2012 – it’s not the Mayan calendar you need to worry about…

For the past 2 years or more, the world has been somewhat fixated on 2012,  as they’ve presumed the ending of the Mayan calendar means the end of the world.   However, many historians have proven how the Mayan calendar only ends in 2012 because the Mayans figured it was as far a date into the future they needed to concern themselves with in the presumption that others after them would continue on the calendar (which of course never happened).  It’s a bit like the early computers which only had dates pre-2000 & which everyone figured equally somehow meant a similar fate to the world when they rolled over into the New Year.

More wonderful Christmas songs….

There are only a handful of Christmas songs outside of the old & well worn ones that I would bother to advertise to the world as ones I truly believe anyone who has any spiritual appreciation of the meaning of the Season should have in their playlist.

The first 3 are by Michael W Smith – someone whose music I used to follow avidly but now rarely do, until I hear offerings such as these which get me fired up all over again:

Or if you prefer the more traditional – this version of Joy to the World by Julie Andrews is great.  Unfortunately the video recording isn’t, but if you can find it in audio elsewhere, it’ll be more enjoyable to listen to.

Christmas always comes early for me….

Most of you regular visitors know I make my own cards as therapy for my multiple chronic pain conditions, and as family seem to manage to increase their needs every year I end up with some asking me for up to 100 cards.  I don’t sell as such so am lucky if they donate something to my stock costs but more often it’s goods in kind or help in some other way.  I don’t mind too much – the Lord provides for me to be able to make them & I’m grateful people like them enough to want. 

Temporary hiatus….

Apologies to all who regularly follow my blog.  I’ve not been too well of late plus have a lot of work on, trying to get my various Christmas card orders made for friends & family.  Between everything else going on in my life just now, I really haven’t had time or opportunity to write anything of real interest so have taken a temporary break from the blog.

However, don’t panic – I’m absolutely going to return shortly and begin more regular posting as the Lord prevails to grant me topics that I can get my teeth into .   So just keep watching this space.   In the meantime I’ll be putting up a craft post in the near future just to keep the blog alive.

Thanks for your patience.

Is God schizophrenic….

Following on from watching a TV programme “Tsunami- Where was God?” some time ago, I got to thinking about how the presenter had talked to those in other faiths (primarily Hinduism, Islam & Buddhism) using the generic term “God” in his conversations with them, asking questions about whether they felt angry with “God”.   The glaring obvious error he was making was in assuming that they worshipped the same God he himself supposedly did in being a somewhat lapsed Catholic.

This is a fundamental error too many make in the world today whether through ignorance or design.   Whether the world likes to know it or hear it, there is only ONE God – and His name is Jehovah.   And the reason I can stand on that statement is not through arrogance but rather revelation.   There is only one God who has not only created everything and told us about it in extensive terms (both physical e.g. creation & written i.e. the Bible), there is only one God who has revealed Himself to the world in human form i.e. Jesus, and there is only one God Who has provided a reason for and an answer to the age old problem of man’s sin/evil, through Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross, and there is only one God who has provided the surety of heaven for those who are willing to accept their sinfulness, repent, and submit to Him and His Will for their lives.

The gods of other religions are false and glaringly so much of the time.   The god of Islam is a god of war not peace and promotes fear, deception, and angst amongst most of his followers who have no peace of anything much nor any surety of what will happen to them when they die.   Their religion of “peace” is a facade, a veneer which got overlaid on the faith after 9/11 in a means to appease the West temporarily and to promote the idea that muslims weren’t seeking trouble.   However, the years since have shown that while there may indeed be many peaceful muslims their religion is certainly not one promoting peace with a plethora of verses that provoke followers to kill Jews & Christians wherever they may find them.   Deception and fear are twin cohorts in this faith that uses them when it suits to force people to submit.   And if they don’t – well the edge of the sword will maybe help them but if not, they can be swiftly despatched without concern.  Again, I say – this is NOT the God of the Bible Who is being followed in any sense of the word.   Indeed the glaring obvious difference is that the God of the Bible has a Son – Jesus – who is the Saviour of the World, and I contend that that fact stands whether both Jews & Muslims deny its truth.

“Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.  By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.’  Isa 45:22-23 

Every nanosecond counts..

This is going to be a really short post and is in response to a search term used which found my blog over the past couple of days but which has ‘haunted’ me since – someone was searching to know “is it too late for me to ask for forgiveness?”!

So just in case anyone else should stumble upon this blog asking the same type of question, let me categorically state here and now – NO – it is NEVER too late for you to ask for forgiveness, but let me also provide you with a shade of clarification on what you need to know.

Many argue about the conscience – what it is and why we have it – no other reason comes anywhere close to providing a measure of reality about it except that which states that God alone provided it to us to reveal to us the fact that we are sinners constantly in a state of sin, but the important thing to know is that it is against God and He alone whom we have sinned, regardless of whether we commit an act of theft, murder, adultery, or even just lustful thoughts – the second you feel guilty you can be sure that it is God’s Law you have broken first and foremost, and until you say sorry to Him and seek His forgiveness (in biblical terms – repent), you will never have true peace in your life.   Man has many measures in place to try and overcome that guilty conscience, but they are all both temporary and temporal (only relevant in worldly terms).  And if you only seek that type of forgiveness (where you’re basically told to forgive yourself and move on), you will eventually run into bigger and much worse problems in your life which may become hugely detrimental, yet which can all be traced back to this one event (or more) where you know you either did something wrong or you were wronged and have never been willing to put aside your own anger/resentment and forgive them first.  And you equally cannot be flippant before God in just firing of a thoughtless “God forgive me” and move on speedily as that absolutely won’t cut it with Him either.

Before you come before God to ask His forgiveness – you should first search your heart and consider have you anyone in your life whom you need to forgive – you don’t need to search them out to do so personally (that may be appropriate later though), but you do need to at least be willing to forgive them in your spirit.   The Lord’s Prayer states this very clearly – “Forgive us our sins as we forgive others who sin against us!”    If you refuse categorically to forgive someone else God will not forgive you.  Once you have done that, then you should sincerely ask Him to have mercy on you, that you recognise that you do nothing to merit His forgiveness, but you accept Jesus has done so on your behalf, through his death on the cross, and ask that God would grant you His forgiveness and grant you salvation for ALL of your sins through Jesus.

If you then accept that Jesus is God Incarnate (made flesh) that He lived, died, & was resurrected on the 3rd day and that He paid the price required of by God for your sins by that death on the Cross, and you are willing to accept Him as your Saviour, then just tell God all of that and know that if you’ve been really sincere about doing so, then God is faithful & just and will forgive you your sins as He has promised and you will have passed from death into life – the “second” birth or being “born again” as it’s termed in Christian circles.  

3 Jesus answered, “I am telling you the truth: no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again.” 4 “How can a grown man be born again?” Nicodemus asked. “He certainly cannot enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time!” 5  “I am telling you the truth,” replied Jesus, “that no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.  6  A person is born physically of human parents, but is born spiritually of the Spirit.  7  Do not be surprised because I tell you that you must all be born again.  John 3:3-7 

Your place in heaven is guaranteed and you will soon start noticing how your life will change over the coming days & weeks without you having to do anything – God does all the work, which is why the real Christian life as all about faith first, works second, unlike the false faiths which put works first & faith last.

And finally, if you have done that in the recent past, I’d love to hear about it so please take a few moments to comment and encourage those of us who pray for you who are indeed searching or have been in that position recently.

Hear what God says: “When the time came for me to show you favor, I heard you; when the day arrived for me to save you, I helped you.” Listen! This is the hour to receive God’s favor; today is the day to be saved!  2 Corinthians 6:2 

Started another blog…..

This time it’s on my cards.   Figured I needed an outlet to write about my other passion and to also have the means to better sell my creations and somehow pay for the crazy outlay I seem to have in making them.    I got obsessed recently with a different style of card to my usual which has utterly captivated me and pushed me to invest yet more into my hobby.   Sadly the Government doesn’t pay me enough to really let loose on the biggies of the hobby (die cutting machines or a full set of Copic markers!) but I’m grateful I have enough to save a little weekly and over time invest in the more basic requirements and enjoy this form of therapy all the more.

And, for me, that’s exactly what it is – therapy.   When you suffer with chronic pain you often need something other than medication to distract you from it and the card making is one option for me which works quite well.   I miss my degree studying so much as it was about the best – your brain can’t concentrate on 2 particular things at once – pain and concentration, so the latter always won and for the short time I was studying, the pain was easier.   But I completed the degree in 2002 and since then quite rapidly started to notice my pain a whole lot more, until now where many days it overwhelms me.   Making the cards is hugely painful too, but the end result makes the pain worth it.

So head over to Tikvah Treasures (sadly on another platform only because of the huge variety of options available to create it as I wanted) and enjoy the forthcoming creations.   Oh and if you really like any of them, please consider buying one knowing you’re helping keep me sane!!!   They’ll be available on Ebay until I manage to recover my card site which was deleted by a villianous hacker recently causing me yet more pain in the hours it will take me to fix it all.

The race to embrace the AntiChrist’s system…

I forever marvel at how those who think they are so smart in the world today are so utterly ignorant of the repercussions of their supposedly intelligent decisions.   I equally marvel at how so many have been exposed to the concept of the forthcoming AntiChrist and the system in which he dominates the world leading it ultimately to spiritual death and doom, yet they seem to be oblivious to it when determining how they live their lives or what they accept as truth etc.

Make no mistake about it – all of those things outlined in The Revelation (of Jesus Christ) will absolutely come to pass – just because we can’t fully interpret the actual manner for some events to occur, some are very obvious to even those who can just about read English and have no knowledge in the least about biblical concepts.

Perhaps a couple of examples will aid you in seeing this for yourselves:

1 – Apparently Bill Gates thinks every child under 5 should be automatically stuck on some global computer generated vaccine program which would “remind” all parents to ensure they got their kids vaccinated etc.   While I suspect some overworked mothers may figure that would be a really useful “app” on their mobile phone,  I doubt too many would really stop to look at the bigger and much more dangerous issue here.   Many of those against his plans are purely disagreeing on the basis of how it’s well known that Gates is anything but interested in caring for the individual, and how this cunning plan is actually a means of cutting the population down to size – that’s certainly obvious from the few clips around on You Tube – there’s a strange paradox between what he says and what he does at times, and this time even between his stance and his statements i.e. on another video he says he wants to eradicate CO2 emissions (bit hard to do unless you obliterate the planets entire ecosystem since they generate the bulk of it!!) and one way to do it is to promote vaccines, healthcare and reproductive health services.   Yet if you really did all of those things logic would tell you that you would actually be increasing the world population not decreasing it!   Aside from that, the man’s hypocrisy is outstanding – stating he wants to promote reproductive health while openly doing everything to support abortion.

Forget 2012…check out the Judaic calendar instead!!

All the hype about next year just makes me laugh at how fickle human beings are!   People are willing to believe in all the hype generated by the media and to actually panic on the back of it without really checking facts or figures about any of it.    They prefer to believe the predictions provided by a violent occultic race of people  who are long extinct as a culture (but not as a race, as some in Colombia trace their ancestry back to the Mayans still), rather than on much more solidly accurate predictions provided by those whom God Himself called HIS chosen people, the Jews, who are still very much alive today despite all attempts by others to make them extinct as a culture!!   The bible as we know it has been around for 4-5000 years or longer and contains “predictions” made by God Himself and He should know what He has ordained will happen in the future since He’s the only One who “knows the end from the beginning”:

“Remembering former things from forever; for I am God, and no other is God, even none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from the past things which were not done, saying, My purpose shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure; …..” Isa 46: 9-10

In scripture God has provided a lot of information on what will happen in the “last days” and while, certainly, we most definitely are in the “last days” they are not the absolute last days – but rather the last days before Jesus returns to the world to set up his millenial Kingdom (a 1000-year reign on earth).     Prophecies clearly laid out in scripture which have already been fulfilled are all of those relating to Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection, the early years of history prior to Jesus’ birth including the fall of the Roman Empire, the scattering of the Jewish people, and the rebirth of the Jewish nation, complete with its own language (Hebrew).   If you want to know all of those already fulfilled then head to Israel Prophecies – you can find many unusual ones in there you may never have heard of or come across but are absolutely accurately fulfilled.   These last days leave only a handful by comparison yet to come to pass, and almost all of these relate to Jesus (Yeshua) and how He will complete this particular portion of history by His return to His people (the Jews) who will see Him finally for Who He truly is, and accept Him as their Messiah, before He engages the world in the infamous battle of Armageddon (at Har Megiddo).

However, the world refuses to accept biblical authority in any shape or form, much preferring man’s own writings as trustworthy despite most having been shown throughout history to be anything but in many cases.    And it’s only when you do accept the Bible/Torah as your starting point for Truth that you can truly unravel the real secrets of the future.

The world has absolutely been created in 6 days as Genesis claims (God says what He means and means what He says) and He specifically then had a rest day on the 7th – He didn’t need a rest but perhaps He knew in modelling his future creation that it would need one.   My contention is that as He says through scripture that a day is as a thousand years in his sight, there will be 6000 years before He once again provides a “rest day” for the world and my personal view is that that point will be up ahead when Christ returns to rule the world for the Millenial Reign.   If you consider that the oldest reliable still in use calendar available is the Jewish one and it’s currently standing at 5771, I figure we’ve perhaps 230 years left before that point.    However, please don’t misunderstand my stance on this – I am absolutely categorically NOT date setting in any sense as even the Jewish calendar is most likely inaccurate to at least a few years if not longer.  Things will move at His pace not ours and we certainly cannot and will not bring around our own destruction in any measure.   But scripture lays out the ‘game plan’ for the future of mankind and the earth and more clearly than any other book on earth.

So if you’ve been getting hugely nervous by all the hype about 2012 or any other date up ahead, don’t – instead get hugely nervous about the day you’ve just been given to live as it’s the ONLY one you have any certainty about!!   It’s far more important we consider every day to be possibly our last day and live accordingly, because one day or rather one second, quite suddenly you will discover it was and before you have a chance to say or do anything you may find yourself in the presence of an awesome Creator & Judge who will convict you according to your sins, and unless you have an Advocate before that Throne (in the person of Yeshua/Jesus) you will find no other defence acceptable, as God gave Him to be the final, perfect, and acceptable sacrifice for the sins of all mankind.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.  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.”   John 3: 16-18

Personal update & Christmas cards.

Apologies to all my regular readers for the lack of posts in recent days but I’ve had some stressful times of late, and only now have time to catch up on such things as updating my blog.   My mum wasn’t at all well over the late summer right through to October and she’d really only started to recover, when I then had to cope with my 12-year-old handreared (by me) kit Tikvah (you can read about him elsewhere on here if you search) took critically ill, culminating in emergency surgery for aggressive small cell lymphoma (bowel cancer).    While he sailed through the surgery incredibly well, he went downhill a week later necessitating immediate chemotherapy.  I found all of this surprisingly hugely stressful – much more so than I ever anticipated so I’ve not been too well on the back of it.

However, he’s now just completed week 4 and is once again doing superbly well and is expected to continue to stay so for the foreseeable future, although I appreciate this is really only delaying the inevitable, and his time with me now is hugely limited, which is still tough for me to accept, but ultimately philosophically, I recognise he is only a cat – he just happens to be THE most amazing, unique, and special cat, the kind you only get once in a lifetime if you’re really lucky.   He’s the first one I’ve ever had that responds appropriately to 10 words not all related to food , and acts sometimes as if he really does understand what you’re saying.

Anyway all that aside the other time consuming aspect of my life has been making 500+ Christmas cards since August.   It’s the same every year – I start early thinking surely this year I’ll make enough to deal with all the requests but once again, got to the beginning of the month having to find another 80 from my own stash to fulfil a friend’s needs.   And almost all of these get given away to family – two friends are gracious enough to sell some but ultimately you just can’t make money on them as nobody wants to pay even 50p per card let alone the £2-3 they should be sold for and I’d rather get £5 than nothing at the end of the day.   Plus the biggest purpose of making them isn’t for money, it’s for my therapy and pain relief/distraction etc.   My pain levels have been rather high of late with all the extra driving and stress etc, and making the cards has been great for just keeping my mind off how bad it can be more often than not now, especially with the Arctic conditions we’ve suddenly hit here in the UK.

So once again I figured I’d just share a couple here and give you the link to the website where I have a lot more on show.   If you’re feeling generous, certainly I’d be more than happy for you to buy some and am willing to do a deal on bulk orders (more than 5).   Each year I seem to manage to create a whole new range and the side-stepper cards (shown above) are proving hugely popular this year.   The one on the right here is a “Flowersoft” one – the foliage at the base of the image is treated with tactile Flowersoft which provides a lovely 3D feel to it and looks quite realistic.   And the bonus is that it’s not too deep so along with the S/S cards doesn’t cost too much in postage.   One friend told me that it had cost her £28 to post her cards last year because most of them were 3D decoupage – that really shocked both of us, so I’m endeavouring now to make a lot more flat ones for next year!!

So for now, all that remains for me is to wish you all a very blessed and peaceful Christmas and trust you all remember Who the season is all about and why it is celebrated at all!!