Higher and Deeper!
Higher and Deeper is where our pastor and leaders share posts, devotionals, and articles they have developed to help others go higher and deeper in our RELATIONSHIP with GOD and a POWERFUL life with CHRIST!
by Pastor Jazz Cathcart
Wednesday May 19th, 2024
If you know me, you know that I'm conservative on most socio-political issues.
I believe Conservativism is CORRECT.
I believe "the Right"... is RIGHT- on most issues.
And that is most with a capital "M".
MOST!
No, I'm not a Republican and I couldn't care LESS about a political party, or the name.
I'm a conservative.
I believe YOU should be.
This is my PERSONAL perspective.
You can hear more of my views in this video...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOdz0xCjm-g&t=466s
But it's absolutely ESSENTIAL that we recognize that restoring America to a form of Former Glory... i.e. "Make America Great Again"... and looking to a mere MAN who is EXTREMELY flawed in character as much as President Donald Trump... is not the TRUE solution to our problems.
Don't get it twisted.
I AM voting for former president Donald Trump.
President Biden could NEVER get my vote with his issues.
And I DO believe President Trump is by FAR the best man for the season we are in and of the options that we have.
No...
I'm not a nice guy.
I am a GOOD, and desire to be a GREAT... MAN.
Understand that.
So I'm not fearful of hurting people's feelings, although that is never my GOAL.
I'm FEARFUL of being a CHUMP and caring what people THINK too much.
I'm more interested and committed to doing what I believe God wants me to do and saying what I believe He wants me to say, even if it's not popular. I'm committed to doing my best to HELPING.
I'm not a NICE guy.
I'm a good MAN.
I'm a man of GOD.
That said...
I'm arguing that we SHOULD vote for Conservatism in our policies, but NOT looking to former President Trump as our SAVIOR... or the person who will lead us to the "Promised Land"... or to solve all our problems, particularly our real and deepest problems.
He is not CAPABLE of doing so.
Our deepest problem as a COUNTRY and as a CULTURE... is that we have left GOD.
I repeat...
We have left GOD.
Our situation is very MUCH like that of the Hebrews when Jesus was on the back of a donkey headed towards Jerusalem around 33 A.D. with the masses of people shouting, "Long live the KING!"
They recognized Jesus was the promised King from the dynasty of King David to deliver God's covenant people from their oppression.
You can read about this in The Gospel according to Luke 19:28-44 (paralleled with Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-11, John 12:12-19).
They viewed the top of the Messiah's priority list as overthrowing their oppresSORS- the Romans, and restoring their country to former glory.
They were wrong.
He came to liberate them first from their oppresSION... sin, rebellion to the God who loved and chose them, and stubbornness of heart.
Unfortunately, by the time Jesus was on that donkey, He even said, "It's too late." "This entire city is going to be destroyed." "God's judgement has come.(Luke 19:41-44)"
And it was.
If you know the history, God took His hand OFF of Jerusalem and allowed the Roman Empire to destroy the great city for the SECOND time. The first time was by the Empire of Babylon 650 years earlier.
Flavius Josephus, a Jewish-Roman historian during the time Jerusalem was crushed the second time, chronicles how ab...so...lute...ly... HORRIFIC the devastation was. You can read about this in "The Wars of the Jews- Book 6". if you do, brace yourself, it's tragic.
Back to the future...
Back to making America great again...
Back to former president Donald Trump and President Biden...
Back to us...
President Trump will not solve our real and deepest problems.
In some ways, he will likely make them worse.
President Biden CERTAINLY has.
We have left God as a CULTURE.
We love and celebrate what GOD calls SIN.
We are rebellious to the God who LOVES us and sent His Son to RESCUE us.
We are shamefully STUBBORN of HEART.
If God removes His hand from our nation the way He did the Hebrews... TWICE... we are in trouble.
I repeat...
If God removes His hand from our nation the way He did the Hebrews... TWICE... we are screwed.
So I'm joining MY voice to those of many OTHER faithful heralds.
Individually, and collectively, we must... come... back... to... God.
We must turn from our sin... individually and collectively.
FORSAKE it. Agree with GOD about it.
And seek to honor Him.
Receive the FORGIVENESS that cost Jesus His life by trusting Him as Savior and King and Friend.
FOLLOW Jesus as your Lord, Leader, and LIFTER.
You will be brought into God's adopted FAMILY.
You will be given a role on our mission TEAM.
If you are already in the family and on the team, do your part.
Go ALL in.
Do what God is leading and telling you to do.
Regardless of the cost.
Do it.
Join the REMNANT of God's broken, beloved, and beautiful children.
He's making us WHOLE while making us HOLY... and He's working in and through us to advance the Kingdom that will and can NEVER be overthrown.
The Roman Empire in fact CRUSHED Jerusalem like Jesus prophesied in the year 70 A.D... and then the Roman Empire itself fell apart from the inside out over the next several centuries.
But God ALWAYS has a remnant.
Jesus told those who had ears to hear... Jerusalem WILL be surrounded, ransacked, and crushed again. It WILL happen. But when you see these things begin to take place, get the heck out of Jerusalem (Matthew 24:16, Luke 21:21-22, Mark 13:15-19).
Those that did, escaped the savage crushing of the city by the Romans.
And those that trust Him as Savior will escape God's judgement of sin... be brought into God's Kingdom and family... and given a role on the Redeem Team to do life-giving Kingdom work everywhere that we live, work, and play.... until He returns in glory.
I hope that's YOU!
Our society NEEDS honor
by Pastor Jazz Cathcart
The Fifth Commandment...
"Honor your father and your mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land Yahweh your God is giving you."
-Exodus 20:12
Dennis Prager suggests that within the Fifth Commandment, God is saying, "If you build a family and a society where children honor their parents, your family and your society will long survive. But the family and the society where children do not honor their parents is doomed to self-destruction."
I believe Dennis Prager is right.
God was and is saying this to us.
Today.
This is happening within our society.
Many reject the concept of HONOR and AUTHORITY and we are greatly WEAKENING and setting the stage for societal COLLAPSE.
It's happening.
It's underway.
But I do not believe it is too late to turn things around.
When a person or a people turn back to God and doing things His way, God will bless them again. That can be us. But we must do so before God gives us over to ourselves entirely.
A LOT(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) of people today do not like and reject the concept of HONOR... honoring parents, honoring leaders and key contributors in the community, honoring political and spiritual leaders because of their POSITION in the community- not because of their perspective, honoring older people because they have lived beyond YOUTH not because of their current UTILITY/ society-serving usefulness...
As a matter of fact, a lot of parents today want and expect their kids to LOVE them, but not to HONOR them.
I believe that this is because honor implies AUTHORITY and a lot of people today reject the concept of authority... to their own demise.
They do not want an authority, especially a DIVINE authority over them.
Have you noticed how when within a family, when there is no FATHER, especially a HEALTHY father- God's initial position for authority within the home, boys grow up to have a much, much, much higher likelihood of committing crimes, having run-ins with law enforcement, disrespecting women and people in authority, using women for sexual pleasure and seeing them as objects, and lacking personal self-discipline and vision.
Likewise, have you noticed how when within a family, when there is no FATHER, especially a HEALTHY father- God's initial position for authority within the home, girls tend to be sexually promiscuous when they become of age, and lack self-esteem, self-love, and often see their bodies as the means to get what they want and need in life.
Honor and authority are GOOD for society.
A child NEEDS to honor their parents.
It's GOOD for them.
Society NEEDS children to honor their parents.
It's NECESSARY for us.
And it's actually deeper and higher than parents.
Our mother and father in our HOME, point to our Maker and Father in HEAVEN... God.
He is the authority from which all other legitimate authority is granted and grounded.
I agree with Dennis Prager who says, "It is very difficult to honor God without having had a parent, especially a father, to honor."
Interestingly, Sigmund Freud- the neurologist who became known as the father of psychiatry and an athiest, theorized from his work...
"One's attitude toward one's father greatly shaped one's attitude toward God."
The good news is that in the same way that Jesus came to His original disciples and said, "FOLLOW me", and they left their fishing nets, their earthly fathers, and family businesses in order to fish for PEOPLE and be brought in by our HEAVENLY Father and His Kingdom mission...
He is calling us to do the same today.
"This can't be what it's all cracked up to be "
by Pastor Jazz Cathcart
Tom Brady was on top of the world... married (at the time) to a literal supermodel, multiple Super Bowl rings, considered by many to be very physically attractive himself, children who love him and are very well provided for, and doing what he's gifted and loves to do...
...when he stated in an interview, "Why do I have these Super Bowl rings and still think there's something greater out there for me? I think, 'It's got to be more than this.' I mean this isn't- this can't be what it's all cracked up to be."
The interviewer asked, "What's the answer?"
Brady said, "I wish I knew. I wish I knew."
The answer is... God.
The answer is... everything else centered on the Source and Satisfier.
We are built with innate, God-given desires for purpose, sexual pleasure in marriage, romance, companionship, family, friendship, service to others, and of course we need money to do most things in our world. We are all destined for a grave and as we see ourselves aging and others dying from time to time, we ask ourselves the bigger questions of destiny beyond the grave and significance and satisfaction before it.
But only when God is at the center of it all, not merely a part of it all, do these things find their proper place, our hearts find deep contentment and joy, and the questions of what lies beyond are answered in a way that bring peace and objective purpose.
I believe that God has revealed Himself personally, powerfully, and is doing so PRESENTLY through nature, Scripture, and a Savior named Jesus.
"Humble Towards Heaven"
by Pastor Jazz Cathcart
We all approach what we think about God and how we should do life, and how we should head towards our own mortality (the end of our life) with filters... PRE-commitments... we want to make God in our own image and our own liking.
Myself included.
We want a God, or a worldview, that supports and endorses what WE want, and what we want to DO, and what we would like the AFTER-life to be like if there IS one...
i.e. everybody goes to Heaven, or reincarnation, or there IS no after-life at ALL so live THIS one UP and as reckless as you want because this is all there IS, etc... like T.I. said, "You can have whateva you liiiiiike!"
I think this is true for every one of us including myself.
I think it's extremely important to do our very best to realize and remember that we didn't create ourselves.... there must be something far, far, far, far, FAR greater that is responsible for our life and the entire universe... and to let GO of our pre-commitments, and go wherever the evidence and our experience leads us.
If God exists... fine.
If He doesn't... so be it.
If there IS a God, and He is GOOD... we should WORSHIP Him and LIVE for Him according to how He has decided.
It would make sense that THAT would be both best for US, and entirely right and reasonable that we live for the One who created us... IF of course, He is in fact not only GOD but also GOOD.
We should say, "God, if You are real, please reveal Yourself to me. Help me to be humble, to use my logic, reasoning, and personal experience, and the wisdom of others through the ages to discover You and what is actually true. Wherever the evidence leads, that's where I will go."
One of the things that for ME sets Jesus Christ apart, is that He and His mission are not merely a matter of me and mankind reaching out and up to God... hoping to discover HIM from the bottom UP. "God are you there? I want to find You." Jesus and His Gospel (that means good news) are a matter of God also reaching out and down to US... coming to find, forgive, rescue, redeem, love, and lead... US. And at great EXPENSE to HIMSELF. If Jesus was and is RIGHT and RESURRECTED, and His Message is TRUE, that means God is both wonderfully REAL and also incredibly GOOD and WORTHY of it all.
I LOVE that.
And I BELIEVE that... NOT because I love it... but because it seems to me that the evidence for it, and my ongoing personal experience, is so extremely strong.
Either way, we should be humble, open-minded, and willing to go wherever the evidence and our "I'm willing to be wrong and change my mind" experience genuinely leads us.
"Do you believe that gay and lesbian relationships are wrong?"
"And if so, WHY, and why in the WORLD would God be against LOVE?"
part 1- "Isn't that interesting?"
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If you will ever meet a Christian leader who is not afraid to keep it absolutely 100 in truth and love, faithfulness to God and deep love for ALL the PEOPLEZ, it's your brother Jazzion.
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I'm not the ONLY one by FAR... but I AM one.
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That's not flex, that's facts.
And I LOVE you regardless of what you feel about this question.
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So let's get it.
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To begin, we ALWAYS want to ask what does GOD feel?
What does GOD say?
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IF there IS a creator... and there IS one!... who is PERSONAL and has RELATIONSHIP with people... and He IS and He DOES!... then what HE thinks and feels is what is IMPORTANT and what we should build our life & risk our eternity on.
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Big facts right thurrrr.
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My answer to that question is YES.
I think that same-sex relationships are inherently wrong before God Himself. But let's answer WHY, what in the world same-sex attracted people should DO about that, and also a handful of OTHER questions that are relevant for all of us... God-treasured persons who have same-sex attraction AND God-treasured persons who are heterosexually attracted.
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And let's begin with THIS question.
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If God WAS against same-sex relationships for some reason, how would we actually KNOW?!
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The AUTHOR of BIOLOGY and the AUTHOR of the BIBLE is the same PERSON... God.
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Or if I'm being more theologically and technically PRECISE, I would say that it is the same TRI-personal BEING... God. The Trinity. But let's not get too deep in those theological particulars right now.
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GOD is the author of BIOLOGY and also the author of the BIBLE, and He is saying the exact same thing in both BOOKS... the book of nature and the book of Scripture.
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Check it out. Something for you to consider.
Isn't it interesting, that if you have two gay men in a monogamous relationship for example (we'll get to monogamous lesbians later)... monogamous meaning that they are completely committed to EACH OTHER.. they are not having sex with anyone else...
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Isn't it interesting that they have a very high chance of PRODUCING bacterial disease and infection within their committed relationship?
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Yes. The way that men who have sex with other men enjoy gay sex at its fullest expression is through penetration in the rectum. The rectal wall is very thin and can TEAR quite EASILY, and therefore spread bacteria and produce infection.
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This is contrasted over and against a WOMAN and a man enjoying sex (and of course God has intended for this to be in the context of marriage). But a woman's VAGINAL wall is very THICK and appears to be DESIGNED to receive the penetration of a man's penis for procreation and pleasure in marriage.
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If you put a WOMAN and a man in the same monogamous relationship and both married partners are healthy, they do NOT produce bacterial disease and infection, but two healthy and monogamous men DO.
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Now notice, I have not quoted a Bible verse to draw your attention to this fact. No Bible, just biology at this point.
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So that this post isn't too long, I'm going to make this part ONE of my answer to the original and important question and I will be back soon with part TWO.
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I want to emphasize that God loves ALL people and that through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, (repentance doesn't mean perfection, it means surrender) we can be COMPLETELY forgiven of our sins and GIVEN all the blessings of Christ.
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This is INCREDIBLE news.
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God BLESS you and I'm looking forward to sharing more from my perspective on how GOOD God is to us ALL at the intersection of sexuality and spirituality.