Only the meaning?

I wonder how many think that in Mark 11:23 Jesus is speaking figuratively as in a parable, or not, as in a sermon like the one on the Mount.  

From the epiphanies

God is Simple, We are Complex

Wormholes, dark holes, ancient aliens are all complexities of the physical. God is a magnetic Spirit. He draws whom He will. This according to Jesus. 

There is no space sight or sound in the specifics of this transcending spirit action, who draws all things into changing appearances we observe as self consuming energy.

God is Existence. I am like a firefly in the night. I will be gone in the morning, when I will be born again as an attending reflection of the one Holy Spirit in the true light. What comes goes, if I can believe it enough as Jesus said, and throw a mountain into the sea.

Time is fooling us all

I truly believe it is difficult for many people to relate to the transcendent spiritual existence coming in all our futures. I see it this way because it is difficult for myself, even with the second half of my life already in physical decline. The tug of my temporal world is strong. 

If it would be true that when I die my life will all simply turn, like in a movie, to physical black, for me there are  many unknowns fog my view. Suicide itself has a  strong sense of insult to God, who has left us many physical traces of His prior presence. 

Also, who would, of all people, pick Paul, who was murdering followers of Jesus, to write much of the Bible? What a great pick as it turned out! Truly God's way is above our ways.

What Is the reason why

We have to forgive everybody?

My understanding is revenge belongs exclusively to the my Lord. This is the general view. It is easy for God to forgive because He knows everything.

I think when I do not forgive I step outside love and I can be destroyed. My view is only God can judge and He gave this power to His Son.

Only God knows whether anyone truly repents of unspeakable evil deeds. Since we know it is easy for God to forgive because He knows all, there is this for me to consider. 

If anyone is guilty and they have let an evil spirit control themselves then they cannot repent of the penalty since it would appear they are no longer in control of themselves, the evil spirit is, and they do not repent.

The main thing is for me not to meddle in things too deep so I do not step  outside love. I am not God and I cannot judge, so that way judgement, being totally reserved for God, is for my benefit. 

I am thereby protected from evil. I am not glad or even relieved about it. It is still unspeakably sad and over-rideingly depressing.

By those who know

The Truth Cannot Be Told

This is my most favorite quote of all time. Many quotes are credited to many authors. The better the quote the longer the list of credits.

This quote this morning was authored by the greatest stock market trader of his age. It ended a suicide in the public men's room of a fancy downtown New York hotel. 

He did not intend is as a quote but to rather describe pool trading, well known in its' day, but which I will not take time to explain further now.

But I, when a read about it, immediately seized upon it as the best quote of all time, had it been intended for that. It has nothing to do with stock trading. I say will  why later today, as soon I can, but I have to move on right at this particularly moment sudden shot out of tine.

See Spot Run

Up until I was fourteen there was no way you could tell me what it was like to be fourteen that is, until I got there myself.                                     

Things continued that way the rest of my older life. In every case that I observed, the younger thinks they know more than the older. This directly in the face of the older. It seems that we know more when there is less we actually do know. In my case the more I learned the stupider I felt.

Inspired during my current devotional ...

My Future is in the Present Tense

My hope for my future, is to be in heaven. Even so, my future hope in heaven is itself, all this while, in the present, being that heaven itself is without time. So all eternity is in the present.

I finally, as Paul told the Corinthians in 2 Cor: 10:5 demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. And I take captive every thought to make it obedient to Jesus. I write this with unceasing gratitude and praise.

Hi Ho Silver Quote

The Tree is Known by Its' Fruit

I am quite certain this quote came to me from the Bible, but I heard it first on the radio's Lone Ranger when one evening when I heard Jay Silverheels ask Clayton Moore how he knew who the guilty party was, when all the Lone Ranger asked who the guilty party was. 

The guilty always speak up first Tonto the Lone Ranger said. And so it is also, when anyone speaks derogatively against another, they are exposing what is in their own heart, thoughts, and mind. 

Parables are figurative

Great Faith vs Little Faith?

It seems to me that many of us, myself included, want to go to heaven, but not right now. It sounds together like a good enough definition of forever to me if I ever heard it.

As for Matt 21:21 - So Jesus answered and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, if you have (enough in some translations) faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done."           

Now according to my own personal way there is no evidence this statement from Jesus now that there is any evidence Jesus was speaking figuratively, as there would be if it were set in a parable. There is no para, alongside comparison as there is in a parable. 

It is a flat out stand a lone statement. In a parable the story is not true but is made up to illustrate the spiritual which is true. In Matt 21:21 there is nothing similar to a parable. '

The setting does seem inspired by Psalm 46 however. My view is strongly in favor of the power of faith here, notice from Jesus Himself. There are many, maybe many more if they thought about it, who do not agree with me but rather favor a figurative view. 

This, I tend to think, weakens the strength of Jesus statement from my personal orbit. When do I stop? Is the Cross figurative as well?

The Beginning & the End

Original Sin True or Conundrum?

It is a instinctual effort that we all seem to be attracted to the effort to, to try and figure everything out. The desire for knowledge leads me back to that tree in the Garden of Eden. 

The desire for knowledge in disobeying God's warning not to eat of that particular tree is wanting, at the root of it, is to be like God. Same as the devil himself. 

I have nothing to contribute to the Melchizedeck thing and Revelation is the opposite, to my mind, full of symbols. So I have decided to step aside of both issues. Instead I am going to work on my ideal of "greater faith". Is it just figurative or only a parable? I myself think not.

Melchizedeck? 

We don't know for sure yet what is coming and we do not know what went before. What to do with these speculations? What does Melchizedeck mean for me?

Neglecting the Power

 Stifling the Spirit

When I was racking up perfect attendance pins in Sunday School I did not believe anything Jesus said about if someone asks me for my shirt to give him my coat also. 

Neither did I give any truth to the story the Rabbi's sternly told Jesus He should not heal on Sunday.

I dismissed it altogether, never thought a thing about it until I discovered much, too much, later that that Jesus' commandment was telling me the flesh could not help me. It was the spirit that was my vital road to eternity. 

Even during the rallies of Billy Graham, never a mention about being born again in any churches I heard about made any a stir. Probably because it was never taught in the seminaries.

Maybe some educate themselves out of faith and into fellowship dinners?

2nd Cor 16-18

Daily Renewing My Inner Man

I, as Paul said it best, pray any affliction I experience now is producing for me an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison to my decaying flesh. This is my hope.