Spiritual Ponderings

Last night it again was impressed on my mind the idea of delicacy in the realm of the spiritual. I sense more and more that true preparation for living in the presence of God has far more to do with the fine tuning of the sensitivities of the mind and heart to become more delicate so that they can perceive the messages from heaven than it has to do with the amassing of factual knowledge or sin-free performance enhancement. In fact, I am starting to see that doctrines and behavior are really more about supporting this process of shaping the mind and heart to fit into the atmosphere of the society of heaven than they have to do with impressing God or keeping up religious appearances. I am starting to better understand that the reasons behind pretty much every requirement of God is to further this goal of allowing the mind to become more sensitive to His voice in the heart. The reason it is detrimental for me to eat between meals, to eat late before bedtime, to overeat or to eat fo...

Insisting that God's laws and punishments are arbitrary necessarily involves a denial of the principle of cause and effect that operates throughout all of creation. To believe that God demands obedience simply because He is powerful, intimidating and threatening rather than because He knows how reality is designed is to blind ourselves to the fact that sin produces its own consequences rather than God imposing punishments on us. It is a very dangerous path to follow to claim that God must impose punishments for every sin, for it is the very same path that led Lucifer to become the greatest demon in the universe. It was fallen Lucifer that originated this idea to start with, and he is the one Jesus identified as being the father of all lies. Every sin must meet its punishment, urged Satan ; and if God should remit the punishment of sin, He would not be a God of truth and justice. {DA 761} Viewing God as arbitrary rather than logical and sensible always leads us int...

Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, "You who would destroy (kataluo) the temple and build it (oikodomeo) in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross." (Matthew 27:39-40 NRSV) As I was thinking about this verse some time ago my curiosity was aroused to investigate the original words to see if there might be a discrepancy between what Jesus was quoted as saying by His enemies and what He actually had said originally. It should come as little surprise that these men did in fact misquote Jesus and twisted His words to insinuate something He had never said. I have included the Greek words used for the English translation to reveal how these religious people tried to imply that Jesus had threatened their sacred icon, their holy temple rather than His referring to something totally different. Their prejudice was so strong because of their devotion to a building that they had elevated its honor above an...

Learning to know what brings true satisfaction rather than temporary pleasure is one of the main tasks of progressing successfully through childhood maturity. Yet it is what I feel I am just now beginning to learn more completely. Learning what satisfies in preference to what brings immediate gratification requires being equipped with self-control. Teaching self-control is nearly a lost science in the arena of parenting for many. Because parents live for the present and often have very little maturity or self-control themselves, they are incapable of passing along skills they themselves have never acquired. But without healthy self-control a person seldom can discover what brings long-term satisfaction and they easily become victims to addictions that appeal to the cravings for pleasure. Pleasure without self-control leaves one empty and even more hungry for satisfaction. We are created to thrive on satisfaction which stimulates true growth and maturity. But pleasure sought...

The past few days I have been reigniting my skills with keeping a wood stove going. But something else has been going on inside of me that reminds me of the current spiritual situation going on in my church. When we arrived here in Michigan to stay with friends for a few days to enjoy Thanksgiving with relatives nearby, the wood stove in our room was already pumping out heat. The stock of large pieces of wood behind the nearby door was waiting. This stove heats the whole house by convecting heat up the stairs, and although it is still early in the fall/winter season it is needed to supply heat as it is below freezing at night. As is common with wood stoves, the room housing the stove is the warmest room in the building. In this case it is the same room we are sleeping in which has made it interesting trying to sleep with it so warm at night. However, having a few years experience with wood fires I knew the first night that likely early in the morning the stove would need so...

I have been thinking lately about the element of resistance and how that figures into our relationships with God and with others including resistance against evil people. In Scripture I find some interesting instructions about resistance, some of which can make us very uncomfortable. I have been learning that it is our internal resistance against love and resisting the truth about who God is that will become the fuel, the internal cause of what is termed “the fires of hell” that destroys the wicked. To my amazement I discovered from the Word that it is not an angry God bent on punishment or revenge that burns the lost but rather their own resistance to His passionate love for them that creates the torture, suffering and finally brings about their own annihilation. Yet at the very same time and in the very same place, those who have been saved, who have allowed God to bring them into full harmony with His character and the principles that govern the universe (God's laws) find themse...

So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name. (Acts 5:41) Recently this idea of rejoicing because one is considered worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus came to my attention again. I distinctly remember feeling very uncomfortable with this concept many times whenever I read this or heard it discussed and it still is not well resolved in my mind so I feel I need to do some intentional digging into the Word to unpack this for my own peace of mind. What I think might be disturbing me the most about this is that it seems that whenever people talk about this it seems to often be couched in a subtle assumption that somehow 'suffering for Jesus' in some way creates 'brownie points' with God, creating some sort of merit that may count toward a better position in heaven or some other such desirable result. Yet anything that smacks of earning favor with God or contributing to...