For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

 “Smart people learn from everything and everyone. Average people from their experiences. Stupid people already have all the answers.” – Socrates

The utopian dreaming....

 “Life is full of questions. Idiots are full of answers.” – Socrates

Pulpit Rock in the making

 See this date's, November 15, 2020 entry in Church and Faith at Pulpit Rock for the origin of that blog. The ancient writers urged us to worship together, and they did in small separate groups in their homes. Much later they built incredibly elaborate, large, actually astounding buildings that are a marvel to this day. As many

did not read, the churches were full of the most beautiful stained glass windows, life sized carvings and, all breath takingly domed, depicted in vast churches which served to communicate the story of worship to the non-reading public. 

Oldest Book among oldest books.....

All in 

Bible books are the oldest books, and one book among them is the oldest book among the oldest books in the Bible. In the book of Job, he says of his troubles though He slay me yet will I hope in Him (Job 13:15).I call this one of my "no matter what" verses. This is one of those verses where I draw my fullest faith, where I am all in.

Definition of art

Now it is timely to mention the definition of art.  Art is not what is happening, it is the way it is happening.  

One could write a bandstand of stuff about this but what I have written is all there is to it. Anything more is pure pontification, which I can be just as good at as anyone else. But it is still just simply like it is on my Benny Goodman 78 entitled,  It's not whatcha do, it's the way thatcha do it. 

The Trinity is One Spirit

We are all as One Spirit

There are three in the Trinity but they are as one, just as we as believers are one with God. In John 17 Jesus stressed the fact that He and God were as One and that we were as One with Him and God together as One. As One is stressed as several points are repeated more than once several times throughout John 17, known as the Holy Prayer. Read it again and notice how often points, apparently

important points, are repeated, like "One". This is all about the Spirit, One Spirit. 

There are psychedelic, and mushrooms etc., that may provide the hallucinations of oneness, but they are originated and drug induced within the body, rather than within the spirit.  

God cannot act against His nature

The Holy Spirit of God is a person

All principles are personable as they enter the seen world from the unseen. Any principle, such as even those affecting the weather for instance,  exists by itself ultimately coming from a source. The weather also has an origin conceived of by a person, probably to clean and renew the planet. All principles therefore begin in the spirit, overall in the Holy Spirit of God.

Blue Sun Bursting
(see far below)

Just as God speaks existence, by choice, that is all good, we have the choice to turn anything into evil. God cannot create or allow evil, or even have evil in His presence, because He is not only on the same plane, it would be against His nature. On the other hand, if God did not give us choices along with our existence, we could not exist as persons. It is through men that evil enters the world, egged along and further empowered by the evil spirits.

 I am tempted to say, forgive me, as far as evil and suffering is concerned, the bell tolls for us.

Ultimate proof of God?

Proof weakens faith

Nothing is ultimately proved in this world of the seen primarily because it is based on change. There are a host of books written specifically to prove the existence of God. They say this in their titles. They say this even though it says in the Bible we can only please God through belief. Why does it say that? I would say it is because if we can prove God exists then there is no purpose or power in faith. 

The Power is in Belief

If you accept actual proof then you wipe out completely any need to believe. Firstly, we ultimately can not prove anything with certainty, we can only prove to our own personal satisfaction. Secondly, the single presence of constant change in the seen world precludes all proof accompanied by certainty. Proof then is merely a stumbling block to faith, which is the purpose of proof. It is stumbling block to our belief principally, one might say. by doubt brought into the personal picture by the devil. All thought, even in the physical sciences, depends on faith, on the personal power to believe. 

An Epiphany face to face

God Places Ideas in Our Hearts

Once one experiences an epiphany it is hard to in anyway debate or over rule it any respect. It was not a logical process on my part but was something simply put within my heart as a natural established fact. 

Intervention

I have no way of knowing this, but I strongly suspect others have had similar revelatory experiences. I am thinking now of Moses speaking with God, asking Him who shall he say sent him? That is to say, who gives him, Moses, the authority to tell all this present experience with God to the people?  Why should they take his word for it? 

This is when God defined Himself, saying I am that I am. I can't help suspect Moses, my view anyway, experienced an epiphany. This is why I trust Moses' account of who God is and accept it as the earliest definition, which makes it the first definition of God, given by God Himself. 

But when I Googled a definition of God the answer returned to me was that He was a Supreme Being. No mention of God indicating that He exists. Also, such questions were presented as who invented God and other similar perspectives. I noticed they all relied on the conscious definitions of men rather than speaking of God's own definition as reported by Moses. Later.....

Persistent prayers

Faith Forever Never Ending

Healing, one of the central benefits of the Cross along with the forgiveness of sins, is pressing into my thoughts now amid current wide spread concerns. Since Jesus has already

Beware Uncertainty

healed us by His stripes on the Cross, it remains only for us to believe it and believe that He can do it. This seems correct to me but if there is any doubt in it then, of course it likely would  not happen. There is a healing prayer in Manna permanently located in that first page's left hand column. I approach healing attempting to follow the way Jesus instructed by example.  Acceptance of a healing and permanent belief are the persistent bedrock in healing prayers.(See also Monday, 23 November 2020 in Manna.)

Every day upon waking..

I appreciate God's existence, and the existence He has given me.