ONEEIGHTYDEGREES.ORG

Someone once said that when the student is ready, the Teacher will appear. I believe that is true in just about every aspect of life, whether it is applied to relationships, money, or the pursuit of freedoms. What drives each individual into that moment of revelation can be just as varied and can happen only when he/she has made the decision to become teachable.

The purpose with this website is not to convince you to do anything, or motivate you to see my perspective of any particular subject, but it is to get you to consider, to ponder, to meditate upon a matter so that when you have considered all aspects, the decision is, in fact, your decision.

We are living in one of the most exciting, yet possibly, pivotal times that could be experienced. With the technology available, communications between individuals and organizations is almost unbelievable. I can remember sneaking up on our neighbors front porch on a summer evening to see their new television through their wooden screen door and being amazed. I can hear the jokes now about how old I am, but in the next 10 years we will most likely witness the introduction of products and services that will make today's lifestyle speed seem to move at a snail's pace.

Because life moves so swiftly and the decisions we make today have such consequences upon tomorrow, it is imperative that we look at all aspects of the choices put before us prior to putting them into motion. Once the choice is made it can indeed take on a life of its own. This is where learning to think long-term becomes an absolute. It is very much like being a gun owner or acquiring insurance. You do not wait until a dire circumstance is set before you such that someone else's life is in jeopardy and then go scrambling around trying to locate that instrument that can set things right. A warrior does not wait until the day of the battle to begin learning the skills to survive. If they are that inept, they are dead.

It is my desire that you find this website thought provoking, interesting enough to tell others about it, and at the minimum, a source of information worthy of revisiting. I cannot promise that we will never get your knickers in a twist, but you will never be able to state that it is boring. And if in the process of all this, we have caused you to have what we call an "ah-hah!" moment, then it will be time well spent. Hence, the name of this website. We were trying to find a venue that would allow us to express, in real, everyday events, the shift that occurs whenever this "ah-hah" moment takes place. I asked GOD to give me a name and a paint a picture in my mind as to what HE wanted me to do. A servant without a task is pretty much useless to the KING. I consider myself nothing more than a mouthpiece or storyteller of what GOD gives me to say. To say that a one-eighty degree in your life takes place whenever GOD makes HIS SON known to you, pretty much sums it up. When I can, I will install the diagram that HE gave me to use as a picture of what happens to ALL those who come into HIS new life in us. It is very cool. Can we still say cool and be OK? Righteous would be more accurate.  

As we continue on our great adventure, which I am hoping will include some of you out there in the vast internet universe, we will share some of the things that we have found to be true. Funny thing about those things which are found to be true. Has it ever passed through your mind that they are ALWAYS true, to be found as true. Sounds like the words of a simpleton, but in those very words are great depth. Not because of the writer's wisdom, but because truth carries within itself it's own depth. You see, the very nature of truth causes it to carry within itself life. And life begets life and cannot produce anything but itself. It is a principle that GOD, the Great Creator, has established. HE used it to create the very heavens and the caterpillar and the atom and the rain. All things. It has a self-perpetuating movement that HE has placed in it that no one can alter or stop until it pleases HIM to allow it to do so. Let's take a look at some things that are always true.

First thing that comes to my mind is mathematics. There is probably not another science known to man quite as exact as mathematics. Heck, the entire computer network is made up by various combinations of one's and zero's. Literally. By keeping to a system of one's and zero's, the use of the binary system keeps the internet constant. By the way, it was not an idea by Al Gore. Not by a long shot. The military came up with a need and found a solution and the end result is what we have today. The next one that comes to mind is a little bit more difficult to get a handle on but is every bit as exact as math. And that is GOD. Now, before you think I am going religious on you, just consider what I have to present.

If I were to ask you what you believe is man's purpose for being, how would you respond? What would you state as THE highest priority man would have as his/her greatest goal in life? I am certain that there would be a myriad of answers ranging from the egocentric to the self-sacrificial. And all of them would most likely have merit to some degree. I remember asking myself such a question after hearing a preacher speak for a least 45 minutes about our purpose in being here. I believe he used the phrase "the perfect will of GOD for our life" and waxed quite eloquent with lofty words that sounded quite noble. Well, since I was just one of the little pipples in the audience and was ignorant of such deep thoughts, I came to the conclusion that I did not have a clue. Perhaps you are finding yourself in the same pew or chair as I was and cannot come up with a suitable response that you can offer. That's OK. The only thing that matters at this point is that you know that that is where you are. Right now. Here. And that brings us to our beginning.

Before anything can be brought to light or seen or established as a beginning, there must first be a beginning, a zero point. And without this zero point, nothing can have a beginning. Even nothing must have something to be seen as nothing. In a machinist world this is known as establishing your zero point and the X, Y, and Z axis' are all zeroed out from that point. The material to be machined must first be squared up on all sides and this cannot be done properly until the machine bed table is certified as square, true and within the tolerance allowed. I am getting too long winded here, but suffice it to say that even the Bridgeport or lathe used in the manufacturing of the desired finished piece must have a zero point. The same can be said of our lives. Without a zero point or a knowing of where we are right now, this very moment, we will surely wander aimlessly about. Do you know where your zero point is? Have you ever taken the time to even consider this? Maybe so, maybe not. I know when I was shown these things by the Holy Spirit it came as quite a revelation and in those moments of revelation came a washing over and through of peace, calmness, a flowing away of fear if you will allow me to put it in those terms. 

When CHRIST spoke to Nick about being born again what he was telling him was that before there can be a new birth, there MUST first be a death. That just doesn't make sense from man's perspective. We tend to think of everything starting out as a birth, then a life and then a death. But when seen through the eyes of GOD, we are already dead. We are in fact walking, talking, breathing zombies that must come out of this death position by allowing ourselves to die in our own eyes, to accept that we are incapable of this perfection, this pleasing GOD by our own efforts. This is where CHRIST must become your zero point. That is something very hard, very difficult to grasp. Impossible. And coming to that point in our lives is indeed the death that must take place before CHRIST can have HIS birth in us. This business of telling people that they can come to salvation just as they are is such a huge LIE. You cannot come to CHRIST with all the baggage of sin and bring it into the new LIFE. I remember well the morning of my great death. 

It came about after 26 years of playing christian poser-man. To tell this properly, I must bring up my friend Arnie. You have to see Arnie to appreciate him. He is indeed a mountain of a man. A former carpenter with hands that can crush you with no effort whatsoever. Every Thursday I would have lunch with my darling bride, her parents, her sister and Arnie and his darling bride. And every Thursday the conversation would be about what the LORD had told Arnie about this and that. Now I have found a truth that is so absolutely true that I dare anyone, anywhere to prove it a lie. It is this, if you do the things that others do long enough, you will become just like them. It really does not matter what it is. Pick an occupation. Any occupation. How about prostitution? Now there's a worthy career choice. How about their retirement package. Do they have like 401K's? My attempt at humor is sometimes actually sarcasm. Please forgive me. If you learn to walk like a prostitute, dress like a prostitute, talk like one, go the places they go, be with the people they be with ( a little ebonics there just to be interesting), you will eventually become a prostitute. Maybe a high priced one or a bargain basement one or "on sale today only" one, it would be irrelevant. The end result would the same. It was with this perspective that I queried Arnie as to how much time he spent praying, reading the Bible, etc. You see, Arnie had what I wanted more than anything else. He spoke to GOD and GOD would answer. Hubba-hubba! Arnie asked me why I was wanting to know these things. I told Arnie that I wanted more that anything to hear GOD speak to me and to visit with me. I still have tears fill my eyes when I think on this because it was such a overwhelming desire that nothing else mattered to me. Well, Arnie is a very patient man and will not move or speak without going to GOD first, so he told me he would take this request of mine before the LORD. All I had to do was wait a week for the next Thursday lunch and all would be well. I thought.

Thursday could not come around soon enough and I had high expectations as to what would be revealed.  I spied Arnie across the restaurant floor and I did not even have the good manners to say a proper greeting to my source of great revelations. What came out of my mouth was,"Well, what did HE say?", oh, and by the way, hello. Arnie just looked at me and told me that he wasn't sure what it meant, but he was to tell me that "there was no short-cut to the truth". That was it. I kept waiting for more but there wasn't any more. This was dumb-founding. Now I really was confused. And shocked. What was I doing wrong? I wasn't cussing. I wasn't lusting after women, or envying others belongings. I was attending church, praying, reading the Bible. I was doing all the things a good Christian was supposed to do. This was such a stupefying thing to be told, that I literally had nothing to grasp hold of for stability. I had my mental legs taken out from under me and I found myself on my backside out of breath.

Since I could not sleep, I decided to plead my case before the LORD while sitting on the living room sofa, when IT came to me. At 3:00am, with no one around, I started crying like a little child because I realized that I had nothing to bargain with. I asked GOD if I was really trying to short-cut my way to Heaven and if I was, then I was truly sorry and apologized for doing so. I realized that I was playing games with GOD and did not know it. I really thought I was doing the right thing. I said please forgive me and told HIM that if HE would show me what to do, I would do it. I also told HIM that HE knew me better than I knew myself and that HE knew how big a blabbermouth I was when it came to finding something really great. The next thing I knew, I heard a voice inside my head telling me to go to the kitchen table and open up HIS WORD. You have to see our house to understand why I would have to go to the kitchen table to do this. Our house is rather small and the only place to read and write is on the kitchen table. Anyway, I opened up the BIBLE and the words in the text jumped at me about how CHRIST said "it is finished" and the Holy Spirit gave me understanding about how it was CHRIST who pleases GOD. It is HIS salvation and HIS glorification and HIS redemption that I get, and it can never, ever be taken away from me. I asked, "you mean it is all about HIS success and not about my success? Does this mean that I can quit this trying to be a christian and just LIVE in this CHRIST!" and the response was, "YES". I cannot tell you how I was overwhelmed with this freedom. I had just died my death and experienced HIS new life in me. And it has never been the same. Such is TRUTH.

Truth, when seen from the eyes of GOD (by the way, He sees, but HE doesn't have eyes. HE hears, but He doesn't have ears....) is not a thing. It is a person. Pilate was looking through the eyes of a zombie when he asked, "what is truth?". He had no clue that TRUTH was standing right in front of him. That is how blind we all are until we are given true sight. I asked my friends who knew me if they thought I was a Christian and without fail, they all responded the same. Yes. My response to them was I thought so too. That is how deceived we can be and I tell all who will listen that if there is even a smidgen of doubt or the smallest of uncertainty within them of whether they have CHRIST as LORD and SAVIOUR, then the first chance they get, is to fall down on their face and ask GOD to reveal HIS SON to them. Many of us want CHRIST as SAVIOUR, but very few want HIM as LORD. It is a package deal. You don't get one without accepting the other. That is short-cutting and could cost you dearly in the end. You don't want to go down that road.

To get to the question put forth earlier about what is the perfect will of GOD for your life, I would say it is this. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, allow GOD to make HIMSELF known to others by what you say, what you do and how you live your life. Don't go around trying to pound CHRIST into someone's life. It is like going to the park to feed the birds. You could go running up yelling and frantically waving your arms around trying to grab a bird and force feed him or you can calmly go up, sit on the park bench and begin tossing birdseed on the ground. The ones that are hungry will eat and those that are not will just hang around or fly to another spot. Either way, it is working.

If you are of a mind to do so, drop us a line. Take off your shoes and visit. You are more than welcome here.

To be continued...........

  

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"There are no links more delicately woven yet more tightly binding than the shackles on the lives of men called debt."