Tag Archives: community

February 8, 2022 · 2:12 pm

Standing Up, or not.

I believe in conversation, or maybe even a stronger word, discussion or even debate on christianity and all that it details it in our current moment. I love the descriptive words, the references, the interpretations of the said discussion. It widens the mind of anything that anyone talks about a particular subject. It challenges us to think outside ‘our’ box. I love reading comments on discussion blogs about something that I am interested in, the 60 degrees of answers that I read that tell me alot of things. One thing, that is obviously we are not yet in the state of ‘one mind’ as God wants us to be such as in Phil. 1.27Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one [fn]mind striving together for the faith of the gospel.

With this being said, I find things perplexing when I present things in blogs or discussions on topics of various things that I write or bring up in discussion, and I find no rebuttal of background of their beliefs or of their ‘proof’ of their belief. Now, I am not sure on how to take this ‘blankness’ of rebuttal’ on their face’s, but I have a few ideas as why.

There is one idea is that it is a heritage of belief that has dragged on for generation after generation of the same thoughts and understanding of God,faith, and the bible. It is one that is taking for granted that is one that is discerning because of our lack of knowing for ourselves as truth of God ,faith,and the bible is mute for us, we believe what our previous generation does. But it is also because our ‘beliefs’ are set that we are not being tested by ‘fact checked’ beliefs by not having a need to check the scriptures for ourselves.

Continuing on the last reason of the lack of bible scriptures being attested to the same beliefs, it is in the ‘church’ paradigm that it is prevalent in the structure of embodiment of the body of Christ. There seems to be a very low in our comprehension of the bible. Although there is a few standouts of theology minded people who are earnest in the bible studies and research and loving the word. There seems to be not all of the ‘body’ that is fitting into this ‘knowledge’ of the scriptures.

I am one of those very studious people that love to dig into various questions that have been presented to me and I will search and dig until I find the answer. My joy is staying in the realm of God and his ways to be in the mind of God, and Spirit of understanding. This should be the attitude of every christian who is follow God and his eternal purpose for his ‘image’.

We must push ourselves to be loved by God, and for us to Love Him even more to do everything that is ‘of’ Him. Including the reading and understanding the ultimate goal of God to have a ‘people,a world, and be their God’ for eternal eons.

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February 1, 2022 · 12:55 pm

Grass roots

I am going to come at this from a different angle.

What ‘we’ created in the garden of eden was, in reality another world, a world made by us, according to us, and for us. It’s that simple. Our way was going to be best. Designed for us and lived by us.

No matter the cost.

You see this is the world that God-less people have created. It has created some good things that we see as good.(notice that this is exactly what happens when you eat from the “knowledge of good and evil”) And as you look outside your window, you can see all the bad we have created over the last 8,000 yrs(depending your view of earth). This all was our choice back then and even today, we still feel the freedom to make our own laws for ourselves and for others, or for entire countries. We are Free!

This is the world in which we are fighting as christians to change back to God’s ‘Heaven’ structure.

But how is this going to be done. What we learn from Jesus in the New Covenant(I prefer this, over testament) is that change to the New covenant and to the New Kingdom will be created not by the way of the world’s view of getting your way of things either by war,strong arming,or laws but of just the opposite of ways. Using the paradigm, it will be the opposite of everything that you as a person of flesh will think, it will now be thought of as spirit of knowledge and wisdom of God that leads us. Christ is now, He is now in our spirit leading our worship and desires for his kingdom. It is Us and Him, together changing back the realm of His world to the way it was as in the Garden of Eden.

This picture that we are to create in the world in our own little community is the same one that Mary encountered when she was checked on the open tomb of Jesus, and saw no one in there. It was when she turned around to tell someone about his disappearance, thought she was talking to the ‘gardner’ not Jesus. John 20.14-15. This picture is not often seen thru the average christian see’s this as the beginning of a ‘New Kingdom’, Jesus back in the garden, gardening as if He had never left.

God’s desire is to get back to this scenario, it is His creation to ‘see’ this as the finality of the Eternal Purpose. Just as Jesus was gardening as the New Creation had just developed, we too should be gardening in our ‘New Creation’ doing our Vocation as God gave us to do in the first instructions for us in the realm of the garden.

Let us take our vocation as our life long duty to live up to God’s desire. Be His creation. Live for Him,Worship Him as our author and designer. Do not hide in the walls of a building, but be in the fields, streets, neighborhoods, let your ‘light’ shine to the world, your community, to start that little pocket of the world, for all to see, and to expand as others start their own little pockets of this New Kingdom, in which it will someday be all united as one, One New Kingdom, Of God our Savior!!

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September 6, 2021 · 11:32 am

An Epistle of Christ

I am always reading books. I have alot of books. I don’t read them to just say that I’ve read them but I read them so that I understand what the author is trying to tell me. After all, this is what every author is trying to do, no matter what the genre you read.

My current book is the “Israel’s law and the Church’s faith” Paul and his recent interpreters. Like most books that I read they are not your average read a book in a day thing. No, they are ones that you have to read, then think and ponder, then reread it again, and to check the notes on the said paragraph and check the references in the bible for clarity. This is a very painstaking way to just read a book but it is the way one should make sure you understand what you are reading. What is really funny to think about is this is the way that Christians should read the bible, in a very systematic way with using the references and notes as guides to ‘see’ what the ‘author’ is really saying.

I say this by the fact that in this latest book I’m reading it mentions 2 Corinthians 3. 4-18 as a verse which backs up the author’s point. It is in this scripture that I see that it includes verses 2-3 which I will write.

2 Corinthians 3.2 Ye are our epistle, written in our hearts know and read of all men: 3. being made manifest that ye are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written no with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God’ not in tables of stone, but in tables that hearts of flesh.

verse v also And such confidence have we through Christ to God-war: 5 not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves: but our sufficiency is from God.

Now this is a very important ideal that we must ‘see’ in today’s paradigm of the christianity that we live in. For it is a very subtle but important thing to know it the setting of God. You see, Paul was talking to the corinthians thru letters, when in his building them up in to continuing what they were doing in their community, He tells them that they have been an a ‘epistle’ to him as a influence of their love of God.

It was because Paul seen and felt the Love of God in them as He himself had that the Spirit of God was with them in the same way. He tells them they are of the same mold because their are both filled with the Spirit of God, making them equal in God.

This insight that I had to stop and look it to it as I was reading, is the reason it takes me awhile to go thru my theology books. I am always stopping to ‘see’ something that is a ‘aha’ moment in my studying. But with no regrets I am always chalking it up to increasing my knowledge of Christ in my life.

To take this a even further in the scheme of things, knowing that we are one in the spirit of God with our spirit of Christ in us, we must ‘see’ that it is and should be Christ leading us,all of us into Christ’s presence of His Kingdom(Heaven). If you didn’t understand the former sentence(I am always hoping that people understand what I am trying to say, in a indirect way,sometimes this is futile, but I try anyway) This should tell us that ALL OF US(no titles included) are the community of God, we will someday be joined with other communities of God to be considered the BODY OF CHRIST!

It is mission to understand this and then to act upon it by being an ‘epistle’ of all of man!

P.S. Still not finished with the book!

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June 30, 2021 · 12:11 pm

It’s the eternal purpose,people!

I sometimes wonder how christianity has gotten where they are by what I read in the scriptures.

Maybe if you read it enough times you start to see things that weren’t there the first time, or second time, or third time. But it is that continuing searching that it starts to show that underlying theme or storyline that come into focus for you. You just wonder with the pharisee’s and the saduccees that were known for their reading of the scriptures over and over again, why they didn’t see things that were connected to each other that would spin itself into a deep and amazing story for mankind. Maybe their ritual, or tradition was to just ‘say’ the scriptures was just a mundane chore for the day? Maybe, this was the problem with Israelite’s in that they were to much in the tradition of reading the scriptures that their was no meaning in it.

I have come to rely on history. In history we see not only actual events of time, but of the social events before and after said big event. It is how we base our understanding of mankind in all thru time. It is in this realm of digging into history we see even more and more of people in their own stories, communities of understanding everything around them and their actions and beliefs to those events. We, right now are doing the same thing, we just might not know it, we are acting and reacting to all the events around us, and to some extent to things far away from us with advent of the internet.

I have become over the last twenty years have been that forensic detective that doesn’t just ‘see’, or ‘read’, or ‘hear’ something without digging past the obvious things. This should be the mark of Jesus follower, digging deeper every day that you are a christian. What I have learned thru the years of studying the bible is that it is a goldmine of information about God and his people and his world. I once was asked ‘How long should it take to read the bible?’, the usual ‘church’ answer would be the 1 or 2 year plan that the church gives out. But this is not the ‘idea’ for what the bible is. It is to ‘know’ the Bible! My answer to the question was “50 years”, I think my answer may have been to short in its answer,tho! We can only scratch the surface with God. But I do believe that we should ‘see’ what God is telling us and showing us on what his intentions for us.

The models of what we have perceived to be the existence of God’s people in the world and how they are to be in the world, and how they are to meet, act, or to exist has be skewed in that we have not understood the eternal purpose of God.

I want to point out that this is because of a few things. One is the misunderstanding of God’s eternal purpose in mankind. We are very,very limiting of God. We have put God into thousands of little buildings all across the U.S., when the scriptures says the opposite. God will be, and is Everywhere. This was and is His Goal. But we have failed to see this in His New Covenant. It is actually following the first covenant of the Jews with God in that we were supposed to build a temple and place God there!? What’s with that? Just maybe we have not reached the understanding of the New Covenant with Christianity yet? I don’t know either. But I do ‘see’ the dawn of the light coming into the world.

The second thing, is that the failure of christians failing to read and to study the scriptures in a way that is done in a more deep and investigative way to find the truth of God. We have realized way to much on the person in front of congregation to give them snippets from the bible, as does the media on the national news. Look how that has gotten us! Until we realize that as a God believer that we dig deeper and deeper into God’s word to know him. This is not going to be a easy fix, but it can be done with the fortitude of God’s people. Where two or three people are gathered together, there also is God. He will guide and direct us in his word. I strongly suggest in having a small group of people that are in agreement in your quest in finding the truth in the word of God.

The third thing is maybe(it is) the glue that holds this all together. Jesus died on the cross, rose again to be with the father, it is in this action that God has sent someone to follow us in our journey here on earth to unite God’s people together. It is the “Holy Spirit”, this is our “Christ is in Us, We are in Him” fact that we seem to forget or just don’t understand. I tend to think the latter. Christ living ‘in’ us, We ‘in’ Him means we are in fellowship with Him, and We are ‘WORSHIPING’ Him. This is the design of God’s ultimate purpose! Why do we not see this? The Holy Spirit is our temple,church, body,bride whatever you want to define it as. (It is not to have a fellowship with other people in a building, it is to have fellowship(worship) our God. Period. This reasoning of other people as fellowship has to go away to understand the true meaning of worshiping of God!)

Now, taking those three things as corrections in our understanding of our eternal purpose as God’s people, and He our God we should be able to ‘see’,’know’,’hear’,what God’s purpose for us in the world, it is that ‘WE’,All His People are His, unto all the nations, forever and ever! Praise His Name!

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May 21, 2021 · 1:14 pm

Neighbor

Sounds like a very innocent word, doesn’t it.

We use it all the time, even a variant of it to describe someone or someones.

I am going to use it in the literal sense today.

Neighbor : one living or located near another by Merriam Webster

This will be our definition for use in the discussion.

Exodus 12:4 says ‘Now if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor nearest to his house are to take one according to the number of persons in them; in proportion to what each one should eat, you are to divide the lamb.

This passage points to the subject of the ONE living near you It is the one that is involved in the daily activity of your life and to those around you. (Let me take a moment to set this in context that might help in our really understanding this concept. Think not of the context of this in the terms of today’s lives that we live now, Lord knows that we are so different in our lives that it would take a book to describe it.Think of when this text was written and the social atmosphere it was in. People were living in very small villages, with very small homes next to each other, with shared daily activities of getting food at the center of the village with everyone sharing their crops, and wares of personal use. These were their neighbors.) This is our reality too, but on a much grandeur stage for most of us. We usually consider ‘our’ neighbors the ones that we are in contact with going to work, and our extra activities outside the house. (Which is actually pretty sad when we say that)

Galatians 5:14 For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”

It is this statement that we have to break in two. We have to start with the second part first. Ourselves, this is the example, that we have to use as the foundation as the next step of a neighbor. It is this identity that we must ‘be’ to build on the reality of God. God in us, and us in Him. This is the light that must be seen from every hill on earth. Our neighbor being like us; being as God in them, and them in God.

I believe that this term of ‘neighbor‘ is the key to the ‘Kingdom of God’, but it is not seen as the method of instituting this kingdom in our system today.The ‘local church’ seems to be the rite of use in this day of time. (This topic will always be a concern for me, which I will always have doubts on) This term neighbor is the cornerstone to God’s flourishing expansion of His Life into the world. It starts as a more recent term as a ‘grass roots’ movement in our more recent sayings. The small but unique beginning of such symbolism of the next stage of the kingdom would be the ‘community‘.

The ‘community’ is the next step to the Kingdom in that the communities that are grown in the same way as the ‘neighbor’ model. The community filled with neighbors, expanding around each other finally becoming a Kingdom of God.

It is from this ‘community’ that I see the flourishing of the kingdom of God, in that the ‘world’ will ‘see’ the people of God as the ‘light’ on the hill that will lead them to God of All. It is this paradigm of God’s Kingdom that will prevail as model of the true ‘Ekklesia’ of Jesus’s Bride.

But it will all start with the simplest of things of our lives, our neighbor: the one living or located near another!

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February 27, 2021 · 4:48 pm

How many times have you read the bible?

I really hate this question.

By saying you read something, what does that tell you have accomplished? That you have read?

By saying that you have a read a book, is like saying you have seen a movie. But did you understand it?

This is also why I have hated in the institutional church the annual awareness of getting people to read the bible in a year, or two years. So what! Ask them what they read for a ten page report on why God came to earth in the form of Jesus, or why was Jerusalem the focus of the Israelites in the old testament, or what did it mean that the curtain was rent in the Holy of Hollies? And see if they could hand in at least one page. Most people when reading anything they just read, couldn’t tell you what they read. Reading the bible is not to be contrasted to be a medal of honor for the year, or for every year as a prize.

The Pharisee’s were reprimanded by Jesus for so called supposed to be the ‘experts’ of the scriptures, but yet Jesus asked them for meaning to them and their response to Him was ‘We don’t know’ (paraphrased by doug). Their job was to study and to make meaning to the scriptures that God had given them and to follow that meaning. Even the disciples were baffled in Jesus’s words to them in their daily walk with them. It even was even worse when Jesus started to talk in parables to them, their minds where in a state of ‘Whhhhhhat’?

It is with this thought that as christians and our community that we need to get together and talk about the word of God, and really ‘see’ God’s storyline for his people. It is not the ’20 minute snippit’ that we could get once a week that will even get us to ‘know’ God in our lives. He is so much more than this.

This might be the problem with the said ‘church’ that just keeps doing the same thing over and over and thinks that we will get a different result.(We know what this is called,right) We have to be vigilant in our ‘seeing’ what we are reading in the scriptures. It isn’t just black and white. It is what God meant in his spoken words that just point to Him.

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February 20, 2021 · 12:38 pm

Let’s get deeper!

I have blogged on this subject a few times in the past with great intentions of making a stir of things.

With the new environment that we live in these days, I believe it is more relevant to do so, studying the word in small groups, either with family members or a few friends. I would say no more than 10 people to keep it personal and not as a meeting with a leader. I have been in a few of these groups a couple of times, and the atmosphere was very good in conducive to speaking up in the group to chime in with your speaking.

These types of get together is key to broadening your mindset of things of the scriptures, but to also become a consensus of one mind after awhile of the main message of the bible. One thing that has helped me understanding the ‘of one mind’ mentality is not just writing blogs, but to read blogs of other people and then to watch the comments come in to the blog of various opinions and statements. For one, it was very entertaining but more importantly showed me on how far apart everyone is on the meaning of the scriptures, most of reply’s are in a more legalistic way. Which bothers me even more. But you understand where I am coming from, it was informational to read this various opinions of things, but it also told me that we are all are not of one mind.

The journey that I have been on for the last say twelve years has been an interesting one. I have studied alot of different things from history to spiritual realms of God’s world, from author’s beliefs, to study of men of the bible, to commentaries on just about everything. But it is that one thing that seems to be missing from this equation, God. What does God say.

We seem to actually dismiss God in the storyline of things that are being ‘preached’,studied, or wrote about. God’s plan is nowhere being discussed or even know where to look for it. But it is there!

It is actually on the first page. and the last page.

I have discussed this paradigm with a few people and they are thoroughly confused in what I am talking about. The first page? Genesis? What does that have to do with anything? But it does!

Just as with God we make our plans for things, when we want to make something, when we plan a vacation, when we have a project, we have a plan. The first thing out of our mouths is ‘I am going to make ________. This is your mission statement. Plain and simple. So this is exactly what God did. God said “I am going to make my people”, and He did.

Now, obviously there was a few bumps along the way, but God’s plan has not stopped in becoming what He set out to do. His plan is still active. But most importantly, it is HIS plan. This will come to fruition in Revelation 21,22.

It is when God’s people get bogged down in the small details, or the which is right details that we make God’s people continuing to walk in the wilderness instead of coming to Him!

It is this kind of discussion with people around God’s storyline of the scriptures, not man’s. God is in His World to make it his, and we are showing him how to make it? God’s plan or Eternal Purpose(as I say, or my blog site name says) is what we should be trying to ‘SEE’ in God’s Word!

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February 11, 2021 · 10:38 am

Satan’s last stand

2 Thessalonians 2.1-10

God’s final victory is happening soon. Satan is putting forth his last surge on the people of the earth, to ward off his rival of God of Abraham.

*What I want to make clear, all tho this will make perfect sense for the people of the United States on what is going on in their country, it is not just there, but it is going on all over the world. Satan is making his move on all people to push his agenda on everyone he can, to further his cause.*

We must, people of the united states, christians especially to realize that God is refining us for the battle that is going on to sharpen us with fire to make us stronger and mighty to ‘see’ God’s eternal purpose for his people, his kingdom, and their God.

Christians are being torn this way and that way with idealistic ways of being ‘a christian’ in this world, but it just a facade of deceit to what a christian really is. God is causing the world to rebel against christianity to actually ‘show’ what God’s people are really about. We are people of God, because we are His children.

Christianity is in turmoil. We don’t know who we are. What we stand for. Where we are. or who is our leader.

If you are hurt by these comments, or don’t understand them, maybe you need to come out from the building you are in and just look at the world of christianity, and see for yourself. God’s community is not supposed to be like this. God’s people are so divided that they can’t even see it.

Let’s look at this in your light, Is this the way that God would like His community look like(in the whole world)? He is probably in complete disgust.

Studying multiple arena’s of religion the last twelve years or more, I have followed church’s in denominations, leaders of various institutions, social patterns of people, books of various authors(past and present), leaders of the worlds(past and present) to say that we have been going down the wrong path with our understanding of God and His purpose.

I have always used the analogy with people when I talk to people about the world of christianity and quote the church, that we don’t understand it right because we haven’t understood the ‘architect’s'(God) blueprint of His Kingdom.

God’s blueprint was in black and white in the first pages of the bible. Genesis 1,2. God made a World, He made us. He told us to be fruitful. He told us to take care of this world. God told us that He would be there also for our enjoyment! period.

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May 27, 2020 · 5:50 pm

Community?

What defines the word-‘community’?

It is used in so many ways that we have a distorted understanding of it. We also have a lot of questions about it too. Some people believe that it is your neighbor, neighbors, your little town, your big town, or maybe just who you associate with. It is also could be the community of your beliefs, community of your work, or the community of family.

Maybe, just maybe if we could just combine all these things that we believe is just the one that we see as a community as we are involved in. It is because ‘we’ need to see that our community is the entire creation that God has created.

Community is a unique way of distinguishing a people that are united in their nature in something that unites them all to one thing. That one thing is God, the creator. We are his creation, he is our creator.

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May 17, 2020 · 7:11 pm

It has been fulfilled,only once needed.

Man has tried.Woman has tried. Mankind has tried.

But to no avail, century after century it has been engaged to fulfill the law.

Jesus was the one and only one that could.

The law, being the covenant between the pre- Jewish nation led by Moses, and totally fulfilled with Abraham and his covenant with God. It was a journey, more than the 40 years that Moses led, more than the time of Abraham, more than Jacob’s time. It was never meant to be. It was like something was keeping these great leaders from accomplishing their goal in God’s covenant, God was keeping his end of the covenant, but why was man struggling, or just plain failing on his end of the marriage.

Man was never meant to achieve this goal. Say what? Think about this, if man was to eventually accomplish this goal of keeping this side of the covenant, there would be a totally different ending to this story. Jesus would of never had to arrive on the scene at all. No birth, no disciples, no ministry, no cross, no resurrection, no eternal life. Different story altogether.

Jesus’ fulfilling the law of Matthew 5:17 was the action of a God that ‘knew’ that his creation was unable to fulfill this great goal. Man was not created to do this, for it was not designed to accomplish this heavenly request. Mankind’s actions on it’s own would not be a match for the ‘law’ for it was created for only a communion of man and God to fulfill. It had to be so. It only could be this combination. Not just man, not just God, but God-man.

Think on this. God’s desire was not for us to accomplish this on our own but for us to see that it was designed for the only marriage of God and man together; Jesus.

Our vain attempt to do this on our own thru the centuries from the time of Paul, was always going to be fruitless, until we ‘saw’ that we as the union of God and man, thru Jesus was this very communion. It was not realized thru the entire old testament, and even thru the new testament there was only a crack of light that was coming thru to Paul and the christians. It is here, in the new testament that we must see that it is now the marriage of God and man that has shed some spotlight on what God’s new Kingdom was.

It is to be our desire for us to just see that the old testament’s covenant was going to be a failure on man’s side, from the get go. But it was to be known that God was in it for the long haul, he had a plan. His son, Jesus was going to be the true example of the ‘man’s side of the equation to be God’s image of his creation.

It is in the new testament that we see that our goal is not to continually try and accomplish these laws or to be perfect or to worry about if we fail in one or all of them, it is for us to ‘see’ that we are the perfect example of God’s creation, His new creation, for his new Kingdom.

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