Investing In The Future - Of Children

How to expand, exponentially, the profits on your "investments."

There's a reason why Western corporations invest their business in 3rd world countries. We in the West, we have certain expectations in life and that actually drives the cost of living up for everybody. So the cost of our labor and raw materials is much, much... higher to those corporations. So, they go to 3rd world countries and because you can get anything out of a very poor person for almost nothing, their costs for labor and materials is pennies on the dollar in most 3rd world countries. It helps the people in those countries (a little) and profits those corporations (A LOT). It is to those corporations' benefit to keep those people poor and uneducated. That's the American/Western way.

Now this post isn't about corporate greed but the above is certainly worth noting for us normal human beings. I will say one more thing though. Corporations are NOT people. PEOPLE run corporations and hide their actions and accountability behind them. The people running those corporations are NOT making a profit at all. In fact they are incurring massive personal loss and debt upon themselves that they will never recover from. (unless they do some serious repentance and restitution) There are principles governing this world and mankind that are universal to all mankind. One of them is "You reap what you sow." Some people call it "Karma". I'm sure there are other names for it as well. It's right there along with things like, um gravity. We can jump up in the air a little and fool ourselves into thinking we are above it. We can even, if we are very wealthy, buy a Lear jet and fly way above it all - for a while. But the bottom line is that gravity is going to have it's way. PERIOD.

Now considering that, what about the rest of us who don't have millions of dollars at our disposal and an unlimited supply of cheap labor to take advantage of? What can we do about all that? Well there is something we can do and uniquely so at that. We normal human beings in the Western world are equipped in a way, no matter how poor we are, to invest in 3rd world countries and people. The return on those investments is exponential and if you think I am exaggerating or pushing a personal agenda, I'll give you a solid proven example of exponential return on investment.

For the price of a cheap lunch in the USA, you or I can actually pay for a child in Uganda to go school for a month. Now that's just an example that I'm very familiar with. There are lots of investments like that. But let's use that one. One lunch compared to one month in school for a child (that will not be going to school without it). But stay with me ok cause the investment is even more sweet that most of us realize. Here's the deal:


 Do The Math

One lunch ingested into one human being = satisfied hunger (or indigestion depending on what you ordered). That's it. We won't even think about it tomorrow and probably won't miss the 8 -10 dollars we spent to buy it.

One lunch in the West = one month's education for a child in Uganda.

But wait! That's not the whole picture!

= 20 lunches at school (as much as possible)
= Books, notebooks, pencils, pens, etc (things that we take for granted)
= uniforms in most cases (some of these children only have one set of clothes)
= Excitement and joy that will live far longer than our indigestion or satisfaction
= Relief and extreme gratitude in the heart of a poor parent or guardian
= In the long term, the ability to have a job, and much better income
= A lasting impression of Westerners (instead of the above representation)
= That inner sense that you've done something good
= Hope...
(That last one alone is worth the investment where it's an elusive commodity)

Invest your lunch today 
(maybe even 2 or 3. It costs about 25.00 USD per 3 month term.).
That isn't too much to ask is it?
I mean really? Think about it. Think deep about it. I have.
Don't let this "investment opportunity" pass you by...

God bless you all - Paul Rapoza

There is a link below. Click on it. All proceeds except transfer fees go to these efforts in Uganda.
Buy a kid in Uganda a "lunch"... I know of about a hundred of them that need help to go to school right now and the term starts Feb 3rd...


My Uganda Support Page for online donations. Please be sure to read the instructions and info...

Are You Being Assimilated?

Last week it was strong on my mind that there are so many agendas going on based on outright lies and distortions of the truth. The sad thing is that these polarizing agendas, more often than not, are led by people who are anything but true leaders - people who have their own agendas of power, popularity and the lust for having people follow them.

Unfortunately there are a lot of people who are looking for some sense of identity and these leaders feed that need to get the numbers they need for their own agendas. That is the case on both sides of any "argument" we are seeing in the USA today. The "argument" is only there to divide off people to gain followers. It's just a means to an end for those who want to be at the top.

There are masses of people here in the USA who would rather be "led" by an agenda of one sort or another than actually step back and take the time to consider what it is they really consider is right and true. In order to do that, we have to step back from the crowd, agendas and pseudo leadership of our day because "wrong" or "right" they are a powerful influence on what goes on in our minds and hearts.

Step back into the quiet and the shadows for a while and take the time to listen to the still voice in your hearts that is speaking to you as an individual human being. Not the clamoring crowds following blindly, the agendas of the day.

We are not the Borg. We do not have to be assimilated. Resistance is not futile.

Nuts and Bolts

IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO NUTS AND BOLTS

All of my life I have been putting things together with nuts and bolts. Even when I was a kid I was putting Erector Sets together. When I was a pre-teen I used to like to build bicycles from spare parts I would get a hold of. In my late teens it was working on cars. In my adult years it ranged from putting a metal shelf together to building steel framed buildings (None of which have ever fallen down thank God). All of those things get assembled at least in part using nuts and bolts to hold things in place.

Now for anybody that doesn't understand this, a bolt is is a long rounded piece of metal that has spiraling "threads" on it with an end on it shaped to fit a wrench. The nut is a piece of metal shaped to fit a wrench with a hole in it with matching spiraling "threads" lining it. All my life the bolt was called a "male" and the nut was called a "female" but I guess nowadays you can call them anything you want. At least that is what I have heard lately. I guess this new generation surely must have the wisdom of the ages in them in some mystical way that us old people just are incapable of understanding. But, we are trying so give us credit for that at least. But now I digress...

Well anyway all my life I used a bolt that screwed into a nut to connect things. It seemed to work really well all my life so I just never questioned it. It's like they were actually made to fit each other perfectly to hold things together. Hmm, but then "appearances can be deceiving" can't they? Who am I to say? I mean ya know I'm just an old fool that's probably too scared to think outside the box of my "limited" thinking.

Well life was going along pretty good in my life of assembling things and feeling pretty good about it all until one day, I met a young engineer fresh out of college and he was telling me that things could also be assembled by using nuts connected to nuts and bolts connected to bolts and that such a combination was equal in structural integrity to using a bolt connected to a nut. When I told him that it isn't going to work and that there is no way nut2nut or bolt2bolt combinations are equal to nut2bolt combinations, he came unglued and started screaming at me that I had a serious phobia when it came to thinking outside of the box. I hadn't noticed that a whole crowd of his classmates in engineering school had gathered around and were all yelling at me, "Phobic! Phobic!"

Well I was pretty shocked at how mad they were at me but I wasn't about to hear any of all that yelling and screaming so I asked him how on earth are you going to connect a nut to a nut and a bolt to a bolt? He and his friends quieted down cause they decided they had a conversation going and were quite convinced they were going to convince me they were right. He explained that their engineering teacher had invented a way to connect nuts2nuts and bolts2bolts. It was a hollow plastic union with spiraled threads, one version for the nuts with threads on the outside and the other with threads on the inside for the bolts. When I heard that I just walked away. "Whatever!"...

See when I was young some of us in my generation got it in our heads that if you DIDN'T crank down on the nut and bolt together it was a lot easier to take them apart and use them some place else however and when ever we wanted to.. After a while people were connecting nuts and bolts but not even tightening them at all. We just never realized that repeated use of the nut and bolt would wear out the threads on them - the very thing that held them together. Before that, the nuts and bolts were cranked so tight that they practically became like one because of the pressure exerted. But I found out in real life that not cranking them down really didn't work very well at all structurally. The first earthquake and the structure would all fall apart. We learned the hard way that cranking down on the nut and bolt together was VERY important not only to keep the nut2bolt from coming apart but to keep the structure they were attached to from falling apart as well. That it's the integrity of the building itself that demands it.

So now we have a generation of engineers and builders who either are not even trying to tighten down on the nut2bolt at all (in case they want to use it somewhere else) OR they are busy trying so hard to prove their point that nuts can be connected to nuts and bolts can be connected to bolts using plastic unions. Nobody seems to realize that it's really about the structure and that the nuts and bolts are there to hold the structure together.

The reason I walked away from that virtual demanding crowd I mentioned above (and they are actually very real today) was because my generation has already built our buildings. Whatever is going to stand is going to stand and whatever is going to fall is going to fall. Maybe it's time to let this generation build their buildings.

But there's one thing they better know and I'm pretty sure they don't: As sure as you are breathing, your buildings will be tested and if you are wrong about your calculations about the structural "equality" of plastic unions and loose nut2bolts connection compared to solidly cranked down tight nut2bolts, those buildings are going to collapse not only on your own heads but on your children and your children's children. And like every generation before you, you are going to have to live with the horror of knowing that there is nobody to blame but yourselves...

Taking Down The High Places

Many years ago I found myself being drawn for months into a study of the the kings of Israel (Judah and "Israel" which had split off from each other [long story]). There is a whole long list of them. For most people that would be a rather boring tedious study but for some reason, The Holy Spirit seemed to always draw me back into it with that kind of realization that there was something God wanted me to see in all that - something about His Church. For quite a while after that I could rattle them off like the names of my own children. In those days when my wife was having a hard time falling asleep, she would ask me to tell her all about the kings of Israel. It wouldn't take long and she was fast asleep. And me? I would have that spark ignite again and would end up pondering or studying all that for hours. OK you can laugh about that!

Don't ask me to run them all off like that today though. 30 years have gone by since then. I can barely remember most of their names or anything in detail about them. Maybe that is a subconscious desire built into me at my age to value my sleep...

But there are some things that I was left with from that time of study about the kings of Israel (which is also a study of that portion of the history of the nation and people of Israel and God's relationship to them. He communicated with them. He cried out to them through His prophets when they wandered from Him. Israel was God's chosen people. He appointed kings to rule over them during that period of their history. What I was left with after all that and even today is that they, in some way or another, either:

Did evil in the sight of the Lord
OR
Did what was right in the sight of the Lord "but did not tear down the high places" (which offended God)

That was God's bottom line for each of them. His divine measuring stick of the sum total of their rule. But it used to nag at me about that second one. They did good. And studying all that, I surmised that they really did. They did good. But even with all the good they did, what was this consistent "BUT" about the "high places" and "not tearing them down"???

The high places were the places set aside to worship other gods that the children of Israel had acquired from their contacts with other nations. God had set the descendents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel) apart to be HIS people. By Inspiration, the temple of God was built in Jerusalem.  Even though it was forbidden by God, after a while those other high places just seemed to become a part of the nation's "culture" and nobody (even the kings) seemed to be bothered about it. Eventually to the point where everyone conveniently forgot what God had said about that being VERY displeasing to Him. So the people of Israel grew in numbers to become a great nation and they remained the people of God, but the whole time, there were those "high places" still standing there among them AND being used to worship other gods.

Now here and there, a prophet would be sent to speak to these kings about all this so they really had no excuse. One of them, in constant tears warned them that if the nation didn't repent that God was going to allow them to be captured and taken off to a foreign land in captivity (Babylon). A lesser known prophet was sent specifically about those high places and scolded them that they had failed to tear them down. He also told them that someday there would be a king raised up named Josiah, a young king, and that HE would "tear down the high places." That HE would DO what the Lord said to do about those places.

Several generations later a young boy named Josiah was made king (of Judah) and he like a few others "began to do what was right in the sight of God." While he was in his twenties somebody found the book of the Law of God and brought it to him and he began to read it. True to what had been foretold about him, he ordered that all the high places were to be torn down and had them and a lot of other offensive things destroyed. No compromises. That's what the book of the Law said, that's what he did. He didn't seem to care how those things had become a part of the culture for years or how many valued those places and those gods. He didn't seem to care that some people would feel badly about it. He just did what God said to do and destroyed them. Things went pretty good for the nation during his rule. You can read about Josiah in II Kings 22 and on about how he went about cleansing the land. Brutal! He lived his life out and another king took his place and guess what? That king screwed up just like all the rest. Oh man!..

There's something to notice about all this. First, the "People of God" were a mess for a long time during this period. Second, God spoke to them quite a bit through His prophets. He warned them of exactly what was going to happen if they didn't tear those offensive places down, etc. Third, God told them He was going to do it and later raised up the foretold king who under the inspiration of the Word demonstrated what God was saying to do and what things would be like if they did it. There was a clear demonstration of His will. Fourth, the nation reverted right back into it's fallen state and, as a cumulative result of generations of disobedience, got carried away into captivity in Babylon. Then Babylonians basically gutted out the Temple of God...

How much more bizarre can it get?

Around this time when I was so engrossed in all this I had an understanding come to me that God was going to raise up a generation of "Josiah" that would set things straight in His Church. that they would tear down all the high places that have been built in "Christianity" just like king Josiah did back in that day. Oddly a few months later, a young couple we knew had a son and called his name "Josiah" and again it sparked in my heart that God was indeed saying this. I was a young man back then. I'm really not now. that was back in the early 1980's or so.

There were two other things that happened, both in about 1980.

One night late' I felt compelled in an unusual way to go to the scriptures and found myself turning pages at almost supernatural speed then suddenly my eyes focused on a particular scripture and in particular an expression within that scripture. "To the church at" (followed by a location). It was shocking as in a matter of minutes I found myself over and over again through the new testament turning without trying to another page without trying to read it focusing on a scripture there with that expression or description of the church. Every last reference to that expression and there are many. I was astounded by the expression... "Lord, What are you saying to me?!!" I said, and every time I said or thought that, I would be led to arbitrarily turn to another expression of that...

The second thing that happened that year was I had a vision where I was caught up into the presence of God in the midst of believers worshiping Him in a "building" that had no walls. If you are reading this on my blog there is a page there on the side menu with a full description of that vision. It was a vision of God's Church. Absolutely beautiful only because of the notable fact that the presence of Jesus was there. There was nothing else about it that made it attractive in any other way. I honestly, not then or now could tell you anything about the "building" itself other than it was a place more than a building as we perceive buildings and that it had a roof or a covering of some kind and everyone there was standing on something solid. It did not have any walls or partitions anywhere. The presence of Jesus didn't inhabit the "building." It inhabited the people assembled there. Assembled where? In the presence of God.

Somewhere over a long period of history, the concept of "The Church" has gotten mangled almost beyond recognition compared to the early church or if you will the true church. It has also become pluralized (if there is such a word). Along the line there developed a "worship" of individual buildings and later a "worship" of organizations. People began to use the word "church" to describe a building and later to describe a separate organization. Carnality took the place of the prominence of Jesus and the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

But I believe that much of this phenomenon started when there came up a move to separate the "Church" from the Israel of God. That was a major error. No one can separate the true church from the true Israel. No one can separate the true Israel from the true Church. There is no separate Gentile church from the Church which is Israel by faith. By faith in the blood sacrifice of Jesus (Yeshua) we gentiles are "added to the commonwealth of Israel"... Now that should not be confused with the present nation "Israel" just because it happens to be located on some of the real estate that once comprised "the Promised Land"...

"Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is ONE God"

The Church of Jesus Christ (the called out, the chosen ones) cannot be defined in plurality any more than God can be defined in plurality. There are not "many churches" and certainly not "many churches in a particular locality". The day is coming when God will raise up a generation of Josiah's who with one mind and one accord will crush the worship of so called "church" buildings and organizations in our hearts. We will no longer be able to stand before God and hold and admiration of those things in our heart. We will only be able to see Jesus in us the hope of glory. In that day nothing else will matter to us except the glory of God in His Son Jesus. We will have no reverence for positions and titles in the Church or individual so called "churches" because it will all be about Him. We will see Jesus and because of that we will become like Him. Nothing else will matter not even our own earthly lives. The Church (the called out, the chosen ones) will be a mirror reflection of Jesus in our midst and the world will have that chance to see Him in us or reject Him...

Judgement and 9/11

Hmm A lot of questions... Having questions can be a wonderful thing if it causes the person with the question to search for the real answer. I have noticed a lot of people in this day we are presently living in that pose questions however, with no intent or perhaps even any desire to find the answer. It's a strange ill affected day we live in when posing questions serves to insulate us from the answer.

I'm not Radio Shack who's slogan used to be "You have questions. We have answers..." But I do have a small measure of "technical" expertise from years of experience mostly learned the hard way and by sheer unmerited favor. Unmerited favor? Yes, I totally blew any chances at any formal "higher" education during my days of drug use, "free loving" and outright rebellion.

I wasn't rebelling for the sake of a cause. I was merely using the "cause" for an excuse to express my own rebellion and the rebellion of the spirit* influencing me at the time. We would do well in the day we are living in to pay attention to that statement and consider what is actually motivating us in all we do.

Of course I didn't know that then because rebellion comes with it's own blindness. It's a package deal. The real problem I found out the hard way was that rebellion is a spirit thus having spiritual influence and able to spread that influence from person to person, social group to social group, even nation to nation. I was "led" into drugs (and a lot of other things) by others but it was the rebellion in me that embraced them (and those things) as a "good" thing. Rebellion attracts rebellion. Just like those that want to know the truth are drawn to each other.

That being said, I will try my best to express answers to some questions particularly regarding 9-11 and the "God's 'Judgement' of America." To understand that we need to know some things first:

The Almighty God vs other "gods"
(Beware the blame game...)

The Almighty God (Yahweh to the Hebrews) created the universe, created man with the intent of expressing His love - as a companion. He has been involved with man throughout the total history of mankind. Even though man fell from his relationship with God, He intervenes in the affairs of mankind and each of us constantly. Unfortunately because of man's blindness and rebellion, we are not able to clearly see that intervention. With God are also an enumerable number of spiritual beings that He created to serve Him. He is without a doubt the most powerful being in the universe.

Throughout most of man's history there have always been many "gods" besides The Almighty God. Most of them figments of imagination sometimes represented by carved images. None of them have any power at all.

Satan was once a prince in the Kingdom of God. He fell under his own delusions and attempted to overthrow The Almighty God. His deception and rebellion was so thorough and powerful that he managed to convince 1/3 of the ministering spirits in Heaven to rebel against God. He lost his position in Heaven and together with those spirits that followed him in his rebellion against God, were cast down to the earth. Contrary to common misconceptions and representations of him, he does not have horns (and angels do not have wings). The scripture says he comes to deceive, presenting himself and an "angel of light." Now take notice that he is also called "the god of this world, the father of all lies, the evil one."
*He and his spirits are spirits of deception and rebellion and they affect mankind to even further evil and rebellion against God.

Judgement:

"Judgement" is not just a club slamming into someone's head (or a nation's head). It is, first and foremost, "the revealing of the truth" as only God can see it. It is actually going on long before we ever "see" it come to pass.

All of the human race is already under the "Judgement of God." That didn't happen last week, last month, last year or even a few centuries ago. It happened early on in the beginnings of the human race when the earliest man made a pretty bad choice that was contrary to God's command. The results of that choice carries on endlessly down through time and all the generations of man. We are born under the judgement of God. We all have the ability to do good and to do evil. Apart from God, none of us has the ability to fully restrain the evil in us. God was only looking after man's best interests when He told man not to ingest the fruit of knowing both good and evil. He didn't say, "If you eat of this I will -kill- you." He said, "if you eat of this the result will be death and separation from Him."

We are all born of and into sin. And we all add to that condition of mankind by the actions we take in our lives. We all "pass on" the results of those actions to future generations. It's a little bit like an expanding nuclear chain reaction that only stops only when it has run it's course. Man was never created to be separated from God or to die. We are all born separated from God and from the moment of our 1st breath, we are heading towards our death. God doesn't have to "do anything" at all for that "judgement" to be accomplished. This condition of man was not a choice on God's part but a choice (and our own subsequent personal choices) on man's part.

Mercy

God loves His creation and man. He very often intervenes in the affairs of man and nations restraining that (evil) which would happen without His intervention. If God were to remove His mercy and restraint of evil influences from the earth, we would find out in short order just how "good" we are NOT...

God's greatest act of mercy and unearned favor was to allow His only begotten Son Jesus to be crucified as a substitution for the sin and evil of mankind. That door of mercy is open to "whoever shall come let them come." When our eyes are opened to the truth that our hopeless (and horrible) end in eternal death is the result of our sin (and the sins of all mankind) and we come to God for mercy in the name of Jesus, "God is faithful and just to forgive and cleanse us of all sin." We are yanked out of the cycle of sin and death that is terminal in humanity and given a new life, we are made into a new person. An eternal person.

So what about 9/11 and "The Judgement of God on America"?

Long before the twin World Trade Center towers came down on 9/11/2001, they were considered an impressive world renowned symbol of the financial power of the USA in the world. God allows things on earth some times to reflect what He is saying. Man chose to admire those twin towers as representative of financial power. God says doing so made them an idol and financial power is and always has been to God a false god. (Mammon) Of all the false "gods" that have been on the earth, Mammon has been worshiped in essence by more nations and people than any other "god." To some degree or another, we have all served that false "god" at some time in our lives. Jesus said something of note about Mammon, "You cannot serve God and Mammon. You cannot serve two masters. You will either love the one and hate the other or... (visa versa)" That is true of us as individuals and that is true of nations.

Those twin towers were a symbol of something that is anything but admirable to God. I would go so far as to say they were a very dishonorable thing. A symbol of evil. There is a scripture that says, "That which is highly esteemed in the sight of man is an abomination to God."