As all witnesses do

Jumping to Conclusions 

When we all look at something and try to interpret what we see, we all see what we are predisposed to see and/or want to see. This goes for us all. They call this simply, closing the gap, in psychology circles. It casts a shadow on the reliability of witnesses in courts. They are in politics merely, partisans. These participants in colleges however are often trying to figure themselves out and while still "freshmen" discover they cannot. So, they ultimately want to switch into something else. This happened so often in colleges, that in my time, they were not allowed to select psychology until they were sophomores. The witness tells his own story. 

Translations in transition

 The difference between Heb 11:1 substance (NKJV) and assurance, found in other more recent translations, is the same as completed faith vs a strong feeling for faith. These are translations in transition. The earlier is soaked in the spiritual and all others that follow drift into the weakish, more physically emotional interpretations. 

There is a future for everything

There is a future in the present? 

I often wonder what it would be like when I am in the spirit. In the flesh I am always changing, and my photo is always getting old from the last click of the shutter. 

But that is the flesh, but what is the spirit like? Will I recognize my father while at the same time will his father recognize him? It may be a non-question. But if not, then I think my father will look like his father's memory of his son. In the same instant I will see my father with my memory of my father. Have I untangled the parallel memories? 

But more intriguing is the similarity of the rehearsal that takes place very time it grows dark. I go to sleep and have no idea what time it is when I wake up. I have to look at the clock. 

It is like a rehearsal where I die in the flesh each night. Perchance I dream if I remember it. The dream is always more real during the dream than was when I recall it awake. I suspect this occurs for a reason, if I could only know it more fully.

But it is definitely a fuzzy hint of the future, it seems to me. It convinces me there is a future beyond, as it has been suggested by some, than just being rolled over in the ditch when the changes of this world are through with us. 

Faith & Works in James

What's Wrong with Prosperity?

Prosperity is usually a focus on the world exclusively. In other words, works takes a backseat to borderline works. Where your treasure is, there is your heart also. 

Then there are reactionaries in the pulpit who poo poo prosperity. The pulpit at one time was popularized by proud paupers. Today however, prosperity preaching is rather prosperous itself. How many millions does a preacher need? That is, needed is to set up a foundation to exemplify works rather than beliefs only? You'd think somebody was reading in James recently.

How can we do better than to be with Jesus

 Unanswered Prayer

The Bible often recounts that our prayers will be answered. All we need do is ask. Then there are those whose precise expectations question this. For these lookers on, I suggest we should address the issue like lawyers writing briefs on the ultra-fine print found tucked tightly disguised on medicine labels. 

Jesus addressed this matter without fanfare when he healed people. Everyone was already healed by Jesus' stripes prior to his His ordeal on the Cross. But before the Cross when He asked whether they believed He could heal them, He returned their agreement that they did. by saying, then let it be done according to your belief. Not His belief, but their belief in His belief.  

My method in dealing with my unanswered prayers is to assume my belief was not strong enough, or that my request was not to my advantage. My first thought is to take responsibility for my belief, not let it stand up against God's belief. After all God created the entire universe by His spoken belief. So, to question God is nonsensical. Also, I do not assume that my asking was not, asked as well as it might have been.

My Mother's last prayer was that God would help her now. That was her last prayer, and then God took my mother into His own. 

Speaking Undergirds Belief

Is is thought in ancient times history and learning was memorized and passed down generationally. It was Moses who is credited that it should be written down, writing having been eventually more developed.

I am coming stronger into the understanding that to speak is extra important. It is reported that God spoke the world into existence, everything that was made was made by the Word, as it is written by St John in the first chapter.

It is good in my experience to repeat a verse over and over as if in a prayer mode, in order to build the faith to advance change. Even a verse that is not particularly seen as faith building, but rather fact revealing, is worthy of repetitious emphasis. For instance, in John 1:17 as I mention in Manna.  

The Power in Believing

The Same "Spoken" Power 

Materialized the Universe

 The act of believing in God generates and is generated by the believing power of faith, as we read in the Bible. Just as I believe this, I also believe the impressive power generated by rockets will be dwarfed by such as the free clean and unlimited electrical magnetic power produced by the surrounding planets and stars.

Even we ourselves remind me of this, like heavenly bodies surrounding themselves, swirling and looping around each other socially, generating charismatic attractions. Each according to their greater mass attracting attention from those of lighter mass.  

Overheard in Mana

My favorite saying is all things seen came from the unseen. I like it because it so graphically highlights the different worlds between the spirit and the flesh in defining faith in Hebrews 11. 

As I've indicated previously, most likely not often enough from my angle at least, I am writing for my own benefit. Everyone speaks, reads, and writes for their own benefit when we come right down to it.

One Only Believes 

What They Want to Believe

Everyone persuades themselves, even if they only agree with what they hear and read. On top of it all hearers maintain their very different views of the very same speaker. If I tell you that I had an epiphany, then that is the gospel truth only to you, that I told this to you. 

But, only to you! To anyone else you tell it to it is hearsay to them, which is quite bluntly at its' worst, gossip, and not admissible evidence to your hearers that I ever even said it at all. Now that I am so intimately involved with logic today, I only mention that I've heard some, incredibly, cast their illustrations of their truth as evidence of their truth in a matter.

Emotion is power

Energy Starts Motion

We are all born the same. Most people think first and only of the evolving flesh. The flesh will not save us, according to Jesus. 

Rather, the spirit seems equal in power and emotion across the board to everyone. The flesh however is open to variables of which I know little. If anyone has the chance, whatever opportunity, to be borne in a severely unequal state, then the unborn spirit within has the power to overcome, if God gives it to them. 

Since I, like those who deny God even exists, am not God of myself, I am not privy to everything that God has put in place. I accept God as He reveals Himself, and do not question or threaten Existence.. I am, however, aware there is a reason for everything. Jesus said everyone is saved. I might say, from themselves, only if God draws them to Him Jesus said. Many left Jesus after that saying. They had their own rules.

We own nothing in the end

Such Brief Control for So Short a Time

One has to wonder how we got here amid all this fantastic scenario we constantly see displayed before us. All the just right events, that continue to sustain us, is by itself a designer's wonder. Still, we live a little longer than wilting flowers amid grass. This all only becomes evident when, it seems, it is too late. 

Hope as Substance

Substance Without Hope

We all imagine our own hope and that hope will bring its' own substance. Even without hope, I believe, there is still substance because the absence always exists. Reminds me of an unseen dark hole from which there is no escape exit. Even if one does not believe in God, then they have to be their own god just in order not to believe it.  I cannot imagine how one can get God out of the picture without evidence. Ongoing....

Working out my salvation.....

Now we see darkly
but soon face to face.

I continue to post in Manna because the Bible obviously has more to say of significance than I could ever muster. While it is important for me to work out my own salvation, the temporary worries and temporal cares of this world have a way of intruding on what little time I have left just in order to function. Time continues to fool me even as I speak. 

The seen comes from the unseen

Imagination creates reality

                                                             Richard Wagner 

Either the mind controls the body, or the body, with its' lesser horizon, will control the mind. It is instinctive for the eye to follow anything that moves. This is what the boob tube tells us about our bodies. But the spirit, if there is one, overrides all. There are many spirits, mediums and such, but there is only one spirit that I would trust to be in charge, Jesus. 

A belief is not the same as believing

Belief in God 

and Santa Claus 

It is not so easy to believe as quite a few assume. It is more than agreeing or going along with the pastor. And especially a pastor who thinks the stories in the Bible are not true, only the meaning is true.  That is why cultivating and strengthening my faith is so important to me in today's Manna. 

Why I go to church...

 I always went to church 

  to build my faith stronger

But it has never worked that way. Instead, I actually lost my faith going to church. Luckily, but not after a long a wandering in a fruitless dessert, I did eventually regain my faith. It was built on the strength of my reasoning based on logic. 

Yet another fruitless victory on my part. In that error I proved the existence of God. Here an inch off the mark was as good as a mile. Then, I gave up, and came freedom, my decision to believe, no matter what! 

My belief came alive, from an inert subject becoming an active verb, a predicate, a pre-stated dictate to believing. But we must be careful when judging ourselves. We have no harsher judge than we ourselves. 

Oft heard quote

 Oldie but goodie

"It is one of the disasters of our lives that we get old too soon, and wise too late." Benjamin Franklin

This is the time of year for me to look back and evaluate the progress of my year previous. Usually, I discover I was quite stupid last January to be perfectly frank about it. But I am restored by the belief I learned mistakes I'll never make again. Every year I discover this, every January. 😉