If the Lord ever asks you to do him a favor, tell him he does not have to ask. Tell him you knew he was going to ask, and you already did it. Tell him he can count on you to always respond to his requests.

Many years of living often results in a growth in wisdom. Wisdom is an ability to see the big picture, to see the forest instead of the single tree that is in front of you. It is a knowledge of the need to call on a higher source of understanding when circumstances reveal the need to do so. Sometimes wisdom comes, not from years of living, but from a heart full of love for God. When the heart is full of love, it becomes a magnet for the wisdom of God. It becomes a heart of wisdom.

Reverse psychology often is used to convince children that they should do something they would prefer not to do. For example, if you want them to clean their room, you would not say, "Clean your room." Instead, you would act and speak as though you don't want them to do so. The hope is that their tendency toward disobedience would draw them into compliance. Sometimes the strategy works, but sometimes it does not.

God does not use reverse psychology. He tells it like it is. If he wants you to do something and you understand his request, he always expects that you will act in complete compliance with the request. If you do, there always are rewards, benefits, and privileges. If you don't, there always are repercussions. The rewards are not always immediate, nor are the repercussions.

Disobeying one simple command to feed the sheep could cause the sheep to devour you and several other sheep, or to wander into dangerous territory in search of sustenance. For this reason, God is very concerned about deliberate acts of disobedience. He knows that someone always experiences negative consequences as a result. When the acts of disobedience relate to commands that are plainly stated, his anger rises.

More importantly, when the acts of disobedience are instigated, not by innate sinfulness, but instead, by the commands of demons acting as "spirit guides", God's anger becomes an unquenchable Fire. The Lord, God Almighty a.k.a. El Shaddai says to anyone and everyone who reads this Blog post, "If you claim to be a child of God, yet you have one or more spirit guides to whom you turn for advice (other than the indwelling Holy Spirit of God), you have twenty-four hours to get rid of them. The twenty-four hours begin as of the moment you read this sentence."

Just in case there is confusion, a person who is in heaven, and is able to communicate with someone who is alive on the earth, does so through the indwelling Holy Spirit. This type of communication does not violate the biblical command in regard to communications with persons who are not alive. The Holy Spirit in them is eternally alive. However, unless you have undeniable proof that someone is alive and awake in heaven, you should never attempt to communicate with them. Spirits that are not in heaven or alive on the earth exist in an ether that is repugnant to life.

Nomadic life is very common in the Old Testament or Torah. The Bible records forty years during which the Israelites traveled through the desert on their way to the Promised Land. When God needs you to arrive at a certain place, his methodology is to keep you in motion, though not necessarily in nomadic motion.

Nomads had several things in common. They were without a permanent resting place; their meals were uncertain; they never knew when they would be able to stop traveling and set up camp; and they always had a new destination planned. I suspect that many of God's people will become nomads and refugees as they flee from war torn countries or states, seeking refuge for themselves and their families. We may not enjoy the nomadic lifestyle, but many valuable lessons can be learned if you are ever forced to live it today.

First, never tell anyone that you have no permanent place to live because they will tell you that if God is on your side, he will provide you a place to live. That is true in heaven where God is in control. It is not true on earth where Satan is still in control. Second, if you are ever unable to afford a meal, take a quarter out of your pocket and give it to someone less fortunate. Third, if you arrive at a place that does not have flowing water, keep moving. Fourth, if you ever arrive at a place that feels like home, you can set up a "permanent" camp. However, know that at any moment, you may be required to move again, because in the "real" world, nothing is ever permanent.

We all are nomads and refugees, whether or not we think of ourselves in this manner. We may not move as frequently as the average nomad or refugee, but whether we move from one home to another, or change employment, we are constantly in motion. We are in motion because we are energy and as with water, energy must remain in constant motion. When the goal is a lofty destination, more energy and more motion is required. But God promises that the rewards will be worth the sacrifice.

Imagine walking down a country road on a brisk Sunday afternoon in December. You encounter a friend going in the opposite direction and you stop to chat for a moment. He asks about your destination and you point ahead of you to a house barely visible around the bend in the road. You then ask about his destination and he points in the direction that you are walking. Puzzled, you ask why he was walking in the opposite direction. His response was more puzzling: "I thought that if I just kept moving I eventually would arrive at my desired destination." You place your right hand on his shoulder and ask with genuine concern, "Are you o.k.?"

When you know the destination, and the direction in which you should be headed, common sense dictates that you find the shortest route. Why spend an eternity traveling in circles when you could be at peace. The notion that we can ignore all of the road signs, take wrong turns, and travel in the opposite direction, yet arrive at our desired destination on time and intact is a sign that we are using Satan's road map and travel guide.

When the forces of heaven win a victory on your behalf, sing hallelujah to the Lord! Few people return to God to thank him for the victories. We assume that he is merely doing his job as provider, and we proceed to pray for the next item on our list of requests. When the forces of heaven win a victory on your behalf, sing hallelujah to the Lord!

Tell me the story again and again, and perhaps at a moment in time, the heavens will part, and the wisdom of El Shaddai will descend upon me, scattering the clouds of disdain, disunity and disbelief. Scattering them for all time, and for all eternity.

Most Olympic competitors would never dream of setting a goal to finish second. They want to finish first and receive the gold medal. They know that in order to finish first they must do everything they know to do, or have been advised to do. If the advice seems reasonable, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by putting it into practice. If they know of things they can do and they fail to do them, they cannot blame others when they finish second, or perhaps third or fourth. Running the spiritual race is not unlike the Olympics or any other race. Your mindset should be that of a champion, focused only on being awarded the gold medal. There should be no room for compromise, and there should be no avenue for escape.

Beginning a war often seems to be much less complicated than reaching a peace agreement. We decide to begin a war and within days there are troops on the ground or air attacks being launched against the opponent. In contrast, ending the war is never easy. It involves bringing all of the powers of diplomacy to bear on the issues. It requires infinite patience, absolute commitment, and endless compromises. Peacemaking is a process. It rarely, if ever, happens overnight--unlike war.

When a country makes a decision to go to war against another country, the first stage of the war plan should be a peacemaking process. They should do whatever they would have done to end the war, and the chances are that they will never begin it.

The countdown to Daniel's prophetic 1,290 days (see Daniel 12:11) began at least two years ago. The seven-year agreement of Daniel 9:27 ended in December 2015, seven years after the United Nations' Doha Declaration. Wake up, people of the Lord.

When an accident happens and you slip on a slippery surface, you might fall down, or you might recover your balance and continue. Falling down is never a choice, it happens when you don't want or expect it to happen. Most people, when they become aware that they are about to fall, try valiantly to avoid falling. If you know that you are walking on a slippery surface, wisdom advises that you walk with caution.

Ancient wisdom is wisdom that has existed from the beginning, and continues to exist unchanged by time and circumstances. It is wisdom that is true, as air is true. According to ancient wisdom, when two worlds become one, they no longer can be separated. They have to remain as one. To separate them would be to seek to destroy them. Similarly, when two people become one, they no longer are two and cannot be separated. Their spirits remain united as one. 

When a spirit inhabits two bodies, the two persons with the same spirit are identical twins. They are united in spirit, though existing as two individuals. When a person makes a decision to surrender to God and accept Jesus' cleansing, they are saying that they want to be cleansed sufficiently so as to become one with God. They want to have  the nature and likeness of God. In response, God fills and imbues (saturates) them with his Holy Spirit. Because of that oneness, they know that God will render them immune to spiritual death, as long as they maintain the unity of the spirit.  

Immunity from death is what every spirit desires. The spirits know that in spiritual death, they remain awake and fully conscious, according to consciousness as we know it. They remain in a perpetual state of conscious infancy, never growing or maturing spiritually, and never becoming capable of changing their dire circumstances. They are dead to God in that they can never again know him, and they are dead to the world.

Love is a state of being in which one's spiritual energy is at its highest. One has a general feeling of contentment with life. There is no experience of anger, or jealousy, or fear because these energies are rendered powerless in the presence of the energy of love. When true love arrives, everything else fades into obscurity.

Everyone aspires to experience true love. Beginning with the early teens, there is a subtle spiritual awakening in which a child becomes aware of its physical independence from the parents and begins to imagine a love other than the parents' love. Then begins the quest for love as a reward for good deeds, compliance with requests, or other actions. It is a conditional form of love that is far removed from God's concept of love.

God's love is true and unconditional. It does not depend on who you are or on what you have done. God loves irrespective of race, creed, religion, socioeconomic status, height, weight, or level of intelligence. To love unconditionally is to love without seeing or knowing of anything in all of creation that might cause the love to be diminished.

When evil circumstances happen to us or to our world, it is not because God has withheld his love, but rather, because a deliberate or accidental violation of spiritual law has occurred. If the violation was deliberate, and done by someone who was capable of understanding good and evil, it is recorded on our soul, and God views it as a deliberate sin.

God's response to deliberate sin is not anger or vengeance, but rather, displeasure. To love God is to obey him because obedience is his "love language." God wants us to understand and obey the spiritual laws of the universe at least as much as a new parent wants their infant son or daughter to understand and obey the laws of gravity.

When we begin to understand the depth and height of God's love for us, we also will know and understand how foolish it is to not accept his guidance in regard to the universe's spiritual laws. Virtually every religion in the world has a knowledge of these laws. Satan also has full knowledge of them, but his task is to cause us to disobey them. He wants the earth to exist in a state of formless emptiness, having succumbed to the laws of entropy and disintegration.

In sharp contrast, God wants you to have an eternal kingdom, filled with everything your heart desires. In God's kingdom, there always is transformation, but never entropy. Entropy and death are the end result of living in opposition to the universal laws. Every physical thing that is touched by entropy and death returns to dust. Living in full conformity with the universal laws results in fullness of life.

We have no power or capacity to live in full conformity with the universal laws except through the power of God's Holy Spirit. He is our enabler. He is the transformative engine that powers our humanity. Without him, everything we build will be finite and subject to the laws of entropy.

The chaos we currently are experiencing in our world--war refugees, terrorism, global impoverishment, failing economic, educational, and political systems--are entropy's death cries. Our only solution is to seek equilibrium with the universal laws, with true love, and with God.

According to the Zeroth law of thermodynamics, if two systems are in equilibrium with a third, they also are in equilibrium with each other. God is in equilibrium with the universal laws. If we also seek equilibrium with the universal laws, it would be impossible for us not to be in equilibrium with God.

If we seek equilibrium with God through his Holy Spirit, it would be impossible for us not to be in equilibrium with the universal laws, as well as with every other person who sought and achieved such equilibrium. Wars waged by one country against another, or by one person against another would end, and we would begin to understand that the only war we should be fighting is the war against entropy and death!

The author consults on a wide range of global and public policy issues that affect governments, businesses and institutions. See www.RebekahIsaac.com for additional information.

Many of us aspire to as high a standard as possible. We want the best of everything--schools, food products, clothing, as well as homes in the best possible neighborhoods. Few, if any, would deliberately choose anything that we consider sub-standard. We desire the best. The best may not be of the same quality as another person's best. Nonetheless, as long as we consider it "best" we are relatively contented.

God also wants for us what is best. He wants us to aspire to our personal best in every area of life, and he wants to provide the best. It would be difficult to imagine the God of the universe convincing someone that they should live in a home with a leaking roof, or that their son should attend a school that would fail to provide him with the tools necessary to compete in the world. God's best always is what is best for that person in the context of the world as he created it to be.

When the concept of best has been trampled by attitudes of national or cultural superiority, racism, religious pride and arrogance, or sexism, the best to which some aspire is significantly lower than God's best for them. Even in instances where there is little or no physical deprivation, God's spiritual best--joy and peace--are generally viewed as beyond reach. God wants to raise the standard physically and spiritually. He wants us to aspire to a "best" that is pure and unadulterated.

In regard to our physical best, God desires and expects that each person will be fully supplied in accordance with their need. He also wants us to desire and expect that everyone in our world will be fully supplied in accordance with their need. Poverty and deprivation are the devil's methodology for attempting to thwart God's purposes for us.

We need only look at nature to see that God always provides whatever is necessary to fulfill the need and the purpose. An oak tree or an olive tree has the trunk and root system commensurate with the height to which it must grow. Similarly, a banana tree has the trunk and root system commensurate with its height. However, all three began as saplings and were generously provided with rain and sunshine to enable them to reach their potential. 

When God "plants" a soul on the earth, one cannot predict the height to which it will soar or the contribution it potentially can make to our world. Just as God provides every seed and sapling with the same generous supply of rain and sunshine, so every child in our world should be provided for in a manner such as to enable achievement of their fullest potential.

Hope is a word that brings healing where there is pain. It energizes the spirit and it also energizes the mind. When there is hope, there is energy. Hope cannot be killed. It can merely be replaced with fear. If allowed to take root, fear grows into despair. 

When we operate in hope, our thoughts and actions are easily distinguishable from when we operate in fear. In hope, we treat others as we would want to be treated. We are respectful of the rights and freedom of others. We engender to reach common ground by peaceful means. But when operating in fear, we think only of what we wish to accomplish. We are concerned only about whether our needs are met. We wage war at every opportunity. 

When faced with dire circumstances, hope requires that we do something other than what we normally would do. It requires us to reach beyond the status quo. If a customary method of operation is yielding few, if any, solutions to a problem, hope requires that we change course. We cannot claim to have hope yet remain stuck, because hope requires constant forward motion, testing new theories and methodologies, and quickly casting aside those that have yielded no results. Hope should be an acronym for:  Having Overcome Pure Ego.

The devil has Angels and God has Angels. God's Angels are in heaven but the devil's Angels are on the earth. They are on the earth because the devil has the occupancy lease for the earth. God can visit, and he can send his Angels for periodic visits, especially when invited to do so. However, his lease ended many millennia ago when man decided that he wanted to experience both good and evil. When such a decision is made, the lease term is for a maximum of six thousand years. Six thousand years is one cycle in the universal calendar, just as one year is a cycle in the Gregorian calendar. I suspect this may be because it takes the moon six thousand years to rotate around the earth. Thus far, in all the years of us monitoring the lunar cycles, we have seen only one side of the moon which suggests a very slow lunar rotation that is perhaps close to completion. 

When the six thousand years are complete, the leasehold terminates and the rightful owners have two possible options. They can renew the lease of the current occupant for another six thousand years, or they can transfer the lease to a different occupant. The only potential occupant who is seeking the leasehold for the earth is the Lord God of heaven and earth. We can choose him, or we can renew Satan's lease for another six thousand years. 

When Satan knows that his leasehold is about to end, his customary tactic is fear. He induces fear into the rightful owners in order to cajole and deceive them into renewing his lease. We have the power to decide whether or not we will become victims of fear and subject the earth to another six thousand years of evil's reign.

There are three elements to struggle, each of which is designed to draw you closer to your true self. The first element presumes that you desire to have an intimate knowledge of who you are and what you were meant to accomplish on this earth. The second element enables you to create a paradigm within which to discover who you are and what you were meant to accomplish. The third element sheds the parts of you that would prevent the knowing of who you are and the accomplishment of your purpose for being on the earth. 

Purposeful living always entails struggle. When you live deliberately with an internal focus on accomplishing your purpose, you have to be prepared for struggle. The only life that does not entail struggle is one that flows in the direction of the wind and the waves, going wherever they lead. If your life follows every thought and every emotion, and brings it to fruition without even a glance inward at who you are and your purpose for being on the earth, it is a life that is free of struggle; and it is likely being lived without purpose. 

Genuine struggle is not primarily about physical and material need, although it may at times involve a degree of deprivation and need. It is more profoundly aligned with who you are in relationship to God and to the universe in which you live. It is about finding your purpose. Just as every can of soup comes in a can, so every God-ordained soul arrives on this earth with a purpose. A soul without a purpose is an oxymoron because the name itself implies purpose. 

The soul's purpose generally is intertwined with the earth's purpose to cleanse and redeem the universe. The earth was created for the purpose of devising a methodology by which evil forces might be subdued. Evil forces have a negative and destructive effect. Some might argue that evil does not exist except in ways of thinking that are colored by our culture and our circumstances. However, God knows that evil is real. It is the dynamic force that pulls the earth, and indeed the entire universe, toward chaos and confusion. When the earth has been cleansed and redeemed, the universe will then have a paradigm for cleansing and redemption.

Embracing the spiritual struggle entailed in the discovery of the soul's purpose is an absolute necessity for every member of society. A society's greatest accomplishments derive from those who bravely seek and live their true purpose. 

My blog post on "elevator" speeches generated controversy. Some wondered why I was opposed to elevator speeches. Others questioned the breadth of my consulting practice. Still others wanted to see and meet persons who experienced healing as a result of the Health and Wellness consults. In regard to the latter, assign yourself as the person who will provide the proof to your corporation, your college, your religious or cultural institution, your government, your friends, or your family. From anywhere in the world, you can request a personal, complimentary (without cost or obligation) Health and Wellness consult by going to my website, www.RebekahIsaac.com. You can become the proof you need. 

When your head aches, you know that something is wrong because heads that are healthy do not cause pain. Pain always is a signal that something is wrong. When any area of society generates pain, that also is a signal that something is wrong and needs to be remedied. Today there are several segments of society that are in turmoil. Schools are in turmoil. The stock market is in turmoil. The economy is in turmoil. Corporations are in turmoil. Governments are in turmoil. Religious institutions are in turmoil. And families are in turmoil. There is pain everywhere. 

When pain exists in the head or anywhere else in the body, generally, one type of painkiller will solve the problem for any source of pain. Similarly, pain anywhere in society often will respond to a general prescription to become aligned spiritually with the absence of pain. In order to do so effectively and sustainably, we first must diagnose the specific cause of the pain, then effect the realignment. Otherwise, like the headache that sometimes signifies a deeper problem, we may need emergency intervention. 

Many of us have believed at one point or another that God sees everything that happens on the earth. Thus, when evil happens, we assume that he saw and allowed the evil. The truth is that God sees and hears no evil other than the evil that happens to those in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, if they call God's attention to the evil through prayer. His all knowingness stems not from his eternal gaze, but rather, from the recordings in our soul. Our souls tell him who we are and what we have done. If God saw, heard, and allowed all the evil that has happened on the earth, he would have become a co-conspirator with Satan. 

In fact, God is just as concerned about the evil brought to his attention as would any compassionate human. He wants the evil to end at least as much as the person experiencing the evil. But just as Satan acts and accomplishes his purposes through humans, God also acts and accomplishes his purposes through humans. When Satan's "army" is obedient to Satan's commands and instructions, and God's "army" is motionless and/or rebellious to God's commands and instructions, evil can take control of the earth.

God does not insist on governing and policing the entire earth because he gave us each free will for a good reason--so that we can be truly free. Those who so choose can be free of his guidance, free of his control, free of his supervision, free of his light, and free of his gaze. When the light is not on, God does not see. He allows us the choice to do and experience both good and evil. 

Spiritually, the light is "on" when we choose to have God's indwelling Holy Spirit inhabit our solar plexus (the area immediately above the stomach). When the light is on, God can see us from his dwelling place and can keep watch. Like the monitor in an infant's bedroom, the light in the solar plexus marks us as people belonging to God, connects us to him, and empowers him to guide and protect us. The absence of light (a dark solar plexus), signifies to him that we have made a different choice that sets us apart from him. 

When good eventually overpowers evil and heaven and earth become one, God will be God of all. Perhaps then God might be worthy of blame for any lingering evil that happens on the earth. But if heaven and earth are one, and God is God of all, he will have the capacity to anoint his people with an immunity to evil. Until then, when God's people see evil in the earth, they are compelled to act in defiance of that evil. Because God who sees no evil and hears no evil, relies on us whom he has empowered by his indwelling Holy Spirit, to see, hear and obliterate evil at its foundation. 

Choose today to obliterate evil at its core. Don't wait until someone six months from now sees the evil and acts in response. It is much more practical to remove and destroy an acorn to prevent it from growing, than it is to try to root out an oak tree!

Most business and professional advisors tell their clients that one of their most important tools is the "elevator" speech. It is a couple of sentences, or at most a short paragraph that describes who you are and what you do. It enables others to make a quick assessment, perhaps to determine whether they should do business with you. It also enables the speaker to judge the other party's response to the speech to determine whether it should be amended. 

I never liked having to create an elevator speech. I prefer to have someone put me to the test, even at my expense, and see what I can produce. Elevator speeches tell you what you want to hear, whether or not it is true. They are finely honed and designed to convince you to do what the speaker wants you to do. On the contrary, testing reveals much more about a person. It reveals their work habits, character, integrity, flexibility, judgment, analytical and problem solving skills, and much more. When you have tested someone, you are much more likely to make a solid and profitable business or personal decision than if you relied on an elevator speech. 

Now that my practice involves at least ten different areas that span the spectrum from corporate consulting on litigation, mergers and acquisitions and other issues, to government consulting, to international consulting on eHealth and microchip implants, to individual health and wellness consults, crafting an elevator speech seems to be an impossibility. In this day of specialization and creating a narrow focus of interest, the term "general practitioner" has become a misnomer. But in the area of millennial eschatology, that is precisely what I am. Perhaps in a decade or two there will be sufficient numbers of people in this field to justify carving out unique areas of specialty. For now, I am a general practitioner with an openness to being tested.