The Two Trees Within by Ross Shultz - HTML preview

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Games people play

Earlier, I had mentioned that for whatever reason God had given me a gift of seeing beyond situations and what’s behind them. I mean people, just about everyone is transparent when looking at their behavior, that is the actions that motivates one to do something, and the reason behind it. And I guess this is the reason that He has asked me to write this book, and expose just a few of the shenanigans that’s being flaunted everywhere, but more particularly in those that are called christians.

But anyway, when I was in my teens a song come out on the radio sung by Joe South. It was called ‘Games People Play’, and had a major impact on my life. I’m thinking, maybe God used this song to initiate me to the stuff going on behind closed doors.

Games People Play

Oh the games people play now, every night and every day now, never meaning what they say now, never saying what they mean.

While they wile away the hours, in their ivory towers, all covered up in flowers, in the back of a black limousine.

Oh we make one another cry, Break your heart and then you say Talkin’ about you and me, oh the games people play.

good-bye, cross my heart and say I hope to die. You’re the only one to blame. Neither one would ever give in, so they played it an ace against. talking about the things that might have been, it’s a dirty rotten shame.

Talking about you and me, oh the games people play.

People walking up to ya, singing glory halleluiah, Then they try to sock-it to ya, in the name of the lord They’re going to teach ya how to meditate Read your horoscope, cheat your fate sayin’ your goin’ go to hell with hate, so get on board.

Talking about you and me, oh the games people play.

Wait a minute, take a look around and tell what you see? What’s happening to you and me? God grant me the serenity, just to remember who I am. You’ve given up on your sanity, for your pride and your vanity, turned your back on humanity, cause youdon’t give…..

Talking about you and me, oh the games people play. a da…Joe South

I think I got the words right, heck, I had to remember ‘em from my child-hood. This song stuck in me, and was the beginning of a great change in my life. Thousands and thousands of times the meaning of this song came to me as I watched people after people play these silly games on each other and, more often than not; on themselves.

The human race since the fall at the Garden is a strange nut to crack. We get so involved in our surroundings, in our self, and trying to stay afloat, that in most cases we don’t even know what’s going on in our own head, much less the dealings of the world. Much of the times that games are used on one another, we can’t even stop long enough to see that we are manipulating someone, or being tricked by them.

Manipulation is attempting to get someone to do something that they normally wouldn’t do, (witch-craft). It’s not just a form of witch-craft, it is witch-craft. Everyone, in at least one form or another, plays games. For example, a man might call to his wife that he’s got cut very badly, when in fact it is a small scratch and he took some aspirins that day and therefore bled a lot. The game is; he needs or wants attention, and the blood along with his making a big deal out of it, will get it for him. A game is; when we want attention and maybe raise our voice to get it, or maybe whine, or act as if we’re sad, or pretend we’re mad, or even act like we’re glad when we’re not, the list goes on and on, and it’s in human nature to do it. The sad part is that most have done it for so long, and its’ so deeply imbedded in them that they never realize that they’re doing it in the first place. And that is sad. That tree that the serpent lives in has infiltrated our lives deeper than most realize.

The first part of the above song speaks about ivory towers, flowers and limousines and they are symbolic of; towers, that place in our mind; flowers, the compliments and praises we give one another; and the limousines is that special place in our egos. So as we cross our heart and hope to die, it’s easy to see that this is a child’s game and still played as adults because of it’s embedded in our lives as a child. No one wants to die, even if their wrong, it’s a game. We live as a people that given up on their own sanity, turning our backs on the true reason that God placed us here. The list of games goes on and on, just wanted to touch on a few of them, to show that virtually everyone plays games to trick or manipulated others to do as they are directed. It’s all called witchcraft, so let the shoe fit where it may… Ain’t it nice, knowing Jesus forgave us of all our sins?

The point is; that we see them or treat them as innocent little happenings, and ignore them as harmless, but they are not. Without going on and on about the different games people play, use some imagination and you can see the extent of them. Even thinking, as young children do them, that there will be no consequences, but there is. We’ve played games for so long and so many times that, not too far down the line, say puberty, they become instilled and then become dangerous. Not knowing as an adult when one is tricking or being tricked.

So, saying all that to say this: What has happened to those that are called by His name, and want to seek a relationship with our Father? They, or better said we, go to the only place that we know to find that tutoring, that education about God, only to find they too have this imbedded set of games planted in them, but we don’t know it. Witchcraft goes back a long ways, but right now we’re most concerned about the last seventeen hundred years. Constantine, the first Roman emperor to become a christian, and some call him a pope, almost immediately began playing games on the people he wanted to join him on this new crusade. Even killing those that wouldn’t bow to his demands, and after conquering many lands, and killing tens of thousands, he thought he’d made a wonderful pilgrimage. There are still some today that think he was a godly man, doing godly things in the name of Christ, but he was not. It has perpetuated from that time forward, with consistent efforts, with its lamb-blasting, misinformed, manipulating ideologies and so many today still believe that school of thought, and is still what we should be doing and promoting today, but on a somewhat more subtle way as the strategies have been somewhat refined.

I’m attempting to place a pattern here, that just because it’s been done as a tradition, doesn’t mean it’s the way God set it up in the beginning. Just because it didn’t come crashing down on their heads, does not mean this is the right way. The relationship with God came spiraling down at the same time their methods and ideals were bouncing up.

People don’t have to be taught how to have a relationship with each other, certainly not with God. But as long as people think that having a relationship with this thing called ‘church’ is the same thing as it is a communion with God, then the trouble begins. Having a relationship is not just talking with each other every now and again, I’m speaking of a reliance on each other, a fulfillment that can’t be met any other way. You can know all there is to know about Jesus, but until you know HIM, you will never know the intimacy of walking with Him. You can read all the books and articles, and even an autobiography about the President, but unless you’ve met the man and spent much time with him, you will never have a relationship with him. That’s the way it is in our walk with Christ. Unless we know His voice, and seek His face, and walk with Him in intimacy, we will not have the relationship that we want or He wants with us. The friendship grows as we spend more and more time together. Intimacy develops when two are bound together in love, and no principality, power, nor any ruler of high or dark places, (the mind, or anything else), can cut asunder.

Intimacy is a word, really an act that has a deep and valuable meaning. It literally means; to have intercourse with. Remember, we’re touching on the subject of spiritual matters. So intimacy, or intercourse, is a closeness that only two can share. One doesn’t have to out-rank the other if we are close together in a union with two people, and God always should top the list, even in a husband/wife relationship. So therefore to know God takes on a whole different meaning, when we are involved that deeply with Him. It is a marriage of sort, as Jesus said; “I and my Father are one… that they,(us),also may be one in us.” That ‘one’ togetherness is a closeness that cannot be shared except there is a marriage, one with the other. So it is not hard to see, though we cannot see in another’s heart, that knowing about God, and many, many things about Him, is not the same as ‘knowing’ Him; having that wonderful, intercoursing relation-ship with Him. But the games we play on each other have prevented many to go beyond that which we’ve been taught by our so-called leaders, what a relationship with Him is. The teaching is that if you love the Father as I love the Father then your love is real, and since I haven’t gone to that place in my relationship with Him, you cannot, because if one could, I’d be there. Well, you can, if not held back by some cemetery, (seminary, or been taught by one that’s been there), teaching that is only built on their knowledge about God and not one built with the intimacy with God.

Once, (and this has happened many times), there was a preacher that wanted to be healed of some ugly disease, and prayed and prayed to God to be healed, but was not. Having to face himself and his inadequate dysfunctions, he could then come to this false conclusion that God doesn’t heal anymore. With him and his close friends around him, they can and will all confer that his belief then about healing is rightly discerned, and God no longer does that, because if He did, the preacher would have been healed. And this is a perpetuation taught, over the centuries, many, many times until finally it is drummed into the head of many, that God no longer does this sort of thing.

When looking at games people play, they are everywhere, in you, in me, they are so frequent and so accepted that we all have been distorted to a level that each are troubled by the times, and don’t know where they came from, much less how to solve it.

It is a truth that manipulating and being manipulated is a major part of all our lives, whether it is a commercial on T.V., our parents trying to get us to do something, our friends hoping for a different outcome, or anything else the mind can come up with, for we have been inundated with so many silly games that society is losing its’ true perspective.