Psalm 37:4

Delight yourself also in the Lord; and He shall give you the desires of your heart.

Invictus

Storm in a Tea Cup

Invictus is a great stand out poem written by a successful writer who lived an incredibly difficult short life. While the poem itself is in no way atheistic  the author was a hearsay atheist which has set not a few Christians aflame.

Thereby they forget the commandment of Jesus to love everyone, particularly their enemies. ( There is a reason for this I might save for later.) Instead many Christians mock the poem, point out that the writer was a poet who wrote only one poem.

I understand that Clint Eastwood made a successful film about it which was favorably inspired by Nelson Mandela.

There are Christian pulpit talkers who point out their doctrinaire disagreements, suggesting the many  followers of Jesus who deserted Him because He said no one could come to God unless God draws them.

Also Paul was told that God's grace was sufficient for him. Paul responded by saying that this life's momentary suffering was of little account compared to the wonders of eternal heaven. 

Many early martyred Christians chose suffering in order to get a better reward in heaven.

Logically Christians, in my view, take the poem Invictus out of context, creating a different content in the process. Mostly a storm in a teacup resulting no love for one's enemies.

I once wrote Christians should not be drawn into any argument when the world was created since we are not of this world, we are of heaven. There is no time in eternity. It is all present tense. It was all a debate conceived by the devil to spin Christian's wheels.

If anyone insists in believing in Jesus despite the devil's efforts he will settle for weakening Jesus power if he can. I am staying with Jesus. But maybe I better should take my own advise and no more chewing of disagreements.

Belief Not Proof Pleases God

God does not accept any proof, since proof eliminates any need for belief, the only power that pleases God is belief. 

Praise is gratitude

Gratitude is Love

Whenever I want to praise God to lift myself up, my seek is often in Psalms, favoring ones in the nineties.

A little pop dog

 When I said recently I would like to be wherever Jesus was, like a His little pup dog. I was somewhat reticent,  wondering about the propriety of my remark. But I was unaware at the time of the Psalmist who wrote that he was like a flourishing olive tree in the house of the Lord. Perhaps I am somewhat of a stiff neck. Click to today's Manna

Objectifying the subjective

Playing Let's Pretend Pastor 

I have found I do not explain what I believe in the word of conversation equal to the same as the printed word. Whereas in the printed word I can objectify my thoughts, I cannot be as clear in conversation.

This is why I favor small groups talking together more so than in large groups all facing one speaker as every one else are rigid in silence. It all resembles the duplication of a sermon in formal worship services.

I think it promotes silent subjection among participants never to become comfortable objectively explaining themselves by witnessing to others. 

Focusing on Diligently

Only Way to Please God

 I am taking it straight to the word diligently lel righit lel! like a drill sergeant marching my platoon into the dark of the early morning.

My life has not been particularly diligent so far. Time has run over me like a wave of water wasting me away. Time has fooled me, lulled and measured me for a exspiring box, all when I wasn't loooking.

Speaking for time itself, that is all time is, is a measurement. A measurement between two positions in an orbit between me and a more charismatic entity.

It is not enough for me to seek God if I am not.....diligent!

Faith is the SUBSTANCE of my hope

and Evidence of All Things Unseen

 Altho the the definition of epiphany is a sudden revelation perhaps I am not exactly correct in my terms because in my case I could not to make head nor tail of what unexpectedly came to me.

I was coming home from summer Bible school and the exact scene is still fixed in my memory. Suddenly without warning the clear as crystal words came into my mind. "God is existence".

I had no idea of what it meant and further no curiousity to figure it out either. I did not know it was in Exodus as I am that I am.                             

The word epiphany however has its origin within the experience of the Wise Men following the star to the incarnation of Jesus as the Son of God, with the power to establish others as the sons of God.

I speak exclusively for my own benefit the same as everyone else. In my case it is to significantly increase my faith. I will hopefully  better evaluate my progress after the Holy Days. I am so far very expectant by changes moving within me. 

Facing the Convoluted Collusioner

I had what I thought at the time was a recurring dream during my first decade that gave me the conviction I would one day know something vitally important that I could not share with anyone. 

I came to wonder whether the devil was involved because mid decade my very first dream was of the devil, who as a fox was biting sharply my ankle while speaking without loosening his painful  grip. This all after I told him he was just a dream, that he wasn't real.

But believing I was invisible he primarily passed me by. Can it be seen where all this was leading? Right now, because of the worries and cares of this world, I have to zip off before I review experiencing my first sudden revelation, objectively known as an epiphany.

Time Eventually is Solid Sad

The Too Waste of Time Forever

Time as it passes by me has seemed extremely sad slipping away. And after building me up, threatens to grindingly wear me down like a flower wilting during a night time.

It does not matter if the dimming memories are happy or not. In fact the happier can be the sadder. It does not help that heaven promises us eternity in a never ending present tense.

Funny how it strikes me now. I was right there in the congregation during a sermon when a little boy, I sense about eleven, was told by the preacher his little dog could not be with him in heaven because he did nor have a soul. The dog that is!

A pet dog is not only very loving, but also very forgiving. Whatever kind of memory is it being promised to that boy? A heaven without his dog?

Samuel Clemens commented, I remember reading on this very subject when he said there were commonly many dogs who would d get into heaven well before more than that many people. 

I guess there are many more young people, who like me got off to a bad start in churches. Me all the while piling up perfect attendance awards being drilled to death with messily executed mind numbing coloring books.

Once upon a time always in my memory.

Favored Among Favorites

 High Priestly Prayer

John 17 is the chapter where Jesus prays for Himself the night He knew was to be betrayed and crucified while His watching discipled slept.  

Jesus

I would have thought what happened to my mother while reading in Galatians would've descended upon her while reading John 17. She read it every morning.

I was present once when my spirit was under the logical fallacy of the misplaced authority. She told me I would change but I was also under that cloud when the truth cannot be told by those who know.

John 17 is not particularly long but Jesus uses the word sent exactly six times. God sent Jesus. One other reoccurring concept stressed is the word "one". 

Jesus deliberately stresses "one" three times and I find it hard to avoid thinking of the Triune God which is, of course, is the Holy Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as the Trinity. 

Dancing on the head of a pin with

The Quoteblokes

Poets did not always have music. Novels were published in three volumes. It is harder to write a novel in one volume, and even harder to write a short story. 

 Then too it was still harder than that composing a good lyric like Stardust. or the tinkling piano in the next apartment comes to mind. 

But it even harder than that is to write a good quote. And double harder to write a double snapper. This one is most often credited, in our experience, to the actress Ingrid Bergman.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

Favorite Verse in Manna

Her Favorite Verse Found!

This was not my personal favorite verse, but I have since adopted it from another person who was in her nineties at the time. 

She told me she might forget this verse (her verse) and she, with great emotion pleaded with me to remember it for her. 

I had no idea where it was or wasn't, not being a chapter and verse person especially then so I never said I would or wouldn't. I was drifting at the time.

Wherever the verse was she told me while she was reading this verse an extremely intense, what she described, she was overcome with an ecstatic emotional experience. 

A sort of emersion began at the top of her head and slowly came down over her to just below her shoulders. It reminded me, later the way she was putting it, like a baptism. 

All I did remember from it was that it was something  about the fruit of the spirit. I never imagined I could ever rediscover that verse again especially so quickly and so easily. But I did and so for "the rest of the story" what I briefly already wrote about it, click on Manna. 

Harder Questions?

Easier Answers! 

Reading in Psalms recently, as I often liked to do when I was formerly diligent tin my past, I came across where one Psalmist wrote that God did not require sacrifice and offerings.

Think of it! As far back as David yet, and they were still doing it in Jesus time. I was already at the time a little uncomfortable recalling when Jesus got so angry with the temple clergy, with me thinking Jesus loved and forgave everybody.

The answer for me was easier than I could expect, right there in front of me. It was the same answer as when. Jesus wanted everyone know He could forgive sins after He healed a woman and told her to sin no more. It is right there in the theme of the text. 

He just wanted them to know He could forgive sins. And I thought it was sins that made her sick. I was complex and Jesus was simple.

I tend to relate to words and let the numerologing go. What matters is that I know few answers to a myriad of questions. There will always even more questions to know that I could ever answer.

It is like living  in the little barrel thinking it is the entire world. The universe the physical scientist discovers it is expanding when it is only his awareness that is expanding. 

The universe is not expanding, it is our awareness that is expanding. How simple can it be more than that? I used to say here that God is simple, it is we who are complex but I did not know the half of it.

The answers for me are only easier because I cannot prove answers. I have to decide what answers to believe. Can I see gravity? Can I see even electric? What about electro-magnetic? One can see what it can do but not how. Everything seen came from the unseen.

My view is it is the Spirit that is the sole source of greater  power. 

On Minding One's Own Business

On the Side

Remember when Peter asked Jesus, what was it now, was John going to live forever, was that it? And Jesus told Peter, the Holy Father rock of His church, him of little faith sinking in the water assailed by doubt, was that it,  to mind his own business? Check the last verses of John's book, I think that story where it is told.

Jesus can pick them can't He? He picked Saul Paul to write most of the Bible, a Pharisee and a son of Pharisees murdering Christians, to do eventually that and defend those of the uncircumcized. 

Surely God's ways are higher than my ways.

When I Gave Up

Wait on the Lord!

Just when events seemed to be growing worse for me and I was at a standstill unaware, things began exploding around me. Suddenly I came out of a sort of a previous dead zone to discover, right under my nose so to say, that here I had been there before and had lost it.                                 

Worlds hung on nothing

Now rediscovered, it was very much rather like long ago. Convinced I was drowning and had given up when all that same time I was floating up to the surface and to safety.

I am changing, when I thought there was no more change. I am believing even more after all and I am hard to believe still floating up? Psalm 37:4-5

Sandy Believing vs

Cement Believing

Believing isn't easy. Just going along is not believing. Believing most of it is probably even worse in my view. I  know clouds of doubt can multiply exploding around me  like the arrows that fly by day.

I find I just have to admit that even if I do know all the answers, so what? Do I know hardly any of the questions? So there I have it then. I will just have to decide what to believe and build it into cement.   

I finally found that if I set aside my doubts and took all of everything I want to believe zipped into my tent and then just settle down and decide to wait on God. Not I but God will provide, not in my time zone but in His eternal ever present time zone. 

Working From Little to Great Faith

So I believe in my hope in Jesus. Given enough hope even maybe could settle into cement. My love is trusting in Jesus and I am like His little pup, glad just to love trust and praise Him. 

Signs Before vs Signs After

God is My Source

The Bible link previously provided above on this, the portal, page will be monetized, according to my anticipation. 

So for my personal replacement will be my very heavy but trusted personal Bible described in a recent entry. Jesus does not speak favorably of those who look for signs to give them a pathway to truth. 

No Tea Leaves?

I myself never looked for signs to tell me anything was true or not. Instead signs placed themselves at very precipitous times before something would happen to afterward set me asking why then and
that then?

I frequently asked God if He was showing me, or allowing me to see something. There seemed be a significance somewhere. Was it coincidental?

What did it mean I would ask and why allow me to see that now? But it s He always left me to figure that out. Now that I think of those things it seems to be very much something  like a subtle simple little epiphany of some strange a sort. Wondering?

Jesus in Mark 10:15

Proof Has No Need for Faith

Assuredly I say to you, whoever does not see the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it. It is very hard for the rich, as Jesus also said, and not merely in money. Those rich in information-knowledge are also faced with likely more doubts, more so perhaps than those rich in merely money.

Underlining Words

Evidence of a Well Read Bible??

Diligently seeking God, it says in the Bible, means constant reading of the Bible. But underlining to my mind eventually, if one reads long enough means nothing will any longer stand out. 

I have not always done what I want to do regularly, so this is an example of how vital I think it is to objectify my beliefs for myself by publishing this. I read a devotional and I am writing my devotional.

Also it is also my witness before everyone. Jesus said if I witnessed for Him in front of everyone, He will witness for me, so it also says in the Bible. 

So what I do is put different colored sticky dots on passages if I want to remind my attention to any verses I think vitally important or personally significant in any way, so I can remember to find them again. 

I use colored stars for chapters and to elevate emotionally dramatic verses that attract me. Different colors also signal various significances they hold for me. 

What I use is a large print red letter New King James Study Bible. I also use removable bookmarks that I can see thru so as not to interfere with my reading the text. I put them in the margins or at the bottom of the page. My hope is this will help me become a "chapter & verse" guy. 

Choosing My Faith

I Believe What I Will Become

My spirit will be according what I believe. So if I believe there is nothing after I die. then I will be born this time  into a non-existence and know it into eternity! Perhaps there are likely many dependent beliefs with which I would have to deal continually.

I instead, for myself believe I was promised being born again, so to speak, and I accepted as I was promised by Jesus who Himself was sent specifically for me by His Father, God as the last sacrifice. It is all too enormous to be fashioned into one sentence. 

But my Paraclete, my Counselor, my other Helper will speak for me before God who Himself will not tolerate nor allow any sin to appear before Him. I, like everyone, speak only for my own benefit. I am a witness only to myself. This is what I believe at the present moment but if I am ever convinced anytime in the future of anything different I will correct myself immediately. Everyone else takes responsibility and the credit for what they alone believe.

Guys don't really understand numbers

Girls Are Better at Numbers

Now once more I have proof, if that is what we must call it, why I am never going to be  a chapter & verse guy. In the previous entry I misaligned the chapter in Mark as 4 when it should have been 11.

I remember words better than numbers even though numbers can be beautiful they are not as understandable as words. This probably accounts for why I loved algebra like a water duck to the lone exclusion of all those ding dong numbers like trig, geometry, calculous, statistics, et al. 

Try that again with eleven instead of four. Ignore that more popular numbers discipline, craps.