Tag Archives: God

Confused the language

Genesis 11:9 says “Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth, and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole Earth”.

I have used a similar statement for the ‘negative’ connotation in some of my arguments for what is wrong with Christianity in my blogs and my discussions with friends and family members. It was ‘Christianity is a mess, with over 45,000 denominations in the world that we are not on the same page, let alone in the same book!’

I still believe in this statement in my arguments, but I take the negative fact of this, to mean that it ‘will change’ for the good. Not that the whole thing is just not right period. Sometimes, God allows us to work thru our problems, or he knows down the road that He will bring us all into the fold of his kingdom, when He is ready.

As anyone that has studied the bible, knows that God works in his own ways. God’s design of his people is a ‘work in progress’, kinda scheme, some say 6-8,000 yrs in progress! As we know, the last 2,000 years have been quite crazy, and tumultuous. It was even more interesting in the forming of ‘God’s people’ in the old covenant. God has brought us all along slowly but surely for us to ‘see, hear’ Him calling us to Him.

The scattering of the people with different languages by the Lord because of mankind wanting to build a tower to the sky,heaven, is an attempt on our own to solve a problem, not to ‘see’ that the creator has the blueprint! The fact that 45,000 sects have their own ways of seeing things different, but of one that we are still missing the point by all. God will build his Church, in his own way, in his own time!

What needs to be taken from all of this is the fact that God ‘works thru the turmoil of mankind to get and bring back His Kingdom. I believe that God’s way is to live in our midst to know that we are still his, and to show us that our ways are not worthy, only His. God’s Spirit is cleansing us to be Holy again, to be in His Kingdom!

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The “Light, shineth on my feet”!

Let me explain my title to you. God’s ‘leading’, at least for me, is the direction of my studies to go next to understand God’s full and Eternal Purpose for His People.

My journey with Christ, has been adventurous to say the least, I grew up being a preachers kid, just following along with my father and the ideal of religion, not ‘really’ understanding all that was entailed in it. It was not until I stood back and looked at the entirety of the institutional program(this was not at my father’s church but later in my 50’s) that I said to myself, “It has to be more than this, and it is to be done differently”!

It was then that I started to read on things of the bible, thru outside sources, and ‘seeing’ the finished product of man thru God’s eyes! I might hear some feedback on this method of discovery of God, but it isn’t until ‘you’ step back from something and ‘see’ the BIG Picture can you actually see what is really going on in your life, a business, a group, or ‘the government’, that you can see the overall plan and the end result. This is what I jumped into, the dichotomy of what God’s Goal was, and surprisingly it wasn’t what you would of thought of.

It wasn’t the ‘end’ of the story that I looked at, it was the beginning of the story, that I relooked at. You see, It is what God’s intentions were/are that He designed His Kingdom/World by the first plans that he had. So, by this metric, we can go from there to see how designed His original Kingdom, and how He would get it back on track with the hiccup that He came across with man. It is what is going on thru 98% of the bible. It is that 2% that God’s Picture Perfect example is what we are trying to get back to.

Now, to my journey on this subject, when God works with his people, He works with them at their ‘identity’ level, their humanness, It is here that God uses the tools of man to show them their weakness,frailty, ungodliness,spiritless, and Holiness! He set’s them up to fail. It is like testing your child on their obstinate behavior that they ‘believe’ that they are older and wiser than they really are. You put them to rights by showing them that they are not, where they think they are,yet.

It is then that God has them build a ‘Temple’ so that God would be near to them, and not have them think that their God was ‘far’ away from them, when they continued to ‘not’ be able to follow the ten commandments. It would be the place where God and man could fellowship together, but with a caveat.

It would only be thru the ‘High Priest’ system of identity. It would only be ‘thru’ one being who was different than the rest,Holy. The High Priest was their ‘model’ of identity to God. It is thru this ‘system’ of the early Israel journey to realize the ramifications that they were to understand the meaning of the system that they were in. The Temple.

This reality of God’s training man to ‘be’ Holy, to be as the ‘High Priest’ again, in the realm of God, as they were in the Garden of Eden. The temple in the old covenant, is the training ground for Israel, and also the gentiles in the days ahead. This is where we need relook at the book of ‘Leviticus’ not as how ‘Israel’ was to worship God here on earth, but to understand the ‘identity’ we must become to actually be ‘in’ God’s presence, as like the High Priest of the days of Israel(God’s people).

“Thus to be clean means to be fit for the Presence of God, while to be Holy means that one belongs to God.” This is a quote from the book-“Who shall ascend the Mountain of the Lord?” by L. Michael Morales. Read this quote a few times, try to ‘see’ what it is saying? I see it as (forward to now) God’s forgiving our sins, we have gone from unclean to ‘clean’, we are now free to be Holy, the ‘state’ in which we can be Holy! Unclean- Clean-Holy. We are all in the state of being ‘Clean’ it is our journey to become ‘Holy’ to God.

I have believed in the journey of becoming knowledgeable in the Wisdom of God, thru the reading of many men and women who have dedicated their lives to God to dig dipper into the Bible, and read what they have dug up in the inspiration of the author. I,too,have had many revelations reading the bible and saints of God with the inspiration and wisdom of their being inspired by God. I believe the bible,I believe in it’s ‘Inspiring Spirit’ of the Holy Spirit to bring us the Word of God. But I also believe in the Men and Women of God that have given their lives to God to ‘learn and have Wisdom’ from the scriptures.

theeternalpurpose.life Web site.

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Where do we go from here?

Life sure does mess things up, doesn’t it!

It seems that, at least for me, in the last year it has been a whirlwind of activity for me,my family, and my friends, it is always something. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Good Question!

I have over the past two years(time of retirement) have set in a more structured routine of my life, because I feel that I have found my calling of writing,studying(bible), and interacting in social media in christian beliefs. It is when things go awry with other things that break my routine of it that it ruins my personal life. It is all about me, right? LOL But is it?

My life is one that is searching,digging, and finding my way with Christ,and God to ‘see’ the Light! It has been a tumultuous one on so many points, but I am a survivor. I am a late bloomer in the fact that I feel that I didn’t find my passion in life until I was around 50 yrs old. And I am doing it now.

The question is one that is about “who is first”? Biblical speaking the one that ‘is first’ shall become last! So there’s that. But what should we do? God tells us to “Be Christ”, in everything that we do and say. Christ’s life, is different, for one it is not us, nor is it made of ‘man stuff’, but one from the Holy Spirit!

But what is the “Holy Spirit”? It is “Life”! It is not death, which is what ‘man’ has had to deal with since the ‘garden’. What I believe that has been missing in our christian walk with God, is this understanding that ‘Christianity’ is about “Life”. When we believe, and ‘see’ Christ, we are seeing “Life”, in our life. Society as a whole,(society is all of us, not just everyone but us to included) have perceived as everything we know,do,say, and proclaim as ‘Life’ to us. But is it? What does it ‘get’ us? It is an instant gratification of fun and keeping us busy to not be able to really see “Truth” and “Life”!

Christ in our lives is different. It is first, not us, but Christ that is filling us with His love,desires,needs for us to continue in His life to fulfill the ‘eternal purpose’ of His, an ‘My People’ objective to have fellowship and unity in His Image of the World!

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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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Worship defined

This word has a plethora of misunderstandings.

I believe it needs to have more discussion within the assembly of believers.

There are some discrepancies in the the usage of the action. What are the issues of it are, I believe are the use of tradition and stealing of usage from the gentile gods. We will start with the ‘tradition’ issue first.

All throughout the old testament, the ‘worship’ was thought of as ‘where God was’, This concept was instituted only because of mankind’s banishment of the Garden of Eden where the heavenly reign of God was with man, walking and talking together. It was to be a ever expanding realm of God thru the multiplying of mankind. It was then that things changed to be one of a ‘pinpoint’ of a location for man to start again from a central location with God there also. This was the Temple. God was there. It also was the location where God’s chosen people to begin again to become the ‘image’ of God and to then ‘multiply’ to the whole world. It was a plan of re-commitment from God’s people to be who they were meant to be.

This ‘place’ where God was, was also the place of ‘sacrificing’ for the being of God’s people. It was a daily chore, a seasonal chore, and a yearly chore for being with God to ‘right the ship’ sorta way. This was an full blown production of the people’s lives with living for the sacrificing of an individual’s livestock,produce and time. It was also an investment for the people as a whole to sacrifice to the ‘temple’ as a nation of Israel. This ceremonial process was a never ending ritual. It was always to be giving God the first of everything that the person,family, or nation had, whether it be livestock,produce or themselves, to institute the meaning of God’s desire for himself to be first in their minds.

Another form of ‘Worshiping’ was by the pagan worshipers of the plethora of gods that they had in other nations. These rituals were similar to the forms of some sects of the jewish people. It was this that God chastised them for the ways of the world for being wrong.

It is then that the ‘Christianity’ movement was instituted at Pentecost and the formulation of ‘laws’,beliefs, everything to this ‘new’ religion was being made on the fly to keep it going. With the beginning of this movement coming from the perspective of the jewish religion, it was as a way to keep things rolling, would use those things of the jewish rituals. There was some alterations on what laws to keep from the Jewish sect tho. What is perceived as a would be normal transition to use the same things of the Jewish ‘worship’ of going to the temple, after all, that’s where ‘God’ was for the Jews, right. But I will take the hint from the scriptures, that this was not an option for the most part. It is said that ‘they’ christians would ‘meet’ in one another’s homes for the partaking of food and fellowship. This also was at times a struggle in the meeting at all with still the beginning of persecution of the ‘Jews’ and also from the Romans. It would eventually be able to use as a meeting place at ‘halls’ of publicly held meetings, thru the instituting of ‘christianity’ as an ‘association’.

The quote ‘practice of Worship’ was to be redefined by the ‘new sect’ of religion by it’s not ‘going to where God was’ to something else. This is where it gets tricky and messy, there are various convictions or beliefs that surrounded different camps of the newly formed people. First, there was different understandings of this subject, but the two main ones were from Paul and Peter. Let me just say that the one that we are using today is from Peter. The Hierarchical institutional one, with either a layered institution of Priests and the proclaimed ‘Universal’ church, with the much smaller hierarchy of just one leader with followers under him or her.

Let me quote scripture here to throw into the mix to see if maybe we are not seeing things right.

1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

The Revised Standard Version (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1971), Ac 2:1–4.

14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. 15 For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day; 16 but this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
17 â€˜And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
18 yea, and on my menservants and my maidservants in those days
I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.

The Revised Standard Version (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1971), Ac 2:14–18.

As I read this I notice that there is a ‘hand off’ of authority from Jesus to the ‘Holy Spirit’. What I don’t see is the need for any other form of leadership or institution made by man. There was one such group in this time frame that was doing such as this, being led by the Holy Spirit in their individual lives and their life as a group. This in my opinion is the misstep that christianity has taken, in furthering God’s calling of his people.

It is the following of the ‘institutional’ paradigm that has gotten us into alot of trouble in both of the beliefs. I believe that Paul was not as direct in saying a ‘meeting place’ was necessary for the continuance of the faith. It was the understanding that Jesus’s Spirit would be the guiding light of his people. God’s people would be of a ‘New Being’ that would not be left alone in the world to fight the evil, but the Holy Spirit was a ‘light upon our feet’.

This action would be our ‘Worship’ of being in Christ, and Christ in Us. This is the ‘action’ of ‘Worshiping’ our God.

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Digging deeper always pays off

The Bible is a plethora of information.

Starting with a bible study of a topic of interest of yours can lead to some interesting new and unannounced findings but with welcoming arms. I seem to do this quite alot with my endeavors of bible searching. I have multiple unanswered questions in my mind, and it is a treat to come across the answer on a daily searching for truth.

I have had such an experience lately on searching the “Origins of Christianity”. I will do a small plug for a recent book that I read, that covers this topic. It is “Christian origins” by Christopher Rowland this book covered a very detail of a plethora of things leading up to the ‘Christian’ tag being used in the bible. It was when the ‘leaders’ of the said group pronounced that the ‘assembly’ should be ‘organized’ and dispel any ‘non-truth’ in the Christian faith.

It was then that the writer pointed out there were ‘various’ views on how to do this. (Let me also point out that this was a pivotal moment in the faith, on how it was to proceed) This is where one of my questions comes into view. I have always wondered how and why the separation of Paul and Peter began. I know the one area where in Galatians that Paul and Peter had a confrontation of the gospel. Paul’s ministry was based on the uniting of the Jews and the gentiles as one, in so doing it imperative that it begin with the sitting down together to commune with each other in food. It was when friends of Peter(Jews) from Jerusalem came into their midst and Peter abruptly go up from the table with the gentiles to not be seen with them.

Paul seeing this, told Peter that he was not of the new gospel identity. It was then that there was seen a separation of ‘thinking’ between the two. Most people read over this exchange of different views as a small thing. But I have always seen this as a ‘kink’ in Peter and the true gospel. I have since then found another kink in Peter and his thought process.

It was a little latter in the ministry of both men that their were hints of unification of thoughts and faith of all things ‘christian’ that needed to be said or wrote down for all to see or hear. There were various groups(assemblies) that had differing views on everything concerned. Now, if we could just stop and understand what I just explained what these groups wanted to do. They wanted to ‘cement’ the ‘ideal’ Christianity so that it will not be confusing, different in speech and word.

Now fast forward to the ‘church'(assembly)’called out ones’ of today. This is the ‘mess’ we are in today in christianity. We have to have this belief, this inclusion, that exclusion, added to the faith statement of our separate groups. Is this good or bad?

I know we read in the new testament of Jesus and Paul both instruct believers to hold close the ‘gospel’ that they had preached and to not swerve off the road to other understandings. But also Jesus tells us to ‘check’ all things according to the spirit of the Lord to keep us on the straight and given road.

Let me put a wrinkle in your seeing things, in my reading of the ‘christian origins’ book I came across some annotated pieces of information that caught my eye, It was one of the groups in the midst of the ‘assemblies’ that were brought together to come into agreement of the ‘faith statement’ for ‘christians’. It was one group from ‘Thyatira’ ,the assembly of believers whose belief that it was the ‘Understanding, or belief’ that the ‘Holy Spirit’ had come for this very reason, to guide and direct the believers. WOW!

I have often stated the numbers of denominations in the U.S. to many people in our discussions of christianity to point out the disunity of it all. But maybe I wasn’t, or we haven’t understood this plethora of belief’s in the U.S.’s christianity issue. Two things, you don’t see this in any other country. Second, Can we not see or hear the problem of when and where we went wrong? The people of Thyatira were on to something when they said that it was to be the leadership of the “Holy Spirit” that is to be our compass in this world, and not our organizations and buildings of mass confusion.

Just a side note, one of my ‘little’ nuances that I have always said to myself, is that ‘Everything in the scriptures was portrayed as the ‘right’ way to do things, the old testament stories were full of things like this. The New Testament I believe that everyone assumes that ‘everything’ was done right in God’s eyes, I don’t think it was, IMO. We are not in the right, if we are not lead by the Holy Spirit!!

Last side note, If the Thyatira group sounds familiar to you, it probably is, but you don’t know from where? It, ironically, is one of the Seven Churches of Revelation! In Thyatira’s chastisement’s from John thru God was their involvement of other idols of the land, it was not of their belief in the Holy Spirit’s Leadership!

Let’s let the Holy Spirit lead us all, and to all Let the King of Kings be our King!!

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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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Land/Temple

Genesis 28:15-17 15 “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done that of which I have spoken to you.” 16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ” sureley the Lord is in this place’ and I did not know it.” 17 And he was afraid and said,”How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of Heaven.”

Read this very carefully. Notice the associations, the references that both sides give. They say them differently, but they are saying the same thing. Land mentioned by God is His saying this is where I will be. House(Temple) by Jacob is the house where God lives, and interestingly cryptic for us but we have missed it in our ciphering of this passage is that this land/Temple/house/place is also “Heaven” which also implies that this was the Garden of Eden!!

Do you see it? With Jacob, later will becom Israel as a nation, God’s people, His selected example to become a light upon a Hill to the entire World, would later be for All to be, His people!!

I want to also point out that the ‘land’ reference to the ‘Temple’ also needs to be rectified in understanding. Do you see it? One, Jacob associates God’s home to a temple(because it has to have a building) This was before the actual first Temple was even thought about, it was probably seen as the thing to do because of other people had buildt temples to their Gods. God’s plan for his people was to start with the idea of the temple,sacrifices,commandments to bring them into the realm of God.

It is then that God ‘saves’ us from our transgressions by sending His Son to die on the cross, and Create the New Man for all to become!!

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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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