Paul's Passing Thoughts

Though the song, “I’d Do Anything for Love” recorded by Meatloaf in 1993 seems to be a mystery song that is deliberately ambiguous to garner attention, a careful observation of the lyrics reveals a generally profound concept though peppered with bad ideas.

The song is saying the man will do anything for love except things that betray love. Again, the song’s definition of love is distorted, but its idea of love as a paramount ruling principle is a good idea.

According to the Bible, love is the antithesis of fear, and all fear has to do with judgment. ALL fear flows from the condemnation of future judgement. According to the Bible, fear of death is defined solely as flowing from the fear of future judgment and subsequent eternal condemnation.

The Bible also defines mankind’s primary nemesis, sin.

Sin is God’s enemy and the antithesis of everything that defines God. If God says it’s an apple, sin says it’s an orange. Sin is against the ways of God, and is equipped with a unique weapon in its war against God; an ability to create desires to break God’s laws. So, when a person is exposed to a law of God, sin is able to create a desire or temptation within the person to break that law.

Sin’s ability to create these desires within each individual varies from person to person and depends on elements that need much more study, but there is an overall counteraction due to God writing the works of the law on every human heart. This is part of mankind being created in God’s image. As a result, the conscience either accuses or excuses our actions. Sin is able to create desires within people that are strong enough to short-circuit any ability to say, “no.” These are commonly known as “addictions.” Relatively speaking, a person’s character is defined by strength of conscience and its ability to say “no” to sinful desires.

How all of this relates to the saved person who is born again will not be visited in this article, but suffice to say for now that sin hates God’s law while the believer loves God’s law.

Back to sin. Though God’s creation is good, it is presently plagued by sin and sin operates within people while few are privy to the essence of it. Here is the thumbnail; watch out for a desire to control others. And how do we control others? We condemn them. Unworthy people who have no self-confidence are very easy to control and are full of fear. Ultimately, and unwittingly, sinful people who are seeking to fulfill their lust by controlling others are servants of sin.

Unfortunately, this is what’s really behind a desire to be a corporate manager in most cases. This sin can be tempered through reeducation that establishes different objectives for management. Nevertheless, corporate management will be fraught with control freaks who look down on the “little people” of the world.

This dynamic affects every stratum of human existence, but I am going to apply it to the profession of Nurse Aide. A true NA will do anything for love, but shouldn’t compromise the essence of love. Does the management of any particular facility promote love or short-circuit love? If a management bent on control effectively destroys your self-confidence and self-respect while filling you with fear for purposes of controlling you—you will make a poor lover of others. Remember, fear is the antithesis of love.

Now, you can ignore all of that and be who you are, but a problem arises thereof; nothing agitates a despot more than an inability to control someone. Invariably, they will use their authority to destroy who you are in the view of others. If you are wise they cannot rob you of a truthful self-assessment/self-esteem, but they can at least disparage you to people you love. To one who loves, having the respect of those they love is very important, and despots can at least use their authority to rob you of that.

When you determine that your manager is a despot, it is time to leave on your own terms regardless of your love for the residents and the nurses you serve. You must not stay; a NA defined by love (as all NA’s should) will do anything for love, but we mustn’t do that. In many cases when a despotic executive director perp-walks an aide or a nurse out of the facility it is payback for his/her inability to control through fear. In addition, it is an effective way to destroy half of the love equation with a possible added bonus of self-doubt.

As the director of TANC I have pondered these issues for several years and was able to recognize the position that I was in. Though it was very difficult to submit my two-week notice because of my love for the residents and the nurses I served, my endeavor to love better and more as a NA could not be jeopardized by a despot. The NA must remember this: a corporation’s decision to employ a despot is out of our control; regardless of our love, there are things we cannot do in the name of love, viz, try to love in an atmosphere dictated by fear because love and fear are mutually exclusive. In contrast to popular notions about love, those who love are not obligated to relinquish a true assessment of ourselves to those full of control-lust.

This brings us to Co-Dependency and its formal definition: “Codependency is a type of dysfunctional helping relationship where one person supports or enables another person’s drug addiction, alcoholism, gambling addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement. Among the core characteristics of codependency, the most common theme is an excessive reliance on other people for approval and a sense of identity.”

This applies to all relationships on every stratum of existence. Under-achievers are easy to control. Do your relationships in life foster fear or love? Do they foster fear of being all you can be or truthful self-confidence? Do your relationships foster cooperative love or co-dependency?

Is your self-identity determined by tyranny? We will do anything for love…

…but we won’t allow that.

paul

You do not get saved by faith &then prove it by works. There are no works related to salvation other than the work Jesus did. It’s by faith.

— JC (@DiscipleByte) September 26, 2017

Hopefully, the home fellowship movement will create a music awakening among Christians. Right now, whether contemporary “Christian” music or church hymnals, the lyrics, for the most part, represent lies in general and a false gospel in particular. The vast majority of all music in the church venue propagates progressive justification. Consequently, going to hell has never sounded better.

Point in case: the 60’s Rock song, “Get Together,” calls for a choice between love and fear in a spiritual sense. That’s the dichotomy between under law and under grace  that the Bible highlights. The song also mentions the one who has left us behind to preach this distinction. Good stuff.

What does Protestantism advocate for sanctification? Luther and Calvin taught that fear was the primary fuel that drives sanctification. Also, according to Protestantism, sanctification is the progression of justification (salvation). Hence, the same fear that saved you also sanctifies you, viz, keeps the salvation process moving forward. Since we are “all [saved and unsaved alike] sinners saved [being continually saved] by grace (salvation),” of course we should fear condemnation because we are supposedly still under law. According to Luther and Calvin, no fear of damnation would denote sinlessness.

Per Protestant assimilation using deception through the assumption of word meaning, “We are all sinners saved by grace” should be stated this way if stated honestly: “The saved are still totally depraved and are continually saved by returning to the same gospel that began our salvation.” That’s Protestantism, and it’s not arguable. And this doctrine defines its music in every church venue.  

I have documented the citations regarding these facts with thousands of articles, but I would recommend the book, “It’s Not About Election” which goes into Protestantism’s sabbath sanctification in painstaking detail.

We may also mention what will be absent from Rock music because of its separation from church; Jesus is My Boyfriend lyrics. Jesus is my romantic lover music comes from the Protestant historical-redemptive hermeneutic. Since every verse in the Bible is about Jesus and His salvation, well then, the Song of Solomon must be about Jesus and the church and not romance on a horizontal level because the Bible is strictly about the vertical. Hence, James MacDonald’s “Vertical Church” claim to fame.

If you want good and practical music about horizontal life that doesn’t include Protestant mysticism, look for it in Rock music or other secular venues that have commonsense lyrics.  

Again, I have documented the citations regarding these facts with thousands of articles, but I would also recommend the book, “The Gospel Transformation Bible; a Tool for Keeping Our Salvation?” in reference to the historical-redemptive hermeneutic. 

If you leave your address in the comment section along with a request, I will edit your address out of the comment and send you either or both of these books for free while supply lasts, or a pdf file.

So it’s Sunday, and a good day for listening to some good spiritual music…enjoy.  

Right, that’s the Protestant gospel, and that’s why it’s false. If we must repeat the same way we “became” a Christian in our ongoing lives, that is obviously progressive justification per John Calvin’s chapter stating such in his Institutes of the Christian Religion (3.14).

In other words, Calvin clearly advocated a progressive salvation in that chapter which shouldn’t surprise us because that’s what Protestantism is. And, the favorite cover for this is the subtle exchange of “salvation” for “grace,” and in this case, “we became a Christian” as well. You can restate the meme this way: “We live by faith ALONE to keep ourselves saved.” It’s clearly perpetual salvation through living by faith alone.

By the way, anything we do with intentionality, no matter how passive, or whether active or passive to keep ourselves saved is a form of works salvation. Keeping ourselves saved by doing nothing with intentionality is still a works salvation. If salvation is not presently complete as apposed to Protestantism’s “final justification,” we must DO something to keep ourselves saved. An unfinished salvation is mutually inclusive with works salvation in every case; this is unavoidable.

And this is is nothing new; James wrote a treatise against faith alone in the Christian life, “faith without works is dead, being alone.” Rather, we live by “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6).

paul

“… the drunkenness of control-lust hardly seeks to advocate the law of individual conscience.”

Truism’s make us feel better and supply cover for living a lie in various venues of life. “The church isn’t a building, it’s the people.” Right. That one is only rivaled by the laugher in my line of work: “It’s about resident care, not personal agendas.” Right.

The problem with institutional caring, love, if you will, is that institutions are intrinsically related to authority. God, who is love, of course, has all authority, but is not an authoritarian. That fact is apparent; God is not presently in control of all things. That’s future; ie., the Millennial Kingdom. Even then, folks have freewill and things are not yet perfect, that comes via the “new heavens and new earth.”

Love has little to do with authority. True love flows from freewill and pure motives. Where authority is present, one is compelled to mimic love, especially when it is being paid for as a service. I am not sure there is a better example than the Nurse Aide line of work; those who receive immense satisfaction in caring and those who are just there for a paycheck are not hard to sort out. And when a resident knows they are being cared for by a clock-puncher, and trust me, they know, it is perhaps the most grievous form of abuse, but yet legal.

And in the Nurse Aide business, clock-punchers don’t like lovers because the lovers shine a light on their clock-punching. Certainly, institutions can cultivate a true love culture, but that is hard work and institutions are notorious for lazy management. Hence, nursing facilities are fraught with steroidal politics and loving aides pose a threat of challenging work for management. Mediocracy is easier to manage, but cultivating a culture of love is very hard work.

Well, they think mediocracy is easy to manage, but it is really misery on an installment plan. Primarily, facilities are notoriously shorthanded for the following reason; lazy management. Again, cultivated the right aide culture is hard work…initially, that is. But if the path of least resistance is the policy (because it seems that it is the least resistance), aides that love what they do who get in by happenstance will create all kinds of conflict leading to pretense-driven politics of the highest order. And how do aides who love what they do get in? Their presentations of themselves are assumed to be pretense or they appear to be clock-punchers because they don’t talk about what they do, they just do it after the fact. But if their actions raise the bar, Katy bar the door.

You can’t legislate love or the motives of the heart. Here is the thing about authority; it can’t make any person do anything. Sure, you can execute someone, but you can’t make them do anything they don’t want to do. They may capitulate to authority, but that’s not love, and in fact, one may reject some forms of authority out of pure love. This is where freewill is an obvious metaphysical fact. God Himself created mankind with the built-in impossibility of making anybody do anything they don’t want to do; He will eventually punish them for not doing what they were created to do in His image, but mankind is inherently a freewill creature.

God is love, and we are created in his image. People are able to love. God is presently in the love business, and when it is time for His authority, that will be very evident. His authority guarantees the outcome that He wants; it guarantees a happy ending for all who love Him and His ways of love, but He presently seeks those who will glorify Him through love.

Institutions attempt to accomplish things through authority which translates into a lack of love. When love takes place in an institution, it is a freewill individual act that can’t come from authority. Institutions, though absolutely necessary, have a very limited role in actual goodness and are intended to free goodness and individualism by force if necessary. In other words, institutions should free the individual to love, but are unable to produce that love.

To illustrate this from a biblical perspective, sin uses law to create desires within people to reject said laws. Laws, though necessary, assume the worst about humanity and reject the ability of individual conscience, and the ability to cultivate an individual conscience to produce more love. This is why institutions with authoritative high standards will end up being bastions of hypocrisy; conscience is legislated rather than assumed. If you tell people they are evil as illustrated by “necessary” laws to restrain such evil, they will act according to expectations.

In contrast, if the “Here is why we do it this way” is presented rather than “You better do it this way, or else,” coupled with the initial hard work of cultivating a culture of true love, employees will function more from personal conscience which determines their actions anyway. Institutions cannot replace personal conscience which is the only true source of love to begin with. Wise institutions, that is, as much as they can be wise, seek to create an atmosphere where consciences flourish, not conformity to pseudo-utopic laws.

This is why I am convinced of the following: the called-out assembly of Christ is meant to function as a cooperative body in a family-of-God setting rather than an authoritative institution. This is in addition to the fact that the Bible explicitly states such.

Institutions are God’s ministers to free the individual conscience according to what is evident to all, because God created conscience in all people according to His image. But institutions cannot produce love. Instead, unless their purpose and limitations are known, they incite the sinful tendency to control others within caste systems full of class-envy-lust where individual self-importance can be purchased through credentials, political skill, drugs, and sex. Invariably, the mentality that institutions are the endgame will produce a quagmire of political intrigue. And, the drunkenness of control-lust hardly seeks to advocate the law of individual conscience.

Only the individual conscience can produce love.

paul