Freedom Is Freedom Is It Not

I note that when it was all about gender freedom the push to have Same Sex Marriage changes rushed in with as little debate and discussion as possible was immense.

But now the issue has become about protecting religious freedom those who had their foot pressed to the floor on the accelerator now have their foot firmly to the floor on the brakes.

BUT a tolerant society is one in which you have the freedom to have and express a different opinion or belief. An intolerant society is one in which your right to disagree or believe differently is suppressed.

If love is love then surely freedom is freedom is it not?

Fruit Picking

A full size copy of this Small GIFTS Ministries image, and many more, is freely downloadable from my Shareable Images folder here:- https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_3ClonPVorvOVRzWlViOWhvTFU

Fully a Man

Ever had those moments when you are reading and suddenly a door opens in your mind and you suddenly find yourself looking at the same scene through an entirely new window. That's how this article started.

I was quietly reading Ravi Zacharias' excellent book "The Grand Weaver (2007) when on page 40 I read:-

"One fascinating verse tells us that the author of our salvation himself has been made 'perfect through suffering' (Hebrews 2:10). I have often pondered this text. How is One who is already perfect, perfected."

I looked up, and a door opened .....

We talk often about Jesus being fully God and fully man and what we say is indeed true. But do we really ponder everything that entails? Jesus was well versed at being fully God. However when He was born of the virgin Mary that was the first time ever that Jesus had experienced being fully man!  He was the ONLY - begotten - Son of God . Not only that, but being the only Son of God to be begotten of the flesh nobody else in Heaven knew what it was like either. Everything Jesus experienced in the flesh He was experiencing for the very first time. Pain, exhaustion, hunger, thirst, the emotional havoc of hormones, the weakness of the human body, ... the reality of mortality and the ability to die or be killed. We forget that this was all a new personal experience for Jesus. He who is God was now learning firsthand what it was like to be human. But even more, not just what it was like to be man but what it was like to be A man.

I must admit that I had never before wondered why it was Moses and Elijah who met with Jesus on the mountain and not mighty angels like Gabriel or Michael. But now I think I understand perhaps why. Jesus was soon to face, as a man, great temptations, pain and suffering, and death. Neither Gabriel, nor Michael nor any Angel knew what it was like to face such things as a mere mortal man ..... But Moses and Elijah did!

However I had before wondered what it was in the Garden of Gethsemane that would so distress the Son of the Almighty God that He would sweat as if sweating blood and utter such soul wrenching prayers and pleas. And wondered also when He said "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" was He talking of His sleeping disciples .... Or of Himself? Jesus was about to endure such, pain, agony, and torment as none in Heaven ever had, and about to taste what no immortal being tastes - death! His soul was willing but would His flesh be able to endure to the end? He who had never suffered pain or death was about to suffer and endure the most horrific, painful, agonising death imaginable ... For the very first and last time.

For as the Son of God, and as the Son of man, Jesus had no more, and no less than any man has - the promises of His Father in Heaven. All that He set aside in Heaven, and all that He endured on Earth, He did solely on the promise of enablement, resurrection and restoration given by His Father in Heaven. Jesus asks of every man and woman no more than what He has been willing to do Himself. To set their selves aside by faith and relying solely on the promises of God be obedient to Him in all things.

And being obedient even to death in both spirit  and in the flesh Jesus was made perfect as both Son of God and Son of Man. For as Son of God He had out of obedience, and by faith, surrendered equality to the Father and suffered to be made to become a little lower than the angels that He might experience and endure life and death in the flesh as a Son of Man. So that in His faithful suffering and obedience He might obtain perfection as the perfect Son of God AND the perfect Son of Man and in doing so be the perfect and worthy Saviour and Lord of both the Sons of Men and the Sons of God. The Lamb of God without blemish in either Spirit or flesh. For the perfect Son of God became the perfect Son of Man in order that in Him the imperfect Sons of men might become the perfect Sons of God.

D.J. Ludlow

Author

Provided it is done freely and without charge

"Fully a Man" may be copied, used and distributed

(in its entirety only, including this notice)

by brothers and sisters in Christ

to the profit and glory of The Lord alone (ttpagoTLa)

By special permission of 

D.J. Ludlow copyright 2017

#smallgiftsministries #ttpagoTLa

Bad Luck Epidemic

(I originally wrote this back in 2015 around the same time that Telstra drained their Bigpond BigBlog swamp and took my first "Views From an Island Place"  blog-site with it. Just found it again while rummaging around in my pending blogs folder. Thought I would let it see the light of day seeing as they are still harping on genetics as the incidence rates rapidly climb faster than we change our genes.) ...

I noticed from an ABC news report a couple of years ago (2nd January 2015) that according to John Hopkins University researchers:-

"Bad luck plays a major role in determining who gets cancer and who does not, according to researchers who say two-thirds of cancers of various types can be blamed on random mutations and not heredity or risky habits like smoking."

Basically what they are saying is that about 65% of most cancers (eg. leukemia and pancreatic, bone, testicular, ovarian and brain cancer, etc.) is caused by purely random chance mutation and not by hereditary or environmental and pollution factors.

This is good news for INDUSTRY and commerce. They have everything to lose and nothing to gain in the elimination of cancer causes, but there are huge profits to be made in selling cancer cures. After all you can't sue or slap an injunction on "random chance" for causing your cancer but a lot of people are going to make a good living out of trying to cure you.

The trouble with this idea of random chance cancer is that it is NOT obeying the laws of random chance (aka the laws of probability). The laws of probability declare that if you have the same number of genes as before you have the same probability of them mutating by pure random chance as before. Without getting into the mathematical detail it means that for any given population size the number of cancer incidents you can expect by pure random chance will always be the same. If the probability was 1 per 1,000 before it will still be 1 per 1,000 now. That is because random chance is a NUMBERS game, and in this case it is the number of genes and the last time I checked we all still have the same number of genes we have always had throughout all of history.

BUT we seem to be in the middle of a rapidly escalating epidemic of "bad luck" which is seeing the rate of cancer incidences (ie. not just number of cases but statistically as in cases per 1,000 population) skyrocketing which can only happen if something OTHER than random chance mutation is at play in our modern world.  It is interesting to note from another article elsewhere that, "According to French researchers, the INCIDENCE (my emphasis) of cancer is expected to increase by more than 75% by the year 2030 in developed countries, and over 90% in developing nations. The study is published Online First in the Lancet Oncology."

Even more interesting is that among their findings they note that "Even though very high HDI (Human Development Index) countries only contain 15% of the world's population, they accounted for 40% of cancer cases in the world in 2008."

Cancer is rapidly surging forward and bypassing all others as the number one cause of death and illness in most developed and developing countries. If cancer is merely a case of "bad luck" it would seem that the more you are exposed to modern industry, modern pollution, modern technology, and a modern chemical and radiation  laden lifestyle, .... the unluckier you get!

It is clear SOMETHING is rapidly changing to rapidly increase the incidence rate of cancers - but it is not the human genome that has been the same for centuries. Nor is it the natural environment (trees are still trees, grass is still grass, rocks are still rocks, etc.).

In fact the ONLY thing that is changing as rapidly as the cancer rates is our MANMADE modern environment. Not sure why our medical experts seem reluctant to make the connection. Is it possible it may be because there is a whole multi billion dollar industry that RELIES (indeed thrives) on people getting sick? After all you can't sell profitable cures to people who aren't sick!

Just sharing my thoughts.

D.J. Ludlow

Copyright 2017

The Non-Entity Church of Jesus Christ

Anybody who hasn't noticed that Christianity is on a direct collision course with the rest of the world has not been paying attention. But while there has always been a spiritual war going on between God and His adversaries a new "theatre of battle" is rapidly emerging as nations are increasingly being deceived. A virulent battle is emerging in the corridors of power and of courtrooms around the world. Churches are being sued, pursued, and reviewed relentlessly in the legal and government circles of all nations, egged on by a rampant media industry that has noticeably not been church or God friendly for a very long time.

But this current battle is only possible because while the world cannot "see" or "touch" the church of which Christ Jesus alone is the head, a church that is in the world but not of the world, all these other churches and religious institutions are both in the world - and of the world.  This is because they exist as part of the world system.. They are LEGAL entities that can be taxed, sued, legislated about, fined, audited, and pretty much anything that can be done to a flesh and blood person can be done to a legal entity. Indeed in the eyes of the law they ARE, a for all legal intents and purposes, a single flesh and blood person. They are a corporate - body.

By stark contrast the Church of Jesus Christ is not a legal entity, it is a SPIRITUAL entity. It is the body of Christ that is not defined or operated by a single legal entity but by a single Spiritual entity, the Holy Spirit of God Himself. The Church of which Jesus Christ is the only "CEO" cannot be sued, it cannot be legislated against, it cannot be taxed, it cannot be deregistered, it cannot be stripped of assets, etc., because ... It does not legally exist and never has. They cannot even arrest or fine its CEO because - He was declared legally dead nearly 2,000 years ago.

The Church of Jesus Christ does not require a building, it IS its own spiritual building, indeed it is a temple made of living stones. It does not require a constitution, it already has the word of God to guide it and prescribe how it is to conduct itself. It does not possess physical or financial assets, it possesses the spiritual gifts and power of the Holy Spirit by which it has the power to do anything the Lord requires of it, both the possible - and the impossible.

Legal entity churches, denominations, and religious institutions are creatures of the Earth, they are children born of its legal and financial systems, and just as those legal and financial systems gave them life they can also dramatically alter it or take it away - with the stroke of a judge's or legislator's pen. But the non-entity church of Jesus Christ cannot be touched by either for in the eyes of the law the Church of Jesus Christ does not exist. It is nothing more than a foolish belief by some people who seem to share an invisible and untouchable bond of unity as if motivated and compelled by a single spirit of heart and mind whether they are together or on opposite sides of the world. Whether they are fellowshipping and gathered in one place or isolated in solitary confinement. Whether they are in sickness or health, richer or poorer, male or female, master or slave, Jew or Gentile of any nation, race, or colour., the bond and spirit remains undaunted, undiminished and undivided.

They do not come together to run an organisation, they come together to support and encourage one another in serving a common master who was declared dead and no longer existent by THIS world's legal system nearly 2,000 years ago. Who, in the eyes of the world, is nothing more than an annoyingly persistent and troublesome memory. A person who is both nowhere and yet at the same time everywhere, as He lives and works, even now, in the individual lives of millions around the world be they by themselves or with others.

Legal corporate entities have their practical uses but there is great danger when they become the ends and not the means. When the corporate church is no longer there to serve the needs of its members but the members are there to serve the needs of the corporate church. Corporate idolatry has already happened to many churches where serving the corporate body of the church has been equated with serving Christ thereby making the corporate church equal to Christ and eventually in the place of Christ in the lives of its members. A corporate church must never be allowed to stand between its members and Christ or interfere in or replace, the individual servant / master relationship between a believer and Christ. Jesus, not a church, is our personal Saviour, Lord and King. A follower of Christ follows none but Christ, belongs to none but Christ. They have but one master, Christ Jesus, and one Father in Heaven. A corporate church is not something they belong to, it is but one of a number of tools they use. It is not a body corporate they gather to, but fellow believers they fellowship with and work with as fellow servants who likewise also belong to their Master. A legal corporate entity is a tool they use only when it is needed and readily set aside when it is not.

The world cannot kill a fellowship of the non-entity church of Christ Jesus by deregistering or annulling a legal corporate entity it may be using because that is not where its life is. The heart of a fellowship of the non-entity church of Christ Jesus is not its corporate identity, it is Christ Jesus Himself and its lifeblood is the Holy Spirit of God pumped through the veins of ..... Fellowship.

This bunch of "foolish" people will STILL stand with, fellowship with and serve Christ either together or alone. Whether together or alone they will still dare to stand before the whole world and boldly declare we are the children of but ONE Father in Heaven, live by only ONE word of God, the 66 books of the Bible, are in-dwelt by the ONE and the SAME Holy Spirit, and have but ONE Saviour, Lord and sovereign King, Christ Jesus.

Even without their legal corporate identity you will know them by the love they have for one another and for others. By the fruit of the Spirit within, that is beyond the reach of the world, you will know them. For they will be caring and loving, joyful, peaceful, very patient, gentle and kind, good, faithful, of humble demeanor, and self-controlled, as together and individually they live in obedience and service to their one master, Christ Jesus.

If you really want to know how well your church will fare in the coming times ask yourself where its heart is? If the world steps in tomorrow seizes all your church assets and liquidates them, deregisters your corporate identity and winds you up legally and financially will you survive as a fellowship of the non-entity church of Jesus Christ? Or is everything about your church tied up in its worldly corporate identity, worldly corporate structure, and worldly corporate assets?

Author

D.J. Ludlow

"But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy."  (1Peter 2:9-10 / AV)

Provided it is done freely and without charge

"The Non-Entity Church of Jesus Christ" may be copied, used and distributed

(in its entirety only, including this notice)

by brothers and sisters in Christ

to the profit and glory of The Lord alone (ttpagoTLa)

By special permission of 

D.J. Ludlow copyright

#smallgiftsministries #ttpagoTLa

Just When You Thought Easter Was Over For Another Year! ...

(This and Other Shareable full size image files may be freely downloaded and shared from my new Small Gifts Ministry folders at:- https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_3ClonPVorvOVRzWlViOWhvTFU )

#smallgiftsministries #ttpagoTLa

New FREE eBook anthology: Life, Death, and Something Else

Just added a revised and updated Edition of my Life, Death, and Something Else anthology to my growing (Hey from 1 to 2 eBooks is a growth rate of 100% (lol) but more coming) collection of eBooks available for download from
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B_3ClonPVorvY0Q2X1hBc1dGTUk?usp=sharing

It is available from the above URL in Apple iBook, Amazon's Kindle, and PDF formats.

Here is the write up:-

Twenty four beautifully flowing, image filled poems that invites the reader in to gently unfold the fabric of our being and to ponder the deep and amazing gifts of God we find wrapped therein. That leads the reader on an intriguing exploration of the reality they live in that is not ruled by life and death but - by something else.

That answers the question why we mourn not the passing of those who die in Christ as the caterpillars Mourn Not The Butterfly:-

"To those who dwell upon the Earth,
Weep not for those of second birth,
Who in cocoons of flesh and blood reside,
A new life growing, changing deep inside.

For what we were will fade away,
And in the ashes and dust of Earth will lay.
But what we become will never die,
In joyful metamorphous we will fly.

So to you who dwell upon the Earth,
Weep not for those of second birth.
Cry not for those who in Christ die,
As the caterpillar mourns not the butterfly."
D.J. Ludlow, Author

#smallgiftsministries #ttpagoTLa

Updated FREE eBook available: The Party at the End of the World: And Other Short Stories

Just done a bit of tweaking to bring the Back Cover info up to date and added the eBook metadata info to the Google+ file info system. (Like other eBook publishers I use the metadata field to add useful info and "write ups" so they perform like normal eBooks). The revised eBook can be downloaded from here:-

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B_3ClonPVorvY0Q2X1hBc1dGTUk?usp=sharing


Here is the write up for The Party at the End of the World. (The pic is the front cover image file)

"A collection of 8 engaging short stories that lead the reader down some intriguing yet "less travelled" paths to places unexpected.

Who is the "crazy old man" too busy to join the insatiably bored people at the party at the end of the World? What - and who - was it that kept him so busy?

In "Lastborn" who were the strange crowd milling through the corridors of a local hospital, eager to catch a glimpse of a mother and her newborn child? What was it that made this child so special to them?

In "The Perfect Alibi" it seemed an open and shut case - until the handcuffs came out.

Then there is the intriguing question of how a person can get embarrassingly caught up in the "Crosstalk" between the hearing and the hearing impaired?

It is well known that beauty is "In The Eye of The Beholder". But what happens when you add a blind man to the equation? And what happens when somebody who cares about people's special needs is humourously reminded that they have "Common Needs" also?

Other intriguing questions you will find here include:- What is the most valuable gift you can give to an old lady spending her last days alone in a hospital bed? Do the Irish share their luck or do they take it in turns?

If you are looking for a common theme in these stories chances are you will not find one. The closest I have ever come is the "moral" that while no life is perfect every life has something that makes it worth the living. But I would prefer that you spend more time just enjoying them than analysing them. The simple pleasure of sitting back and reading a good story can never be underestimated. So if you find yourself sitting back and just enjoying them that is great. If you unearth any hidden treasures in them I can only say - thank You Lord.

And thank you kind reader, for allowing me to share these stories with you. Please feel free to share them with others using the Small Gifts Ministry Special Permission you will find under the Copyright notice in the front of the book.

D.J. Ludlow
Author"

(Provided as a Small Gifts Ministry to the profit and glory of the Lord alone. - #smallgiftsministries #ttpagoTLa )

eBooks of a Certain Calibre!

Sorry for being AWOL for a little while. Rest assured it has not been slackness. Quite the opposite actually, a little too busy sorting some things out.  One of the more exciting things keeping me busy (among a lot of mundane things) has been playing with a new FREE (for the moment at least) software package that allows me to convert my .docx WORD files into – REAL ebooks, not just PDF files that can be read on eBook readers.

Until now the only way I could get my books into a format that could be read by eBook readers without having them “go commercial” was to print them as Adobe PDF files that most eBook readers can at least display. But creating actual eBooks seemed destined to remain a dream on the shoestring of a budget I have to work with. (more like a strand from a shoestring really). Then I came across a rather cool richly featured FREE Open Source package called Calibre eBook Management. Among a whole lot of very useful eBook editing and management tools, Calibre is also capable of taking WORD .docx document files and quickly converting them to .ePub files, - the things eBooks are made of.  From there, they can edited and converted to any number of eBook reader file formats suitable for most current eBook readers. If anybody is interested the Calibre website is here”- https://calibre-ebook.com/  .

My first “guinea pig” has been my short story collection The Party at the End of the World: And Other Short Stories. After a bit of trial and a lot of error I seem to have produced my first proper eBook in both an Apple iBook format and Amazon’s Kindle format. I can produce other formats but can’t test them as I only have iBook and Kindle apps on my phone at the moment. Might need some volunteers with other eReaders who are willing to test other formats for me before I can include other formats in my download offerings. At the moment my eBooks will be available in iBook, Kindle, and PDF formats only until I can get people to help me with other formats I don’t have eReader apps for.

One of the downers I discovered is that the major eBook publishers/distributors like Apple, Amazon, Lulu.com, etc. don’t seem to be set up to distribute non-commercial (free) eBooks. Understandable, as they are businesses rather than charities and ministries. But I am hoping some Christian publishers/distributors might take on some of those whose motivation is ministry not money and, where they are able to afford it, embrace the Small Gifts Ministries’ motto of “To The Profit And Glory of The Lord Alone”. But mainly I am hoping my readers after downloading my eBooks might email them to or otherwise share copies with friends and colleagues and others they think might be interested in them. Perhaps even put copies on their own websites for downloading by others. (Perhaps I might have just invented and named the concept of “onloading”. Sounds kinda cool - feel free to use it if you want.).

Initially I have made the ebook files available and downloadable from my Google+ website here:- https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B_3ClonPVorvY0Q2X1hBc1dGTUk?usp=sharing . 

Sorry I couldn’t make it shorter but I seem to be stuck with the URL Google assigned to it. But along with the different format folders for the eBook files I have included a folder with image files of the front covers (something else Calibre does) that you can use as the link if you know how. As I create new eBooks I will add the various format versions to each of the format folders you will see there and let everybody know they have been added. I will also add the front cover image to the front covers folder. After downloading the relevant files there should be several ways for you to upload them or send them to your particular eReader device or app including via email or syncing.

In addition to converting my books I will also be taking the opportunity to upgrade them with new covers, added content, new images, etc. so expect them to look a little different and perhaps a little thicker than they were before. They will also have an upgraded special copyright / permission notice hopefully with better and clearer wording. It may sound a bit “legal” but sadly in order to give you special permission to use and distribute my works as a Small Gifts Ministry I also have to protect the copyright ownership and control that allows me to do it and stops anybody else from preventing it.

I hope you will find them enjoyable and easy to read on your various eReader devices and software apps. But do let me know if you experience problems with them as I can only test them on the particular eReader apps I have here. I do not know how they will go on other devices and software versions I do not have.

Back soon.

#smallgiftsministries #ttpagoTLa