Favorites.....

My Bible Verses

I focus on them too much, so that I am in danger of becoming a "chapter and verse" man. I am very partial to verses that highlight the Spirit.                     I want to think about what happens next. This is a sharp turnaround for me, almost like going by faith and not by sight. It looks now that by bringing faith to the front draws me into an intimacy I had not known previously. This is why Manna is my favorite site. This is the site, I am trusting, that will bring me closer to Jesus. In this process I credit the devotional Jesus Calling by Sarah Young.

about the hard copy.....

Hurrying...

What I am originally trying to do is be more accurate and clearer of what I believe by writing down what I am really believing by saying it published here. Accordingly, the high Priestly Prayer is found in John 17, not 14. Typing too fast has proven to be a hazard. Editing goes on continuously for this reason.

The Holy Spirit?

The High Priestly Prayer

In the church I was born in it was never taught about being born again, and that would include not one single word about the Trinity. 

This meant that the Holy Spirit was ignored, and forgiveness not mentioned. When one of us kids asked why Jesus had to die on the Cross, no one in the Sunday School had a ready answer. 

In the church I was married in, the pastor, an intellectual sort who authored books, likely read mostly by other intellectuals, was dismissed by a faction in the congregation who just did not like him.The reason many Protestant churches are a certain size is that it is at a certain size they will split, around 500 in my experience. 

I only realized how important the Trinty was when a person came to the door and explained to me just how important the Trinty actually was. That was what I thought, not whatever precisely what he thought. That was when John 17, began to lead me to the workings of the Trinity.

Jesus as the central figure.....

Does any ever think, or in any manner speak of Jesus in any churches? Not in those I was familiar, I mean any, of any denomination. Who was it said, if we confess Jesus before men, then Jesus will confess us before God?

I made an attempt, but I admit it was a weak attempt. I saw no hunger for Jesus in any manner. Yet there is a lot in attendance to hear about Godly subjects and history, The five thousand have to eat, do they not? I lost my interest in God in the churches, so I am not a good one to speak. 

Searching Bible verses brought me back, slowly, as they were revealed to me. Especially the definition of God. A definition I never heard in churches but found in the Bible. Where would the devil go to perform his function? It would not be the barrooms; it would be the churches. 

We only know certain things.....

This world of the flesh, we are all born into, will not help us Jesus has said. Jesus also said God will draw certain ones close to Him, which saw Jesus lose many followers.

At this point my solitary reasoning is forced to think, like many physical scientists, to think in wonder, how could so much design render so many intricate and interacting complications? No matter how long anything takes to happen, time is a comparative variable, an entity not subject to a single inter-independent comparison or many multiple phenomena.      There we have it! How can that be solved without prior knowledges? Afterward, perhaps yes. We only know one thing, a prophet predicts. Predicts suddenly, without prior knowledge or reasoning.

I understand from the ancients....

...that God spoke the world into being by breathing His Spirit into Existence. God, being always in the present, is eternity with no beginning nor ending. God is forever loving and forgiving for those who can recognize and accept Him. His thoughts are behind the display in the heavens, his ideas planted in the self-evident words of the prophets. 

A learning experience in the foxhole.....

Deciding between the decaying world of the flesh and the eternal continuous-present world of the spirit should be easy. But it is not. Why? Is it being kicked out of the womb all over again? 

With all flesh crumbling around me, I hold on to it. It is a sin to commit suicide, being a direct insult to God who gave life. God points out to me, choose life.

Do not seek heaven on earth

It was written about Jesus that He said, if we have enough faith, we could move mountains into the sea.  

I believe it! Many believe He was speaking figuratively which is another way of believing only the meaning is true, but not the truth actually, only the meaning.

If I do not eventually get what I ask God for, I do not blame God. I suggest it was rather myself, I did not have enough faith. When Jesus said to a sick woman. Do you believe I can do this? She answered yes and notice Jesus said, then let it be done for you according to your belief. Her faith was in Jesus, and it was so. 

It is easy to believe anything that is easily believable, it is harder to believe something that is harder. What could be harder? Anything like, returning from the dead?

Pumping oneself up...

I can see from my last entry I am conscious, and likely deeply subconsciously as well, that there is a lot I do not know. I am left with a trailing off montage of mostly humous nonsense. 

Considering humor is mostly nonsense, I am most certainly dancing dangerously close to showing off my frustrations as mere maudlin confusion. Only thing is that I'll never know the end of it, so it must have some purpose. After all, if I get it, I must've been looking for it.  

Becoming like Jesus.....

So then, becoming like Jesus and doing greater things? I've heard some say they are here to occupy. Does not sound like a very great trophy to lay down, as the hymn implies.

Think of all the money one could earn if they kept it and put the income to work meeting charitable needs indefinitely. All this knit picking. Only God knows the heart. This is the trouble with writing for the doctrinaire crowd. Too much judgement involved.

Wnen the future becomes the present tense, one is in eternity....

Makes me wonder sometimes. I mean I think of Sarah Young, sick so continually, always present with troubles, ranked as the most financially successful religious writer that ever was. What happened? Dies of leukemia. 

Then there is St Paul himself. How successful can anyone be? He even handled a poisonous snake. There are some, small, but fair amount Christians, quite down on him on religious grounds.

I think it was because he said he explained Jesus to people and if they did not take it to heart, he condemned them to hell. Then the church takes up burning people at the stake. For that they did not like him despite all he did otherwise? 

I've heard about atheists being healed at healing services. We are supposed to take up our cross and follow Jesus. We can't forgive anyone of their sins. I mean if He did it for us, what are we doing? 

And now I come to my view, wobbly as it is, that we are perhaps are not healed because we do not have enough faith. Jesus said if we have enough faith, we could do anything, even greater things than He. 

I'll stick with my personal not enough faith position. And also, Job, who said tho He slay me yet will I believe.

Letting God be God....

The Way It Was

When My Marbles Were in a Row

Once, when I got over the heady thrill of being a university (educated) atheist, I slowly found my foundations were crumbling, and pretty shaky all told at that.

In point of fact (with continuing apologies to Jennifer Jones in Beat the Devil) my entanglement in the fallacy of misplaced authority proved rather embarrassing as I grew older. But as a child it seemed natural for me to think God would be swinging easy with adult church leaders, for the sake of the children.

So, when I found out that God forgave David, since David was "honest" with God, I saw a leeway for me since no one could be more honest than myself. What a mixture I was in! 

I mean really, how could God kill all those people in the flood and then turn around and tell me I couldn't kill even one person yet? It is some strong stuff when one finds they are their own God.