Why The Bible Still Applies - part 1

People have presented arguments all different ways about the Bible questioning how it can apply in any way today. I've been asked why I should go by a book that's out of date, over 2000 years old; I've also been asked why we should go by a newer book like the Bible when more ancient religions were developed closer to creation itself.

The main reason the Bible still applies is that people are still the same. We require laws and consequences, we need guidelines on how to treat each other, and we need guidelines on how to set up a successful society. The specifics in the scripture don't apply to every society today but the principles they come from certainly do. Things like being required to help even an enemy get an ox out of a ditch may never be a situation you come across but helping someone get his car out of a ditch may. Though if you DO come across someone whose ox has fallen into a ditch, I can't imagine a reason you would not feel obligated to try and help.

Many have trouble when reading things like this:
When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

I'm sure anyone in America or other western societies have a serious problem with this. But it's not like it seems now anyway. For one, we have to consider that Moses wrote it and it was applied to a lifestyle where an unmarried woman had no real recourse to anything but being cared for by some man. Instead of "taking" women and discarding them when they were tired of them, these men were taught that women must be taken care of one way or another.

The verses where a raped woman is required to be married to her attacker gives me the creeps but since a woman was considered ruined and would be left uncared for from then on, a man needed to think twice before raping someone. He doesn't get to just apologize or go to jail for a while then be done with it while the woman has been destroyed forever. He has to marry her and take care of her for the rest of his life. Yes, it's still a horrible nightmare for the woman but the only feasible best option is that no man rape a woman in the first place. Since that won't ever happen, this was a protection for women. Is it really so much better now that a woman has to pay taxes and support the man in jail? (I think yes to that, at least she doesn't have to see him again but it's better if he has to pay for all her therapy if she chooses it, pay to support her at least as long as she's too traumatized to work, etc. If a woman takes advantage of it, oh well, guess he'll know better next time. Scripture requires a man to provide for his victim.)

There are other issues, slavery for one. People are in slavery in the world now, don't know why people act like the bible specifically condones slavery, it merely addresses slavery. Being kidnapped and held as a sex slave wasn't the issue in the bible so the instructions for slaves and masters there don't apply; these are for a society where it's expected or at least accepted. And if we're all honest, we have to admit that there are people in America that would be better off as slaves than not - the ones who can't manage to care for themselves but don't mind being told exactly what to do because decisions are beyond them.

Health concerns are addressed as well, before anyone knew about germs, the Jews knew to use running water and how to make antibacterial soap (germ killing soap anyway, is there a difference?) Certain foods were to be avoided, pork for example. It's probably wise to continue to avoid these things, there may be other reasons than simply that they were unsafe in that area at that time due to lack of refrigeration and the swine diet. For some reason, people decided that following these health instructions made them not just healthy, but holy; that caused some trouble. Right in scripture it says that as long as you follow these laws, I will keep you from the diseases of the (surrounding peoples). Their good health was meant to be an indication of the power and glory of their God to the other people.

The only problem I can see about the OT is that when I AM gave a revelation or instruction to a prophet, people seemed to take everything that person said from then on as directly from the mouth of God. Perhaps they were meant to but only if the prophet refrained from ever speaking his own words as they were supposed to. Can you imagine how difficult that would be?

No Man Comes To The Father But By Me

This seems obvious to many but the traditional way of looking at it doesn't work for me. We don't say this in English, at least not anymore. What did it mean then? The word "by" in this case, according to lexicons and such, means basically "by way of" or "through". That supports the usual view but what sense does it make?

We might say, "I met this guy through my work," or "To get an appointment with him, you'll have to go through his dragon of a secretary first." So we get to the Father through the Son? Almost makes sense but people had been able to communicate with the Father many years before Yeshua was born. Plus Yeshua said we were to pray directly to the Father.

Okay, maybe it's that I AM gave all authority to the son, we now are the son's problem to deal with and the Father told him he didn't want his son losing any of us. So now we supposedly can't get to the Father at all without the son introducing us? The son is supposed to make us presentable first, then we can go in? Maybe.

Even that has a problem though. Yeshua said, "No man comes to the Father..." not "no man is allowed in to see Him". We are only drawn to the Father by way of the son, that's the method He uses to call us. That would have nothing to do with imputed righteousness, sacrifice, none of the things I've been taught to believe it means. Since the son is "the way, the truth, and the life", he is the embodiment of life with the Father. I found the following at a place called christianspirituality.org:

One receives that Life by following the Way, the Way that He demonstrated and taught because He was the embodiment of the Way, He was the Word made flesh Who was the walking and living Human Example of the Way.

Those who met him were drawn to the Father because they saw the Almighty in him. We are to follow that same way and draw others to the Father because of the spirit in us - that's why the comforter, the holy spirit was sent after Yeshua died and rose again. How could we walk as he did, live as he did, drawing others to I AM without the same spirit that was in the Son? That's how we come to the Father "by" Jesus/Yeshua.

Faith and A Debt to the Awesome I AM

Eric on SavageSoto has just posted about Grace THROUGH Faith, I love this guy's blog, thinking, faith...his picture gets to me every time, he's so young (maybe it's an old photo, who knows?). He's clear and articulate and quite persuasive. Even if I didn't agree with what he writes, I'm sure I'd be searching hard to figure out where and how exactly I disagreed. But the more I study and pray, the more I agree and appreciate his writing.

Faith comes from God in the first place, I discovered that long ago. It's never been our doing to "work up" faith - I know, I tried that. All those years of being told I should 'just believe' sent me that way, I tried but it made no sense. It felt like I was trying to believe what someone told me; doubt meant I wasn't sure whoever told me had it right, what did that have to do with God's worthiness to be trusted? On EliYah.com I read in a forum about the etymology and context of the Greek and Hebrew words which led me to realize it's not just a matter of turning off one's brain; often in the OT God said his people could trust him because he had shown them so. It was always up to him to show the people and/or reveal to their hearts and minds that he was trustworthy - only after that were they expected to remember just who they were talking to!

Reading Grace Through Faith today reminds me again how much of a reason there is to love God and be grateful - it always puts me in a good mood and changes my outlook to put my mind on God and not my circumstances. I started a different blog that is to explore how much I AM intervenes in our daily lives because often I don't like what's going on. Stepping back and looking at the overall big picture often makes a difference.

Eric also talks about universal reconciliation, something I discovered just a couple of years ago. I believe scripture supports this which means those 'called' now must have some purpose beyond just being picked out randomly. It may be simple, be the incarnation of the spirit of God so that all can see how wonderful life with him is. Christians have such a bad rep in so many places, I'm thinking we're missing something. It's HARD to focus on something other than one's own circumstances! When I meet someone who hates God, doesn't believe, is skeptical or totally indifferent, it makes me wonder, "Why did I AM reveal himself to me? Why do I get to see miracles, know his love, trust him? Why not him? Or her?" That usually makes me determined to be a personification of the spirit to everyone, it makes me want to go out and see as many people as possible so that they can feel I AM near.

He Is Who He Is No Matter What I Do Or Don't Understand

Something I am so very glad for is that no matter how hard I try to figure out I AM/God and how he works, what exactly he is, and all that, it doesn't matter. If I never know, he's still who he is and I'm very glad about that.

No Entrecard? :- (

I can sign in to entrecard, it says i'm logged in, all looks good but I can't drop any cards. It acts like I'm not signed in no matter what! Entrecard did send two replies to my emails but on their end it all looks fine and they figure I'm not signed in.

I'M NOT IGNORING PEOPLE, just to let you know. I like to drop cards, it helps me find sites I like and i can support them but it isn't working!!

On The Subject Of Prayer

Some of my beliefs and thoughts are very strange, even to myself. I believe prayer is in part answered through our own brains/energy/something else like that. When we are connected to God, we have the power scripture tells us about. He doesn't have to "come down" or "reach down" and change our circumstances. I believe (maybe) that we are created in his image and therefore are already set up to accomplish the needful things.

It struck me that always asking for the Father to fix things for us is a bit lazy. I even wrote a Hub about it: In The Image Of YHWH because totally trusting I AM is not the same as refusing to do anything but wait. Good works are prepared and waiting for US. We have already been equipped. Even if this means others can do some of the same things doesn't take away from the fact that the power and ability to do so came from the Almighty in the first place - others just don't give credit where credit is due. There are stories of great things happening when no one was praying about it and things that didn't happen when someone was praying.

Perhaps it's true that many times it's just the Father saying no, not yet; perhaps it's a test or a needed character-building trial; perhaps those involved didn't have enough faith. But faith comes from I AM in the first place, it's not like we can 'decide to go get some more'. I considered that our minds can heal our bodies or contribute to the healing of others by knowing more specifically what needs to be done, like how this disease works or how certain body organs need to function so that we can focus on that. And it seems to be true to a small degree. But that leaves a lot of healings and lack of healings unexplained! Really, my major experiences come when I freely admit to the Almighty that I'm clueless, he's not, please do whatever is best. Is that a lack of faith? Is that the same as saying, You didn't tell me what to do so I'll just sit here and let you do whatever'? Should I be so connected to him that his spirit flows through me and I know what comes next? Hard to say.

Fascinated By The Human Brain

Behavioral biology, race and sex differences and non-differences, religion/spirituality, intelligence, morals, sanity/insanity, normal/abnormal - all these are subjects of great interest to me. They all involve neurobiology.

I read several reviews of a book I've got from the library called The Geography of Thought by Richard Nisbett. Truly I should probably quit reading so many reviews before reading the work, it often feels as if I no longer need to read the book! So far I'm disappointed to see that there is likely no specific discussion of neurobiological findings that correlate or not to the culturally induced differences in perception and thought between Asians and Westerners studied in this book. The whole reason I wanted to read this book was to find out if there are such differences and if so, are they genetic or environmental? Do the cultures actually change the physical brain? Now it seems that the focus is simply that culture 'determines' perception to a great extent - wasn't that always obvious?
Still, the first chapter brings up the question of the concept of free will so now I have to read it anyway.

The reviews of this book referred to another book that I definitely want to read - Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. This one addresses the fears of many that acknowledging genetic differences give rise to a justification of discrimination. I believe it also considers the opposite, that these differences will be used to excuse behaviors by saying "he couldn't help it, he's just made that way."

These two books will tie in quite well with the lecture series Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality that I just finished (watching, not writing, they're by Robert Sapolsky). Sapolsky teaches that the findings are showing experience literally changes the brain physically and chemically; then the behavioral outcome affects the environment of oneself and others which once again, changes or reinforces the brain's working. Fascinating!

I've wondered for a long time, since I've had children at least, how much one's innate traits can be directed. For example, a ... never mind, next post, it's late.

More expanded

Yesterday I started reading The Da Vinci Code and found all this male/female stuff in it! I figured there was more to the story (the whole 'females are lesser to I AM" nonsense) but an actual conspiracy? It's always difficult in fiction to know what's true and what's based on fact but not actually true. That's all right, research never hurt me so far!

------------------
It's an interesting book but I don't see any particular need for research. I loved all that about the treasure hunts (I did a lot of those with my children and they had to break codes, great fun!), the codex (I found one of these before and wanted to buy one for one of my boys; at $400 though I couldn't justify it), mystery and intrigue, religion, etc., very interesting. But it's fiction after all, many points raised are probably worth pursuing but it's not something I care that much about. I certainly don't care about someone's bones, holy relics, etc. True interaction with the HOLY ONE is what matters, that's where truth comes from.

The Da Vinci Code wasn't as complex as I had expected from all the hype, especially since I recently finished a book called The Rule Of Four, same sort of religious/political intrigue that involved ancient cryptology and such, but way more complicated. I'm glad I read them both.

Faithfulness not just 'blind faith'

It seems to be standard practice to consider 'coming to and being accepted by the Almighty' as a very easy, one-step thing. Faith in Jesus is all that's required. But since scripture says the faith OF Jesus, is that different? His faith somehow imputed to us, placed in us? Or faith of a similar magnitude?

What if it's true that the word was actually faithfulness? The same faithfulness displayed by Yeshua is required of us? Not so simple then. That would make sense of knowing that so many 'pray the prayer' but nothing in them changes. It would also help explain why some do change even while doubting since this faithfulness is a gift from I AM in the first place.

Musings

I'm thinking there's too much anthropomorphism of God; God is spirit not a man. I AM fits better than God because God is from a word meaning "mighty one" or "mighty ones" and applies to more than the Almighty. I can understand I AM much better because as a concept those words encompass so much more than a god like one of the gods of Mt. Olympus or something. I AM is definitely 'something' outside of ourselves, but something/someone that we can interact with. (Saying 'something', and 'it' feels totally disrespectful but I certainly can't say 'He'; that disregards all the feminine aspects of being, isn't that even more disrespectful? Like saying half of I AM isn't worth our consideration...)

The Bible is a record of people's interaction with I AM and how they understood it. I haven't figured out how the Israelites are supposed to be an example since they failed miserably according to all the bible. Later there was a new covenant made with them where I AM wrote all spiritual laws on their hearts, meaning that these laws would be 'followed' naturally. They wouldn't keep a list of laws, they would do these things because the spirit in them naturally behaves in that way. This is the covenant non-Israelites are 'allowed' into as well, though gentiles were always accepted if they became "Jews".

Complete Human

I wonder how much the whole X and Y chromosome business has to do with the story of Adam dividing into his male and female components?

THE NOTICER by Andy Andrews

The Noticer is a GREAT book!
The character after whom the book is named - the Noticer - is a man named Jones, an otherworldly type of guy who shows up in people's lives with more knowledge than he should have about them. Even as they worry that this very old man who is a total stranger to them has their personal, intimate information, they find themselves drawn to him strongly. Everyone who meets the old man is eager to hear more of the words of wisdom he offers - wisdom that helps them make drastic changes in their lives just when they knew no hope was left. In the words of Jones himself: “I notice things about situations and people that produce perspective. That’s what most folks lack—perspective—a broader view. So I give them that broader view . . . and it allows them to regroup, take a breath, and begin their lives again.”

Andy Andrews, the author of The Noticer, also wrote The Traveler's Gift; I enjoyed The Noticer so much that I'm definitely planning to get his previous book!

The Noticer reminds me of a book by Jake Colsen called So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore, another book very worth reading. They both seem too simplistic in a way at first; they explain what seems obvious to apparently not-too-bright characters in the story. However, it's actually quite effective - upset people are people who need a new perspective on their situation and the man Jones in The Noticer makes it easy to accept. What seems at times obvious isn't necessarily so obvious when you think about it a little deeper and continue to consider it in light of one's own (as the reader) life situations.

Once again, this is a very worthwhile book in my opinion. You can take a look for yourself here:
The Noticer by Andy Andrews at brb.thomasnelson.com.

More Laughs!

Another John Ortberg book, IF YOU WANT TO WALK ON WATER, YOU'VE GOT TO GET OUT OF THE BOAT, it's one I've seen around for a while and finally bought. I truly enjoy his humor!

God called Moses: Go to Pharaoh--the most powerful man on earth. Tell him to let his labor force leave without compensation to worship a god he doesn't believe in. Then convince a timid, stiff-necked people to run away into the desert. That's your calling.
And Moses said: Here am I. Send Aaron.

Intended For Growth

Once again, I'm pretty sure the Bible was written for the most part by men given a message by the spirit of I AM, then wrote more that felt like obvious common sense according to what they knew and understood. I'm not sure it all makes sense here and now...different culture, different geography, different time, different understanding. That's why we need the principles and not necessarily the specifics; however, one problem with that is that many of the specifics still produce the intended results when combined with the spirit in us. If the Israelites couldn't manage to understand the principles and live them even after YHWH showed them how it would all look specifically in every situation, why do we think we can extract principles without them? It must have all been to show us we were never going to "get it" without His spirit in us, transformed into what we were intended to be but whined about. Really, it's a lot easier to just live without bothering to grow in any way.

Deal-Maker as opposed to Deal-Breaker

Many people think our job is to get our afterlife destination taken care of then tread water till we all get ejected and God comes back and torches this place.

...we ended up with over a thousand people from our church - and thirty sorority sisters. This meant that scores of single young males suddenly felt God prompting them to serve also.

Regarding Job when wishing he had never been born: He requests "May those who curse days curse that day." (He doesn't tell us who 'those who curse days' are; it seems like a limited profession.)

Lines like these are deal-makers for me, these came from a book called God Is Closer Than You Think by John Ortberg. It's full of meaningful spiritual insights AND it keeps making me laugh! It's about the fourth time I've read it, I was going to say I bought it about five years ago but it's publication date is 2005 and it's only 2009 now...

Atonement

Lately I've been studying different views on The Atonement. There are so many problems with any view, most notably to me is the problem of human sacrifice. That's condemned in the Bible so why is it considered the best thing that ever happened for us? Something wrong there.

Then there's the issue of imputed guilt, something else scripture condemns - the punishment of an innocent man instead of the guilty. He became sin who knew no sin - is that from scripture or just a song? It is in the Bible but maybe not phrased that way exactly. It doesn't say he took our guilt, it says he became sin.

Then the sacrifice part, he made the sacrifice instead of being sacrificed, it's said. But Isaiah writes "it pleased YHWH to bruise him...", that it was asked of him. That IS different from requiring it.

Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin - that means it wasn't paying a debt; remission is forgiving. If you forgive someone of their debt, that means you don't require its payment.
Still a very confusing subject to me, I think it has way more to do with Yeshua's LIFE. Still, I will celebrate on Passover!

Ineffable God

This is it, this is all I ever wanted to say, I KNEW someone else knew what I mean (and said it way long ago).

Excerpt from John Hick's site - John Hick:

But Dionysius ... makes the divine ineffability central and begins at least to struggle with its implications. In his central work, The Mystical Theology, he says in every way he can think of that God is utterly and totally transcategorial. God is ‘indescribable’, ‘beyond all being and knowledge’. God, the ultimate One, is ‘not soul or mind, nor does it possess imagination, conviction, speech, or understanding. . . It cannot be spoken of and it cannot be grasped by understanding . . It does not live nor is it life. It is not a substance, nor is it eternity or time. It cannot be grasped by the understanding . . It is neither one nor oneness, divinity nor goodness . . It is not sonship or fatherhood . . There is no speaking of it, nor name nor knowledge of it . . It is beyond assertion and denial’.

And Hick's commentary on the quoted passage:

This last statement, that that to which the term ‘God’ refers is beyond assertion and denial is crucial. For (Denys) is not simply doing negative theology, saying that God does not have this or that attribute but, much more radically, that our entire range of attribute-concepts do not apply to God at all, either positively or negatively. To apply them to God in God’s ultimacy is, in modern philosophical terms, a category mistake. To say, for example, that molecules are not stupid, although true, is misleading because it assumes that molecules are the sort of thing of which it makes sense to say that they are either stupid or not stupid. And to say that God is not ‘one nor oneness, divinity nor goodness’, although true would likewise, by itself, be deeply misleading because it assumes that God is the kind of reality to which such qualities could be rightly or wrongly attributed. We have to take on board the much more radical concept of a reality which is what it is, but whose nature lies beyond the scope of our conceptual and linguistic systems. When we speak about such a reality we are not, then, speaking about it as it is in itself, totally beyond the range of our comprehension, but about its impact upon us, the difference that it makes within the realm of human experience, to which our concepts and hence our languages do apply.

Blog Stop

I'm dropping entrecard and blogging for a while at least. What I'm hoping to do is to have more time to follow and read the blogs and comment instead. I hope I can still do that without having a blog of my own! Besides, having two babies to care for again is a big change.

Good Reading, Had To Link It

I just had to link to this, over on ChurchBlog, he says:

If we could glimpse Heaven's accounting ledger, I wonder what it would say about the return this generation was able to harvest in relation to the resources that were given to it?

And then this whole post of his: I Had An Acts 28 Moment.

No Immortality For The Wicked

Luke 14:26-33 discusses the cost of being a disciple of Jesus, verse 28 is:

28"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?

This never made sense in light of the idea that YHWH will torture people throughout eternity for not following the Son! "Flee from the wrath to come does", but not an admonition to count the cost before we accept him.

Immortality is existing, living, forever. An eternity of torture is still immortality and immortality is only given to followers. The wicked are burned up, destroyed, no longer existing, dead, not alive and screaming in agony forever!

All Safe Now

We have the babies!

Would You Die To Find The Truth? Review of Ted Dekker's Book "Kiss"

Ted Dekker's book Kiss frustrated me! The story is of a woman (Shauna) who was in a coma for weeks after a car wreck and dealing with amnesia, then faces strange repercussions that she doesn't understand. People are furious at her and blaming her for the accident. She accepts that though she doesn't understand how she could have done what they said she did; it's claimed she was doing drugs. She had never been a drug user but for some reason believes it, that annoyed me. Of course, she has lost six months of memories and is totally disoriented. People around her are lying about so many things, she just gets more and more confused.
The problems worsen when she starts to remember things that don't fit, especially when people start dying! Then she has memories that she finally realizes are not her own. Now she has people trying to ensure she doesn't remember the truth because of their culpability, others that are trying to protect themselves, some are trying to protect her. What frustrated me were all the instances when people gave her cryptic hints and answers to her questions, I wanted to say, Just SAY it already!
Another annoying part is that the christian faith angle of the story, something I always expect in Dekker's books, seemed to be missing for the most part. It seemed that a couple of christian references were "thrown in" to be sure they were included but really had nothing to do with anything. That actually would fit into the storyline, the woman had lost any faith years ago and only occasionally considered what her mother had taught her so many years before, only occasionally did she mourn the loss of the comfort she remembered from childhood.
I suppose one thing we're supposed to consider is how much we are or are not willing to use others for our own needs. Shauna was "taking" memories from people - she could actually access a memory from someone else which was then no longer in their own memory. There were things she needed to know to save her own life but she constantly had to fight with herself to decide if it's right to steal them from someone else.
This book did not leave me feeling as if I had been shown something profound but it was a good fiction story. According to the cover, the point is "Is dying for the truth better than living with a lie?" That idea is interwoven throughout the story and is the main thought we are to ponder. Perhaps I mostly missed that because it doesn't occur to me to just accept what I know is a lie because it's safer. Would I do that if I really was facing death for truth?

Still Good Advice - Be The Change...

This post is probably why I have the blog site Woo-Woo Wisdom saved in my favorites. The post is old, from October, and the author is planning not to even blog anymore but I really like this post. It reminds me of the saying to be the change you want to see.
It's here: Providing Value To The World. Here's one line I particularly enjoyed reading:

When you are being peace regardless of what activity
you are doing, you can bring peace to the world.

And I definitely want to check into this research:

Research has demonstrated that crime rates and accidents decrease when even a small percentage of the population of an area meditates (the Maharishi Effect).
Who did the research, what were the parameters, what was being tested, etc. I almost always enjoy reading results of research into spiritual effects and neurobiology.

Hard To Say

The plot thickens - baby D did not escape or wander out on his own. He was found with his jacket zipped up and proper boots on. He can't even reliably put his jacket on and he certainly can't zip it himself. He was wearing his own boots, if he had dressed himself, he would have had bright pink boots on because his sister's boots are big and loose and he can put those on by himself. That would have been a sight, wouldn't it?
The police do seem to have tried to be the heroes and rescue him. Stories from the mom, the babysitter, and the police don't match up very well, and little A isn't talking. We still don't quite understand why my son is required to wait for a judge to give permission for him to get his own son, he isn't even allowed to see him. They're admitting it's not normal routine, that my son normally could get him but that since he didn't know about the baby missing until the mother called us several hours later, it's "too late".
It seems an obvious no-brainer that we should have laws that protect children from "bad" parents but how far does that go? It seems the default is that children belong to the government and that's TOO far. I'm trying to think what it was like when children had no government protection, it was horrible but is it really better now? It seems it must be but I'm not sure, I've known so many abused children, what have all these laws really done? Why did we give the children over to the state again?

This World's Government

In the previous post, I meant to link this from Daffodils and Dragonflies because it's along the same lines really. How much of our lives is our government supposed to control? So many people yell "Wake Up America" as if we are ignoring the signs but even when we see them, what are we supposed to do? The media certainly isn't giving objective facts, where shall we get our information? I know there has been a lot more I could have done and still be doing to determine the best person for political positions but I don't see that any of the 'facts' put out are true anyway. We aren't given the choice in many situations - how many of our current laws did we actually agree to?

Does The State Own Our Babies?!

There's a guy on Eliyah.com who writes about the legal aspects of a marriage contract in the U.S. I believe he's the one who mentioned that there is a difference between marrying with only you, your spouse, and YHWH and marrying with the legal sanction of the state. It makes marriage a contract that gives rights to children ("Fruit of the contract", is it really the word fruit?) to the state.
Baby D, my grandson, just got taken last night from his mother by the state and 'they' refuse to return him. He got out of a babysitter's house and wandered away. After several hours he was found so he's apparently safe but what happened to police rescuing a lost baby and being heroes for returning the baby to a hysterical mother?! Instead some government bureaucracy claims the "right" to keep the baby and determine if she's good enough to have her baby???
And my son isn't allowed to go get him either until a judge gives permission??!!! Why was my son not immediately called if 'they' didn't want to give him to his mother? And who said anyone has a right to keep him from Mommy in the first place??
Did our heavenly father bless governments with littles or us?

After this, I clicked on the Faith Lifts button to the left on my blog and read:
“I have not given you a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power and of love…” 2 Timothy 1:7

All Jews By The End

As a small part of a discussion with Tom Usher on Real Liberal Christian, I quoted the verse about being grafted into Israel - all the covenants are made with Israel and we become 'children of Abraham' and heir to the promises of the covenant as well. Tom disagreed that we are to become part of Israel, many others take that to mean spiritually because we're not necessarily physical descendants and because scripture tells us that's not the sole criterion.

BUT

Isn't it likely after all the "Jewish" persecutions and dispersions, scattering, emigrations and immigrations, that we all by the last days will have Jewish blood in our line somewhere?

Bad Link?

Someone told me my site links to youtube by itself, is anyone else having that problem? I don't know how something like that can happen, he said the whole background seems to be linked to youtube and that it's from JavaScript cursor. I don't know what a JavaScript cursor is but I'm afraid to put any links to other sites on here now. I was going to try to link some sites I read but I don't want to pass on any problems. The only new thing is the link to Faith Lifts, it's likely I did something wrong.
I DID go to youtube and watch videos after being inspired by a site with Saturday Songs (Casting Crowns, Kutless, etc), also when my friend was over, we watched country videos that she likes plus an Animaniac song that the kids liked. Now I can't get the Animaniacs song out of my head!
Anyway, I will try to figure this out.

Questions About The Kingdom

“Malchut” is the Hebrew term for kingdom and kingship reign. The Sages of the faith compare the kingdom to the Shekinah, the glorious manifest presence of Yahweh. Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance says this word means “a rule; concretely a dominion: —empire, kingdom, realm, reign, royal, inceptively to ascend the throne...” It can be seen as the active rule and reign of Yahweh. The Malchut is not a place but a status; it is not a time but a rule, not for the future and political but present and powerful. “Who is the king of glory? Yahweh strong and mighty, Yahweh Tzvaoth,” Psalm 24:8.

This is from Emet Ministries and reading through the rest of it (you have to scroll way down) shows that it's supporting a view of the kingdom of Yahweh being right now. It says the kingdom is manifested where ever people submit to his rule in their lives here and now on earth as well as in the future afterlife. Yeshua did say the kingdom is (among?) you.
This reminds me of Ted Dekker's book, Blessed Child, about a child who walked in the presence of the Almighty just like Yeshua did, just as we are called to do. I really liked that book, I'm about to receive, read, and review another one of Dekker's books so it's on my mind.
Anyway, it's difficult to believe that the kingdom even CAN be here now but I guess I've seen it. It's hard to imagine living that way all the time, your perspective on people, love, life, everything is so different. It shouldn't feel so foreign and frightening, it's not frightening at all while you're in it. It's the looking back from a normal perspective that makes it so overwhelming. We really do have to die to the flesh for it to be with us.

Do you think it's meant for now and later? Or only for later? How do we live that way in this world now? But we can, it's just that it's not about morals and being loving to people when we don't want to. It's the spirit being in us and that's so different! It's not about "trusting" that He will provide what I need, it's not even about accepting it when for some reason He doesn't. It's about Him being so close that everything else is irrelevant.

Links and Widgets?

I want to put links on my blog to other blogs but I want to use their widgets instead of just words. I saw Adgitize discussed on a couple of sites, perhaps that's how? Social networking, right?

All I really want is to quickly and easily access blogs whose most recent posts I want to keep up with. If I find a way to do that, will it be rude if I only leave them on for short periods of time? I may follow a discussion on someone's blog for a while, then find another when that's over. So far, I keep them in my favorites or have email sent but then I forget to go to them again or just TOTALLY LOSE THEM, that's why I need widgets right on my blog. I like widgets.

EDITED: This looks simple, don't know if it will work but I can do the changes right from my layout. I've tried a couple of things before that didn't work but if I keep this blog, I'll try again.

What We Believe or THAT We Believe?

Faith - Belief, maybe it's more for us than we really know. It's better for our health, our relationships, our lives. Sometimes I can't tell if it's more important what we believe IN or the having of belief and hope. No brainer, right? But what about 'better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all'? Is that true? Different for each of us?
We can believe people and the world is horrible, plenty of evidence to support it, but does that help anything? We can believe our heavenly father is watching over us and doing all for our good but when everything goes bad, does that mean it would have been better to have never believed it? I want to only believe things that are true...but I don't have all the facts that exist.

A few days ago I read a book I picked up from a used bookstore, it's called Mortal Memory by Thomas Cook. The story is about a man who was the sole survivor of his father's murder spree of his own family; evidence showed the dad had waited for two hours for the main character (a little boy at the time) to come home from school. The boy was spending the afternoon at a friend's house and that was what apparently saved his life. But what kind of life? He grew up, married, had a child, lived a normal life until some woman writing a book on family killers that tried to escape instead of making it a murder-suicide showed up with questions. She ended up taking this guy back into this horrifying memories until the guy started going crazy himself. His fury and hatred of what had been done to him and the strangeness and also the normalness of his childhood was always run through this defining trauma.

Nothing about that is strange but the way it turned out made me really think. Once the man started living in the past and constantly reviewing these memories, he started seeing his current life and family differently, started feeling like his father must have felt. It was hard to tell if he was going to do the same thing, if he had been part of it as a child or what.
It was sad to see him looking at his life so differently as he was led into deeply considering how his father could do such a thing, made me want that woman author to go away and leave him alone! And then the real shocker was: his father hadn't done it after all.

This man spent all this time thinking he had started feeling what his father had apparently felt, believing he had no real hope in life either, let his life fall apart and lost everything...for nothing. It was all because of what the situation looked like to the police and the extended family and therefore what the little boy grew up believing.

At The Mercy Of A Whimsical God?

At Sharpening Iron, back on Dec. 3, he asked if we would still have faith if hideous things were happening, like being attacked by soldiers and tortured, watching our family be slaughtered. Faith that what? That God would intervene? He doesn't always. I haven't seen that our having faith forces God's hand. He isn't "up there" looking down and seeing people with immense faith and saying, "Oh, he believes entirely that I will fix this for him, I'd better run over and take care of that."

What are we having faith about? Faith in?

That He exists? Scripture says 'even the demons believe, and tremble'. Faith that all will work for our good? 'In this life you will have trouble'. Faith that He loves us? The Bible says yes, but how is that relevant to our daily lives?

He's working out a plan (a science experiment?) with people and the earth, I can easily see that this plan encompasses the overall good of the human race. Even if now what we see is how things work out when YHWH is NOT making us all do things His way, it's understandable that we will look at the earth and ourselves at the end, then be shown what would be (or currently IS in a parallel universe? I just saw a new article about that in Scientific American) if He had been micromanaging. I realize that we are seeing the contrast but what does that mean for us now?

No, it's not whimsy perhaps, but do we really have to do this?

Psychological Analysis of Messiah

Think and Make It Happen by Augusto Cury is basically a self-help book with a slight twist. It includes something I've never seen before - a psychological analysis of Jesus - brilliant idea I think.
Cury offers twelve steps/techniques to take charge of your thoughts, putting yourself on the stage of your life instead of in the audience watching and just letting your life happen. He brings his own unique psychobabble to the book but he does explain what he means; one idea is "editing your memory windows". He points out that our negative experiences are constantly dredged up - triggered in a myriad of ways - which leads to reacting the same unhelpful way over and over because of the negative spin we put on each new situation. He shows how to recognize that happening, then what steps can be taken to edit that memory or at least edit the effect it currently has on one.
After each step, he shows Jesus as the model of living out these practices, demonstrating that Jesus was the most psychologically healthy man to ever live. Cury examines Jesus' way of dealing with horrible situations, his way of dealing with praise and acclaim, and how he deals with, helped, and encouraged others. Cury's steps are explanations of what Jesus did and how that will look in our lives now, how it can be applied practically. Loving one's neighbor for example, something we hear we should do - Cury discusses not what to do to be loving, but how that comes about internally.
This book comes across to me as a blueprint for working with the renewed spirit the Father gives us instead of concentrating only on constantly fighting our selfish nature. He advocates positive action and response as opposed to instinctual reaction.

Should Have Done This By Now

By now I should have posted my book review on Think and Make It Happen; it's hard to decide what to write. Parts of it I felt I was slogging through, other parts were brilliant! I meant to take notes as i went through it so that I could remember to post certain points but then I never did - I just kept reading and thought I would come back to it. Time to truly do it for real now.

Some reviewers have hated the way this author psychoanalyzed Jesus' human self, I find it incredible. Another thing about it is that I was expecting the subject to be less of a self-help for attitudes and one's mental life than it was. That's what it SAYS it is right on the cover but I was thinking more along the lines of a study on changing things outside of oneself. I'll post the review in a little while, it really can be quite a helpful book.

LOL!

This is great!
I read a post from December 18th on irritablereaching.blogspot.com about Christmas. He/she says:

"One way or another, however, we are barraged with diatribes berating us for forgetting the "reason for the season."
The part I totally love? His or Her next sentence:

The real reason for the season, however, is that it's so damn dark.

LOL!!!!

Truth and Reality - ALL AS ONE

Often I'm comforted to know that my belief, disbelief, certainty, doubts have nothing to do with what is true and real. I may feel it's urgent to know exactly what truth and reality are but don't have to worry that I can somehow screw it up.

BUT THEN

I realize humans may create reality. We affect things by our actions and likely by our thoughts. Our unity or disunity may increase or disrupt reality.

Do we affect our own reality or REALITY? We're exhorted to be as one, in unity, one in Christ, one with I AM as Yeshua is one with him. Perhaps when we manage that (will that ever happen?!), that is when reality that is truly real will be here.

Edited To Finish

So far I don't see anyone but Paul saying to quit following the laws given in the OT. Some of the laws don't make sense now because we don't live in a desert, tribal culture. That makes it seem that they don't apply at all but Jesus followed them. He fulfilled all the requirements and told us to do the same and more. More?! But that's what he said, that he was out of time but his followers should be doing greater things than he did.

It's difficult to separate the things that were actually commanded from the things that were set up in the religion that just made it more difficult. Like Jesus not ceremonially washing his hands before he ate (I have to add ceremonially because thinking he just didn't wash his hands at all seems rather gross, but the ceremony was the part he objected to); was there a commandment in the OT for everyone to go through some ceremony like that? And the sabbath, he kept the sabbath obviously but he refused to do all the heartless religious soul-sapping parts that were expected by then. Healing and doing good on the sabbath, was that ever proscribed before?

The OT law was given to show what a life of love for YHWH looked like and a love for your neighbor (fellow man/woman). I can easily see how people could start "doing the law" instead of letting it be the guideline and proof it was set up to be.

Edit - Studying Paul and doing word studies show he wasn't "authorizing" such a radical rewriting of God's laws anyway.
Something else I always think of is, if someone now is given a wonderful revelation, we tell everyone what we were shown, does that suddenly mean that every thought we have and every word we speak from then on comes directly from YHWH? No. So why do we do that to Paul?

Is This What He's Doing?

The Bible is a crazy book. Sometimes I see it as people writing things they saw and understood through their perspective and current knowledge. Some parts are direct revelation.


Some parts seem to be directly from the Creator saying, Look people, this is how to do it if you want your individual lives to be right, your society to work well, the entire human race to function properly.

Then when people didn't listen, he said, Fine, try it like this but at least always remember this, and don't EVER do this.

Then he got to, You insist on doing it all a different way than I told you? I've warned you, I've shown you, but all right, try it. And in the end when you realize where it led, I'll be here to fix things for you but you realize, don't you, that I'm going to let you get so far that there's NO DOUBT left what the problem was. Because I will rescue you, yes, then show you again how it was supposed to be. You'll look at what you did, look over here where I had it all set up like I told you, and the difference is just so obvious.

Maybe that will knock some sense into you!

Personal and Progressive Revelation; too theological a name for this post

I was just commenting on a blog but had to stop. I was getting way off track of the original conversation because I realized something. Loving people has always been hard for me, for everyone I suppose, are people "worth" love? Seeing people's self-centeredness, rudeness, cruelty, indifference, lack of the hallmarks that are what supposedly makes us human, makes it really hard to see the good. Why are we told to concentrate on the good?

A few blogs and forums are out there by people who used to believe and now don't. I can totally understand that, when you devote your whole life and being to something and then can't reconcile it to reality, what can you do? It's like freeing yourself from shackles (not that I've ever been shackled), from "working up faith to continue". When I was commenting, I remembered like I was re-living when I AM showed me. "He" was there, here, WITH me. Not in some soft little way, he was EVERYWHERE AND EVERYTHING. If He doesn't do that to/for everyone, how can they know anything?! I've been so scared to experience anything like that ever again but I know that's the whole point. And that's what I realized when I had to leave that blog I was reading.
I understand yet another reason to love people because of those experiences I had. Not just for their sake but for our own! Because:

You have to be wide open to other people when the Spirit of the Holy comes in you strongly or you will explode!

==========
Even more, now I understand what scripture meant when it said "For in him dwells all the fullness of the godhead bodily." Same thing, Jesus was so open to loving others that the spirit flowed into and through him to everyone. Then it says we're made full that same way, kind of scary. We ARE made full or we CAN be?

Death and Resurrection

There's something I don't understand. On Real Liberal Christian Church, there's a debate (not too friendly) between the host and a Roman Catholic man. One thing the RC man said to me was that RCs do NOT pray to Mary in the way others think of praying - that it's asking her for intercession with the Father. This was in response to my saying I've heard people pray TO Mary. So perhaps the official doctrine is not the same as people do but people do pray to her, asking her to save them from peril, etc.
What I don't understand is praying to dead people in the first place or asking them to intercede for you. If we're supposed to believe the dead saints are alive now then why are they waiting for the Resurrection? Why would there BE a resurrection? All through the Old Testament it's made quite clear that the dead are DEAD.
The New Testament tells of Yeshua saying, "I say unto you today you shall be with me in paradise," to another man on a cross next to him. No comma so where does the today go? Then there's “According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.” (II Thessalonians 4:15) Also, the dead in Christ rise first.

It comforts many to think of those they've lost in this life in heaven with Yeshua now. But scripture doesn't say that, they're peacefully "sleeping", it's not a long terrible time for them. The next moment they know will be the resurrection. Besides, Yeshua saying "today" must go to "I say to you" (Old English, I need to check the Hebrew but of course, there was no punctuation anyway) because he didn't go to paradise that day! He was dead and when he DID ascend, first he saw the woman and told her not to touch him because he had not yet ascended to His Father.

All the crucifixion and resurrection accounts differ, some I assume because of what people saw from where they were positioned. But what about the righteous dead coming out of their graves and appearing to many? That's listed nowhere else and it would have meant Jesus was NOT the first resurrected from the dead and therefore not the firstfruits as he is. I also wonder why nobody recognized him - if he was so different, why? They recognized something about him after being with him, was he disguised?