Spiritual Ponderings

On that day his people will say, "This is our God; we have waited for him, and now he will save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him. Let us rejoice and be glad because he will save us." The LORD'S power will be on this mountain. Moab will be trampled beneath him like straw that is trampled in a pile of manure. The Moabites will stretch out their hands in the manure like swimmers who stretch out their hands to swim. The LORD will humble those arrogant people despite the movements of their hands. He will bring down Moab's high fortified walls, level them, and throw them into the dust on the ground. (Isaiah 25:9-12 GW) I am sometimes surprised and challenged whenever I pick up a different version of the Bible and begin reading. I have found that although every version of the Bible has problems in translation, both from the biases of the translators as well as misunderstandings at times of even the writers themselves in their perceptions of what God is l...

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image , according to Our likeness ; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him ; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:26-27) As I was listening to the current Sabbath School lesson presented by a teacher who has been challenging me to think differently about God as of late, I heard something that riveted my attention and got me to thinking outside the box – again. As he reviewed a number of texts including the one above, my mind began to grasp a key concept in the bigger picture that I had never thought about before but that suddenly helps to make sense out of a lot of peripheral issues. Some of the thoughts presented here are taken directly from that presentation that can be found here , while others are what I have fel...

Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me. (Psalms 41:9) I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen; but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, 'he who eats my bread has lifted up his heel against me.' (John 13:18) Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." But they said, "What is that to us? See to that yourself!" And he threw the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary and departed; and he went away and hanged himself . (Matthew 27:3-5) The past few years I have engaged in a new direction of focus from my previous spiritual direction. For many years I lived under the heaviness of fear, guilt and condemnation. My perceptions of God filled me with intimidation that ever prevented me from entering into ...