CULT WEBSITE!!

Hey guys,

I was on Youtube listening to a bunch of Toby Mac's songs. His words, to me, seem good - harmless. I like his music so I typed in Toby Mac in google and this came up:

Toby Mac exposed! He sings Devil's music in Jesus' name!

I went to the site, had a read of what it had to say and it made sense. Yes, it's true, in the Bible it says not to conform to this world and so forth. But then I thought, 'But who wrote this article?' So I scrolled to bottom and found the link to the home page and found Jesus Is Saviour.com

I used to assume that anything that said 'I love Jesus' in it must be full of good and truth. But now I'm not so sure. To be honest, I think I've found a cult... or at least a group of religion extremists.

I found nothing but negative remarks made on that site. Oh, hang on, if you scroll all the way down to bottom it says, "God loves people" But the site has shown me nothing but hate. Let me briefly describe the site for you. (BTW it is targeted at an American audience)
It:
- It has war propaganda, trying to build the fear in men so that they join the army. It has a picture of an american soldier pointing a gun at a father and his son crying with terror. Underneath it says, "Is your family next?" It also builds on the fear of the 9/11 disaster.

- It has multiple articles on the evil of abortion (I personally believe abortion is wrong, but this site tells people you're going to hell for it!)

- "Satanism is the Vatican"/ "The Pope is the vicar of Hell" (who are we to judge? - we are certainly not God)

- Advertising for "The Antichrist Slideshow/ starring: The Popes of Rome/ and the Great Whore of Revelation chapter 17" (Just because there are catholic priests who rape and molest children, that doesn't mean the whole church does! - BTW I am not catholic)

- "Protest Gay Day" (God gave us free will. And even though being a homosexual is sin, God sent his only son JESUS to die for all of our sins. Which means, our debt has been payed and praise the Lord! - not condemn those whose time has already been done). They also have a link for "Homosexuals target children"

- "153,000 souls die everyday. Most go to hell." (wow... what happened to just acknowledging that a beautiful creation of God has passed, regardless of his beliefs??)

- "JUST SHUT UP AND GET ON THE ARK!" (I don't think I need to explain this one for you...)

- "ALL modern Bible conversions are corrupt!", "If you don't have a King James Bible then you don't have a Bible!", and the above (not to mention the various other statements made on the site, they are forcing their opinion onto you and if you don't agree then you are going to hell.)


I really can't continue with the list, ONE because I would never finish, and TWO because quite frankly I just find it disturbing that cults can now reach people and brainwash people through the internet. I am also deeply sad that there are so many people in the world who just want to judge and not love.

Anyway, have a look if you want, and make up your own mind. Cult or the truth?

I vote: CULT

A Diamond In His Eyes

          I have to say that disappointment would probably be one of the top five worst feelings I've experienced. I haven't been disappointed many times in my life - actually, I don't think I've ever been genuinely disappointed more than 3 times in my life - but when I felt that way, it was discouraging even crushing! I don't know about you, but I felt like something dark and heavy had an affect on me - like as if a shadow came crawling into my body keeping me in a state of shock. My light was fading because I lost hope. 

Mostly, when I'm disappointed, it is with someone else. But sometimes I'm disappointed with myself. A voice says inside my head, 'I could have done that better' or, 'Why did you do that?' or, 'Why? You could do better'. Naturally, we are very critical of other people and so we are criticized virtually everyday. But our worse judge will always be ourself. It's important that we ask ourselves questions, such as the questions mentioned above, because they allow for reflection and give us the opportunity to adjust our standards and expectations of ourselves. And so I call this these questions 'Reflective questions'. But what about those questions that start to eat at our insides until we feel crippled, worthless, and until we feel like we are the villain. These questions are a way of criticizing ourselves to the point of self-destruction, and so I call them 'Critical questions'. Some examples of Critical questions:

'That's not good enough, how could you be so stupid?'

'Do you want to keep hurting your friends?'

'How could I treat him/her like that? I don't deserve him/her.'

The saying, "we are our own worst enemy" is so true.


Okay, so you get disappointed, you lose hope, and you become very critical of yourself, but what's so bad about that? It's not like it's a life-changing experience. 

No, the questions themselves are not a life-changing experience, but for me (and surely for other people) these questions left me in an emotional state where a life-changing experience could occur - and it wasn't pretty. 

I was confused, I wasn't sleeping well, I was failing at my relationships, and I was depressed. 'What am I?' I would ask myself. 'Am I nice? Am I good? Am I cool? Am I emo? Just make your mind up!' I wanted to fit in and be accepted. But mostly, and honestly, I wanted to be a better person. And so by self-questioning and reflective questioning I was falling into a method in which would bring on change.

And so I started to change myself. I was working on my manners. I was being kind to people and did my best not to criticize them, but hey! 'Who am I kidding, right? I can't do this. I'm not capable of changing. I'm a nobody!' - I started to criticize myself. I started to doubt, and because I listened to those critical questions in my mind I also started to lose hope. TROUBLE!

When you have doubt and no hope, you open yourself up to bullies. You even feel hurt by the people who care about you.

I was very confused in the early years of high school. I was bullied, I had been in abusive environments, and have seen some disturbing things. I was prone to find myself in a mess.  And a mess it was - I was a mess. I was in a dysfunctional relationship and depression was setting in. It was hard to fall asleep but then when I did get sleep I'd wake up from a nightmare. I cried a lot and I made a lot of mistakes. I harshly criticized myself to the extent that, when I look back now, it seems like I was torturing myself almost on purpose. 

All of this led up to huge events that have changed my life permanently. But now my past is behind me - in fact, there's not much I can remember. But those events also have strong side-effects. I'm still sensitive to certain issues and so I can become easily very emotional. Sometimes the nasty thought 'I am second-hand' creeps into my head, making me feel sad and used. I sometimes think that because of this, I will never have a first happy experience with my future husband. It's a very disheartening and depressing thought to have and I know that it's not true - these are the words of the enemy; not God. So this is what I tell myself:

Christ has forgiven me. The earth may see me as a worthless gem, but Jesus will always see me as his precious diamond because as said in Ephesians 5:27 "He did this to present her as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish." And that is exactly what I am - spotless in the eyes of Jesus, and that's all that matters.

Thanks,

Ness

The Beginning

Before I met Jesus I was lost. I didn't know what I was doing, why I was doing it, and I never thought that life could be different for me. And for some reason I thought that once you're saved everything will just fall in place. But unfortunately that's not how it works. Who'd ever thought that following the Lord's footsteps would be easy? I thought that if I just read his word and then do what it says then I'd be a good christian. But after while I got bored. Why wasn't this working for me? Was I doing something wrong?

I was in a lot of trouble. Everyone goes through hard times and many live a hard life, but I felt alone - like as if no one else could have possibly understood how I felt or the things I'd gone through. I felt misunderstood.

After just one of the many climaxes in my life, a friend of mine invited me to church. He said, "How would you feel about coming to a church with no religion? You can start a real relationship with God."

What - a church with no religion? He was talking rubbish as far as I was concerned. How does that work? How is that even possible? And what does he mean ' a relationship with God'? But I went with him anyway and when I entered the auditorium kept my guards up. I felt insecure. There was this sense of a presence. I figured that it was God, but I couldn't understand why his presence was there.

Worship started and the church started to sing. But not just sing. Their hands were outstretched and their bodies moved with the beat of the music and of their souls. They were grateful and they were in love with God.

Then the pastor, Joel A'Bell, gave the message. It's funny - most christians remember everything about the time they gave chose to give their lives to God. They can tell you what they were wearing, what time it was, and all sorts of other things. But I don't remember all that. All I remember is the overwhelming feeling of sadness. All of my emotions came up and hit me at once. I felt the hurt and sorrow of my past and the hurt and sorrow of my present, but for the first time I saw hope. I realized that I was broken and Jesus provided a way out from that world. Don't get me wrong, after a year and a half since that day, I'm still broken (as Sy Rogers potently revealed on Wed 22/9/10 at Hillsong's Healing Seminar). But as I said, I had been shown hope, and as a wise man once said, "Living life without hope is like a life sentence; alive, but imprisoned forever."

So I started my journey with God, but on a personal level. I let him into my heart and showed him all of my faults and mistakes. He forgave me - and continues to forgive me - and so Jesus has wiped me clean.