Job 5:7 …man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward. KJV — (As sure as the wild birds fly, Aramaic; and even so the vulture’s young seek the high places, Septuagint.) As sure as the laws of nature; as birds of prey scavenge from on high or fire flickers upward, so men will see trouble. Psalm 119:67-75 teaches, ” Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.” …”It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.”… “I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.” It seems that trouble should not surprise us, but must come. A word from Jeremiah: ” …the Lord will not reject for ever.” ” But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.” “For he doth not…
Healing at the Cross Posts
Dreams of falling are quite common — Off cliffs, buildings, down ravines. I just reviewed five web-pages of over 100 web-sites which claim to give the meaning of the “falling” dream. Psychology, Astrology, Christianity and even Hollywood all weigh in. Seems to be an obsession with the meaning of “falling” dreams. In contrast, the Bible teaches in Jude 24, ” (He)… is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy” What’s up? Blaise Pascal observes the condition of natural man: Inconstant, bored, anxious. Young people he describes as: all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future. He says: “We think playing upon a man is like playing upon an ordinary organ. It is indeed an organ, but strange, shifting, and changeable. Those who only know how to play an ordinary organ would never be in tune on this one.…
But rather, those members of the body which are considered to be delicate are necessary. 1 Corinthians 12:22 Who might these delicate members be? First lets define the “delicate” generally pleasant, as: “the climate’s delicate, the air most sweet”— William Shakespeare pleasing to the sense of taste or smell especially in a mild or subtle ways. aromatic marked by daintiness or charm of color, lines, or proportions. marked by fineness of structure, workmanship, or textures. marked by keen sensitivity or fine discrimination as delicate insights. Fastidious, squeamish a person of delicate tastes. not robust in health or constitution : a delicate child. easily torn or damaged : fragile – delicate wine glasses, a delicate flower. requiring careful handling. easily unsettled or upset — a delicate balance. requiring skill or tact — in a delicate position. involving matters of a deeply personal nature : sensitive marked by great precision or sensitivity — a delicate instrument The Latin root, (delicatus), means dainty, refined. Synonyms include: Beautiful, birdlike, bonny, breakable, brittle….etc. etc. Have we met any of these kinds of…
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, as it was the substance of things which have come to pass; and it is the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1 Lamsa’s translation “The apostles said to our Lord, increase our faith.” The Lord’s reply: “If ye have faith even as a grain of mustard seed, ye could say unto this mulberry tree, be uprooted, and planted in the sea; and it would obey you.” Jesus tells a story then: Now, which of you has a servant who plows or feeds sheep, and if he should come from the field, would say to him, ‘enter in and sit down?’ But he would rather say to him, ‘prepare something that I may have my supper, and gird yourself and serve me until I eat and drink; and then you also can eat and drink. What! Will the servant receive…
South Africa has the deepest hard rock gold mine up to 12800 feet underground. At such depths the heat is unbearable for humans, and air conditioning is required for the safety of the workers. Wikipedia On average it takes 10-20 years before a gold mine is even ready to produce material that can be refined. Long before any gold can be extracted, significant exploration and development needs to take place, both to determine as accurately as possible, the size of the deposit as well as how to extract and process the ore efficiently, safely and responsibly. www.gold.org.n.d. What can we learn? “It may be hard, dark or hot, but we clever humans have ciphered grabbing and stacking gold and gems. Grabbing wisdom tells a different story and we faint while getting it, because wisdom shows itself a “different animal.” We fail wisdom mining even though time money and great sacrifice…
Bells toll, signalling for us to rise up, look up first, lift our heads before that, awake from shame into approval, honor, and esteem. Singing flows from us, “glory, glory, glory to the Lamb that was slain.” “All praises and honor to our God, forever and ever, amen.” Daily our souls must hear the bells ringing as Martin Luther did: “The just shall live by faith.” “It was a creative sentence for the reformer and the Reformation. It was in these words that God then said, ‘let there be light! and there was light.” “It was the unveiling of the face of God.” “All through his convent days he proceeds upon the assumption that God gloats over his misery. His life is a long drawn out agony. He creeps like a shadow along the galleries of the cloister, the walls echoing with his dismal mornings. His body wastes to a…
“Survival of the fittest” is a mantra of the extremely observant. But, is empirical evidence the same as truth? On two levels, no. First, it contradicts the Bible, “The kingdom of God comes without observation. (ocular evidence) Luke 17:20 But secondly, even the best observationist can only find seeming truth. Why? Because our observations are only as true as we abide in The Truth. In this inner abiding is where I can be aware of the world at a level outside of myself, or, unfortunately, I actually create my own world, unknowingly. Charles Darwin (biologist and evolution’s greatest contributor), saw a problem: ” if…men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that their unmarried females would, like the worker bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill your fertile daughters, and no one would…
2 Corinthians 5:19 speaks a great truth to us, “That is, in Messiah, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them; and He has entrusted the message of reconciliation to us.” The Savior brought us a new consciousness, and in that conscience there is no ledgering of a person’s willful trespasses. 2 Corinthians 4:6 tells us why, “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” When this light enters a heart, then comes an immediate “knowing,” because Jesus is the Light of the World. Many use their eye-gate to evaluate the world, they answer for themselves the question of “how.” This means they can give a whole chart describing the function and content of the eye from scientific…
My secret has always been God, His presence, His word, His life, His work. Have I done great things for God or man? No. Small stuff. I need God for the small stuff — all my stuff is small. Truth is, I cannot measure or evaluate any degree or effect of impact coming from my life. “From the desire of being great, good Lord deliver us.” A Moravian prayer How does “small” happen? God does it. He makes us small and contents us with little. A friend lived in a nursing home for 3 or 4 years. He had been afflicted with a stroke. On a recent visit we talked of many who were imprisoned or killed in the war, standing for their faith. We mused about what it must have been like, and wondered how we would have responded if it was us. My friend volunteered quickly; ‘I would…
The times were post-modern, the setting? — anywhere U.S.A. The question then, “hath God said?” Answer, “you shall not surely die.” Heard this before? Yes, we have read it in our Bibles, pages 1-3. Quohelet later speaks in Ecclesiastes, “All is breath, and herding of the wind.” There is nothing new under the sun. Same old — same old! The dialectics tell us of new forms for reasoning, that the truth-based deductive reasoning is obsolete. They tell us we must accept both sides of the question and reject the law of non-contradiction. They want us to tolerate the lie, accept it’s right to express itself, and even exalt it to a place of equality with truth. Red dogs bark louder, my dog is red my dog barks louder. They dismiss the simple reasoning. Ho hum; the Bible calls these folks, “fools” because they have no delight in understanding —…