Spiritual Ponderings

What is glory? That is a question I have been asking nearly all my life. Yet I still feel I am only scratching the surface in discovering a satisfactory answer to this question. Initially when I was young, the notion of glory was typically associated with something like a halo or a bright light surrounding a person's head or body. I'm sure this was heavily influenced by artwork used to illustrate stories like Jesus being glorified on the Mount of Transfiguration where certainly bright light was involved. There are the horrible pictures from medieval ages where Jesus and various 'saints' are depicted with some sort of pious halo of light around their head. I never found any of those pictures attractive in the least, but clearly these artificial halos were intended to convey the idea of holiness about a person (whatever that was supposed to mean). As I grew older and learned more and more theology from instruction throughout my entire educational ...

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life. (Philippians 2:12-16 NKJV) I recently heard a presenter explain that the first part of this passage can be translated more clearly this way: Even in times when you experience fear and trembling, because it is God working in you, both to will and to do His good pleasure, you can work out your salvation. Examining this more closely myself I discovered additional thoughts about potential translation corrections. To 'work out' also means to finish and 'salvation' also means rescue . This makes sense in the context of realizing that God is rescuing us from a kidnapper who has held us ...

But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men , who have been made in the likeness of God ; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing . My brethren, these things ought not to be this way . Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water? Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh. Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom . But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic . For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. (James 3:8-16) Because of our problem with relying on false premises for our identity and value, God has to...

I woke up early this morning and found myself immersed in an old familiar emotion – intense anger over a blatant injustice. Yesterday a friend of mine relayed a story of being defeated in court, not because it was unclear whether he was in the right or not but on a technicality. It was clear that the court and his opponent knew ahead of time how it would turn out, but they used that system to 'put him in his place' and let him know who had the power. For most of my life these kinds of stories have infuriated me. I have long assumed this was because I had a keen sense of justice as some other people often feel. The way we think of justice is based however, on a faulty foundation, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, i.e. reward and punishment as the symbol of the scales represents. But what God has been showing me for a number of years is that His justice is very different from the balancing sort of justice we are used to and as a result God's just...