I'd rather be in bed with a cannibal than a drunken Christian

Quote by Herman Melville?

See, we have to be on guard all the time because of our enemy. The sixties propogated that stupid, erroneous philosphy that freedom is blowing your brains out - just "letting it all hang out" - man, we got trampled with that!

It's like, I want to be a bird and fly, and so I get me some wings, and I fly, and soaring up there, I want to go beyond the birds - I want to go into outerspace, so I do, and suddenly, I can't breath, and I die. That's what happened in the sixties.

Freedom requires restraint, planning, and warfare - we have to be sure that all we do is in the power of the Holy Spirit and not our own because we would crash and burn on our own - and we have to preface everything with knowing we have our armor on -

this life is not our oyster. here we fight and then we get to go be in glory, but on earth we are at war - and war is not a party

but many who have met Christ, who identify with Him in some way, have not struck a balance or been able to go free without soon getting lost or in bondage and many have not been able to grasp a simple truth, that of learning to receive God's grace fully (always we are growing into it, knowledge of the grace of Christ) or to rely on grace driven righteousness or power.

The only true righteousness is forged in utter failure to be righteous coupled with the grace and POWER of God in place of our weakness. If a Christian is trying, striving to do right, under bondage to guilt, if he gets a moment of losing that "control" that he has set up himself - look out! He's more dangerous than a cannibal! A funny TV preacher warned about meeting a Christian who finally decides to let out all the anger he has bottled up his whole life.

I think you get the idea...

Romans 7 and 8 - Paul the apostle is saying that he realizes he has no control over his sinfulness, even if he hates it. He does what he hates. Then he asks - "what can I do about this body of death." Revelation! It "has already been done for me in Christ Jesus. It is by knowing on the inside that he has put his new mind his new heart into you, that you begin to see that you already have the divine power working in you...you just need to access it, see it at work, trust in it.

I finally came to this amazing point where I saw a sin that I had never been able to conquer (sexual) and had this scary realization - I can do absolutely nothing to change it. Nothing. Did I think that I was fixing it? It was an illusion. I always returned to utter failure. We all have been danglng over hell, helplessly falling into it. Jesus came and swooped us up as we were falling.

We hate that, especially Americans. Americans still believe "I can fix it, I can change it, I have the power." That's why revival has such a hard time getting started. We don't inherit here very often, we EARN it. And we are proud of it. How hard for us to receive. How hard for us to admit when we are helpless.

Even prosperity. I heard one local lady preacher say that we cannot do a thing to create our prosperity. It's true. All that I am and have - He gave me, even the ability to think of ways to make money and the power (and health) to do so. She said we "stumble" onto our prosperity like we stumble on a mate.

I'm afraid very soon Americans are going to be feeling their helplessness, more than ever.