Spiritual Ponderings

There is a very interesting story in the Bible that conflates two different storylines overlapping them into one integrated story. Now I am starting to see that there may be something very significant about that, that very possibly if we read these two parallel stories without our Greek logic filters in place but allowed a more relaxed approach to affect our thinking, that some startling insights might begin to emerge. One account of this story is found in Luke 8:40-56. It starts out with a frantic father begging Jesus to come and heal his twelve year old daughter who is dying. Jesus agrees to go along to his house to accommodate his request. But suddenly the first narrative is suspended as a second story is inserted just at that point. The focus shifts to a grown lady much older than the girl who has suffered much and had spent all of her valuables trying to get help from physicians for her incessant hemorrhaging. And she had been forced to live with this debilitat...

No one, when tempted, should say, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one . (James 1:13) I just became aware of one of the devil's greatest schemes by which he can automate his entire system of tempting us to evil. His technique is so effective that not only does he leverage his ability to keep us in a vicious cycle of falling for temptations repeatedly, but he does so by accessing the most basic part of our creation design, our very purpose of existence. By doing this he also escapes detection as being detected as the origin of our temptations and causes us to shift blame over onto God. It can be easy to be content with a simplistic interpretation of this verse. But James is not simply insisting that we should never use these words, “I am being tempted by God.” The problem is not in whether or not we use this phrase or assume that God might be tempting us to do something that is wrong. Rather ...

Will the right Jesus please stand up and make Himself known. There are counterfeit gods galore. The problem is many of them claim loudly that they are the original, that they are in fact Jesus. They use Scripture to support their actions and personality; some claim to work the same miracles that Jesus worked; all claim to promote correct theology, so how is one to know who is the right version? There must be a way to detect deception in clones that are not authentic. I am not speaking here of antichrists running around in the world. I am referring to the internal versions and beliefs about God that each of us holds; what we imagine the all-powerful God in heaven to be. There are likely more versions of God than there are people, but one thing is certain, we are all born with distorted perceptions of what God is like in our heads that are further twisted for most of us through the examples and abuse of those in authority over us throughout our lives. I am d...

Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus . (Revelation 14:12 KJV) This verse has been a staple of my religious diet since I was very young. This verse was drilled into my head repeatedly and was used to define my church's very identity. Yet at the same time this verse seemed to present and reenforce a nearly impossible demand for me, because if I failed to perfectly keep all of God's commandments and also work up enormous faith, maybe as much as Jesus demonstrated, then the chance of me being saved appeared to be rather shaky. Recently my mind has been opened to many new things about God, truths that have eliminated many of my fears and apprehensions and have unlocked many things to my understanding that used to make little sense to me in the past. Even now as I read nearly anything in Scripture I can now see new and amazing things I could not appreciate before because my comprehension...