FIRST, THE GOOD NEWS - Chapter Twelve (continued)

...continued from previous post...

The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth

Were Adam and Eve the first people on the earth?

Clearly not...and that's according to the Scriptures.

Moses indeed begins his narrative about God's covenant with humanity with only Adam and Eve and their children, but in the fourth chapter of Genesis, after Cain kills Abel, we hear of other people who are already alive and living somewhere else in the earth.

After the murder, Cain is sentenced to become a vagabond, roaming around with no place to settle down. So he tells God that he is afraid that as he travels the earth, when other people find out that he committed fratricide that they will want to kill him, too.

So God puts a mark on him as a warning to anyone else who might want to do him harm because they had gotten wind of his terrible crime...and the mark means that everyone else who already lives on the earth is to leave Cain alone.

Other people already lived on the earth?

Who?

The Genesis account isn't clear about that, but whoever they were, they obviously had the ability to communicate, gossip, and threaten other people with murder.

And in the following verses we see that Cain ends up going to a place that already existed, east of Eden, called Nod.

There was apparently already a civilization there in Nod, and Cain finds a woman in that place who he marries, and they become the parents of Enoch.

If you rigidly hold to the idea that Adam and Eve and their children were the first people, then you can't make any sense of this part of the story...and you also have to conclude that Cain committed incest by marrying his own sister. In fact, if you follow this fundamentalist notion as an absolute, you would have to believe that all of the children of Adam and Eve married and had children with their siblings.

Typically, fundamentalists miss the point of this story, entirely.

The point is not the literalness of the historical facts of Adam's family...the point is, I believe, that God wants to be (and is very much) involved in the affairs of human beings...that our actions have consequences...and that even in punishing Cain for his wicked deed, God still shows him mercy and offers him protection.

These are important and powerful concepts...the multi-faceted moral of the story...the "truth" of the Genesis account, if you will.

Was there a flood that destroyed the entire world, except for the eight Hebrew people on Noah's Ark?

There most likely was a terrible and devastating flood in antiquity that caused mass destruction, and telling about it became part of the oral tradition of ancient peoples. But it seems impossible to believe that the flora and fauna, not to mention all the people of the earth, were all destroyed in one universal, global flood.

First of all, Moses, no doubt, would have believed that the earth was flat when he and whoever else wrote Genesis relayed the story of the Great Flood. Their idea of the whole world would have been just the world that they knew about.

Furthermore, if there were only 8 Hebrews saved on the entire planet, then where did Asians and Africans and Europeans and all the indigenous people of the earth come from?

The point of the story, as far as I'm concerned, isn't whether or not there were actually and literally two kangaroos and two zebras and two grasshoppers, etc. on the ark...the point of the story (and again, fundamentalists seem to miss this, altogether), is that one man can make a difference...indeed, one man can save the world!

If there were not a Noah story, there could be no Gandhi story...

...or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr story....

...or Rosa Parks story...

...or the story of any other individual who has made an impact on humanity to the point that history was actually altered by their actions.



In reality, there couldn't even be a Jesus, the Savior, story without a Noah story.



Look, I'm not saying that the stories of the Bible are fables...I personally believe that there is an element of truth in all of them.

I can believe that there was a literal Adam and a literal Eve, but not to the point that I overlook and misunderstand the symbolism of their personalities in the story of God's relationship to humanity...

I believe that people who take the Bible so literally that they accept every single word of it as an absolute completely bypass the importance and significance of the power of story-telling.

Jesus certainly understood and employed the art of story-telling, because He taught nearly entirely in parables, and the effectiveness of His colorful tales have little to nothing to do with whether or not there was an actual/literal Unjust Judge or Prodigal Son or Good Samaritan.

And if you read the four Gospel accounts of the Resurrection of Jesus, you basically find four different versions of the events of that day...there is no official story of record, and you'd think there would be, considering that the Resurrection is perhaps the most important event recorded in the Bible.

But the one constant of the four stories is that Jesus was dead, and then He was alive. That's what matters...not how many women were in the garden, or how many angels there were, or whether or not there was an earthquake, or whether or not Jesus commissioned Mary Magdalene to tell the disciples about it.

Fundamentlism fixates on the facts of the story, and ignores the inspiration and relinquishes the revelation of the narrative.

So...is the Bible true or not?

The Bible certainly contains truth, and ultimately reveals "The Truth"...but it must be rightly divided before any truth can actually be found in it.

And, as I've already said...if you know where to look, you find that it's truthfully just loaded with pretty much nothing but GOOD NEWS!

FIRST, THE GOOD NEWS - Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

You Better Think!

 "I regard Christian and Jewish fundamentalism, and all other forms of fundamentalism,

as the enemies of God - and I hope you'll quote me on that."

-Arthur Hertzberg

They finally got Osama Bin Laden.

It was nearly ten years after the fact...ten years after September 11, 2001...but they finally got him.

As an American, I joined in with the rest of the country in breathing a collective sigh of relief in knowing that the despot had been removed from the world stage, and I applauded the obviously successful efforts of our Commander-In-Chief, and of the amazing soldiers who executed a virtually flawless raid on Bin Laden's Pakistani mansion/compound.

It's regrettable that it took so long to find him, especially since he had obviously been hiding in plain sight the whole time...but it's even more regrettable, as far as I'm concerned, that we are still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time of this writing.

But, at least he's gone.

Being as patriotic as the next guy, I was moved by the spontaneous celebrations that broke out at the White House and in Times Square and at Ground Zero the night that the President announced that Bin Laden had been taken out, and I certainly don't want to be insensitive to the pain of the families who lost loved ones on that horrible September morning in '01...families that will never have full closure from the atrocities of that day, no matter who is assassinated...but I was quite sober when I heard the news.

Relieved? Yes.

Happy? Not really...at least not totally...

At the time, I expressed this same sentiment on my blog, and for the most part my thoughts were very well received...but there were those who misunderstood my point, completely (so what else is new?), and sent me numerous statistics of the many deaths for which Bin Laden was responsible...some even accused me of wanting to invite him to my house for dinner and become best friends with him.

(sigh)...

Certainly, no one needed to convince me what a bad guy he was...9/11 broke my heart...but I'm used to people missing the point on a lot of subjects that I discuss...being misunderstood comes with the territory when you have a large platform through which you express your ideas, especially ideas that aren't really mainstream.

Anyway, the point is this...we live in such an unkind world...people killing one another...hating one another...the longer I live, the more intolerable this reality becomes. So, even though what was done in Pakistan at Bin Laden's compound apparently had to be done, I couldn't and can't in good conscience really rejoice in the death of anyone, no matter how evil they are.

Am I glad he's gone?

No doubt about it.

I'm glad to know that we don't have to dread another of his videos coming out that shows he's still alive and still a threat to our safety.

But I am grieved that we live in a world where this kind of thing still has to happen at all.

What does this have to do with GOOD NEWS and the other things I've discussed in this book? Just that the world needs a revelation of the GOOD NEWS now more than ever!

Let me give that statement some context for this chapter...

The President gave a short but brilliant speech to the country the night of the assassination, in which he pointed out that Osama Bin Laden did not and does not represent Islam, and he was right about that.

In fact, Bin Laden killed more Muslims than he did any other group.

But where my mind went immediately was that the real enemy was not Osama Bin Laden or any other person, for that matter.

The real enemy was and is religious fundamentalism.

Fundamentalism kills...be it Muslim or Christian or that of any other religious persuasion.

The Crusades...

The Spanish Inquisition...

The Holocaust...

The violence between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland...

The Ku Klux Klan...

The Taliban, etc...

It's all about religious intolerance that stems from fundamentalist interpretations of Holy Writ.

I'm proud to be an American.

I'm proud of our President and of our troops.

I love my country, and I want it to be safe.

But I'm really, really tired of religious fundamentalism, and all the hatred and death that it inevitably causes.

Terrorism happens every day in the name of religion...believe me, I know of what I speak.

In The Beginning

Fundamentalist Christians read the Bible with no sense of context...no concept of how to discern the "spirit" of the letter, and so they just continue to fixate on the parts of the written script with which they agree, even though what they focus on is nearly always "the letter that kills".

For example: Of course God created the universe.

Call it intelligent design, or whatever, the fact is that science cannot answer all of our questions about the origin(s) of everything. Even though there is clearly and undeniably some evolution that takes place in every species, including that of humans (if you don't believe it, ask yourself why people have wisdom teeth), there is just no way that everything on the earth, including all of the different species of animals, could have evolved into such a sophisticated and complex bio-system.

And this is no doubt a very simplistic way to approach it, but I think it's obvious that we didn't come from apes for the very simple reason that there are still apes. If simians, regardless of how "human" they often seem in demeanor and mannerism, were just a link in the chain, then why didn't they eventually all evolve into homo sapiens?

So yes..."in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth".

That's a given.

But that doesn't mean that science is wrong in its assertion that the earth is older...much, much older...than 6,000 years, as many traditional creationists believe.

Did God speak the worlds into existence? I believe that He did, but that doesn't mean that I rigidly hold to the idea that He created the earth absolutely and definitely in only six 24-hour periods, and then rested on the 7th.

If Moses were here today, I believe that he would explain to those mainstream Bible believers who read the Genesis account strictly through a fundamentalist paradigm that he was speaking poetically when he wrote the creation account in Genesis 1. The ancient Hebrews, of course, would have understood that. Moses wasn't there when God created everything, so he had to find a way to explain the creation of all things in a way that his readers could understand.

The important thing is that, ultimately, God created everything...whether or not he did it in 6 days or 6 seconds or 6 million years. The fact is that creation is an act of divinity, and the product of the God-kind of faith.

When Christians argue over the "6 days" creationist stand versus the idea that God created everything through a process of evolution, they miss the point, entirely.

Bottom line, it was a miracle, and God did it.


...to be continued...

FIRST, THE GOOD NEWS - More of Chapter Eleven

Continued from previous post...

Not By Bread Alone

I am willing to accept and believe without reservation that "all Scripture is given by inspiration" (which is something that Paul said to Timothy in a letter, by the way), but there's no way to know whether or not Paul ever intended for his personal letters, many of which were largely administrative in nature, to be considered Holy Writ.

Would he have been surprised to know that down through the centuries, his Epistles to certain, specific churches would become what they eventually became to the world? Would he be further surprised to find out that his letters to a few individuals...individuals whom he personally mentored...would attract such a larger audience...that they would be included in what became The Bible?

May I go so far as to ask if he would be surprised to discover that some people would actually come to a point where they began to consider the Bible to be "THE" only Word of God?

I know that many Christians consider these questions to be a dangerous, slippery slope, because they have been taught to accept the canon of Scriptures as an absolute of perfection...most likely these same people have been taught to not question anything at all when it comes to the Bible ...that questions are really just blasphemy in disguise.

But I really and sincerely wonder if Paul considered his own letters to be the Word of God.

There's no way to know that, of course...there's even some dispute among some theologians and historians as to whether or not he actually penned all of the letters that we assume he actually wrote.

I say all that, not to discredit the writings of Paul (as I said, I love them), but to put them in some perspective.

I think that legitimate truth can withstand some honest questioning and real examination.

For what it's worth, here's how I see it. In my opinion, the Scriptures are definitely inspired, but not necessarily infallible. Some Christians have a meltdown when I say that, but I honestly think that many people have made the Bible into an idol...a sort of religious icon that must be worshipped as a fourth addition to the Holy Trinity...and have elevated it to a point to which it should never have been elevated.

Look, the Bible no doubt contains and archives a lot of the Word of God...a lot of what He said in the past to different people and people groups for whatever was happening at that time...but the Word of God is a proceeding (present tense) Word...a now Word...as it is written,"man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word which PROCEEDS out of the mouth of God."

But I do believe that the post-resurrection revelation of Christ that Paul wrote about is real...supernatural...other-worldly. I don't believe that it came from the mind of a brilliant man...I believe that it came from heaven.

That does not mean, however, that I think Paul was the "go-to" guy for advice on human relationships, especially human sexual relationships.

Was he anointed? No doubt.

Called? Absolutely.

An Apostle? Yes, because Christ continued to appoint people to ministries and "give gifts unto men" even after He was no longer revealed in the flesh as Jesus, the Son of Man, just as He continues to do today.

Was Paul who he said he was? Yes, I believe so.

Did Paul have "issues"? You bet! Just like you and I do...in fact, he talked about them a good bit.

In a word, when I want to know more about the revelation of Christ, Paul is my guy.

When I need clarity on the realities and complexities of human sexuality, not so much.

Why? Well, here's a little of Paul's perspective on romance, marriage, sex, etc. You be the judge.

He referred to natural, physical desires as the thing that was waging a certain "war in his members".

Read Romans, Chapter 7, in the Amplified Bible, and tell me it doesn't sound like he was referring to some kind of personal, sexual conflict when he talked about the problem with his flesh.

Paul just didn't seem to like women at all for some reason...well, if he indeed liked them, he at least was insistent on keeping them in their place, as he saw it....and this is in spite of the fact that Jesus clearly and continually went against the social mores of His day, and liberated women. It was an integral part of His message.

Paul said that the ONLY reason to get married was if you were so weak in character that you just couldn't live without sex ("It is better to marry than to burn"), as if there is nothing to love, companionship, romance, or relationship in a marriage...nothing to two people building a life together because of compatibility and mutual interests. And, yes, I know about Ephesians 5 ("Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church")...I've been using that passage in wedding ceremonies for decades, and I already discussed that. Paul said that he wasn't talking about marriage there.

I dare say that if the only reason you are married today is because you just simply can't contain your burning lusts, and need a sexual facilitator to help you deal with them, that you probably don't have a real marriage, anyway. To me, that kind of arrangement sounds more like prolonged prostitution than real matrimony.

I'm just sayin'.

But that was Paul's idea of the reason to get married.

He wore his own celibacy as a badge of honor, and looked down on those who didn't have the same "gift" that he had.

He even defined the act of marital sex by using the decidedly dismal and unromantic phrase,"rendering due benevolence".  Don't agree with me about that? Fine. You straight, married guys, next time you want to be intimate with your wife, try saying something to her like "Honey, get in here and render me some "due benevolence", so that I can stop burning in lust!", and see how the night goes for you. I dare say that that line is not going to work for the average married woman!

But Paul didn't empathize with women.

In fact, the entire Bible, whether inspired or not, was written by men to men, because women were kept illiterate then, as a rule. All of it is written from a male perspective...even the parts that are inspired by the Holy Spirit are filtered through the paradigm of a man.

And when it comes to dealing with the issues of people with same-sex attraction, I would add that the Bible was written to straight men by straight men...men who had no comprehension, whatsoever, of what it really means to be gay.


...to be continued...

　

FIRST, THE GOOD NEWS - Chapter Eleven (on 11/11/11)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A Man of Letters

"For we know in part, and we prophecy in part..."

- The Apostle Paul

I love Paul.

My preaching finds its source nearly entirely in the New Testament, divided pretty much right down the middle...about half of it from The Gospels, and the other half from Paul's Epistles.

I guess if I had to claim a favorite chapter in the Bible it would probably be Romans, Chapter Eight, part of his letter to the church at Rome ( "There is therefore now no condemnation..."..."the whole creation groans, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God"...).

I love His post-resurrection revelation of Christ...I consider it to be pristine.

I love his independence...the fact that, after his conversion, he went to Arabia for three years to develop his own theology/ideology, instead of going to Jerusalem to be mentored and/or influenced in any way by the original Apostles. He thought for himself, nearly to the point of being unteachable...and this is in spite of the fact that he learned at the feet of Gamaliel, a teacher who was to Israel and to Judaism what Socrates and Plato were to the Greco-Roman world.

I love that he never stopped defending his Apostleship, even though it was questioned, challenged and debated for as long as he lived because he wasn't one of the original twelve.

I love his mystical side...the part of his gift that produced the kind of imaginative writing we find in the first chapter of Ephesians...that sort of out-of-the box thinking that enabled him to present concepts such as "The Body of Christ", or the notion that Jesus was crucified "before the foundation of the world".

I personally believe that he wrote the book of Hebrews, and if he indeed did, I think it's amazing how he took the symbolism and typology of the Old Covenant in that book, and made it relevant to those who were not originally of the seed of Abraham.

I love his faith and tenacity...that bulldog kind of can-do perseverance that enabled him to survive beatings...being left for dead on more than one occasion...shipwrecks...all kinds of intense opposition.

I love his universalist teaching, like when he said things like "Christ is all and is in all"...or when he said that Christ was even in the Scythians (the most primitive of the barbarians), a concept that would have been considered outrageous to most civilized people at the time.

I love that he never talked about hell or eternal damnation, and confirmed the promise of ultimate reconciliation by saying that eventually "every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess".

I love that he continued to evolve as his tradition gradually (and sometimes reluctantly) bowed to his revelation...something to which I can definitely relate.

I love his flawed humanity...the fact that he struggled with his own beliefs, and was sometimes inconsistent, like when he circumcised Timothy, even though he constantly insisted that circumcision didn't mean anything under the New Covenant.

I love his candor and transparency...the inner conflict that he openly shared with his readers in Romans 7 ("Oh, wretched man that I am")...the fact that he had issues with his ego, and was often intolerant and inflexible with others, like when he had a permanent falling out with Barnabas over Mark. He could be totally full of himself at times, and yet he could write the ultimate masterpiece on love in 1 Corinthians 13.

I love that he set an example of knowing "'how to be abased, and how to abound"...how to be content in every state in which he found himself...and in that context could say that he could do all things through Christ who strengthened him.

I love that he said that those who are in the ministry should be financially supported by the ministry, but also did what he had to do, making tents to supplement his income when it was necessary.

I love that he eventually made peace with his life ("By the grace of God I am what I am...''), and even made peace with his death ( "To live is Christ, to die is gain...")...

I could write a whole book about Paul, and one day I might.

But not everyone holds my high opinion of him, even among theologians and scholars...some of the greatest thinkers in history...mainly because Paul's writings seem to be in conflict with some if not much of what Jesus taught.

This is not a problem for me, personally, because, as I've already said, I embrace and even celebrate Biblical contradictions...the exchange of ideas that comes from different paradigms (THE BIBLE IS NOT A BOOK! THE BIBLE IS A LIBRARY OF BOOKS!)

To make my point, here are a few quotes...I neither fully agree nor fully disagree with any of them, even though I do (and always will) love Paul and his mind and his teaching...


"... Paul is in effect the first Christian heretic, and his teachings, which become the foundation of later Christianity, are a flagrant deviation from the 'Original' or 'pure' form extolled by the leadership. Whether James, the 'Lord's brother,' was literally Jesus' blood kin or not (and everything suggests he was), it is clear that he knew Jesus...personally. So did most of the other members of the community or 'early Church,' in Jerusalem, including of course, Peter. When they spoke, they did so with first hand authority. Paul had never had such personal acquaintance with the figure he'd begun to regard as his 'Savior.' He had only his quasi-mystical experience in the desert and the sound of a disembodied voice. For him to arrogate authority to himself on this basis is, to say the least, presumptuous. It also leads him to distort Jesus' teachings beyond recognition, to formulate, in fact, his own highly individual and idiosyncratic theology, and then to legitimize it by spuriously ascribing it to Jesus."

"As things transpired, however, the mainstream of the new movement gradually coalesced, during the next three centuries, around Paul and his teachings. Thus, to the undoubted posthumous horror of James and his associates, an entirely new religion was indeed born, a religion that came to have less and less to do with its supposed founder."

- From the book, "The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception" by Michael Bajgent and Richard Leigh (Corgi Books, London, 1991)
 

"Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus."

- Thomas Jefferson

"Where possible he (Paul) avoids quoting the teaching of Jesus, in fact even mentioning it. If we had to rely on Paul, we should not know that Jesus taught in parables, had delivered the sermon on the mount, and had taught His disciples the 'Our Father.' Even where they are specially relevant, Paul passes over the words of the Lord."

- Albert Schweitzer

"Paul hardly ever allows the real Jesus of Nazareth to get a word in."

- Carl Jung






As I previously mentioned, Jesus said to call no man "Father" on the earth...Paul, however, insisted that he was to be considered and called a father by his followers, even though they may have had thousands of instructors.

Jesus elevated the status of women and seemed to enjoy their company...all kinds of women...prostitutes...a woman caught in adultery...a woman with an issue of blood...a woman who had had five husbands and was living with a man to whom she wasn't married.

The first person Jesus called to the ministry of proclaiming His resurrection was a woman, Mary Magdalene.

Paul told women to keep silent in the church...didn't allow them to usurp authority over men...told wives to submit to their husbands...

Women apparently found Jesus to be approachable...a safe place for them in a very patriarchal world in which they were considered to be not much more than objects...

Suffice it to say, a harlot never felt comfortable enough to wash Paul's feet with her hair!

And when it comes to the subject of homosexuality, as I said in the last chapter, it didn't even seem to be on Jesus' radar screen...but it was definitely on Paul's.



To be continued...

AUGUST PROMISES: Snow In Summer

From A Year In The Now...

AUGUST

A month to be restored and refreshed.

The heat is on, but help is on the way!

These dog days afternoons are the days the Lord, your Shepherd has made.

He is faithful to lead you to where the cool, green pastures are, and to cause you to lie down beside the peaceful, still waters...

"Like the cold of snow in time of harvest is a faithful messenger to those who send him, for he refreshes the soul of his masters."

(Proverbs 25:13)

No sweat...

Be cool...

Chill out...

Get ready...

Good news is coming like an unexpected arctic breeze from the north.

A miracle is in the making...

Welcome to the surprise of a summer snow!

The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon at night.

(Psalms 121:5, 6)

Dreaming in Technicolor

Several people asked via Facebook about how the show was last night, so after my work-out this morning I sat down to write a note to post about it to answer them all at once. I composed a nice, lengthy review of the whole evening, but when I left the page to find a picture to post with it, I didn't realize that it hadn't auto-saved, and I lost the entire thing. By then it was time to leave for staff meeting, so I came to the office, and I've been in meetings ever since. But now that I have few minutes before I need to prepare for church tonight, I'll try to remember some of what I wrote this morning and post it here on the blog.

First of all, anything at The Fox Theatre is pretty much a sure thing for me. It's always been one of my very favorite places, and continues to be so, even though I really think it's just a little too big for Broadway shows. The average house on the Great White Way in NYC is considerably more intimiate than the Fox, because Broadway shows are written and meant for smaller houses. So if you attend a play or a show at the Fox and are too far away from the stage, you generally miss a lot that you would otherwise experience in an actual Broadway theatre.

That being said, last night was, in a word, wonderful. It wasn't the best production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat that I've ever seen (and I've seen it a few times over the years), but it was pretty good. The show is a lot of fun...some would say silly (Pharaoh is an Elvis impersonator, for example)...but there are still moments in it that are movingly serious and quite profound. Basically, the show just has a lot of heart

Dreamcoat was Andrew Lloyd Webber's first published work. He wrote it in college, before Jesus Christ Superstar or some of his later, more sophisticated pieces, but it's enjoyable and family-friendly, and has held up well enough over the years. I have an original album soundtrack version of it somewhere that I bought when I was 12 or 13 and memorized, and even auditioned for a local production of it years ago and got the part, but couldn't work it out with my schedule.

That's all well and good, but it's the amazing story of Joseph, itself, that shines through and so resonates with me, regardless of the medium in which it's presented. It's probably my favorite Bible story...a story that is obviously about the power of dreams, but is also a saga of love and redemption, reconciliation in a dysfunctional family, and the mysteries of the prophetic. It's a story about survival and triumph...one that always inspires me, no matter how many times I hear it told (or sung or danced).

The tickets to the show were a Father's Day gift from Judah and Jonah, and of course I thoroughly enjoyed being treated by them to it. We had a lot of fun together last night. And I'm not the kind of dad you by a drill, golf-club, or weed-whacker for, so it's gratifying to me that my sons know me well enough to know what to get me. The best part of the evening for me was the conversation that the three of us had afterward about the Bible...about what it is and what it isn't...about the possibilities in the life of a man like Jospeh who had so many ups and downs in his life (mostly downs, actually), and how that his latter was greater than his former.

These days I really try to savor and enjoy every moment that I experience. I am grateful for my kids, for the wonderful time I had last night with two of them, for art and music and all that goes with it, for my beautiful Atlanta, and for the part of the Word that gives life, instead of the letter that kills. But today I am thinking particularly of Joseph...and about dreams...and about life...and about happy endings to stories of hardship. My favorite Scripture verses in the story are Genesis 50:19-21:

Joseph replied, "Don't be afraid. Do I act for God? Don't you see, you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good, as you see all around you right now—life for many people. Easy now, you have nothing to fear; I'll take care of you and your children." He reassured them, speaking with them heart-to-heart.
- The Message

Wow. I love it. And I relate to it.

Gotta go get ready for church...

Hold on to you dreams...

RAPTURE 2011

I'm posting this around noon on "Judgment Day", and, as of yet, no massive devastation has occurred in other parts of the world...it's not supposed to hit here until around 6 this evening, so I have a few hours to receive comments...but since the word RAPTURE, coined by Anglo-Irish evangelist John Nelson Darby (November i8, 1800 – April 29, 1882), has been referenced in the news so much over the last few days and weeks, I decided to repeat what I've been saying for years on the subject...in a word, I have no argument with any one's dispensationalist views, but I still believe that The Gospel is GOOD NEWS. PERIOD...let me put it this way...



I BELIEVE in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture of the Church...


If that doesn't happen...


I BELIEVE in a Mid-Tribulation Rapture of the Church...


If that doesn't happen...


I BELIEVE in a Post-Tribulation Rapture of the Church...


If that doesn't happen...


I BELIEVE that Jesus Christ will return to the earth in bodily form...


If THAT doesn't happen...


I BELIEVE that there will be a cosmic paradigm shift in the earth when EVERY eye will see Him (Revelation 1:7), recognizing Him as "the living God Who is the Savior of ALL men, especially of those who believe"
(1 Timothy 4:10)...

...that His salvation will ultimately reconcile ALL OF HUMANITY to Himself as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8)...the
Lamb of God who takes away the sin OF THE WORLD
(John 1:29)...

...that EVERY knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth will eventually bow, and that EVERY tongue in heaven and on earth and under the earth will eventually confess to the glory of God that Jesus Christ is Lord
(Philippians 2:9, 10)...

...that ALL were condemned in Adam, but ALL are justified in Christ (Romans 5:17-21)...for as in Adam ALL die, even so in Christ shall ALL be made alive
(1 Corinthians 15:22)...

...that Jesus Christ was and is the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the WHOLE WORLD (1 John 2:22), and because He was lifted up from the earth on the cross, He will ultimately draw ALL PEOPLES unto Himself
(John 12:32)...

...that the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and ALL HUMANITY shall see it together
(Isaiah 40:5)…

...that He will pour out of His Spirit on ALL HUMANITY
(Joel 2:28)...

...that it is not His will that ANY should perish (2 Peter 3:9), and that the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to ALL PEOPLE
(Titus 2:11)...

...that God was in Christ, reconciling THE WORLD unto Himself, NOT IMPUTING THEIR TRESPASSES TO THEM...
(2 Corinthians 5:19)!

...that GOD HAS NOT APPOINTED US UNTO WRATH, BUT TO OBTAIN SALVATION BY OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
(1 Thessalonians 5:9)...

...that we shall not all sleep in death, but we shall ALL be changed
(1 Corinthians 15:51)...

...that all things shall be made subject to Him so that God may be ALL IN ALL
(1 Corinthians 15:28)...

...that Christ is ALL AND IS IN ALL (Colossians 3:11).

All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.(Colossians 3:11 - The Message)

No longer will they teach their neighbors, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because THEY WILL ALL KNOW ME, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.
(Hebrews 8:11 -13 - TNIV)

I BELIEVE that, even though the word "rapture" is not in The Bible, there is, indeed, a revelation...a breakthrough...an enlightenment, if you will, of when "the Daystar arises in our hearts" and we really do begin to "love His appearing"...and that revelation...that "appearing"...happens on a daily basis...it's not an event, and it is nothing to be feared or dreaded...

I BELIEVE that WE are the Second Coming of Christ...that the Kingdoms of our God AND OF HIS CHRIST are being manifested in and through us, even in the midst of chaos on the earth...

I BELIEVE THAT IT IS THE GREATEST TIME TO BE ALIVE!

I BELIVE THAT I'LL SEE MANY OF YOU TOMORROW FOR CITN'S 26th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION*!!!




*I will be sharing some interesting things about 2012!

Have a Blessed Resurrection Sunday!

JOHN 20:1-18 - John In The Now

1. Early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and was surprised to find that the stone that had been lodged into the entrance had somehow been rolled away.

2. As soon as she assessed the situation, she immediately ran to find Simon Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and when she got to them she blurted out, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don’t know where they have put Him!”

3. When Peter and the other disciple heard this, they just took off running to the tomb to see for themselves.

4. The two disciples initially were running together, but then the other disciple picked up speed and outran Peter, arriving at the tomb first.

5. And when he got there, he stooped down to look inside and saw the linen grave clothes lying there, but he didn’t enter the tomb.

6. But when Peter got there, he just went right in and also saw the little pile of linen material lying there.

7. Next to it was the piece of cloth that had been used to cover Jesus’ face, neatly rolled up and in a place by itself.

8. The disciple who got there first then entered the tomb and, when he saw the whole scenario, he believed fully in the resurrection.

9. For as yet the disciples had not made the connection that the Scriptures had said that He would rise from the dead.

10. But even though he believed, the disciple didn’t know what to do about it, so he and Peter both just went back to their homes.

11. Mary Magdalene, on the other hand, remained there and just stood outside the tomb weeping. And at a certain point, while she was still in tears, she stooped down and looked into the interior.

12. Inside she saw two men who appeared to be angels, all dressed in white, sitting where Jesus’ body had been. One was sitting at the head, the other at the foot.

13. They turned and looked right at her and asked, “Why are you crying?” She answered, “Because they have taken away my Lord’s body, and I don’t know where they have put Him.”

14. As soon as Mary said this, she became aware that someone was standing right behind her. So she quickly turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she didn’t realize that it was Him.

15. Jesus asked her “Why are you crying, Ma’am? Who are you looking for?” She just assumed He was the gardener and said, “Sir, if you have removed His body, please tell me, so that I can go and get it.”

16. Then Jesus said to her, “Mary!” Suddenly, the sound of His voice penetrated her stupor and, realizing who He was, she cried out, “Teacher!”

17. When she reached out to embrace Him, He told her, “Don’t try to hold on to Me, Mary. I am making the transition into the Father’s dimension, and you can’t keep Me here. I no longer belong in the physical body that you are used to seeing and holding, so don’t touch Me. But tell My disciples that I am going to our Father and to our God.”

18. So Mary Magdalene went immediately to the disciples and declared to them that she had seen the Lord. She also told them what He had said to her.

What You Know/What You've Been Taught to Believe

There's somewhat of a minor dispute over who actually said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results", but it's generally attributed to Albert Einstein...certainly sounds like something old Al would have said...regardless of who said it first, it's definitely the truth...

There's a very good reason why Paul in his writings used phrases like "be transformed by the renewing of your mind", and "be renewed in the spirit of your mind"...transformation definitely happens when thought patterns change...

Want new results in your life? Take control of your thinking, and direct it to whatever end you choose (God has granted you that ability)...you can create your own best life (with props to Oprah and Joel Osteen)...

"For life is the mirror of king and slave.
'Tis just what you are and do;
Then give to the world the best you have,
And the best will come back to you."
- MADLINE BRIDGES

I've been talking about this here on the blog for the last several days, but let me say again that you attract to yourself whatever is the substance of the predominant thoughts that you're holding in your awareness, whether those thoughts are conscious or unconscious...the whole 'Laws of Attraction' thing is not a new concept...in fact, it's quite ancient...eternal, really...the knowledge of the Lord fills all the earth as the waters cover the sea...

Emerson said, "The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without."...but long before that, the Apostle John said things like "you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things", and "let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning", and "you have no need that any man should teach you"...

"Ninety-nine percent of who you are is invisible and untouchable."
R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER

Perhaps the greatest discovery of modern times is that every person has within himself/herself a particle of the creative force that birthed the universe...knowing that, if you can develop a mental attitude in which you are constantly expecting good, you exercise your fundamental right to good...Jesus said, "to them that have will more be given"...

"Most everybody is thinking so many kinds of thoughts, which pass each other and lack harmony. It is no wonder they are getting such results in their lives. If a gardener plants a thousand kinds of seeds, he has a thousand kinds of plants. You plant the seed of thought." - ERNEST HOLMES...James said it this way: "A double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways..."

Thought is creative...it's as simple as that...you are constantly in the process of creating your entire life with your thoughts...what you are now is the result of what you have previously thought and said...what you are thinking and saying now will determine what and who you will eventually become...

I don't want to over-quote Emerson...I know he was coming from a very different frame of reference...but allow me this one more: "Cause and effect, means and end, seed and fruit, cannot be severed, for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed."...to use a Scriptural phrase: Selah!

One more thing...Job talked about being tried in the fire, and coming forth as pure gold...allow the present circumstances, whatever they may be, to reveal the creative power that is already in you...things don't have to stay the way they are...you can change them because you can change your mind...

Don't like the way today is going? Do something about it...


"Circumstances do not make the man; they merely reveal him to himself."
EPICTETUS

Say "YES"!

I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ's sufficiency].
(Philippians 4:13 - AMP)

Rehearse Your Future

Whatever is going on in your mind is what you are attracting to yourself...the Scripture "...as a man thinks in his heart, so is he" is pretty much always taken out of context from what the verse was originally saying, but the spirit of the truth of it is undeniable...we are like magnets...like attracts like..."deep calleth unto deep"...you become AND attract what you think...

Because the universe was created by a thought from God that was released through a word ("Let there be light"), our every thought has a frequency because we are created in His image...the ultimate act of creativity is that the Creator created creators...our thoughts send out a magnetic energy...

People even think about what they don't want, and attract more of the same...Job said, "The thing I greatly feared came upon me"...

Thought = creation...if these thoughts are attached to powerful emotions (good or bad) that can even speed up the creation ("I set before you life AND death, blessing AND cursing, therefore choose life...")

You attract the objects of your dominant thoughts...

Those who speak most of illness have a tendency to have illness...those who speak most of prosperity have it, as well...David said, "Let the words of my mouth AND the meditation of my heart be acceptable"...Jesus also made the heart/mouth connection in Mark 11:23 when He said to speak to the mountain, and do not doubt in your heart, but believe that you have what you say...He also said "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks"...

Choose your thoughts carefully...you are a masterpiece of your life...your thoughts cause your feelings...we don't need to complicate all the "reasons" behind our emotions...it's much simpler than that...two categories...good feelings/bad
feelings...in conventional faith teaching we emphasized the fact that we are not to be moved by what we feel, but I think that concept needs some balance...

Typically, thoughts that bring about good feelings mean you are on the right track...thoughts that bring about bad feelings means you are not on the right track...

For the rest, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of reverence and is honorable and seemly, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and lovable, whatever is kind and winsome and gracious, if there is any virtue and excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on and weigh and take account of these things [fix your minds on them]. (Philippians 4:8 - AMP)

Generally, whatever it is you are feeling is a perfect reflection of what is in the process of becoming...it's what we sometimes call "the witness of the Spirit/spirit"...you get exactly what you are FEELING...Jesus said, "to them that have more will be given"...I prefer to exalt joy over happiness, but the truth is that happy feelings will attract more happy circumstances...

You can begin feeling whatever you want (even if it's not there)...David understood this ("Bless the Lord, O my soul"..."Why are you cast down, O my soul?")...David encouraged HIMSELF in the Lord...the universe (uni-verse literally means "one song") will correspond to the nature of your personal song...there's power in your praise...

What you focus on with your thought and feeling is what you attract into your experience...Isaiah talked about "declaring the end from the beginning"...Paul said that God "calls those things which are not as though they were"...What you think and what you feel and what actually manifests is ALWAYS a match...in that sense, you are the most accurate prophet in your own life...

Shift your awareness...

Winston Churchill said, "You create your own universe as you go along"...

It's important to feel good...the joy of the Lord is your strength...

You can change your emotion immediately...by thinking of something joyful, or singing a song, or remembering a happy experience...Jesus said that Holy Spirit will bring all things to your remembrance...it's why we have testimonies (old school: "You don't know like I know what He's done for me!")...

Life can and should be phenomenal, and it will be when you consciously apply these spiritual principles...your universe will re-arrange itself accordingly...God created His worlds with His words...you create your world with your words...He upholds all things by the word of His power...you uphold the things in your life by the word of your power...

In Job it says, "You shall decree a thing and it will be established unto you"...you can attract everything you require - money, people, connections...PAY ATTENTION to what's being set in front of you...Jeus said,"Behold, I have set before you an open door..."...

You can start with nothing but your faith...and out of nothing or no way, a WAY will be provided..."streams in the desert and ways in in the wilderness"...you can turn your own water into wine, and multiply your own loaves and fishes into enough food to feed thousands...

HOW LONG? No rules on time..."one day with the Lord is as a thousand years"...but, as a rule, the more aligned you are with positive feelings, the quicker things happen...

Size is nothing to the universe (unlimited abundance if that's what
you prefer to call it)...and size is nothing to the God who created it all...we are the ones who make the rules on size and time...Jesus said,"Believe you receive WHEN YOU PRAY"...

No rules according to the universe...He does more than we can ask or think ACCORDING TO THE POWER THAT WORKS IN US...you provide the feelings of having it now, and the universe will respond...

Most people offer the majority of their thought in response to what they are observing with the natural eye (bills in the mail, being late, having "bad luck", etc)...you have to find a different approach to what is through a different vantage point...Faith is the evidence of things NOT SEEN..."for we look to the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal"..."we walk by faith and not by sight...

"All that we are is a result of what we have thought" - Buddha

What can you do right now to turn your life around? Gratitude...

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God...(Philippians 4:6 - NKJV)

Gratitude will bring more into our lives immediately...God is good (all the time)...can I get a witness?

What we think about and THANK about is what we bring about...

What are the things for which you are grateful? Feel the gratitude...count your blessings...focus on what you have right now...("Moses, what do you have IN YOUR HAND?")

Play the picture in your mind - focus on the end result...

VISUALIZE, as Jacob did so many times...rehearse your future...

VISUALIZE!!! See it...feel it! This is the day that the Lord (and you) have made...rejoice and be glad in it!

Acts In The Now 2:14 - 21

14. Then Peter, being the first one to speak up, as usual, stood with the Eleven, raised his voice, and boldly addressed the crowd, saying, "Listen, all of you who live here in Jerusalem…and listen, all of you who are here visiting. Let me enlighten you as to what is happening here and now…listen carefully to what I say!

15. You are trying to make sense of this spiritual occurrence with your natural minds, which is why you have opted to believe that these people are just drunk…but you can’t honestly believe that. Not only is it only nine in the morning, but you know full well that drunkenness doesn’t enable anyone to speak fluently about the wonderful works of God in languages that they don’t know!

16. No, this is what was spoken centuries ago by the prophet, Joel, when he said,

17. " 'In the days of fulfillment, God says, I will pour out of My Spirit on all people…on the entirety of humanity…and when everyone, everywhere, ultimately encounters a revelation and manifestation of My Spirit, both your sons and daughters together will prophesy, your young people will walk in visionary insight, and your old people will dream the dreams of God. In other words, this outpouring will not favor one generation over the other.

18. Neither will this outpouring have any preference for station or status…it will touch the full range of servitude, from slaves, to the totality of the working class…nor will it discriminate because of gender, for it will be equally experienced by both men and women, alike. I will pour out of my Spirit with full abandon in those days, and they will all prophesy...every one of them!’

19. Then, speaking in poetic, prophetic vocabulary, or in the symbolic language of prophecy, (Genesis 1:14 - 16; Isaiah 13:9, 10; 34:4; Amos 8:9; Ezekiel 32:7, 8), Joel went on to say, ‘I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, that will appear as blood, fire, and billows of smoke.

20. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the full manifestation of the great and glorious day of the Lord.’ In this way He used the same imagery that the other Prophets of old employed to speak of the downfall of earthly authorities and governors.

21. ‘And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved from any chaotic fallout that will come as a result of the transition of power, when the earth is no longer ruled by natural thrones and crowns (“suns and moons”), but totally and completely by My Spirit!'

Acts In The Now 1:4 - 11

4. On one particular occasion, while He was eating with them in one of these meetings, He spoke very directly to them, saying, "Don’t leave Jerusalem…wait there for the gift that My Father promised you…the gift about which you've heard Me speak several times…do not leave there until that promise is fulfilled for you!

5. You all know that John baptized with water…well, in the same way, and in a few short days, you will all be baptized with the Holy Spirit there."

6. But when they met together, they had no response to His insistent instructions about their introduction to the other Comforter. Again, as they had done every time He had broached this subject with them, they just seemed to ignore His words. Instead they asked Him, "Lord…now are You finally going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"

7. But He said to them: "Stop being preoccupied with trying to figure out natural things about a natural nation…things like times or dates. The Father has taken care of all that by His own authority.

8. Focus instead on this…on the promise that you will receive dynamic power and inherent ability when the full revelation of the Holy Spirit dawns on you…and then you will be able to be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and ultimately to the entirety of the earth."

9. After He said this, He was engulfed in a cloud, and completely disappeared into it from their natural sight.

10. So they looked up into the sky, gazing intently at all the clouds, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them on the ground.

11. "Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking up into the sky? You will not see Him there. Look around you here on the earth…be His witnesses here, as He commanded you. As He was taken from your physical company into the heavenly realm, so He will return to you shortly in this dimension, according to His promise!”

Acts In The Now

From the introduction to The Gospels In The Now:

I love Luke’s Gospel…the Gospel of the fully evolved Man…sophisticated…elegant…educated…intelligent. Luke is a physician with an excellent bedside manner, who writes a thoughtful and lovingly detailed letter to the young Greek, Theophilus, about the amazing God-Man. But in reality, it is written to all the Greeks, who would, in theory, appreciate the culture and refinement of its author, and the miracles and philosophy of its Main Character. Luke gives the most attention to the Nativity, because it is the most biographical of the four Gospels…it was also originally combined with the Book of Acts. It brings the Synoptic Gospels full circle, showing us the complete spectrum of all that was and is the Son of Man. Luke…the Gospel that cares!

Acts In The Now I, Verses 1 - 3

1. As you know, Theophilus, in the first installment of this book I wrote to you about all that Jesus began to do and teach while He was manifested in this physical dimension,

2. right up until the very day that He was received back into the heavenly realm, having given specific instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles He had personally chosen.

3. After His intense suffering and very public death, He presented Himself to them in a resurrected state, in various settings, over a period of forty days. In these meetings…this series of convincing demonstrations and irrefutable proofs of His post-resurrection reality…He spoke to them of one thing, and one thing only. His focus during these encounters was entirely on revealing to them the inner workings and new order of the Kingdom of God.

BALANCING ACT: Rightly Dividing the Scriptures

These verses have always intrigued me, and, without going into detail, I've had to refer to them quite a bit lately. They have to do with human relationships and interaction...issues we all have to deal with every day. First, here's an excerpt from the intro to The Gospels In The Now which is pertinent to this:

The Bible is a miracle – not a book, but a collection of 66 books written by 40 authors over a period of 1,500 years in different languages to different people groups in different generations for different purposes. Therefore, the Scriptures must be rightly divided instead of wrongly connected. In other words, each book must be judged in its own context and on its own terms, whether it confirms any other book or not. In this way, biblical contradictions are not only acknowledged and accepted...they are expected. I celebrate the tension caused by the conflicting viewpoints of the writers who had different paradigms of God; their contradictions make the Bible literally pulsate with life! And amazingly, in spite of the given contention, the confirmation of Jesus, the Christ, is still the glue that holds the whole collection together!

SERPENTS/SNAKES

Here Jesus tells His disciples to approach their relationships with the wisdom (mindset) of a snake (the symbol of satan), while maintaining the peaceful temperament of the dove (the symbol of the Holy Spirit)...

I say all of this to you because you need to know that I’m really sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves. And to be able to survive this hazardous work, you’re going to have to develop the flexibility to be wary and wise as serpents when necessary, and to still be innocent and guileless as doves. I realize that no two animals are less similar in temperament than a snake and a dove, so I’m really asking you to do the impossible.
(Matthew 10:16 - Matthew In The Now)

JUDGE/DON'T JUDGE

No doubt, these two passages are talking about two different things, but at first glance it appears that Jesus is telling us not to judge anyone/anything, while Paul is saying to judge everyone/everything!

But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one.
(1 Corinthians 2:15 - NKJV)

But the spiritual man tries all things [he examines, investigates, inquires into, questions, and discerns all things], yet is himself to be put on trial and judged by no one [he can read the meaning of everything, but no one can properly discern or appraise or get an insight into him].
(1 Corinthians 2:15 - Amplified Bible)

But Jesus says...

“Don’t set yourself up as a judge who takes the liberty of casually condemning others, or even as a critic who thinks that he or she has the right to criticize them, because when you do that, you set a universal law into motion that will inevitably bring negative things back into your own life. In other words, don’t judge so that you may not be judged and criticized and condemned yourselves. For in direct proportion to your judgment, criticism and condemnation of others, you will be personally judged and criticized and condemned. It’s just the way the law works. And in accordance with the measure you use to deal out to others…whatever you may deal out…it will be dealt out again to you. You define the terms of your own life in this sense. (Matthew 7:1, 2 - Matthew In The Now)

THINK LIKE A CHILD/DON'T THINK LIKE A CHILD

And what about this?

Then the disciples came up and asked Jesus, “Who, in your estimation, is really the greatest in the Kingdom of/from the heavens?” But instead of directly answering their question, He first called a little child over to Himself, and placed him in the center of the room, and once they had focused on the child, He said to them, “Boys, I really and truly want you to get this…unless you change the way you think about things…until your mind is cleansed from your cynicism and competitiveness with one another…until you have a paradigm shift that moves you from the silliness of being ‘childish’, so that you can enter the freedom of becoming ‘child-like’…and until you grasp the difference between these two concepts…you’re never going to be subjects in My Kingdom at all! Whoever will remove the mental clutter of adulthood, so that he or she can re-connect with what is the best part of childhood…the simple, basic ideas of trust…humility…love…forgiveness…imagination…that person will rank very high in the Kingdom of/from the heavens.
(Matthew 18:1-4 - Matthew In The Now)

But Paul says...

Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults. (1 Corinthians 14:20 - TNIV)

Again, I realize these Scriptures are referring to different situations, which is my point about "rightly dividing" as opposed to "wrongly connecting" passages. But the spirit of the letter is pervasive throughout all holy writ, and when it comes to human relationships, we find certain challenges in locating applicable Scriptures by which to live. We all want to walk in love, but we don't want to be taken advantage of. We want to believe for the best in people, without being naive to the darker side of human nature. We attempt to "know no man after the flesh", but it generally takes some real effort to look beyond the obvious humanity of someone and really see the divinity in him or her, especially when that person has used us or lied to us.

I guess I'm just thinking out loud about these things...here's one more verse I find very interesting...

But Jesus [for His part] did not trust Himself to them, because He knew all [men]; And He did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man [needed no evidence from anyone about men], for He Himself knew what was in human nature. [He could read men's hearts.]
(John 2:24, 25 - Amplified Bible)

Relationships...it's a journey...

A Beautiful Sight, We're Happy Tonight...

He orders the snow, 'Blanket the earth!' and the rain, 'Soak the whole countryside!' No one can escape the weather—it's there. And no one can escape from God. (Job 37:6, 7 - The Message)

Fire and hail, snow and ice, hurricanes obeying his orders...
(Psalms 148:8 - The Message)

Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don't go back until they've watered the earth, Doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, So will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty-handed. They'll do the work I sent them to do, they'll complete the assignment I gave them.
(Isaiah 55:10, 11 - The Message)

“Come now, let’s settle this,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow..." (Isaiah 1:18 - The Message)

(Thanks to Pastors Jim and Deb Muehlstein for the pix)

The Kingdom of God

Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.

Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference?

Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.

If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

Matthew 6:26-34, The Message

Paul's Paradigm (Re-Post)

Ephesians 3 (The Message)


The Secret Plan of God

1-3. This is why I, Paul, am in jail for Christ, having taken up the cause of you outsiders, so-called. I take it that you're familiar with the part I was given in God's plan for including everybody. I got the inside story on this from God himself, as I just wrote you in brief.

4-6. As you read over what I have written to you, you'll be able to see for yourselves into the mystery of Christ. None of our ancestors understood this. Only in our time has it been made clear by God's Spirit through his holy apostles and prophets of this new order. The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives (what I've been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board.

7-8. This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God's way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.

8-10. And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along. Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels!

11-13. All this is proceeding along lines planned all along by God and then executed in Christ Jesus. When we trust in him, we're free to say whatever needs to be said, bold to go wherever we need to go. So don't let my present trouble on your behalf get you down. Be proud!

14-19. My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

20-21. God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.