Tag Archives: church

Dear Christian…

Oh, dear christian, why do you let me down so….

(Sorry, another rant) I want to come at this from two different directions. One is from the ‘pulpit’ and one is from the ‘pew’ angle.(although, I don’t condone either one, but for the purpose of my angle, I will use this example)

Let me start from the ‘pulpit’ angle first, Let me preface this ‘rant’ by saying that my father was a pastor for over 40 yrs, thus I was a preachers kid for that long too, having heard all those sermons and bible studies in my life I feel that I can come at it subjectively. (side note,I have been on three church boards in my life also) What I would like to share with you is the issues of the pastor has when doing his vocation(so they believe), is that in this paradigm of religion, we break it down by our various dogmas of belief’s in what we call denominations. Thousands of them in the U.S.. All varying ever so slightly in their thinking but just enough to have another denomination. lol

It is to this we have to address to understand the dilemma a pastor has. You see, a pastor is held true to his belief system in his sermons, without a doubt his feet are held to the fire of his or her denomination. So this paradigm is worked into his ‘studying’,reading,listening,talking and living this life. Just one little variance could change things for him and his life.

So it is this that has and for ever more put blinders on him to the ‘Word of God’ that He or She says that they believe in and stand on. But they are only seeing or hearing a sliver of it and believing it. Not the whole thing.

Pastor’s have problems. “Our” system has done this to them, We have done this to them. But what I what to say is ‘Pastors’ are not the solution either. It is not the right paradigm.

Now, to the second rant, the solution is sitting in the pews.(again, wrong paradigm) But it is the christians that are sitting there not holding the pastor personally to the ‘fire’ for truth of the word of God, irks me to no end! I had an epiphany at a service one sunday that I would read the scripture surrounding the sermon and to see the true message that it was meaning. I did this instead of listening to the pastor to see if it came across the same way. It didn’t. What we have allowed as the ‘listeners’ of the word to do to us is to ‘hear snippets of stories from the bible and not understood the whole premise of the Bible and of God’s Eternal Purpose.

But to the main issue of the problem, is that the pastor is held accountable to his beliefs and to the denomination’s beliefs of the bible without any variance. Now I also want to point out that if you are a longtimer in the faith of the denomination, that you too believe this way, or you are stuck in this ways of thinking or you just don’t know any other way to think. This too is you duty to hold a pastor to the truth from scripture if something is different, or is false. Now, if there are new or younger people in the church, who are curious of this preaching, it may take years for them to see what the preaching is pointing to specifically, and they being immature believers don’t see the fault in the reasoning, will continue to just listen.

Here is my compaint to the christian, Study the Bible!! Read it, know it. Daily. Not on Sunday for the little ‘Headlines’ that you hear and then go home! That’s Stupid! How do we live our lives to God by hearing 20 minutes of “Be like this” and then go home and try to ‘live it’ and except God to be there too? I don’t understand it?

Let me say here, that I too was like this til I was around 50 yrs old, when I had a epiphany that this is ‘just not right’ God is bigger than this! I decided to be one of those people that put their nose in their bible, books, blogs, sermons,preachers, youtuber watcher of people and seen various things of the world of ‘churchianity’. It was then that I realized that there was much more to the scriptures and God that I wanted to dig deeper, know, have wisdom from God.

This is me, 15 years later still digging and soaking in everything I can. It is a daily thing for me,24/7 thing and I can’t get enough of God. This is what every Christian should be like. I pray that you will too! Find that taste of God, that everlasting water to want to continue to be by the everlasting creek flowing to you and your fellow christian.

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Don’t get me started…..

One thing that drives me crazy, is that Christians of today and of yesteryear failed to ‘proof text’ their beliefs or their pastor or both. This is actually how I started to wave away from the ‘church’ institution when alot of things that were being said, were not in there. I am always being fruitional in all things read, heard or being discussed. (This is what I have found out the hard way from discussing with friends, that their is not an attempt to ‘fact check’ my stance on things, only saying it is wrong or ‘you don’t know what you are talking about’!) Irritates me to no end!!

Let me point out something first before my main ‘IRK’, LOL. Man’s attempt to figure out God, has failed. This is why we must say it out loud for us to realize it in our heads. But let’s start with that thot, with the man in the old testament thru today. There were ‘christian men’ who didn’t have it right even tho God let them continue in their ways. Just Go back to the scriptures and see where man’s ‘leaders’ were still not getting it right. From individuals to institutions have led us astray to the wrong path, that has exacerbated God to no end, I’m sure. God’s plan was different than his creation itself, it was not ever to be of a ‘manly’ way, but of a Heavenly way.

And here it is, my biggest complaint or ‘Irksome’! Let me give a small background of myself, so you will know where I am coming from. My Father was a Pastor for over 40+ yrs in the Church of God denomination. He studied at a christian college, I also went to the same christian college, albeit alot shorter of time. But the crux of the matter is if stand back and look at this paradigm of Christianity and its processes, we will notice something, something bad.

When you go to a college for a ‘degree’ or for a ‘Title’,aka Pastor it is taught all that it is recommended for that ‘type’ of ‘Pastor’ aka, denomination. There is no exception. You are taught that which you also will spout the same verbatim as you learned at school. Now this is fine and dandy, in a sense, but where is the ‘newness’ of the WORD that God gave us, it refreshing, like the spring in the mountain flowing daily down to us in the valley below, it’s the same but different. I can attest for alot of ‘AHA’ moments in my last 15 yrs of deep and thorough studying of God’s word. I have been enlightened thousand of times of very small things to very big things.

It is with this understanding that for one of many reasons I fault the institution of the ‘church’ as it stands today, with many paradigms to be explored and to follow.

I do not know how I would of lived if I had this thirst when I was younger, I would of been starving and no place to live, with my 24/7 appetite of the word. It is this thirst that the bible tells us that we must dig and dig into the meat of the story of God, not just the appetizers that it seems that we have been doing for a long time now.

I will challenge you to do the same, dig deep into the bible search it’s meaning, with God’s desire and will and it will raise you up to Him and His Eternal purpose.

Please, let me know what you think of this short ‘irksome’ story of mine and if you have some of yourselves. Or anything else? I love discussion! Thanks

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on all flesh.

Let me address the topic in two ways. One in Joel 2:28-32, and in Acts 2: 14-21 The former is used in the latter of Acts 2. I will use Joel for the reference in reading.

  28 "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. 29 " And I will give portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. 32 And it shall come to pass that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord call.

30 “And I will give portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. 32 And it shall come to pass that all who call upon the name of the LORD shall be delivered; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls.

The Revised Standard Version (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1971), Joe 2:28–32.

The passage in Joel is quoted in Acts 2 by Peter in the scene of the Pentecost in the upper room. Joel being a prophet is foretelling of an future event in the coming of the Lord and also the Holy Spirit, to not only the prophets But to all, read this reference to this verse 28- On all flesh= God’s Spirit had come upon prophets, priests and Kings during old testament times. Joel looked to a future day when the gifts of the Spirit would come to old and young, men and women, without regard to external office or function. In the New Testament, Peter stated that this prophecy was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit baptized the church.

This addresses alot of things, but I will only seek out the matter of the Holy Spirit ON ALL FLESH. I believe that this is a testament to all that God in His Spirit has come to be with us.

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Something to think about…

A little nibble here and a nibble there.

God continues to give me insight on everything that I am studying. I have 3-4 topics that dig into deeply right now that they actually are intertwined with each other in some ways. I will start with one of the topics to get a more deeper understanding of it, when I am pointed to another nugget within one of my other interests. I still love it that it is open to everything that we read in the bible.

Let me make general observation about studying the word that I see in the ‘community’ of believers. I fear, that the lack of learning God’s word by exegesis in this ‘community'(I am disguising the real culprit (paradigm) in this statement to help you realize what it is) The paradigm that I am talking about is the ‘church’ model that we have, mainly in the US. It does not lead to the leader nor the participants of really being able to dig deep and to understand God’s word and storyline.

I find it worrisome. Let me backup a little so you will understand where I am coming from. My father was a Pastor, I was a pastor’s son, my life was filled with everything and anything related to the ‘church’ and the ‘Ministry’. My pastor(father) was with me until I was 18 yrs old until I went to college. After that I too continued with this model of a pastor and perishioner thru my early adult life until my early 50’s.

From this model I too became a example of the ‘church’ model and all it’s glory. It was then that I realized that we(I) were just getting snippets of the story. Everything was not explained or pieced together to make a complete story. It was only highlighting certain ones to put a exclaimation on it, but was it the REAL story?

I don’t fault the pastor,per se, because this is what they were taught. So why not just continue it with the congregation. But what, I do say, both parties are at fault, the pastor and the listener. Now I know that you are going to say here, that ‘you’ have bible study groups on wednesday nite or a small group on thursday evening. I say this is not exactly what happens when the ‘body’ get together to dig deep into the word. Most of us are not equipped to do such a thing, either from a ‘leader’ position let alone the student.

Why, do I say all this? It is when people that are semi-interested in discussiong things of scripture, and you have someone bring something up that is ‘different’ in nature to what everyone has heard or read, and they dismiss it as hogwash or the ultimate worse thing, it is ‘Heresy’. lol. Not even knowing what heresy is defined as.

This shows that when people bring something up that is found in scripture, we treat it as foolish but it is there as proof text. We sometimes push it aside when we don’t see it as relevent in the verses that we read, or even in the context of the whole story of God. But what I have found that it is amazing that just the tiniest nugget can make a big difference in the meaning of a story.

I would like to point out one of the stories in the bible that gets a little bit of attention, but it is not quite really understood in the relevance of the whole story. It also leaves out some details in it that it either doesn’t want to get into, or just glosses over it. It is the story of the “the tower of Babel”, I challenge you to read it again in its entireity, and slowly ingest it’s meaning and subtlety in all its flow.

Take more time to read the word to dig into the true meaning and the whole storyline of God and how he works thru man and mankind to get to the “Eternal Purpose”!

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Tread lightly, my son…

I am a ‘abyie-normal'(reference to a statement in ‘Young Frankenstein’ kind of person. I am always swimming upstream in alot of arena’s. Religion is one of them. I will go up against the norm to challenge it to let it stand up to ‘not persecution’ but to ‘pillars of truth’.

I find it funny and at the same time, sad, that it would come to this but it always what happens when something ‘different’ or ‘new’ to someone when it is challenged to someone’s theology or institution.The ‘log’ that impedes our eyesight is that we not ‘see’ but that we haven’t ‘seen’, because we have been “soundbit’n” for over 500+ years thru the channels of the ‘church’.

Let me expound on this, a Pastor is person that is trying to speak to one small snippet of scripture of a theme,human righteousness, a story, or even a exegesis of a few verses. This paradigm is flawed. It is not using a Corporate Narrative to the Word of God. It(church) cannot ever work this way. The ‘Message’ or ‘Narrative’ cannot be told in a million soundbites over countless Sundays.

I am not sure if it possible to do this with any “Message” to the whole world at a level of this enormous level at a time. But what I do believe that as ‘hearers’ of the Word, or the ‘readers’ of the Word, that we(all) can finally ‘see’ the narrative of God’s story. I believe by starting from the beginning of the story and methodically seeing what God is moving the story along to get to his final scene, that Rest will come to Him.

It is the sincerity of the believers that will bring this mission of uniting all of us to the true Gospel to the World. Reading God’s word with the intent of ‘seeing’ Genesis 1-2 as God’s defining moment of His Kingdom. Realizing that God’s plan for all to be indwelt in the Holy Spirit as is His Son, thus given the title “Sons of God” a reality for all.

My skepticism of the current model is with alot of evidence to this reality of the ‘church'(assembly), one aspect of this would be the fact that the ‘disciples’ have no knowledge of the scriptures after 40+ yrs in the building that was supposed to do this exact thing, learn the word! There seems to be no rhyme or reason of the ‘teaching’ of the word, skipping from here to there in the bible, without any obvious relation to each other. Not realizing that the ‘sole’ issue of the bible starts at the beginning of the narrative, Genesis 1-2, has just been a blind spot from the very beginning of the reformation to now. Although, there seems to be some light shining from this corner, that is gaining some steam to see that this is where the story begins and that it is the Catalyst for the rest of the narrative til the final two chapters in the bible.

It is because we have been down the wrong road from the ‘Y’ intersection that we have missed the wrong message of christianity. It wasn’t about ‘trying’ to get to ‘Heaven’, but it was about having a ‘people’ holy enough to have ‘Heaven’ be on earth as the ‘New Creation’ or the New Kingdom of God.

This concept is now being realized in many of the roads outside the corner church’s, and even in some, it is realized inside the church’s. This is the beginning of what I believe to be the light that will have to be seen not only to the christians inside the building, but also outside in the road’s and highways of the world.

What has really surprised me in all this transfiguration of events is that it was not ‘seen’ sooner. When I have read the bible thru my own studies, I, one, have had problems ‘seeing’ the message that I always was given on sunday morning, there was no evidence of it to be seen. Secondly, I was seeing in plain site the real eternal purpose of God in front of me in the scriptures. Which leads me to another interesting observance of God.

Thru my studying and my involvement with other bible enthusiasts, I have had many ‘words’ used to describe things in the bible. One, being ‘hardened’, which was used in another topical discussion. But it got to me in thinking about it and the usage in the bible, especially in the Old Testament, it was used quite frequently for different times that God was having to deal with individual people or an entity of a group. I believe that God ‘hardened’ Israel to not ‘see’ their Messiah(Jesus) during a prolonged time until it was to be a ‘eye opening’ moment for the Whole World to observe in an Act of God to Showcase His Son, the Savior of the World!!

It is at this time, that the World will come to Him(thru Israel) the servant King to unite all(Israel,Gentile) to come and bow down to the God of All!!

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Corporate office

This is again is an attempt to clarify the “identity” of the Corporate office, or as I will usually say, “The Head of the Body” is in Charge, not the Body!

I believe in Christianity that we have put the ‘cart’ before the horse in our Picture. Thus we are not going anywhere!

God is the Head of the Body. God is the Head of the Body. God is the Head of the Body.God is the Head of the Body!

Now, who is the head of the Body?

Christianity, leaders,pastors, laypeople, and all seekers have been misinformed that the ‘little church on the corner is somehow the leader of the pack of all things,Church? We have been misled by numerous ways of our believing that somehow, our understanding of God’s ways are his? I believe that it says something to this same fact,

8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.

New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Is 55:8.

I have tried to expound on this subject over many years without to much success, but it still resonates with me to push this understanding to any and all that will listen. We are missing the overall theme of God’s plan, the one that He started, the one in the beginning, ‘The Garden of Eden’. He has not gone to plan B because of what happened there, it is still the same set up and will be the same result! Mark my word!

The Corporate office is still pushing the buttons, and leading the charge to God’s “Eternal Purpose”! God’s plan is weaving it’s ways through the world,in people,circumstances,good,bad,and even the ugly.

I came across something that I had on my bookshelf that I will use as a tool for me, It was a small booklet that is titles,”Charts for a Theology of Evangelism”. Now I have looked at this book numerous times for different issues, but this time something popped out at me that I hadn’t noticed before.

I would look at 3-4 pages of the “Impact of Revival on U.S. Denominations”,this title was read, then I would look down at the charts of the beginnings of denominations and how each one was started and from which offshoot they came from. I had never really said the title of this section out loud to hear what it was saying. This is my reaction when I seen it!! Oh, my Gosh, This is the reason that there became so many denominations in the Protestant Arena!! They were having Revivals, with many people coming to this indoor and outdoor ‘meetings’ that lead to many people believing or not believing in the speaker of the beginning of the so called reformation period,that then lead to a group then slightly changing something of the speaker before had said he believed as ‘gospel’, and thus brought about a ‘new denomination’. Then as predicted, this goes on again and again for over 500 + years, even today it is still happening.

It is not so much that we are arguing over the little things ‘of the church’, or in the church, sometimes we even argue over what the church is for? The reformation period was one of needed showcasing coming from the Catholic background, because it too is liable for what it has caused to set up it’s self as ‘the one and only church’.

What has to happen with christianity, is start at the beginning to see God’s blueprint of His World,His Creation, His People and follow it. Not start something new, or personal, or inclusive, or exclusive. It is God’s Creation, He is working with His creation to put its self right, the way that it was.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Jn 1:1–5.

It’s a New Day, It’s a New Creation!! Hallelujah!!

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Inspiration

My thirst for the scripture, Truth, and God is addicting and exciting!

I am usually all over the board as far as my research,studies,and curiosity to religion and christianity.

I want to make a bold statement Here. “I believe, that in our life ‘In Christ,Christ in Us, that we ‘all need’ to be this way of 24/7 life.” When I say this, I mean that we need to ‘know Logos’, the word, God’s life shared with us on the topic of “US”!

God gave us his word, for all to read or hear. It should be a daily work of everyone to read the word. I believe that one should read the scriptures and books of the bible in a more narrative way from God, His story is ‘One Story’ throughout the bible. There is a paradigm in God’s story. We have to ‘all’ read the whole bible to ‘see’ the narrative of the bible. We can then see the particulates of the journey in the storyline thru-out the passages. We seem to get caught up in the minimal passages of statements, that can derail our thoughts of the overall theme, but we need to see all the connections of things in scripture to lead us the whole paradigm of God’s plan.

I see that this ‘illiterate’ biblical christians has and is happening in the ‘church’ now.God’s word is for all, not just for “One” . One, This would make the ‘church’ so much stronger in belief,faith, and as the Image of God in the world, but two, I believe that it will bring a ‘one mind,one spirit’ to the people of God.

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Every Generation

I follow alot of people, either by email,blog,websites, text,facebook,youtube,authors, or video. One that I follow is N.T. Wright, that I have alot of his books. I also watch alot of his talks,sermons, or Q and A sessions.

One of the things that I have always remembered from a talk he had was that “Every person,christian or not, will evaluate his present condition, and decide if it is the one that he is content in”(paraphrased) This is what every generation of people are faced with when they stand up to their life and life beliefs.

I had not even thought about this, until it was happening to me. I started to questioning my beliefs, my institution, my lifestyle, and my faith. When this came about, my “reconstruction” was with the institution of the “Church”, what was it, what does it look like, what does it do? and was it what I was experiencing.This was my starting point. Biblical exegesis is what I started to delve myself into over 12+ years ago. It has not let up in my studying,reading, and soaking everything in thru reading the Word. Recently I have expanded my portfolio of reading by reading the Apochrapha, Pseudepigrapha,Old Sea Scrolls, and Josephus, with the near future will starting the adventures of Jewish literature.

What we must realize in reading the scriptures is that the more we understanding not the ‘stories’ but the theme or more importantly the “Paradigm” of the Bible,God’s Word for His Eternal Purpose. We sometimes forget to ‘See’ the forrest, because we are in front of a 90′ Redwood, that we think is the entire forrest. Nope. God’s story is the whole forrest. It is a narrative from Genesis thru Revelation.

I have personally witnessed people that are still standing in front of that Redwood and think this is all there is of God and they are proclaiming that ‘tree’ is God, or that tree is what God wants us to believe in, and only that tree. This is so wrong. At so many levels.

Maybe, Just maybe this is what the problem is in christianity, everyone is standing in front of their own Redwood proclaiming that the answer to God is their redwood! Oh My! We need to step back, way way back to see the whole forrest and God’s design of His World for His people, and His place of Rest and come to the realization that it is bigger than they thought!

I will almost say that it is actually easier than everybody thinks it is. What if we just did the verses below:

2 Corinthians 13:14 (RSV)
14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Galatians 2:20 (RSV)
20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Nothing else matters.

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I had a revelation.(Again)

Well, I have been on a hiatus of sorts. I have been busy with a vacation, a motherly visit from mom and a ponderace of what my desire is, in the last three weeks. But I am back and a ready to go again.

Revealations are funny. They can be good or they can be bad. And sometimes they just come to you by the most awkward time, make you just sit there and let you just talk to yourself, and I would be just in amazement, in my revelation.

I have talked and written the same old things and told people that I read. Alot. My library is full of books of all kinds of topics of Christianity. But what else I have in my library, are bibles, different sizes, colors, shapes, and versions. I have read the whole bible thoroghly maybe 5 times. Now I don’t know if this has any barring on my revelation, but it might.

I am a product of a pastor’s life and home. I am a preacher’s kid. I have heard the “Word” all my life. Either on purpose, or just hearing it throughout my childhood. My ‘learning’ the bible has I think for me has been an ‘internal’ one. What I mean by that, it has been one where I have put the pieces together of everything biblical understanding in my head. I never ‘preached’, talked, or whispered my beliefs per se to anyone. Until about 15 yrs ago.

It is when at this time, I noticed what I had in my head, was not what the ‘local’ church was ‘preaching’! It was something different. There was no meaning to it. No direction. No life. I had questions, more than answers to the message that had shared with me. I was questioning everything with my response of “Why”?

I had queries of the local ministry, of multiple subjects and of even more importantly were the answers that they were giving. I then expanded my questioning of not just the ‘local’ church, but also to the denomination of said church, to see if it was adhering to ‘their’ beliefs. It was a journey to see that the last two ‘denominations’, which were very much alike in their beliefs, were very much ‘saying’ and ‘preaching’ the same thing. I had one of those ‘aha’ moments. It was then that I even expanded more to ‘other’ denominations of christianity to see what ‘they’ were ‘preaching’. It was then, that things or ‘beliefs’, or understandings of the Bible story started to unravel for me, it was an eye-opening moment(not my newest revelation) to realize that there was an different ‘format’ which everyone was using to ‘preach’ the quote ‘message'(gospel). This intrigued me.

It was then, that I realized that not only the message was off, but it was being done in the wrong format. The ‘format’ that I had swirling in my head, did not match the things that I was seeing at the local or denominational level. It was a cookie-cutter model in which it was obviously not working in which it was to be designed.

Let me explain something that might be confusing in what I said. What I was ‘hearing’ and being ‘preached’ to me in my early years of youth and the early adulthood, was my hearing and understanding the ‘storyline’ of the bible was ‘not’ what was being explained or ‘preached’ from my pew seat. Even tho, most of my life’s pew sitting was with my father in the pulpit. I was not ‘seeing’ what most people were ‘hearing’. It was being stored up in my knowledge bank for a complete expounding at a latter time. It was about 15 yrs ago that it finally came out.

I believe that thru all this ‘seeing’ and ‘hearing’ things from various viewpoints that I have seen various things in the scriptures that just don’t add up to the ‘Message'(Gospel). It is then, that I felt like I needed to start saying things to people, thru blogs and random thoughts on social media, to get things rolling with people(christians) to double check their beliefs and their structure in the bible and God. What was the Bible really about? I have had my desenters in my take on my ‘seeing’ things different, than their views, but this was to be expected. The rut that christians have been in, is the cause, and the effect, of being ‘a sunday christian’.

The bible doesn’t say that.

It is so much more. It is a story. It has a storyline that is told in a narrative of God’s people, and their journey thru the annals of time. What is key to this story is the beginning, and the end! They are the same. This should be a clue to us! Every mystery book reader knows this!

It is in this storyline of God’s plan that has befuddled christianity(IMO) and it is not just coming from me, their are other people or groups that are ‘preaching’ this. Narrative stories are designed to ‘tell a story’, ‘tada’! LOL. In this narrative, God is not only telling an historic story but a story of everlasting meaning. This is where I will use a statement that always needs to be said. “The Bible is not written ‘for’ us, but ‘to’ us.! So what this should tell us is that these scriptures from God have to have meaning for alot of generations of people and years of social change to understand it.

It is here that we have change our ‘understanding’ of the scriptures. To express God’s eternal purpose, he has to change it so ‘everyone’ will ‘see’ the meaning and ‘truth’ of his desire. God uses different methods of doing this. God uses ‘types’, ‘symbols’, ‘imagery’, ‘foreshadowing’, ‘metaphors’ and ‘Allegory’.

It is allegory that has been missed in the ‘churches’ hearing in the scriptures.

This is where ‘one’ of my latest ‘revelations’ of the christianity’s downfall has been a glaring feeblemindness. Not ‘seeing’ Allegory in the scriptures. Maybe, just maybe it will come to us, when we have the ‘mud’ wiped off of our ‘eyes’ that we may see it.

The ‘revelation’ that I am saying is that the ‘story’ of the Israelites of being God’s people of Israel, and their subsequent disobedience of ‘worshipping’ Him, by being banished to ‘Egypt'(Babylon,the world), is the allegoric story of mankind as a ‘whole’ that has ‘left’ God for their own ways(worldly), and are now slaves to it. It is then that God pulls his people back to him so that ‘they'(mankind) can worship ‘their’ God.

Exodus 9:13 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh and say to him, “Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, ” Let my people go, that they may serve Me.

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What is our Vocation,Oh Christians?

I find it very relevant for this question to be asked on a daily basis.

We will always have usual answers such as we are to take care of our family,Have a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, but it is when we have achieved this foundation of our ‘Job’ that we sit in our chairs and just enjoy our success. What makes it really bad in God’s eyes, is when we desire all those accessories to go along with basic needs, because we are not content.

I am afraid that this mindset is precipitated by the world, but also our religions. We are proclaiming our ‘fruitfulness’ in our God that says we are ‘blessed’ to be worshiping our God. I personally cringe when people get these xtra toys, or have traveling fancies and go see the world because they are ‘free’ from their humanity obligations. Is this what we are being taught in ‘our’ church’s?

If so, you wonder why God is not achieving his eternal purpose here on earth!

This pillar of Christ is one of the reasons that I left the institutional church, there was no understanding about what the ‘christian’ was or to be in God’s Kingdom! It is this understanding that is being lost in the model of ‘the body’ that has gotten us in this quagmire of a rut. We are continuing to do the same things over and over in our little ‘meetings’ without actually being ‘in the world’, to shine our light.

I am saddened when I do hear from friends or people that are exploited their gains over the years and throwing their enjoyments from sea to shining sea. I say this because I see it. and I hate it. I have been first hand acknowledgment to some of these things in various church’s that I have been in.

One such example was in a church that had a ‘program’ to give everyone this sunday a $25 gift card to ‘do’ what ever they wanted too do with it. The intention was to be an example of ‘the christian’ to ‘give’ to the needy or to make an influence on someone. Although the concept was right, it was not to be done ‘by’ the church, but thru the church by it’s body of believers. It is this that the individual believer is to ‘see’ the need on its daily journey to find and help. This is where the light is shone, and ‘seen’ by the world. Another issue, the one that I see as a real problem, in the institutional church is that ‘they’ cannot see themselves past their noses. There was quite a few people in the congregation that were hurting for money in various ways. Yet, the ‘church’ failed to ‘see’ it. Their a were a few of us that knew of one hurting family that we pooled our gift cards together and gave them to the family.

My belief is really in the concept of the Corporate Body of God, This after all is God’s intention for his creation, but I am in the belief that it is built by that one rock at a time method, Peter being the first rock next to Jesus Christ,the cornerstone. The IC* has failed in doing this or even explained it in all these centuries, thus it is in the condition that it is. My belief in the individual christian(true believer) can be seen as ‘rock’ in the world to show their ‘light’ to whomever comes by, and be a way to stay in the light. God uses this illustration for a reason with Peter for a reason with it being a shadow of meaning for his Body. It was the individual piece of the puzzle that when we build them all together that it builds the body of Christ. Gods scriptures are amazing in showing shadows and goldmines of wisdom in it.

The first example of our vocation is surprise, surprise given to us in the first two chapters of the bible. God creates His world, with man in it,all the beauty and accessories around it with animals,food, and a garden. His instructions is to keep it going, all of the above, forever and ever.

*Institutional Church

fyi -For reference of my past. I am a PK,Preachers Kid, that has been ‘in’ the church realm for 50 years when I left the building. I have been on both sides of fence of being on boards, and in the pew. so I have seen and heard everything.

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