Being Like Jesus
My faith has to run ahead of my proof. That is what makes it my faith. Once anything is proved, if it could ever be proved at all, there would be no need for faith that could influence the future.
All things seen came from the unseen.
Did the Red Sea really part so the Israelites could escape the Egyptians? Unbelievable event? Not particularly, not if at one time the Red Sea was not only a tidal river from the south but also another fast-shifting tidal river from the north, from to the Mediterranean. Weather experts have suggested this event.
The map of the earth is always changing. We can see that ourselves, just as even today the US map if the coasts are shifting. The west slowly toward the Pacific and the east away from the Atlantic.
In 1798 Thomas Robert Malthus correctly predicted the world would run out of food. That is, he was correct judging the food production of his day. Today living physical scientists are predicting we will run out of food 27 years from now.
The accuracy is amusing...
All predictions are treated similarly by the future today even as Malthus' prediction was. True from all the facts of today but not from the future. They do not have all the facts that make an accurate prediction. So, how can one predict the existence of God from an incomplete knowledge of all the unproveable facts in the future?
Jesus Calling by Sarah Young
Enjoying peace in His presence...
Since Bibles have been published nothing in my framework has surpassed the 1700s King James Bible, especially the New Kin g James Version with all the thee's and thou's tucked away in memory.
What does it say in the old unwatered King James? Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen? That is not the same translator talk that followed the NKV, revealing an unaccomplished spiritual belief than that followed.
I've never been drawn to devotionals until now, encountering Young's Jesus Calling. First of all, since the King James was published, language has changed significantly, turning toward a more exact scientifically laden communication.
So Indeed! How Can One Be Born Twice?
Jesus wrote one word, and it was in the sand unreported Everything He said was new, as He introduced the spirit to the seen world. One can easily see afterward that Jesus was speaking in the spirit while his hearers were listening in the flesh. It is hard to think outside the boxes from which we appear.
People get attached to the semantics they were born from and into. Many often fail to grasp the powerful meanings that are subsequently lost to them. I see indications, since my science fiction days, that the physical sciences are changing as significant members are gaining respect for the limitations of the known vs the unknown.
The original King James reader, it clearly seems to me, accepted their belief as already happening. This is the big jump faith demands. Everything seen originally comes from the unseen first. The physical sciences ask for proof before it even exists, for them. This will fade further into the background as we all gain greater awareness of the vastness of the unknown.
As for as Sarah Young is concerned, her translation is the best yet in my view, despite doctrinaire reservations. (Second edit)
Believing in Nothing is Something
Even nothing is something, the second it is defined. Anything once existing cannot change but will always exist, in that case, as nothing and know it. To know one believes in nothing, they know they are nothing. To know one does not exist and to know it sounds like being wedged inside unspeakable hell well outside the bell of time.
Believing Afterward As If
I am Already Dead Beforehand
When I can believe something under extreme pressure with the same intensity as if I were conversing in the comfort of a drawing room, then can I guess what I really believe.
While it is true that I am not required to answer anyone truthfully unless they are entitled to any particular truth, the truth in this case is what my confession is. And it is written that if I confess Jesus before men, then Jesus will confess me before God.
I will receive what I actually believe. I cannot avoid myself, any more than God can negate Himself. Edited
Those not drawn to God are drawn
With lonely hope to themselves
The spirit, once existing, never dies. A spirit is whatever the spirit believes. Some have many differing spirits within them, all contending against each other in a complexity beyond any conceived burdens.
The strongest spirit is simple. The greater complexity the greater chance for destructive forces to be further multiplied, all of whom cannot even reliably understand themselves.
Anything that can be seen can change or be changed. The seen is the fruit of the unseen. This difference cannot negate itself.
Therefore, there has to be a God to produce the positive, the existence we reflect upon. God places certain evidentiary truths within us which produce the benefits necessary to function within. Therefore, we have to take celebration from our existence.
If we do not, then we act against ourselves in the role of being our own god. Others will have to accept it or threaten one's existence. Each would struggle for dominance, the goal being destruction as their only tools to produce their existence. This is an impossible task.
The more we learn, the more we know that there is so much more that we do not know. Since we did not create ourselves, nor even the world itself with all its' unfathomable limits, do we learn anything that would change even any concept of God.
I've Not Always Been Right
from@sunsetstroller
So What Does God Look Like?
The hearts of the ancients have been told that no one has seen God. We've even been told God is plural and is referred to as more than one. This explains the Trinity as in John 17.
Jesus said even He does not know when the end time will come. Despite this many have pushed themselves forward predicting the exact arrival of the end.
Every one of these others were all wrong so far, and thus, being wrong, revealed themselves as false prophets.
What we do know, despite never seeing God, is that we actually know what He looks like.
He looks like us.
I am Me and Everyone else is Them
I can still hear the words as if they were said yesterday. Just the words, where I heard them along the road from my first grade school. Don't you realize I am calling your mother a dog?
"So what?" I said within a blink. Whatever you say has no control over me or my mother. I took it somewhat curious he should think so.
Later I figured he must be thinking his disrespect carried some weight beyond himself. What can I do with someone's respect? What can I do if he goes off and speaks to someone when I am not around? I cannot constantly control whatever everyone says even if I wanted.
Then I would become responsible for them 24/7? Not me! I am my own self, not anyone else. I wonder if we are born individually or collectively, or perhaps we make that decision as children and subsequently forget it?
Anyway, I am stuck with my decision. And I love my existence and the source of that existence no matter what.
Underlining the Bible
Many people, I judge, carry Bibles, dog-eared, underlined, circled and commented about in the margins, for whatever reason I will not judge, to possibly make it appear they are devoted re-readers of the Word.
I could never do it. I used sticking, colored transparent bookmarks of various colors. Green tipped for strong verses for remembrance, gold to highlight the very most vital verses of all. I also used colored round dots to catch my eye for my favorite verses, etc.
Once a pastor asked to see my Bible, that I had with me. He studied it, I thought, obviously looking to see how dog-eared it was.
If you read it all, often marking it up, it is not long before everything is underlined and nothing is highlighted, or even recalled, in my view.
In any event, I respect my Bible, most especially my reading Bibles, and said nothing. Neither did he.
When I will rest easy is when he can't do anything about it!
