Fact or Fiction

Friends of Faith:

There is so much talk about what is fact or fiction. It has become increasingly difficult to know what is the truth and what is a lie. The passage of unnatural and self-serving laws and the influence of popular media have blurred the lines so much between right and wrong that this difficulty has multiplied exponentially (one lie building upon another) in the last few years. So what is fact, what is fiction and what and who should we believe?

“Seek the LORD, all you humble of the earth, who have observed His law; seek justice, seek humility;
perhaps you may be sheltered on the day of the LORD's anger.
“But I will leave as a remnant in your midst a people humble and lowly, who shall take refuge in the name of the LORD: the remnant of Israel. They shall do no wrong and speak no lies; nor shall there be found in their mouths a deceitful tongue; they shall pasture and couch their flocks with none to disturb them.” Zep 2:3, 3:12-13

Fiction: Popular news media, reality TV and most of what the culture wants us to believe. (I find myself in disgust of not only of the lies I can easily discern, but of our vulnerability to believe, without further research, everything we are told.)

Fact:  God’s Word, Scripture, Jesus & the Church He left here under the guidance of the Holy Spirit are always right.

These two alone might be enough to convince you that we need to be much more discerning about what we believe and who we trust; that the propaganda we are hearing and are subjected to by popular culture is a lie and that God is the Way, the Truth AND the Life. But if you either have time, or yearn to be further convicted in truth, please read on….

Fiction: Wealth creates happiness and we have a “right” to happiness so happiness can be bought with money or should be given to us because we “deserve” it.

Fact: We deserve an opportunity to attain knowledge of riches and we will be judged by what we do with that knowledge because our greatest responsibility is to love God and our neighbor and to do whatever God asks. If we are blessed with money it is our duty to do “good” with it. (Know who it is that you donate to – this is a great area of hidden deceit).

Fiction: The sports god, entertainment god, Facebook god, shopping god, food god, envy god, or any other addiction god that consumes us and blinds us from the needs of others and makes us self-centered in our thoughts and actions.

Fact: Spending a few minutes in prayer, an hour in church, or some time helping a neighbor will gain us more peace, joy on earth and happiness in a day than hours, days or years of time spent with the above mentioned gods. And time with God and service for his “least ones” will be doing the will of the Father while offering us a glimpse of the peace and joy in heaven.

Fiction: Freedom means the right to choose without responsibility or consequences. And women and men lack this freedom, this “right,” when they are asked to do something contrary to what they feel like doing.

Fact: God equally gave all women and all men life, liberty (free will) – the freedom to choose between right or wrong --and the ability to pursue eternal happiness. To choose between God’s will and the devil’s temptations; to choose between eternal life or death; and to choose to live by God’s law or man’s. And every choice we make has a consequence and a responsibility. True freedom is to be free of the grip of sin allowing us to focus on the “good of the other” which is true love.

Fiction: Men and women are created exactly the same.

Fact: Every man and every woman is extremely different. In fact, even twins aren’t exactly the same. That is a fact of nature and of God’s design. Male and female are created uniquely Holy and supremely sacred. As such male and female together are designed to give life and have been given the responsibility to protect human life while subduing and having dominion over all other forms of life (Gn 1:28).

Fiction: Sex is free. Sex is without responsibility, consequences or cost. Sex isn’t a choice, it’s a right.

Fact: Sex is a gift given to us by God when HE chose to create a man AND a woman. Choosing to act sexually as God intended: for the binding of a man and a woman in marriage and for the continuation of His creation story through procreation is Good (Gn 1:28). And like all good choices it comes with a responsibility: to love the person we are bound to by it’s unifying nature and to love the gift of life which might be created by the act itself. Choosing to “use” sex for any other reason is to scorn God’s design.

And lastly: Fiction: Making it a law makes it right.

Fact: Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s right and/or just.

He is and He will always Be the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Blessings,

Charlotte

Courage

Friends of Faith:

I will be Courageous.

Jesus was crowned with thorns. Jesus stayed and ate with sinners while encouraging those sinners to change. Jesus told the Pharisees that it was better to speak the truth on the Sabbath, then to sit back and rest. He showed us how to be morally, ethically, and spiritually courageous.

I cringe whenever I hear someone say we should change something because “our culture says we should change, or the culture is different now than it was “back then.” I cringe when I hear “everyone else is doing it.” I cringe because the culture is far from seeming  to follow God’s design. I cringe because the culture contains obvious lies that conventional wisdom is working to convince us as “normal,” “realistic” or “equalizing.”

I am not afraid of change, but when it comes to changing morals I am glad that I believe in the Word of God, that I trust in the path that Jesus Christ walked ahead of me, and that I have a Church to help me discern the Holy Spirit’s guidance as to what the truth really is.

“Now the one who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a first installment. So we are always courageous, although we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yet we are courageous, and we would rather leave the body and go home to the Lord. Therefore, we aspire to please him, whether we are at home or away. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil. Therefore, since we know the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others.” 2Cor 5: 5-11

I CHOOSE to be courageous. I CHOOSE to pray in public. I CHOOSE to speak the truth to defend Church (God’s) teachings. It’s NOT okay to sit back and rest, even on the Sabbath, if that means that someone will go hungry or to be bullied into believing that they will be punished for choosing to attend a church service before going to a game. I CHOOSE to walk by Faith. I CHOOSE to be courageous.

And I am confident in my prayer that God will put in my path spiritual mentors who will help me “see” the truth (God’s judgment) rather than the way the culture (individuals) wants or is judging me.

And when I am judged by the culture to be weak, old fashioned or even too conservative I will be courageous and accept the criticism with the hope of the promise of Christ Jesus.

Over my lifetime the Supreme Court has ruled that it should be legal to kill a baby because in the womb it’s not yet a person; that it’s not okay for teachers to encourage prayer in school or to sing Christmas carols yet we must make accommodations for non-Christian cultural needs; that marriage is something other than God’s design as the union of a man and a woman; that in the name of equality bathrooms must be open to whatever “sexual orientation” I determine myself to be on any particular day; and it has protected pornography as freedom of speech.

These are cultural lies. These “laws” do not make us free, these “laws” take away our freedom, our dignity, and our choice for God.

LORD, show me your way; lead me on a level path because of my enemies. Do not abandon me to the desire of my foes; malicious and lying witnesses have risen against me. I believe I shall see the LORD’s goodness in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD, take courage; be stouthearted, wait for the LORD. Ps 27: 11-14

Heavenly Father, Please help me to be courageous, to discern your truths, to be open to hear and follow the Holy Spirit. Help me to be strong, on guard and to stand firm in faith. Help me to stand firm for the truth and to not be afraid to spread that truth to others with compassion, with mercy and with the confidence of Church teachings. I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living. Amen.

Don’t believe the lies the culture is impressing upon you. To walk by faith, not by sight means to follow the culture of Jesus, that which is unseen rather than the culture pushed upon us by the propaganda of popular media. Be hopeful and be courageous for our faith is being openly tested.

Blessings,

Charlotte

Christ's Truth's, Societies Lies

Friends of Faith:

I had the opportunity yesterday to read and review some of my past reflections, including my first formal introduction done almost 7 years ago.

I say my “formal” introduction because these reflections were a growth of informal more targeted and shorter private messages which I wrote to encourage women who shared with me their personal struggles.

And as I wrote those private words of encouragement to them I realized that the struggles they shared with me, which included very personal conflicts within their marriages and families, while they seemed lonely and individual, were shared by us all AND that those struggles very much influenced and/or were being “fed” by societal lies.

“No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all these things and sneered at him. And he said to them, “You justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts; for what is of human esteem is an abomination in the sight of God.”  Lk 16: 13-15

So as I reread earlier reflections, I was again reminded that each of us share the same struggles because we are being influenced by the same worldly lies which are created by a devil who is cunning and sly, who sneaks in and who tempts, who conquers by dividing, and who constantly tries to get us to choose him instead of God.

Our choices ARE choices because God created us with free will: the only right “freedom of choice,” the first and only freedom to choose, the choice of choosing him over every other choice. Because without this freedom, God’s perfect creation of us in love would never have needed this world at all – we would simply have been created in heaven with him, we would have never gone beyond the paradise of Eden, there would only have been an Adam and an Eve without sin– because, as God proclaimed, “It was good.” (Genesis 1).

And just as I did when I wrote the first private words, I reflected yesterday on the purpose and need for sharing my writings, the need for my own personal change, and how I hope my writings continue to encourage and support others. 

My desire is that each message will continue to revolve around how powerfully Christ’s truthful message of love, joy, peace and hope remains forever a Lenten journey through the sufferings and the sacrifices caused by the influence of societal lies we hear almost everywhere we turn.

So even in those early short private writings I have tried not to share an answer designed with my own thoughts, but rather to be led by the Spirit and to be influenced by Christ’s truths.

And I thought again as I often do about how the devil lies to each of us. Things like: “it doesn’t make me happy;”  “it’s my body, so I should be able to choose,” “the kids will be okay,” and one I heard last night in a TV show: “you’re not Catholic, so you won’t go to hell if…..”

Believe it or not that’s really what the devil is so good at telling us and what the devil so wants us to believe. And believe it nor not much of the division in society is because we do react, act and live in the beliefs of these lies: the need to be happy 100% of the time; the lie that it’s my body, so if I want, I can kill any another body; the belief that what we do doesn’t influence our kids (and others); and even that, oddly enough, only Catholics can go to hell because they have a certain rule that says so about a certain practice. REALLY???

While much “advice” seems to be cliché, Christ’s message has an obvious nature and the truth of it is that Christ’s answer really has only one central message: Love—for all, not just Christians, Catholic Christians, Muslims, believers or non-believers, but for ALL. In this one regard we were all created equally, by God, with an equal (infinite) amount of God’s love. It is God’s eternal love for all for which every human is made, and for which eternal peace, joy and happiness is created.

Jesus chose God and he suffered for God. He accepted the sufferings, blaming no one else for what happened to him. He gave up everything of this world to achieve God’s world (purpose). And in the process He did not judge us, but rather He mercifully and compassionately guided us, forgiving us our shortcomings so that through our own choice to follow Him we too might have the hope of eternal life and find peace and joy in the process.

By my constant, daily choices to choose God I am saying yes to his influence, yes to his honor, yes to serving others, and yes to giving up my worldly desires. I am saying, “yes, I want to attain holiness, not only for myself but that I want to lead others to holiness so that we may all have eternal life and eternal happiness.”

Brothers and sisters: Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all the dough? Clear out the old yeast,
so that you may become a fresh batch of dough,  inasmuch as you are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the feast, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 1 Cor 5: 6B-8

Heavenly Father: I choose you because you have chosen me. Help me to resist the lies of the devil and to realize that as imperfect as I am, I am not alone, but am created by you, for you, and to be with you forever. May my desire for you allow me to influence those I love in a positive way and may I always be ready and willing to show the same forgiveness, mercy, and compassion that your son, Jesus, showed to us when he died on the cross for my sins, so that together each of us may likewise rise with Christ Jesus on the last day. Amen.

Follow Him. Choose His Truth!

And may the Blessing of His dying and His Rising be with you always,

Charlotte