definition of faith

Who Blew the Whistle

On No Faith?

All the Way

If anyone decides they did not get healed, then they gave up. If one speaks of being unhealed in the past tense then they have already locked themselves unhealed in the present tense as well, until that is, they gain greater faith. 

I do Not Question God

I figure it is not profitable for me to believe in an eternal God who is Himself bowed down subject to time, like all flesh. So I figure if He did not heal me yet then I did not have great enough faith. Not no faith, as some I've heard preach. Rather, not enough faith yet. I go to God for answers. I do not then question His answers. 

Bedrock definition of faith, to be faith at all, is permanent, ever lasting, never give up, persistence. 

Believing in.....

Resurrection Faith

Everything in Christianity if based on belief, how great it is or how little, as Jesus referred to it in several different written contexts. The core of everything is belief in Jesus resurrection from His death on the Cross for our sins, which then renders us free to excel. 

It occurred to me that believing in something believable requires very little belief. Believing something beyond extraordinary requires a great deal of belief. Christianity is based on belief of events on the Cross, which require strong belief if one thinks about it.

Mountain Moving Faith

Jesus maintained that if anyone had enough belief then belief in extraordinary events could occur, even to throwing a mountain into the sea. This is the spirit driving events in the seen manifestations of the flesh. Everything is based on belief and faith in belief. Many believe Jesus was only speaking figuratively about the mountain, So was this also true about the Cross or about Jonah?

If it was possible for Jonah then it was possible for Jesus along with all the mountains in all the mountain ranges everywhere.  Who knows? Next we'll be talking about walking on the moon. 

Everything seen came from the unseen. 

Somebody then must have believed it all at some point. Where did the idea for all this that surrounds us come from? God is a Spirit Person who believed. He then spoke His belief into the seen and it did not return to Him void. We dream at night after death of the day's events. Events that seemed so real while dreaming do not retain their greatest believability as when in the dream. 

This shows me the dream reality may be more real in the dream than the awake, seen in reality. It may be so hard to imagine out because it is tomorrow's magic today. So, for now, I will conclude that my belief is on Jesus, no matter what happens or is about to happen. It looks like the foolish things of this world will confound the wise when all the facts are known, but not yet now taken in.

Greater Works

"I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to the Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it." John 14:12-14 

definition of rationalization

The devil made me do it

Sometime ago I read of some Christians who blamed the inquisition on St Paul for saying that he condemned an "unbudged" soul to burn in hell since he did not respond to Paul's attempts to convert him. I estimate now as I recall, my impression was it was a group of a hundred or so.

Seems to me those who carried out the acts of the inquisition should be those to be blamed. This is an example if the ability to blame anyone in sight for their own the devil made me do it guilt. I suspect there were "underlying" motives satisfied here.

Either some thing or no thing

 Process of elimination

Any view that does not believe in God is by definition forcing adherents to believe in themselves instead. This is the only free will power choice they have, which is to say this view believes in nothing out of something. Meanwhile something, all that God has already spoken into Existence continues, and remains on display.

Pulpit talk pompous gibberish

No offense!

One preacher I heard declare only those with a soul will be in heaven, as I have already recently said. So that left out the little boy who asked if his dog will be with him in heaven. No dog? Not much of a heaven for that little boy, not only for him, but for the rest of us as well. 

Having a soul will not get anyone in heaven. Only grace gets one in heaven, if they accept it. If the little boy wants his dog in heaven then if he himself is in heaven, then his dog will be in heaven. 

What kind of a heaven would it be for that for the little boy, without his dog? Is he to watch the lion lay down with the ram without his dog alongside? This is an example of doctrinaire-like nonsense coming from many solitary confinement pulpits in just my narrow lifetime. 

No wonder believers are shrinking, with so many churches churning out baby atheists as young as fourteen without any awareness of the basics of Christianity. This might be the prime reason why. 

The teachers were the pupils, now they are teaching, teaching the younger pupils how to make earrings out of buttons. I have my perfect attendance pins to boast it. 😒

Creation vs evolution

Evolution Cannot Create

Creation can Evolve 

Evolution is an action verb and creation is the subject that evolves. Evolution by itself can only evolve from something. We are therefore left with nothing from evolution, by itself alone, to evolve. 

So what evolves from that which is created? Since everything seen comes from the unseen we are forced to assume evolution comes from an unseen force so that it is a seen in action, as it evolves and continues to evolve. 

If someone cannot understand the unseen spirit from which everything seen comes, they are left with an evolution from which evolved from nothing. What was first to evolve? The chicken? Then how did the egg get here? Sounds like the big bang all over again telling me that standing water is nothing, only the steam bubbles that arise from the seen water was the first to exist.

For my part I am convinced I can to reason better than that. So this is where my thinking carried me. Evolution exists and also evolves but how did it come to exist in the first place? It exists because it was created in the first place by the unseen Spirit. 

Placed in Our Hearts from our Beginning

God is, like a massive group epiphany everyone in every state of evolvement agrees. God is a spirit, as the Holy Spirit. The Spirit personified is God who, naturally, created us like Himself. Everything God creates I am convinced, He has provided free will in order the created can evolve. By simple observation we can see animals to be animals would be continuing to evolve so they must have free will. Why? So they can evolve in order to survive and prosper. 

Problem with Grammar?

The seen is seen evolving

I myself was taught to diagram my sentences in the fourth grade. So I've always wondered what the problem was between creation the subject and the subject creation evolving. That is how verbized subjects do things. As I first read Genesis, many years ago now, I thought the Bible gave a better and more complete description of evolution than the truncated incomplete evolutionist view. Otherwise? So where is the controversy?

definition of Reincarnation

Over and over and over

Key word is same

Reincarnation is the repetitive  birth of the same soul in a different body. The definition of insanity is similar. Insanity is the repetition of the same event and expecting a different result.

"Same" is our operative word here, in both instances. Repetition soon degenerates, into not only insanity, but is a vital thread in any definition of full blown hell. 

Resurrection 

Resurrection has no connection to repetitiveness in any manifestation. It is a single, one time event for all time. Resurrection has no connection to birth, the connection is to death. Resurrection was a final sacrifice for our freedom from sin. There is no rational justification for comparing of either one of them in the same sentence. 

Persuasion in the pulpit

Whiffle Waffling Wafflers

Trip the Light Fantastic 

If anyone makes me think they are in any way giving me the credit for their seeing the light in any matter, they are actually giving me the responsibility for their own decisionless decisions. 

It is a responsibility that is not theirs to give. It is their own and not mine in any manner. I cannot persuade anyone, everyone persuades themselves. And they should take good credit for it, for themselves.

 I have learned that talking, like a puff of wind,  is not effective if one wants to advocate a position anyway. It is just a release for the talker. It usually hardens them into a incompletely thought out decision.  

It also is not a decision for anyone who agrees in a group. But they, there as well, will also refuse responsibility for a group decision. Often this after every cruel and disgusting position they find themselves were a part, all of course, in hind sight. 

Writing opinions down is more lasting, than talking. Writing your opinions down is harder than explaining them vocally. Writing objectifies my thinking, potentially permanent, like working an idea out in my own mind, only better. 

My ideas do work themselves out, sort of like climbing a ladder, I tend, by writing, not to fall behind into the sea of forgetfulness. But as opinions evolve and progress I date them since that is my thinking as of that date. My opinions are alive and as I grow they could grow. 

As one becomes older we should be able to change our minds instantly when we find we are wrong. Each dated idea is frozen in time while I myself move flexibly on, either the same or differently. It is a characteristic of the seen opinion that it can, and often enough does, change. When my seen time is over, I only hope my unseen will be happy with the previously seen. 

My third great quote, I stole

"The truth cannot be told by those who know." 

This was said by Jesse Livermore. He participated in stock trading pools, now illegal I strongly believe, prior to the great crash that ushered in FDR. 

I adapted it just as it is however, because it spoke to me on a larger plateau. I think it wonderful since it fulfills one of my deep convictions. No one can tell anyone the truth except themselves. Everyone persuades themselves, particularly when they try to persuade others. 

Every time we expand our awareness of the truth, we find the truth is more illusive than we ever conceived,  always keeping just ahead of ourselves. 

This is just another reason we all constantly proceed with faith and without proof. Proof can only be achieved to our own individual satisfactions. It cannot be achieved by any freestanding independent proof itself. This is largely because all things seen came from the unseen, which is to say everything in the seen is registered from many different "projectives". 

The seen is always changing while the unseen is unchanging. This is why I believe Jesus could say if you kill-wish someone in your heart, you are guilty of murder already. This is teaching, a teaching about the inside of the cup, our spirit.

Like the wind

If one does not understand the spirit, then the truth cannot be told to them since they cannot see it spiritually, or otherwise understand where the truth comes from, or where it goes. 

My second favorite quote I own

 "Which man is worse off? The one who tells a lie or the one who believes it?" Because I cannot control what anyone says I never think about that.

I am not really moved by anyone telling a lie about me, but I take strong exception anyone knowing me would believe it. Am I taking an offense? Maybe so, but I suddenly know I do not really have a good reason to trust them further. Definitely disappointed particularly at the my loss. But silently, under my hat, not woundedly so. Stronger? Absolutely! 

I love a good quote

.....no matter that so many great quotes are each credited to literally thousands of different people.

The first personally original quote that simply jackboxed out of me was during a friendly but excited discussion among relatives as a teenager.

"Only offensive people take offense."

It was suggested that my remarks were assuming an offense against a cousin. I chipped back that no, he would not be offended because only offensive people take offense. Did not think about, it was suddenly just there. 

Since then I've came to love it, and repeat it often as I possibly can. Who knows? Maybe I heard it before and could not remember it? Always seemed unlikely to me because it reflects an outlook I was born with since I can recall much earlier, in the fourth grade, a childhood acquaintance saying to me that, don't you know I am calling your mother a dog? To which I responded, so what? your saying it does not make it so. 

I always wondered why anyone could become so animated by anyone else just saying such and so. Honor? How did anyone assume they had control of my respect? I do not need anyone's respect. I respect myself.  I never felt responsible for what others said, about me or not about me. I am not going to waste time denying speech I do not seek to control, cannot control, or more likely never even hear.

But, forgetting all that, quotes are wonderful because they are so brief, so concise, and the best ones so darned true. The more words one employs explaining anything is just so much accumulation of muddy water. It specifically means to me that one is not clear of what they are talking about. 

By virtue of taking an offense, 

Exposes ones' offensiveness

Taking an offense indicates a weakening, having taken it. It advertises ones' resulting vulnerability. Like anger, it tells everyone they are wounded. This highlights them as a perfectly clear target for attack. The sense of blood in the air tells all rivals, instinctive among males, this weakened state is a good time to strike. 😋

The sweet chariot

Flying Low

My spirit is clearly seen flying quite low lately. Reading in Ecclesiastes can do that for one I suppose with everything reflected as meaningless. But while toil is meaningless, the writer does say our only hope for meaning comes in enjoying our toil. First glance seems to me dangerously close to a logical pattycake. But, he says the toil is meaningless while the enjoyment of it is another thing.

If the seen is beautiful
what about the unseen?

However the best verse in this book for my attention is found in the early going. It confirms my suspicion that God has placed eternity in our hearts. I am taken by this, since it is universally good to exist, by definition. This contrasts with the observation of the writer of Ecclesiastes that it is better to never have been born. There is much grief in wisdom, also my underline. As recently mentioned, I have been captured by the idea that merely the passage of time itself, good or bad, is intrinsically sad.    

Phony Sermon Redux

No blinkies for  

second pulpit talk

I witnessed this sermon. I've heard it twice. Once, and then a second time, around fifty years later, by a different pastor. Same thing in a reworked format, sad as sad any emotion can be, but in it, no mention of Jesus Christ whatever. Then like a cold shower, inexplicably,  an invitation to give your heart to Jesus. 

The first was to children, as the 11th and 12th grades were ushered out of the chapel, so they could freely vent I guess. The second, much later, was to comfortably advanced retired people. The first sermon was well responded to by the children, but the oldsters, about to enter the glorious gold mansions, never blinked an eye.

My Three Churches

Church for Sale

Shooting the Shepherds

I was born into one church. I was married in another church. I will likely die in my current church. While I was attending,  in all three churches,  contentious members voted their pastors out of office. 

Healing only for believers?

We are what we believe

Pulpit Talk at Pulpit Rock

Can one believe Jesus rose from the dead but find healing too hard a miracle feat to ever mention healing? I always thought they felt if they were not healed, then they would not be believers nor else not enter heaven. But I was never specifically told this by anyone. 

All I found is, not only in the denomination I was born into, but in many Protestant denominations, they never mention healing. All without saying exactly why. Since I was baptized in church on Pentecost Sunday, I feel licensed to speak about myself on the subject, whether anyone thinks I am right or wrong. 

Something for the kids...

Healing was an integral part of Jesus' ministry, and quite a contentious part at that. Jesus' theme, it must be resaid however, was about the Holy Spirit and being born again. Something that was not ever mentioned in the church I was born into. I was told the stories in the Bible were not true, only the meaning was true. You know, something like Santa Claus, something for the kids. I learned, overheard form the adults, what the meaning was of pulpit talk. 

I was surprised to learn of the lack of healing emphasis much later, after graduating from a Christian high school of the numerous connections to the New from the Old Testament, with healing, being just one. 

Prediction prespoken

If one is young they will change their mind. If they are old they will lose it. This is when one finally realizes, if they haven't already, is all they have is their spirit. The only time to build one's spirit is in the changing seen world. What they fed their spirit then is the foundation of what they will know in the unseen world forever, outside time.

Building faith

Healing verses are comforting to consult and carry with you at all times. After all, one never knows when the blow may fall.  Often in the struggles we encounter are victories of faith. I found it wise to watch closely what Jesus said prior to healings. Those who neglect this endeavor are at times heard trying to convince God to heal them, long after God already healed them when Jesus endured stripes on the Cross. These pleaders reveal their ignorance of the Cross.  God sent Jesus and now they expect Jesus to believe for them. He said, we must recall, that they would be healed according to their belief.   

Be careful what you hear

"For there is nothing hidden which will not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret but that it should come to light. Take heed what you hear. With the same measure you use, it will be measured out to you, and to you who hear more will be given. For whoever has, to him more will be given; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him."  

 Mark 4:23, 24-25.

The only reliable rule in psychology I trust is "projection". From out of the heart the mouth speaks. One reveals more about themselves in talking about another than they realize. And if anyone takes an offense, they are offensive by reason of having taken it. 

How to bargain with God

So often people tell me 

the bargains they 

made with God. 

One, I remember him now, because he was so colorfully animated. His nickname was the name of a boxer all the rage at the time. 

Seems my friend had cancer of some variety. And he told God he would help people if He would heal him of cancer. Apparently he felt God agreed with the arrangement because he set about doing his end of his bargain with gusto. 

He agreed to built an elaborate front walk for someone in our group, himself a character of high estate, and during the course of his labors asked the high estate to get some more stones. 

Whereupon he was told in no uncertain fashion, to buy them himself. Harsh words resulted. I cannot say with any certainty that he ever finished the front walk.

Despite his habit to fly off the handle he finally passed away, happy as a lark in a nursing home. Maybe that is the way it is when the mind deserts the body before the spirit takes over. Despite my tendency to advise shying away from bargaining with God, now that I think about it, he did quite well in his bargain for all that. 

definition of Paraclete

The Paraclete is the Holy Spirit. I favor this simple early church definition. First mentioned in the gospels in the book of John, Jesus said He would send His disciples another Advocate. 

So this is why I identify Paraclete with the Holy Spirit. Para means alongside, and a paraclete is like a lawyer who stands alongside his client before a judge. Like a lawyer also, he is one who tells his client what to say and speaks for him.

One view, first explained, unknown now to me, was the Paraclete is one who represents us before God and assures God that we are believers. Then they made the point that God does not tolerate nor allow evil, not even in His presence. I mention this because so many church people I've engaged believe God allows evil in the world. 

For God to heal....

....we have to accept it.

We have to believe greater, 

and persisting, never give up 

until we can accept healing

When God does not answer prayer, is it because He changed His mind, or just decided not to want to heal for some reason? 

He is not a man that 

He can change His mind

So Yes! Healing may not occur, but not for any reason like changing His mind. He cannot change His mind, according to the scriptures. I can say He does want to heal and in fact already has, long ago by Jesus' stripes on the cross, as told in the scriptures. 

Gave up believing

So no one can say He did not want to heal for any reason whatsoever but why then was there no healing? He did heal! We didn't!  It is we who did not persist and believe with great enough faith. See the words of Jesus when healing.

Peristence

Those who prayed for healing did not persist. Bedrock of faith is persistence. They gave up believing. In doing so they pulled the plug, and then blamed it on God. 

Knowledge more than God

 I believe God knows our decisions before we make them, but He does not make those decisions for us. We decide, since we loved knowledge above God from the beginning. The knowledge we gain continually shows us how more ignorant we are now than we originally realized. 

Book of wisdom

At least by the time I was in my thirties, I think now, my mind as a dominating guide was stalling and needed the spirit to rescue me to a higher level from the seen to the unseen. Many societies and their religions have books of wisdom to usher the inexperienced young into the more advanced concepts of life away from the physical desires the mind is susceptible. Proverbs is a book of wisdom intended to be taught to the young to prepare them for the pitfalls waiting for them before the seen gains complete hold of them. 

Judging extent of the effort

Hard work

If, after thinking really hard for awhile, one is not sweating or feeling like they are about to sweat, then maybe there was not enough hard thinking going on. It was perhaps more like watching a movie of one's thoughts sliding idly by bye. I know too much about it. 

Definition of God first reported by Moses.

 God defined Himself. As I clearly understood in an epiphany I did not quite fully understand at the time, God defined Himself as Existence. I read much later that God defined Himself, as I am that I am, which is to say existence. 

Now also, we know God is a spirit, known as the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost, as well as His only begotten son, Jesus. 

We also know as a surety that God is a person because He spoke us into existence as someone like Himself. In the definition I quote I include these definitions in a separate site by that name which is the primary purpose of these Sunset Stroller sites, click on.....

God is the spiritual personification of Existence.

Names for God. 

The names for God cannot be counted.

Click above and scroll down to see a few of them.

Quote of the week

Which person is worse off? The one who tells a lie or the one who believes it? 

Surrendering to safety

 Jesus said, and was quoted to this effect many times, that there would be a day when the first shall be last and the last shall be first. There is a virtue in surrendering our thoughts to God, and why not? Considering who God is and what He does, that would be the place to be, in the fountainhead of existence. 

I found this to be the way out of danger. Once, drowning. I had given up, starting to take in water, even thought of what would be said at my funeral, he was so young. All this time however, I was being saved but did not know it until a voice behind me said crystal clear in my memory, try one more time.

When, exhausted, I surrendered I unknowingly started to drift gradually upward. My struggling no longer held me down. When the voice told me to try one more time, that was all it took. My hand cupped an inner shelf under the top of the pool. My body reacted with a powerful surge upward and I was sitting along the wall gasping and safe. 

Another time as I lay totally exhausted with walking pneumonia. Suffering long overwhelmed me and suddenly I gave up, crying. From that instant on I began to recover. I immediately felt better. It was a dramatic finish to experience. What is true in the spirit is true in the flesh. 

If I surrender to God I am rewarded in similar fashion. So I see in this that the spirit struggles just as in the physically seen world and this assumes final victory in surrendering. It seems as though I perhaps cast off every negative thought if I can surrender to the God of my existence. It is after the fight and the struggle I am tested, but if I give everything up to God I gain the good. Everything God urges me to do is for my benefit. Worshipping and praising God? God is existence. Proof eliminates the need for faith. 

 I asked for wisdom but found it too heavy. So now, as the days dwindle down for all of us, I ask for greater faith.

We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses

I am forced by the weaknesses of this world to reduce my formerly ambitious efforts. This blog reflected my moods and comments at various times so now must finally withdraw these ambitions to prosper other more pedestrian goals. 

Meanwhile, despite handicaps and without assistance, blog still continues to reach curious viewers from around the globe. At the moment, spanning the most recent seven days, 105 hits from the US; Portugal 6; Vietnam 4; and Azerbaijan, Indonesia, and British Virgin Islands one each. 

Cannot figure out how anyone finds the blog from so far around the world. It is not the number of them so much as the fact they come by from so far. I am not accepting comments because none get thru. I suppose because I am not in any way familiar with computers. 

It is an accomplishment to operate a computer but as with a auto, I am fortunate to drive the car, I don't know how to fix it. So fixing computer errors and is outside my OJT on the job training skills. 

My mention of my fondly remembered brush with Latin in school revealed there are those in the balcony here who are apparently far more familiar with Latin than I.

Hearsay usually defines gossip.

Wasn't it Kurt Vonnegut who used to say that's the way it goes? I strangely recall reading the Piano Player, in hardcover.