Christ on Golgotha.
god
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God’s the creator. Do something to honor him today by taking the creative instinct in you and, at the very least, doodle something; draw something; brush a splotch or splash or dash of something; take a picture; or, just watch the stars shine through blurred lenses after spinning in a circle. God will love this and rejoice in your joy!
Side by side are seen the deadly Kukri knife and a jawbone of a donkey. The Kukri is considered an awesome weapon. Wielded in the hand of a skilled practitioner, there is no question as to how many foes one could dispatch. Why people question whether Samson could have really slain a thousand with the jawbone of a donkey is not, therefore, so much a matter of ergonomics, but faith.
I’ve only been wielding my arrow saber, seen in the following video update, for a couple months. I’m an old man. Inspired by God, there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Samson did exactly what the Bible recorded. The important lesson in the matter is this: archaeologically or otherwise, everything in the Bible is plausible. One need only question one thing – why does God want us to make leaps of faith? Time to ponder…; but, for now, more arrow sabering…
As a Christian I am determined by none other than God to be perfected. But to what ultimate purpose am I being perfected?
I snapped the picture above the other day and thought, “This is not what I would consider a perfect picture.” Yet, there also came an accompanying thought – “What if, at the moment I took that picture, someone had been there that was blind for their entire life. Maybe that person was decades old and had been blind from birth.” You know what? To them, that might be the most amazing picture of the sun they had ever seen in their life, even if they had imagined other ones.
You may never know just when you might shed a different light onto something that, for a lifetime, might have challenged someone else; yet, your insight might just be the one that caused an epiphany for them.
I cannot argue that God did not have all this in mind the moment he created us. I believe he truly does have the whole world in his hands and is active and alive in doing so – not as some might think, absent and afar.
Why am I being perfected? As any great Creator (and being THE GREAT I AM THAT HE IS), God has created us as sacred, protected notes on a great symphony of life, eternal, which none of us could ever have dreamt up otherwise. The up and down beats and rhyme and reason, we cannot understand. We simply must trust in his enterprise – even if, in blindness, we flounder for understanding. He has given us His Word, the Holy Bible; through which we can seek better understanding of just how it is he can be in every moment of our lives – by simply opening the pages and realizing them to be a living testament, the lamp unto our feet, the light in our lives.
To consider myself fortunate enough to be a part of his plans; and, that by his only begotten Son, I am saved from sin and death, is to believe in the impossible and improbable; yet, inextricably, something which is entirely imaginable, if only we choose to believe.
I hope you do. I hope you think you are a part of something so much more beyond this world than what this world has to offer. I hope so – for, to be a part of a great symphony is one thing; to be so, for all eternity, now that’s truly something to look forward to!
Why am I being perfected? I am being perfected to be in CONCERT with God. In this world and the next, that equals the best jam session I can imagine. If this defines me as marching to a different drummer, SO WHAT!
To march with God is to march with a majority, along with all the angels and saints, and you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, we’ll just keep a marching along!
What does it mean to truly be alive? As I sit here today I am reminded of my fragility as a human being and, upon deeper reflection, am reassured all the more that, though this life is important, it is not all that there is. Beneath the surface of this momentary existence is something perpetual, everlasting, eternal, working inside of me, restoring and renewing and regenerating a call for TRUE LIFE, inextinguishable by human means.
Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, thank you this day for being the light that shines in the darkness; that draws me from the depths of any despair this world may bring; and renews me as only an eternal spring can – hopeful and vibrant, fearless; yet, fearing and knowledgeable of God the Almighty and respectful to the TRUE LIFE, eternal, which he has granted me through Jesus Christ.
The Relativists’ claim
This does not mean anything, categorically, nevertheless, there is the claim, mostly presented by many Relativists, co-opted from the Bible, that no one should judge anyone else, for in the same manner they judge others, likewise, they will be judged. They have joined this with another powerful rule which is not so much a rule when accurately analyzed; but, rather, an opinion that has gone awry, simply because it has not been subjected to critical analysis – that is, the more things become different; the more things become the same.
When used in combination, these two claims present a challenge against every rugged individualist that, if they should think themselves so haughty as to suggest that they can pioneer some new effort, or idea about anything, it is considered by these Relativists to be overly pious for them to think so; and, furthermore, bigoted, selfish, and the height of egomania to do so – as if it were criminal, in the same sense Hitler was criminal to have fashioned Nazism around his ego.
The problem with this claim by many Relativists leads to many problems which can be cleared up with one picture – a sunset.
A sunset, or a sunrise, is something that, once seen, witnessed, gloried in and, digested for what it is, is something that gives witness to a unique event – yes, I did say unique, as in, there will never be another sunset like it, no matter where you look in the world and no matter how many times you repeat the process. Each sunset or sunrise is unique, for many special reasons, but simply for just one – the feelings, emotions, history, etc. that a person brings into that event is unique. What the person is going through in their own very precise point in the universe, at any moment in time, is particularly unique to them at that precise moment, never to be duplicated again by any other set of uniquely collaborated series of events.
The United States Declaration of Independence is also a call to protect individuals’ rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – and, the right to express oneself freely and independently.
No, we are all not going towards the BORG, i.e. some universal assimilation whereby we lose such individual liberties and freedoms!
Our uniqueness is a Divine Act, whereby God continues to develop an eternally rich and diverse universe, neverending and, always interesting just because of those very diversities. Let freedom ring but at least give thanks to God from which all richness in such flows.
“13 When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? 14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. 15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? 16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. 17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. 18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
I stumbled upon the rock pictured while hiking and was taken by its look. I wondered, “There are those that would say this rock is the result of 13 billion or so years of natural evolution. They are entitled to their opinion and I respect them wholeheartedly for their faith in the matter. I choose, rather, to believe that nothing so amazing as this rock could have been made other than by the hands of a divine maker – and not one who just set a clock to ticking and left, as some divine watchmaker.
No, the Lord Jesus Christ who, as the chief cornerstone of the church was laid bare then risen by God was in no way absent from his Creation, ever. Even dying for our sins, God the Father in the Trinity oversaw Jesus’ resurrection and, upon Jesus’ ascension to Heaven, sent the Holy Spirit.
We have never been alone and as I walked by the rock pictured; nor was I. It caused me to reflect on just how glorious the Lord and all his creation is.
“It’s cold out there…” says the weatherman in one of my favorite movies, Groundhog Day. Yes, the leaves have fallen and we’re settling in for winter. But spring will come, most assuredly, and with that, we’ll have leaves once again on our trees. The Holy Spirit of the Lord our God can thaw the most frozen of hearts, if only we let him. He’s there waiting, it just takes us reacting to his invitation. Peace.
I woke up this morning feeling the need to energize all those needing courage in the face of unspeakable horror in the school shooting in Newtown Connecticut, such as those teachers who stood against the evil on that day, so I created this latest post. May God Bless us when we need it.
The Peace that Surpasses All Understanding
The peace of Christ surpasses all understanding. Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh, begotten by the Father, the only being not begotten.
God the Father so loved us that he gave his only begotten son as a sacrifice for our sins. We live in a world temporarily under sin due to it being subject to Satan, the fallen angel Lucifer who rebelled against the Father and caused Adam and Eve to sin; whereby, we all have been born into a fallen world and fall short of the glory of God because of it. By the very nature of this world of sin we miss, daily, the perfect peace to be had when in relationship with the Father. We who believe in Jesus’ sacrifice are forgiven our sins and can pray to our Heavenly Father, who is in Heaven, whose name is hallowed, whose Kingdom has come, and whose will is done on earth as it is in Heaven. He gives us this day, our daily bread and forgives us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. He leads us not, into temptation, but delivers us from evil; for the Kingdom and the power and the glory are His, now and forever.
What is best for us is that we are in relationship with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus’ special relationship with the Father made it possible for him to overcome this world and the sin that is in it because of Satan. God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit (who was sent by the Father to lead us into righteousness) want us to have the peace of Christ – that nothing can separate us from the love of God; and, even though this world is passing, God’s love for us never will.
The reason this is called the peace that surpasses all understanding is that, I don’t know; nor can any human know, how it is that God the Father IS, the Great I AM. It must be taken by faith that HE IS. This is beyond our understanding; yet, the peace that surpasses ALL understanding, nevertheless, IS what it is!
May the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you in order that you might not fear this world or all that is in it, but rejoice!
Reflections of a Tin Hatter 