The bottom line

John 17

After all the logic and the reasoning, the proving, all that thinking, it all contains not one wit of faith. Is that true? I can sense a decision or a resolution approaching in the doorway. But I am not sure of what it is really going to be. Maybe it will be just believing, as believing in one, like believing in John 17.

The perils of logic in....

The Tangle of Reason? 

Anyone who can explain how any difficult event could be believable, is in some quarters, considered launching an atheistic attack on the body of Christ by certain believers. First, one viewpoint maintains that the stories in the Bible are not true, only the meaning is true, then we have the opposite "believable" view considered as also not acceptable either.

God Tips the Scales for Believers

The idea that God Himself has any say in whether the "bush is burning" or is not burning, is a gap in the considerations of this view. This, I am tempted to say, may be another tack that God has set up to force believers to "believe" rather than "prove" by my albeit hasty conclusion in this apparent conundrum. 

Changing
Reflections

In any event it looks like all those proving that God exists are on the edge of the cliff in this struggle. Once again, atheism seems to have the day. Unclear thinkers, I suspect, may have assumed the mantle of the seen world, and abandoned the spiritual world at a critical stage in their thinking.

The Slippery Slope

It is hard to get our minds out of the seen world, which is after all, an extension of the unseen world no matter whether one was to project a positive God's view existent forever or whether they predict an "altogether" nonexistent view after death. Beware is my operative word.  

Jesus

It is the Spirit which gives life. The flesh will not help you. The things which I have told you are spiritual and are life. But some of you will not believe me. Jesus

Avoiding the obvious...

God Cannot be Denied

 If someone does not believe in any logically dignified definition of God, then they are forced to believe in themselves in God's stead. They therefore become their own God. And not, by all appearances it seems to me at least, a rather unformed God in the process. 

However, it does appear to be a solid embrace of seen factors only. The inability to recognize anything of the unseen stands out as a complete ignorance of even known facts given in any picture. 

It helps to know what and how much to leave out.

Accident or no accident

The fleshy mind directs the body 

It is also possible the body could come to direct the mind. Then the mind will devote itself to pleasuring the body. Some pleasures, intense enough, can consume pleasures demanding more pleasure until overdosed, everything descends into suffering, and consumes the body. 

Promises granted, yet unfulfilled

It is not accidental as it appears. It is deliberate, even though a forced decision. There are some turns in the road that take one into sweeping curves were there are no forks ahead. One has to see ahead, or the continued course will close down, into a smash ahead, into No Exit. 

It seems to me that it is similar for a person's spirit, working out its' own salvation, imprisoned in the flesh forever, expecting no God found there was no God. So that spirit is in danger of existing forever outside existence and knowing it. For myself, that would be a good working definition of hell.

Then and Now

Puzzlements?

I wish I knew then what I know now. It seems I could have asked so many questions, instead it looks, on paper at least, that I wasted time. I suppose it could be time out of my youth served a purpose. A purpose out of which only God is aware. 

After all, what does God think about time, speaking as He is from eternity, a position where there is no time? 

In the congregations

Not so certain many churchfolks are

Overly concerned about their spirit

Never heard much spoken about born again in the spirit among the congregation in my church experience. No passion, no power.

Do we hear more in church about the spirit or more about the flesh? That is to say, in the congregation where many seemingly, in my view, mostly go to church to congregate.

Only one theme

When I mention spirit, things go flat. I recall a pastor who asked us what was the theme of Jesus' ministry? When they ran out of ideas, they'd run thru so many themes, it seemed everything was a theme. Not one mention of the Holy Spirit in my recollection of the event.

Santa Claus as God

They all believe in Jesus, it seems, but not the power thereof. The power is just not to be discussed. Guess that is where the meaning of the power comes in, for the sake of the children, as taught in not a few seminaries. If there is no power, only the meaning of power, then there is no power. This is power believed in only on thin ice.  

Side note

sleepy temptations 👀

My winky has to be very careful and be on the alert for that devil of all doubters lest he disguise a simple trick to fool me like, switching the plural into the singular. Thus the entire meaning is switched also. He is always wanting to be God and there is an example of it exposed for today in Manna. 😉

Definitions

 Inside of the Cup

I like my favorite phrase inspired from reading in Hebrews 11, the definition contrasting the difference between faith and the flesh. 

All things seen came from the unseen. 

The primary, the single most important theme, of Jesus' ministry was to reveal the existence of the Holy Spirit, which must be born as well. The flesh is born, but the spirit which everyone has within, as explained in the beginning of the Gospel of John, must be born also, as in born again. 

The law came through Moses, but through Jesus came grace and truth. And the truth is, we must be born again, which is the Holy Spirit being born within us. Our spirit must be born also. First is the mind which directs the flesh. Then is the spirit of God in every man which must be born also. This is the inside of the cup.

The flesh will not help us

 Once heard someone say, a man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with a theory. When I think deep into this comment, it makes even more sense to me than was evident at the time. Very hard to convince me there is not a lot going on all around us all that we do not see. I sense it as the spirit of faith superimposed around, over and above, the flesh. In the end the flesh cannot help us, according to the recorded words of Jesus. 

Exodus 3:14-15

 14And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” 15Moreover God said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations. New King James Version.