The Discerning Times

Read the latest issue of The Discerning Times, available here.


But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation always say, "Let God be exalted!" (Psalm 70:4)

A Mother's Love

A Mother's love is something
that no on can explain,
It is made of deep devotion
and of sacrifice and pain,
It is endless and unselfish
and enduring come what may
For nothing can destroy it
or take that love away . . .
It is patient and forgiving
when all others are forsaking,
And it never fails or falters
even though the heart is breaking . . .
It believes beyond believing
when the world around condemns,
And it glows with all the beauty
of the rarest, brightest gems . . .
It is far beyond defining,
it defies all explanation,
And it still remains a secret
like the mysteries of creation . . .
A many splendored miracle
man cannot understand
And another wondrous evidence
of God's tender guiding hand.

                              --by Helen Steiner Rice


How sad it is when mothers do not love. How sad when they use and abuse their children...when they condone inappropriate or even criminal behavior.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. (1 Corinthians 13:6)

 

Condoning Sin and Even Murder to Accomplish Her Wishes

There is something so stubborn, so mean-spirited, so jealous and so determined in a Jezebel. Seemingly nothing will stop her from getting what she wants.

When Naboth refused to sell Ahab his vineyard, Jezebel immediately took things into her own hands (see 1 Kings 21:4-13).

A Jezebel has absolutely no regard for godly authority. Her spirit is in contrast to the will of God.

Her will has become god. Her will must be accomplished, regardless of the consequences. No price is too great; no life is too precious to get her will manifested. Her theology is that the end justifies the means – condoning sin and even murder to accomplish her wishes.
 

 

Taken from Confronting Jezebel: Discerning and Defeating the  Spirit of Control by Steve Sampson.

 

She obeys no one, she accepts no correction... (Zephaniah 3:2a)

Control at Any Cost, No Matter Who is Destroyed!

The bottom line is control...For two years she worked to destroy him.

What was his crime? He didn’t submit to her wishes.

This girl was the last child of parents who were in their mid-forties when she was conceived. She had confided that she was never disciplined and her daddy always gave her absolutely anything she wanted. She was not accustomed to being denied anything.

Jezebels hate the cross. The cross means denying one’s self. No Jezebel wants that. They want power! They want control at any cost, no matter who is destroyed! After all, when being self-centered, no one is as important as they are.

Common characteristics:

• Need to accomplish her will (at anyone’s expense)
• Excessive bragging
• Preoccupation with self
• Possessive love (turns from sweet to sour if she doesn’t get her way)
• Vindictiveness if she doesn’t get her way

 

Taken from Confronting Jezebel: Discerning and Defeating the Spirit of Control by Steve Sampson.

 

For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. (Philippians 3:18-19)

 

More Tears and Hissy Fits

“I want my own way and if I don't get it I throw a hissy fit.” – Athena Dean, 2005

This is one reason why it was a real pleasure to read The Sociopath Next Door. It explained so much of what Athena Dean put us all through.

Of course, as the author wrote, most people do not find out that they’re being used and abused until their livelihoods are gone. As many have noticed, Athena Dean sure can turn the tears on and off to fit her desires. Why she could likely win an Oscar!


“Since the scaffolding of a life without a conscience is deception and illusion, intelligent sociopaths often become proficient at acting, and even at some of the particular techniques employed by professional actors.

Crocodile tears at will are a sociopathic trademark ...Crocodile tears from the remorseless are especially likely when a conscience-bound person gets a little too close to confronting a sociopath with the truth. A sociopath who is about to be cornered by another person will turn suddenly into a piteous weeping figure whom no one, in good conscience, could continue to pressure.”

                         -- The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout, PH.D.

 

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. (Isaiah 5:20)

 

Buckets of Tears

America witnessed an emotional appeal from the president right before the election. Some claim this was just a ploy to gain more votes. In any case, he won. 

Actually, some individuals and families are known to cry buckets of tears – all to manipulate for their own selfish gain.

Buckets of tears around town.

Buckets of tears in front of police.

Buckets of tears on TV.

And so it goes...

Buckets of tears – turned on and off – at just the right time...and the money, the support and the manipulated sympathy roll in all to sell a game of hatred.

Just cry, cry and cry some more – if you want the money to pour in.

Athena Dean is an expert at crying as she plays on the emotions of others for money, for support and to sway opinions. We, who suffered under her manipulations for years, finally ignored it. 

True to her pattern, our friendship was used and abused by Athena Dean too many times to count. After all, she herself admits so.

“It became easy for me to use and abuse my relationships in the church to get where I wanted to go.” – Athena Dean, 1996

But know this: difficult times will come in the last days. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the form of religion but denying its power. Avoid these people! For among them are those who worm their way into households and capture idle women burdened down with sins, led along by a variety of passions, always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. (2 Timothy 3:1-7)

 

Wait with Jesus

Some may feel disappointed, discouraged or even depressed after this year’s election results, however Corrie ten Boom writes:

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now” (Rom. 8:22 RSV).

                        The restless millions wait

                        The coming of the Lord to make all things new.

                        Christ also waits.

                        But men are slow and few.

                        Have we done all we could?

                        Have I? Have you?

Thank you, Lord, that we know from the Bible that the crisis we experience in this time is the suffering you told about when you said that we must look up because our liberation is approaching (see Luke 21).

                                                          

         -- Taken from the November 7^th devotional in Each New Day.

 

Let us look up to Jesus. For only in Him will we experience true change.

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,  (John 3:14)