Monthly Archives: January 2017

Jan26

2 Kinds of Alternative Facts and What to do About it

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2 Kinds of Alternative Facts and What to do About it

Here are 2 kinds of alternative facts and what to do about it.

There’s been lots of hype about the new administration’s use of what they call “alternative facts”. I want to clarify for anyone who might be confused about them.

  • There are alternative facts.
  • There are 2 kinds of alternative facts.

The first kind of alternative fact is the kind that has a bit of truth in it but has been laced with misinformation by the fact-giver in order to achieve a personal end. This end could be:

  • Less embarrassment
  • Manipulation of the populace to behave in a manner that gets the fact-giver what he wants

A great illustration of this from children’s literature is C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle. You might remember that in this last book from The Chronicles of Narnia, leaders used alternative facts to conquer Narnia without battle- by enslaving the people one at a time.

They did this by:

  • taking famous Narnian sayings and twisting them just a little. The gullible population who had not studied Narnian history nor learned by heart the actual sayings were quickly lured into slavery for these leaders profit-motivated ends.
  • lying about Aslan’s nature and desires. Because the Narnians had become fat, happy and lazy- caught up in their own good lives, they had forgotten to know Aslan, to know his character and his will. Thus when evil-doers lied to them about what Aslan wanted, they followed blindly along.

What to do about it?

Know for yourself, by prayer and study of God’s word, God’s character and will and what God says about:

  • Greed (Check out Ephesians 4)
  • Arrogance (Check out Proverbs 8:13 The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate. biblegateway.com)
  • Poor treatment of the poor, disadvantaged, stranger, disabled (Here are 2 of many Scriptures: But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 19:34 BibleHub.com and Matthew 25:45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. Biblegateway.com)

Learn discernment. Discernment comes by prayer and holding up behavior and things spoken to Christ’s own words. See these verses:

I John 4:1

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. biblegateway.com

Luke 6:43-45

A good tree does not bring forth corrupt fruit. For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes.

A good man out of the treasure of his heart brings forth that which is good. An evil man out of the treasure of his heart brings forth that which is evil. For out of the abundance of his heart a man speaks.

A man who speaks alternative facts is a man with an alternative reality. One that will bring forth out of the abundance of greed, arrogance and use of people and resources to his own gain. His alternative facts are meant to deceive and enslave.

Discern. Know God. Don’t be like the lazy Narnians in The Last Battle.

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So what about the OTHER kind of alternative fact?

The other alternative facts are God’s facts. Allow me to explain:

We live in a 3 dimensional world. We are often encouraged to believe only things we can see, hear and touch.

But God’s reality is bigger than that. He has not limited himself nor his angels to a 3 dimensional world.

Our world is a mess and being led by messy men. It is like the days of old when the prophet Elisha and his servant had pissed off the king of the Syria. The king sent his army to arrest the prophet.

Elisha’s servant gets up in the morning and sees the house surrounded by an army. In a panic, he wakens Elisha. Elisha calmly prays: Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. II Kings 6 biblegateway.com

The Syrian army was there. God’s army was there, too. And actually, God’s army was MORE REAL than the tangible army. God’s army was there. Ready to KICK BUTT.

But then God gave Elisha His words and Elisha, obedient to God, spoke them: Smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness. And God smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.

2 Kinds of Alternative Facts and What to do About It

Elisha had made himself available to God and to the way that God works so he was able to “see” things that are not limited to the 3D world.

Elisha had made himself available to God and to the way that God works so he was able to speak things that are not limited to the 3D world.

THUS were the evil intentions of the king thwarted.

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So listen to me please.

  • Do not be as the gullible who do not know God, his words or his ways. Pray. Know Him through Scripture so that you are not lured away from the truth of God.
  • Do not fear like those who have no hope nor help. We serve the God of the universe who has His limitless power and legions of angels to do His bidding.
  • Do not run amok trying to accomplish God’s will for Him. Seek Him first. He’ll tell you what and how. And He WILL tell you what and how, and you WILL need to obey.
  • Read my post on how not to be a loser.

Thus, there are 2 kinds of alternative facts:

  • One is laced with lies and will lead to destruction.
  • One is more real than our earthly reality, full of God’s love, power and life. It leads to love, power and life. I recommend choosing this kind of alternative fact.

yup

 

 

 

Jan16

How Not to be a Loser

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how-not-to-be-a-loser

You don’t want to be a loser, right? (Not quoting anyone, right?)

Anyway, I reckon a loser might be someone who refuses to pull their spiritual weight in a time of great need.

If you want to be a true contributor to the spiritual condition of our nation and our national government, please dedicate yourself to these things:

*Pray for the leaders. No matter who they are, we have a biblical mandate in I Timothy 2:1-2

I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority…

*Pray in personal repentance for the nation. Sometimes we don’t like to think that we good Christians need to be repenting, but the mandate is there. God commanded Solomon that when rotten stuff happens:

If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and heal their land.

There’s plenty of rotten stuff right now, so I reckon this is a good time for repentance and prayer. I wonder if a loser would think he didn’t have anything to repent of?

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*Stand with, stand up for and do what you can to help: the weak, the defenseless, the poor, the widow, the orphan, the stranger in our land. (But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 19:34 BibleHub.com).

This is not a time to sit in our spiritual comfy chairs, making ourselves richer and self-consumed, like the rich man in Luke 12 who decided to tear down his barns to make bigger ones to hold all his goods- that night God required his life. I reckon that guy was a loser…

A contributing Christian is looking out for those who cannot look out for or defend themselves. As James 1:23,27 says:

Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves…Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

And Isaiah 58:6

Is not this the fast I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

*Be more gracious in your speech than ever. Bullies and uncouth people mock, jeer, and humiliate others. A loser has so little goodness that he must resort to such things. This is not the behavior of a child of God.

Colossians 4:6

Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how ye ought to answer every man.

There may be a time when you may need to assertively call someone in authority a “white-washed sepulcher”. Jesus did. God will let a humble and repentant soul know when that needs to be said.

Bullied Bullying Scare Torment Force Concept

*Do not fear. That’s what bullies and sick people want you to do. If you fear, they have control over you.

INSTEAD: Remember, you are the child of the Living God, the dunamis power of the Holy Spirit dwells in you.

I remember the old Southern “blessing”, when uppity people need to be put in their place. We’d look at that person and say: “Well, bless your heart.”

It follows Christ’s exhortation in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:44):

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you.

*Overcome that evil with good (that’ll heap some coals of fire on his head)…Romans 12: 20-21. Every time there is an evil, go out and make something good happen. A loser would harm, belittle or take advantage of people for his own greed and lust. Let’s fill our nation with so much good it makes evil fearful!

*Find things of beauty. All creation is praising God- you do it, too. Find a sunset, a bird, a river, a painting, a song. Don’t be so overwhelmed with the losers in the world that you miss the gifts God is giving you.

This is a time for prayer, courage and virtue in the power of the Holy Spirit. May it be a time we Christians are not losers, but instead: glorify God.