no education system at all told the truth of their culture's beliefs unchanged by agenda to their children generation after generation. This is in contrast to salaries, prestige, offices, titles, retirement plans, second homes and other gains that drive just about every person who "teaches" in this society. How much can you believe the truth? You better understand that you are not getting the truth (intentionally or unintentionally) by anyone who is gaining lots of lucre, swag and ass kissing as a part of their job.

People in the talk show circuit of course are big shots and also peddle their wares and those of others. Don't bother telling me how they have to make a living and support their family; I get that more than anyone else. (By the way, if you've not read my capitalism series, or are ready to do so again, check it out under that label). But the problem is that in the old days people could survive without a salary (they could grow their own food, build their own houses, marry someone with a job, etc). So there was no monetary motivation to tell a particular "truth" or "truthiness." Parents genuinely wanted their kids to get life, to not stumble over the same stuff they did. But now parents teach their kids stuff that is commercial agenda driven, whether they know it or not. It may be innocent (you need to learn this in order to get a high paying job) or agenda driven (they want to justify their own bad behavior and lifestyle by teaching you stuff that is plain bogus... and if you wonder what I mean think of the worst example which is a household where parents justify drugs and alcohol). You are not going to get truth and you are not going to get even facts that you can string together using reasoning because it is not in the agenda and economic interest of just about everyone to teach: 1) faith 2) reasoning 3) facts about human history 4) discernment. Schools now teach none of the above.

In some kindness to your parents, they were the first guinea pigs to come out of the "nu" educational systems, the ones that don't teach 1-4, so they could not, in general, do better with you, even if they were aware and wanted to. I hope as they read my blog they want to change too, but my focus is on you, young people. This is because as I said here, the previous two generations are maimed in their ability to self critique. I have never seen people resist honest self assessment as these. They don't want to change a THING about themselves, but they want to go to seminars to be super heroes.

Young people, use the check list I have given to you here and be aware that no one can receive any sort of prestige or compensation and then be a totally truthful agenda free teacher to you or to anyone. Money, rather than truth and your welfare, drives everyone who opens their mouth, uses a pen, inputs to a computer or media device. God drives the truth.

If you connect with God, directly, in your own personal humble relationship with him, as you get to know him you understand that he is never compensated for being the truth, and he is not "paid" or "honored" in return for caring for every human being, believer or non believer. Once you have your gold standard for truth telling, which is God, you can now discern the motivations and infrastructures of learning that human beings offer to you. You will start to better understand teachers with a political or monetary axe to grind, versus those who are yes, stuck in the system, but who still do the best they are able to convey unvarnished truth and the tools by which to learn (1-4). Still, hear me and believe me: you cannot rely on anyone because everyone is stuck in the tar pit. You must supplement your honest learning from even the best of sources with your own study and powers of observation. Unfortunately it is a chain reaction whereby even well meaning teachers today rely on the bull crap that was taught to them.

I have more thoughts but want to get this essential message out because from this understanding all else derives. All the best and thinking of you.

Father kills 2 yr old son to avoid child support

This 22 year old who never spent any time with his child asked for visitation, got him once and a few hours later shot his two year old in the head, dumped the body and claimed he was kidnapped, just so he could avoid child support payments. First he said a white woman took the child, then three blacks with AK-47's, he didn't even call the police, and then when the mother did, he leads them to the body, dumped in a vacant lot.

Read the story, look at the picture, and think of something to say because for sure, I'm pretty speechless. Pray for this insane clown posse world.

http://www.wwltv.com/topstories/stories/wwl010309tpgunpoint.339e3e97.html