I remember, when I was a little kid, I would do something wrong and then I would get caught by my Mom and Dad. Of course, I would try and get out of the problem, and I would tell them a Lie. Sadly for me, I was never good at Lies, and they would always know that I was lying. That just made things worse for me.

I have noted before that I got a spanking very often for things that I did wrong. On one side, I was very curious about everything…which in the end got me in trouble. On occasion, I would get in trouble and not get the spanking of the century; my Dad would be surprised at what I had done. My Mom, on the other hand, was a very stern Woman, straight as an arrow…if you will. My Dad was always telling me to “Think Son!”

Let me explain.

On one occasion, I was about 12 and I decided I wanted to make a better plane than the cheap Balsa Wood planes of the day. So I set out to make a Balsa Wood Plane using a small metal car as the main body. This then became a very complicated job, to say the least. The Balsa Wood planes only cost about 10 cents back then; and I went through a number of them until I got the plane just right.

It started off with gluing the wings to the car and then testing how far it would fly – not very far at all. I then glued the back wings to the car, and it flew better; but I wanted it to fly long and far. Finally, I got the right set-up, and it would fly a good 50 feet; but I wanted it to fly farther. I tried the “Old Rubber-Band to the Propeller” thing, and I was disappointed. Of course, the weight of the car was a factor that I had to work out, and I decided a jet engine was the only way to go. The question was, how do I build a Jet Engine?

I decided to try using my Fireworks (Bottle Rockets), yet they were too Powerful and unpredictable. Besides that, they were meant to explode in the end. I went through a number of Balsa Wood Planes and metal cars before I discovered that the carnage was horrendous, to say the least! I needed something that would burn slower, yet still propel the plane. The Encyclopedias came to the rescue! I had noticed how much slower matches would burn, as I lit all my Punk…Eureka!

Then I decided I would need some sort of Fuselage for the matches to burn in. It had to be light enough and still strong enough to withstand the heat…AH! Back in those days, my Dad’s Ink pens were metal…once again Eureka!

I spent a number of days carefully cutting and grinding the heads off “Strike Anywhere Matches!” As fuel, the match heads burnt slower; and in the pen casing we had forward propulsion. Fantastic! This had to work! I would make the casing and then glue it to the top of the car in different positions, until the plane would simply Float through the air. Of course, my Dad kept wondering where all his Pens were disappearing to. Mum was the word of the day!

Finally, the day came! All was ready 6 planes, 5 metal cars and 4 boxes of matches later, and that didn’t include my depleted Allowance. Air Force…eat your heart out! Oh, before I forget, I had used all my Popsicle Sticks to make a ramp of sorts from which to launch my Plane. I had two matches left, the fuselage was full, and the Plane had been tested numerous times; and this afternoon after school, I would be in my Little fort and ready to launch. I almost wasn’t able to keep my Patience till the 3 o’clock school bell rang! Out the door I flew, and I rode like a crazy kid to get home!

I got home and put my books up, changed into my Play clothes, said Hi to Mom and ran for my Fort! I took my time now because I wanted to savor the results of all my work. I carefully put the ramp up to my Forts little window, I carefully placed the plane on the bottom of the Ramp, and I grabbed my Last two matches. It was now or never! Time to fly like the big Jets did.

I struck the first match, but it fizzled out, so I had one match left; this had to work! I struck the last match and it lit. I carefully applied the Lit match to the long fuse I had made. I threw my Army Helmet on and backed up in my Fort with my fingers in my ears. It took like forever to burn to the fuselage, but finally it made it!

At first there was a rather long flame out the back, and then there was this “Whoosh” Sound; and the plane began its run up the ramp… It was going to work! Too COOL! It flew out the window and went about 2-3 feet…and exploded! It was really loud too! I looked out the window, and there was this little mushroom cloud building; and then I heard my Mom… “Yee gods and little fishes!…What was that?!”

Needless to say, the explosion was loud enough that all the Moms in the surrounding homes came out back to investigate. My Mom was standing there, hands on her hips and looking most angry. “You march yourself into your room and stay there until your Father gets home!”

Personally, I think she was more frightened than anything else, but I knew a spanking for me was to be had. And yet, for a moment in time, the plane had flown wonderfully and fast too! Until it exploded… which sort of freaked me out some. But it had flown, and wonderfully too. I was ready for my Punishment!

Dad came into my room, and I was sitting there looking pitifully sad. “Son…your Mother wants me to spank you till you can’t sit down for a day; can you act like I had spanked you?” I was truly surprised, but glad too; his web-belt really hurt my Butt. “Yes Sir!” I gladly replied. Then he wanted me to tell him what all I had done to get this thing to work…until it exploded!

“Son, you need to be more careful, because that could have hurt you! But…I am proud that you thought all of this up and completed it. Did it fly?” he asked, giving me a hug. “Oh Yes Sir…for maybe a few seconds,” I said. “Next time, ask me about those ventures before you do them. That way I can let you know whether they are a good idea or not,” he said.

And I didn’t have to lie about it!

My Dad had told me, “Son, one day is going to come when someone is going to call your name, but they’ll say ‘Don the Liar,’ instead of just Don.” My Mom was the one to tell me that my Lying was a Sin. She also told me that I needed to ask the Lord for HIS Forgiveness, even though I would get a spanking. I never forgot that, and I don’t lie anymore because of that.

It was a good lesson because we don’t lose our “Relationship” with the Lord when we Sin; we lose our “Fellowship” with HIM. As every Born-Again Christian should know, we will forever Be the Lord’s Children! It is our Responsibility to maintain our “Fellowship” with HIM; otherwise, we miss out on some of HIS Blessings for us.

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.“

James 4:17 “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.“

Again…My Friends…our Sin will always be between the Lord God and you and I. It is our Responsibility to keep that Fellowship going, and it does not matter how often we Pray for HIS Forgiveness! Most do not know that we should be Praying continuously throughout our days. We need HIS guidance in everything and in every way, on every day… HE knows our future!

It makes me wonder, how can anyone think for one moment of keeping anything from the Lord? The Lord knew everything about us before HE ever created the Universe! HE also knows that we need HIM desperately every day, and HE told us so!

Jeremiah 17:9-10 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.“

If we want the Blessings that HE is so willing to give us, then we need to be “Right With HIM” First! And that means we must have Fellowship with HIM…always. I do indeed know that it is a struggle to live this life in the manner HE wants us to, and many times we forget to Pray. That is the Moment We need to come before HIM and confess our Sin – when we take the time to repair that Fellowship.

When we hurt a member of our Family, we are not kicked out and forgotten; we must simply go to that person and ask them to forgive us. It is the same with the Lord. We do NOT lose our place in HIS Family; we lose the close Fellowship with HIM…we lose the Blessings HE wants for us. As my Mom and Dad used to say… “It’s give and take.” We must do our Part…because HE Loves us!

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.“

All Scripture comes from the King James Version of the Bible.

 

I have asked people before if they know what their “Spirit” is. Many gave me so many different versions that now I know most of them have absolutely no idea. Is this a bad thing? Not really; yet, it gets bad later on simply because they begin to question whether the “Spirit” truly exists for them. As a result, they begin to question whether God actually exists; because, as we all know, God IS Spirit! Problem is, they have no idea of what their own Spirit is. Such is the problem with all of us having a Physical Body.

When we hurt ourselves, we know we must attend to it; and so we spend a great deal of time on our body. With that same token in mind, we have this tendency to believe that our thoughts come from our Brain. That is hogwash to say the least, because our Brain does nothing more than to maintain our body for as long as we are alive. I have been in surgery where the Brain was exposed, and yet there was never the existence of a single thought, at that point. Of course it was explained that a thought was not able to be generated because that person was under Anesthesia. Again, that’s Hogwash!

As children, we often saw and heard a friend point to their head and say “Kidneys man…Kidneys!” An effort for them to say they are smart. First of all, your Kidneys are NOT in your head, as most of us already know. Second of all, your body works off of Chemical change and is typically directed by your Brain; that is all it does. Have you ever been to the Doctor for a problem, and He orders an Antibiotic? Why a Pill? Again, your Body works off of chemical change. Now ask, how many people ever think about this? Few if any.

We are by and large Physical beings while here on earth, and yet we still have a Spirit within us. The real problem is because we spend the entirety of our lives seeing with physical eyes, with physical ears and with muscle movement as we move about. This becomes the basis of our lives here on earth – the Physical.

For the most part and for most of us, we spend a great deal of time dealing with our Body, protecting the body and its various parts. We no longer search for a Spirit; so now we are at the point, for many of us, that the Spirit no longer matters, because we are too busy with the Physical Body. So why do we never stop and “Think” or wonder about our Emotions or our Feelings? Where do these things come from? And then, when we are sad, we produce Tears – one being Spiritual and then the resulting Physical Tears.

If it is not from the Brain, where do “Thoughts, Emotions and feelings” come from? They come from your Spirit! First to know is this: your Spirit is in your body; it is WHO you really are, and it was created by God. No Spirit in your Body, No life in your body! It is as simple as that!

Romans 8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.“

There it is in Black and White. We have a body (Flesh) and a Spirit! One of them we are able to see – the Body. The other is our Spirit which we are not able to “See,” but is more us than the body! Again, it is who we truly are. Here’s some more:

Genesis 2:7 “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (Spirit).“

Ecclesiastes 12:7 “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”

Two Passages of Scripture that tell it like it truly is for us. A Physical Body and then there is our Spirit – both different, yet together as one! Does this make any sense to you? For instance, as I have grown older, inside I still feel young. Now this can be a problem to a degree. We must be very careful. One FEELS young inside, but is OLD outside. Tossing the body in a dryer will not take the wrinkles out, or remove the fat…right? The Physical body has limitations that the Spirit does not have. WOW….what a concept, right?

Matthew 26:41 “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.“

Again, this is an example of the two existing in one body. The Truth be told for all to see and know! On a more ominous note: when a person dies, IS there any more Personality, Character, etc.? Of course not…because the Spirit is no longer in the body; it has returned to God who created it to begin with! Does this finally make any sense to you when in the Bible it says “The Intent of the Heart?” It is speaking of the “Spirit!” Remember, your body can NOT Think or actually have feelings! It is this concept that we see when the Bible says;

Ephesians 5:31 “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.“

Their Spirits are United as one in Marriage, according to the Holy Word of God. This is just another example of the fact that each of us has a Spirit…inside our bodies which then returns to God when the body dies or is no longer needed. We bury the body, and the Spirit of that person returns to God.

Suddenly, we understand that Sin is of the Spirit; yet there is a consequence for it…in our bodies. Think in terms of Famine, Pestilence, Pain, etc. As you can surmise, Sin is generated by us in our Spirit…and the action is carried out in the Physical. That is the same thing as “The Intent of our Heart” as seen in the physical world. Our actions are the result of what we think with our Spirit! So what does this say about our Character, our Personality? Right?

Jeremiah 17:9-10 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.“

As we are able to see, according to what has been said here and in the Bible, Our Sin is what dooms you and me! It is the Blood of Jesus Christ, from HIS Cross, that covers our Sin and is the only way for you and me to be forgiven and to see Heaven. It is our Spirit that goes to Heaven; our Body stays right here. Your Sin must be covered by the Blood of Jesus Christ; you must ask for HIS Forgiveness of your Sin. NO Blood of the Lamb of God…NO Heaven! Plain and simple, yet it IS the TRUTH.

Now that we understand that each of us has a Spirit, it changes the perspective we have of the Sin of Adam and Eve. They ate the “Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.” In other words, we know the difference between whatever is Good and whatever is Evil; we have the ability to choose one or the other. And that, again, is from God’s own lips to our ears. Or as we read in Revelation…

Revelation 2:29 “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.“

The Lord God Almighty speaks to the HEART, or the SPIRIT in each of us, that it is our Spirit choosing Sin; therefore, it is our Spirit that must ask for Forgiveness and be cleansed by the Blood of Jesus Christ!

Please know this: Every person that is born will one day die…the Body ceases to function. The Spirit however is required of God and will go to be before God…Then will come the Day of Judgment! Each and every Spirit will be Judged according to whether that person accepted the Gift of Eternal Life or not, through Jesus Christ.

In other words, was that person’s Sin covered by the Blood of Jesus Christ from HIS Cross on Calvary? My Friends, it is our Sin that stands between The Lord God and us…there must be a decision made… either for Jesus Christ…or just ourselves. With Jesus Christ, there is Eternal Heaven. With only ourselves, there is Eternal Destruction. It is one way or the other!

I simply can’t state it enough; our Sin is the reason Jesus Christ Died on that Roman Cross, to shed HIS Blood to cover our Sin. That will make us presentable before such a Just and Righteous God! The disposition of our Sin…is the crux…of this life we live. Jesus Christ Saves! We must choose! And we must choose for just ourself; no one can help you with that…it is up to you! No one is able to Pray you into Heaven!

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.“

All Scripture comes from the King James Version of the Bible