All posts by Dr. Robin Starbuck

About Dr. Robin Starbuck

Professor of English 1973 M.A., New York University 1989 Ph.D., New York University Linguistics

Painting apt., lost guitar *

(7/1/16 approx)
Y’all know I had my place painted, right?
And you know it was no easy matter?
That it would take some time to put
everything back where it belonged?
Well, I finally got to the point of
Getting everything accounted for . .
And found, much to my distress
That my favorite electric guitar
Was nowhere to be seen.
So, so sad.
Was it the painter himself?
He had been so nice –
I practiced my Spanish with him.
So sad.
Or, did someone else in the building
Sneak in, when he wasn’t looking?
Omigoodness, I’d hate to accuse
The wrong guy.
I checked all the closets again
For the umpteenth time.
No Fender (guitar) !!
Trying to think Christianly:
This will be a blessing somehow.
Sure didn’t -f-e-e-l- like it!
Tried to see as Jesus sees.
Tried again a little harder.
Quit trying.
Then I knew …
God is here INSTEAD of this loss,
Humiliation and blame.
The Holy Spirit told me that all would be well.
“Look again (must be 11 times by now).”
Obediently, but not confidently,
I went to the same closet….
Felt around way, way in the back….
And guess what I found?

Stayed?

Stayed

RE. YOU. KEEPING. YOUR. IMAGINATION. STAYED. ON. THE. LORD ?
Ephesians 4:17 KJV
This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,

Substance

IMAGINE. ARIGHT !!
Hebrews 11:1 KJV
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
IT’S. GOD’S. WILL. FOR. HIS. CHILDREN. [US] TO. BE. WELL !!

Hearing?

DON’T. LET. YOUR. THINKING. GET. IN. THE. WAY. OF. YOUR. HEARING. GOD !!
Romans 1:21 KJV
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Happy?

CAN. YOU. SEE. YOURSELF. HEALED? RICH? HAPPY? FULFILLED?
Romans 8:23-24 KJV
And not only they , but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit , the redemption of our body. [24] For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?

Perfect?

WE HAVE BEEN PERFECT FOR A LOOOOONG TIME !!
Jeremiah 1:4-7 KJV
Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, [5] Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. [6] Then said I, Ah, Lord God ! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. [7] But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.

Child?

WE HAVE BEEN PERFECT FOR A LOOOOONG TIME !!
Jeremiah 1:4-7 KJV
Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, [5] Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. [6] Then said I, Ah, Lord God ! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. [7] But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.

Here & now?

THIS MAY BLOW YOUR MIND (ALTHOUGH I’M SURE YOU’VE READ IT MANY, MANY TIMES): JESUS DIDN’T EVEN MENTION HEAVEN *IN THE SCRIPTURE, John 17:3, QUOTED BELOW. HE’S TALKING ABOUT THE HERE AND NOW !! . A CLOSE, PERSONAL, INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD IS WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT !! . IT SOLVES EVERYTHING !!

*John 17:3 KJV
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

See them perfectly!

When you’re walking down the street
and you see something not quite right;
Not an accurate manifestation
of the allness of God and his Love;
Perhaps an obese gentleman
or a crippled lady
or a sad and sickly child,
See them as Jesus sees them
every whit whole, healed and happy!
Then take those persons
who never cease coming to your mind,
Deserving or not – see them
Pure as the driven snow,
Sweet as a bouncing babe,
See them, see them, see them
As you would like to see
your own self be.

Tell them all this, Robin

A STREAM-OF-CONSCIOUSNESS TREATMENT FROM GOD
Robin, I want you to tell them again how easy it is to listen to Me and just let Me take over their prayer time. Remind them that they can jump-start a conversation with Me or rather a listening session from Me by jump-starting it like you would a car that doesn’t start in the morning and needs to connect two engines by jumper cables! Now you don’t need to walk in a halting manner because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with your body at all. There’s nothing wrong with Me so there’s nothing wrong with you. Your breathing, your vision, your hearing, your digesting: perfect perfect perfect perfect – just like Me. After all, I’m the very stuff from whence you came!! They loved it when you told them yesterday:
…..”God isn’t perfect: He is Perfection.
God isn’t spiritual: He is Spirit.
God isn’t loving: He is Love.
We have emerged from God.” …..
That’s where you’re all from – from Me!!!! Not even molded – sometimes imperfectly – by Me: oh no! You ARE Me … as a drop of water is fully Water!!! But we don’t start with a human ego-laden mind and try to see what we in the flesh want. We see as God, Mind, Soul, Spirit.
Tell them I want to talk to them too – very personally, very intimately. I just want them to see what’s really going on right where jealousy, hatred, conniving, back-stabbing seem to be I AM there INSTEAD. And Robin tell them I love them as My very own Life!

Don’t stop short!

A dichotomy

A DICHOTOMY

I have such mixed feelings about mega-churches, mega-conferences and rock-star pastors & musicians. On the one hand thousands and thousands of young people are getting all excited about the Lord. They do what young people do, expressing themselves with love, awe, respect and few, if any, inhibitions! How great is that!
.
But the aspect of never making a real solid effort to get to know the true nature and essence of God and how to make a genuine contact with Him … this is almost criminal! Not knowing the actual kingdom of God and how to become more and more aware of its ever-presence … well, there’s no excuse for it!
.
What Would Robin Do? I’d treat the two factions quite the opposite. I’d tell the Mega people that if they care one iota about the God that they think they’re promoting, they must make a good strong confession over and over again loudly, even musically, that this party atmosphere is merely an introduction … and not the real essence … of God.
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And I’d yell at the uptight book-writing intellectuals to get out and live the joy, passion and ecstacy of the most incredible Messiah the world has ever known. Yeah, that’s what I’d do.

God is Perfection

Finished & ready *

I believe so COMPLETELY in the FINISHED WORK of Jesus that I find pleading with Him to be a negative approach at best. He has done ALL that He ever needed to do to give us the perfection that we crave. We just don’t trust Him enough. He even set up a whole new covenant for us which began after the cross. We need to glean more and more knowledge of the vast immensity of this amazing God of ours, who is pure Love. We need to dis-cover how it is that every promise He has ever made is in fact true. We need to want Him more than our daily food. God IS the answer to every ‘need’ that arises. Have we really, really put Him first? Instead of pleading with God to do what He’s already done, we need to enlighten the sufferer as to the true nature of God. People don’t need a temporary expedient: they need Jesus. They can have Him living on the inside of them INSTEAD of believing that they need to look to a third person to effect healing in their lives.

New Age vs Christianity

To fellow Christians:
Here’s a little something that’s been on my mind for some time now. We don’t need to assume that fresh new revelations that come to us from the Holy Spirit belong to the New Age Movement. And we need not cling for dear life to antiquated theology in hopes of preserving our spiritual understanding. We are not the ones who are delimiting God: they are. Just imagine Jesus at the transfiguration – what a sight to behold! We believe a whole host of other pretty weird things too, without qualification. Witness the walking through walls, multiplying food and wine, healing all sickness, disease and death, including his own! Now finally science is catching up and dis-covering that God was at the helm all along!
The New Age Movement wants to say it’s all about Quantum Physics. Not so! That’s God’s realm, the dimension of pure Spirit. All the mind-boggling findings that we read about in the literature belong to God alone, not the creativity of the mortal mind.
There’s so much wrong with religion that I personally have elected to dissociate myself from it. As a result my love for God and His Son, Jesus, has grown exponentially. And that’s what distinguishes Christianity from the New Age Movement.

Coming with the clouds (Dan Shaffer)

A good majority of Christianity believes in the 2nd coming of Christ.
Those who have been following my posts know that I teach Christ is come.
He is already here, within us. Jesus said, the Kingdom of God is within us.
Why would God’s kingdom still be coming if it is already within?
Today, I want us to look carefully at
Revelation 1:7
“Look, he is coming with the clouds,” and “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him”; and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.” So shall it be! Amen.”

The key words for this text on Christ’s return are: “even those that pierced him”
Can this be any clearer that the ones responsible for crucifying Jesus would still be alive to see him return.
Furthermore, since this is written in Revelation we know John is not referring to Jesus appearances after the resurrection. At the time of this writing John is still referring to it as a future event.

Does not this correlate with what Jesus said in Matthew 24:34-35?
“Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”
Heaven and Earth was the Jewish symbol for their Temple.
So here Jesus is being very explicit and specifying that their generation will not pass away until he returns and their Temple is destroyed.
We know from history the Jewish temple was destroyed in 70 AD along with Jerusalem.

So the million dollar question is how, where and when did Jesus return around 70 AD?
This question might be best answered by Josephus, who was a Jewish historian commissioned the Romans, to document the historical accounts leading up to and during the destruction of Jerusalem.

“on the one-and-twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared; I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armour were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities . Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the] temple, as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking , and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, “Let us remove hence.”

This event was independently documented by Tacitus, who was a Roman historian commissioned to also document the war against the Jews and Jerusalem:

“Prodigies had occurred, but their expiation by the offering of victims or solemn vows is held to be unlawful by a nation which is the slave of superstition and the enemy of true beliefs. In the sky appeared a vision of armies in conflict, of glittering armour. A sudden lightning flash from the clouds lit up the Temple. The doors of the holy place abruptly opened, a superhuman voice was heard to declare that the gods were leaving it, and in the same instant came the rushing tumult of their departure. Few people placed a sinister interpretation upon this. The majority were convinced that the ancient scriptures of their priests alluded to the present as the very time when the Orient would triumph and from Judaea would go forth men destined to rule the world.” (Histories, Book 5, v. 13).

I hope this piques your interest to read and study these historical accounts.
You will be amazed to find the wealth and treasure in the fulfilment of Old and New Testament prophecy that is documented.
There is now tremendous evidence documented by historians and Scholars that show that the Book of Revelation was written between 65 and 68ad.
I’ve only scratched the surface here, there is much, much more.
Dan Shaffer

Handling distractions

Ever get distracted?
Feel like there are two of you?
One who keeps drifting off
And the other keeps coming back
To God?

Do you finally remember
It was never your conscious decision
To go back to that place again,
Knowing full well God holds everything
You could ever want or need?

Take the bull by the horns this time.
When you feel that familiar tug,
There is no overwhelmingly
Powerful hold on you;
Nor a guy in a red suit.
Just a suggestion wafting from
That place you go to
No longer.