Spiritual Ponderings

As I lay in my bed waking up this morning and began to steer my thoughts and attention toward focusing on God, I asked Him to commune with me and bring something to my mind to work on to displace the various distractions that were swirling around in there. I decided to begin praying for a deeper experience of love, a deeper appreciation and capacity to know His love, to be transformed in His love, to better reflect His kind of love that still seems so foreign to my natural way of thinking. As my mind reviewed my past and how God has been leading me and showing me amazing things from His Word that all fits together so perfectly, my heart began to feel affection for Him. I told Him how exciting it is when I see how each new insight fits so neatly with everything else He has shown me before which only helps to affirm the continuity and truthfulness of His ways. I asked for a more passion, the kind of passion that marked the life of Jesus who's whole life was intent on revealing t...

Rulership without authority. How can that be? Adam was given authority over this world. Dominion. Power. Authority. So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." (Genesis 1:27-28 NRSV) Satan usurped Adam's dominion/authority position and replaced the beneficial kind of authority God had instituted with a ruthless dictatorship utilizing the techniques of an abuser. A highly skilled abuser does not only exploit and bring harm, fear and pain to their victim, but they also lavish affection, gifts and benefits on them without rational explanations based on reality. This keeps the victim continually confused and feeling ashamed, guilty and even responsible for the abuse they re...

God's reputation has been terribly maligned. He has been slandered and His credibility has been seriously damaged. As Governor over the entire universe His ability to have the full respect and cooperation of all of His subjects has been seriously undermined. The root cause of this is the issue of our beliefs about His character that absolutely has to be resolved above everything else. If we do not trust Him at the gut level, if we find it difficult to feel that God is worthy of being honored, if we have doubts deep down inside that He really loves us and is completely committed to giving us life and only life, then God's ability to interact with us is inhibited and it is impossible for us to live in close fellowship with Him. How can two walk together unless they be agreed? This is the fundamental problem of sin. We have been told all sorts of things about God that create fears, doubts and inhibitions about Him that must be dealt with before our hearts can ever fully tr...

"Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses. Therefore take heed , so that the thing spoken of in the Prophets may not come upon you: 'BEHOLD, YOU SCOFFERS, AND MARVEL, AND PERISH; FOR I AM ACCOMPLISHING A WORK IN YOUR DAYS, A WORK WHICH YOU WILL NEVER BELIEVE, THOUGH SOMEONE SHOULD DESCRIBE IT TO YOU.'" As Paul and Barnabas were going out, the people kept begging that these things might be spoken to them the next Sabbath. Now when the meeting of the synagogue had broken up, many of the Jews and of the God-fearing proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, were urging them to continue in the grace of God . The next Sabbath nearly the whole city assembled to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began cont...

Here are a few somewhat random but maybe connected ideas that are stirring around inside of me this morning. About the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This is the very symbol of Satan's counterfeit system of living apart from complete dependence on God. One thing I learn is that mixing good and evil always produces deception, a vital ingredient for Satan's system. And it makes no difference in the end what percentages are used in the mix. In fact, most of us know that using an extremely high ratio of good with an extremely small amount of evil has the most potential for harm, for it causes us to believe that the evil, if even present anymore, is so diluted by good that it is safe to accept the cocktail. But no matter which way the scales are favored, the end result is always death. On the other hand the Tree of Life refers to no other element. It is focused on spreading life only. It is pure in its content and can never be diluted with anything without losi...