One never knows....

....When the Blow May Fall 

Playing Church at

Pulpit Rock

If one of us is killed in a tornado, then God did it. If we pray to God to heal us and He does not do it, we say that God did it. When we see war and plaques strike us, then who did it? Who else? Suffering? The devil?  God created the devil also. He is Sovreign. He is in control.

These are all loose Christian views one can find dancing around in many churches. God can do anything. What does that mean then, that God can lie, God can change His mind? I was told that by no less than a pastor, who is the teaching shepherd of the church.

If someone leaves the church, who goes after them? Jesus answered that one in a parable. I've heard many sermons that maintained if you were saved, it was a wonderful experience. Almost immediately after that sermon came the one saying don't think it will be wonderful after being saved. No further explanation on that one.

As children we played church on a huge rock that featured a podium and a choir loft. Just like the adults. The problem is not with God, it is with ourselves. It is called Pulpit Talk at Pulpit Rock.

Beyond reason

Changing our mind 

Yesterday's Magic = Today's 

Physical Science

Voltaire matched faith with reason. But what is reason? It is merely what we think we know already. I think reason would be logic. But something can be logical by all appearances and be not. Reason is just the catalyst pointing in a particular direction under a respected sense of reason at a particular time. 

Point I am making is that each of us, to illustrate, are like a small planet looking at a larger planet, all have a different view from a particular orbit. However, examples or illustrations do not prove anything by themselves. 

In point of fact, we only have a limited amount of information we believe to be true at any one time. As often as not, information is eventually expanded with newly arrived knowledge, with the unexpectant introduction of say, telescopes.

We can only prove anything each to our own particular satisfaction. No one can prove anything except to their own satisfaction and a particular set of reasons that evolve out of date, in time. When will we ever know? Now, here we are, matching wits with God. Who is God? God is a Spirit and if He is sitting across the table from us, our tails are wagging.

uncertainites

End Times Rehearsal?

Looks like folks are quite unsettled about everything. There is not one area not bubbling over like a pond of oatmeal in the Grand Canyon, that symbol of bygone terror that turned the entire country into a mouth of giant volcano. 

If the Grand Canyon goes up it would not surprise these times. The Rockies are one side of the lip and Appalachia is on the other. Talk is it is waiting to go but if there were ever a time this would have to be it, it seems to me. 

In my view

God is not a man that He should lie 

Heard the atheist view creeping tip toe int the creationist view on the radio recently. Seems a creations advocate thought the backing of the scientific method proved creationism was the way to go. Not to God's liking I would say.

I've heard that God changes His mind as well. The pastor I was listening to was misled, but he had it right from the seminary.  

Then there is "God is in control". He is sovereign, etc. There the church people tagged God with the devil, suffering, and all sorts of other evil in the world.

The more sophisticated atheistic view maintains that Moses talked God into changing His mind. Not so. His mind was and reamined made up but Moses talked Him into holding off His judgment. He relented but His judgment was the same, only held off. 

How easily some can get themselves fuzzed up without logic.

Way I see it

Closing Gaps

When Jesus is referred to as the only begotten Son, it carries the sense that He is the only Son. The "begotten" is, in the gap, easily skipped. I close gaps all the time. It comes, I would say, from my reading too fast in my case. I also type the same way. I leave usually small connecting words out and have to careful to edit them back in later.

But, back to the main point, this habit of mine gives me the sense Jesus is the only Son. But not the case, He has the power to make any of us, a son of God or daughter of God. I wish to emphasize the word power. If He is giving us power then that should not be glossed over.

Jesus even said we would do greater things than He Himself. That is quite a statement. Somewhat scary if you ask me. I do not quite feel up to it and it causes me some concern. Time is short for me to reach such a lofty position. 

When changes are eternal

This is the world that changes. And we are among the ones who change it. Where and what will I be when all the changes take place? 

W. Somerset Maugham

We are not the same persons, this year as last, nor are those we love. It is a happy chance, if we changing, continue to love a changed person.

How is what?

Lull in the Early Light

 Looking at some wedding pix and with time fooling us all, I felt there was no time to waste working out one's salvation instead of picking it up in a classroom according to someone else's ideas other than my own. 

One of the very few really wonderful college professors I admired, as a professor, was an atheist. But by that time, I was slipping away from that view. 

Wants out?

So many young chaps kept telling me what I was saying instead of accepting what I myself was saying. I was learning in my psych classes that this was an indication of projecting one's own views to keep pointing that out. If not that, then it was an attraction to control that was drawing them to putting ideas into another's words.

Words are fine but the problem is the hearer often is thinking of what they want to say and are not listening to others, much less thinking about them. I think now that the dummy in the picture was holding the dummy's head in a box. 

Unlimited Power of Faith

My Summing Up

I recommend writing down what one believes. I've found it helpful, perhaps others can do even better with it. I've wrestled with the Holy Spirit for a long time, sometimes all night, asking why I should witness in this particular church. After all they all believe in Jesus already. Should I fine tune snowflakes? I can be flip at times.

Unexpectedly, after a long time all of a sudden, the answer appeared in my heart. I want you witness for your own benefit, not anyone else's. From then on, I realized I was asking about others and the Holy Spirit was not going to mention the business of anyone else to me. The Holy Spirit convicts, certainly not me. Also, from this I realized that Jesus, the Holy Spirit and God were dealing with me for my benefit. All Jesus commandments are forever my benefit as for anyone else's. Jesus always existed, even in the beginning. 

Christianity, despite the primitive Chiristians, is individualistic. We all each make our own decision for Christ, or for not. The Holy Spirit convicts, as I said, and that, for whom He will. Sheep of His pasture will hear His voice and understand.

Some say Jesus spoke figuratively or metaphorically. True enough. But it is also true that whether or not He did, Jesus spoke true, and it is still true exactly as He said it. Does it not say that He spoke so as some hearers would not understand, lest they be healed?

So, I believe, in any case, that figuratively or not, everything He said is true and factual as He said it. If anyone has enough faith, they can move actual mountains into the sea. Did not God Himself speak the world into existence?

It is written, if I confess Jesus before men, He will confess me before God. "I confess I believe in Jesus in all things, both those I think I readily understand and those I do not."

Logic leads to complications

The Long Road Leads Home 

Some time ago, it seems now, I was interested in psychic doings, the Rosey Cross and all that sort of thing as well. Seems now I was looking at the time, to replace an empty feeling from my atheistic days. I liked Zen, the moon in the water thing, but I didn't find too much to it when I came right down to it. Promise did not seem to deliver.

Now I have arrived at a place where everything seems much more simple than all that experimentation. I tend to complicate things like everyone else, while God, I see more clearly now, is simple. The simple comes from the complex and complex comes from the simple. Complexities are quite entertaining but results are disappointing. The short, the brief, and the concise is the only way to go for the long haul,

I've heard it said, some time ago as it look back on it, that no matter how many times one reads the Bible, they never stop understanding something new. Like one revelation after another, I am not sure when another will close in on me and I'll find myself in a pleasant place. 

No longer repeat over and over....

Reincarnation overrides Incarnation? 

Jesus was the last sacrifice. When He died once on the Cross the curtain in the temple was rent top to bottom, signifying everyone could go before God in the inner temple. No longer would even the high priest need a rope around his waist so he could be dragged back out in case he died risking his life to go before God once a year. Everyone could go before God by themselves freely anytime. 

The law was given by Moses. But through Jesus came grace and truth. 

Repetition means failure because something did not last. A tree is known by its' fruit. Repetition also means love of the repetition. Repetition also is tiresome, such as repetitious days as in a prison. Repetition also represents as stalling in the process of accomplishing something, such as a spirit gaining its' goal for eternity. 

Repetition signals weakness in a system for a reason. There are repetitious prayers for a purpose. It is not profitable to seek out what the purposes may be.