Our Spiritual Awakening: Post #3 (Post #2 of Our Spiritual Awakening series can be found here.) “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” —1 Corinthians 15:22 Mankind lost its spiritual sense in the Garden of Eden. This is the meaning of St. Paul's comment above. We lost our connection to God because Adam and Eve committed the Original Sin. Now we live in ignorance. But the Good News is that our faith in Jesus enables us to receive the Holy Spirit and, potentially, to be born-again. (More about this later.)  “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”  —2 Corinthians 4:4 The “god of this age” is Lucifer/Satan. He is able to keep us in ignorance as long as we refuse to invite Jesus in. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”  —Matthew 7:7-8 But even Christians can get confused about what Jesus was all about. The same thing happened to the Pharisees when they saw Jesus breaking “ancient traditions.” Jesus responded to their criticisms by saying: “You hypocrites, Isaiah described you beautifully when he wrote — ‘This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men’. You are so busy holding on to the traditions of men that you let go the commandment of God!”  —Mark 7:6-8 There are many parallels to be found with this bible passage and that of our times. Like Christians today, Jewish leaders had many doctrinal expectations about how their Messiah would come. He would come on the clouds (Daniel 7:13-14), he would lead the Jews to victory as a warrior (Isaiah 11:4), and evil-doers would be burnt to a stubble. (Malachi 4:1) Because none of that had happened, the Jews couldn't receive Jesus as their Messiah. And so Jesus — and Israel — had to go the course of suffering: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”  —Luke 13:34-35 Two thousand years later, the same thing has happened to the Second Coming of Christ. Like the Jews of yesterday, Christians of today expected that Jesus would return on the clouds (Mark 13:26,) that he would come as a victorious warrior (Revelation 19:11), and that he would destroy all evil-doers. (Matthew 25:41) But none of this has happened. I bring all this up to make the point that, even though we have Scripture (both Old and New Testaments) to guide us, we cannot be assured of recognizing Jesus when he comes again. (History has already proven this to be so.) As Jesus warned the early Christians: “I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.”  —Revelation 3:1 And in Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus warned: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” And what is the will of our Father in heaven?  “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”  —John 6:29 This is our existential dilemma as both Jew or Christian: We imagine that we have the proper understanding about Scripture, but when it comes to the final test, we fail to recognize who the Messiah is. This happened with Jesus; and it has happened with his Second Coming. Because of that, Lucifer/Satan has been able to keep mankind blinded to the Machiavellian tactics of the Deep State. Fortunately, God is using the Q-team and Trump to open our eyes to what is really going on in the world — both politically and spiritually. “When you are awake, you are able to clearly see. The choice is yours, and yours alone.”  —Q3038 (To be continued.)