Don’t use will-power (unless you want to exercise it, like “the quiet game”) – when you want to actually do something, side-step will-power, work around it: call it “tricking yourself” or “distracting yourself”, but avoid engaging the resistance; once the decision has been made, act without thinking, at least without thinking “whether”: think about how, the very next step in doing it; once you’ve made the decision, let it happen to you, rather than trying to make the decision over and over, or trying to make it with “more force”.

Once you begin doing, have the decision already fully made, and leave it decided: once the decision is fully made, leave it decided, and begin doing it.

“The way of the slothful is as a hedge of thorns” – instead of forcing through the hedge, don’t go the way of the slothful: take another route, use the stile, use the gate. You don’t overcome temptation by entering temptation, by mightily subjecting yourself to strong temptation, but by fleeing it: “Lead us not into temptation”.
“Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.” Pr 4

#SabbathPosts 2023/08/19

Quora: “Do you read the Old Testament?”
Yes, however I prefer not to call it the “Old Testament” but rather the “Hebrew Scriptures”.

I’ve attached a rough schematic – one can argue that 2Co 3 refers to the books of Moses as the “old testament”, however what the Old Testament is is just that: a testament, not a section of Scripture (and certainly not the Hebrew Scriptures taken as a section). Confusion on this has led to some of the worst heresies that exist.

Consider this warning:

“even as our beloved brother Paul according to the wisdom given unto him wrote to you, as one that in all his Epistles speaketh of these things: among the which, some things are hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable, wrest, as they do also other Scriptures unto their own destruction.” 2Pe 3

What learning and stability is the Apostle Peter referring to? Mathematics? General Science? No, he is clearly referring to understanding of the preceding Scriptures: the Hebrew Scriptures. Thus we are warned to have our foundation firmly seated in the Hebrew Scriptures before dealing presumptuously with Paul’s writings: there is a reason God gave us Moses and the Prophets first.

In brief, rejecting the Hebrew Scriptures to more easily twist the Greek Scriptures is like murdering the husband to more easily rape his wife.

#SabbathPosts 2023/08/12

Throughout history Satan has moved to mask Christianity, the faith of Abraham; he has sought to give it a different face even more than he has sought to bring it under persecution and oppression. Thus the Roman Catholics brought in even the most obviously pagan things, such as worshipping statues, yet Roman Catholicism and its offshoots are the face of Christianity in many people’s minds. Thus we have Christ depicted as a European. This was seen from the very beginning: archaeology finding pictures of the Messiah as an Ethiopian among Ethiopians, as an Asian among Asians, as a Roman among Romans (a Roman Caesar at that). Every group is either rejecting the Messiah, or altering him to claim he is the same as them: few submit to who he is.

At the very least in the English-speaking culture and those cultures influenced by it, there are two wicked groups constantly at war, which could be called the “upper-classists” and the “lower-classists”.
The upper-classists are those who have altered our Messiah and the faith of Abraham into their image: the dainty, the prosaic, the sterile, the genteel, the prim, the passive, the elegant, the vegetarian, the puerile and effeminate.
The lower-classists reject upper-classism, and make exactly the same error as the upper-classists: treating the faith of Abraham as one and the same as upper-classism. Each group is happy to point to the other to prove the point they agree on: that Christianity equals upper-class “elegance”.
Satan loves to keep these groups at war, and loves it when someone rejects Christianity thinking they reject the foolishness of upper-classism, as he loves it when someone embraces upper-classism thinking that he embraces Christianity.

This extends into many areas of life, one of which is art. The upper-classist dislikes things that are strange or grim: it isn’t “proper” or “elegant”. Because they believe “Christianity = upper-classism”, therefore they conclude whatever upper-classism dislikes must be intrinsically unchristian and wrong. To this the lower-classists agree, exulting in everything that upper-classists dislike, thinking that by doing so they are attacking Christianity – because, again, they make the same error as upper-classists, the idea that “Christianity = upper-classism”. So the upper-classist forever condemns, and even falls into superstitious fear of what is not to their upper-classist taste; the lower-classist mocks and revels, and Satan laughs at the rat-race he has crafted.

The truth is that this whole strife is man-made and Satanically inspired. The answer is to step out of it, leave the lie which both sides hold, and to open one’s eyes to the truth: the faith of Abraham has nothing to do with upper-classism, which is not of heaven but of men.

As the blossom need not declare “I am of Yahweh” to glorify him, neither does the thorn. As the blossom glorifies Yahweh by being a blossom, the thorn glorifies Yahweh by being a thorn.

The specific passion and purpose of my life is the application of this in the arts, specifically in the Strange: the grim, the surreal, the gritty. Every night your mind creates the Strange and the surreal in dreams: I believe it is essential to the human spirit, in the image of Yahweh. Forever let the Strange live to the glory of Yahweh, its Maker.

TL;DR: some hate spiders, God likes them, I agree with God.

#SabbathPosts 2023/08/05