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graciousheaven · 2 years ago

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Deliverance from the Sting of Death

God has set eternity in the heart of man. Hence, although some skeptics reject the everlasting nature of the human soul – a fact affirmed and evidenced by the Holy Scriptures – the manner of life of people of all nations, ethnicities and languages, even when they are pagans, reveals a keen interest in the afterlife. However, although many unbelievers admit that life after death is a reality, they fully miss the point. Their perspective on the matter is totally deceptive; for what they envision is nothing but a fantasy utterly disconnected from biblical truths. This fallacy is rooted in their rejection of the One True and Living God and his revealed truth. They refuse to admit the sinfulness of sin and its deadly consequences, they do not acknowledge man’s total depravity. This is a blatant scorn of the person of God, an utter blasphemy of his holy name, since God clearly affirms that all people are sinful (cf. Rom. 3:10-19,23; Is. 53:6).

These heretics deny man’s alienation from God by sin, refuse to acknowledge man’s inability to find peace with God by human design, and thus reject the means ordained by God to reconcile all things to Himself. Since they have a high view of man and hold God in low esteem, they do not understand the holiness of God, nor consider his righteousness and sovereignty over all creation; because they are blinded by the spirit of the age, the devil. Therefore, they deny the existence of hell. For they do not see the judgments of the Lord of hosts, nor do they consider his righteous wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man. They deny any possibility of an afterlife in eternal, conscious torment for the ungodly, and view the afterlife as ‘a rest in peace’ opportunity for all who die, good and evil alike. In fact, they fantasize about a heaven where there is no God.

There is no such thing as heaven without God – heaven is the abode of God. Ps. 103:19 says, “The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his Kingdom rules over all.” “Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool” (Is. 66:1). And “There is no peace,” Says my God, “for the wicked” (Is. 57:21). Therefore, since no one is righteous, there is a need for all to be reconciled to God; for our iniquities have alienated us all from his glorious presence. To borrow the words of Isaiah the prophet, our iniquities have made a separation between us and our God, and our sins have hidden his face from us. We are all dead in trespasses and sin from the moment of our conception, thus candidates for hell. All the world stands guilty before the holy God, and He “does not leave the guilty unpunished” (Ex. 34:7). On the other hand, no one can be justified before Him by the deeds of the flesh. For all our righteousnesses are filthy rags before the Lord (cf. Is. 64:6).

Therefore, no one can overcome the grim reality of the second death by his own design. Ps. 49:7-9 says this about those who put their trust in what they possess, “Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on forever and never see the pit.” That is to say, our works can never save us from the pit of hell. No matter how hard we labour, we can never achieve enough to redeem our souls. For we do not possess a righteousness of our own; rather we are inherently evil. We can only be justified by the righteousness of God. For it is God who graciously provides us a righteousness on the basis of our faith in his Son Jesus Christ, not according to our works – “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20) – and from that moment we are declared righteous by God. Eph. 2:8-9 reads, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Salvation is by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.

God is sovereign, He has a supreme rule over death. He alone can save sinners from destruction. No one is able to save himself from the sting of death. Ps. 89:49 asks the following questions, “What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?” God alone can deliver our souls from the power death; for He is the source of our righteousness. God is the only just and the justifier of repentant sinners who put their trust in his Son. “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3-4). God sent his Son into the world to be its Saviour. Christ came and obeyed the precepts of God’s law. He kept all the requirements, i.e., the righteous deeds, the righteous thoughts and the righteous words required by God’s moral law, thus fulfilling God’s demand for absolute righteousness on behalf of those who would put their trust in Him. Christ also sacrificed his life for sinners to be justified – to use the words of 1 John 2:2, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” I.e., on the basis of Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross, the sins of those who believe in Him are forgiven, and they are declared just by God.

Through Christ’s incarnation, perfect obedience and substitutionary death on the cross, God satisfied his demand for justice without compromising his righteous character. On the basis of Christ’s merits, God graciously justifies repentant sinners who have faith in his Son. So no man can be justified by his own doings. Rom. 3:21-26 reads, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it – the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

After the fall, God promised the redemption of sinful humanity through the Seed of the woman (cf. Gen. 3:15). Generations after, He reiterated this promise multiple times through his prophets to the people of Israel, through whom salvation would eventually be available to all flesh. For instance, Is. 25:6-8 reads, “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And He will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people He will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.” Ps. 98:2-3, “The Lord has made known his salvation; his righteousness He has revealed in the sight of the nations. He has remembered his mercy and his faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.”

This promise has been fulfilled in God’s own Son, the Lord and saviour Jesus Christ; for in Him grace was given to us before time began (cf. 2 Tim. 1:9). I.e., in eternity past God predetermined the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross in order to redeem humanity from the bondage of corruption and death. And when the appointed time, as ordained by the sovereign Lord, had come, Christ the Lamb of God willingly “gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Tit. 2:14). God sent Him to bless us by turning away every one of us from our iniquities. “For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:19-20).

Christ is the only One who can save sinners from spiritual deadness and help them escape eternal destruction. He is the means designated by God to reconcile all things to Himself. “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die”, declares the Lord in John 11:25-26. Christ is the source of both physical and spiritual life. It is He who created all things, for “He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:2-4). Christ is the Prince of life, the Author of life, the Supreme Being in Whom all things dwell; nothing came into being apart from Him. He gives us the breath of life, and He alone saves us from spiritual corruption by cleansing us from our sins. Christ raises us from spiritual deadness. He will also raise the dead bodies of all people on the last day; and to those who died believing in Him, as well as to believing Christians who will see his return, He will give eternal life, thus saving them from eternal destruction. But those who reject Christ in this life remain spiritually dead, and at the second coming of our Lord, they will face the second death, the eternal torment in hell. All the ungodly who have died will be raised for judgement and cast into hell with their fellow unbelievers who will still be alive when the Lord returns to judge the world.

God sent his Son into this world to ransom us from the evil ways we inherited from our forefathers. He came to fulfill the law of God on our behalf, and He died for the sins of all those who would ever believe in Him, that they might be set free from the bondage of corruption and escape eternal destruction. As Paul writes in Gal. 1:4, Christ “gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.” “He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12). Therefore, “In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7). Col. 1:13-14, “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love, in Whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.”

Christ is the greatest revelation of God’s grace and love to mankind. As the Apostle Paul writes in Gal. 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” “God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10).

It is only through the Lord Jesus Christ that one can be restored to life and overcome the grim reality of the second death. Ps. 68:20-21 reads, “Our God is a God of salvation, and to God, the Lord, belong deliverances from death. But God will strike the heads of his enemies, the hairy crown of him who walks in his guilty ways.” Christ is the means by which sins are forgiven and reconciliation with God possible. He is the life and the light of men (cf. John 1:4); He came to rescue those who sit in darkness, to help them pass from death to life. 1 John 5:11-12 reads, “God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

In Christ we no longer bear the guilt of sin and we no longer incur the penalties for violating God's law. This does not mean, however, that Christians have the right to sin against God. Rather, it means that what was once held against us has been atoned for. For the full penalties for the sins of all who would put their trust in Christ were paid for by Him through his death on the cross, and his righteousness was imputed to them. Being cleansed and justified before God by his precious blood, we pass from death to life. Christ graciously imputes to those who have faith in Him his own righteousness, and they are no longer guilty before God. As Paul writes in Rom. 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” But all unbelievers are held captive by spiritual death; there is no life in them. Therefore, they will end up in the fire of hell, where they will feed on the wrath of God forever, because they have rejected his Son. John 3:18 reads, “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

If you have not yet repented of your sins, I urge you to do so right now and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Do not be caught up in lies and deceptions. Hell is real, judgement is coming. Do not be fooled by those who think that man can earn access to heaven by his good works. Also, don't be seduced by those who claim that because God is love, He cannot send people to hell. It is true that God is love, but God is also holy and righteous. As a holy God, He has established a standard of absolute holiness to which all men must conform. And to escape divine condemnation, you must conform to this standard of absolute holiness. For any violation, any sin brings about judgement in time and eternity.

Furthermore, God’s holiness and perfect love justify his hatred toward sins and unrepentant sinners. Thus, God punishes anyone who refuses to abandon their evil ways. Nah. 1:1-2 reads, “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies.” V.6-8, “Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by Him. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; He knows those who take refuge in Him. But with an overflowing flood He will make a complete end of the adversaries, and will pursue his enemies into darkness.” In Ps. 5:4-6 we read this testimony concerning God, “For You are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with You. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; You hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.”

Anyone who spurns the incarnate Word of God, anyone who despises the Gospel of Christ, condemns himself to eternal destruction. Christ came and fulfilled all righteousness by his perfect life, He satisfied God’s holy justice by his substitutionary death on the cross, that sinners through faith in Him might be forgiven and reconciled to God. This was ordained in eternity past by the Father (cf. 2 Tim. 1:9; Tit. 1:2; 1 Cor. 2:7). Whoever wants to escape judgement, whoever seeks life, whoever desires to overcome the grim reality of the second death, must embrace the way of righteousness designed by God, i.e., repentance and faith in his Son. For sinners are saved by the work and merit of Christ the Lord alone.

If you are an unrepentant sinner, you stand guilty before God, the King of the universe against Whom you have sinned. And the price for your sins is too high for you to afford. I urge you to humble yourself before God, seek forgiveness in the name of his Son, and He will give you life. Stop shaking your fists in the face of God, stop clinging to your good works, lest you wake up one day in hell. There is no hope for those who dishonour or deny the existence of God. Anyone who rejects God’s Son and reviles his Spirit is without excuse. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Rom. 1:18). What awaits those who reject the Son of God is the second death, an everlasting, conscious torment in the pit of hell. Christ is the only way to salvation. “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Call upon the name of the Lord today, acknowledge that you are a sinner and that you cannot save yourself. Cast yourself on the mercies of Christ. Do not hold onto your pride. Do not cherish the sinful desires and lustful passions of your flesh, lest you be held by the sting of death forever. For to live, one must die to sin and embrace Christ as Lord and Saviour. “For (as Paul writes in Rom. 8:6-8) to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

It is only in Christ that one can be justified before God and escape hell. I urge you not to despise the grace of God and his love revealed to us in his Son Jesus Christ, lest God’s curse remain on you forever. There is no forgiveness for those who trample underfoot the precious blood of God’s Son. God sent his Son to redeem sinners from all lawlessness, to save them from judgement, divine wrath and hell. Anyone who despises Him will perish. There is no escape for those who rebel against God and despise his Son, those whose god is their natural desires. Borrowing the language of Acts 13:40-41, I declare to you today, if you have not yet embraced Christ as Lord and Saviour, “Beware therefore, lest what has been spoken in the prophets come upon you: ‘Behold, you despisers, marvel and perish! For I work a work in your days, a work which you will by no means believe, though one were to declare it to you.’”

https://www.faithintheoneaboveall.com/post/to-live-one-must-die

#deliverance from death #delivered from death #freedom from curse #freedom in Christ #free from the curse #free from sin #free from judgment #life eternal #graciousheaven #to live one must die

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maxwell-grant · 3 years ago

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What are your thoughts on Jekyll/Hyde and his archetype of the human periodically changing into a monster ?

Jekyll & Hyde was the 2nd horror story I read following Frankenstein, I got it off the same library and it always stuck very strongly with me even before I got into horror in general. I even dressed up as Jekyll/Hyde as a kid for a school fair by shredding a lab coat on one side and asking my sister to make-up claw gashes on my exposed arm and paint half of my face, although in hindsight I think I ended up looking more like Doctor Two-Face than Jekyll/Hyde, but I was 12 and didn't have any Victorian clothing to use so I had to make do. The first film project I tried doing at film school was intended to be a modern take on Jekyll & Hyde, and I didn't get much farther than a couple of discarded scripts

Much like Frankenstein, Mr Hyde as a character and a story is something that's kind of baked into everything I do artistically. And it's not just me, as even in pop culture itself, none of us can escape Mr Hyde. I would go so far as to argue Mr Hyde may be the single most significant character created by victorian fiction, if only by the sheer impact and legacy the character's had.

(Fan-art by guilhermefranco)

Part of what makes Mr Hyde such a powerful and lasting icon of pop culture is that the very premise of the book invites a personal reading that's gonna vary from person to person. Because everyone's familiar with the basic twist of the story, that it's a conflict of duality, of the good and evil sides, but everyone has a more personal idea of what those entail. Some people make the story more about class. A lot of readings laser-focus on sex and lust as the driving force, and there's also a lot of readings of Mr Hyde that tackle it to explore a more gendered perspective, and so forth.

I don't particularly take much notice of the Jekyll & Hyde adaptations partially because the novel's premise and themes have become baked so throughly into pop culture and explored in so many different and interesting ways, that I'm not particularly starving for good Jekyll & Hyde adaptations the way I am for Dracula and Frankenstein. The Fredric March film in particular is one that orbits my head less because of the film itself (although I do recommend it), but because of one specific scene, and that's when Jekyll first transforms into Hyde on screen.

Out of all the things they could have shown him doing right that second, they instead took the time to show him enjoying the rain.

Just Hyde taking off his hat and letting it all cascade on his face with this sheer enthusiasm like he's never been to the rain before, never enjoyed it before, and now that he's free from being Jekyll, he gets to enjoy life like he never has before. It's such an oddly humanizing moment to put amidst a horror movie, in the scene where you're ostensibly introducing the monster to the audience, and it makes such a stark contrast to the rest of the film where Hyde is completely irredeemable, but I think it's that contrast that makes the film's take on Hyde work so well even with it's diverging from the source material, even if I don't particularly like in general interpretations of Hyde that are focused on a sexual aspect.

Because one, it understands that Jekyll was fundamentally a self-serving coward and not a paragon of goodness, and two, it also understands one of the things that makes Hyde scary: He wants what all of us want, to live and be happy. He's happy when he leaves the lab and dances around in the rain like a giddy child, he's happy when he goes to places Jekyll couldn't dream of showing up, he's happy as a showgirl-abusing sexual predator. Hyde is all wants, all the time, and there's not that much difference between his wants, his domineering possessiveness, and the likes exhibited by Muriel's father and Jekyll's own within the very same film, which also works to emphasize one of the other ideas of the original story, that Edward Hyde doesn't come from nowhere. That no monster is closer to humanity than Mr Hyde, because he is us. He is the thing that Jekyll refused to take responsability for until it was too late.

(Art by LorenzoMastroianni)

While many of the ideas that defined Mr Hyde had already been explored in pop culture beforehand, Hyde popularized and redefined many of them in particular by modernizing the idea. He was the werewolf, the doppelganger, The Player On The Other Side, except he came from within. He was not transformed by circumstance, he made himself that way, and the elixir merely brought out something already inside his soul. To acknowledge that he's there is to acknowledge that he is you, and to not do that is to either lose to him, or perish. Hyde was there to address both the rot settling in Victorian society as well as grappling concerns over Darwinian heritage, of the realization that man has always had the beast inside of him (it's no accident that Hyde's main method of murder is by clubbing people to death with his cane like a caveman).

I've already argued on my post about Tarzan that the Wild Man archetype, beginning with Enkidu of The Epic of Gilgamesh, is the in-between man and beast, between superhero and monster, and that Mr Hyde is an essential component of the superhero's trajectory, as the creature split in between. That stories about dual personalities, doppelgangers, the duality of the soul, the hero with a day job and an after dark career, you can pinpoint Hyde as a turning point in how all of these solidified gradually in pop culture. And I've argued otherwise that The Punisher, for all that his image and narrative points otherwise, is ultimately just as much of a superhero as the rest of them, even if no one wants to admit it, drawing a parallel between The Punisher and Mr Hyde. And he's far from the only modern character that can invite this kind of parallel.

The idea of a regular person periodically or permanently transforming into, or revealing itself to be, something extraordinary and fantastic and scary, grappling with the divide it causes in their soul, and questions whether it's a new development or merely the truest parts of themselves coming to light at last, and the effects this transformation has for good and bad alike. The idea of a potent, dangerous, unpredictable enemy who ultimately is you, or at least a facet of you and what you can do. That these are bound to destroy each other if not reconciled with or overcome.

You know what are my thoughts on the archetype of "human periodically changing into a monster" are? Look around you and you're gonna see the myriad ways The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde's themes have manifested in the century and a half since the story's release. Why it shouldn't be any surprise whatsoever that Mr Hyde has become such an integral part of pop culture, in it's heroes and monsters alike. Why we can never escape Mr Hyde, just as Jekyll never could.

It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll children is also America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde.

He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close… - Hunter S. Thompson

There is a scene in the movie Pulp Fiction that explains almost every terrible thing happening in the news today. And it's not the scene where Ving Rhames shoots that guy's dick off. It's the part where the hit man played by John Travolta is talking about how somebody vandalized his car, and says this:

"Boy, I wish I could've caught him doing it. I'd have given anything to catch that asshole doing it. It'd been worth him doing it, just so I could've caught him doing it."

That last sentence is something everyone should understand about mankind. After all, the statement is completely illogical -- revenge is supposed to be about righting a wrong. But he wants to be wronged, specifically so he'll have an excuse to get revenge. We all do.

Why else would we love a good revenge movie? We sit in a theater and watch Liam Neeson's daughter get kidnapped. We're not sad about it, because we know he's a badass and he finally has permission to be awesome. Not a single person in that theater was rooting for it to all be an innocent misunderstanding. We wanted Liam to be wronged, because we wanted to see him kick ass. It's why so many people walk around with vigilante fantasies in their heads.

Long, long ago, the people in charge figured out that the easiest and most reliable way to bind a society together was by controlling and channeling our hate addiction. That's the reason why seeing hurricane wreckage on the news makes us mumble "That's sad" and maybe donate a few bucks to the Red Cross hurricane fund, while 9/11 sends us into a decade-long trillion-dollar rage that leaves the Middle East in flames.

The former was caused by wind; the latter was caused by monsters. The former makes us kind of bummed out; the latter gets us high.

It's easy to blame the news media for pumping us full of stories of mass shootings and kidnapped children, but that's stopping one step short of the answer: The media just gives us what we want. And what we want is to think we're beset on all sides by monsters.

The really popular stories will always feature monsters that are as different from us as possible. Think about Star Wars -- what real shithead has ever referred to himself as being on "the dark side"? In Harry Potter and countless fantasy universes, you have wizards working in "black magic" and the "dark arts." Can you imagine a scientist developing some technology for chemical weapons or invasive advertising openly thinking of what he does as "dark science"? Can you imagine a real world leader naming his headquarters "The Death Star" or "Mount Doom"?

Of course not. But we need to believe that evil people know they're evil, or else that would open the door to the fact that we might be evil without knowing it. I mean, sure, maybe we've bought chocolate that was made using child slaves or driven cars that poisoned the air, but we didn't do it to be evil -- we were simply doing whatever we felt like and ignoring the consequences. Not like Hitler and the bankers who ruined the economy and those people who burned the kittens -- they wake up every day intentionally dreaming up new evils to create. It's not like Hitler actually thought he was saving the world.

So no matter how many times you vote to cut food stamps and then use the money to buy a boat, you could still be way worse. You could, after all, be one of those murdering / lazy / ignorant / greedy / oppressive monsters that you know the world is full of, and that only your awesome moral code prevents you from turning into at any moment. And those monsters are out there.

They have to be. Because otherwise, we're the monsters - 5 Reasons Humanity Desperately Wants Monsters To Be Real, by Jason Pargin

(Two-Face sequence comes from the end of Batman Annual #14: Eye of the Beholder)

For good or bad, Hyde has become omnipresent. He's a part of our superheroes, he's a part of our supervillains, he's in our monsters. He lives and prattles in our ears, sometimes we need him to survive, and sometimes we become Hyde even when we don't need to, because our survival instincts or base cruelties or desperation brings out the worst in us. Sometimes we can beat him, and sometimes he's not that bad. Sometimes we do need to appease him and listen to what he says, about us and the world around us. And sometimes we need to do so specifically to prove him wrong and beat him again.

But he never, ever goes away, as he so accurately declares in the musical

Do you really think That I would ever let you go...

Do you think I'd ever set you free?

If you do, I'm sad to say It simply isn't so

You will never get away FROM MEEEEEE

(Art by Akreon on Artstation)

#tw: injury #tw: blood #tw: disfigurement #replies tag #dr jekyll and mr hyde #the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde #robert louis stevenson #two-face #batman #monster tag #universal monsters #horror tag

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mybeautifulchristianjourney · 3 years ago

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Devotional Hours Within the Bible

by J.R. Miller

The Parable of the Tares (Matthew 13:24-30 and Matthew 13:36-43)

The sower is Christ Himself. He always sows good seed in His field. When he was living here in this world, He went up and down the country, dropping the words of life wherever He found a bit of heart-soil that would receive them. It is wonderful to think of the blessings which have come to the world through the words of Christ. They have changed millions of lives from sinfulness to holiness. They have comforted sorrow. They have guided lives through the world's perplexed paths. They have been like lamps for the feet of countless pilgrims.

In this parable, however, Christians themselves are the seeds. "The good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom." Everyone who has received into his heart the grace of God, becomes himself a living seed. Wherever a good seed grows, it springs up into a plant or a tree. Every good life has its unconscious influence, diffusing blessings, making all the life about it sweeter. Then it yields fruit. Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit in the lives of those who receive the Spirit - love, joy, peace, long-suffering. There are also fruits in the activities of the Christian life, in the words one speaks, in the things one does, in the touches of life upon life.

We here come upon the truth of an Evil One who is in the world, an enemy, of Christ, marring or destroying Christ's work. The Bible does not tell us about the origin of evil - but it everywhere takes for granted that there is a kingdom of evil, at the head of which is the great enemy of God and man. Evil is not dropped accidentally into lives or homes or communities. The bad work is done designedly. "But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away."

People sometimes wish that there was no evil in the world. But, unfortunately, the feet of the Adversary go in every path. He is always watching for opportunities to steal in and do mischievous work while no one is watching. He is represented here as coming by night when good people are asleep. Our hours of greatest peril, are those in which we are least conscious of peril. What can we do to protect ourselves in these unsheltered, unwatched times? If a man knows that a thief is coming, he will be on the watch. But the thief does not come then - he comes when he knows that no one is watching. How can we keep ourselves safe from the dangers we know not of? All we can do is to keep our lives ever in the hands of the sleepless Christ .

We are in danger of underestimating the enmity of Satan, and the evil wrought by his sowing. His own distinct purpose is to destroy the work of Christ. Whenever any good seed has been sown in a heart, he comes and tries to get some bad seed in among it. He whispers his evil suggestions in our ears, even while we are reading our Bible, praying, or partaking of the Lord's Supper. The devil is far more busy among good people than among bad. Those who are wholly given over to sin - he can afford to let alone - they are safely his already; but those who are trying to be Christian, he seeks to destroy.

Young people need to guard against the baleful evil which seeks entrance in vile books and papers, in indecent conversation or unchaste pictures. When an officer in General Grant's presence was about to tell an obscene story, he glanced about him and said, "There are no ladies present." The general promptly answered, "But there are gentlemen present." Nothing that should not be said in the presence of a lady - should be said in any presence.

In the early stages of growth, the tare or darnel, is so much like wheat - that the two can scarcely be distinguished. Evil in its first beginnings is so much like good that it is often mistake for it. By and by, however, as they grow, the true character of the tares is revealed. Seeds of evil sown in a heart may not for a while make much of a manifestation. A child under wrong influences or teachings, may for a time seem very innocent and beautiful - but at length the sinful things will show themselves and will shoot up in strength. Many a man falls into ruin at mid-life, through bad habits which he began to form when he was a boy! The time for young people to keep their hearts against evil is in the time of their youth.

The farmer's servants wished to clean out the tares before they had come to ripeness. The farmer said, however: "No, you would do more harm than good if you began to do this. Wait until the harvest, and then we will separate the tares and the wheat." Good men must live among the evil in this world. Sometimes they grow together in the same home, or in the same group of friends, or are associated in the same business, dwelling in constant communication and association. Even in the apostle family, there was one traitor. Besides the impossibility of making a separation, there is a reason why the evil should remain - the hope that they may be influenced by the good and may yet themselves be changed into holiness. Every Christian should be an evangelist, eager in his desire and effort to bring others into the kingdom of God.

In Old Testament days, God tolerated many evils like polygamy, divorce, blood revenge, and did not root them out at once because the people were not then ready for such heroic work. We are not to grow lenient and tolerant toward sin - but we are to be wise in our effort in rooting it out. Especially must we be forbearing and patient toward the sinner. If our neighbor has faults - we are not to rush at him with both hands and begin to claw up the tares by the roots. We must be patient with his faults, meanwhile doing all we can by love and by influence to cure him of them. We are never to lower our own standard of morality, nor to make compromise with evil; we must be severe with ourselves; but in trying to make the world better - we need much of the wise patience of Christ.

There will be at last a complete separation between the good and the evil. Hypocrites may remain in the Church in this world and may die in its membership and have a royal burial - but they cannot enter heaven. This solemn word should lead all professors to honest and earnest self-examination. Are we wheat - or are we tares? The same law applies to the good and the evil in our own lives. In the holiest character, there are some things not beautiful. In the worst men - there are some things that are fair and to be commended. But in the end the separation will be complete and final.

When the disciples had an opportunity of speaking to the Master alone, they asked Him what this parable meant. "Explain unto us the parable of the tares of the field." That is what we should always do with our difficulties concerning the teaching of Christ, and with all perplexities concerning our duty as Christians - we should take them all to the Master himself. Some things may be explained to us at once by careful reading and study of Christ's teaching. Some things that once were obscure and hard to understand, become very plain as we go on; experience reveals them to us. Then the office of the Holy Spirit is to guide us into all truth.

Some people talk about this world - as if it belonged to the devil. Indeed, Satan himself said that all the kingdoms of the world were his. It looks sometimes, too, as if this were true. But really this is Christ's world. After His resurrection Jesus Christ sent His disciples forth into all the world, claiming it, bidding them go everywhere to make disciples of all the nations.

Jesus taught plainly that there is a personal spirit of evil, called the devil. He says here distinctly, "The enemy that sowed them is the devil ." The devil is the enemy of Christ. No sooner had Jesus been baptized, than Satan began his assaults upon Him, seeking to overcome Him and destroy Him. Satan is the enemy also of every Christian. He takes the utmost delight in getting his poison into the lives of Christ's followers. Sometimes people think that they can play with evil and not be harmed - but it is always perilous play, and everyone who thus ventures, will surely be hurt. One great comfort we have in thinking of Satan as the enemy of souls and our enemy - is that Christ overcame him at every point. While Satan is our enemy, strong and alert - he is a vanquished enemy. We cannot ourselves stand against him - but with Christ's help, we can stand. "In all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him who loved us!" (Romans 8:37).

#J.R. Miller #Devotional Hours Within the Bible #The Parable of the Tares #Matthew 13:24-30 #Matthew 13:36-43

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anannas-garden · 4 years ago

Text

I do not know who I am

Though this is not entirely true.

I have loved my whole life

Trying to be a living sacrifice.

To put myself to death

For this is what God demanded.

But who was God when I was dead.

I still spell it with a lower case

As autocorrect translates it to my childhood norm.

I hate God.

Not for the reasons you think.

I hate God

Because I have been God

Climbed the steps

Raised the flag

Looked down on the whole of creation

And wondered.

Here I am again.

Can't help but sound arrogant.

Comes with the territory

A sin not to admit it.

This is what i have learned.

When you sit above all else alse

Nothing matters

Nothing at all

I have tried my damnedest

To be more than my body.

To be more than the best and worst of my flesh.

I have thrown myself before the throne.

Condemned myself to hell.

Offered every last parcel of my soul

And still no one above had answered me.

Only my own voice

Offering no salvation.

"hold the course

Give up to death"

Well damn heaven

Damn hell

There is only this earth

And not in the sense of non-belief.

Goddamn it

You matter!

I matter!

We all fucking deserve better!

No one has sat above

And thought we should try harder.

This life is cruel

And those who are human

Understand what it means to be sad.

Still

How many feel a need to be resilient?

To overcome

This unending dread which pushes us.

We need to overcome

Those words we tell ourselves.

The constant accolades

And condemnations of our pride.

I hate me

And yet I love me

Because I am both the cause and the result

Of this world I am born in to.

It is impossible to appoint blame

Unless you trace it back to God.

Either God was a fool

Or a calculating demon.

I can forgive the fool

But not the one who planes to cause pain.

Many recoil from accusing God.

It is in our nature

Yet we are summoned to be bold

To throw our accusations in their face.

For what sin has been so great?

What absolute wickedness have we committed

In order to deserve this world!

God is a fool

Just like us

For we are God in the future

Creating our past.

Blasphemy

But I have been God. I have climbed those steps

Sat upon that throne.

Cast my soul to eternal damnation

For this is the cost of being absolute.

And it was worth it

Of I could bring just one smile.

If I could heal one broken soul

And right one crooked wrong.

I began evil

And I aspired for good.

I instigated selfishness

And yes prayed my all for kindness.

I am a fool

I am a lost cause

But I have loved

And been willing to face hell.

This is what God's love is

That they are willing to face hell

For all time

That they might see their loved ones bloom

And through eternity

Do better than ourselves.

Now I try to live a normal life.

Free of my own harsh directives.

You don't need me

And I don't need you

But we need each other

In spite of our own damn pride.

I hate you

And you hate me.

The world spins

In order to turn us against one another.

All we can do

Is understand how evil we ourselves are

And then find a way to see ourselves in the seat of evil.

There is an eye for an eye

And a bone for a bone.

A judgement for how we judge

And an answer for all the pain.

It is cruel to imagine it forever

As this annihilates forgiveness

But in forgiveness there is a path

And this path charts its way through timeslessness.

Everyone is the product of someone else,

And this itself traces itself back to God.

If God is willing to die

How much more so

In the time of eternity

We are able to let go

Those who do not deserve our forgiveness.

We will sail past those unworthy of us

And they will traverse the wake

Hoping to live beyond their evil.

It is not justice.

Justice

As prescribed by God

Leaves us all damned.

Even God cannot escape

For God set it in motion.

Why do I mention God so much?

Because God is at the root of all that we do.

Theist and atheist

Both harbor accusations.

Each of us have been tortured by the beyond.

So we look to the heavens

And no longer depend upon the almighty.

We and we alone are real

Only we can forgive ourselves.

#wine drunk #lost #trying to find my way #unaware #unaware of the future #demanding life #unable to let go #i am all there is #you are all there is #we exist to live #we are all that matters #all of life is we

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kateknowsdramas · 5 years ago

Note

Can I just add some perspective to Tae Eul? She works in the violent crimes division. So she’s constantly seeing humans at their worst. She’s probably a bit hardened from that job experience. Then she meets Lee Gon & sees how he’s loved by his people not just blindly but because he genuinely cares for them, is charitable, motivating, would willingly die for his people to protect them. I think all that was enough for her to see him as he is and truly fall for him. Just wanted to share that pov.

Hi Nonnie!

Thank you for the comment. I do love her bad-ass nature and totally agree that she’s very jaded due to her profession and her life in general. I can understand her seeing all those characteristics in Lee Gon would appeal to her and that being the reason she falls in love. As I said before, I actually like those characteristics of Lee Gon.

I appreciate you bringing this up because it’s really caused me to think about why Lee Gon and Tae Eul aren’t working for me (and a lot of other people). What is it about this pairing that feels off and lacking? I think I’ve come up with a way to explain a bit why I feel like KES has shortchanged us with this relationship.

Sorry, this is long again. I’ve gone off on a tangent. Ugh, I’m the worst.

In previous KES shows, we have individuals who are strangers but have a common goal which forges their bond. In DOTS, they worked together at the field hospital. In Mr. Sunshine, it was the revolution. In Goblin, it was her role to help pull out the sword - but, really, she served to humanize Kim Shin. So, whether the OTP was brought together as strangers or by fate, the story revolved around what challenges the OTP had to overcome together. And these are things that impact each person in a significant way, it’s not just a one sided issue/goal/problem.

That’s a general rule of thumb with building a good story anyway - what obstacle(s) does the OTP have to face as a couple?

With The King - there’s no personal stake Tae Eul has in Lee Gon’s world - other than Shin Jae’s being from the parallel world. Is that enough of a personal stake? Maybe? She’s solving a murder, but that’s a case, it doesn’t really impact her life in a major way. (At this point that we know of anyway.)

So, here we have a strange guy show up, spouting all manner of nonsense about another world, pulling diamonds off his clothes and riding this horse. He’s crazy. She’s intrigued, sure - especially when things start coming together that might prove his story.

Then he takes her to Corea. And she’s blown away. Her Earth is no longer flat. He is who he says he is. So...now what? That’s amazing and interesting but why should she fall so hard for him? Because she saw his palace? He makes her dinner? She experiences the ‘in between’ world?

That kiss? She should have either tried to punch him or we should have seen the conflict on her face before, during and after. I didn’t see it at all. She just sits there and stares at him. O...kay?

In Goblin, by the time we hit Episode 12, we’ve had the entire 1st act of the story revealed and completed. We saw the development of the two characters from a transactional relationship to a love story. We felt that goodbye in our soul because those two made you feel for them and root for them.

By Episode 10 of The King, the story is still being revealed. We should be well past the 1st act and completely invested in the 2nd act of the story. What are we rooting for here? We’re not...quite...sure? There’s an Evil Uncle I guess we don’t want him to win?

That emotional breakdown at the end of Episode 10 is lost on us because we aren’t invested in these two as a team - as an OTP and, by now, we damn well should be. Up to this point, all we’ve been given is that her love stems from his constant focus and obsession with her. In essence, she’s a passive love interest. It’s pretty likely she didn’t even save him in the past so where does that leave her involvement in the entire story other than being the catalyst for Lee Gon’s trip to Korea.

The other issue (it’s the last one I promise) is that their character personalities don’t align well. You can have two strong people, but there needs to be some humor and sparks between them. Tae Eul is a ‘bad-ass’ but her primary emotions are either “contemplative thinking” or violence. Lee Gon is nice...and boring. There’s no verbal back and forth, no flirting, no tension, no humor. It’s just...blah.

Sorry I went full tangent on you. I honestly have been going over this in my mind since I posted yesterday. It was bugging me and I needed to ‘verbalize’ what I was thinking so that people understood why I’m so disappointed. There was every opportunity to set this up so that we were invested in this couple but, instead, we’re all fast forwarding to Woo Do Hwan and Kim Kyung Nam’s scenes.

That’s a shame.

#the king eternal monarch #kdrama asks #sorry sorry sorry #ugh this is so long

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micahammon · 4 years ago

Text

All the walls are crumbling because they were never real

I’m moving into belief. I’ve spent my whole life trying to understand the nature of life and identify the construction of right and wrong, truth and illusion. It’s a fascinating process and I know I’ll never be done with it, and that’s exciting and makes life interesting. But I feel like I’ve come to a point in my process of discovery something like scientists did when they discovered quantum physics.

In Newtonian physics everything has a cause and effect. There exists a linear relationship between action and consequence. That is true and will continue to be so forever. But Newtonian physics cannot describe everything that happens in the material world. When the scale of matter becomes really small, on the level of atoms, Newtonian physics no longer succeeds as a theory. Atoms are governed by different laws, and quantum theory, as bizarre and unintuitive as it is, continues to be proven true.

Physical reality is made up of two theories which have yet to be reconciled. Although they appear to be incompatible, compatible they must be. The physical world and everything we see with the naked eye is built on the foundation of the irrational and the impossible. The particles which we are made of can move within and without time, be in two places at the same time, and seemingly violate the universal speed limit--the speed of light. Particles can be physical matter which take up space in the physical world, and at the same time, be a wave--like a radio wave if you will. Somehow reality is built upon this impossibility.

"Reality is far fetched. The truth is always a long shot."

As modern humans, we are in a precarious place. A detached place. Our roots are no longer in the soil of the earth which gives us life. We are living in the world of biological theory, political theory, economic theory, etc.--which all function very well and have allowed us to advance incredibly once understood and applied. What is the logical conclusion from this process?

We learn natural laws that we might better understand spiritual laws.

I remember in the first computer science class I took at university, my teacher drew a picture on the board, something like the following...

And then he asked the question, “What’s missing?”. He answered his own question by saying “antimatter”. Then he filled in the “antimatter” absent from view, something like this...

Note: I’m a bad artist but I tried to draw the inverse of what was originally visible.

So what’s the logical conclusion of reality? Reality is a paradox. There’s always a catch.

Note: The teacher then went on to name laughter as an example of something behaving like antimatter. In this regard, we can theorize that antimatter comes in to play where we have inflection points. That’s useful to think about in the context of the choices we make, day by day.

Note 2: Antimatter, which cannot be seen, “refers to sub-atomic particles [that] have properties opposite those of normal matter.” It’s useful to note that this is in the quantum world, where perhaps, we could say that everything there is existing simultaneously.

I think the first paradox was in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were commanded to multiply and replenish the earth. They were also commanded not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The problem which may not be obvious depending on your brand of Christianity is that Adam and Eve apparently could not keep both commandments at the same time. They were in a state of innocence and could not procreate without first creating the fall through eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

I’ve heard it said that what may appear to be contradictory to us is not to God, and that somehow He can balance two conditions in perfect harmony which appear mutually exclusive. I don’t know how God could do it in the example of the Garden of Eden, but I do think we should learn to try it in other areas.

I am nothing. I am everything.

Helaman 12:7 O how great is the nothingness of the children of men; yea, even they are less than the dust of the earth.

John 10:34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods”’?

Through the course of a day we may need to remind ourselves of either of these quotes. What’s important is that we have to choose to put the concept into use in order to humble or inspire ourselves as needed. We have to draw up the belief then let it guide.

All truth is paradox.

My brother once responded to the above statement by saying that the paradox of truth serves as the fuel for free agency. That is an extremely instructive comment, which makes me think of Einstein’s dissatisfaction with the then emerging theory of quantum physics. When Einstein analyzed and documented the workings of the universe, he did so from the perspective of trying to understand the mind of God. He disbelieved the theory of quantum mechanics presented by Niels Bohr; the same theory that today continues to be scientifically verifiable. What he objected to was that in this explanation of the universe, the natural world became a lot more random. It seemed to diminish the role of the Master Designer. Einstein’s famous quote was “God does not play dice (with the universe)”.

I sometimes think that quantum physics only appears mysterious and random to us because we cannot see the complete picture, we are only seeing the effects of things in the physical world and perhaps there are other counterparts like antimatter that we can’t see (but can detect) and even beyond that, other counterparts we can’t even detect with clever testing.

On the other hand, there is beauty in accepting the concept of an “uncreate Reality” that can represent the quantum state. We in the Newtonian state have become the created Reality which “shows forth in our beings the uncreate Reality.” That is to say, our physical world and our physical selves are manifestations of the uncreated reality.

Alma 30:44 ...all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator...

What we see here in this world is a manifestation of God and the uncreate Reality beyond. Said in different words we have the following:

“For the Source of All Life created the worlds by dividing Its Unmanifest Unity into the manifesting Duality, and we that are created show forth in our beings the uncreate Reality. Each living soul has its roots in the Unmanifest and draws thence its life, and by going back to the Unmanifest we find fulness of life.“

The uncreated reality represents a primordial place from which the physical world is drawn into being from. This place we could liken to the quantum state. I make this comparison because when we can understand a concept in the real world, it helps us to have the faith or belief to put it into practice for our own benefit.

To address Einstein’s concerns, quantum mechanics may actually be evidence of God’s will to give us more free agency by providing an uncreate Reality with which we can interact. For one, It provides some “randomness” whereby everything that happens is not simply a predestined linear result of cause and effect--thereby, we cannot blame every thing that happens as a direct consequence of God’s original first act of creation (whereby He would have known the exact consequences of every single thing to ever happen, and the only intrigue in all of it would be our discovery of the result). Secondly, and more importantly, the interconnection of the quantum and Newtonian world can become for us a primordial wellspring from which we too can create. I am suggesting that it is belief and faith which allows us to materialize things in the physical world. Even as God himself does.

Hebrews 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God...

Lastly, the context of reality, or truth being a paradox further bolsters free agency because it provides choice, even as it did for our first parents. The choices you choose to make are based on what you first choose to believe. In the paradox, you are able to believe whichever aspect you choose to focus on because it also has basis in reality.

I don’t speak of the choice between good and evil, but rather the choice between beliefs. Belief is a tool you can use to do good or harmful things.

I think it’s important to iterate that prerogative is a part of free agency and choice.

Doctrine and Covenants 58:27 Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness.

We know we should do many good things of our own free will and choice but those choices will naturally be more oriented to our own dispositions. The challenge is not to confuse limiting beliefs about ourselves with what is our true nature and disposition. In fact, what I am getting at is that we should use faith and belief to overcome our limitings habits, beliefs and worldview.

I reckon that beliefs become powerful as they connect to internal desire. Since that is the case, it is instructive to follow the path of our own personal orientation and if there are lessons to be learned, we will learn them much, much faster if we are making the choice for ourselves rather than merely trying to follow someone else’s instruction. That’s because belief is the thing that supercharges our experience.

With belief in play we can properly channel the “why” to our actions and attendant effects in the real world. If we err, the “why” will be there to make clear the error of our ways. Notwithstanding, in the middle of all of this is God’s intervention to steer us from unneeded error if we stray off course, and which can be greatly aided by our responsiveness to His Spirit.

Let’s introduce something which is not a paradox but tends to be polemic.

Brigham Young said that “we live far beneath our privileges” because we fail to seek and receive the guidance the Lord wants to give us in our spiritual and temporal affairs.

This instruction is meant to help us lay claim to what might be ours but it can also paralyze us if we don’t engage with the belief that we will actually receive it. Successfully gaining access to guidance from the Lord is usually based on the belief and faith we put into it. The important thing is that we need to use belief to create the reality and then it follows that we will receive the guidance. However, we also have to put belief and faith into a great many other things of which we proceed with in lieu of guidance because...

Doctrine and Covenants 58:26 For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things...

We must build and develop our ability to seek and understand guidance from the Lord but most times His guidance works like a signpost as we navigate. It helps us stay on course but there are a million decisions we must make for ourselves along the way by “using [our] best judgement”.

In my experience the contrast between God having a personal prerogative and objective in the management of choices and not having a prerogative is plainly evident in the line between church affairs and private affairs. When it comes to the administration of callings and duties within the Church I have witnessed an extremely high level of involvement from the Lord. If you pay attention you can see that He is almost constantly involved and directing. The Lord really, really cares about His work.

As soon as you move away from the realm of the administration of His Church, guidance is much more sparse. It truly feels like our personal lives are meant to be a learning experience through trial and error--a sort of experimentation. It does help us develop our own capabilities bit by bit. When you think about it, that really makes more sense anyways. Perhaps it also allows us to make mistakes without the additional condemnation we might receive if we had access to more from beyond the veil.

On the other hand, as I consider what will happen in the future as the world is thrown into turmoil and we all begin the work of building Zion I reckon that the line between church affairs and private affairs will become almost indecipherable--and I know that there will be an abundance of guidance as such in order to complete God’s work. There is something to be said for living like that already, here and now.

Gospel of Thomas 22: When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female...

The world is separating from a longstanding known reality. Social systems are being dismantled with an intention to reengineer them. Truth and science have become weaponized. We are dependent on technology more and more. Algorithms and big data will rule our lives. Breakages will occur. Power grids will be threatened. IT infrastructure will be compromised. Natural resources will become scarce. There will be natural disasters. Financial systems will collapse. Some of these things will be unplanned, others intentional.

I’ve always thought it so peculiar the human creature existing on this planet. All the animals on the earth have been endowed with instincts which directly provision their survival. Many young animals are taught survival skills during infancy, that is true, but even if they lose their mother, their instincts will guide them the rest of the way.

Humans on the other hand are nearly helpless without the knowledge passed on from generation to generation. At this point we’ve already lost our connection to mother earth. In our quest to master nature we have also sought to remove ourselves from nature--mother nature and also what we might call human nature.

As the walls crumble around us and the very ground is swept from under our feet, our only choice is to evolve and learn to fly.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

Faith and belief will enable many to do things which we previously knew to be impossible in the Newtonian world. To evolve means to move beyond the structures (spiritual and otherwise) we have upheld for sake of dogma. Those structures will be shaken. God’s work will not fail but we are to learn not to look beyond the mark. Ultimately, to evolve will result in having our natures changed into that resembling God as we learn to create/do through faith and belief.

For those whose trust remains in the shifting sands of the world’s social, economic, political and even scientific structures--they will be left without root and branch to stand on.

We’ll have to act for ourselves rather than be acted upon. We have to use faith and belief to power those actions or else it will be hollow inside and our hearts will ultimately fail us.

Luke 21:26 Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth...

Let’s go back to the world of very small particles...

If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed...

Matthew 17:19-20 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

I’ve always thought it so curious that basically the whole point of our existence on this earth is to learn to exercise faith and belief. Before we can really do anything, the important first step is starting with a real belief that we can do the thing we set out to do. When we supercharge our actions with belief, the universe responds.

I posit that we on this earth are here to learn to become co-creators with God--creating through faith just as God does.

Sometimes we are able to energize belief through our belief in others, but it’s not always enough, as I believe was the case with the disciples of Jesus referenced in the example above and Oliver Cowdery desiring to participate in translating the Book of Mormon.

Doctrine and Covenants 9:11 Behold, it was expedient when you commenced; but you feared, and the time is past, and it is not expedient now;

Let it be noted that this was free agency in action, since it wasn’t in the original design of God that Oliver Cowdry participate in the translation, but it would have been permitted if he had faith enough.

Because God wanted Joseph to translate, He gave him extra strength to be able to do it.

Doctrine and Covenants 9:11 For, do you not behold that I have given unto my servant Joseph sufficient strength, whereby it is made up?

To aid with the translation of the Book of Mormon Joseph received special seer stones called the Urim and Thummim. What’s curious is that Joseph often used his own seer stone rather than strictly relying on the Urim and Thummim. Eventually Joseph had enough faith to do without seer stones altogether as he continued to receive revelations. I believe that the Urim and Thummim were there to build his belief and make up for his strength until he was able to fully energize belief in himself, his ability.

Believe that you have received it, and it will be yours

One thing that hurts belief is by having a narrow view based on the here and now. When we think of how things are supposed to happen in the Newtonian world we limit the power of the supernatural quantum, timeless uncreate Reality which is boundless. We have to allow for the uncreate Reality, unintuitive non-Newtonian world to intercede. We connect to this state though the particle of belief.

As long as I believe in myself I find I can do certain things. If I ceased to believe in myself, I think I should just crumble into dust, like an unwrapped mummy.

I have said all of this in order to say this, we need to use belief daily in order to shape our lives in the way that we truly wish them to be. Our lives have ended up the way they are precisely because of the beliefs we have engaged about ourselves, others and the nature of reality. If you say that you belief that life can be grand and beautiful but you spend your days dejected and depressed, then you aren’t engaging the grand and beautiful beliefs. Whether we like it or not, beliefs are constantly directing our lives.

“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything either as a blessing or a curse.”

There are indeed blessings and curses in our lives but we cannot ascribe our current condition to merely a result of those two things. In addition, we need to enlarge the gratitude we feel for the blessings and overlook where possible the curses. Feeling gratitude will enlarge our beliefs and strengthen the conduit between us and the Divine.

When we engage in belief in order to shape and direct our lives we cannot merely state a belief and then forget about it. We have to return to the belief day after day.

I have been reading about 45 books a year for the last 5 years. I set a goal on a website which helps track my progress and keeps me motivated. The first year I started the reading challenge I set my goal as 100 books for the year. I didn’t have experience and I didn’t really know what that meant though. It was an idle, pie in the sky wish. I didn’t return to the goal frequently. I forgot about it most of the year and I finished with 33 books that year.

That reminds me of Oliver Cowdry’s wish to participate in the translation of the Book of Mormon. If he had more experience or at least consistent belief he could have succeeded. The same was true of me. Experience does help, in so far as it helps to reduce fear since we have better bearings on the task before us. Perhaps fear is like antimatter.

That’s the tricky thing with belief and faith. If we have enough faith we could actually move mountains. But most of us probably don’t have enough belief to make that happen. But we could and that promise is available for us, but perhaps we misunderstand something about belief.

Mark 11:23-24 (NIV) Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

The NIV translation makes more clear something which has caught on with new age spirituality, like in books such as The Secret, and others which profess the power of manifesting in our lives by using the so-called law of attraction.

New age spirituality has brought us the power of meditation and living mindfully, which have slowly come into mainstream Christianity and that includes the LDS church.

And indeed, meditation and mindfulness are key parts of nurturing belief as I am prescribing. The current problem we have with incubating belief is that, as mentioned above, we already have many beliefs which are like weeds choking out the good belief that we want to use to empower our lives. We live barely cognizant of the incessant, mind-numbing chatter going on about our heads. You can consider all the thoughts that jump into our minds as competing beliefs. It’s a battlefield for our minds and our empowering beliefs may fall casualty if we don’t learn to quiet the mind and focus. That enables us to act for ourselves rather than to be acted upon.

The first thing we need to do with the mind is wash it, clean it up, not only once or twice a day as we do for the body but in all our waking moments.

Similarly...

Doctrine & Covenants 121:45 let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly...

A way which helps me practice a chosen belief is to do an experiment of thought. What I mean is that on a given day I may tell myself that I am doing an experiment of thinking that day and that helps me to suspend disbelief as I am merely there to analyze and watch the results of what happens, rather than to prove veracity or to gauge the level of real belief. I did one experiment of imagining each person as I would my own self.

Mark 12:31 love thy neighbor as thyself

I really did feel something wonderful that day.

That’s one reason I say that...

life works best when undertaken as an experiment

Sometimes if we put too much pressure on the act itself, we enlarge the importance of a thing beyond what it truly is. We have to maintain calm levity and not worry about the result; to laugh instead of get caught up in an act’s undue significance. In this way we can shake off a thousand mistakes of ego and bad humor which sabotage us.

the fatal flaw is that average men take themselves too seriously

The balance has been described this way...

Thus a man of knowledge endeavors, and sweats, and puffs, and if one looks at him he is just like any ordinary man, except that the folly of his life is under control. [He regards] nothing as being more important than anything else. A man of knowledge [can thusly] choose any act, and act it out as if it matters to him.

So to apply all of this in a practical way let me tell you my plans. I am making and setting goals, big lofty goals. I am aiming for 5 years to enter more fully into the vision I see for my life. I will meditate and pray each day and return again and again to the beliefs--multiple times each day in fact--which I think are necessary to empower me to achieve my goals. I don’t know exactly how things will happen, but I do believe in the scriptures referenced, including the very words of Jesus Christ. I consider it already done because I have picked up the rod, which at the far end connects to the result. The point of access where I grip the rod is belief.

Update Apr 22, 2021: This video supports my view of free will and quantum mechanics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMb00lz-IfE

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cryptid-jack · 5 years ago

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Good Omens Headcanon 2

Before the war between Heaven and its Rebels, Anthony J. Crowley had a different name, a true name he can no longer remember since Metatron struck it from the Great Book when he fell with the others. The book contains All That is True, as well as Everything That Is, so to be stricken from its pages is to cease to exist as you once were and be left to the cold winds of fate, warped and gradually reshaped by the inexorable tides of time and the crushing weight of the universe as it spins on with a you-shaped hole in its fabric.

Before the war between Heaven and its Rebels, there was always someone at Aziraphale’s side; walking with him, talking with him, sharing their troubles and their triumphs... After the war ends and the dust clears, Heaven declares itself triumphant over the forces of this new, fledgling thing called ‘Evil‘ and there is a ragged hole in the fabric of not only the universe, but Aziraphale’s memories.

An overwhelming sense of loss overcomes the principality as he explores the new boundaries of his mind, searching the tattered, fluttering edges of the fabric of his memory for a hint of what is missing. There is no face, no name to the person Aziraphale knows was once with him, only tremendous, years long gaps in what he can remember. The ghost of a warm hand in his taunts the angel’s every moment, as does the echo of a familiar voice that he can almost remember but feels just out of earshot, like a low murmur from another room behind a locked door he’s long since lost the key to.

Someone took a dull knife and amputated some vital piece of him, but Aziraphale doesn’t even know what it is, the confusion of which only adds to the pain.

Deep in the pits of hell, back before beginning its gradual transformation into the dark, dank, miserable basement of reality, when it was all still boiling sulfur and the agonized screams of the burning damned, a fallen angel was warped and eroded by the great, ineffable machine that is the universe to the fractured pieces of itself that no longer have a place. He took on new form as a great serpent and adopted a new name to suit after he realized he no longer remembered the one he had been given by God at The Beginning.

The bright and glittering memories of an angel he’d once walked alongside, one he had adored above all others... one who had not asked questions, lingered for a time, jealously guarded by the serpent like a bittersweet treasure that brought both relief and agony in turns when brought back out and re-examined in the burning, sulfurous light of Hell. They cut him like knives every time he did until, gradually, the universe ground those down too. First to sharp and brittle fragments that mocked him with the fractured, incomplete picture of a beloved betrayer, and then into a fine dust that left Crawly with only the impression of a smile like the first sunrise at the dawn of time.

Millennia pass, God creates humanity, and something in the universe that had been still until that moment begins to tick. They can all feel it, down in their bones; it’s what makes Hell send Crawly to Earth for the first time, infiltrating the garden God had given her new children to keep them safe from the dangers of the world. None of the guardians she left at the four gates bother to look inward, of course, and tempting Eve is the work of a moment; a few questions whispered in her ear that take root and change the course of reality as they know it.

Crawly has always had questions, he remembers that much from his time in Heaven; why not share them around?

He could have left after that, of course; burrowed his way back to Hell and gotten a clap on the back for a job well done, but the sight of an angel stationed up on the Eastern wall of Eden draws the demon up short.

The platinum hair, the line of the shoulders, and the way the angel holds himself... none of these things are familiar to Crawly, but they do spark an odd sense of affection deep down in his soul that gives the demon pause.

Crawly has always had questions, and even though his pursuit of answers is what lead to his fall in the first place, he follows them once more unto the breach as he scales the walls of Eden to talk to The Enemy for the first time since the concept of an ‘Us‘ and a ‘Them’ came into being.

Aziraphale, already unsettled by his own decision to give Adam and Eve his flaming sword to protect and warm them in their exile from the garden, is further unnerved by the demon that appears at his side and the easy, relaxed way he starts up a conversation between them. More unnerving, however, is the peculiar warmth that blooms behind his breast bone as they talk; it trips Aziraphale up and he confesses his malfeasance to The Enemy without thinking.

Crawly knows he should probably use the slip against the angel in some way, it is his Job, after all, but as Aziraphale rambles out his reasoning, hands twisting anxiously before him, all the demon feels is a peculiar surge of affection.

He even tries to reassure the angel, though it doesn’t seem to do much good, and his attempt at humor falls flat, but it’s a start.

The start to what, neither of them realizes for a very long time. It’s a strange dance that they undertake over the course of six thousand years, one that sees them apart for long stretches of time, yet draws them inexorably back towards one another time and time again over the course of history. The frequency of their meetings increases the longer the dance continues until they’re living in the same town and getting lunch together every other week and pretending that all of this is Completely Normal.

Because no matter the conflict they find one another on either side of, or the number of years that have passed since last seeing each other, that sense of warmth and affection that plagues them both against their better judgement is never shaken; never wavers. Instead of being eroded by time and loyalty, it grows over time and erodes the loyalty to their respective sides until, impossibly... improbably... entirely predictably they are co-godfathering the Antichrist in an effort to save the world they’ve both come to love so dearly. The fact that a great deal of that love springs from that lingering affection for one another goes unspoken and unexamined, but lingers along the tattered edges of ancient, faded memories all the same.

When Armageddon fails to happen and the wrath of Heaven and Hell is similarly diverted, there’s a celebratory dinner at the Ritz. After dinner they walk together, talk together, and reminisce over their troubles and triumphs alike; a warm hand takes Aziraphale’s, twining their fingers, and Crowley admires a smile like the first sunrise at the dawn of time.

#Good Omens #good omens headcanon #ineffable husbands #jolie writes

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thechelby · 6 years ago

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In Defense of Jaime Lannister

Okay, I would like to preface this by saying I’m not happy with Jaime’s actions these last 2 episodes, in fact I hate it. I hate what he was doing. I hate that he hurt Brienne, it’s wounded my soul. That being said, I don’t think his character arc was assassinated. I think at the root here is the issue that the audience has been under the impression that his arc is redemption based, and it’s not. But let’s back up a second and break it down. The love of his life. Jaime has loved Cersei for over 40 years, and I feel like people are kind of ignoring that fact. Their love was gross, and abusive on both sides, but that didn’t stop them from loving each other (or if you wanna go with what D&D said, “addicted”, but more on that later). Tyrion said it this season, “She never fooled you. You always knew exactly who she was and you loved her anyway.” A large part of Jaime’s identity is in direct relation to Cersei. He struggles with himself when he’s away from her. Any decision we’ve seen Jaime make (for himself, not necessarily others), it was always connected to Cersei. As much as I hate Cersei, and believe me I fuckin hate her, she is absolutely without a doubt the love of Jaime’s life. I just want to reiterate... FORTY YEARS. That is simply not something a person gets over over the course of a few months, I’m sorry but it’s not. Now I hear what you’re saying here. He left her, he abandoned her and her crazy in King’s Landing to go north. Jaime came to his senses, and then lost all of them again. As much as Jaime is the stupidest Lannister, he’s not actually stupid, it’s just that there are a lot of intelligent Lannisters, and the bar is pretty high. Jaime knew what the wight Jon brought to King’s Landing meant. He knew that literal death was coming, and as he pointed out to Cersei not helping was a no win game. Either the dead win, march south, and kill them all, or the north wins and kills them instead. Jaime was doing the right thing, but as happens often he did it for pragmatic reasons not morality. Jaime told the northern council that he promised to fight for the living and that he intended to keep that promise, which is technically true. But also consider that he wasn’t going to mention to Sansa, Jon, Dany, and the rest of the northern folk that the living for him very much includes Cersei and their unborn child. Even during his trial, when Sansa brought up Jaime’s cruel past, Jaime came back with “What I did, I did for my family. I’d do it all again.” He is fighting for them, “nothing else matters.” He recognizes that he’s done terrible things, and while not exactly proud of them, he doesn’t regret them either. He fought for his family, and was still fighting for them. The knight of his life. Poor Brienne. I love the fuck outta that big woman. And I do want to note here, that Jaime did/does love Brienne. It’s true. Keep in mind though that in a weird way they are almost foils of each other. Brienne was a knight in every way except in name (until this season of course). Loyalty, bravery, honor, doing that which is “good”, Brienne was always the absolute epitome of what a knight should be. Jaime Lannister has been self serving, cruel to those who stand in his way, and arrogant. He was a knight by title, but his moral code differs from what we think of when we think of knights and comes a bit closer to being a kind of thug (for lack of a better word). Brienne represented the knight Jaime could have been had he made more consistently honorable choices. Loving Brienne, in a way, was Jaime loving who he never became. More than Jaime loved Brienne, he respected the fuck out of her. She made him want to be a better person. Made him want to be a true knight. Made him want to be like her. But she couldn’t fix him. She couldn’t fix him, because in the end Jaime didn’t think he deserved to be fixed. What we deserve. Jaime saved a million lives the day he killed King Aerys. And for the 20 years following, people looked down on him for it. Kingslayer. Oathbreaker. Dishonor. Ned and Catelyn’s smug faces, everyone in the kingdom’s harsh words. And for what? Saving a million fucking lives. Jaime thinks it’s impossible to truly live honorably at this point. The first time Jaime met Brienne he was talking to Catelyn, “Defend the king, obey the king, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the king? What if the King massacres the innocent? It’s too much.” Jaime’s noblest deed was the one that marked him for derision. We later learn from Jaime when he’s speaking to Brienne in that hot ass bath tub that snide remarks over the past 2 decades have really had an impact on Jaime. He resents what the people of Westeros say about him, and not just that but he’s deeply hurt by it. And at a certain point, he clearly began playing into what people had said about him. If you keep calling someone a monster, they’re sure to become one. Would not-a-monster shove a child out a window? Would they kill their own family? Would they threaten to literally punt a baby over castle walls, and then immediately follow it up with and oh yeah also I’ll kill everyone else? It was never a redemption arc. What I’ve heard a lot of people saying is that Jaime’s character arc was destroyed when he left Brienne to return to Cersei. The flaw with this is presuming that Jaime had a redemption arc. Jaime wanted redemption, but what does that mean? What act could he do to make up for what he did to Bran? To countless people over the years he’s killed or shit on? Does he have any banked karma for saving a million people? Did he redeem himself when he saved Brienne from being raped? Because honestly, I think if someone had told Jaime Lannister what the price was for saving her, then he wouldn’t’ve saved her. What about when he knighted her? A beautiful act for someone he cares about for sure, but it didn’t take any kind of sacrifice for him to do it. Jaime’s story isn’t a redemption arc. It’s a cautionary tale. Jaime isn’t Boromir from Lord of the Rings. He doesn’t start off shitty and sacrifice himself for the greater good and redeem himself. He’s Gollum. He’s someone consumed by a toxic obsessive love. Like Gollum and his precious, Jaime’s absolutely addicted to Cersei. Also like Gollum, he tries, and at times he even tries very hard to overcome that addiction and become a better person. And those efforts should be commended in his character. However, much like Gollum dying with his precious Jaime is crushed by the literal weight of the problems their love caused. Their love is part of why Jon Arryn died, their love is why Bran can’t walk, their love is why Ned Stark died, indirectly why Robb Stark and Catelyn died. Anyone who died in the War of the Five Kings died for Jaime and Cersei’s addiction to each other. Jaime doesn’t represent redemption. Jaime represents the idea that the struggle without is the struggle within. As much as evil can never be defeated in its entirety in the world, you may also not ever be able to completely defeat it in yourself. Like Gollum quite literally arguing and fighting with himself in LotR, Jaime often struggled with himself and was never able to overcome his addiction to Cersei. That’s the nature of addiction and recovery, from the outside it’s very easy to say just don’t do it you stupid gold handed fuck, she’s so obviously evil, what are you even doing? But if you ever met someone addicted to heroin, or an evil magic ring for 40 years, you’d probably know that chances are low they’ll come out clean on the other side.

#game of thrones #jaime lannister #brienne of tarth #cersei lannister

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tessatechaitea · 5 years ago

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Scarab #5

Scarab just learned how to use "whomst'd" correctly.

Maybe the sudden need for drugs was due to this character with my name trying to kill himself.

I hadn't actually gotten to the part where the guy notes he's on drugs or that he's surrounded by poppies so I think I just have to give credit to John Smith's writing for setting up a real "I'm fucking overdosing on pain killers" tone. Now I'm also jealous of a fictional nobody. If only I had too many painkillers right now, um, well, I'd probably never hit publish on this blog post and all five of my readers would be wondering, "When the fuck is Grunion Guy (or Tess (or Jeff (or whoever the fuck this asshole is))) ever going to finish reading Scarab?" According to my Non-Certified Sister-in-law, nutritionists have to report people for suicidal ideation. She told this to me because she's a nutritionist and I said to her one night at karaoke that my current retirement plan was to do whatever the fuck I wanted until my bank account was dry and then kill myself. But she never reported me so I guess she doesn't realize that's actually my retirement plan. Speaking of karaoke, I knocked another song off of my karaoke bucket list this week: "Like China" by Phil Collins. I fucked that song so hard on stage, some woman high-fived me and some other guy came up to me and thanked me for reminding him that the song exists. He was super drunk. Super drunk guys love me at karaoke. One time this guy whose name I believe was Creepy Kevin asked me, after I'd just sung "Everybody Knows," if I was doing it in the style of Leonard Cohen or Concrete Blonde. I said Concrete Blonde and he said, "Your voice really suits it." Which is when I stabbed him in the throat and tossed him in the dumpster out back with the leftover spring rolls from the night before because how dare he insult Johnette Napolitano! She has the voice of an angel and I have the voice of the person the angel walks on so that they don't have to get their feet dirty at the angel orgy. I know nobody is reading this and thinking, "What the fuck are you talking about?! What has happened to Scarab this issue?! Has Eleanor found her way home?!" How many people even remember that this comic book ever existed?! I just read four issues of it a week and a half ago and I almost forgot it existed! This issue is called "Paradise Defiled" which I just read although maybe my subconscious read it earlier (due to the comic being opened to that page and just sitting there on the scanner) which is why I was thinking about angel orgies. This guy Jeff is somebody Louis knows. An old woman — maybe his mother? — phones Louis to ask if he's seen him. So that's how Scarab gets involved with Jeff's suicidal problem. Meanwhile, Eleanor is sprouting ecotoplasmic rivulets. It's super gross. But this issue isn't about Scarab and Eleanor! At least I don't think it is. It's about Jeff waking up from his pleasant and relaxing overdose to find himself in an afterlife torture garden sex party. He totally hates it and I understand why. The place is first described as "a literal incarnation of a littoral world" and I have to stop myself from Googling "home lobotomy." The first tortured sex victim he meets is a guy strapped to a wheel with a bunch of knives in him spouting "Vertigo phrases." I explained "Vertigo phrases" in a previous commentary (or all of my previous Vertigo commentaries maybe?) but for those who somehow just stumbled upon this commentary because "every blog post is somebody's first" (although why Scarab #5 would be somebody's first is beyond comprehension), here's a nice example of "Vertigo phrasing."

It doesn't have to mean anything. It just needs to sound weirdly profound while making the reader feel like a real fucking smarty pants.

Jeff is taken to some Herod-like angel named Lord Colouris. He's also a bit like a cross between John Lennon and Jabba the Hutt. Did I just describe David Crosby? Lord Colouris declares he's going to make a new man out of Jeff and I don't think he means it figuratively. In the middle of the Garden stands the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It bears the fruit of truth and whispers as skulls pile up beneath it from those feeding on its devastating pronouncements. Also, I sort of agree with what it's saying here:

Ninety-eight percent of this blog is me screaming from the anguish of losing the bliss of nonexistence.

Not that I think I'm evil. Nor do I believe in souls. But that whole anguish over the loss of nonexistence? That hits me fucking hard, bro. Look, it even made me call you bro. I'm hurting here, dude. See? I said dude too! The rest of what the tree says is meaningless gobbledygook. Something about sex tearing the flanks of God and a snake jerking it into a pot of clay like my junior high school classmate Chris Huff beating off in a breadbox. Maybe it makes sense to guilt-ridden Catholics but it's all wasted on me. I'm just wondering if I should do a Google search on a snake ejaculating. I've done it before for bats and let me tell you: there's a great video of a bat at a zoo sucking itself off in front of some kids! Truly a work of art. So privileged to live in this modern age and able to experience such wonders of this world! Lord Colouris turns Jeff into a monstrosity because he's trying to reform the lost souls that wind up in the Garden of Pain into his image before he fell from Heaven. But he can't do it because everybody who enters the Garden is tainted by their boring and uncreative lives. To finally make a work of art equal to his previous state of being, Lord Colouris releases all of his Frankenstein monsters into the world to hunt down a truly innocent and beautiful person who can provide the raw material for Lord Colouris's sculpture. Jeff is now one of them. Being uncreative morons, the monsters raid nurseries all over New York. Idiots. How many babies does it take to create an angel? Probably like millions! Some of the monsters seek out Eleanor because her leaking bodily fluids smell succulent and, I guess, virginal? I don't know. Like I said, she's gross. I hope they take her. Instead of Eleanor, the monsters accidentally take Scarab back to the Garden where he's quickly defeated by Colouris with a tree grown up through his guts. Then Scarab, like a true super hero, remembers that he can't be defeated if he just summons one last burst of strength and hope to overcome his enemy! Which he totally does by biting Lord Colouris's tongue off (because Lord Colouris was doing naughty things to Scarab. So naughty that I was embarrassed to discuss them). Then he punches Colouris in the throat and he barfs up the keys to all of his monsters' souls. Plus the key to his own soul which Monster Jeff helps Scarab find. Scarab recognizes him and thinks, "Fuck. Okay, I guess I'll just have to tell Jeff's mother he's dead." Then Scarab sticks the key in Colouris's head and the Garden dissolves into an empty room with a ticking metronome. That probably makes really smart people go, "Holy fuck! That's fucking brilliant! What a great reference or theory or idea or intelligent bit of philosophical scat!" And, um, that's totally what I said too. I'm not one of those morons who don't understand Vertigo comic books. Pshaw! Can you even believe uncool losers like that exist?! Scarab #5 Rating: You know how many things I had to look up on the Internet while reading this comic book? At least two! Maybe more but even two is a lot! Remember, I first read this in 1993 when most people didn't have Internet (and those that did were spending their time in AOL and Prodigy chat rooms with names like "Horoscope Lovers" and "Remember The A-Team?!"). So that's two things I definitely didn't understand when I read it the first time because you can believe that I was too lazy to pick up a dictionary in the middle of reading a comic book. And that's even assuming that I'm the type of person to own a dictionary! Man, stop embarrassing yourself with your lousy assumptions!

#Scarab #Vertigo #DC Comics #DC #Scot Eaton #John Smith

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basicsofislam · 6 years ago

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THE COMPANIONS OF THE PROPHET (PBUH) : Uqba bin Amir (r.a.)

Uqba was a shepherd. He used to herd sheep on the meadows of Madinah. When he was on the mountain, he heard that the Prophet (pbuh) had migrated to Madinah. It was impossible for him to remain there any longer. He wanted to see the Prophet. He left the sheep there and went straight to Madinah. He asked where the Messenger of Allah was. As soon as he found about the house he was living in, he went into the presence of the Messenger of Allah.

When he saw the Messenger of Allah, he felt very relieved and his heart became full of light. He felt as if he was he was about to fly. He had never felt such excitement before and he had never been happier before. He himself could not believe in the changes in his spirit.

The Messenger of Allah told him some pearls of truth and taught him the principles of Islam. Uqba did not have any hesitation to become a believer. He became a Companion. He was a distinguished Companion among the People of Suffa.[ Usdu’l-Ghaba, 3: 417; Tabaqat, 4: 344. ]

After that, Uqba started to learn religious sciences. He never missed the talks of the Prophet, which were full of life. He collected knowledge and information from the Prophet. The Prophet gave special care of to Uqba because he knew that Uqba had great enthusiasm for religious sciences.

Once, he addressed Hz. Uqba as follows:

“There are some chapters in the Quran. Allah Almighty did not reveal any chapters like that in the Torah, the Gospel and the Psalms. They are the chapters of al-Ikhlas, al-Falaq and an-Nas.”

Uqba, who always remembered those words, said,

“After that day, I never went to bed before reading those chapters.”[ Musnad, 4: 158. ]

Hz. Uqba never hesitated to ask the Prophet what he did not know and what he wanted to know. Thus, he was able to learn many things. Once, he approached the Prophet, held his blessed hands and said,

“O Messenger of Allah! Will you tell me about the best deed and worshipping?”

The Prophet gave him the following advice:

“Ask about the health of a person who does not ask about your health. Try to give something to a person who does not give you anything. Forgive the one who wrongs you.”[ ibid, 4: 148 ]

Once, Hz. Uqba asked the Prophet, “O Messenger of Allah! What is the way of salvation?” The Prophet (pbuh) said, “Control your tongue. Do not disclose the secrets of your house. Cry for your sins.”[ Tirmidhi, Zuhd: 60. ]

They were difficult deeds. They were things that were very hard for the soul but Paradise was not easy to reach. For, it was necessary to deserve Paradise in the world. Therefore, it was necessary to do the deeds that were difficult for the soul in order to attain the consent of Allah.

Once, Uqba (r.a.) set off with 12 of his friends in order to learn something from the Prophet. They had their camels with them. They did not want to leave the camels unattended. They said, “If one of us takes care of the camels, the others can go to the Messenger of Allah and talk to him. Then, we will tell him what the Messenger of Allah said when we return.” Hz. Uqba wanted to listen to the Prophet a lot but he believed that somebody had to look after the camels. He acted altruistically. He said, “You can go. I will take care of the camels.” Then, he narrated the rest of the incident as follows:

"A long time passed after my friends left. I said to myself, 'I think I made a mistake. My friends are hearing from the Messenger of Allah what I did not hear and learning what I did not learn.' I went to the city. I met a group of Companions on the way. One of them said, "the Prophet said, 'A person who makes wudu properly becomes free of his sins as if he has just been born.'" I was amazed by this hadith. When Umar bin Khattab noticed that I was amazed, he said, 'That is nothing. You should have heard the hadith before that.' I said,

'Please report it to me!' He said,

"The Messenger of Allah (pbuh) said, 'A person who dies without associating any partners with Allah, Allah opens the gates of Paradise for him. He enters Paradise through any gate he wishes. Paradise has eight gates.'"

Meanwhile, the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) arrived. I sat in front of him and started to listen to him. However, he turned his face away from me. I said, 'O Messenger of Allah! May my mother and father be sacrificed for you! Why are you turning your face away from me?'

The Messenger of Allah said, 'Which one do you think is more important? One person or 12 people?'

I understood my mistake, stood up and left."[ Hilyatu’l-Awliya, 9: 307. ]

Hz. Uqba’s efforts to learn enabled him to be one of the scholars among the Companions. Hz. Uqba reached the level of ijtihad when the Prophet was alive. Once, the Prophet left the decision to be made between two people who sued each other to him. Uqba (r.a.) said, “O Messenger of Allah! May my mother and father be sacrificed for you! You deserve it more to decide.” However, the Messenger of Allah said, “You decide!” Uqba asked, “According to what shall I decide?” The Prophet (pbuh) said, “Decide based on your own ijtihad. If you are right, you will be given 10 rewards; if you are not right, you will be given 1 reward.”[ Mu’jamu’s-Sagghir, 1: 51. ]

Hz. Uqba was very respectful to the Prophet (pbuh). He regarded it disrespect to ride a camel in the presence of the Messenger of Allah. Once, he was going somewhere with the Prophet (pbuh). The Prophet was riding a camel. He was going on foot. The Messenger of Allah wanted him to get on the camel. He said, “O Uqba! Do you not want to get on the camel? Hz. Uqba said, “O Messenger of Allah! I fear that it will be a sin for me.” When the Prophet insisted, he had to get on the camel.[ Musnad, 4: 144. ]

Uqba (r.a.) never revealed the mistakes of his believing brothers. He did not search the mistakes of others and he felt disturbed when somebody mentioned the mistakes of others in his presence. Once, his servant told him about a mistake of his neighbor. Hz. Uqba did not get angry with his servant. He gave him some advice and told him that it was something bad. Then, he told him the following hadith:

“If a person covers the mistake of a believer in the world, Allah will cover his mistake in the Day of Judgment.”[ ibid, 4: 159. ]

Hz. Uqba had an exceptional position related to hadiths, division of inheritance and rhetoric. He was one of the Companions that recited the Quran nicely. Once, Hz. Umar said to him, “Read me the Quran.” When Uqba started to read the Quran, Hz. Umar wept.

Another property of Hz. Uqba was that he was interested in military art. He often reminded people the following hadiths of the Prophet: “None of you should stop practicing archery." "A person who learns how to shoot arrows and then abandons it though he knows that it is sunnah is not one of us." "Allah puts three people in Paradise due to one arrow: The artisan who makes it with the intention of using it in a good way, the one who shoots it and the one who helps the person who shoots it.” Thus, he wanted the spirit of jihad to be active and wanted the Muslims to give importance to training against the enemy.[ Nasai, Hayl: 8; Musnad, 4: 144. ]

Uqba (r.a.) kept the glad tiding given by the Prophet about the conquest of Istanbul in his heart like a secret. He joined the army established by Hz. Muawiya in the 52nd year of the Migration for the conquest of Istanbul. He was the leader of the troops prepared in Egypt since he was the governor of Egypt then.[ Tirmidhi, Tafsiru’l-Qur’an: 3. ]

Hz. Uqba, who died in the 58th year of the Migration, reported many hadiths. These hadiths are included in Bukhari, Muslim, Musnad and other hadith books.

A sermon of the Prophet reported by Uqba is as follows:

“O people! The truest word is the book of Allah. The best sunnah is my sunnah. The most valuable word is mentioning Allah (dhikr). The most valuable stories are in the Quran. The best deeds are fard deeds. The worst of everything is the one that appears later (bid'ahs). The best call is the call of the prophets. The most honorable death is the death of the martyrs. The worst blindness is to go astray after finding guidance. The hand that gives is better than the hand that takes. Little and adequate property is better than abundant property that leads man to bad ways. The worst repentance is the one on the Day of Judgment.

Some people perform prayers late. Some people remember Allah from time to time. The biggest mistake is to tell lies. The best wealth is the richness of the heart. The best food is taqwa. The essence of wisdom is fear of Allah. The best thing in the heart is real belief. Doubt and indecisiveness come from unbelief. To cry and to beat one's breast after dead people are customs of Jahiliyya. To steal from the state means to steal embers from Hell. To stock gold and silver and to pay zakah for them is equal to cauterizing one's body with hellfire. Alcohol is the root of all evil. Women are the trap of Satan. Youth is a kind of madness. The worst profit is interest. The worst food is the money of an orphan. A lucky person is the one who can take lessons from others.

All of you will rest in graves of a few meters. Every deed is evaluated by its results. What is valid regarding deeds is their outcomes. The worst informant is the one who spreads lies. What is bound to come is close even if it is far. It is a sin to curse a believer. To backbite a believer is to oppose Allah. It is haram to violate (harm) a believer's blood as well as his property. If a person swears by Allah in order to commit a bad deed, Allah will contradict him. Allah will forgive those who forgive. Allah will give rewards to those overcome their anger. If a person shows patience, Allah will replace what he has lost. If a person believes in rumors, Allah will disgrace him. If a person shows patience, Allah will give him a lot of rewards. If a person opposes Allah, he is punished.

O Allah! Forgive me and my ummah! O Allah! Forgive me and my ummah! I ask Allah to forgive me and you.”[ Faydu’l-Qadir, 2: 175. ]

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imanes · 6 years ago

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Iman, I am so distressed. I've worked many jobs in the past that I've hated and I finally landed one I could be proud of, a medical billing position! But now that I've started, I'm miserable and hate dealing with all these codes and it's confusing... idk what to do because my whole family was rooting for me and my mom even cried when I got the job. I feel like I'm failing everyone. It sucks because it's a good job but I'm just not feeling it!

hi babe i know how difficult this position is like unfortunately WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY (allegedly) and that means sometimes having to put up with things that make us miserable and it should never be this way and capitalism is deeply evil at its core and having to work in a position that makes you miserable is awful and i feel for you. i can’t tell you what to do and how to feel bc that’s not my job and i can only extend compassion for the position you find yourself in. it’s hard to have to deal with having to sell your labour for something that makes you feel bad at the end of the day and it’s even worse when people that are important to you derive pride from seeing you in this position. often people have this idea for us that we should reach and they don’t stop to wonder if this will nurture the other person’s soul. all they can see is what’s on paper: accomplishments and how those play in your overall reputation. i don’t think you’re failing anyone by not being happy. i think society is failing you for making you feel terrible about things that you cannot control and situations you are being forced into. i really hope this is something that you can somehow overcome by switching to something that animates you a bit more or by finding joy in things in life that aren’t work-related. it’s hard now bc it’s the beginning and you’re trying to get a handle on it and trust me i just started a new job and i feel so anxious about it bc i feel like i’m not good enough for it and that i’m already failing everyone in my team from week one lol it’s not easy to shoulder that but i don’t think either one of us should be so hard on ourselves. give yourself some time to adjust to your new job and give yourself some slack in other areas of your life and try to find smt that will make u happy (for me it’s reading). i know you weren’t asking for advice or for anything at all but i just wanted to let u know that you were heard and that i feel you!!

#Anonymous

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easeafterdifficulty-blog · 6 years ago

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Delusions, psychotic disorders, and other mental illnesses in the light of Islam

Assalamu ‘alaykum wa rahmatuLlah, bismiLlah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. All praise is to Allah, everything good comes from Him and every error of mine comes from me alone. So may Allah forgive me for such mistakes.

Disclaimer - I am not a professional nor a scholar: I limit myself to sharing from those who are, and putting information together. None of this content should be taken as a replacement for spiritual counselling or actual mental health support. I am simply your sister fiLlah.

According to WebMD, “Psychotic disorders are a group of serious illnesses that affect the mind. They make it hard for someone to think clearly, make good judgments, respond emotionally, communicate effectively, understand reality, and behave appropriately.”

There are many different psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and delusional disorder. Other disorders, such as some personality disorders (like borderline personality disorder) or mood disorders (like bipolar disorders), may also feature psychotic symptoms. Moreover, psychotic disorders may be co-morbid with other mental illnesses, such as post-traumatic disorders, personality disorders, and more.

Symptoms may include:

difficulty concentrating

depressive episodes and anxiety

problems sleeping a healthy amount of time

delusions

hallucinations with one or more of the five senses

disorganized speech

suicidal tendencies and/or self-harm

Is it my fault if I have a psychotic disorder? Do I deserve to suffer because I am a “bad muslim” even though I strive to be better?

Being mentally ill, having a psychotic disorder, or suffering from delusions does not have to do with how religious or righteous one is. Dr. Abu’l Mundhir Khaleel ibn Ibraaheem Ameen, in his book “The Jinn & Human Sickness”, states: “Even those who are righteous and upright in their religious commitment are not free from the problems of delusions.” In fact, it is clear that Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala sends tests to all of His believers, including prophets, messengers, and other people who were extremely close to Allah ta’ala.

Allah says:

Every soul will taste death. And We test you with evil and with good as trial; and to Us you will be returned.

Qur’an, 21:35

And He also says:

And fear the trial which will not strike in particular (only) those who have wronged among you...

Qur’an, 8:25

The Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “The greatest reward comes with the greatest trial. When Allah loves a people He tests them. Whoever accepts that wins His pleasure but whoever is discontent with that earns His wrath.”

Narrated by at-Tirmidhi (2396) and Ibn Majah (4031). Classed as saheeh by al-Albani.

Depending on the situation, a calamity that befalls an individual may be a test for those around them, and a blessing for them.

Shaykh Al-Munajjid said on this topic:

Not every sickness or handicap is necessarily a punishment; rather it may be a test for the child’s parents, by which Allaah will expiate for their bad deeds, or raise their status in Paradise if they bear this trial with patience. Then if the child grows up, the test will also include him, and if he bears it with patience and faith, then Allaah has prepared for the patient a reward that cannot be enumerated.

That said, it is also plausible that one’s suffering is a means for them to get closer to Allah, or to be purified from their sins.

It was narrated that Anas (may Allah be pleased with him) said:

«The Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said:“If Allah wills good for His slave, He hastens his punishment in this world, and if He wills bad for His slave, He withholds from him (the punishment for) his sin, until He requites him for it on the Day of Resurrection.”»

Narrated and classed as hasan by at-Tirmidhi (2396); classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh at-Tirmidhi.

This shows that when Allah loves his believers, He tests them so that their sins may be expiated quickly and more easily.

Abdullah ibn Mas’ud reported:

«The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “There is no Muslim who is afflicted with pain as much as the prick of a thorn or more but that Allah will expiate his sins just as leaves fall from a tree.”»

Narrated in Saheeh Bukhari (5324), Saheeh Muslim (2571).

Alhamdulillah, every little pain we suffer in this Dunya will earn us expiations from sins. So what about serious illnesses and long-lasting emotional pain?

Every person’s situation will be different, some will be tested to have their status elevated, some will be tested for expiation, some will be tested because of Allah’s mercy, some will be test for all of the aforementioned reasons, and so forth. Many times, individuals’ lives may be full of obstacles and tests because of reasons that are unclear to us, and only known to Allah.

Moreover, everyone sins, and everyone needs more and more guidance, for man is imperfect, and only prophets were most perfect in matters that regard religion! Do not despair of Allah’s mercy and forgiveness, and rest assured His plan is the best plan of all.

Will I be punished if I sin in times where I am unable to reason clearly or understand what I am doing?

Whenever a Muslim who suffers from hallucinations hears or sees something terrible, such as something that undermines Islam or which places doubts in his mind about Allah, or similar things, they will not be held accountable for it.

It was narrated that Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) said:

«The Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “Allah has forgiven my ummah for whatever whispers [waswasah] cross their minds so long as they do not act upon it or speak of it.”»

Narrated by al-Bukhaari (2391) and Muslim (127).

Ibn Hajar (may Allah have mercy on him) said in Fath al-Baari (5/161):

What we may understand is that there is no blame for what crosses a person’s mind, unless it is translated into actions or words as a result of that thought. What is meant by whispers [waswasah] is when a thought resides in a person’s mind without him feeling happy with it, or it takes root in his mind.

Moreover, Shaykh al-Munajjid states,

If we assume that this sick person uttered what was on his mind under the pressure of his illness or of the whispers in his heart in the sense that he was overcome and could not help it, and these words came out of him without him intending that, then he will not be brought to account for that, because he did not intend to say it out loud. (..) If he says something when he is compelled, without intending or wanting to, then he will not be brought to account for it.

What is the cause and cure of such disorders?

Verily every sickness has a cure that Allah has sent. Any physical and psychological disease may be caused by a problem which resides in one’s body or brain, or alternatively, by jinn, devilish whispers, going astray from the right path of Islam, and so forth; or even both.

The cure may be found in the deen (religion) as well as meds or other therapies.

For more information, please read the book “The Jinn & Human Sickness” by Dr. Abu’l Mundhir Khaleel ibn Ibraaheem Ameen.

Shaykh al-Munajjid says on this matter:

The depression that people feel may be a sickness that needs to be treated and needs referral to specialists; or it may be feelings of distress that may be relieved by doing a lot of acts of worship, remembering Allah, keeping company with good and righteous friends, and keeping busy with beneficial actions. (...) Whatever the case, Allah has not sent down any disease but He has sent down a cure for it, and there is a remedy for this depression no matter what type it is. The believer should adorn himself with patience and certainty of faith, and he should turn to Allah a great deal and ask of Him, because the keys to goodness are in His hand.

In any case, it will certainly not cause harm if one who suffers from a psychotic disorder starts reading more Qur’an, reciting adhkar, and surrounding yourself with righteous people who are understanding and supportive and will remind you of Allah, and to be patient in a beautiful way. Even if such a person’s disorder is not caused by jinn, being closer to Allah will undoubtedly give them a powerful weapon against impatience, despair, or their condition becoming worse due to devilish whispers.

Am I allowed to see a psychologist or psychiatrist, and take anti-psychotic medication or other types of medication?

Yes, upon scholarly consensus, finding a cure to your diseases is permitted or encouraged. It is not reprehensible, and one should take care of one’s body, mind and soul as best as possible, as long as the means of doing that are halal.

It was narrated that Abu’l-Dardaa’ (may Allaah be pleased with him) said:

«The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Allaah created the disease and the cure, so treat disease but do not treat it with anything that is haraam.”»

Narrated by al-Tabaraani in al-Mu’jam al-Kabeer, 24/254. Classed as saheeh by al-Albani.

Ibn al-Qayyim said on the matter:

In the saheeh ahaadeeth there is the command to use medicine, and these ahaadeeth state that this does not contradict the idea of putting one’s trust in Allaah, just as warding off hunger, thirst, heat and cold by means of their opposites does not contradict it. Rather the reality of Tawheed cannot be perfected without following the means which Allaah has created in order to reach ends, both by His universal will and in His laws that He has prescribed. Ignoring this matter undermines the very essence of putting one’s trust in Allaah, just as it undermines the concept of Allaah’s command and wisdom, and weakens it so that the one who does not use the means to an end thinks that not using them is a stronger form of putting one’s trust in Allah. But not using the means to an end is a sign of weakness which contradict the idea of putting one’s trust in Allaah, the essence of which is the reliance of the heart on Allaah to provide that which will benefit a person in this world and in the Hereafter, and to ward off that which will harm him in this world and in the Hereafter. But it is essential to depend on use of the means, otherwise one is denying the wisdom of Allaah and the laws which He has prescribed. So the slave of Allaah should not call his helplessness dependence on Allaah, or call his dependence on Allaah helplessness.

(Zaad al-Ma’aad, 4/15)

It is true that sometimes, medication may contain dubious ingredients, or may have enormous side effects which makes one wonder whether it is worth taking such medication. In such cases, one should ask (or look for) a specific fatwa on the matter. Keep in mind there is some disagreement among scholars on some matters, such as the use of gelatin in some pills.

I pray that Allah aids every person suffering from mental illness in the best way possible, and hope everyone who reads this can find some comfort and guidance, in sha’ Allah. May Allah reward you greatly. And if you find I have committed an error, remind me gently, and correct me without hesitation. And finally, verily Allah knows best.

#islamic reminder #islamic reminders #islam reminders #islam mental health #alhamdulillah #in sha allah #qur'an #Bismillah #arrahman #arraheem #allah's test #allah's plan #allah's mercy #fee allah #ayah #hadeeth

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wisdomrays · 6 years ago

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JIHAD, TERRORISM, HUMAN RIGHTS: Lesser and greater jihad

What is jihad?

Derived from the root j-h-d, jihad means using all one's strength, as well as moving toward an objective with all one's power and strength and resisting every difficulty. This latter definition of jihad is closer to the religious meaning.

Jihad gained a special characteristic with the advent of Islam: struggling in the path of God. This is the meaning that usually comes to mind today. Jihad occurs on two fronts: the internal and the external.

The internal struggle (the greater jihad) is the effort to attain one's essence; the external struggle (the lesser jihad) is the process of enabling someone else to attain his or her essence.

The first is based on overcoming obstacles between oneself and one's essence, and the soul's reaching knowledge, and eventually divine knowledge, divine love, and spiritual bliss.

The second is based on removing obstacles between people and faith so that people can choose freely between belief and unbelief. In one respect, jihad is the purpose of our creation and our most important duty. If the opposite were true, God would have sent Prophets with this duty.

There is an unbridgeable difference between those who remain behind without a valid excuse and those who continually engage in jihad:

Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) and are not hurt, and those who strive and fight in the cause of God with their goods and their persons. God has granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit (at home). Unto all (in faith) has God promised good: but for those who strive and fight has He distinguished above those who sit (at home) by a special reward. (An-Nisa: 4:95)

The Prophet says:

Keeping watch one day to protect the border for God's sake is superior to this world and everything in it. The small place that your whip (used in the way of God) occupies in Heaven is superior to this world and everything in it. An evening or morning walk made on God's path is superior to this world and everything in it.[ Bukhari, Jihad, 142; Tirmidhi, Fada'il al-Jihad, 25. ]

Types of jihad

The lesser jihad is not restricted to battlefronts, for this would narrow its horizon considerably. In fact, the lesser jihad has such a broad meaning and application that sometimes a word or silence, a frown or a smile, leaving or entering an assembly—in short, everything done for God's sake—and regulating love and anger according to His approval is included. In this way, all efforts made to reform society and people are part of jihad, as is every effort made for your family, relatives, neighbors, and region.

In a sense, the lesser jihad is material. The greater jihad, however, is conducted on the spiritual front, for it is our struggle with our inner world and carnal soul (nafs). When both of these jihads have been carried out successfully, the desired balance is established. If one is missing, the balance is destroyed.

Believers find peace and vitality in such a balanced jihad. They know they will die the moment their jihad ends. Believers, like trees, can survive only as long as they bear fruit. As a matter of fact, when a tree stops producing fruit, it dries up and dies. Observe pessimists, and you will notice that they no longer struggle or explain the Truth to others. Thus, God cuts off His blessing to them, leaving their interiors dark and cold. But those who pursue jihad are always surrounded by love and enthusiasm. Their inner worlds are bright, their feelings are pure, and they are on the road to prosperity. Every struggle stimulates the thought of yet another one, and thus a righteous circle is formed. As every good deed becomes a vehicle for a new good deed, such people swim among good deeds. Our hearts are informed of this truth:

And those who strive in Our Cause, We will certainly guide them to Our Paths: For God is with those who do the right. (Al-Ankabut 29:69)

There are as many roads to God as there are creatures. God leads those who struggle for His sake to salvation on one or more of these roads. He opens each road to goodness and protects it from the roads to evil. Everyone who finds His road, the Straight Path, finds the middle road. Just as these people follow a middle path regarding anger, intelligence, and lust, they also follow a middle way regarding jihad and worship. This means that God has led humanity to the path of salvation.

The lesser jihad is our active fulfillment of Islam's commands and duties; the greater jihad is proclaiming war on our ego's destructive and negative emotions and thoughts (e.g., malice, hatred, envy, selfishness, pride, arrogance, and pomp), which prevent us from attaining perfection. As this is a very difficult and strenuous jihad, it is called the greater jihad.

During the Age of Bliss, people fought like lions on the battlefield and, when night fell, lost themselves in devotion to God through worship and dhikr (remembrance and invocation of God). These valiant fighters passed their lives in a corner in worship and solitude. They learned this from their guide, the Prophet, a man of the heart who was first in the material and spiritual jihad. He encouraged his followers to ask for God's forgiveness, and was always the first to do so.

Those who succeed in the greater jihad will succeed in the lesser jihad; those who fail in the greater jihad will fail in the lesser jihad. Even if such people obtain some degree of success, they cannot obtain the full results.

'A'isha related:

One night the Messenger of God asked: "'A'isha, can I spend this night with my Lord?" (He was so genteel that he would ask for such permission. Nobility and refinement were important aspects of his profundity.) I replied: "O Messenger of God, I would like to be with you, but I'd like what you like even more." The Prophet performed ablution and began praying. He recited: Behold! In the creation of the heavens and earth, and the alternation of Night and Day—there are indeed Signs for people of understanding (Al-Imran 3:190). He recited this verse and shed tears until morning. (Ibn Kathir, Tafsir)

Sometimes in order not to wake up his wife, the Prophet would get up and worship without asking her. Again 'A'isha relates:

One night when I woke up, I could not find God's Messenger. . . . When I started to get up in the dark, my hand touched his foot. He was prostrating on the prayer rug and reciting something. I listened to his prayer. He said: "My God, I take refuge in Your compassion from Your anger and wrath. I take refuge in Your sparing me from punishment. My Lord, I take refuge in You from You (refuge in Your blessings from Your wrath, refuge in Your grace from Your grandeur, refuge in Your mercy and compassion from Your domination.) I am not capable of praising You (properly). You are as You have praised Yourself."[ Muslim, Salat, 22; Haythami, Majma' al-Zawa'id, 10:124; Tirmidhi, Da'wat, 81. ]

This incident clearly displays the inner depth and the extent of greater jihad in the Prophet. In another hadith, the Prophet mentioned these two jihads:

There are two kinds of eyes that will never see the fire of Hell: those of soldiers who act as guards on battlefields and fronts, and those who weep because of the fear of God.[ Tirmidhi, Fada'il al-Jihad, 12. ]

The jihad of those who abandon their sleep and act as guards at the most dangerous times is material jihad. Their eyes will not be subjected to the fire of Hell. As for those who do the spiritual and greater jihad and cry for fear of God, they also will not see the torture of Hell. Instead of repeating what others have done, people should have good intentions and implant in their hearts and minds the consciousness of being sincere.

Jihad is a balance of internal and external conquest. Reaching spiritual perfection and helping others do so are of the utmost importance. Attaining internal perfection is the greater jihad; helping others attain it is the lesser jihad. When you separate one from the other, jihad is no longer jihad. Indolence is born from one and anarchy from the other. Thus, the Muhammadan spirit is the only way of settlement. As is always the case, this is possible only by following and conforming to God's Messenger. How happy are those who search for a way to salvation for others as much as they do for themselves. And how happy are those who remember to save themselves while saving others!

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starlightspeedster · 4 years ago

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The Victory of Christ

"And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.

Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature. For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.

You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross."

-Colossians 2:6-15 NLT

"We have lingered over this subject of the martyrs and over the record of those who died on account of pestilence, because this lets us see the excellence of Him who was led as a sheep to the slaughter and was dumb as a lamb before the shearer. For if there is any point in these stories of the Greeks, and if what we have said of the martyrs is well founded,—the Apostles, too, were for the same reason the filth of the world and the offscouring of all things,—what and how great things must be said of the Lamb of God, who was sacrificed for this very reason, that He might take away the sin not of a few but of the whole world, for the sake of which also He suffered? If any one sin, we read, “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for those of the whole world,” since He is the Saviour of all men, especially of them that believe, who blotted out the written bond that was against us by His own blood, and took it out of the way, so that not even a trace, not even of our blotted-out sins, might still be found, and nailed it to His cross; who having put off from Himself the principalities and powers, made a show of them openly, triumphing over them by His cross. And we are taught to rejoice when we suffer afflictions in the world, knowing the ground of our rejoicing to be this, that the world has been conquered and has manifestly been subjected to its conqueror. Hence all the nations, released from their former rulers, serve Him, because He saved the poor from his tyrant by His own passion, and the needy who had no helper. This Saviour, then, having humbled the calumniator by humbling Himself, abides with the visible sun before His illustrious church, tropically called the moon, from generation to generation.

...

For the Father is good, but the Saviour is the image of His goodness; and doing good to the world in all things, since God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, which formerly for its wickedness was all enemy to Him, He accomplishes His good deeds in order and succession, and does not all at once take all His enemies for His footstool. For the Father says to Him, to the Lord of us all, “Sit Thou on My right hand, until I make Thy enemies the footstool of Thy feet.” And this goes on till the last enemy, Death, is overcome by Him. And if we consider what is meant by this subjection to Christ and find an explanation of this mainly from the saying, “When all things shall have been put under Him, then shall the Son Himself be subjected to Him who put all things under Him,” then we shall see how the conception agrees with the goodness of the God of all, since it is that of the Lamb of God, taking away the sin of the world. Not all men’s sin, however, is taken away by the Lamb of God, not the sin of those who do not grieve and suffer affliction till it be taken away. For thorns are not only fixed but deeply rooted in the hand of every one who is intoxicated by wickedness and has parted with sobriety, as it is said in the Proverbs, “Thorns grow in the hand of the drunkard,” and what pain they must cause him who has admitted such growth in the substance of his soul, it is hard even to tell. Who has allowed wickedness to establish itself so deeply in his soul as to be a ground full of thorns, he must be cut down by the quick and powerful word of God, which is sharper than a two-edged sword, and which is more caustic than any fire. To such a soul that fire must be sent which finds out thorns, and by its divine virtue stands where they are and does not also burn up the threshing-floors or standing corn. But of the Lamb which takes away the sin of the world and begins to do so by His own death there are several ways, some of which are capable of being clearly understood by most, but others are concealed from most, and are known to those only who are worthy of divine wisdom. Why should we count up all the ways by which we come to believe among men? That is a thing which every one living in the body is able to see for himself. And in the ways in which we believe in these also, sin is taken away; by afflictions and evil spirits and dangerous diseases and grievous sicknesses. And who knows what follows after this? So much as we have said was not unnecessary—we could not neglect the thought which is so clearly connected with that of the words, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world,” and had therefore to attend somewhat closely to this part of our subject. This has brought us to see that God convicts some by His wrath and chastens them by His anger, since His love to men is so great that He will not leave any without conviction and chastening; so that we should do what in us lies to be spared such conviction and such chastening by the sorest trials."

-Origen of Alexandria, Commentary on John 6.37

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