Our global population is now approaching 6 billion people. Another doubling of the population – expected to happen within the next 40 years – will bring us beyond the estimated carrying capacity of earth. – Barbara Marx Hubbard
I have been reading a lot of Christian stuff and the big mystery seems to be how evil could exist if God created everything; why does He allow it? This brings me back to what I have believed for a long time – that we had to be expelled from the Garden in order to be given the tools to get back and to be able to live there as mature children of God instead of nursing babies. Like Augustine said, “For, were it not good that evil things should also exist, the omnipotent God would almost certainly not allow evil to be, since beyond doubt it is just as easy for Him not to allow what He does not will, as for Him to do what He will.”
Sin is kind of like homeopathic medicine. It was put into our spirits so we could learn to fight it. Our identity as being created in the image and likeness of God was allowed to be corrupted in order for us to understand our absolute need for total dependence on God. God Himself came to earth, demonstrated true obedience unto death, rose from the dead, sits at the right hand of the Father, and sends His Holy Spirit to all who believe in order to restore our identity.
Christianity always aggravated me because it seemed that the Gospel insinuated that a loving God would smite you to hell if you didn’t accept Jesus, but now I get it. The Bible says, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already.” (John 3:17-18)
We’re already condemned without Jesus! The “accuser” is holding us hostage—telling us that we’re nothing, that we don’t matter, that the world is not safe, etc. Condemnation is the captor!
A lot of people can’t accept Jesus as Savior because they don’t really understand that they’re in bondage. That’s a trip. It reminds me of the movie, The Matrix. We’re all being held captive in a situation that is so deceptive that we’re not consciously aware of it. At certain times, we get the creepy feeling that something is not quite right, but we just can’t figure it out. In the movie, the ones who have broken free offer the “red pill” to the ones who want to know the real truth. The red pill is like the blood of Jesus. Hey everybody, take the red pill so we can get out of the matrix!
We all need to understand that the presence of an adversary is real and that the grace of Jesus is the only way to get free of it. And we need to start believing this ASAP because the planet itself is losing its ability to sustain human life; and Jesus is the only One who can do anything about it because He is the only One who can truly change our hearts and minds and bring us together in cooperative effort.
In the 24 hours since yesterday, over 200,000 acres of rainforest have been destroyed in our world. Fully 13 million tons of toxic chemicals have been released into our environment. Over 45,000 people have died of starvation, 38,000 of them children. And more than 130 plant or animal species have been driven to extinction by the actions of humans… Recycling won’t save the world, birth control won’t save the world, and saving what little is left of our rainforests won’t save the world… Even cold fusion and the elimination for the need for oil, with free electricity for everybody, will not “save the world”… Nothing but changing our way of seeing and understanding the world can produce real, meaningful, and lasting change. – Thom Hartmann
Unmasked Excerpt
The Power of the Cross
January 19, 2003
Paige Thomas DeHart 