Pruning

This picture is from our front yard in Myrtle Beach. It is a Crepe Myrtle. At the moment, it looks wonderful. That is, compared to what it looked like just 2 months ago!

When we retired into our home, this tree had been growing in our front yard for 10 years. In that time, apparently no one knew what to do with a Myrtle Tree. Therefore, it was covered in some kind of tree rot, did not look good at all and appeared to be dying. 

So we did some reading and called a local guy to come out and murder our tree. Yes, you read that right- it's called Crepe Murder!

I figured he would clean the junk off the bark and cut it back a bit. After a minute of bark cleaning, he started his chain saw and cut it down to almost nothing! I was horrified! Imagine this image with no leaves at all- just 3 sticks about 4 feet high and you've got the picture. We had 3 sticks in our front yard as our central tree! Aauugghh!

After a winter of "stick in our yard," all of a sudden it started to grow branches. I'm told this is normal for such a tree. Every few years we will do the same thing and it will grow again into a much larger, healthier tree.

Pruning. It's a common gardening practice. However, it's not so common in The Salvation Army. I think it should be.

We are currently in a tough place. COVID and (frankly) dealing poorly with our officers has left us in a state much like my old tree. Rotting and appearing to be near death in some places. We are stretching ourselves way too thin with way too few resources. Some of our locations are dead already and leadership refuses to see it.

I'm not going to go into a lot of explanation here, because I think you are smart enough to figure it out. We should get about pruning those dead locations and put the resources into ones that are still living and have actual potential for growth.

Yes, it would look bad for a time, but when the "Spring" comes, all of a sudden we would begin to see new growth that is much healthier. And that growth will supersede what we have now. But I don't think it's going to happen if we continue on our present course.

Corps Murder. There- I said it.

Elohim, Our Authority and Nephilim

I may be jumping into this subject mid-stream. I have learned a lot since I regularly blogged, so there are quite a few things I may have to explain from the middle. Hopefully I won't confuse you!

There may be a past blog where I talked about Psalm 8, in which the word Elohim is used. I used to reference this verse as evidence of our being placed above the angels, in God's creation/authority order. I have since learned I was a bit off. Not in our authority, but where we actually sit in the creation/authority order. I won't rehash my old thoughts here unless I need to reference them to explain something.

In Hebrew, the word "Elohim" can be singular or plural. In it's singular form, it refers to Yahweh/God- the One and Only; there is none like him. In it's plural form, it refers to the "gods" (beings) that Yahweh created. As far as I can tell at the moment, all heavenly beings God created are Elohim (plural). In other words, there are no "beings" that are angels. 

In Psalm 8, we have BOTH the singular Elohim and the plural form of the word.

The word "angel" means "messenger." An "angel" is not a being, as such, it is a "job description." So any Elohim given a specific task is considered an angel. I guess when they complete that task and go back to "normal operation," they are no longer considered an angel (sorry for all the quotes!).

Moving on to the creation order, we have God, gods, human-kind, then Nephilim. So we are below the gods, but above the Nephilim. Yes, there are gods who have fallen and they may have done so while they were angels (are you following?), but my point is that I no longer believe demons are fallen angels, rather fallen Elohim/gods. The more I think about this, the more it makes absolute sense to me regarding our authority to cast out demons.

I used to say we were created ABOVE the angels, so when they fell, we naturally still had authority over them; to cast them out. But that thought process fell apart when I realized we were BELOW the gods/angels.

I now believe demons are the disembodied spirits of Nephilim, whom God did not create, so they have nowhere to go, after they die. They go around looking for another physical body to inhabit, so they can do something/anything in the physical realm (remember Jesus and the herd of pigs?). This understanding is nothing new, as it has been around for a long time. Why do we often lose the understanding of things we used to know?

Nephilim came about by Elohim's (the gods) physical union with human women- they were god/human hybrids. Like Hercules, as it were. See where a lot of mythology has come from? I find it fascinating that so much mythology has its basis in reality. Hmmm, I wonder if there actually WAS a Nephilim named Hercules . . . mind blown!

Well if I haven't confused you by now, I'll finish with my purpose of this post- we do have authority to cast out demons. No surprise, since many of us have seen/done this over the years (and Jesus told us to do so), but for me this explanation is the reason we can do it.